Tag: meditation

Roots

On By adonkumentaryIn anxiety, garden, gardening, letting go, life, meditationLeave a comment

It’s a chilly afternoon and I’ve finally decided to clear the weeds and old roots from the garden in order to prepare for a new, spring crop. My fall garden was a bust: I didn’t do enough research on planting in sticky, gumbo soil and we had a bizarre, hard freeze in mid-November which killed off everything weeks before I was planning to harvest. My fall garden yielded three green beans. Three.

I suppose it’s fine—I was travelling a lot last fall, so my chances of upkeeping a garden with the love and respect it deserved and needed were probably low. Plus, I haven’t built up a proper compost heap this time around. The odds have been against it and for more than two months now, I’ve let weeds and grass overtake my sad, little garden.

I pick a corner and kneel down to begin pulling up weeds. Dampness from the soil soaks into the knees of my jeans, but I don’t mind. I start by raking the stringier weeds with my fingers which are tangled loosely across the top of the bushier and more deeply-rooted growth below. Rake, rake rake. Dirt gathers beneath my fingernails and what was a chilly afternoon has become quite warm with my repetitive movements.

The repetitious motions of backyard gardening is therapeutic. Row by row, whether planting or clearing, there’s a natural rhythm that guides the process regardless of your being a seasoned gardener or not. Rake the loose weeds. Dig around the stubborn ones. Pull the deep roots. Brush away the leftover. Rake rake, dig dig, pull pull, brush, brush. Rake rake, dig, dig, pull, pull, brush, brush. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. 

Bit by bit and breath by breath, I travel through my garden removing that which is alive with rapidly reproducing weeds and dead from poor management and unfortunate circumstance.

It’s a bit grim: the idea that death must occur and be grieved in order to make way for new life. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to move on from things of the past and how to start the healing (replanting) process. Like all people, I’ve had my share of heartache, hurt, missteps, and much like my garden, have fallen victim to poor management and unfortunate circumstance. Neglect. Distraction. Habitually pushing care to the back-burner. All that.

So here, squatting down in the mud and the weeds that are here because of my neglect, I imagine that the soil is life-giving light and the weeds are darkness, swiftly crawling across and covering the richness and space from which life, love, and nourishment sprouts. Rake, rake, dig, dig, pull, pull, brush, brush.

Gosh, there are weeds everywhere. It’d be easier to just let the whole thing go, I doubt I’ll have time for a garden this spring, anyway. My hands are beginning to hurt and the dampness from the ground has spread past my knees and down my shins. For the first time, I notice my fingertips covered in tiny, red cuts from small spikes in the seemingly infinite growth and holy moly they sting. Why didn’t I wear gloves? It’s so hot out here.

My heart rate has risen significantly and I can no longer find my breath. I try counting, but can’t hold my attention span to the count of four anymore. I pull my phone out of my back pocket and find the app which is connected to the USB-sized monitor implanted in my chest, right above my heart. It’s recording all the time, but I’m supposed to report when I can feel abnormal things occuring, which is often and especially when I do things like squat down for too long. I sit back, butt in the mud, and lean against the small, picket fence as the app begins to record my heart’s rhythm which is heavy and fluttering. The space around me vignettes itself and my fingers and toes begin to go numb. 

I close my eyes feeling the wet ground absorb into my jeans and try again to find my breath. Rake, rake, dig, dig, pull, pull, brush, brush. One, two, three…One, two…One, two, three.

It’s like I can’t get the breath all the way to the bottom of my lungs: it stops halfway. I make a concerted effort to relax my gut, pelvis, chest, and eyes, and try to imagine sinking a little farther down into the wet ground. Instead of counting, I picture a jellyfish gently and repetitively pulsing through the water. My friend and teacher, Stacey Ramsower, shared this image with me recently and it’s since resonated quite vividly. I picture my diaphragm and pelvic floor moving in tandem in the same way a jellyfish propels itself through the deep: smoothly, rhythmically, and beautifully. Something about the image seems more accessible than the count right now. Blub, blub, blub she goes…soft, smooth, and infinite. 

Blub, blub, blub, through the blue.
Blub, blub, blub, held by water.

After a while and once the flapping wings of my butterfly heart calm down, I open my eyes and lean forward, placing my forearms on my knees. My fingers and toes prickle as blood begins to pour back into them and the world around is light once more. I submit the recording to my doctor and slide my phone back in my pocket. I figure I ought to be heading in to get some water and rest, but then something catches my eye. What is that?

I scramble to my hands and knees and crawl to a tall, bright green growth reaching from the weeds. I trace my fingers down the delicate stems and carefully pull up. Oh my goodness. I start to laugh.

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I stand, holding the small carrot ball and look around. This bird’s eye view has allowed me to discover that several other plants have inched above the weeds reaching for sunlight, so one by one, I trace their stems and pull their roots gently from the ground.

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Brave, little root veggies. My goodness, I had no idea anything could’ve survived multiple hard freezes and certainly not beneath the heavy darkness that’s blanketed their space for so long. They may be small and oddly shaped, but boy they are phenomenal (and cute!) I suppose small specs of light can indeed penetrate darkness. Maybe it just requires a shift in perspective.

—
I spent much of the rest of this day reclined on the couch with a big glass of water while imagining whole blooms of jellyfish pulsing together through the deep. How strange it must be to pulse endlessly through the darkness…strange but oddly encouraging. Blub, blub, pulse, pulse, on and on they go. Infinite, rhythmic movement.

