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he invocation is the beginning. It goes like this:

Toward the One,
the perfection of Love, Harmony, and Beauty.
The Only Being
United with all the Illuminated Souls
Who form the embodiement of the Master,
the Spirit of Guidance.

Whenever I say it I close my eyes as if making a wish. I bring the invocation down through the act of invoking. It is a chivalric tool, a magic spell. Then, when I open my eyes, I see it happen.

It doesn't always happen that moment. It doesn't always happen that day or year. But later, in a mysterious fashion, I see how the sun caused a lemon tree in town to bear fruit, so much that the branches sag with the weight. The branches drape across the fence like a friendly neighbor's elbow. And there it is.

Posted by Satya at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

arried life is great, but I've been struggling with work lately. A combination of feeling ambivalent about what I've been doing and the unstructured environment of working for myself has led to a lot of disorganization, procrastination, and stress. I got a much-needed wake-up call from a client so I've been getting it together this week - it's amazing how productive I can be when I put my nose to the grindstone. I'm so much happier overall when I don't torture myself with work hanging over my head. I'm my own worst enemy sometimes.

M. said he thought part of it was that I'm always here in the house. I get into a rut sometimes where I seldom get out and interact with other human beings. M. prescribed a daily morning walk with Virgil down to the coffee hut in town - everyone around here knows it as the Butt Hut because it's constantly staffed by an ever-changing stream of young girls...with shapely derrieres I suppose. Virgil loves it because they fawn over him and give him cookies. I love it because it gets me out into the world first thing in the morning, which makes it easier to sit down and get right to work with a clear and energized mind when I come home. I see my neighbors picking up their papers, entire pelotons of cyclists (a very popular activity around here), and I forgot how much I enjoy the time of morning when everyone is bustling about - the day is just getting started and is full of potential.

It's been so cold here lately that it's hard to bundle up and go outside first thing. We live amongst the trees in the shady hills, and the temperature always drops when you head up our street. But after I get my coffee after descending into town, my frosty fingers being warmed by the hot cup at last, I turn home and the Eastern sun beams down fully upon me. It starts to melt my stiff muscles and soften my creaky joints. Help is around in so many ways, if only you seek it a little.

Posted by Satya at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

heard about a certain man in India who has a good philosophy about paths that are blocked. While leading a circumnambulation around a certain tomb, a sweeper had propped a broom in such a way that the handle blocked his path. But rather than break the rhythm of his prayer by moving the broom or by finding someone to do so, he waited and he prayed, and in time another sweeper came by and picked it up, and he proceeded on his way.

Now if one were in a constant state of circumnambulation, as one might argue we are from a galactical viewpoint, at every blocked path one could wait, and one could pray, and in time the way would become clear. In fact I just heard someone else say that everything you wish will happen in life, you just must wait for it.

I've been noticing these last few days how ways become blocked. People who seem half-asleep amble into a doorway, and stay awhile. Lumbering trucks back out into the road, attempting to head in another direction. Sometimes, for a moment, the way is so blocked that it seems life has stopped entirely. But it moves on as a record does while reaching its correct speed, and the music begins to play again.

While tuning his guitar during the last session of Suluk, someone said if we felt like we were waiting instead of just being, we might need to repeat the four years. I think it's true but in my case at least, it won't be necessary.

Posted by Satya at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ll the time I pray
I keep on
killing mosquitoes.

— Issa

This is my favorite haiku, and so apt at the moment.

Posted by Satya at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

he terminal gate is a difficult place to enjoy a meal. I am hunched precariously over a Chicago-style hot dog while seated across an aisle (with barely more legroom than the plane itself) from a trio of rowdy boys tearing through a bag of chips, kicking their legs, and generally making a raucous mess. I pause for a moment and close my eyes to say a silent grace. One of them must have noticed, because he grabs his younger brothers for their attention.

"We forgot!" he exclaims urgently. "Forgot what?" the littlest says. "We forgot to pray for our food," the eldest replies, looking suddenly concerned for the morals of his family.

"Thank you Lord for our food!" cries the youngest. It doesn't matter at all that at this point in his relatively new life, it is probably rote and meaningless, because it means something to me. We are all now people who pray over our food. And a duty having thus been satisfied, the whirl of the airport spins on.

Posted by Satya at 8:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

few days ago my dog ran away. I had let him into the backyard to do his business, and a few minutes later when he didn't come back I thought it was eerily quiet. I stepped outside and called for him, and couldn't even hear his tags jingling. Dark was just falling.

Right then M. called and I told him what was happening, and he immediately jumped in the car and drove home from Berkeley. He's had pets go missing before. As soon as he got home he sprung into action: running through the woods in the dark, searching our road by bicycle, and finally driving up into the hills towards Mount Tamalpais. It was amazing to watch him apply himself fully to the task, but each time he returned home to regroup he came back empty-handed.

