In a previous post, I wrote ‘more about biking later,’ or some such. And then I never delivered what I’d promised. Well here ya go.

Last summer, I started riding my bike. I’d bought this bike, especially made for women supposedly, … about 9 years ago. I rode it once. Yes. Once. Until last summer.

My goal? Be fit enough to ride my bike to work. I rode around a school that’s nearby to my house, and increased the number of times I rode around it, until finally I branched out and rode farther distances. It was a free feeling, kindof like learning to drive for the first time. A bit of ‘hey I can do this’ and ‘I can do this with my own muscles;’ almost like survivalism: I can get places on my own gumption, or rumblegumption.*

Then. The school year started… actually it started before it started, for us new employees, with lots of trainings. Then scheduling scheduling scheduling and figuring out everything from scratch, until our collective brains died. Then kids started coming and then two of them started blowing up (behavior wise). Now things have settled down quite a bit (knock on wood). Suffice to say.. since I’ve been in my own little hurricane, I haven’t ridden my bike, and haven’t done many other things that feed my soul, like seeing friends.

I hope to do so again soon, and make it a habit again.

Now.. as the title promised you.. for the spiritual side. I wrote recently that I need to jump start my spiritual side again. It has kinda.. died. And it needs a revival (no, not the tent kind. The defribillator kind. “Clear!”)

Well.. oddly enough (I’m not used to this), my new school has a book study group, focusing on a book that includes meditation. (The Book is called The Inner Matrix, By Joey Klein.) And when we meet and talk about what we’ve read, we meditate in the classroom that we meet in. Be still my pagan heart! Am I not the only Pagan oriented type at this school?

Anyway, I’ve been in a mode of surviving just a day at a time, with barely planning ahead for lessons and such. (Picture: staying up til 11 pm refiguring visual schedules for a kid with behaviors rather than planning what I’ll teach, then getting up at 5:30 am, day after day.) It’s been gradually getting better: things are settling down and I’ve been able to plan some. As a result, I’ve had to skim the book for the book club and I haven’t been doing the book club homework: meditate daily for 20 minutes, and now another piece has been added: notice your emotions throughout the day. There’s also a four-part breathing technique that’s incorporated in the meditations.

I’ve been doing the four-part breathing, and started noticing my emotions at certain times, but haven’t meditated yet apart from the 2 times the book club have happened at school. The breathing has been helping to instantly calm me. The emotions I’ve noticed so far have been guilt/disappointment, anxiety, and calm. It’s interesting, and good, to do this emotional check-up.

My goal this weekend is to do the homework for the book club, and to set times on my phone to remind me to do these things throughout the week. I hope to do enough planning and IEP (Special Ed meeting/paperwork) work this weekend, too, so that during the week I can Just. Go. Home. And. Relax. And ride by bike. And drum. And play the piano. and draw. and write. All these things that are waiting for me to do them, like silent pets, waiting for their turn to be petted.

*I had to look it up. Fun stuff:

Gumption: Noun

gump·​tion | \ ˈgəm(p)-shən  \

1chiefly dialectal: COMMON SENSE, HORSE SENSE2: ENTERPRISE, INITIATIVE lacked the gumption to try

Did you know?

English speakers have had gumption (the word, that is) since the early 1700s. The term’s exact origins aren’t known, but its earliest known uses are found in British and especially Scottish dialects (which also include the forms rumblegumption and rumgumption). In its earliest uses, gumption referred to intelligence or common sense, especially when those qualities were combined with high levels of energy. By the 1860s, American English speakers were also using gumption to imply ambition or tenacity, but it wasn’t until the early 1900s that gumption began to appear in English texts as a direct synonym of courage or get-up-and-go. American showman P.T. Barnum also claimed that gumption named a particular kind of hard cider, but that sense is far from common today.

“Gumption.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gumption.