Tag Archives: meditation

Things I’ve learned in 2023…

Things I’ve learned in 2023…

IMG_8726

Friends, I know I’m looking backwards. But Mel Robbins has told us all in her recent podcasts that in order to move forward in 2024 we need to look back at where we’ve been. So this is what I’ve come up with in my own life.  I do hope you will share some of your own lessons learned in the comments. 

  • I can’t be perfect.  Oh, shucks.  I’m learning that there is room for chaos in my life.  Instead of making my bed I can take a morning walk. Instead of cleaning my kitchen I can marvel at the speck of tabouli still stuck to the backsplash since last summer.  As my wonderful “first” husband once told me.. “Rosemarie, the house looks so good and organized.  But the drawers are a mess!” Such a metaphor for me.  My insides are chaotic but the towel hanging on the oven is perfectly folded and squared.
  • A woman “my age” needs to eat more protein! This presents quite the challenge due to my current recoiling to large pieces of animals like turkeys and prime rib roasts. The 2023 holiday dinners just about made me want to join an ashram and go vegan! My current podcast gurus proclaim aging powerfully– not gracefully! Eat your weight in grams of protein! Yikes! Did I hear someone say pass the hummus? How do you like your tofu? Medium rare? Well done?
  • I will never again take a writing class. September of 2022, I traveled to the Omega Institute in New York to take a weeklong class and get my writing game reestablished. I felt like I was back at St. Philip Neri Catholic School with Mrs. Richards telling me to describe an apple in a paragraph on control paper. I learned that I don’t like people telling me how or what to write.  It has to come organically for me.
  • I worry too much. As Shel Silverstein said in his poem “The Whatifs”… Last night while I lay thinking here… some Whatifs crawled inside my ear. Worry solves nothing. I want to practice turning my worry into prayer and meditation.
  • I miss riding my bike.  When I’m on it it’s like flying. The world slows down and looks different to me. I like riding alone with my thoughts.
  • Social media overwhelms me.  Years ago, before Facebook and Instagram, I had a full-time job, wrote a column for both Presentation and Bellarmine’s Monthly Newsletter and kept up in my journal. Â Was its youth or was it the absence of social media? Of course this blog will go on Facebook. Â So I’ve also learned that I can be a hypocrite!
  • I love yoga. It feeds my soul. It gives me time away from the riff raff of life. My mat is my magic carpet, and I am transported.  I love my yoga community- The Morgan Hill Yoga Collective- and my new yoga companions on the journey. It connects me also with my son, Peter, who is a fellow yogi. Jenn, my favorite instructor, says “leave it on the mat”. I do. I leave my angst, my worry, my regrets and my discontent.
  • Fr. Richard Rohr O.F.M. says this- The body cannot live without food. The soul cannot live without meaning. I’m in search of more soul in my life.  Less social media. More yoga. More flying on my bike. More prayer and meditation. Less worry. More writing. More meaning. Fr. Rohr says that most of our politicians are soulless. How do you lead a country when you are soulless?
  • And lastly, I miss God. I grew up Catholic. I married in the Catholic Church. I raised my sons Catholic.  I cantered at Mass, attended bible studies, ran women’s groups and worked for 22 years at a Catholic High School. In 2022 I cut bait, retired, stopped going to Mass, and went cold turkey. As I was putting my Christmas decorations out last year I unwrapped Jesus, Mary and Joseph and wondered for the first time if it all really happened in a manger in the middle of winter. Â the star, the three wise men, and the whole shebang. I suddenly felt like someone had just told me that there was no Santa Claus all over again. I felt hollowed out and bereft.

I need the mystery. I need the unknowing. My life lessons have all hinged-on faith, hope and love. I need the ashes on Ash Wednesday.  I need the meditation and the prayer. I need to let go of my worries.  I need to write and do yoga. I need to feed my body with protein and feed my soul with meaning.

2024 holds for me a daunting challenge.  What changes do I need to make in my life in order to consummate the lessons learned in 2023? What lessons will 2024 present?

What lessons did you learn in 2023?

My Easter Confession

My Easter Confession

 

IMG_4591

Bless me Father for I have sinned.  It has been so long that I can’t even remember when I last went to confession and these are my sins.

Or at least the latest ones.

