By Jo Mooy
Sometimes when we think we’ve got it all together, trust me—we don’t.
This is a good time to take stock of what happened during the year, to reflect on what you did or didn’t accomplish, and to set goals for the New Year. I do this every December before the winter solstice, the seasonal change that triggers my New Year. When I look back over the 12 months, a pattern emerges that needs tweaking, fixing, or a major course correction. During the annual ritual that ends with a formal meditation, I ask for a single guide word that will govern the next year. To give you an idea of what that means, some of the words in past years were: patience, silence, cadence, courage, perseverance, clarity, grace, etc.
Leading up to the year-end practice, it made sense to do a physical cleaning in preparation for the spiritual one. I decided to clean, dust and vacuum the house. It’s the thorough kind of cleanup where dining chairs are moved so the vacuum gets every crumb from under the table. The dust bunnies in the corners are dislodged with a damp rag. Then, after the big clean and dust, incense is lit to bring a peaceful harmony back into the home space.
A few hours later, it was time to clean the top of the glass dining table with Windex. I picked up the peppermill that was filled to the top with peppercorns. Alas, when I last filled the mill, I didn’t screw the bottom on tightly. As I lifted it, the bottom flew off and hundreds of expensive green, white, black and very rare red Penzey’s Premium Peppercorns went flying out of the bottle. They flew across the dining table, all over the dining room, into the living room, and even a few made their way into the kitchen.
My first verbal reaction, (mind you, with incense harmonizing the house) was: What the %^&$ just happened? It was quickly followed by another string of words that should remain unpublished. The second reaction? Momentary silence. The third reaction? Coming to grips with the fact I’d just wasted an hour vacuuming the whole house and would have to do it again. The fourth reaction? I bent over howling with laughter at how hundreds of tiny peppercorns, the size of BBs, could fly into so many remote parts of the house. Still laughing, I began gathering them up. (Don’t try sweeping, they roll around.) I found them in a glass of water; I found one in the lap of the Green Tara statue; a bunch of them landed on the sofa in the living room; and, two somehow got up in the dining room chandelier.
But, the best reaction was the last one. After sweeping up $55 worth of peppercorns, I had an epiphany. How is it possible to go off the rails so easily over such a tiny mishap of flying peppercorns? With all the meditations, the daily practices, staying away from the news and social media, I still had a reaction that should not have happened. Yet it did.
Sure, I recovered my equanimity in about 15 minutes. But what happened to the teachings on Wu Wei (the art of non-doing)? Where did detachment from outcomes go? How come I didn’t summon the Vajra Dakini powers to stabilize the wild reactions? All that training evaporated quickly in the spontaneous toss of a peppermill filled with peppercorns. If this could happen to me doing practices daily, what about those without any foundation or practices? It was a humbling epiphany.
I sat with the impressions that were left after the sobering thoughts. All was not lost. Yes, I had recovered fairly quickly. But clearly, there was still work to be done if peppercorns threw me for a loop. We all are going to experience ups and downs in life. The world had just gone through a 3-year pandemic that upended normality. The hot planet and heated tempers of the right and left were symptoms only. Peppercorns it turns out were a big “nothing burger!”
I did a mental reset and realized I had to saddle up again and get on with it! I returned to the practices. In a few minutes, the patterns emerged for 2022 and the new word for 2023 floated in. The word is diligence! It means steady, careful and persistent work or effort. It’s a perfect compass for 2023. When you think you’ve got it all together, trust me, you don’t. Peppercorns will teach you otherwise. Diligence now joins the pantheon of words from previous years on the refrigerator.
Jo Mooy has studied with many spiritual traditions over the past 40 years. The wide diversity of this training allows her to develop spiritual seminars and retreats that explore inspirational concepts, give purpose and guidance to students, and present esoteric teachings in an understandable manner. Along with Patricia Cockerill, she has guided the Women’s Meditation Circle since January 2006 where it has been honored for five years in a row as the “Favorite Meditation” group in Sarasota, FL, by Natural Awakenings Magazine. Teaching and using Sound as a retreat healing practice, Jo was certified as a Sound Healer through Jonathan Goldman’s Sound Healing Association. She writes and publishes a monthly internationally distributed e-newsletter called Spiritual Connections and is a staff writer for Spirit of Maat magazine in Sedona. For more information go to http://www.starsoundings.com or email jomooy@gmail.com.