Waking Thoughts

September 2005. Friday the 2nd day, 5:20 in the morning. I might be getting a cold. Am I getting cold feet? Could be.

But life is pretty good. I am enjoying work, moving to a new point in getting to know staff on both campuses and being methodical about it, acting like an Enneagram 3 in good ways. I am working hard, which takes me to another way of being in the world. I am speedier, more impatient, more direct in some ways, and that brings in the whole issue of pacing; which brings me to waking up too early in the morning.

I awoke before 4:00 this morning, listened to a radio interview with the woman whose life the TV program “Medium” is based upon – which ended up relating to someone I am seeing at work – and then really didn’t feel sleepy. I have a 7 AM breakfast meeting nearby, so it will be an early day anyway.

How do I prepare for my work? Listening to this medium, who is very clear about her gifts, abilities and priorities, I wonder how obedient to my calling, my unique soul work – however it’s put – I am, how obedient I could be? There’s a woman in the parish who’s very focussed on the Virgin Mary. The other day I wondered to her if there were alarm clocks that rang the Angelus. She said she has icons of the virgin by her bed and always looks at them and prays when she wakes up. it’s not my style, but that’s not a bad way to wake up. How do I prepare for my day? Where do I remember who I am?

I’ve been doing a noon meditation time (“Opening Silence, Recovering Freedom”)at both places where I work, Wednesday at RMITat Sacred Space, and Thursday at La Trobe in my office, and yesterday, when no one showed up, I went back to computer work. Then a young woman showed up at 12:15 and we did do 20 minutes of silence, and it was good for the rest of the day. I find when I meditate I am more grounded, have more sense of flow, get some very interesting ideas – which I am tempted to write down right then! – and finally get a sense of obedience and grace, that I am really here in the service of something else, bigger and better than I can easily understand or speak of.

I get much of the same thing when I do the services of stretches and exercises that Michael Murphy and George Leonard put together in “The Life We Are Given,” a very good book. It ends with some yoga asanas that leave me feeling thankful and right-sized; like I have done and will do good work: an obedient servant.

So I sit here with first cup of coffee to my left, writing on my laptop with Janis Ian on the iTunes , and certainly that is devotional work for me, even links me up with the larger community, church or sangha as you like; but does it keep me balanced, give me foundation, make me remember what I am about and what I serve?

The tentative answer is a qualified yes, but still....