Yesterday, I went to the Zen Temple for the first time. About a year ago (or more), I started studying Buddhism but this was my first time in a community of Buddhists. I was a little nervous because my only context for spiritual gathering was the Christian tradition and I was afraid I would inadvertently do something offensive. The friend who took me kept telling me, "It's zen, whatever you do is probably the right thing". But my Western mind-set kept me on alert. Procedurally, it was a lot like church, frankly. Meditate, chant, stretch (okay, that part wasn't like church), meditate, stand up, chant, sit down, listen to the teaching, meditate, responsive reading, announcements, leave.

Indeed, I spent the rest of the day quite grounded. A nice feeling when the world is swirling around me.

I was reading over my post from a few days ago and something struck me. While it's true that I am energized by possibilities, I am sometimes paralyzed by uncertainty. Maybe terrified is a better term. My tendency when something is awry is to fix it. I don't suffer well. When something in my life isn't settled, I settle it. Not always in the most healthy or productive way, but at least it's settled and I know what I'm dealing with and can move on from there. It is very unlike me to just "let things unfold", even though I'm sure that is a lesson I should learn. Theoretically, it sounds nice to "observe life unfolding before you", doesn't it? I'm sure it is a virtue, though not one I possess. Having successfully navigated many obstacles in my life, there isn't much that I can't handle once I know what it is. Once identified, I can make plans, sacrifices, whatever to make it work. While it remains unknown, I can't do anything. Except ruminate.

When I'm particularly stressed, I have dreams that I'm homeless. I have for years. Deep down inside, there is a part of me that fears having no safe place to retreat to. There were years and years of my life when that was true -- even "home" wasn't safe. Strangers felt more safe to me than the people I lived with. For at least the past 10 years, my home has been my haven. My physical and emotional safe place. My holy ground.

And I don't know where my home will be a year from now. And there's not a thing I can do to fix it.

It's not about the physical structure my home is in. This is a wonderful house. It's been great to us for the past 5 years. I love its hard wood and natural light. I will have fond memories of it. But I know that walking away from it (and its $3000/mo mortgage) is the right thing to do. A building isn't worth what we'd have to give up to stay in it. A building doesn't make a home. We will create a home in another structure.

More, it's about knowing that I"m losing something and not knowing what will be in its place. Will it be an apartment? A farm? A rental house in the middle of a city? I can handle any of those (at least for a short time in pursuit of a longer-term goal) if I only knew which one I had to handle.

There is a property that I've been looking at for a while now. I've looked at a few, but this one has grabbed & kept my attention. It's 23.5 acres with a nice barn, a chicken coop and a few other outbuildings. There's room for animals (goats? horses?), places to farm (both for the family and commercially if we wanted), a creek running through it and a rolling pasture that would be a great place to plant apple trees, nuts and berries. The house is a DUMP in the truest sense of the word and would need to taken down to studs and rebuilt, but when I look out the back, the sight I see is something I can imagine seeing every morning. I want to live here. And, it's affordable (close to a third of where we currently are). Except for the fact that farm loans only finance at 80%, so I'd have to have somewhere around $25k to make it happen. $35k if I wanted to do a construction loan and include rehabbing the house in the deal. When I started looking, I was thinking $10k. A stretch, but doable. $35k, not exactly doable in any short period of time. They aren't interested in a land contract, either.

So, I struggle to watch the world unfold before me and live in this moment and not the one I wish I was in. The one where I knew that my safe space would be there for me. And I knew that it would be a life-affirming space and not a life-sucking space.

Meanwhile, back on the farm.....

PIGGIES! Lily went in to labor yesterday and delivered one little piggy before midnight who has apparently been named "Easter". I can't help but think her middle name should be "Ham". As of early this morning, there were 2 little piggies and 10 is supposed to be the magic number (or thereabouts). Lily is going to have a long day.