6:50 AM. The morning light is slowly brightening through the orange curtains into my yoga space, formerly my home studio. Prior to this slow turning toward the sun, in the quiet of dark, a lone bird chirps on a branch. The sound opens a tender space in my heart.
Is it vulnerable and courageous to be this lone bird? It is not a lone bird for very long. The thin lightening of the sky is joined by birds all over the tree lined streets of my neighborhood. Traffic noises start to pick up. Kids shuffle their feet looking down as they head to school perhaps shaking off the cobwebs from dreams.
In the midst of the grief and helplessness in the face of climate change and the extreme weather patterns, police brutality, racism, the intense polarization of these times and the absurd theater of politics, this tender birdsong takes hold of my heart. This taking hold creates an expansion of my Being that has space for grief and wonder, heartbreak and holiness.
This season is also in Christianity, the time of Lent, a time of humble reflection. I think of the early Desert Mothers who lived a day to day existence in relationship with longing/pain/joy/. I contemplate how to be a Desert Mother as a householder as we say in the yogic tradition. How to live in this world and not be of this world. To me, this is a process, not an outcome but a daily turning towards the grief and the wonder. The heartbreak and the Holy. Allowing, Noticing. Feeling. Responding. Finding the oceans of grace that exist in that daily turning, like the earth towards the sun. Again and again.
