OLD GURU

(Continuing)

Much to his relief the friend who had sent the magnificently framed photo of the poppy never showed at the dinner party. Now he would have more choice about how to be in touch to thank the artist for the gift. But there was much else to talk about.

Whether it was from the dream of the night before or whether he had thought it out of his own creativity the long day after that, the one he had spent on the couch, he could not remember.

He was remodeling the old cabin. Trying to choose a sturdier front door system. He was at the kitchen table laying out plans for adding a three sided porch and outdoor fireplace. He would bring in his uncle Frank to help with the stonework. His dad maybe could drop over and help too.

A vision came of pouring the gravel for the cement for the trowel for the space between the stones he'd chosen from the river near where the balsam, nearly 300 old, lay bent over the rapids beyond the southern bend of the hillside. Blue light would shine their down deep between the pine and it would glow purple, deep blue all over the late March snows there with him if he was blessed enough to be awake.

Then an alarm would go off or the phone would ring or chime and he would come to and have to move on to what was next. He had picked up the paper route from a kid who lived down the hall and although it was getting him up and out early, the money was just what he was looking for at a time that was right with his other job, part-time as an Uber driver, at least for now anyway.

Despite the early timing he did like to get up and make breakfast. It energized him and helped him simplify his rhythm to two substantial meals per day. He loved fried eggs just right, Sunnyside Up with plenty of salt, no pepper please, rye toast with lots of butter and a black coffee. While eating today's breakfast sandwich he looked through some folders in a box still left to unpack and found some of his old teaching materials. Sometimes he would actually write down the words he intended to say to a group and commit them to memory as a sort of meditative training.

He loved how it felt just reading the words, sitting there on the floor; Zoe, who knows where, but happy.

From one of them:

Training witnesses.

Everyone can naturally grow through the period of narration… wherein ones story of themselves is the driving voice. Beyond moving the river through our endless list of preferences and "what we would like to have and do with our lives" there is witnessing. We live empty. We receive and we bestow. We become present to ourselves as compassionate recipients and witnesses. We receive gratefully and give generously as a way of living simply. Here's when we can see ourselves truly coming to life.

The smile of your true self awaits your smile to become its joyful light – first for you, then for others. It is an honest and humble giver and receiver, blessing by blessing.

The one you can be present to with openness and acceptance and steadfast love and trust. Beloved, in you I am well pleased, says God.

So you can remember simply to train your witness within as you encourage yourself to prayer time… Nourish in the practice of presence, renew in God's presence through daily centering prayer and mindfulness.

This restorative practice trains the heart through loving and trusting God, the work of it is to serve as a vacant temple with every door open through which God's holy wind sustains us As One, as one would empower any healer with visions of the shalom community fully restored to life everlasting.

I close my eyes, in order to see.

~Goethe

WORKING WITH THE MILES DAVIS JAZZ QUARTET snapped and spun out in the living room and now after a nice full day, he carried a smile of deep satisfaction within himself as the turntable wheeled its magic. He maintained his father's stereo to this day. Replacing only a few parts and upgrading to Bose speakers, the old RCA sang out through Davis's trumpet while his gang got skipped and ready to stay jazzy as a snare splashed open to a trapped splat symbols and brass into the belly of a deep base sending it out all over the floor, where Zoe lie bathing in the sun. The song sauntered out into the ether. Another blessed day at work, he thought.