I imagined the proverbial weeds that often stretch themselves across me and how somehow, someway, light manages to get through. Sure, sometimes, that light goes undiscovered for a while, but it’s there. It is. And certainly it’s worth the blood, sweat, and pain to pull back the darkness and make way for more light. Just start in a corner and see what happens. Darkness breeds in neglect. I’d say, get in and get your hands dirty.

Even if you don’t find anything the first few times you start raking, digging, pulling, and brushing, the process is still wonderfully meditative—the re-examination of a familiar space that’s gone untouched for a while is so helpful for growth. Afterall, you can’t start a new garden without first tearing up and dealing with the old, deceased one. In that death and chaos lies life waiting to bloom and be discovered. 

Moonlit Mind

On By adonkumentaryIn anxiety, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s the middle of the night. Last time I looked at the digital clock on my nightstand, it said “2:44” and that seems like hours ago. I’m laying on my back with the blanket balled up beneath my chin and my eyes closed, hoping that somehow, someway, sleep will take me. I know in my gut that it won’t, but I try anyway.

I do this more often than not—lay awake at night hoping for sleep typically without success. It’s a common thing for us to do, to have our minds flooded with fragments of every small memory, distant worry, running checklist, and distracting thought the second our heads hit the pillow: I know this because I see enough of my friends post memes about busy-minded insomnia to know I’m not alone. But damn, if it isn’t exhausting. I sigh, roll over into a fetal position, and open my eyes to see that it’s 3:30 now. One of my dogs must sense my movement because from across the room, I hear the tinkling of a collar.

At this point, the bed is no longer comfortable and the silence and darkness have become a perfect and chaotic breeding ground for toxic thoughts to pour from the pockets of insecurities that I carry around, so I slide out from under the blankets. It’s cold out here. Draped over the dresser is my flannel shirt which I grab and wrap myself in as I head into the living room. Tucker, the dog with the tinkling collar, follows me.

The floor glows blue in stretched out moonlight and is cold under my feet. I sit in my favorite spot on the couch and pull a throw blanket over myself. This side of the couch—my preferred side—is a perfect looking spot next to a window that faces the barn where my three donkeys are snuggled in, hopefully nuzzled together and not busy-minded like me. The thought of their thoughts makes me smile. Last week, my vet came out to perform Bodhi’s castration and as he was waking from his sedative, the vet told me he often wonders if donkeys dream. “They’re so smart, you know,” he told me in his gruff, East-Texas accent, “and I’m just curious what they must dream about. Surely they do.” I adored my vet before this comment but when he said that, my admiration for him leveled up. He gets donkeys. He wonders about their dreams.

He, my vet, was there the day Tink died. It was a Saturday afternoon and we had to call him out in an emergency. He was there within 20 minutes of our call and stayed until we said our final goodbye. At the time, I didn’t know him very well, but he hugged me tight when I crumbled and began to weep. I left smudged mascara marks on his brown vest. I think about that often.

The barn is blue in the moonlight and above it, a perfectly clear, cold sky twinkles with a few, bright stars. It’s been dropping down to the 20’s at night which for us here in Texas is brutal. The throw blanket tugs and I break my gaze with the barn to see Tucker nosing the blanket. Tucker will be 10 this year and for at least the past 6 years, he finds his way to me every single time I sit in my spot on the couch with a throw blanket and my legs curled up beneath me. I adjust myself and lift the blanket, allowing him to hop up and curl into a perfect dog ball next to my legs. I cover him with the blanket and he sighs. This is our assumed position.

I stroke the shape of Tucker’s back and look back to the barn. Bodhi’s recovering beautifully from his castration. I’ve seen many donkeys castrated and it’s never phased me a bit, but seeing your own baby who you used to bottle feed under the knife like that is a whole other story. He’s a little fighter though, our orphaned donkey who tried to steal the Christmas tree. He’s already back to his same, silly shenanigans.

Somewhere in the distance, I hear a dog bark. Tucker tenses and from under the blanket, the shape of his ears perk. “Shhh,” I say to him, stroking his head, “it’s okay.” He sighs again and relaxes.

But is it? Is it okay? Who am I to know? Maybe a dog is barking because someone’s house is getting robbed somewhere. Or maybe someone has abandoned their dog and he or she is terrified and calling out for rescue. Or maybe that dog heard another dog who heard another dog and the bark chain actually started out in Louisiana somewhere because a tree fell down in someone’s backyard. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s okay.

I wonder if my vet was able to get the mascara smudges off of his brown vest? I haven’t been able to work up the nerve to ask him or to offer to buy him a new vest if he wasn’t able to get the stains out. I mean, in my experience, mascara comes out of clothes pretty easily, but what if? How can I know and why am I afraid to ask? And how is it that we can exist on the cellular level and a cosmic level all at the same time? Our cells are constantly regenerating and our imaginations can wander anywhere in the known (or unknown) universe. Isn’t that wild? How infinite we are? And so how, in our vastness, can insecurities about trivial things travel around with us everywhere we go? Why does it matter? Who cares about what other people think and why am I still worrying about a conversation that went badly with an old friend a decade ago?

