A Tiny Room
Portland has been baking in unusually hot weather. It was over 100 degrees (37.7+ C) here today, for the second day in a row. Tomorrow will be the same. We'll "cool down" to the mid 90s on Thursday. It has been humid as well, 43% humidity at this moment.
I am trying to meet the heat with equanimity and curiosity, but right now my head aches and I feel a little sticky. The upstairs, particularly the bedroom, feels as though it has been transported to India or SE Asia. Tonight sleeping up there will give us practice for visiting those places!
We're trying not to use the small air conditioner units which sit in the window. Cooling the house by opening it up and using fans. We're also spending time down in the basement. I'm practicing gratitude for our spacious home that has a comfortable basement. If it is too unbearable up in the bedroom we can set up to sleep down here, another thing to be grateful for.
The heat affects the air quality which makes my sinuses ache. Between that, the jaw pain (which has improved since my massage therapist worked on it, but is still there), and the allergies irritated by all the dust from moving at the office, my head has had a constant, dull, ache for days now. It does ebb and flow a bit, but there always seems to be some level of headache. It doesn't leave me feeling very focused or productive.
I'll leave off the complaints about the weather & my head and instead post this poem by Hafiz. Chozen read this to us during the Loving-Kindness sesshin in April and it has remained in my mind since.
I Want Both of Us
I want both of us
To start talking about this Great Love
As if You, I and the Sun were all married
And living in a tiny room.
Helping each other to cook,
Do the wash,
Weave and sew
Care for our beautiful
Animals.
We all leave each morning
To labor on the earth’s field.
No one does not lift a great pack.
I want both of us to start singing like two
Traveling minstrels
About this Extraordinary Existence
We Share,
As If,
You, I, and God were all married
And living in
A Tiny
Room
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