I read a thought-provoking post yesterday that suggested creating a one word theme for the upcoming year. This is my first post for 2015, so I've decided to start the year right with a word: abundance.
This same writer a few weeks back had remarked on a Christmas New Yorker cover that featured two apartments, the upstairs hipster and minimalist. The downstairs hipster and flea market cozy. Which apartment you preferred, she claimed told you much about who you were and what you needed to accept about yourself.
I'm the downstairs dweller. While I love a clean, spacious home, I feel most at ease surrounded by stuff. It doesn't have to be expensive, or even emotionally valuable stuff. I'm more comfortable sitting in garbage than spic and span Feng Shui perfect spot. I want my life to be simple, but my nature is cozy and cluttered.
Knowing this I've decided to make this year about how to manage this temperament without getting weighed down with all the baggage I tend to accumulate, physically and emotionally.
For instance, committing to basic cleaning rituals, even if my house is surface messy, makes me feel grounded. Fifteen minutes a day, and one hour a week, and morning and evening routines of about five minutes each, really is enough for me. If I fall behind on that my life iterates from abundance to chaos pretty fast.
In general I'm better off adding more than trying to deprive myself. More successful at maintaining an exercise regime, and adding healthier foods, than trying to cut down on how much I eat. More is actually less for me, as long as that more is healthy and quality.
In terms of my practice. The last few weeks I've been cultivating a feeling of timeless awareness. My aim in the next few months is to really stabilize, in my gut, this strong sense of there being a boundless, open field of love. I've been thinking a bit, because of my book, about the Higgs boson particle. About the possibility that there is this field all around us with no pull, no push. Just blank immeasurable space. The stuff of pure awareness, everywhere, all around us. What if this was saturated in love, and there always, even when we aren't aware of this awareness?
Wouldn't that be grand!
