Walking back to the car in the mild December evening with the stars emerging as the clouds dispersed, a haloed moon and no hurry or stress at all.

What a blessing!

I’m now the proud possessor of 19 new college credits to go with the old 24 from the past. AND a 4.0 average!

Yes, I’m proud — even though I minimize it to myself because it was all easy stuff, first semester, things I already know, blah, blah, blah….

But still, 19 credits represented a good workload for someone getting into the groove 40 years after high school.

What does it say about me, though, that the thing I’ve been gnawing on most of the day is the fact that I totally tanked my Algebra final — I mean totally — with a 66. I knew I was having an off day from the minute I sat down, and I completely misjudged what to spend my review time covering. My lousy showing wasn’t enough to undo the consistent high A from the other tests and grades, but still…. I feel a bit ashamed.  For Pete’s sake, I have a 4.0 average, so why doesn’t that outweigh the sense of failure at blowing one solitary exam?

Human nature continues to fascinate, doesn’t it?

Pondering gratitude led me back here to my blog.

I’ve been so gratified that people like my writing, and moved by some of the comments I’ve received, both on the blog itself and “live,” as it were.

In spite of the connotations the Pilgrims have come to have for me as an adult (destroying the indigenous population, repressive views, misogynist beliefs and destruction of the habitat — to name a few things), the concept of gathering together to feast and give thanks remains a beautiful one, worthy of honor.

So I honor gratefulness itself today, and will let Osho Transformation Tarot share its wisdom on this subject. This is a different deck from the same folks to produce the beautiful Osho Zen deck. Very different, but lovely in its own way.  Here’s gratitude:

A night without lodging

The moment one is capable of feeling grateful for both pain and pleasure, without any distinction, without any choice, simply feeling grateful for whatsoever is given… Because if it is given by God, it must have a reason in it. We may like it, we may not like it, but it must be needed for our growth.

Winter and summer are both needed for growth. Once this idea settles in the heart, then each moment of life is of gratitude. Let this become your meditation and prayer: thank God every moment–for laughter, for tears, for everything. Then you will see a silence arising in your heart that you have not known before. That is bliss.

The first thing is to accept life as it is. Accepting it, desires disappear. Accepting life as it is, tensions disappear, discontent disappears; accepting it as it is, one starts feeling very joyful–and for no reason at all!

When joy has a reason, it is not going to last long. When joy is without any reason, it is going to be there forever. It happened in the life of a very famous Zen woman. Her name was Rengetsu…. Very few women have attained to the Zen ultimate. This one is one of those rare women.

She was on a pilgrimage and she came to a village at sunset and begged for lodging for the night, but the villagers slammed their doors. They were against Zen. Zen is so revolutionary, so utterly rebellious, that it is very difficult to accept it. By accepting it you are going to be transformed; by accepting it you will be passing through a fire, you will never be the same again. Traditional people have always been against all that is true in religion. Tradition is all that is untrue in religion. So those must have been traditional Buddhists in the town, and they didn’t allow this woman to stay in the town; they threw her out.

It was a cold night, and the old woman was without lodging, and hungry. She had to make her shelter underneath a cherry tree in the fields. It was really cold, and she could not sleep well. And it was dangerous too–wild animals and all. At midnight she awoke–because of too much cold–and saw, in the night sky, the fully-opened cherry blossoms laughing to the misty moon. Overcome with the beauty, she got up and bowed down in the direction of the village, with these words:

Through their kindness in refusing me lodging I found myself beneath the blossoms on the night of this misty moon… She feels grateful. With great gratitude she thanks those people who refused her lodging; otherwise she would be sleeping under an ordinary roof and she would have missed this blessing–these cherry blossoms, and this whispering with the misty moon, and this silence of the night, this utter silence of the night. She is not angry, she accepts it. Not only accepts it, welcomes it–she feels grateful.

One becomes a buddha the moment one accepts all that life brings, with gratitude.

I love knitting for a cause — it may just be me trying to justify an obsession, er, hobby. But it makes it more special to me: giving the goods away, and at the same time making a statement about my beliefs.

As my mother might have said (if she’d thought of it), Knit up, or shut up.

I’ve been in school, getting that rhythm back after 20 or more years. I’ve been struggling to learn to live on less while still feeding my raging yarn and knitting obsession.

I’ve given up Farmville but am firmly in the grasp of a Zuma Blitz blitz.

I’m knitting hats for the local folks from Occupy Wall Street — Occupy Asheville is a pretty mobile group and it’s getting cold out there (it was 28 degrees in Asheville this morning, which is ridiculous for the south on November 1st).

