I acted hastily this week, as I often do.
Interacting with the world without mindfulness frequently leads me to opportunity for apology, loss of -or damage to- personal property and the need to redo tasks. I am aware of this, and in the last few years I have slowed down significantly. That said, just last week upon leaving one of my favorite clogs in an Argentine hotel, I was witness to the mental beating I still give myself for being careless .
Why are you so careless?!
Why can’t you slow down?!
What’s wrong with you?!
What if I had simply felt grief over losing a beautiful gift I bought myself while pregnant with my last child? Was the mental tongue-lashing necessary?
Witnessing the self-judgment of my carelessness, I began setting intentions for my first waning moon altar, an assignment for an Earth medicine class I’m taking. This altar was to be built as the moon ebbed from fullness with the intention to let something go. I knew exactly what I wanted to release: the habitual, repetitive thoughts I have that don’t serve me—thoughts of the aforementioned judgmental variety.
Skip ahead.
I arrived from our travels a bit frenzied and frazzled, knowing I had many projects to do for aforementioned class, one of which required a small piece of animal hide. I sat down at the computer to start knocking out my tasks and opened the class discussion. There I discovered that a group from class had secured a deerskin on Etsy and that the tanner was waiting for one more person to purchase the last bit of hide before sending out the pieces. Bingo! I hopped onto Etsy and bought it, feeling proud that I’d both helped the group and was one step closer to completing my assignment.
The next day I opened the class discussion board to a string of new posts. Turned out there was a waiting list for the hide, and I had jumped right to the front of the line. I hadn’t taken the time to read the whole thread. I hadn’t checked in with the person organizing. I had stolen the hide right out from under someone else’s fingertips. I had acted mindlessly once again.
This was the perfect scenario for me to start in with the self-abuse. But the weird thing is, I didn’t. Instead of berating, disciplining and spending a bunch of time in my head, I immediately promised to make things right. I located the women next on the list and sent her an email promising to send her the hide as soon as it arrived in my mailbox.
And then it was done.
I didn’t waste any energy judging, spinning or punishing myself for being careless or getting angry at her for procrastinating and “causing” my mistake. I was aware of how strange this behavior was for me. I was aware of how whole and grounded I felt. Was the yet to be put together altar already changing my patterns?
Later that evening the experience was still sinking in when I picked up a book and the prologue opened with this Rumi quote:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. I realized that by not engaging with ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing I had saved myself a whole lot of time and mental energy. I had gone beyond judgement to the field of belonging, to the place where making mistakes was irrelevant, to the place where who had the deerskin didn’t matter, to the place where each other didn’t make any sense.
I savored the moment of the period landing at the end of my lesson’s sentence. I savored the guidance and playful support I felt from the universe. I savored the magic and power I felt simply preparing mentally for the altar.
I awoke the next morning, built the altar and then opened an e-mail of gratitude from the woman to whom I would be forwarding the etsy package. Under her signature line was the quote:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.