Friday, January 23, 2009

Perfect Wholeness

I see a week has passed since last I posted.

Two things are simultaneously dancing about in my life and busying my days. The first is unqualifiedly positive. I've been blessed with quite a chunk of work for the near future. With each page, I evolve further into this new professional I am becoming.

Working through a draft proposal with my newest client yesterday, I was shocked by how he just wasn't getting it. He and I attended the same grantwriting workshop, where we met. He and I have the same useful textbook for reference. But it makes perfect sense to me and not to him. Weird.

Because I can, it always shocks me that other people either can't write or don't like to write. I just assume that people have basically the same skills that I have. So. Makes me feel good that I can be useful.

Difficulty has also shadowed the last few weeks. Several friends have had challenging situations crop up, and one is facing a severe, ongoing illness. He's been in and out of hospitals and bounced around in an exhausting merry-go-round of care. Doesn't help matters that he's desperately poor. Doesn't help that our social support systems are full of holes. Doesn't help that his primary supporters, his parents, are in their late 70s and exhausted. Doesn't help that my husband has some strong, legitimate resistance to me helping him.

But so it is. Those are the deterrents, but I'm focusing rather steadfastly on the positives. With balance, everything comes.

In class, we chant this mantra of Perfect Wholeness, also published in February's issue of Yoga Journal:

Om Purnam Adah Purnam Idam
Purnat Purnam Udachyate
Purnasya Purnam Adaya
Purnam Evavashishyate

Om. This is complete and perfect. That is complete and perfect.
From perfect wholeness, perfect wholeness springs.
If the perfect is taken from the perfect, perfect wholeness still remains.
So it is.

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