As some of ye will be aware, on Monday, there is a group of us starting a 30 day journey to deepen and develop our relationship with Brigid. You can check out more details here. But, I cheated a bit and asked a Day 0 question…
I asked people to think about what a daily spiritual practice means to them. And I started to talk about what it means to me, but then… I needed more space than Facebook gives. So here we are. Now, people who have been reading this blog for a while know that I don’t believe it takes a massive amount of effort to build a daily spiritual practice and it needs to fit in with your life. If your daily spiritual practice is a single deep breath while you get the 3 seconds between one child dropping off to sleep and the next waking up, or if it’s a trip to the toilet during the work day where you look in the mirror and tell yourself “you got this” that’s fine. Honestly – spirituality needs to fit into our lives, not cause more stress and strain.
But I know that when people start thinking about this (for people read: me), their (my) brain goes off in all sorts of different directions. For example, when I look at this, I think of what I’d love to be able to do. I would like to get up in the morning and have a nice relaxing cuppa while leafing through my games on my phone. Then have 20-30 mins meditation, followed by a good half hour of dance or walking in nature. Then a nice relaxing shower, breakfast and out the door. That would all take a good 2 hrs, and frankly my mornings usually go about like this: wake up, leaf through phone, shower, breakfast, what do I have for lunch, out the door. And I really don’t have 2 hrs to get ready in the morning. But when someone says “daily spiritual practice”, this calm, serene, blissful morning comes to mind, even when I know it’s not practical. But you know what might be practical? 5-10 mins meditation. Taking that walk at lunchtime. Prepping clothes and meals the night before to ease the stress in the morning.
And, before I go any further – that’s just me I have to get ready. No kids, no dependents that need to get up and go in the morning. I struggle with just me! But it’s there all the time, it’s a “should” in my life, that I should be doing this cos what else am I doing? Well I’m spending time with my husband. I’m sleeping. I’m dealing with a long commute. Like I said, any spiritual practice has to fit into your life.
But at the same time, when looking at developing a practice, it’s useful to get this ideal out of your head and onto paper (or whatever medium is most useful for you to record thoughts – for me it’s online documents usually, typing is now easier than writing for me!) So there’s a challenge for you – spend a few mins to think about what your ideal daily spiritual practice would look like. What do you think you should be doing? What do you think is absolutely essential? Get all the stuff you feel guilty about not doing out of your head and into some other medium for storage.
And then, put it away for 30 days or a month. Trust me! If you want to join us on our 30 day journey with Brigid, you’re more than welcome, but even if you don’t – put that away and out of your head for a month and then come back to you and start looking at how practical it is and what might be doable in your life!
I sing in the morning and then a brief prayer
Each morning, I face the sun (or where the sun probably is behind the clouds), take off my hat and lower it (even in Minnesota in February), and simply say the traditional morning greeting/prayer: “Soilse na gréine linn inniu.” Stop a moment, feel the sun on my face, take a deep breath. Often turn around and pick up dog poop but I still have that moment.