Tucker sighs again and I realize my whole body has become tense. I close my eyes and take in a deep breath all the way to the bottom of my lungs. I hold it there for a few seconds, then sigh it out. I do this again, breathe in all the way, hold it, and let it go. I do this over and over and over until it’s quiet…until my muscles relax over my bones like jelly.  Mascara does come out of clothes. I know this. And sometimes, dogs bark for no reason and conversations go badly. It just happens. That’s okay.

The clock above the mantle says it’s nearly 4:30am and so I figure I ought to go ahead and get my day started. I pat Tucker on the rump, grab my coat and boots, and head out in the cold morning to feed the donkeys and muck their stalls. The moon is bright behind the trees leaving everything a glowing blue.

I breathe in deep, the air cold in my gut, and sigh it out in a small cloud that floats away towards the few stars competing with the moon’s gaze. Cosmic, indeed.

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Time for Silence

On By adonkumentaryIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I realize I’ve fallen into this habit of beginning my blog posts by describing something that I’m up to when my thoughts begin to twirl and tumble around some thing that I’ve been worried about, obsessing over, or working hard to accomplish and I think it’s because I do my best kind of pondering when I’m busy with something. Moving meditation, perhaps. Or maybe it’s because I am able to occupy some of the busier parts of my brain with a task, thus allowing room for the deeper, more thoughtful areas of my mind to stretch their limbs a little.

But as you may have read in one of my recent posts, ‘Magic Eye,’ things have been moving pretty fast around here lately and I suspect that the entirety of my conscious mind (even those deeper and more contemplative areas) are in a constant state of “all hands on deck!” It’s times like these that I have historically neglected my blog and writing in general so that I can focus on giving my mind a rest, slowing down, and practice being in the present moment a bit more: a mental cocoon.

The holidays don’t help, either. It feels like a madhouse out there. Everyone seems stressed out, on edge, in each other’s face about something, and just plain rude. I get cut off on the freeway more this time of year than any other and have to deal with angry emails and messages with ALL CAPS because someone wants to be VERY CLEAR THAT I KNOW THEY’RE YELLING ABOUT SOMETHING!!!

*sigh*

Because of all this, I realize that I must make the time for my own silence. Whether that’s turning my computer off for a while, finding a new set of trails to explore, or simply leaving my phone inside while I go out and hang with my donkeys, I’ve got to press a pause button and go tend to my mushy mind. Really, we should all be making our self care and self love a priority. Your car stops running when you don’t fill it with gas, so what are we all doing running around on empty? Burning out and getting angry, that’s what.

Go tend to your sweet hearts, y’all. Reflect. Ponder. Be still. Know that your contentment and peace comes from within. It’s there. You just have to find it.

Before I go for a bit, I do want to share something really exciting with y’all. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may remember that I’ve been working on a children’s picture book that I wrote in memoriam of our dearly departed boy, Tink. (If you’re unfamiliar with Tink, you can read one of my previous posts about him here).

Well, I’m so very proud and excited to announce that my book, ‘Tink the Bravest Donkey,’ is finished, published, and now officially on sale! And best of all, 100% of the proceeds from this book are going directly to the non-profit responsible for saving Tink in the first place and bringing him into our life, Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue. With these profits, they can save more donkeys in need, just like Tink.

This is something that is so near and dear to me which I’ve poured my heart into and admittedly, getting it out there has me incredibly anxious. The world can be kind of a scary and often mean place for people who put their hearts out on display, but I’m braving my way through it as best I can. Afterall, that’s what the protagonist of my book teaches us: that we can all be brave and maybe, just maybe, that’s how we connect more deeply with one another.

If you’d like a copy, you can get yours here: http://www.donkeyrescue.com/books.html

(There’s also a link to it in ‘Links to my Other Stuff’ in the menu at the top of the page.)

If I don’t connect with y’all beforehand, have a wonderful holiday season. Be sure to make time for yourself. Take care of each other’s hearts. Be kind. Find silence. Try not to allow the callousness of the world to make you cruel or afraid…instead, try and find that strength and love that sits deep within your soul and give it permission to emerge with all the beauty and glory that you could possibly imagine.

NamasBRAY. ❤

 

 

Fly, Blackbird, Fly

On By adonkumentaryIn anxiety, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s not quite dawn and I’ve just finished leading a guided meditation which I do with a group of friends three times a week before the sun comes up. It’s never anything fancy, just fifteen or so minutes that we spend together trying to slow down and relax, utilizing the interwebs to connect digitally to share this time.

After the meditation, I pour a cup of coffee and sit for a while. Most mornings like these, Little Foot is still asleep and the donkeys haven’t brayed yet to let me know they’re ready to be let out into the pasture. The sun’s not peeked through the trees and the stillness in my living room is profound. I’ve written before about sitting with silence during this time (that post here) so I won’t go into that again. I do feel that silence and me are becoming more and more acquainted, though. It’s a welcome friendship.

I decide to go outside early—before the glow of the sun bounces off the dew in the grass. It’s damp and cool out this morning and hanging from the awning over my back patio, a black spider is wrapping something tightly on an arm of her snowflake-shaped web.

I shut the door behind me, a sound the donkeys can hear and they must be surprised by my early movement because Bunny brays, then Tink, then Tee and finally, my last adoptable donkey available, The Professor: a pre-dawn chorus. In their shed, I kneel down next to Tink to wrap his hoof and secure his boot before taking time to greet each donkey. They’re even more peaceful in the mornings which for donkeys, is saying a lot.