What else….

I fell — a little over a week ago, and slammed my knee HARD. The bruising and swelling is finally going down. It was a reminder of how bad my walking ability was a year ago, and how far I’ve come back to better health.

Swimming!! I joined the gym and starting doing mild water workouts. I’m really enjoying it, though I no longer can do the hot tub because of leg circulation impairment. Still, a hot shower gets rid of most of the sore muscles. The water is a blessing for me: I feel weightless and graceful, and can float and bob effortlessly. I do a lot of treading water and just paddling around. Keep moving is my main rule.

I keep moving in other ways too. The deep wounds of losing my job — being laid off with no warning at all — still resonate in me. I am moving forward into this new life, but I am still troubled with some fairly obsessive thinking about the old job and what happened. Since I know there answers that will change anything, I turn my thoughts as soon as I can. In the meantime, I try to hold them lightly… and let them drift away on the currents of the water as I swim… so I just keep swimming.

Office supplies line the shelves of Walmart, Dollar Stores, and office supply warehouses, a bit like the specialized gear to handout to our troops. The trappings for the mission must be just right; the pencil-case Ms. B requires; the 3-ring graph paper Mr. X insists upon. Oh the glories of new school supplies!

I’m buying my books tomorrow.  I have a list and comfy shoes to brave the line. I also have a voucher, which is part that intimidates me a little.  Will it work? or will I be embarrassed, having to scramble around, getting in touch with Job Link, trying to stay cooled out. At least I’ll have some leeway before my first class on Wednesday.

Can you tell I’m excited? I keep hearing the bit from You’ve Got Mail, When Tom Hanks writes to Meg Ryan that he’d like to “buy her a bouquet of sharpened pencils.” Sigh.

A new school year: still full of promise and butterflies in the stomach; the sense of purpose and the dread of boredom or bewilderment. A truly human experience. I can’t wait.

Car problems!

The very phrase strikes terror in my heart. I hate car problems. Despise, abhor, abominate, detest, and a zillion other thesaurus entries.  Hate, hate, hate!  I mean, seriously, are we clear on this?

Yet, none of us who drive are immune to them.

And — my car is still actually running. I will be able to drive it to the car place in the morning. I will be able to sit in comfort while they look at it, or avail myself of their lovely shuttle service home. I even have the funds to pay for almost any repair (and boy do I send up a prayer in gratitude for that fact)!

Still, the thought of repairs drags me down, makes me want a long nap. Makes me want to sleep through the snooze bar and ignore the whole world. Too many years of NOT being able to pay for a big repair…. of waiting around greasy, smelly too hot, too cold hard chaired, or no chaired, repair shops.

And, remember when sitting at the mechanic’s meant you were out of touch? I have the choice of my Kindle, my cellphone, my netbook, my knitting… you get the picture. They have complimentary coffee and varied snack machines. Wireless, for Pete’s sake. I need to do some serious attitude adjustment about this. But in the mean time, the entire mess just makes me exhausted.

From the Osho Zen Tarot website on “Exhaustion”:

I actually think I drew this card once before… it’s possible (sorry — couldn’t resist).

It’s also incredibly appropriate for my life right now. Though I feel a bit more like the eagle’s potential prey: frozen in place.

What a view. What a multitude of fields and peaks, hidden valleys and coves. Sunrise or Sunset? So many choices. So much potential.

I’ve thought a lot about the experience of excitement, and it’s close connection with the experience of fear. It’s mostly how we choose to interpret our bodies’ signals. My heart pounds, my palms sweat, my breath comes faster and rougher. Am I scared or excited? One feels so bad, one so good….

Here is a choice point in all the possibilities. I can choose which feelings I put more energy into. I can feed one possibility above others, and increase the chances of that one coming to fruition. Do I want to feed the fear?   No! 

So I slow my breathing, center and ground myself, and open to the other feelings available to me. Ah, there it is, a squiggle of excitement, a snippet of joy, a sigh of bliss…. all available, all different possible futures.  What will I pick?

This is no small accomplishment — everyone knowns that getting a new piece of morning ritual in place takes some doing. I felt a little smug about it. I have friends who have been serious about their practice for years, and yet find the morning time to be the most challenging for them.

Removing as many barriers as possible between me and my new practice meant I needed an easy timer of some kind to signal that I was “done.”

Lest I continue to take myself too seriously, I selected my new meditation tool with special care:

Take that ego! You’ll find me and my new bunny egg timer in my rocking chair again tomorrow morning.  Maybe tomorrow’s mantra should be “What’s Up Doc?”