A Month of Fridays continued...

Friday, January 7, 2011 - Please note date - this, like most posts until Sept. 10th, will be recycled as I continue to try and finish the current revision. - Hey! I was working on it back in January too. Yikes.

Friday Challenge

You can't imagine how quickly and how nicely I have gotten my room together! It is really pleasant. My desk is clean and my copy of True sits in two piles as I enter my revision changes. I have my white cup with blue letters spelling CHAP on one side and a pennant with the number 5 on the other. it   Rod MacLean, the complicated, difficult and lovely guy who taught me and many others how to be gestalt therapists, gave it to me many years ago. In a former life, Rod was a Navy Chaplain. Rod died a few years ago and so this is even more of keepsake and I wouldn't have a desk without it full of pens that don't write, etc... Also there is another container for pens, an old sugar bowl with the loveliest shape and flowers on it - flowers the colours of this office, rusty orange and golden yellow.

There are differences because of having Felix live here for four months. I kept the bed as I like to have a retreat from certain snorers and it is nice not to be banished to the basement where it once was. It means the room can double as a guest room when needed - which won't be often - for we find more and more, like us, people want to sleep in their own dear beds! Yay getting old. I only have one desk and one bookcase here - before there were two of each. And I have slightly different things on the walls - less clutter so the treasures can be seen.
Don't think there isn't lots to be done - oh my goodness - I have all sorts of books to bring back up the stairs and files and stuff to sort. That seems endless.
But right now - when I am doing this last revision before the first readers it is a heavenly place to be. Calm, good.

My challenge, dear readers, is for you to make an oasis where you can create. Perhaps you are neatniks and already have a perfectly organized space - then you can spend a bit of time making sure that when your eyes leave the screen they have something pleasant to look at - a photo of a waterfall, an old mustard jar with classic proportions, a little white wooden rabbit that peeks at you encouragingly as you work. If you have too many thingys vying for your attention spend a bit of time figuring out how you might rotate them - not everything has to be out all the time. Clean your space, brighten it up. Even if your space is a corner of the dining room table - make a tray with the things on it you need and that inspire you.

In Buddhist lingo -  the drala - the helpful energy of where you are. Here is something from the Shambhala Training Glossary (that the lovely folks from the Seattle Shambhala Centre created )on external drala:

External Drala: "Invoking magic in your physical environment; how you organize and care for your space is creating harmony in your environment in order to encourage awareness and attention to detail, promoting the discipline of warriorship." (pg 109)