Now that I’ve been in Berkeley for almost two weeks I’m starting to settle in a bit. I’m basically keeping the temple schedule with three meditation periods every day except Monday, which is sort of a rest day for, well, that. I will have some flexibility of course but intend to use my time here to deepen my training/practice. I’ve gone to several AA meetings since arriving and am reconnecting with that activity as well. Lots of good folks; I find it helpful to participate, not so much that I worry about drinking, I’ve been sober for over 31 years, but to let newer people hear what is possible; in other words, if I can get and stay sober, anyone can. Anyone.

I backed out of hell on my knees and even when I touched the open earth (as it were), I was still looking down that tunnel with fascination. Until, at some point I turned around and looked up and stepped forward into life again.

So, here I am and sort of re-learning some things I’d set aside during the urgency of Linda’s last two or three years and eventual death; and during my short lived infatuation/complication with a friend of ours after the initial period of mourning. My greed for the new was overwhelming and now I have been given the opportunity to (finally), sit still with all of that and let it all find its proper place in my heart. Every day it comes up for me in how greatly fortunate I am. How blessed with my life (and all its self-initiated complications), and circumstances I am.

One sort of amusing aspect of my transplantation has been a kind of simple, yet a somewhat telling set of experiences. The traffic and congestion is a matter of course here, and since I knew almost everyone’s vehicle in Tekoa’s vicinity, I had become accustomed to associating vehicle=person. Now I’m just getting used to seeing a given model of car and recognize that it is just some unknown person in it. It’s the little things like that which make the difference in how one’s life is perceived and lived.

The fish in the water

Knows it is part of the

Whole Ocean within which

It swims. We, often cannot

See we swim, Universally.