Groundhog Day Inspiration: Reflecting on the Mundane & Magical

[gallery ids="1906,1487,1551" type="rectangular"]As I leaf through old journals from six and seven years ago, I notice how much has changed, and in many ways improved, in my personal life, since then.It’s a challenge to get through the diaries sometimes, because they starkly show me how intensely neurotic, insecure, and obsessive I was, in my own handwriting. I’m grateful to feel more generally grounded, trusting and accepting these days. Thanks be to yoga and mindfulness.And yet. Early February's full moon eclipse in Leo really did a number on me. Still is. You, too? And today is the new moon in Pisces. More shifting sand. March commences on Wednesday. Venus is retrograde. Love is in the water.I have been delving into new material, gaining new perspectives, shifting paradigms, slightly, almost imperceptibly. Swallowing my pride. Realizing changes that need to occur. So much is being processed, digested, reflected upon, slowly understood. It is good, and it is not easy.I’m a bit sheltered from the present political sh*tstorm in the USA, due to living south of its borders and consciously limiting the amount of news articles I consume. Nevertheless, my heart goes out to all the folks suffering from anxiety, depression and the like, much of it the direct result of the new administration’s white-supremacist-fueled fear mongering and illegal, immoral abuse of power. I remember all too clearly feeling that way in 2004 when G. W. Bush was re-elected, which now pales in comparison to the current conundrum.I recently re-watched Groundhog Day, the 1993 comedy starring Bill Murray in which every day when he wakes up, the main character finds himself in the hell realm of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, always the same freezing morning of February 2nd. At first, he is confused (how is this happening? why isn’t anyone else in the movie being similarly affected?), then freaked out and desperate (attempting suicide in a variety of ways, to no avail), then manipulative (learning the backstories of the townspeople and his coworkers, primarily with the aim of getting into Andie MacDowell’s pants), and ultimately surrendering (not until he truly lets go of his ego and authentically strives to help others will tomorrow finally come).Lately, I, too, have been feeling like every day, every week is the same. I wake up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep for hours, sometimes resting anyway, sometimes–like now–getting up and reading and writing. At some point, my eyelids droop with exhaustion, and I go back to bed. I rise again as the sun rises, and my four-year-old girl makes a sour face at me when I kiss her good morning. A few minutes later, she is in a better mood, back to her sweet and cuddly little self. I plop down on the sunny balcony and sit and breathe. My fabulous black cat, Oscar, curls up in my lap, prompting me to stay a little longer. (He is a feline Zen master.)So there I sit, listening to the birds, breathing, starting with a grateful heart. I send out loving kindness to my aging parents and grandmothers, my beloved partner, daughter, myself, friends, family, water protectors, neutral acquaintances.I think of the wise words a friend posted on Facebook last month, along with a head shot of the 45th U.S. President.

Can you LOVE this Man?Can you feel COMPASSION Toward this Man?

The CHALLENGE: I would suggest that those of us who claim to be Christians or adherents of Buddhist philosophy pray for him or hold him in our good intentions/in the LIGHT. Otherwise, we are really not who we pretend ourselves to be.

I try, and fail, to send metta to He Who Shall Not Be Named and his newly-appointed cabinet of leaders with whom I disagree. May you be safe, happy, healthy and free, I try to say but cannot force myself to genuinely feel it. Universal compassion is put on hold. Like all things, it has to unfold in its own time, organically.I step away from the cushion and delve into the informal practice of the rest of the day. I eat some papaya, pour a cup of tea, and settle in to open my computer and get to work.Like Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day, it gradually dawns on me that getting out of my own head and caring about and helping others is the way to freedom from the mundane. It is the path and the goal.And so I write, in loopy, messy cursive, endless checklists and poetic stanzas and love letters and random streams of consciousness, as therapy. And so I publish a blog and attempt to connect my heart to yours for this one precious moment. And so I read and feel an immense and simple gladness that the words on the page make sense.I feel grateful that my old diaries deliver little gems of wisdom that I wrote down so many years ago, like this one:

“Just as the ocean has waves or the sun has rays, so the mind’s own radiance is its thoughts and emotions. The ocean has waves, yet the ocean is not particularly disturbed by them. The waves are the very nature of the ocean.Waves will rise, but where do they go? Back into the ocean. And where do those waves come from? The ocean. Thoughts and emotions rise from the mind, but where do they dissolve? Back into the mind.Whatever rises, do not see it as a particular problem. If you do not impulsively react, if you are only patient, it will settle once again into its essential nature.”~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

May every moment and experience wake us up and be of benefit.