I’ve not much to say this morning. Several times over the past couple of weeks, I’ve started and then deleted many blog post drafts, none of which have become anything I’ve felt was worth a post. That’s not to say that nothing interesting is happening, in fact a lot is going on…large, life-changing events are happening within our family and to our ranch but because I’m an anxious mind with a tendency to be superstitious about things, I’ve refrained from revealing these changes in an effort to not jinx it all. What I will say has happened is that I’ve allowed myself to become consumed by and buried beneath task after time sensitive task and it’s forced me into reclusive mode.

Breathing deeply helps. Pulling in a long breath, holding it for a few seconds, and then sighing it out helps. Not losing sight of self-worth and refraining from placing self-value in the hands of others helps, too.

As I walk back towards the house, the sky just starting to turn purple, a flock of blackbirds soars overhead, their broad wings gliding effortlessly and I realize my skin is prickling. I close my eyes and draw in a long breath, all the way into the bottom of my lungs. The air is a bright light, swirling down my spine and spreading like spilled ink through my body. I hold it in, the light glowing brighter and brighter, my body relaxing in its warmth. I hold that alabaster peace with all I’ve got and then finally, I exhale and open my eyes.

A single blackbird squabbles in the sky. She is struggling to catch up to the rest of the flock, wings flapping frantically and clumsily, and I’m suddenly overtaken by fear that something’s going to happen to that bird. Why is she struggling so badly? Is she hurt? Eyes wide, I watch the straggler disappear over the trees and suddenly I’m panicking. I search the sky for any other birds but there are none. My heart races and my to do list tumbles down, across the ground in my mind’s eye—a ten-mile long scroll. Everything that’s hanging in the balance falls and shatters and the weight of the world itself lays down across my chest. Fly, blackbird, fly. Come on.

The donkeys are standing next to me now, calm and quiet, and so I take another long, deep breath. I hold it in, trying to visualize the movement of light again but my mind is racing so quickly that I can’t see a thing, just a blur of worry. I sigh and breathe deeply again. No light. My heart’s racing and my breath is shallow. One more time, I breathe deeply, hold it in, and finally sigh it out, cold and dark.

I scan the sky once more, but the blackbirds are gone. I lean on Bunny—it’s like she knows when I’m having a panic attack and knows that by being there, it helps. It does.

I think we’ve all been that blackbird. We’ve all fallen behind, despite how hard we’ve worked. We’ve all been alone, watching the rest move along with ease. I want so badly for that blackbird to catch up to her friends, to the rest, so she doesn’t feel so alone but then I realize that maybe she’s making her own path. Maybe being separated from the rest, misunderstood and a bit clumsy, is just who she is right now. And that’s okay because at least on this morning, she’s still moving forward.

I hug my sweet donkey, her breath steady and mine now too, and with my gray pajama pants tucked into the tops of my work boots which I slipped on without socks, I walk back towards the house where I’ll sit on my couch with a second cup of coffee for just a bit longer, waiting for the sun to come up.

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Silence

On By adonkumentaryIn Uncategorized4 Comments

It’s not quite dawn and the only sound I hear is the low buzz of the running refrigerator from the kitchen. Peering out my front window which has two, furry moths on it side-by-side, I’m watching the blackness beyond my front porch, waiting for the spaces between the trees that I know are there to fade into orange as the sun comes up. Right now, it’s darkness. I remember a year and a half ago, I wrote a blog called “It’s Always Darkest Before Dawn,” and here I find myself again in the deepest part of the night and in the deepest part of my mind, waiting for the sky to fade into light.

One of the moths stuck to the window rotates and flutters its wings—a morning stretch, perhaps. In a few minutes, I’ll be hopping online to lead a guided meditation with a group of friends which I do three times a week. I find meditations to read aloud or I write them myself sometimes. There’s accountability in having a group—all of us just people wanting to slow down from time to time, but always finding excuses not to. Today, we’ll be doing a meditation that focuses specifically on healing. I sip my coffee.

There are many things on my mind right now (as is the case with everyone I know) and lots that I feel I want to say…but on this deep, dark morning, the quiet is comforting. It is still utter blackness outside and I want it to stay that way for a little while longer. Maybe just today, the sun can wait a few more minutes before silhouetting the trees in her warm, orange glow.

Moments like these, I feel like silence becomes more than just a lack of sound. Right now, it feels like silence is sitting next to me on the couch, watching me reach the bottom of my coffee cup. Silence is like a stranger without a voice that perhaps makes us uncomfortable because she never responds when we ask her questions or throw ideas her way—but as I’m sitting here with her, I actually think that’s her beauty. Shadowy silence is fine to just sit there and keep me company. She’s there to surround me and always eager to blanket the busyness of my mind when my thoughts start swirling too quickly; I just have to give her permission. She never judges, she never expects…she just is. 

Beyond the trees, I can see the faintest shift in the darkness. A graying is opening up behind the trees and soon, I’ll see the shapes of the leaves. That’s what new sunrises always deliver: shifts, changes and opportunities to see a little more clearly. I take the final, cool sip of coffee sitting at the bottom of my cup and then place the mug on the table—a loud knock in this gravitational silence. She accentuates everything.

Deep breath in. Hold it. Sigh it out.  

Deep breath in. Hold it. Sigh it out.

