What Guides Us Back Home...

“Please make a list of every possession you consider essential to your life.
I take a deep breath and pick up my pen.” 
― J.P. Delaney, The Girl Before

This time of year has a rhythm all it's own.
...................A distinct sensation that time is speeding up.  
Accelerating at an un-level pitch and it is all any of us can do just to take a deep breath, and try to keep up with the frenetic pace being handed down.  

Add to that a new tragedy happening upon our shores each week.
Or in a none-too-distant land.  

Add to that a relentless anxiety about the future of the free world in the hands of inept, corrupt leadership.

Add to that the slew of personal shifts & challenges that continue to emerge - 
Births.  
Deaths.
Divorce.  
Breakdowns (that hopefully guide us toward the bigger Break Through...)
Bodies that refuse to heal inside of any stringent or reliable timeline.  

.........

There can be the distinct impression that It Is ALL Just Happening So Fast.
That the seams, that once felt so solid & inalterably rendered - 
are falling apart at a rate we cannot even begin to hold onto.  

There is a feeling of Unravelling.
The World at large, and us along with it.

And a larger sense, still, that no ONE magical element is going to be the magic key that unlocks it all for us.  
No ONE thing that conduits the peace & healing we so desperately need.
No ONE thing to make it all right.  
No ONE thing to slow down the wheel and set our feet upon a patch of solid ground once more.  

..........

In social media land, there are a few token hashtags of which I am fond.  
#practiceandalliscoming is a longtime favorite.  (Thank you Sri Pattabhi Jois.)
I also have been known to reference #puja, #littlealtarseverywhere, #workislovemadevisible & a few flower others.  
Words that speak to my need to connect and align with a more mythic, poetic Source - but also...
that connect me to the very real heart of PRACTICE.
Of tiny dips into the pool.
Of concrete, daily, reverent actions taken - to do the work of mending - both in myself and in this world.

They are my own pithy way of reminding myself that the great work of this world cannot be accomplished all at once.
That salvation is a slow & steady process.
Necessitating faith, sweat & time.  

And that even in the midst of all this cacophony, this rush...
I can choose...

Damnit, I can Choose!!!!....
........ to show up as I am.
Right now.
And do the work that is needed.

And then pause.
Get ready. 
Rest.
And offer up a bit more.  

.........

This work of Practice is a long-term strategy.

Done in the short-range snapshot of the Here & Now...
We practice showing up...
Doing the work that is called for in the finite moment we are in...

And trust that it will guide us to Infinite possibility beyond.

We practice slowing down inside the great surge all around us.  

And we remember that We have a CHOICE in all this rushing.

We can always opt to SLOW DOWN.   

And that, in the midst of so much scattering...
Our practice is what guides us home.