What I want to do vs. what I should be doing
It's after 1pm on a Saturday. I should be working in the yard, or doing my laundry. I brought home a boatload of work from the office to maybe do. But what I am doing...is sitting in bed with my laptop---still in my pajamas.
My Jewish friend, Krayna, is teaching me about the absolute value of Shabbos--stopping from the regular work-a-day consciousness, and being in liminal, sacred space for at least 24 hours, so that we can re-create the integrity of our soul's fabric, which gets ripped and torn out there in 'the world'.
I keep thinking that every Saturday I'm going to start doing this---really locking my psychic and emotional doors--sleeping late, resting, napping, writing a bit, but doing no work. It just doesn't happen. There are so many knocks at our doors--the worst of them being that I know that Monday morning will be here so soon--so I 'have' to do the weekend things to prepare for another week.
If I had my druthers, I'd work 3 or 4 days a week and play for 3 or 4 days a week, alternating. Just in writing this, something inside me says, 'ahhhhhhhh'. What if something like that schedule was our cultural understanding of a balanced life? What might happen? The collapse of our economic system? The end of the free world (not such a bad idea)? I don't know how we got to the place where the work life gets more energy than my garden.
And that's all I have to say about that. But I'd love to hear what you're struggling with as far as life-balance. How are you working through this? Is there an end-point to this process (just thinking there is is a trap for me). Talk with me...
The Virtual Tea House website became 'word-ripe' when, over a cup of jasmine green, I realized that the web has an expanding part to play in the communal aspects of spiritual growth.
One of my favorite hats, among several is: initiated firekeeper in the Sacred Fire Community. Hosting a monthly community fire circle, I'm being taught that the simple act of sitting around a fire with the intent of holding open-hearted space makes for some soulful community!
With a master's degree in religion, my career spans 20 years in end of life care and I currently work in the field of child abuse intervention and advocacy.
Here in beautiful Central Oregon, my spiritual homes of the high desert and the mountains are both in proximity. And for good measure, four hours away is Grandmother Ocean and the stunning Oregon Coast.
I'm making decent progress on the goal set by my mother early on: she taught us that the goal of humanity should be to become ever-more eccentric, i.e. more fully human.
Entering the 'forest-dweller' phase of life, I am honored to host the Virtual Tea House for all who wish to explore how our lives are enriched and made new a thousand times each day by the spirituality we embody. Exploring this engagement together is the purpose of the Virtual Tea House.
Welcome! Let's have a cup of virtual tea together and share what brings us joy, what we are being taught by life, how we are leaning into the Big Questions posed to us each day in sometimes 'distressing disguises'.