Both moths quickly flutter away now, leaving an oddly clean and bare window, and a truck drives down the gravelly road outside—its tire-crunching and engine rumble flooding in the fading darkness. Silence no longer sits curiously on the couch. She, along with the night, fluttered away on the backs of those two, furry moths.

I take another deep breath and ready my notes for today’s meditation. The gray will soon be blue and it will be a new day. Whoever you are reading this, I hope that this day brings you some peace even in the chaoses that life can carry. If you get the chance, invite silence to join you for a little while. There’s profoundness in company with whom you can just sit, not saying a thing. 

NamasBRAY.

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Lightning Shows

On By adonkumentaryIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Last night leading up to midnight, I spent the better part of an hour out in the shed with the donkeys watching the sky. Our little area of Texas was having what I thought at the time was a heat lightning storm—something we cherish down here in the south. Lightning pulses behind heavy clouds in a humid sky, sometimes reaching out in bolts and grand, illuminating flashes during these storms. They only seem to happen when we’ve spent several days with high temperatures hovering around 100 degrees.

While I was out there, I got to wondering what causes heat lightning so when I came inside some time later, sweaty and draped in small spider webs I’d picked up on my walk back, I Googled heat lightning only to find out that heat lightning doesn’t exist. We’ve made up that phenomenon! That information can be found here: What is Heat Lightning?

I love the weather channel.

Even so, these lightning shows are stunning to behold. Their never ending flashes become meditative after a while, especially without the anticipation of thunder. I put these lightning events on the same level as a good fire whereby you can sit for hours staring into its ever changing light and there, no two people will regard them in the same way.

The best stories are told around fires. The best thoughts are conjured during lightning storms.

I thought about how, way back when I first moved here to the ranch and the months following, I was so lost. If you’ve only recently started following this here ranch life adventure, then you may not know that donkeys found me…not the other way around. King Ranch and I had bought a property and said property came with a donkey. I thought about how when we moved here, Little Foot was a mere 4 month old infant: tiny and fragile and I was a 4 month old mother with no idea what I was doing. We didn’t know a single person within 250 miles and even the nearest grocery store was a half-hour drive.

The lightning continually flashed across the sky, highlighting the shapes of the clouds and reflecting off the large eyes of my three donkeys who watched the sky with me intently. I thought about how many times I wanted to run away—back home to Houston where I knew people, where I had a support system. I missed my parents and my friends and my local watering holes. And although Houston is so congested and humid all the time, I missed her familiarity.

But Houston didn’t have my donkeys. I watched the way their ears shifted and twitched with little sounds that flicked about. I thought about how now, being two and a half years into this ranch life, Little Foot has had the opportunity to grow up with dirt under his fingernails and donkeys at his side. They’re very protective of him. I remember when Little Foot was just learning to walk, how Bunny and Tee would follow closely behind him, their noses right behind his little, wobbly back. Even now, when he’s out there with me running and jumping, they’re always by his side.

The lightning rolled on—a pulsing, electrical heartbeat stretching across the sky. I got the sense that the snaking and slithering bolts were beginning to reach down into my own chest, wrapping their light around and into the chambers of my beating and tender heart. It’s been over two years since we moved here and in many ways, I feel as lost as I did then—like I’m constantly searching for something but just can’t find it. I’ve described to King Ranch lately that it’s like I’m in a biplane circling the same, cloudy destination but can’t land because I can’t see it yet.

Bunny was leaning on me by this point and I suspect it’s because she felt my apprehension. She always does this: leans her weight into me when I’m thinking too hard. Maybe it’s her way of telling me to slow down which, I feel like a lot of people have been telling me to do recently. And I know I need to but I struggle because something….something….is tugging at my insides. I just don’t know what.

More clouds appeared and the bolts became harder and harder to see, only dull flashes pulsed in the distance and so I decided to abandon my post and go inside to research heat lightning. When I discovered that it’s a made up concept, I wondered to myself if that invisible landing spot which I’ve been circling is a figment of my imagination. Perhaps like the “heat lightning” being far-travelling lightning from a far away storm, my own apprehensions are far-travelling anxieties from a far away shift in my own recent past…residual stress from everything in my life changing in the past two and a half years.

Or maybe, indeed, change and shifts are somewhere on my own horizon. By now, I’ve learned that there’s a lot to be said for the feelings that poke and prod in your gut—that intuition is a real thing, if given a chance.

Either way, there is wisdom in the shifting skies. If it’s been a while, you should sit outside and look up for a while. It reminds you how vast the universe is and a reminder that the same vastness is inside you. Just as there are storms and heat and fierce winds and mysteries in the skies, so too are there in you. They’re worth beholding from time to time.

So are donkeys. They’re always worth beholding 🙂

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Rain Thoughts

On By adonkumentaryIn Uncategorized2 Comments

It’s pouring outside. Like one of those real, north Texas, springtime storms that we haven’t had many of this year. I think about how many of my blogs last spring and the spring before were stories about hunkering down in these storms of epic proportions: the kind of storms from which tornadoes and old, forgotten childhood fears spiraled. But this year’s been different…only a handful of noteworthy systems have moved through our little town, most of which have been more wind damaging than anything. 

