“The moving finger of time writes, and having writ, moves on”
One of my favorite things to enjoy this time of the year are all the lights! On cue our early dusk reveals neighborhoods glowing red, green, blue and white. It instantly lifts my mood and makes me crave a fire and hot chocolate. I’m an early riser so I always turn ours on, inside and out, while my tea is brewing. I start my day with a mug of hot earl grey, sipping and staring out the window at the tiny white lights dancing through the fallow garden.
One of my least favorite things this time of year is all the haste. This should be a “yin” time for us in the Northern Hemisphere. It would be better to be gathering by the fire and drinking that hot chocolate, sleeping in, reading, and knitting. Instead, we barely have time to enjoy the beauty that is around us. It’s hard to counter habits that are embedded in our generational and cultural nervous system, but over the years I have found ways to ease personal and social expectations and slow down a bit. I feel many of my friends are also leaning into the ways of “not doing.”
I’m also not a fan of “year in review.” Sure, it’s fun to dig in the memory garden and smell the roses and we must weed out mistakes. But generally, I’m the type of person who prefers to mulch and move on. This year especially is not something I wish to spend my time looking back on. I know what happened. For my family it has been one long stream of serious health issues, life threatening and life altering. It’s been a constant fight with the medical system. It’s been exhausting and we are working hard to reshape our lives and move forward. All this has happened against the backdrop of the deeply disturbing times in our global family. I wrote on one holiday card to a longtime friend in a similar situation with her life, “Here’s to the year we didn’t see coming.”
You who know me probably know what’s coming next: My declaration that my practices, both personal and professional, unquestionably keep me stable through it all. Practice is my eye of the storm.
I shared last week in a class about a time early in my practice life I intentionally quit. It had been ten years, I had a black belt, goal achieved, it was time to look around for life outside the dojo. I travelled, I studied overseas, I moved to a completely different state. I kept looking for something new and “more interesting.” During all this I also became untethered and after about a year and a half, deeply depressed. At that very low point, I visited my mom. We made a pro-con list of ideas I might try next. After days of this it was her, the itinerate non-believer in what I had been doing with my life who said, “why don’t you go back to your dojos, you were happy there.” I did. I was. I never left practice again.
Thirty six years after quitting and restarting, practice has been my life’s fundamental through- line. I have long since stopped questioning its value. My health, my friendships, the people I meet, my teachers, the life I have the privilege to experience, it all has come from this that I do. There is no separation anymore, no wedge to create a space that says, this now and something else later. It truly is just this now.
One of the views that students who are beginning might have of a person with a life practice is that they are special. That there is something unique in the DNA, a practice gene! Oh could it be so! But no, people who live a life with the tether of intentional breathing in and out, deliberate stepping left and raising and lowering their arms are just normal people. We are people who have, as everyone else on the planet has, seen life and death, experienced health, and disease, enjoyed bliss and endured frustration. There is nothing unique, nothing special. And yet is it also true that which sets a life-long practioner apart from one who is not is the decision to stay “on the floor” despite all the chaos and unpredictability that normal life throws our way. One who finds and nurtures the quiet center.
After sharing the story of my quitting I received a heartfelt email from a student. She herself has been studying for quite some time - since the pandemic with me and many years before in a different state. She said she appreciated knowing my story, that due to her life and its overwhelming circumstances right now she was considering quitting. Instead, she chose to keep going and re-registered with renewed appreciation for her own practice. I don’t know her well, but I do know it is true her life is overwhelming right now. I offered, “quitting is a perfectly logical thought to have. Find something else to quit.”
I’m always a bit worried when I tell my stories – I’m worried my message may be perceived not as inspirational but as shaming for having to make certain culling decisions due to life circumstances. That is not it at all. I truly respect people’s need to find their own way through this life. We all must. What is true however, is because of my own personal experience, I am a fierce advocate for finding and sticking with a throughline no matter what is happening. One that keeps us pliant, flexible, adaptable. One that keeps us as physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy as possible. One that allows us joy in dark times. And especially one that keep us buoyantly tethered through whatever storms – be they personal or collective - we encounter. And encounter them we will.
In the upcoming year I am intentionally cultivating a stronger practice for myself and those who practice with us at the school. It is stormy weather now and will be even more this next year. If you don’t practice with us, find another that suits you and dig in. I am confident we will need it. Let’s do it for ourselves, let’s do it because staying tethered to our heart, soul and body is going to mean everything when next year about now we string the lights and reflect back.
I wish you all a smooth glide into the new year, with a nice fire and some hot chocolate. May we all keep our through-lines nurtured and buoyant this next year.
Respect,
Kim
“Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose.”