Another Friday Night is on the Way

Another week is coming to its conclusion, and I can sense the peace of Sabbath approaching. I am giddy with anticipation and I am feeling at peace. It is interesting when I can hold those two emotions togther, producing a settling, centering, and quieting affect. Thoughts turn to Friday night and then Saturday's rest from work, which produces good feelings that move me towards leading a better life.

The Sabbath and Yoga practice have a lot in common. And I would guess I am not the first person to discuss this. (Although this is the first time this has occurred to me.) The word "Shabbat" is built from the Hebrew root "שבת" (shin-bet-tov) which means "sit". And in Yoga, we practice "Asana" (आस) which comes from the Sanscrit word meaning "to sit down."

For me, both the practice of Asana and of Shabbat are paths to the same end. Each asks that we sit, quiet ourselves, and center ourselves. They allow us to take measure, observe, and be present. They prepare us and cause us to turn inwards to find what is divine within, and from there, we can shine back out and brighten the world around us. From this inner point of peace, we can engage ourselves in the material world and lift it up towards its source, helping the world reconnect with its original divinity, eternity, & infinity.

The Glass is half full, and I'm burning the candle at both ends, but my cup runneth over,

I am learning to see myself as a cup running over...

We can each imagine ourselves as a candle, a glass or cup? What fills us up, what make us bright, what causes us to bubble over with enthusiasm? And how do we avoid allowing our wellspring of inspiration to run dry? How do we burn bright without burning out? The candle burns from both ends might burn brighter, but at what cost. So the saying the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. But what if one could have all of that brightness for more than half of the time? For most of the time? Where would the endurance come from?

My father used to describe to me how he thought it was best to stay at 5-6 on a scale of 1-10. He thought it best not to get too high, nor too low on our success, failures, ourselves and our lives. He would say, "let it rain... and just stay under the umbrella." Call it denial, but he could weather most any storm by simply not engaging it. It is how he could be happy or satisfied having found something he was reasonably good at and to which he was willing to grind away in order to make it shine. I think he felt it was the best way to have enough endurance to stay at something long enough to make it work. His gold was always at the bottom of the barrel and he was willing to dig at it long enough to make it happen.

I on the other hand tended (still tend) to operate closer to a 1 or 10. I am often either fully engaged or unplugged. Not that I want to live that way, but it has/had become my nature, and something that I am working on improving. Maybe now I am better able to recognize sooner rather than later when I am headed for a 1... which usually happens right after I was striving for operating at 10. For Dad, living at a 5-6 was a solution to his problem. For me, being unplugged was the trough that followed each peak.

Where I might take a stick of dynamite to blow up an obstacle, his approach was more like using drops of water to work away at obstacles until they were diminished. I learned from him that most "problems" are not real, and will go away if you can just ignore them or leave them alone.

Rabbi Sigal Brier once told me, "You don't have to feel like you are drinking your well dry. Think rather of the Kiddish cup running over with wine. So much there that all you need to do is sip off the excess." I like that thought and I return to it often... hopefully before I reach a point where I feel depleted. And sometimes before I drink too much from my well...

For me, I am seeking to be a Kiddish cup, running over, always enough, always plenty, always more to sip at and to taste the joy that life can be... especially on Friday nights.