A House with Four Rooms

[kib]

Mental. Some days I feel like I've just set up residence in here and locked the door.

[catherine]

Mental. Some days I feel like I've just set up residence in here and locked the door.

haha.. I hear ya!!

[pinkytoe]

My spiritual room is anytime I go outdoors and observe/experience nature.

[Geila]

Glad to see I'm not the only mental one.

rosarugosa - I wish I had the open plan too!

It's interesting to think of what each room would look like for each of us. I find that being physical often leads to spiritual. It's usually when I'm engaged in something relaxing and repetitive (swimming laps, pulling weeds) that my mind relaxes enough to allow something else to come through. In those moments, I'm given little gifts of insight and clarity that are completely from something deeper than myself, or rather, something deeper within myself. I am befuddled (!) as to why I don't seek those experiences more often.

Anyway, I read the quote in Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach, a book on daily meditations. I've had it for a long time, at least 18 years, and it's interesting to see that what I find insightful has changed quite a bit over that time. That's a good thing. Like razz said, we change over time. Hopefully we evolve and mature with age. I'm not good at doing the daily thing, usually I just crack the book open when the mood strikes and see what speaks to me at that moment. But for you guys, I actually opened up the book to today's date and this is today's meditation. There's a lot more words on the page of course, but you get the gist of it from this, I think:

January 13
Gratitude - Awakening the Heart
"The eyes of my eyes are opened."
--E.E. Cummings

"My soul whispered that what I really yearned for was not financial security but financial serenity. I was still - quiet enough to listen. At that moment I acknowledged the deep longing in my heart. What I hungered for was an inner peace that the world could not take away." Sarah Ban Breathnach

[iris lilies]

Oh yes, I like the zen mind of weed pulling.

[kib]

We have bermuda grass in sunbaked rock "soil". Buried under 1" decorative rock. It's about as zen as wrestling an elephant.

[catherine]

Another one of my gateways to spirituality (in addition to nature):

Awww... so cute!

[iris lilies]

We have bermuda grass in sunbaked rock "soil". Buried under 1" decorative rock. It's about as zen as wrestling an elephant.

Yes, absolutely. The weeds have to come out of the ground in order for it to be a useful zen exercise.

I would be zen-spraying that stuff with Roundup, but I am ethically challenged that way.

[iris lilies]

Another one of my gateways to spirituality (in addition to nature):

Sleeping cuteness is life affirming.

[kib]

Yes, absolutely. The weeds have to come out of the ground in order for it to be a useful zen exercise.

I would be zen-spraying that stuff with Roundup, but I am ethically challenged that way.

Frankly, as a confirmed Earth Mama ... I'd be spraying it with Roundup too, except that it's intertwined with really nice cacti I'd prefer not to kill. So if "zen" means poking the rock-ground with a weeding fork for hours until I'm down two feet and still being gentle to the cactus roots, yes, so Zen!