Making Good Trouble and Allowing Respite

Making Good Trouble

In Tibetan Buddhist teachings, there are outer, inner, secret, and ultimate levels of experience. In these last two weeks, a lot has happened. It has felt at times like what is arising now is happening on every one of these levels simultaneously, a confluence of realities.

The poet Andrea Gibson died, the vibrant person who wrote Let your heart break so your spirit doesn’t (in their poem, Good Grief). This seems to be a guiding light of this particular moment for me. If you haven’t met them before, they’ve been here on Substack and their wife Meg is continuing the heart-opening wisdom.

Thousands of us marched July 17 all across the US in Good Trouble Lives On in honor of statesman and activist John Lewis and his legacy. He had died on this day five years ago. He cut a powerful trajectory in this nation’s life, and made so many pith observations. One immortalized on one of the thousands of posters honoring him was We must be headlights not taillights. There’s a lot of good photos from that day here.

Wise woman eco-activist Earth defender Buddhist friend Joanna Macy died at 96 yesterday. The Plum Village monastery in France re-released an interview with her about the importance of showing up for the present moment just as you are. If you’d like to meet her again, or for the first time, here’s a link.

In the Tibetan tradition, when one dies, one’s essence is in an in-between place, the bardo, for 49 days. It is a great time to send love and appreciation to those who have passed. It’s also a special time to open to their wisdom, let it percolate a little deeper into one’s layers.

In that light, my dear friend and mentor Dolores Chiappone passed four weeks ago. Mystic, painter, adventurer extraordinaire, her paintings remain to light up our lives. Her generous spirit and fabulous cooking can also be found in the recipes she shared with me (see Dorie’s Mole Enchiladas, Dorie’s Sicilian Spinach, Dorie’s Turkish Delight in Ayurvedic Cooking for Westerners.)

And the new ones, they are coming in! The births are happening, the radiant beings are arriving. What times. What times.

Allowing Respite

With all that is going on, are you willing to allow yourself some space, some respite? What might respite even mean for you right now?

Stopping, having a cup of tea, cuddling a kitty? Legs up the wall? No wifi for a day? No wifi for an hour? Breathing as you find your way toward a park?

So many of us are in positions in life that make respite seem almost fanciful. If you are a parent of small children, or large children, or a caregiver of loved ones, or working with a changing body or some other urgent situation, it can be so easy to just keep on task non-stop. If a spare moment arises, it can be unsettling, even, to simply seize it and do nothing. Such opportunities may even be arising and escape our attention.

I’m here to invite you to accept respite when it arises. I’m here to challenge you to create respite as you need it. In Ayurveda, it is a key part of restoring every dhatu, essential tissue. (Thank you Iza for your steady wisdom on this point.)

With love in the present moment,

Amadea

Cho and Amadea image thanks to Iza Bruen-Morningstar. An important member of our family, this picture was taken of our kitty Cho before he died one spring not so long ago.

Amadea Morningstar is a writer and health educator working in the US. Her latest book is Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda.