Evening Practice at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension

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Action isn't a burden to be hoisted up and lugged around on our shoulders. It is something we are. The work we have to do can be seen as a kind of coming alive. More than some moral imperative, it's an awakening to our true nature, a releasing of our gifts. -- Joanna Macy

You are invited to join the Still Water community for a day of practice led by Barbra Esher and other experienced members of the Still Water Mindfulness Practice Center. Barbra is a member of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing and a certified trainer of Nonviolent Communication. Barbra writes:

Now more than ever, I am feeling a need to recharge myself when I listen to the news and ask myself to be present for all that comes up in me. Despair, anger, hopelessness are feelings that are impermanent, if examined and accepted rather than repressed.

In a recent interview Joanna Macy emphasized this turning toward rather than away from:

… our difficulty in looking at what we’re doing to our world stems not from callous indifference or ignorance so much as it stems from fear of pain. … That became, actually, perhaps the most pivotal point in the landscape of my life, that dance with despair, to see how we are called to not run from the discomfort and not run from the grief or the feelings of outrage or even fear and that, if we can be fearless, to be with our pain, it turns.

It doesn’t stay static. It only doesn’t change if we refuse to look at it. But when we look at it, when we take it in our hands, when we can just be with it and keep breathing, then it turns. It turns to reveal its other face, and the other face of our pain for the world is our love for the world, our absolutely inseparable connectedness with all life. [From an interview with Krista Tippett on August 11, 2016.]

In our day of practice, we will take time to refresh and center ourselves through practices of mindful breathing, sitting, walking, and eating.

We will invite each other to be with all that arises for us, especially those parts that we may tend to push away. We will look at our habitual reactions and thought patterns, and learn how to  practice other choices. Using Compassionate Communication enhanced by mindfulness, we will explore how we can turn something that is bothering us into a doable action.

We will meet in the Octagon at Blueberry Gardens in Ashton, Maryland. The suggested Dana (donation) is $50-$80. Dana is a gift from the heart that supports the community and the teachings; please feel free to contribute less or more depending on your circumstances.

We hope you can join us! All experience levels, including no meditation experience, are welcome. To register, please go to www.StillWaterMPC.org. If you have questions, please email our registrar, Gene Klinger, at 4genek@gmail.com or call 240-731-3732.

 Register now.

[The photo of Avalokiteshvara is by Paul Davis.]