May You Be Happy

Presence in practice, writing and breathing, and the month ahead

Apr 30, 2024

this week, the emphasis is on practice — mind, breath, and writing. below, a reflection on meditation and writing, and an invitation to Build Your Journaling Practice this Sunday, May 5 at guesthouse by good neighbor in baltimore, maryland— or online, here. paid subscribers, a new collection of essays arrives for you today. read through to the end for more workshops for the month ahead.

*notebook in fig, at guesthouse by good neighbor, 2024*

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On a Sunday night after the daylight fades, I root into practice. Feet crossed and on the ground, I find the four points of a steady seat. Despite the usual resistance and the chatter of the mind, I make my way from the whirring of the night street, past the cars and the neon signs, deliveries made fast on electric bikes, the glow of warm restaurants, up the stairs and into the hold of the dim lit the room — an made effort in the direction of stillness.

Worn floors creak as we sit and shift in the moments before practice. Candlelight cascades, warming, playing shapes on the walls, white in the daylight, like the moment is a prismatic painting paired with changing light from cars passing. We sit together in ephemeral connection, a community turning inward for meditation. Held by the guidance of a teacher, I feel the distinctions of this practice of mind and tune into the wonders of what it feels like to be in this moment. the familiar rhythms of being human. Body, breath, and thought are our embodied polyrhythms: heartbeat played against breath beat and the rhythmic nature of the thinking mind.

It’s been years since I’ve practiced in community with any regularity in person. Often the hardest place is the starting one. Often the bravest place is that point of realization. But at the end of practice, having sat with breath and mind, returning again, again, and again, I am grounded, centered, refreshed. Rarely, if ever, am I pulling on threads of regret.

The same goes for writing practice, making-image-practice, any kind of creating. Breathing, writing, and creating are ways of way finding — of mapping and making meaning from, or learning to be with the mundane. Ever endeavored to zone out, avoid, or diassociate, these practices of returning to attention are ways of celebrating and digesting our lives. This presence is what practice teaches: how to arrive to each moment, returning repeatedly whether it’s to heartbeat in body, breath in the lungs, caring in relationships, following a song from one beat to the next, or returning to words or images on a page. We become sensitive to life as a way of being with living, and honor this sensitivity as a way of being with, not as a method for distracting.

Inevitably, of course, because we are human, we may lose the trail; the nature of life is to, at times, become distracted. The aims we set veer off our planned courses, life shifts, and we shift, too. When I feel lost, I turn back to writing. It doesn’t always give answers, or become oracle as I often hope for, but it helps against the grips of stagnation. All of these practices are a kind of movement.

As we write and breathe, map through our experiences in life, we are honing in, focusing, and learning to pay attention. We traverse memories and presence in time like they are streets, paths, or trails, learning what we love, care for, yearn for, and notice along the way. Returning to practice is the act of strengthening. Returning to practices gives way to new grooves to form within our bodies, minds, and life as we’re living. When we lose the trail, we can slow down and step carefully, notice where we are and how that feels, learn what we yearn for, what we feel deeply, and give our attention back to what is motivating. This inner sensing, paired with that which you value as a human in the world, comes together in practices of writing and returning to breath. It shows where to return to, or where to step next.

Intentionally, with careful attention, we can guide ourselves back to word, breath, and body, returning here often. This is where the strength unfolds. Notice distractions, then notice the breath; notice the breath, word, thought, sensation, feeling, and ground down. Turn toward the skills you have, the information you find from your senses. Rest when you can and when you need to rest, and remember the teachers, places, practices, lineages that have led and guided you in the past. This is trust building; this is inner sensing being strengthened with time. This is mapping our ways and being and breathing with the world. This is regenerative creative life.

As May arrives, I want us to remember our grounded care, our dedicated actions, and returning with intention to the steady, sturdy roots of our lives — the people, places, and practices that settle and inspire. How we plant the seed for our ideas and care, and what choose to water the soil with. How we set intentions, aims, and craft our focus, and then actions we take to care for them. We plant, grow, tend, gather, compost. Repeat. Then life does what it does, and starts again.

That Sunday, an hour passes. The silence falls on my inner existence like a mist, like a moment to fall asleep in the sunlight, and I walk home content, present, hazy with the warm hum of half sleep. The leaves on the block grow bigger everyday. I breathe deep into the night’s cool breeze. I think of practice, and the closing sentiment shared in the room like a seed for the month ahead.

May we all have happiness and the causes of it
May we all be free from suffering and
May the month ahead be time for grounding

PS. Do you want to generate inspiration and build confidence in your journaling practice? Let’s write. Sign up for Build Your Journaling Practice Sunday, May 5 at guesthouse by good neighbor, or for the online version on Wednesday, May 8.
Bring a journal!