sunshine + double-edged truth = sunburn

as for what i was really expressing in that last post, here it is:  

i have been feeling sunny and energized recently. in my prenatal yoga class yesterday, our teacher asked us to summarize in one adjective what our experience was at that moment. the class answers ran the rainbow spectrum of pregnant feelings, from exhausted to relieved to gleeful. my answer was, "sunny". i felt a tad bit pollyanna, but ~ it was honest at that moment. then our teacher, Uma, told us to close our eyes as she took us into her always-moving, never-the-same-one-twice guided meditation. she told us to go to the center of our adjective-experience, and hold it as we would the hand of a newborn. feel it for real, examine every inch, smell it, listen to it, taste it. what was the core truth in it? could we *be* with that truth? and as i looked at the newborn-hand of my truth, i realized i held it with silver-lined anxiety and tenuous clinging; i didn't want it to disappear into cloudy murk. i feel as if i plod along in my self-titled turtle way yet my emotions are mysterious, flighty, and not nearly as reliable as my pace. Uma instructed us to come away with a single pearl of wisdom from the truth that was at our center. From my sunny spot, i felt good about this pearl: that no matter where my emotions ended up day-by-day (especially being the example to a wee impressionable-one), things would be fine if i could just be aware in them. show up.
this morning i woke up at the top of my world. i wrote in my morning journal (which is much easier to do when the emotional sun is out) that i wished i could bottle the way i felt at that moment, so that when i was low, i could simply open up the bottle, take a whiff, and be instantly transported. now i am low. the companionship of my cats does not console me, and i can't find the bottle that i put that sunshine in! the pearl of wisdom i told my sunny self doesn't really feel that good. i would much rather be feeling sunny than be aware in my sorrow and ever-shifting emotionality.

on the lovely blog that i have spent embarrassingly long reading today, Superhero Journal, she quoted this:

"Suffering is not holding you. You are holding suffering. When you become good at the art of letting sufferings go, then you'll come to realize how unnecessary it was for you to drag those burdens around with you. You'll see that no one else other than you was responsible. The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival."
-Osho

usually i would grab onto this and make it a mantra. make a mental refrigerator magnet or inspirational coffee mug out of it. but today, this next one (also found on her blog) feels more true:


"We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute
of eternity. We are pain
and what cures pain, both. We are
the sweet cold water and the jar that pours."
Rumi

that person in my life who would much rather document sunshine than sorrow:  this blog post is dedicated to you.