On the path to Tao

Technology usually scares the heck out of me, but a friend (whose opinion I really trust) convinced me that this would be a great medium for my unconventional words of wisdom and vague ramblings. 

Beginnings are often strange.  I have been plagued with blank page syndrome, also known as writers block, so here’s hoping that this very unusual way of writing will tempt the muse to return.

This week, my musings have brought me to the struggle I like to call the  Christmas crazies. I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas.   Try as I might there is always something that will throw me.  Listening to Bing will warm my heart and suddenly bring me to tears, all within the space of one song. Baking cookies without a houseful of kids is just not fun!  It is just plain work, and even icing the little gingerbread guys is just not doing it for me without a tableful of mess and disorder and sticky little fingers! Decorating the tree does not thrill my 24 year old son, and that’s fine, but why does it matter so much to me that he put his own Tree Bear up? Why do I feel sad because they aren’t here driving me nuts, arguing over who gets to put what up and why mom loves him best because he has more baby ornaments! 

The path to enlightenment, the journey to evolve,   ‘welcome the negative emotions, deal with them and let them go’  all sounds perfectly reasonable, makes great sense to me, but the reality of doing that just isn’t happening!   I am trying, really trying to live in the moment, to be mindful – to look at things one piece at a time, and all of this sounds right, appeals to my sense of order and yet!  I suppose if it were so easy to become enlightened there wouldn’t be so many of us on the path trying to find our way!

So, one step at a time, one post at a time until the words work their magic and help me to work out where I am and what I’m up to.  You’d think that at the ripe old age of 48 I would have learned to recognize myself in the mirror, but not so much.  For now, I practise patience, I practise my Tai Chi movements, I practise meditating without complete distraction and mostly I practise breathing.  Little by little I succeed.