I’m also laying in my bed right now, typing this blog post on my phone with my right thumb because my left arm is wrapped about a sleeping, slightly snoring Little Foot. He’s started chatting in his two-year-old sleep recently, mostly about dinosaurs, cars, and sharing and it’s downright adorable. I wish, so badly, that I could see his dreams. What do the colors look like there? I wonder how many more times Little Foot will sleep curled up next to me. That’s one of those things I won’t realize it’s the last time until way after the fact. 

The plants outside must be thrilled: their roots are probably chugging the draining water with fury because it’s been that long since they’ve had a drink that wasn’t poured by me and we all know that water from a hose just isn’t the same. I hope that this storm refreshes my struggling garden and peps up the lawn a bit. We thrive on these storms and in their absence, everything’s just seemed…I don’t know…a bit off. Everything has been so tense and tired and stressed out. 

I know there’s a cliche metaphor in there: the whole, “can’t have a rainbow without the rain” concept. Which I mean, it’s true and I love that idea, but what I’m laying here thinking about isn’t what lies on the other side of this storm. I’m thinking about how much we need it and how much I’m loving this rain… The kind of rain that will take days to fully soak into the ground. How grateful I am for the fury of this storm upon us because I think everything needs a good wash out from time to time. A good cry. A purge of the build up that happens when it’s too hot and heavy for too long. 

There’s a meditation technique I learned once where you close your eyes and focus on one sound that you hear at a time. The rain. Little Foot’s heavy breath. The clock ticking in the bathroom. The chimes clanging outside. My own pulse… Can I really hear my own pulse right now? Or do I just feel it that heavily in my temples? 

Pitter-patter, inhale-exhale, tick-tock, clang-clang, thump-thump. 

It’s pouring outside and right now, I want it to last forever.

Worlds in Worlds in Worlds

On By adonkumentaryIn meditation, Uncategorized4 Comments

In addition to doing my part to rescue donkeys, I am also a yoga instructor. In fact, several years ago, I quit my cush job in oil and gas to chase a dream of teaching yoga full-time. So far, it’s worked out, although I often wonder if the corporate Grim-Reaper will come knocking one day to call me back to the cubicle.

I love teaching yoga—I love it because there are few greater social joys to me than providing a space in which class attendees can unplug and de-stress. I’ve talked at length about how donkeys have served as a major component to my ever increasing awareness (and quest) to slow down and enjoy the simple things in life but yoga, too, has aided in that journey. People tell me often that they’re “not good at yoga” or they’re “not flexible enough to do yoga” and to that I always ask, “What is being good at yoga?” I rarely get an answer, but a half-laugh with a tiny light bulb that I could swear appears over their head.

The fact is, there is no such thing as being good at yoga, there is only continual practice of trying to be better in the way you treat yourself and others with a bonus of strength and flexibility gaining along the way. It’s a healing process of body, mind, and soul. It’s focusing on your breath because think about it: you can’t breathe two minutes ago and you can’t breathe two minutes from now—you can breathe in this moment. Focusing on your breath and making it slower and deeper pulls you to the present and away from phone notifications, that argument you had last week, and the worry over that meeting you have next week. It allows you to exist right now.

There’s no doubt that we live in a frantic world—one that moves faster and with more fury than I think any of us are fully equipped to handle and I think it’s become really easy to withdraw behind walls in our minds in order to cope and behind those walls, no matter how many friends you have, you’re alone there.

Here’s the thing—you’re NOT alone. Everyone you’ve met and will meet has experienced pain. We’ve all had our hearts broken, we’ve all made mistakes, and we all have something in which we’re self-conscious. Nobody has all the answers and isn’t that grand? That means we still live in a world with mysteries and magic. We can still wonder if there are beings in the shadows that watch us or even guide us when we’re lost. We can still imagine that there are brilliant energies that surround us on a light spectrum that our eyes can’t see that cause us to gravitate towards one another resulting in serendipitous meetings that can’t quite be explained. We can wonder what peers down at us from the billions of stars and galaxies that blanket our night skies—sometimes so brightly that you swear you could just reach out and grab a few to place in your pocket. We can look into the eyes of animals and see whole worlds within their pupils and imagine that they see things about us that we will never know and isn’t that badass?

Our oneness as a society comes from our communal exploration of the worlds around us and within ourselves. Try this: place your hands over your heart and close your eyes. Search for your heart beat. With every inhale, your chest will rise and press into your hands and with every exhale, it will fall. I’m doing it, too, and in that, we are connected—your heartbeat and breath and mine. We all breathe the same way and we all breathe the same air. We all have hearts that are stronger than we know that endure so much so slow down and listen to it for a while.

I teach yoga because I need yoga, too. I need blocks of time where my focus is the moment. I need to remind myself not to compare, to break down walls, and to love from my insides out. I hope you’ll try it, too. At the very least, try to breathe a little more deeply today when you think about it. Look deeply into someone’s eyes—even if they’re your own in a mirror and see the way the light dances off the colors like the sun reflecting off the ocean—a million diamonds. As Neil Gaiman once said, “People carry worlds within them,” and never has that been a more profound realization than now because we live in a world with so much division and we don’t even quite understand our own selves. How can we expect peace if there is no peace within?

…And if you’ve never gone to a yoga class because you don’t think you’ll be good at it, maybe give it a shot. You might be surprised.

Namaste. Or rather, NamasBRAY.

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Cold Coffee and Gray Skies: A Morning Meditation on Togetherness

On By adonkumentaryIn anxiety, donkey, meditation, Uncategorized7 Comments

I relaxed my back against the coolness of the wrought-iron chair in which I’d been sitting and leaning forward for the past half-hour while pulling my smudged glasses from my face. On the desk in front of me, I closed the large, three-ring binder that is packed full of printouts of guided meditations that I use in my yoga classes from time to time. I moved it to the floor and picked up my cup of coffee that no longer steamed.

The sun was only barely beginning to rise outside the small window to my left. It was a gray sunrise behind heavily hanging, weather-changing clouds that are bringing a cold-front our way. Bowie, our youngest rooster, crowed twice. I know his crow from the others—it’s softer and shorter. It’s not very confident compared to the others. I suppose he’s still trying to find his voice.

Also on my desk was our county’s newspaper that gets delivered to us weekly by mail, folded into quarters and the side that faced up had two advertisements on it. The first had a headline that read, “Choose to Change Lives” and the second, a headline that read, “Every Abused or Neglected Child Needs a Caring, Consistent Adult to Advocate for His or Her Well-Being.” I sipped my cool coffee.

The night before this, I’d gone out to remove our newest donkey, Tink’s, prosthetic boot and wrapped gauze. His wound is healing, but still needs time to air out at night when he’s less active. Oxygen, indeed, is the greatest healer. After I removed his boot and unwrapped the gauze, I sat down in the dirt next to him and rubbed his wounded leg. I pressed my thumbs firmly around his joints and ran my fingers up and down the muscles between them. When I do this, he softens his eyes and lowers his head: a signal to me that it feels pleasant. Oddly enough, that’s what my guided meditation was about this morning: equanimity between pleasantness, unpleasantness and neutrality. It spoke to the fact that we often cling to pleasantness, condemn unpleasantness, and space-out during neutrality and in that, we miss out. We let moments pass us by. We live based on experience and not based on the present.

Donkeys do this, too, I think. They can often seem to cling to experience to protect themselves.

The wind whipped around the sides of the shed last night as I sat, massaging TInk’s leg. I could see the black clouds unfolding and collapsing as my two remaining adoptable donkeys, Fireball and Fluff, cautiously wandered into the shed, their heads low. These two donkeys are very shy and although I have no concrete information, I get the sense there’s pain in their respective backgrounds. I continued to massage Tink’s swollen leg, humming my favorite James Taylor song (Close Your Eyes) when Fluff took two more steps closer to me. I continued to softly sing and he took one more step to where now, he could reach my face with his nose.

I turned my nose to his and he exhaled twice. So did I.

Behind him, Fireball stood timidly and with his eyes wide. Fluff took two more steps towards me, his neck and head above me now, and rested his chin on the top of my head. Under the pressure, I continued to hum.

Tink lowered his leg and leaned his weight into my side and I started to struggle beneath the weight of both Fluff and Tink but I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want them to snap back into experience. I wanted, so badly, for them to be in this moment with me experiencing trust.

Being at the bottom of a two-donkey pile, I hadn’t noticed that somewhere during this time, Fireball was no longer in my line of sight when suddenly, from behind me, I felt an exhale rush past my ear. I exhaled, too and he didn’t run away. Baby steps.

I placed my cool cup of coffee back down on the desk and looked at the headlines of our county newspaper again. I wondered what other people thought when they saw these headlines about changing lives and advocating for abused of neglected children. I wondered at all why someone would ever abuse or neglect a child. I began to feel very upset, thinking even of my own Little Foot and how I could never, ever imagine hurting him and as I did this, I pushed the newspaper away and looked back out the window.

But in that moment, I condemned and pushed away unpleasantness, just like the meditation said and I got to wondering, how different would our world be if instead of running away from the bad, we all worked together to “Choose to Change Lives”? To, instead of moving based on our experiences, moved in the present? Together?

I’ll admit, I don’t always trust or know what I believe. I simply think too much. But what I do know is that we all belong to one another—human and animal alike. It is our responsibility to care deeply for one another—to not push away the unpleasantness because we’re scared but to instead, pick each other up even when it hurts or the pressure is too high. It’s our responsibility to not turn a blind eye because we don’t like it or to space out because we don’t get it. We need each other. All of us.

All of this easier said than done, of course. But I think it’s worth trying…especially if it means that someone might feel safer or more loved.

The sun was up now, although the light trickling in was cool and gray. The few, remaining leaves in the trees twinkled in the wind and once more, Bowie crowed. I’d be heading out soon to re-wrap Tink’s little hoof and put his boot on and I’d probably brush him and the other two donkeys if they’d let me. I would go to the other paddock and spend time with Bunny and Tee who need to be reminded that I love them unconditionally, too. I’d come in after that and make breakfast for Little Foot and hold him in my lap while he drinks his milk. We’d probably read a book, too. I’d call King Ranch to tell him I love him and that I hope he has a good day at work and then I’d probably call my mom just to see how she’s doing.

We belong to each other. All of us, big and small, rich and poor, strong and weak. We can choose to change lives. We can advocate for one another. We should.

Fluff and fireball

Midnight Meditations and Donkey Songs

On By adonkumentaryIn donkey, donkey rescue, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s just after 11:00 PM on a Sunday night during the first week in August and someone is shooting off fireworks down the road. They’re not setting off little snappy, poppy, crackly fireworks that flicker across the ground like big crickets. No. They’re setting off commercial-grade, booming, colorfully raining down fireworks that rattle the windows of every home and the bones of everyone in them. What the 4-letter word. Seriously. What the 4-letter word?!

