You’re reading Softening Time, a newsletter on practice, learning and listening. Explore my books, courses and artwork. Feel free to give a gift subscription, subscribe, or leave a comment as a paid subscriber. If you have financial restriction, please reach out regarding scholarship subscriptions.
On New Years Eve, you’re invited to a virtual gathering to close the year together and open a new field of fresh, wise hope. Bring your art supplies, pens, journal, paper; Zoom link coming to you in next week’s post.
December 31st, 10am Eastern, 3pm UK, 4pm EU, 7am Pacific, 8am Mountain.
Closing out 2022, an unexpectedly humbling sewing project was completed at my dining room table. A rakusu is a detailed, hand-sewn representation of my commitment to the Zen Buddhist Precepts, and I took out rows (that means hours) of stitching more than once.
First quarter of this year, the antidote: weeks of art, illustrating and commenting on each Precept for my gloss. In the wee hours of the morning, collaging, watercolors, markers, delicious pens, full-on. When I couldn’t articulate how a Precept was coming through, I’d just sit super still for an hour and feel into things. Taking study seriously feels delicious for me.
Inward I went for the month of January: Winter Practice Period, steeped in the Zen schedule. Sitting, walking, stretching. Reading, cleaning, resting. Listening, learning, repeating. Quietest I’ve ever been, eight days of sesshin, serving oryoki in the zendo with kneepads on. The nourishment and challenge of facing myself led in many wondrous directions this year, and the travel from outward to inward and back was a real thing.
Immersed myself in tea study with a dear teacher I’ve admired for more than a decade, to learned how to respect and serve tea, finally. Still fumbling as I serve myself and my tea siblings, learning every day.
Began offering yoga and meditation at the Level II Men’s Penitentiary through Upaya’s Street Ministry, which opened another new world to me; serving the gentle, healing men is a real blessing for them and me equally.
March arrived, I took to the hills of Costa Rica to write, many adventures inward: feet tucked beneath me on my chair during a hermit crab invasion, howler monkeys carrying their babies on their backs, which I could watch for hours. I wrote and wrote, tossing much of it, saving it for later. Looking back on the book’s discards, I can feel my humanity, my earnest love of study; the book you’ll read next isn’t a scholarly pursuit. It’s my process of coming home to myself, and I cannot wait to share it with you.
Somehow during this interval, my own baby grew to six feet two, settled on going to college next year. Still wondering how and when he grew up, and if we did alright by him. Knowing from his warm smile and the way he says “Yes, Ma’am” every now and again when he needs something that all is well, but still. Page below (forgive me) is from my dorky, treasured scrapbook of his first two years, back when we still printed photographs and glued them in, circa 2006. The cheeks.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Softening Time with Elena Brower to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.