You Don't Have To Work So Hard
(and that goes for YOU too)
It has been a long and rather difficult week.
My spouse Kaspa has been on a walking retreat and they switched their phone off SIX WHOLE DAYS AGO. It’s only when they’re away that I realise how much the organism-that-is-me relies on the organism-that-is-them - not just the thousands of little practical things that are easier when shared, but how we bear the weight of emotional holding together - of each other, of our work here in the temple, of the world.
Broken showers. Two dog-related health scares. A (very big) interpersonal bump. The need for urgent legal forms. The usual stuff of life, and although I had the support of lovely friends I still felt alone and, at times, more like a nine year old than a forty nine year old.
I woke up this morning feeling wrung out, and I have managed to do two kind things for myself.
Tonight it’s my turn to cook for our Buddhist community of ten. I’d already decided to do something easy (pasta) and this morning in the shops I hovered between a string of garlic bulbs and a plastic tube of ready-cut garlic. I bought the tube.
Unnecessary plastic! What about the planet!! Surely you could have managed to peel a few garlics? Lazy!
I needed to do my daily prayer to the Earth in town today as usual, and I also needed to do a dog walk. Rather than going out twice, I combined the two and took Aiko with me. I read my prayer and then we sat in the rain together for ten minutes.
Taking Aiko with you means you can’t take your usual big A-board, telling the public what you’re doing and why. People will just think you’re sitting on the steps in the rain with your dog! What’s the point? You should have made two trips! Lazy!
The voice in italics is the voice in my head that says I should WORK HARDER.
I could say more about where this voice came from, why it thinks I have to work so hard (it has good reasons), and what I have done over the years to help it to relax. But today, I am practising Not Working So Hard, and so I won’t.
Instead I will share the pleasure of squeezing the whole tube of garlic paste into the vat of bubbling tomatoes, courgettes, mushrooms and black beans. Smoooosh! Just like that. Done!
Instead, I will share the pleasure of a freed up hour from combining my walk and Earth prayer. I used it after lunch - to eat carrot cake, accompanied by barley cup in my favourite blue round-bellied mug, and to read my cozy mystery novel. It was just what the doctor ordered.
You don’t have to work so hard.
That goes for you too, dear reader.
Go gently,
Satya <3
PS will you join me in Kissing the Earth in June? Three mini-challenges a day to bring you closer to nature & our beautiful planet. Sneak preview here!
Balance in all things, right? There are days when picking lettuce from your garden to make the salad, washing each leaf with love and ripping them to bite-size is just the thing. It serves not only to feed your family but also as meditation and practice of oneness with the earth. Then there are days when what you need is the ready-to-grab container of baby greens, no ripping or cutting needed, because you just don't have the mental space or time. God loves to explore all of it. It's our judgments that kick us out of being in the moment. Or our judgments of our judgments (ad nauseum). We do our daily prayers for the earth by opening to oneness, and we do our daily prayers to Divinity by opening to ourselves. Even to the judgments. Even to the plastic bin of salad and the garlic in the tube.
I really needed to hear this today. Thank you.