Errors are Desirable

       "If you could give me advice about how to live my life, what would it be?"  The question arrived by email from my son last year and. in some ways, took over my life.  Here is the next page of my answer.
        Error is the first word in the quote from Ulysses and ironically (or, should I say, truthfully) the quote is in error.  I copied it from a secondary source without checking.  So my quote welcoming in errors is itself an error.  Life is so much fun if you pay attention!
        Now, I don't have a copy of Ulysses (and don't want to read it right now anyway) but from several sources on the web, I found this 'A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.'
       Interestingly enough, for my purposes, the misquote works better.  I don't think my son sees himself as a 'man of genius' so might just dismiss the idea as inapplicable.
       I just love the idea that errors are desirable.  In the TV show The Dog Whisperer each time the dog does an undesirable behavior, the host, Ceasar Millan, would say good.  He saw each moment as a teaching moment.  If the dog only behaved well around him, the visit would be completely wasted.  It's just like I tell my yoga students, pain can be a good thing because it tells you when to stop.
          The other errors on this page are legion.  It is the second thing I have drawn since what feels like kindergarten (remember how I talked about imbalance last week?).  Freeing up the hand and wrist, so comfortable in the structure a yoga arm balance, to move fluidly on the page was just not gonna happen.  I also had this idea that the walls had to be straight and the barrel vault circular so I traced something round (can't remember what) and used a ruler.  The result is fairly rigid, but I figure I have years of ugly drawings waiting to be released from me.  It should be interesting.
          I haven't looked at the page since I drew it mid June, so about a month and a half.  In opening the book today I found I really liked it.  Errors really are the portals to discovery after all.

When Life Catches Up to You

     There I was.... a good idea, a blank page and a (really) bad mood.
(Editor's note: if this ever gets published you know it is an act of Divine Providence.  Look what's sitting on my keyboard. Don't believe the guilty look on her face, she loves messing with me.  Meet Joy, the cat who owns the house we live in.  Hopefully with a bit of attention and appeasement I'll get the keyboard back.  Back to our originally scheduled programming.)
     I just wasn't willing to wait for the inner sunshine to break out, so I prayed for things to go well (the prayer on the inner cover) and dove into the Bible.  Where better to get life advice?
        In browsing through the psalms, number 99 struck me.  It just seemed right.  As I was copying it, I kept second guessing myself.  I made enough errors that I had to rip out the first page of my project.  Who came up with this psalm anyway?  I persevered, copied the darn thing, and put the book away for a week.
      When I came back to it later it seemed to fit my son perfectly.  It feels right again.

       Filling the blank space at the bottom was quite a task.   I knew what I wanted but have absolutely no drawing skills.  That is one of the purposes of this book. After all how do you get to Carnegie Hall?   Practice!
       The idea came from a blank day.  How often does that happen? The calendar was completely blank.  No husband, no kids, only the cat.  I had no idea what to do with myself.
As I meditated on this feeling of rootlessness I realized that the feeling was based on imbalance, both in my past and my present.
        I always used how I was serving others to order my day.  Running the boys to and from school, going to speech meets, making dinner, shopping, errands- these things do not a life make.  They are clutter.  Important clutter if you like to eat dinner and have a family, but they distracted me from the inner balance needed to set order to a day completely alone.
        If imbalance in life hurts, what does that look like?  I drew up several scientific balances, three chain configurations (and three types of chains).  The break in the word was obvious (im-balance, I mean, how imbalanced is that, right?)  The little crushed guy was my favorite part.  He just looks so surprised that life caught up with him.
       What did I do with my blank day?  Spent some time in Kindergarten, taking my crayons back.  It was great fun.  Go get some of your own and restore a bit of balance.

(Editors final note (I promise!)  Now we know God is real. Joy moved to her bed and is continuing to sleep even as I write this.  And there was great rejoicing...)

Begin All Things with Thought and Grace

   So, after a long hiatus, I'm back. It wasn't a case of writer's block.  In the blogger archives I have 19 unpublished posts and my journals are full, but somehow the material felt more personal, less something to share.  Also, my life has really changed in the past year.  My younger son is in college year round and my older one graduated and has a job in another city.
      I look at this time as a great exhale.  In yoga I teach to exhale first, making room for the air you want to inhale. Relax first, then engage the muscles you'd like to use. It has been strange watching this in my life.  The old  things are slowly moving out, revealing lots of interior work to be done, but also making room for the new.  It gives me the time to do some things I have always wanted to do like going on retreat.
      Retreats are like meditation, they make your life so much better, but it is so easy to put it off to some later time, some time when I have nothing to do...  In May I went on an art retreat at St. Meinrad's Archabbey. It was wonderful and is bearing interesting fruit. The first fruit is the journal you see in the picture.  It is a compendium of quotes, poems, psalms and life lessons.
      Last fall I received an email from my younger son forwarding a reddit post about the 25 things I wish my parents had told me.  He asked if we had anything to add.  I thoroughly enjoyed the post, but didn't feel like I had anything to contribute.  When I saw the notebook in the gift shop at St. Meinrad's in May, I realized my contribution just needed a different format, a journal not just an email.
      A few weeks ago I showed the beginnings to him and he recommended that I add the creation of the pages and notes to my blog, so here it is:

        The fox on the cover captured my imagination.  On Memorial Day, my son and I were walking through Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.  Spending time together on Memorial Day got us both thinking about who we are and how we move in the world.  My son said the animal that best expressed his energy was a fox.  He is friendly, playful, and a bit tricksy.  As his friends would say, he's a "terrible person." In their parlance, someone that is fun to hang out with.

    On the inside cover is the best piece of advice anyone can receive.  "Every time you begin a good work, you must pray to Him most earnestly to bring it to perfection." Rule of St. Benedict prologue.
      Written over 1500 years ago, the Rule outlines how to live in community and it is still followed by monasteries around the world.  With this kind of testing for my first bit of advice, how could I go wrong?  Begin all things with thought and grace, allowing God to work through you to bring the work to its fullness. May this work be blessed and provide guidance.