{"id":2265,"date":"2012-01-13T08:55:23","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T13:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=2265"},"modified":"2020-01-15T20:02:07","modified_gmt":"2020-01-16T01:02:07","slug":"live-in-a-way-that-does-no-harm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=2265","title":{"rendered":"Live in a Way that Does No Harm"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m feeling tired & discouraged.\u00a0 I remind myself that I just read a piece on Deena Metzger\u2019s blog<\/a>.\u00a0 She talks about living in such a way that you do no harm to the world.\u00a0 I can\u2019t possibly do that.\u00a0 I can\u2019t walk to Neskaya most of the time, and I couldn\u2019t possibly walk to Mac\u2019s.\u00a0 I\u2019ve thought about a bike but my one attempt to ride one was really difficult.\u00a0 I do my best to eat organic and local, especially organic meat.\u00a0 But I\u2019m dependent on other people using fossil fuel just for something as basic as food.\u00a0 I think if I were truly going to live a life that does no harm, I\u2019d have to walk out into the woods on a below zero night.\u00a0 I did think of doing tonglen for all the people out there who feel as discouraged and tired as I do.\u00a0 Breathe it in, and breathe out warmth, compassion, and permission to rest.<\/p>\n

Tonglen is a Buddhist practice<\/a> of breathing in your own pain, and the pain of all others who feel that way, and breathing out comfort.\u00a0 I wasn’t able to do it until I had healed a lot from PTSD.<\/p>\n

(1\/13\/12)\u00a0 typed that up and posted it as a draft on Wednesday.\u00a0 Yesterday I got very depressed.\u00a0 A long talk with a friend did not dispel it.\u00a0 I was fine while talking to her, but fell back into cold grey bleakness as soon as I hung up.\u00a0 That\u2019s the first time that\u2019s happened in a long while.\u00a0 Since I\u2019ve been so much better, a talk with a friend has been able to bring me out of it almost every time.
\nWhen I got to massage I told Cory I was depressed.\u00a0 She suggested I surround it with warmth.\u00a0 O gosh I know that.\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been treating it like an unwelcome guest. (Thank you, God, for friends who know what to say!)\u00a0 So I made the inner gesture of softness and love, and there was an 8-yr-old girl, crying her eyes out.\u00a0 Alone.\u00a0 So I put my arms around her and told her it was OK to cry.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what it was about, and that\u2019s OK.\u00a0 Then it came to me that there were two reasons to be depressed that I had written about, but I hadn\u2019t let myself mourn.\u00a0 Understanding that shifted the depression to grief.
\nAfter supper I called Pat.\u00a0 I told her about Deena Metzger\u2019s blog piece where she says it\u2019s not possible to live without doing harm to the earth and its creatures, but that\u2019s what she wants to do.\u00a0 I did the thing of explaining why I couldn\u2019t do that, but hadn\u2019t let myself mourn that I had to live in a way that harmed the earth and its creatures.\u00a0 While talking to Pat I remembered the relief I felt when I was at Findhorn<\/a>, and saw all the marked bins under the counter.\u00a0 Of course.\u00a0 It\u2019s not possible to live in a way that does the least harm unless you live in a community that lives that way.\u00a0 I was laying the expectation on myself that I live up to that standard all by myself.\u00a0 I think the people who even come close to that are young, strong, able to build, and garden, and bike, and living in a climate that does not contain New England winters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m feeling tired & discouraged.\u00a0 I remind myself that I just read a piece on Deena Metzger\u2019s blog.\u00a0 She talks about living in such a way that you do no harm to the world.\u00a0 I can\u2019t possibly do that.\u00a0 I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-depression","category-spirit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}