Finally we got the call. My dog had probably chased something out of the yard, wiggling under the gate. When he got his bearings he probably found himself not quite sure where home was, yet still on the familiar terrain of his usual walk loop. He walked himself down into town, where he was picked up on the main road by a truly angelic couple who called the number on his tag.

Barring any other factors, the fact is that I've experienced too many miracles in my relatively short life not to believe in God. And even when my dog was missing and there were no encouraging signs, deep inside I felt the calm of faith, like the deep still water underneath the churning surface. Sometimes I get a feeling that one day something terrible might happen and my faith will be truly tested. But in the meantime I'll just keep on feeling grateful.

Posted by Satya at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

hey say people who meditate are less stressed out, but I don't really feel that's the case with me. I'm a chronic worrier by nature, so I feel it would take a hurculean effort far greater than my normal meditation routine to change that situation. Lately, though, I've been catching myself unabashedly thinking about work in the middle of prayers. My fingers push the beads around on auto-pilot while one part of my brain repeats the correct phrase, and another part draws red exclamation marks all over my mental list of people I need to email and details I need to remember.

This has to stop. Not because I know that's not a great way to pray, because that's obvious. But because when I am immersed in prayer, there's a real rest that takes place. A burden is lifted and shared. Someone takes the other handle of the mental laundry basket, and walks in a way that's supportive and doesn't cause me to trip all over myself balancing out the load. When this doesn't happen I'm just spinning my wheels and denying that help. Which is, unfortunately, a habit of mine, but not one that I want to continue. It's nice to have some help sometimes.

Posted by Satya at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

y prayer muscle must still be working, because last week we found and bought a house within three days. There are still a few things to be finalized, but it looks like I'm well on my way to Fairfax living, probably early in October. Of course receiving what I asked for isn't as straightforward as it might seem, and the excitement is tempered by the requisite doubt and fear of dream becoming reality. This move is going to be a major transition in my life, and having just turned twenty-nine the entire situation now represents a new era of adulthood. Whatever happened to just moving in with my boyfriend to some low-commitment city pad? It seems we've skipped a few steps, but I guess we never really were an of-the-mold couple.

It's a funny thing about prayer, to ask and then receive. Because in that transaction I realize I might actually enact some lofty ideal, and it feels forbidden to have a moment of just being that ideal person, the one who lives in Fairfax in a house with her dog and the love of her life. To have become too much, or even just enough, instead of being lacking. Just a moment, because if renunciation isn't the next step the object attained will consume one, or so I've read. But that moment....

Posted by Satya at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

s Hazrat Inayat Khan says, there are five aspects of prayer, but the one that has attracted my attention the most lately is number three: telling God one's troubles, and asking God for what one wants and needs. It's tricky for me because when I focus on my inner power and potential, I feel more at one with God, more tapped into a giant resource of which I am a part. But when I ask an external God for help, it's an acknowledgement of limitation and separation. I suppose these two qualities have their benefits of humility and such, but it's hard for me to reconcile them sometimes with a deep intuitive sense of connectedness with God that I've had ever since I can remember.

I know that was a lot for one paragraph, but bear with me. The other problem is that I've always been an extremely independent person, reluctant to ask anyone for help. Are my humble needs worthy of God's attention? Or should I just ask God for everything? Because if that's the case, there's an adorable handbag down at Nordstrom that I've had my eye on for awhile. In other words, how do I know that what I ask for is really what I need?

Continue reading "Asking" »

Posted by Satya at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ine and a half years in this apartment. Five and a half years in this relationship. I think I've earned the right to say I'm a patient person. But now that M. and I are planning to move in together and actively looking for a place, my desire and readiness to move forward are making it a huge struggle to take it a day at a time. Of course I can't will a house into existence, so I'm stuck with good old faith that it will happen....sometime.

The thing about faith is that it wouldn't be faith if it didn't go hand in hand with doubt. In our case, shortly after we started looking we found a house through friends that wasn't even on the market. Sure, it was a little rough around the edges, but basically it was perfect, and the way it came to us seemed like it was meant to be. But of course we went through the whole bidding process only to find in the end that the owners weren't quite ready to let it go, and it fell through, and we haven't seen anything remotely as good since.

Is God so cruel that he would tantalize us with the perfect house, only to snatch it away when we were emotionally attached? Is this some divine statement on the appropriateness of our premarital cohabitation? No, of course not. For me faith isn't entirely about giving up and flinging the deck of cards into the air, letting them land where they may. It's about trudging through house after house of bad carpet, warped kitchen counters, and dry rot, with nary a price tag under half a million dollars, just hoping for another gem, because what else can we do?

Essentially, faith isn't a feel-good type of thing. It's a dark, gritty, persevering kind of thing. It's a thing you sometimes don't have on purpose, but must cultivate because you have no other option. And it's only much later, when the paint has dried and the garden has been planted and you clink glasses with your sweetie and sigh contentedly that you realize it all did happen, just the way it was supposed to. At least that's what I hope happens.

Posted by Satya at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)