Or the ones I can remember.  BTW are we responsible for the ones we can’t remember?

Oh Lordy.  Well here goes.

I did not attend any Easter services this season.  Not Holy Thursday.  Not Good Friday.  Not Easter Vigil.

Zero, zip, nada.

I did this intentionally so now you know why I’m here today.

Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.

Instead..

I cleaned my house and did my Target, TJMaxx and Trader Joes shopping. I worked in my garden, fertilized all of my succulents and marveled at the first spring flowers on my Cecile Brunner Rose. I cooked a bit and squeezed lemons to freeze for future Lebanese delicacies.  I went to dinner and a movie with a good friend. I finished a novel and started a new one.  Took a morning hike and photographed several cows with their calves.

For the grand finale, Easter, I shared a meal with my wonderful family, chased toddlers around the house and played with my little grandson.

For these and all my sins I am sorry.

Now, Father, I’m sure you want to know why this cradle Catholic defied all of the rules.

My reasoning?  I wanted to see what it was like to live in a secular world without the sacred.  I wanted to see what it’s like to not believe, to not have my Catholic community, to not sing and pray for my loved ones and the world at large.  I wanted to see if God in nature was enough for me.

All in all it was a very spiritual experience.  But here is what I discovered.

I realized that I missed the incense, the chanting, the candles and the ancient scripture.  I missed the washing of the feet and the opportunity to meditate on service and being a woman for others. I missed the veneration of the cross and the church bells and the bowed heads. I missed the experience of humility that comes from believing in something that is beyond myself and out of my control.  I missed the celebration and the lilies filling the sanctuary.  I missed the Alleluia and the joy that comes after the sacrifices of Lent.

I missed the good old fashioned Catholic aerobics… standing for a half hour gospel and then springing up and down and up and down to the rhythm of the rituals and the liturgy.

I missed it all.  And now I feel an indescribable void.

So, Father, I guess you can take the girl out of the Catholic but you can’t take the Catholic out of the girl.  I’m sure you have an appropriate penance for me?  10 Hail Marys and a Glory Be?  100 continuous genuflections?  A Novena with my head covered?

You missed it, my dear.  Penance done.  Amen.  Hallelujah.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you have a garden you have a Future and when you have a Future, you are Alive. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

When you have a garden you have a Future and when you have a Future, you are Alive. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

I’m caving.

I’ve been so very strong about selling my house, downsizing, entering a new chapter of my life, blah blah blah…

This morning I worked in my garden.  The wisteria and the jasmine are in full bloom.   There are birds hanging on to branches everywhere and Ethel is stalking a very naive squirrel.  I’m pulling weeds and pruning roses and raking the gravel in the paths.  There are pots of flowers and window boxes that need watering.  I give St. Francis a little cleansing shower as he stands at his post, keeping peace among the wildlife.

I know I should start dis-assembling things in my home.  I need to start packing and getting my head around it all.  But this morning in the garden I am mourning.  Everything is in utter bloom as if to say in the sweetest way they know- goodbye.  And thank you.

Thank you for releasing lady bugs and dousing us with homemade compost.  Thank you for knowing what is a weed and what is a wildflower lest we all get pulled in haste.  Thank you for the great music you play when you are here with us bending and lifting and pulling and gently watering.

And I want to say in return…  Thank you for being there for me when I was stressed or anxious and nothing would sooth me except being outside with you.  And thank you for the beautiful canvas you created for all the great parties we’ve had here.  For my sons’ graduations from high school.  For our annual birthday theme parties.  For engagement parties and wedding showers and the random get togethers with friends and family.  For quiet meditation when I couldn’t sleep at night.

You’ve brought me such peace and tranquility.

And hundreds of plums!  Oh Lordy!  Not to mention all the birds, squirrels, raccoons and random neighborhood cats who came to enjoy your beauty.

I will have another garden.  As much as I bitch and moan about dragging around 20 pound bags of mulch and throwing out my back hoeing stubborn weeds rather than spraying them with roundup, I would not be the woman I am today without you and your unconditional love, your fragrance and your dramatic seasonal whimsy.

You will be the last part of this house that I begin to pack.  Both literally and figuratively.

I will miss my home and its’ cheerful sunlit rooms.  But I will miss you more.