Dear Friends,
I will be participating in a New Year’s Retreat with Susie Harrington this weekend. (Not to worry – I have posts queued up for the next couple of days! But I won’t be monitoring emails or messages Friday evening through Sunday afternoon.)
One of the things I love about retreats with Susie is the way she starts them. (You can listen to an example in the first few minutes here.) I will borrow from her to start our month together…
So welcome!
Welcome all of you.
When I hear those words from Susie, I get almost teary.
I’m sure many folks know the experience of only allowing certain parts to be present in different circumstances – when I’m the daughter, the co-worker, the cyclist, the grocery shopper, the dog caregiver, the meditator, …
Susie invites the question: What is it like to welcome all of you – to make space for all aspects of yourself? To not have to be any particular way. To include all of yourself.
That’s our invitation for our time of practice this month, if only for the few minutes you meditate.
Susie explains that part of our practice is to cultivate enough of a sense of safety that we can let down our guard with ourselves so that we can completely show up. To develop a kind, curious relationship with what’s here. And not about fixing, changing, making things different.
Do you get the little voice, like I sometimes do, “yeah, but…” and then list a litany of things that range from personal inconveniences to systemic injustices to world catastrophes. Of course that’s true too.
There is suffering. There is happiness. And everything in between.
We start by being aware of the relationship we are having with the present moment – whatever is arising.
When we can be in a wise and compassionate relationship to the present moment, that opens up possibilities. We no longer need to react from our habit patterns and conditioning. Instead, we can have a breath and try to discern – what’s the most appropriate thing?
In that space, there’s choice, creativity, possibility.
The theme of the retreat talks I’ll be using for inspiration this month is “Finding the Heart of Wisdom” with Jill Shepherd and DaRa Williams – and I think Susie’s welcoming is aligned with that spirit.
So welcome! All of you is welcome here. I’m glad you will be part of this month together.
All the emails will be archived to this blog:
https://www.grzesina.net/meditation
Comments are open on the newer posts, and you are invited to share your thoughts and feedback on the posts, or reply by email too. I love to hear from you – and we learn best when we learn together!
I’m grateful for the guidance and support from Jeanne Corrigal, the guiding teacher for the https://saskatooninsight.com/. I also wish to acknowledge my gratitude to many other special teachers, including Susie Harrington, Rachel Lewis, Adrianne Ross, Andrea Fella, bruni dávila, Jill Shepherd, Vince Fakhoury Horn, and numerous teachers who generously make their teaching available through Dharma Seed, Audio Dharma, books, and other resources. I’m also fortunate to have admirable friendships with practitioners in various meditation groups – they inspire me! (Any errors or misunderstandings are my own.)
Stay tuned for the first email/post tomorrow!
With warmest wishes,
Andrea Grzesina
andrea@grzesina.net