Spacious Solidarity Blog: Day 53
My partner’s up before me again and brings me my coffee in bed. While drinking it, I feel into what to do with the retreat this morning.
I’ve agreed to lead the morning session to give my co-leader in the caravan a break.
I decide we’ll do some simple feet to head movements and then I’ll lead a metta bhavana (cultivation of loving kindness practice). I’ve already introduced it and this morning I want to encourage them to really connect with their own deep heart wish to be well and how it feels when they do that.
I want them to know that the fact they are showing up for practice, especially while on a nationwide lockdown during a global pandemic, is a sure sign that they want to be well, even if they don’t relate to it that way. Something in them is searching for a different way to live in the this world.
And that really is the crux of the matter. How to live in this heartbreakingly imperfect world.
And the answer, over and over again, is simply love.
So that’s what we do on Zoom this morning. We appreciate the act of love towards our selves in showing up and then we extend that personal wish to others.
We open to the fact that all people, no matter who they are or how misguided their strategies for getting what they want, are deserving of wellness, happiness and to realise their full potential. Just because they are alive and they feel and in spite of even the most horrendous acts. Underneath it all we all have the potential to be pure awareness and love.
That is not to say that those who cause harm should not be held accountable. Accountability is also an act of love. I love you enough to not let you cause more harm, because when you hurt others, you hurt yourself.
These are my morning musings, but I only share some of it with the retreat.
Afterwards I do a bit of writing before getting on Skype to talk to a friend. We met on our ordination retreat 10 years ago. She was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and had to have a mastectomy.
We share our journeys with cancer and our complex and changing relationships to being ordained. It’s a tender connection and even though we haven’t talked for ages, it feels as though the last time we connected was just yesterday.
After lunch I lie down for a nap. It’s a glorious 90 minutes of deep sleep so badly needed. I’ve been getting up a lot earlier than I’m used to this week and it’s catching up to me. My optimal night’s sleep is nine hours, and I’ve only been getting six to seven on average since Sunday.
I get up and join the afternoon Zoom session, this time led by my co-leader.
Just as I’m getting off Zoom I hear voices out front. Christians’ back and the basking beauties photo shoot in on. I grab my phone and the recycling that’s waiting in the hall to be taken out and run outside, determined to get a photo of him.
Four out of my five upstairs neighbors are all dolled up with drinks in their hands. Christian is standing in the next-door neighbor’s front garden trying to get a good angle on them.
I tell him I want to take his photo and he blushes. The girls upstairs start teasing him. I ask him to tell me a bit about the project to help him relax. As he starts talking, I decide to video him instead.
Then I take a few snaps and it’s time for the photo shoot. I keep taking pictures of him taking pictures of my neighbors. One of them says that taking pictures of the photographer at work is so meta. When I tell her it’s for my blog she says that makes it even more meta.
After the photo shoot we go out for an evening walk. It’s about 7pm and the park is full of people. The sun is still high in the sky casting a golden light across the grass making long shadows. We decide to stop and lay down for a little while.
The government’s making noises around starting to ease the lockdown. There are various unsubstantiated rumours going around. They’ll be letting us start meeting up with other people in social bubbles. We’ll be able to go for trips to the countryside. Schools might re-open.
I don’t know if I’m just projecting onto people or picking up on something, but the vibe in the park feels unusually relaxed, there are more ballgames and bigger groups of people sitting together on the grass. Some people are playing tennis.
I can only hope that if we’re told this is continuing for another three weeks people don’t completely lose it.
When we get home I do a bit more writing and then it’s time for dinner. I decide I’m feeling too lazy to cook so order a pizza instead.
Meanwhile it’s time to clap for the NHS but I’ve forgotten all about it. Since the beginning of lockdown I had been leading a course on a Thursday that ended last week. Every week we would stop at five to eight to go clap for the NHS.
We’re both sat in our front room as the clap begins. I am properly surprised and confused about what is happening. I ask my partner why people are clapping. Then I remember it’s Thursday.
People aren’t just clapping. They are yelling and whistling and blowing horns and honking and banging on pots and pans and it goes on for a really long time. It’s the start of the bank holiday weekend and Hackney feels less like London and more like the south of Spain.
The good weather and longer light have brought the entire neighborhood out. Except us. We are enjoying simply listening to it for the first time, tears welling up.