Dear Zen Family,
As we enter the last week of our dip towards the bottom of our annual see-saw of light and darkness, I remember the wonderful sensation of pushing with my strong young-girl legs, hanging on to the wood handle bar, leaning back a little, feeling the ground and looking to the sky, long pigtails swinging behind, to head back up towards the dizzy top, and I feel ready—ready to enjoy the bump at the bottom and the pushing off from there.
This year, right next to the grief of terrible losses—and a sometimes anguished longing for us humans to get our heads on straight and become what we can become while yet we can—I notice a deep-seated wonder about the long nights, and the short days. The night is fascinating to me in a new way, full of the wonder of being “clothed in darkness,” me and everything else together. And the days, with their attenuated quality of light, seem so much less sure of themselves—not so quick to assert their domination, somehow.
And of course it’s a time to look back and look forward, here at the bottom of the see-saw’s arc. And what I’m seeing behind and ahead, for our sangha, is also a matter of some wonder! We are a small group, and yet we do a great deal to support the Zen practice of members, friends, and visiting strangers, day in and day out through the year. I’m including a link to my summary of Springs Mountain Sangha’s, and also specifically of my own, activities over the course of 2015. I hope you’ll look at it and say, with me, “Wow! Look what we’ve offered!”
I want you to know, also, that I am deeply touched and grateful for the support that your dana, your practice of generosity, makes possible for my work. It matters a great deal. I could not serve as your resident teacher without this support. Thank you, thank you, many times over.
Here, also, is a link to our sangha plan for 2016. Again, it’s a very full plan! It will stretch us, both in terms of the time and energy to offer the retreats and classes we have in store, and in terms of the deepening of practice it will invite. I hope that you will, again, think that this project of awakening is something you want to support with your time, your engagement, and your resources.
May the darkness shine for you in this season of wondering and of wonder. May your heart open, and open, and open again to everything, even so; may your eye clear, may your hand reach out of its own, and may you always be ready to meet this life that is sustaining and challenging you always, moment by moment by moment.
With love and gratitude,
Sarah Bender