home again

Back from retreat, I have given the cabin a "lick and a promise" so that i can sit with some sense of ease, my mind not distracted by clutter. It pages through the habitual catalogue of my life here. What needs to be done, the garden(too wet), the lawn(ditto), the insulation under the floor, the possibility of a new roof and new insulation and a tight cabin that uses less wood(all long term fixes and remote for this year), Anya, Maya and Jay(here my heart aches with loneliness), the dilemna of the Easter party(again too wet, although the cabin is magic and swallows hoards of people and spits them out again unharmed, full and a little tipsy). There is the proposed new road to Hyampom to aggravate me and arouse the populace and the road hazard logging soon to start, a quilted blanket for the baby coming in November, and the local friendships to renew. I was getting all confused with wondering where the retreat energy has gone, the stillness and peace, feeling a little bereft.

Then I remembered what is so easy to forget--that I was looking for succor in the wrong place--somewhere else! it is always here. it is always now. The teachers at retreat made the point that if I am mindful of what is happening in the moment, watching even the dis-ease, the restless searching, the move for distraction, then that attention has a sacred quality and is what I have been searching for. So simple. So freeing. I begin to relax into my experience.