Parinama

  I have started hiking again in the mountains after about a twenty-year hiatus.   It wasn’t a conscious decision to start up again, but strangely, one that came serendipitously as if guided by deeper forces in the universe I would call the Holy Spirit. Early one Saturday before the sun was up, I was making by weekly pilgrimage into Boston for yoga class when I unexpectedly found myself on the mass turnpike heading in the opposite direction.   By the time I reached the exit to turnaround, it was too late to make class. Finding myself in the Berkshires at seven in the morning, I found a little cafe in Lenox just opening, had breakfast, and thought about what I would do with the unplanned day that lay out before me.   I might have gone to a museum when out in the Berkshires but on that gloriously blue Saturday morning in early spring, I found myself longing to be outside so headed over to Mount Greylock for a hike up the mountain.This planted a seed w...

  To hear the voice of God in the cries of the suffering. Thomas Keating   Late in his long life the beloved and wise Benedictine monk Thomas Keating was asked, “What is the purpose of life?” With an open tender smile he responded, “Love”.   For Keating and other wisdom teachers who are far along on the spiritual path, this is the kind of open, tender, and compassionate love that we give generously and unconditionally to ourselves and others.   It is love without an agenda or purpose beyond its giving. It is without ego, grasping, or will.   It comes from an inner taproot that draws from the infinite source of divine love which flows through us, gives us life, and is the ground of our being.   I am hardly capable of giving this kind of love. I struggle, as we all do, with small-mindedness, so much fear, and the smallest irritations that nonetheless chafe me raw.   And yet, there are slivers of the immensity of God’s love bubbling through me for mys...

    My mother left her house for her new assisted living apartment and never turned back.   With her declining cognition, her things had become a burden to her. They had lost their meaning and she let is all go.   She left it up to me to decide what to move and what to give away.     While I am grieving her decline, I am in awe of how effortlessly she has let it all go.     It was heartbreaking to pack up and give most of her things away.   While they no longer held any meaning for my mother, for me they resonated with the vibrancy of her former life and were soaked in memory.   There was the dining room table my mother had since she was first married where we celebrated holidays, anniversaries, and birthdays with extended family and friends.   I can see the table now piled with the familiar platters, plates, and bowls overflowing with the foods of my Italian American culture.   The pasta with meatballs, g...