Wander 15: Loving

Hello Friends,

We are beginning to lean into a new year, having nearly come through 2020. We’ve celebrated Thanksgiving here in the US—likely in a somewhat unusual form for many of us—and now are quickly moving into December’s darkening—then rekindling cycle. By the time the next Full Moon is with us, we will be moving towards the promise of light again. But we aren’t quite there yet.

I am sorry for my absence this past phase. I have had many false starts, first drafts that seem to quickly ask me to head back to the main path, so that I might again feel my way to the destination. This writing may or may not be ripe fruit, but it is time I made my offering.

Most of my life I’ve been deeply confused about attention seeking versus receiving attention—equating the two—and I’ve confused giving attention sometimes with control instead of empowerment. I’ve heard it said that attention is love, and it occurs to me that the desire to seek attention, is fundamentally a seeking of love; and the desire to give attention the same. I’ve been confused about being in control versus being empowered. Control strikes me as a behavior that cuts me off from the deep well of Love, whereas empowerment comes from surrendering to it—letting its currents come through.

One definition of Yoga I learned through the Yoga Sutras is ‘citta vrtti nirodhah’ which means all of your attention, your mind’s activities, are enveloped. Having been away from yoga teaching and practice for several years now, it occurs to me that this is simply a definition of Love as attention—the kind of divine love I experience when I let myself be encased in love with the being who is my child. I am giving and receiving both—and really it feels less binary than the words suggest. AND, I am painfully aware of how distraction pulls me out of this kind of complete Love, whether it be addiction to my phone, a body pain, an old thought pattern, a situation I think I need to manage and control.

When I took the Wander I suggested in the last post (an invitation to a knowing ancestor) I drove to a roadside of the foothills that lead up to the mountains here. I took out my drum out and beneath the nearest cottonwood tree began to beat and pray. I have no idea what songs unfolded from my mouth, while the sage burned in my little pot, but I do remember there was an utter freedom in the chest, neck and voice. When I drum and sing, I experience seeing the other beings with me more clearly—instead of landscape, the junipers and pinions who make their lives on these desert hills come forward in their aliveness. When the drumming was complete, I walked up a hill and sat resting my back again a basalt rock, looking at the snow coming on the mountain. My ancestor did not emerge in human form. She was here, in this mountain, in this snowcloud, in the cottonwood, in the freedom of voice. She is utterly Beloved. And I just sat there. Giving attention to the mountain, letting other impulses be. I felt I received attention too, but something in me let go of seeking it there.

Usually when I wander, or pray, I am often asking for something…seeking something. To be restored to sanity, to surrender, to find home, to understand my service, to protect loved ones. I have identified as a Seeker. But maybe it is simply time to be a Lover, an attention-giver.

And this is the wander invitation. To go out and give attention, and be open to receiving attention too. Be open to being empowered by your experience, but do not seek it. Ask for nothing, but go to some place on our Beloved Mother and gaze with all your Love on Her. Asking for nothing but of your own presence.