Fire and Ice

Where do you place yourself? Are you pointed in the direction you want to go?

The current state of Lucy's Central Park Hoodie - the body is finished and I have started the first sleeve.

The shift between New York and Newfoundland is always coloured by whatever happens to be going on at the time. It is a big shift - between city and rural life, between two countries, which may be similar but really have many, many differences, and between communities of friends and neighbors. Usually I feel a giant sigh of relief when we dock in Port aux Basques - home at last. Although Newfoundland is my adopted home, there is something of it in my bones, real or imagined. My mother's family being from here gives me the feeling that I returning to something that makes sense on a DNA level.

And yet.

When blogless Janine learned that I had given away my Kundert spindle, she offered to go get me another one, Kundert being about 1/2 hr. from her house. How could I say no? The new one arrived on Friday last week and is as wonderful as the first one. Lovely, lovely, lovely!

And yet, this year the shift has been a little tough. I have a little knot in my stomach - a little longing for what I left behind. I don't think of leaving Dan behind, btw, because we do see him regularly and we talk nearly everyday at least once. So, what did I leave behind? I am missing my sangha and my routine of being at the Temple for zazen and for caretaking practice. I guess if I look closely it is a fear that I will somehow lose what I have...gained? Uh-oh, that word is a definite no-no in the Zen world. No wisdom and no gain - we say it everyday in the Heart Sutra.

So what part of my practice did I really leave behind?

This is how Janine packed the spindle - in some raw, Icelandic fleece. Isn't it beautiful? And it worked perfectly as packing peanuts. Plus I get to spin it later. Raw fleece: the gift that keeps on giving.

So, instead of a settled sense of relief, I have been unsettled. One moment is grand, the next feeling like I am scrambling for solid ground. I guess that is about right for where I am placed right now and the direction I pointed myself.

Fire and ice.

Thank you for indulging me in this bit of navel gazing.