The time of pitru paksha has been leading me to reflect more and more on my family and my lineage (both blood and intellectual-lineages)--particularly my relationship to my grandmother. Doing a ritual such as this was new to me. I'm not one who has engaged in rituals with such clear intentionality. I say this knowing that I have spent a lot of time with my yoga practice and my meditation practice. This was something altogether different for me.
Also, I have spent a lot of time with my unhealthier practices. They, too, are rituals. The ritual of television, Facebook, and a smorgasbord of binge/purge cycles that have entered and exited my life at various times. These are incredibly strong rituals, but they are qualitatively different and often they are practices with the goal of numbing, separating, and isolating. Pitru paksha has been a practice that has asked me to think outwardly. It was a practice that required me to think about the past, my family, my intellectual kin, my spiritual kin, and others in ways that do not ask me to dwell or separate or numb. The practice asks me to connect as I remember to give reverence and gratitude.
I began mulling over gratitude today after reading from Brené Brown's The Gifts of Imperfection this morning. She makes a clear distinction between holding onto the idea and attitude of gratitude and actually practicing gratitude. This is significant, because as much as I may have an attitude that values gratitude, it was never something that I really practiced. I gave a lot of lip service to it. I think in some ways that is why the pitru paksha practice initially felt so contrived and forced. It was awkward to be actively practicing gratitude. It was something out of my comfort zone. Holding onto my grandma and sitting in my memory of her, and all that she has provided my life, made me start to understand this practice more wholly. I spent time on the awkwardness of the practice and let myself stay unsettled and uncomfortable. I let myself do the practice not really understanding what the black sesame seeds, and having them run through my hands, meant. But as I did it during the week, I saw that for me it as about doing something active. And then after I read Brown's chapter on gratitude this morning, it came together. I was actually practicing gratitude--something I really never do. And I wanted more of it. I want to practice more gratitude.
My goal, then, as I work through the final days of this juncture between early fall and autumn, is to practice gratitude. There aren't many days left. Pitru paksha ended yesterday and the juncture goes through Monday. So for these final three days I will engage in a gratitude practice and see how I can take that with me into the autumn season. I plan to settle in here each day and discuss my active practice of gratitude.
It is interesting, I woke this morning feel pretty blue about my work in the juncture, but I am seeing lightness and joy now as I just allowed myself to sink into it. And rather than beating myself up for whatever imperfections and missteps I might have taken, I could still look at myself without judgment. If this had been happening a year ago, I would have had a very different response. I suppose it is a great reminder for me that even though we cycle through the same seasons each year, we are never the same person as we enter each new cycle.
No comments:
Post a Comment