The Wheel of Time
I’m a day late with this week’s issue but the time change always boggles up life just a little. Yesterday’s unavoidable convergence of Daylight Savings Time with an early morning talk meant I lost precious writing time. I was invited to speak as a guest at the Heartfulness meditation group’s celebration for International Women’s Day yesterday. So I faced the challenge of the time change to get there by 9AM. It was easy, when I told myself it was as if I were catching a flight. Here are some of the things I mentioned there.
I titled my short talk “Strengthening the Heart”, and in it I brought up three important concepts that kind of braided together. The first is discovering the secret superpower of the circle, the second is following intuition, and the last is stepping up.
Along with practicing meditation, we can find ways to put meditation into practice. Or else what are we training for? I wanted to go into the idea that it is time to step up and put all that meditation to use in the world today.
I talked about how meditation brings about the natural alignment of the autonomic nervous system, it enhances our ability to assess situations correctly, and identify problems. We also become able to recognize peace when it happens, and we can learn how to find that, how to create that. And, more important, in an open atmosphere, intuition can awaken. Intuition can guide us, bringing insight and clarity. And creativity. Of course, they knew that already.
The Circle
I love circles, and the idea that circles hold a secret superpower is a fun way to understand their effect on us. The circle has a sort of wisdom in itself when we put ourselves into it. So I talked about how the individual is amplified by the circle of community.
I’m sad to say that the circles I was talking about will have to remain virtual, held in our minds and hearts for now. Until the COVID-19 situation is resolved, we won’t be holding gatherings like that. Or if we do, we’ll be standing at least 1 meter apart!
In my idealism, I like to think that so much of this dangerous messy complexity we live in today can be resolved in our circles, whether the circle in our own hearts, the circle of friends and family, of community and caring, or of the world.
Sharing a circle, we see one another as we share stories and ideas. We hold ancient patterns of human relationship with the circle. We can plug into these, as if we were sitting around the fire, or circle dancing. We don’t have to say anything when we are in the circle, but it is always beneficial to listen. The circle encourages equality. Understandings may just come naturally.
Even if our circle is virtual, it can still give us the strength to step up and step out. We can discover ways of action, and of helping one another. Others in the circle can help us hold steady, and encourage us not to be afraid, to go forward. To act. Be. Do as required, as needed. Continue to go forward. And then to leave any accomplishment behind, to face the next challenge. And the next.
The Wheel of Our Time
There is another circle that helps us leave our accomplishments behind and look to the next stage. This circle is for each of us, and it is your own circle, of your own time. Think of it as a wheel. We are each in our place on this wheel of time: from infancy to childhood, to the teen years, to young adulthood, adult to middle age, elder age to very old age. You can see yourself in all these stages that you have lived so far, see them all along the outer circle of this wheel. And then you can see yourself at the place where you are on the wheel right now.
As the wheel turns, we go further along in our personal lives, in large shifts and in micro-progressions. We are not meant to stand still at any one age or stage. Life teaches us to continually move from where we have been to our next place on the wheel. When you fear leaving your current place for the next one, that fear will stop the wheel. Part of you may progress, but the other part won’t be in the right time.
I like to think of where I am and look behind, at where I’ve been, then look a little bit ahead. I wonder who I see standing there.
From the outside, or from looking at others in similar places, I can’t see what it’s like to be in that spot. It’s hard to understand what being there will mean to me. I can only discover what that place on the wheel has in store for me when I get there.
I’ll know it because then everything moves in sync. Right on schedule. Right on time.
So, where do we go from here? If we open up possibilities in all the closed circles, we make room for something new.
Robert Mangold, Imperfect Circle #2, 1973
We’re washing our hands and being careful to keep the spread of COVID-19 under control. We’re doing this stuff so we don’t spread it to others. We aren’t doing it to make sure we don’t catch it: it’s a community thing we do for one another. With protective measures, we definitely help one another.
Shout Out: I’m glad to include the kind and dear people I met at the Heartfulness group as part of my own circle, and am grateful to them for including me in theirs.
Reminder: I also put out the weekly Shamcher Bulletin, with selections from the Archives of Shamcher Beorse. If you’re curious, check it out HERE.
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