How was your weekend, friends? Mine was great. It was the kind of weekend that gets you up Monday morning with a sore back and a mind full of kick-assery.
It started off Friday afternoon with a trip to Starbucks where I pretended to work while I really just daydreamed about the future of Mark the Occasion Designs. I came home to nap and dinner with Randy where I told him all of my grand plans. I saw big money in my future! He promptly ordered the fish fry and a tall glass of “I don’t think so, Tim.” He reality-checked me back into the real world where we realized that yes, someday I may make enough flowers to send us on a ’round the world vacation, but that’s not likely for the near future. As an added bonus, he reminded me that I’m not totally stoked in the idea of making the flowers for the rest of my life anyway. Damn. He asked me what I wanted to do and my immediate answer was write.
But write what? And for who? And how? And do I only want to do it because it’s the thing I don’t know? Am I going to get bored with that, too?
I drowned my sorrows in a cherry cascade sundae and went to bed early, brain all a twitter. I tossed and turned and (let’s be honest…) panicked once again over what is it I want to do with my life.
Enter Saturday morning when I found myself back at Haleybird Studios in Yoga Teacher Training where, first thing, we did a meditation on the jnana mudra, the mudra of wisdom. I got physically ill as Biz read some words on the topic.
“Breathe into your being, and experience the wholeness and integration that all of your feelings ultimately seek as you repeat the following: I am the very joy I seek in the world outside of me.”
Double damn.
From there we conversed on light topics such as our purpose in this life and others, the symbolism of ancient texts, and how to do the splits. (Let the record show, that for the first time since I was about 9, I did in fact do front/back splits. We will strike from the record that I was up on a bolster. Only 8 inches off the ground is nothing to squelch.)
Fact 1: my mind exploded at lunch when I came back to “I want to write”. A separate conversation in my head (don’t pretend you don’t have those… or please do pretend so I don’t feel crazy) gave me my first book title – “Life Lessons I Learned from The Never Ending Story and Other Things I Tell Myself”. I’m on this crazy search for my purpose, my mark. Instead of looking at all of these big, lauded works, I seriously think it all comes back to the Rock-Biter and Atreyu.
The rest of the day was great, I learned partner yoga with a new favorite teacher/mentor/friend and enjoyed a margarita and a grown-up puppet show that night.
Fact 2: I do not remember falling into bed that night. This shit is hard.
Sunday morning, I learned more about being a better yoga teacher. (Watch out for my thigh vice!) Then we learned about tantra yoga. Best known for it’s ancient texts and famous followers, tantra yoga is more about the experience of life than it’s precursors that were more interested in observing the world vs. participating in it. My fellow students could tell you I was practically jumping up and down as the teacher read this poem:
Hungry Eyes by Rabindranath Tagore
Whoever wishes to
may site in meditation
with eyes closed to know if the world be true of false.
I meanwhile shall sit with hungry eyes.
To see the world while the light lasts.
Yes, yes! That’s it!! I want to touch life, eat it, feel it, love it, hate it. Not just walk through a generally good life depriving myself of the blessings and the curses in the hopes of making it to a better plane the next time. Gawd bless it.
Just when I thought I couldn’t get enough out of my weekend, our teacher took us on a field trip to Mount Mary College where we experienced some time doing walking meditation and walking through a labyrinth. The weather broke just long enough for me to walk outside, enjoying one of my favorite places high on their hill where you can see all around Milwaukee. I come here often when I run. I found myself here on Thanksgiving with my dudes – celebrating a new holiday tradition and crying over my first holiday season without mom.
After a great experience outside, I didn’t expect much out of a labyrinth in a gym. I remembered doing this in high school without much excitement. Maybe it was the weekend I was having, but this might have been the best 20 minutes of the day. I started it with lots of people also walking the path, but we were all on our own journey. (See what I did there?) At times, we had to let each other pass. Other times we walked side-by-side. Due to my long time outside, I ended up being the last person on the labyrinth, reminding me that no matter who I surround myself with, this life can only be journeyed by me alone.
Triple damn.
These last 72 hours may end up meaning something. Or I may just be riding a high from a great experience. I may write a book. I may make Mark the Occasion Designs the first million dollar floral alternative business. I don’t know. But if this weekend taught me anything, it is to observe it all. You never know where the path may take you.
