Accepting, Allowing, Surrender

The first freeze of the year arrives, but it does not stop me from going to the river at noon...

I launch Grace and marvel at how for the first time, I can see all the way to the bottom of the riverbed far and wide and am fascinated by its topography. It is like seeing with new eyes or with magnified peripheral vision. I can see with a clarity that is coming from embodying more deeply the qualities of accepting, allowing, and surrender...

These are qualities of opening to grace I will explore and use as class themes for the next few weeks. Images come to mind of teaching this morning, and examining the many nuances of acceptance as we worked very deeply with a few poses...

I paddle and note that the riverbed yields its secrets - and I marvel at its depth, and breath - each stone truly unique in its size and shape. I wonder how long they have lain at the bottom...

I can see the remnants of shells here and there, and I follow a lone bass hugging the riverbed closely, but wandering slowly and gracefully, without a care in the world...

I drink in the sounds, the freshness of the air, and perform my meditation ritual...

The realization comes that I have spent most of the year resisting where I am - wanting things to be other than what they are. I thought I would be in a different place than where I am...

Yet, the truth is, suffering comes from not accepting where we are and knowing that wherever it is that we are - is exactly where we need to be...The suffering is self created and inflicted. The Buddha taught that all life is suffering and it comes from clinging...This is not acceptance...

As I float down, I allow the river currents to shape my path downstream - turning Grace this way or that way - as I surrender to the river's intended trajectory and give up my own predilections...

There is a freedom that comes from all of this - from accepting, allowing, and surrender...

I cannot open to grace without embodying all three...

I think of a friend who recently told me that I had to learn to open to grace - even in my knees...

The river always has a lesson for me - speaking to my heart and soul in so many ways - through every bird call, through the movement of its currents and the breeze, through every season - it has been speaking - and it is only now that I am truly becoming more receptive to the subtleties and nuances of its messages and lessons...

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