Shadow practice, Second Monday

See the post below for photos of my outing outside and around Vienna yesterday.  Today, I'll post some more photos at the end of this post.  

Not much to report pratice-wise, really.  It is so hard to share how much I am learning here.  There is nothing really new to the form, other than a few minor adjustments, at least to Balakrama.  We start Moving Form tomorrow and I'll bet we have the latest version of that one too, since Zhander taught it last October. But the talking part of it, well, that's another thing entirely.  The physical part of the practice is just where to put the body, but the real practice is happening on levels much deeper than that. The things he talks about resonate and start to show up, things I start to notice, that start to come alive.  There is so much to learn, it is overwhelming. But I remind myself to take it one step at a time. Notice things, then follow up with more learning, with whatever seems to be showing up at the time. One day it's learning more about the kanda, another marma points.  Overall, the knowledge starts to build on itself, like bricks in a building. One at a time, brick by brick, it starts to form a structure and become something I can step into.

Something like that anyway!  I'm very lonely, still, but also realizing that much of what I'm feeling is there all the time, under the surface. I know it's there, but there is so much to do and go to and people to talk to and new projects to dive into.  So easy to overlook what is always there, tugging at my shirt sleeve.  Not so now.  It's walking around with me like my constant companion, and I turn to meet it and see what it wants to say to me. One thing I can say about being my age, anything that remains unresolved, unrequited, undone, comes to stare at you in the face.  Literally!  I hear the hoofbeats.  I am not going to live forever, it's official now.  That's what the face in the mirror is telling me.  Time to let go of the rest of the bullshit and get really real.  Do what I came here to do. Because I've known since I was old enough to know anything that I have something to do here, in this life, in this body. It's a good thing, in that way, because you definitely start to not care about any crap and have no time for it in yourself or anyone else. It can be a real time-saver for sure.

But a sad thing too, because I'm no longer 'young' and it is time to say goodbye to all the ways I can hide behind that thought of being young. I still know nothing, but now I know I know nothing. I mean, I really know it, all the way through, and from that place, I can truly begin to live whatever it is I'm here to live.  And that expresses itself through me and has nothing to do with me 'doing' anything or figuring anything out!  That's the true gift of age, I think.  Never having to figure out another damn thing ever again! Because I have run my boat aground enough times trying to make the voyage happen this way or that or figure out how to get here or there. So now, I give it up and go with the flow of the river, wind full in my sails.  Ha. 

Okay, enough of the boat metaphor.  I know nothing about sailing either!

I'll report on more when there is more.  Zhander says so many things that it's hard to pin one down.  But it returns at different times when needed. And when he's talking I'm in 'being present' mode and not 'recording' mode. And what he says is really what is appropriate at the moment, in that group, at that time.  But even so, I'll try to do better and have more things to say about what he says...

More photos from last week: