Day 11
Today leads into the second Sabbath of the CountUp to the mountaintop. Last Friday I bought flowers in San Francisco to bring to my hosts but today, back again in San Francisco for the last leg of my trip, i bought specialty cheeses and chocolates to bring to the folks up on Eagle Ridge in Sonoma. We’re surrounded by flowers up there, may aw well pick em or better yet, just watch. Less buying and less shopping -today’s virtue/lesson/reminder. Do with what there is.
I like to buy things – gifts, fresh produce and flowers, pretty things. But shopping as a mindless exercise of more for more sake is gluttony and greed and not self loving even though it feels so good, so my intention to do is to curb my enthusiasm. buy less. think twice.
Day 11 is netzach of gevura – eternity contained within structure. Like bookends. like the borders of the canvas that contains the image, necessary limitations. My teacher Danny Maesang used to say – if you want the cow to roam free in the meadow – put a fence around the meadow. Sometimes curbing enthusiasm is just the right thing – fence around desire, putting a stop to shopping, even if it’s ‘stuff’ that’s useful and fun. think again, pause to consider: do I really need this? or is this just an act of familiar wanting? tethering me to patterns of ‘more’.
discipline. curb your enthusiasm. buy less. you don’t need what you don’t need.
wisdom for the sabbath, second sabbath of counting.
tonight: unplug technology, go off the grid, in order to just be and to recharge. no emails and no iphone till sat. night. Sunny spring sabbath. day 11. 39 to go.
