Nurturing the Soul

I’ve been doing a lot of running around lately and not taking the time to sit and meditate. These days, at least when this happens, I don’t beat myself up over it like I used to. I always think of the advice of Natalie Goldberg’s Roshi to her in ‘Writing Down the Bones’, where she was conflicted between using time to write versus time to practice Zen meditation. ‘Let writing be your practice,’ he said. So, sometimes, I let running around be my practice. Then I get tired and refocus because I know I need my downtime to recharge my energy and my spiritual batteries. This morning I did a very simple meditation. I just closed my eyes and put my hand on my heart to tune into my heartspace. That’s all. It was very restful. When my mind went wandering into the future, as of course it did, I said, ‘Planning, planning,’ and went back to the heartspace. It was very restorative for the soul. Then Sid, my big black furry cat, leaped up on my knee and nearly gave me a heart attack. We had a love-in session which is a different form of focused attention. As soon as he was done, he showed me his furry behind and went off to his bed for another marathon snooze. You don’t need to teach cats anything about being in the moment! So today, or very soon, perhaps take some heartspace time to feed your soul. Blessings.