Tag: creative non-fiction

 

I want renunciation.

And this is a shocking thing to say – even to myself – as just a couple of months ago I saw renunciation as following a long list of rules that force one to give up everything fun or pleasurable.

That isn’t renunciation at all actually.
That’s forcing.

And I recently I let go of my attachment to completing all 30 books report by the deadline.  Not giving up, but detached from the outcome.  Transforming it from a to-do list item to part of my life’s work.

Spiritual teacher and pioneer in bringing yoga to the West, Swami Radha, says that renunciation cannot be forced.  You can be very determined but the cucumber will only drop from the vine when its ripe.[1]

And as the burdens I have carried for far too long begin to fall away it’s an indescribable feeling of freedom.  It’s the feeling of flying down a hill on my bicycle.  It’s the feeling of a bird flying quickly through the forest.  Darting in and out through the tangle of branches.  Fast, focused and free.

And I want more.

So my work is ripening the cucumbers – which as a gardener I know is both a complicated and simple thing to do.  The main ingredient is time but the cucumber will not make it at all if the seed is not planted or if there isn’t day to day care.

And as I tend the burdens in my life – giving them water and love – and wait for their time to ripen – I am learning to be like that bird.

I am learning to be free.