Where is your focus, your focal spot today? Life in 2025 continues to be a dizzying array of change and unexpected events, "trials and tribulation". If the larger field of the nation, world events, or sudden shifting weather patterns are disrupting your plans and overloading your emotions, it's a good day to stop and re-orient, and find a point of spiritual grounding. Consider the parallel of dancers who learn to spin and leap by keeping their eyes, their visual focus, on one fixed spot in the room. As they spin around, they quickly turn their head to find the same visual spot again and again. Amazingly, this focal spot keeps trained muscles sturdy and balance secure. Similarly, in the practice of yoga, a focal point is key to sustaining balance and concentration in holding a pose. In meditation practice, a repetitive mantra, or a visual image, becomes the steadying anchor to the wandering mind. Is there a spiritual focal point in your day? Or are you wobbly, spinning from one feeling state to another, from one wave of worry, or fear, or anger, or sadness, to another. You may have a specific time of spiritual practice like meditation, prayer, or spiritually-based exercise that has a built-in focus, but what about the stretches of daily life and all our interactions in between? Life often offers us a spiritual return-spot to maintain equilibrium, a gentle return of awareness of the spiritual life, embedded in everyday events.
Last night I was cooking a late dinner after a very busy day. It was a simple noodle dish, but it did require boiling the noodles. As I grabbed the pot to rinse them, a cord caught on the edge and the pan flipped, spilling water and noodles everywhere--floor, counter, other ingredients, in a massive mess. I managed to save enough noodles to throw into the meal, but first there was the cleanup. When I finally got the last bit wiped up, I saw that somehow a piece of lettuce had settled on the floor. With a deep sigh of fatigue and resignation, I reached down to pick it up, and suddenly, I remembered a Zen story. There are variations to this gem, but this is the one I recalled: Three Zen Masters were wandering by a river when they saw a perfectly good lettuce leaf floating by. They were quick to critique the wastefulness of the local monastery's cook. Then, they heard movement in the bushes along the shore, and out burst the cook, who exclaimed: "Gotcha!" as he reached into the river and grabbed the leaf. Waving it at the Master monks, he returned to kitchen. The three critics could only bow. And I smiled.
The Zen tale has layered meanings that include the significance of mindfulness, the careful and respectful use of resources, and the inherent value of "This", the true nature and transience of all things. In the mess of my evening, I recovered my 'spot' of larger awareness. Don't let yourself get swept away by the ongoing sensational announcements and heart sinking tragedies of these times. This is not to say we ignore events; we are part of this whole that grapples with shifts, celebrates what we perceive as success, and grieves with losses we cannot fully comprehend. I am saying, though: Don't lose your bearings, stay oriented, shift your focus--in the moment--to that spot of spiritual vision, or that spot of Faith in an over-riding Good, that grounds you. Your focal point, as your find your bearings again and again, nurtures and stabilizes Life around you. Peace is contagious. (Susan Nettleton)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/91718/balance-584ad1d11ff6e https://larrygoodell.blogspot.com/2011/08/focal-point-six-directions-poem.html https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2024/2/12/every-day-as-a-wide-field-every-page-by-naomi-shihab-nye