Getting Cooked

"Who are you without your story?" Luke from the Yoga Workshop was inquiring to us in the corpse pose last week.

"The universe is conspiring to wake you up. All you have to do is listen."

I just finished a weekend meditation retreat Shamatha Style. After hours of sitting I would contemplate these questions.
Who?
I felt like I was slowly being cooked by Grandfather time. Just sitting there in the fire and feeling my hair turn grey. At times I was elated at how easy and pleasant it felt. At times I felt like I was in the center of the inferno... wanting to get up and run out of the eerily still room. Many times I fell asleep and almost hit the person in front of me. At times I experienced the emptiness and deep relaxation that comes when the emotions, body, brain hemispheres and ambition- align and rest- in timeless stillness (but not much).
Slowly cooking, and wondering, what is the thing that cooks time?

So I asked myself, who am I when I have no arms and legs to move? When I have no wilderness to roam in and captivate my senses? Who am I when I have no one to talk to and no one who thinks I am anything? Where is my spine anyways? What makes this skeleton, encased in flesh and muscles, breathe and think and feel? And love?

The universe is conspiring in it's myriad forms to wake us up.

So I just listened and came to terms that I may never know... and I felt like after two days I was just opening up. Like a bud just starting to curl it's petals shyly towards the brilliant sun, reaching out to grow.
I guess I'll have to wait for the Vipassana in August to get roasted a little more.

Other than a sore bum life is incredibly intriguing and having Sonnie here is like the cherry on top.
This weekend we are hoping to climb something around here.
Some pics of this beautiful town.
Lydia