Being Bee Balm

being bold, beautiful and outrageous while doing nothing

Good Monday morning!

Needless to say this bee balm caught my attention! There is something that strikes me as almost human about the combination of soft, bright and absolutely outrageous going on here. Usually Monday morning notes starts with a photo from the morning in question, but this one is actually from a few weeks ago. I have chosen it because it resonates with my sensations right now. This morning I am lounging on the porch of friend’s home in St. Johnsbury, Vermont as I digest the last week of travel, meeting old friends and receiving teachings from a Buddhist teacher. I don’t have much to say really, except that I feel this exact combination of strangely soft, undeniably bright and absolutely outrageous.

I feel soft as I appreciate that my body has been through large amounts of change including place, food and weather in this last week. I feel well and I feel changed. I feel soft, tender like the petals at the bottom look; a little ragged but holding their color and their shape for the moment.

I feel bright with the energy of connection, with the gorgeous natural world around me and with the people, some of whom I have known for 30 years or more. This is what I came for. The people are older, grayer, and softer, while the joy and energy of our connection continues to nourish and enliven all of us.

I feel outrageous as I rest with the way I am being changed, allowing myself to take it all in. I am resting with the awareness, not trying to act on anything. I know that usually outrageous is associated with activity, with doing something that someone might call outrageous. In this case, I am being outrageous by resting. Not doing anything. Except this, sharing it with you.

Bold, unusual and startling, that’s the definition of outrageous. It is startling to sit still in the middle of change, to feel movement inside you and around you as you sit. And, notably in our world, in our culture, you must be bold to sit still in the middle of anything. And certainly, sitting still anytime is still pretty unusual.

Being a part of a large group meditating together is always an interesting way to experience the fullness of one’s own mind and life. I say sitting still, but in fact, the only thing that is still is my awareness. The wind is blowing rather continously, sometimes vigorously as we sit at the top of a large hill. And we are swaying in our seats as we chant and sweat in the heat. But my mind is here, flirting with going places and then returning like a hummingbird to a flower, doggedly determined to suck the sweet nectar from the middle of the flower. Here is the nectar.

Here in the middle of summer most of the group is sporting very fine summer plummage. It is hard not to keep looking around and admiring. But instead, I practiced emulating this beautiful bee balm; completely at ease in the midst of a display as fine and as outrageous as anything I could imagine.