Because of this display of exploding inconsideration by folks who I am noting to dislike from here on out, I’m out in the pasture, desperately trying to comfort not only my two donkeys, Bunny and Tyrion, but also my group of newly arrived fosters. Every flash, crack and boom startles the donkeys whose ears point up, eyes widen, and hooves scatter. They are terrified and I am furious with whoever has decided that this is an appropriate time to celebrate whatever this first week in August has brought them.

Like most animals and myself, donkeys are not fans of recreational explosives that are both obnoxiously loud and highly dangerous. Like operating an airplane, I personally feel that fireworks should be left to the professionals and be left to nationally recognized holidays in which most folks don’t have to be at work early the following morning.

I do not like exploding things. I do not like their colorful rings.

I do not like them late at night. I do not like them in my sight.

I neither like them in the dark, or exploding high, above the park.

I do not like exploding things. Nor the frustration that they bring.

It took me a bit of convincing, but I’ve managed to group the five fosters in a close huddle around me. I’m singing my favorite James Taylor song, Close Your Eyes, loud enough so that when the fireworks boom and crash overhead, they can still hear me. Bunny and Tyrion are next to us but on the other side of the fence and I ensure they can hear me, too. With every explosion, the donkeys jerk and jolt and one by one, I press their faces into my belly and rub their ears, still singing my song.

All of the donkey’s exhales are heavier than usual right now—their fear warm through their snouts. I’ve taken one of the fosters, Charlie, into my embrace and I am resting the side of my face between his ears. Next to him is Ethel, a 9-month old jennet. In her large eye, I see another firework climbing up through the night sky—a trail of glitter moving across her pupil. Her eye widens and I quickly wrap my arm around her neck, too. The firework booms and all the donkeys jump.

“Shhh shhh shhh,” I say to them, now squatting down. I continue to sing.

After the longest 10 minutes that has ever happened, the fireworks finally stop and it is quiet but for the crickets and heavy snorts and exhales from the donkeys. They’re still scared and I don’t blame them. I don’t want to leave them still afraid, so I decide that now would be a good time to try and meditate. I, myself, have been trying to meditate more often as a way to keep my perpetual anxiety about everything at bay.  For example, when I’m standing in front of the front door having just locked it yet still unable to convince myself that I have, I try to slow down my breath. When I inhale, I say “the door is locked”  and when I exhale I say, “you have locked the door.”  Inhale, “It is done.” Exhale. “It is done.” It works, sometimes. Perhaps it will work on the donkeys, too.

I lead all 7 of the donkeys over to the gate which separates the fosters from mine and take a seat upon a pile of hay. Two of the fosters start to pick at the hay while the other three stand back a few paces and begin to graze. On the other side of the gate, Bunny and Tee stand still and alert.

I close my eyes and pull in a long breath which I hold at the bottom of my belly for a few seconds. I imagine that the breath is a warm light that’s the color of honey and when I exhale, I imagine it pouring across the ground, illuminating everything it touches. I imagine that the ground beneath all of us is now a glowing gold that exposes any fear and any anger that lingers in the shadows around us.

I say, “May we be free from danger. May we be happy. May we be healthy.”

The donkeys seem unchanged so I pull in another breath, imagining that the light of it is brighter and warmer. When I exhale, the glowing gold beneath us is even brighter. I say again, “May we be free from danger. May we be happy. May we be healthy.”

One of the fosters lifts his head from the hay and looks at me, chewing slowly.

I pull in another breath and it’s so warm that I start to sweat. I exhale and it’s practically daytime in this light. “May we be free from danger. May we be happy. May we be healthy.”

All the donkeys are looking at me now. They are all very still.

One more breath—this time, the light removing all negativity from the space around us in the same way helpless twigs are disintegrated in a growing campfire. “May we be free from danger. May we be happy. May we be healthy.”

Behind me, Bunny revs up for a bray. As her breath quickens, one of the fosters suddenly lets out a bray. Soon, all seven donkeys are braying and braying loudly—so loud that it echoes and bounces back from the trees around us.  It’s a chorus of relief releasing the fear that they’ve had since the fireworks started a half an hour ago out into the universe. The differing pitches of their voices sends a vibration through everything around us—the whole world consumed by their song.

Their voices linger in the air for a moment before disintegrating softly away like a clearing fog when, one by one, the fosters wander off quietly into the night. Tyrion snorts and saunters away, too. Moving through the gate and locking it behind me, Bunny waits for me. I wrap  my arms around her neck and lay my head on hers. With my face between her ears that have laid back, I sing my song one more time, loud enough so only she can hear it.

Back inside, King Ranch has fallen asleep in the recliner in the living room, so I gently nudge him and say, “let’s go to bed.” On the way to our room, I stop and peek at Little Foot who is asleep in his crib and luckily, has managed to stay asleep despite the earlier fireworks. I lean down, kiss his forehead, and adjust the blanket over his belly.

May we be free from danger. May we be happy. May we be healthy. All of us. In this house and on this property. In all homes and on all properties. May we all be free from danger. May we all be happy. May we all be healthy.

May we all recognize our connection to each other and our responsibility to care for one another.

And may we not, pretty please, set off fireworks late on a Sunday night anymore. With a cherry on top, I’m begging.

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Midnight Meditations