I connect to the great mystery this morning and feel so grateful for this day. It is still dark. The sun has yet to make an appearance and I anticipate it with excitement knowing it is a gift.

There is an explosion of love in my heart that is still present from this weekend’s retreat. I am in awe of the field of courage, humility, vulnerability, wisdom, loving connection and joy that we created together. It was a deeply sacred and transformational one for me (they all are) but I am clearer than ever about what I want to create on retreat. These brave and beautiful souls showed me and I am forever changed.

Today, I am simply inviting you to slow down and connect with yourself. Take a moment to relax into the body and make contact with whatever is here in this moment. Stay with whatever is arising, breathing in and out, bringing your awareness to what is happening without judgement or story. What appears as you stay in awareness? What is wanting your attention? Be here as long as you need to. Relax into this beautiful re-connection of you with you.

Lately I have found myself coming home to the ground of being throughout the day. Even if the day is busy, the reminder is there: the invitation to let go of efforting. It isn’t a thought as much as a feeling in the body of letting go. It feels like a sweet surrender into stillness. The me that has been worrying or pushing can rest here.

The other day I was driving to pick up my son from jazz band when a realization came into my consciousness. It was a clear and deep appreciation of the part of me that has been working so hard all of these years to simply keep going. I actually felt in awe of myself that I’ve been willing to open to the challenges of life, that I have navigated being human for half a century in a world that doesn’t necessarily want me to thrive. It hasn’t been easy but I have managed to keep moving forward. This is big.

Last week my fourteen year old son had an experience he described as God entering his body. He said he was in spirituality class at school and he was filled with a profound love for everyone, even people who had hurt him. He felt he received a message that we are all here to love everyone unconditionally.

It’s becoming clearer and clearer that our culture is not supporting our mental, physical and emotional health. We are bombarded with capitalist ideals of worthiness that leave us isolated, exhausted and often hopeless. Even if we are successful in meeting the culture’s expectation of us (maybe even because of it) we are not guaranteed happiness, freedom, inner peace. More than ever we are questioning the ways we have been conditioned to move through the world.

A beautiful side effect of meditation is the discovery of self forgiveness. When I have the courage to sit with my disavowed parts, I eventually see through the illusion of judgment. True freedom is the realization that I never needed judgment to begin with…that I am whole…that I am deeply loved by life.

What a wonderful adventure retreat is. I can close my eyes and re-experience the excitement, the connection, and the depth of the November retreat. It’s amazing what can happen when we come together in a shared devotion and commitment to the truth.

The practice of staying in vulnerability, in the raw truth of this moment…not trying to escape, control, understand, strategize…is not easy. Reality has no interest in any of the attempts of the ego to wrangle it into something that feels good. It wants to be seen, naked and true, and it wants to give you itself in its fullness.

Today, my heart is heavy. Over the last few days, I have been in touch with some old pain in my being and this has opened me up even more than usual to the suffering in the world. It is a lot to hold. It almost feels like as I stay with this heaviness, not reacting or turning away or needing it to change, I feel an intense upgrading of love in the heart. How else do we do this human-ing?

In meditation this morning I felt my attention immediately drop into the heart and I allowed my awareness to rest there. What a gift to rest in the awake awareness of the heart. I followed the breath as it moved in my chest, expanding and opening the energy there. After some time, I followed this awareness as it moved into the belly and experienced what I would describe as an eternal state of being.

In spirituality, we are often invited into the light. To see through the eyes of unconditional love and to know the infinite okayness of our being. We love the light. It feels good there. We can dream there and know that everything is possible. And it’s true, everything is possible.

On Wednesday mornings I attend a sangha at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oakland where we read the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, meditate and have inspiring discussions. This morning we were talking about how “self love” is a concept that can be difficult to understand. I know it has been for me.

I spent the weekend at a beautiful retreat center, a sacred place that calls to me. A friend said, “The veil is thin here.” I was walking alone through the grounds as the fog was lifting and the mountains were beginning to be visible and I thought, “I feel vulnerable.” It was a quiet voice but it got my attention. Yes, I thought, I feel vulnerable.

If we stay open in meditation, we can’t help but come into contact with our fragile places. This may be why we are intimidated by silent retreat. We intuitively know the inevitability of this contact when we are not distracted.

I am in a big transition right now. Letting go of a successful 25 year career and allowing it to transform into something new is challenging. I’ve noticed a feeling of self-doubt arise as I sit in the unknown.

Today I dissolve into the Great Mystery.
I let go of any pursuit of Self.
There is no puzzle of unworthiness to resolve.
In the spaciousness that is revealed, I surrender to the energy of creation.
I am emptiness.
I am pure potentiality.
I allow life to move through me and I listen deeply.

I keep thinking that I want to share about the Labor Day retreat but there aren’t a lot of words. I can still feel the energy of it in my body though, which is something like joy because it makes me smile when I think of being there. Every retreat is different.

This summer I realized that I was in a big transition…one I had not predicted. The experience involved a lot of allowing in the new. Letting it reveal itself, a bit at a time. This allowing felt good and restorative and exciting. There was another aspect to the transition which I noticed was a bit clunkier, less smooth.

When I have an experience of unwanted emotions…maybe it's shame, grief, fear, or the almostness of knowing something that I haven't been ready to know…I need courage to see it, be with it, allow it in fully and completely.