How To Keep Your Balance (and an important operational update)
There’s a Scottish mountain biker named Danny MacAskill whose skills I admire. To be clear, I’m not delusional enough to try to emulate him. It’s appreciation at a great distance. (For that string of sentences to truly make sense, check out this link to view a very fun doc about a project of his centred around doing wheelies with a bunch of kids). At the heart of MacAskill’s skill set is balance – absurd, outrageous, works-different-for-you-than-
Even if we’re not stunt cyclists, basic physical balance is essential. We couldn’t get around without it, and when it stops working well we notice. Internal balance, though less visible, is just as necessary. It’s what keeps us moving forward as people, and also helps us stay out of metaphorical ditches and avoid crashing head-on into obstacles (including other people) that would be better navigated in other ways. It’s also an important aspect of our spiritual lives, and shows up in most enduring spiritual traditions and philosophies. This Sunday (when we meet at VA Cafe at 10:45 am), we’ll take time to check in with one another and then start an exploration of a particular aspect of balance that I’ll refer to as Equanimity. I’m really looking forward to both parts of our gathering! We’ll live stream that gathering here and put up a podcast of the Talky Bit here.
On the operational front, we’ve been helped out financially through the summer (always a challenging season, right up there with January) by a generous donation from outside the community. However, as we head into the fall we are running low on funds. If giving financially to keep The Table going is something you are able to do, and perhaps something that has been “out-of-sight / out-of-mind” over the past few months, this would be a good time to re-engage. Honestly, I don’t enjoy talking about the money part of community life, but I do cherish the unique space for exploration that The Table offers, and this is part of that. So…thanks for giving this request your consideration. More detailed information on ways to give (including etransfer and Paypal), can be found here.
I’ll see you on Sunday