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beginner’s mind
today is not only a full moon and the andc (the quarterly celebration of my dance community) but a handful of other religious holidays as well. the theme for this andc is beginner’s mind.
i helped design the invites. this was my favourite, but it wasn’t the one we used. i really like the spaciousness involved. i’m really trying to go into this with an open mind, a beginner’s mind, since my attachment to the community has been tenuous, at best, over the last year. it was a year ago when i started to have significant issues outside of the community which prevented my full participation. for the march 2007 andc i had agreed to share a role with someone, but it became clear that because of stress and circumstances in my paying job, i needed to stay home. i asked for help, i asked for a replacement, but didn’t get any answer except a worried note from the other person i was sharing the role with… not worried about me, worried about the role.
no one stepped up to cover for me, so i went anyhow. i hadn’t slept much in the past couple weeks and i didn’t want to be there, so when i finally ran into my counterpart and she told me she’d planed to do the whole thing alone and that she was ok with that, i left. i think i may have been there for an hour total.
the next andc i had food poisoning and left after maybe two hours. the next andc was just after the end of some pretty wildly bizzare difficulties at work. let’s just sum that up by saying that even when i wasn’t on call and up for hours dealing with that stuff, i was a wreck. the andc was crowded and the energy was more ‘frat party’ and sexual than i understood our intention to be - some guy i don’t know stuck his tongue down my throat without asking if i wanted any sort of kiss from him. come december, i felt like i was really starting to get back to normal. that andc i stayed all night, slept in the chill space, but can’t really say there was much magical about the night for me.
so, now we’re back to march and i’m back to normal. probably more normal than i’ve felt in a long time. i’m realizing some compromises i made which don’t feel good to me and i’m interested in the world again - interested in taking chances and in finding that intersection between amazing and ordinary.
i opened my book of daily buddhist reminders. today’s is from pema chödrön.
If we knew that tonight we were going to go blind, we would take a longing, last real look at every blade of grass, every cloud formation, every speck of dust, every rainbow, raindrop — everything.
this is the attitude i want for myself when i step into that church tonight, when i go to breakfast tomorrow, when i go to class after that, and when i drive to my cousins’ for easter on sunday. this weekend i will rest in the ground of gratitude. this weekend i’m going for beginner’s mind.