Going with the flow...

Lighten up! says Pema Chodron in Comfortable with Uncertainty.  "It's sometimes helpful just to change the pattern.  Anything out of the ordinary will help.  You can go to the window and look at the sky, you can splash cold water on your face, you can sing in the shower, you can go jogging -- anything that's against your usual pattern.  That's how things start to lighten up."

Some days you just have to go with the flow.  I'm doing my best to see that as an invitation to lighten up.  Today, for example:  my husband is back from Oregon, so my morning coffee was mostly spent talking, not reading.  And then when I went to wash out my coffee cup I looked out the window (thank you, Pema) -- to see an eagle floundering in the lagoon!

So I went to get my camera and arrived on the deck just as he began doing this massive breaststroke to pull himself to shore.  Didn't capture that, but did get him after he pulled himself out of the water, and then again when he flew to the post at the end of our property to dry off.

Since there's a political sign next to that post -- a close friend is campaign manager for a woman who's running for re-election to the state legislature -- I of course had to send the photo to my friend.  (When she called to thank me, she confided that she'd just been praying for a good omen).  And then, since I was at the computer anyway, I decided to post it on the neighborhood blog.

Once that was done -- since my husband, who got in very late last night, had gone back to bed -- I went to meditate, but the cat wanted in, and when I looked out the window I saw this lovely scene of the sunrise reflected on the Olympics, so rounded up my camera again and went outside.  And by the time I returned from taking this and other photos like it (the cloud formations were glorious) the cat was knocking things over in the kitchen and the kids were up and heading into the shower.

So, yes, meditation didn't happen this morning.  But I did get a chance to do a little reading before my husband came downstairs, and this was my gift for today:

"I am... the divine expression exactly as I am, right here, right now.  You are the divine expression exactly as you are, right here, right now.  It is the divine expression exactly as it is, right here, right now. Nothing, absolutely nothing, needs to be added or taken away.  Nothing is more valid or sacred than anything else.  No conditions need to be fulfilled.  The infinite is not somewhere else waiting for us to become worthy... All is just as it should be, right now.  Not because it is a potential for something better, but simply because all that is is divine expression." -- Tony Parsons, in 365 Nirvana.

So see?  It's all good!