Discernment

I love my altar. It’s filled with oodles of meaningful things. The shells I collected for a friend who passed. Ganesh statue of course. Books. Photos of my husband and children. Mala beads my teacher gave me. Incense ash. My altar holds plants too.

This past weekend I acquired a new one. I love going to Bailey’s on Sunday morning to walk amongst the plants, smell the freshly baked bread, and pick out cheese and vegetables. I came home with a Calathea Zebrina. She’s a small little plant that requires low light. She has deep green leaves with lighter shades of green stripes. She looks like a zebra.

I carefully re-potted her into a beautiful white pot and placed her on my altar. The next day I found her severely drooping so I put her outside in the shade. Maybe she needed fresh air. Maybe she needed to be around other plants. Yet she wasn’t responding. So I researched her and found out something most curious. During the day she droops. By late afternoon she perks up. For the next few days I watched her. Every morning she was ready and by mid morning she was listless and by evening ready again.

What I appreciate about her is that she doesn’t play along. She doesn’t care what the other plants do. She lives according to what she knows to be true.

Recently I’ve had to put to test what I know to be true. Someone crossed my boundaries and then continued to cross those boundaries. This person took my small act of kindness over the years and used it against me to pressure me to engage. Feeling as though I owed them something because of their suffering. I know when I’m being cornered. Forced to respond. Manipulated through flattery. I also know the numerous encounters felt deeply disturbing.  I can have compassion for those that suffer yet eviscerate when angered but I try not to get there too quickly.

I may be a teacher of yoga and a therapist. It’s not how I define myself. I’m my own person. That’s it. This encounter taught me that I don’t need to show up in kindness when my boundaries have been crossed. Ever. I reserve the right to never engage, forgive or owe an explanation for why or how I came to my decisions. My life, experiences, and work have taught me to listen to my inner wisdom, my discernment.