My grandmother taught me about practice

Different practices, same devotion

My grandmother and I always spoke telepathically. We didn’t have a good deal of verbal conversations. Our way of relating was more like eye contact from across the room at the very right moment, a wink, a hand signal, or a few little words in-between the conversations of other family around us. I felt she understood me and could justify my every move, but on a level that she never showed me in words.

I never thought I understood much of a thing about her, not after until she passed away.

My grandma, Dolores, loved classical music, ice cream, and Jesus. I don’t think she hated me whatsoever when she witnessed me grow further and further away from catholicism. I am definitely certain she prayed for me every day. In her small, quiet, yellow house, within a dotting of rose bushes and raspberries and little patches of spearmint, I could have probably counted 20 Jesus-on-the-cross figurines displayed on her walls and on her shelves.

I am realizing I am much more like my grandma than I ever realized. (And I don’t even own a single Jesus figurine…) In fact, I think she inspires me more than anything right now… because she was so devoted. She was the most devoted person I think I have ever witnessed on earth. It was a nonchalant, utterly unquestionable expression of faith and devotion. It seemed so simple and unwavering for her, and it turned out to be the kind that brought her to a level of perceivable complete freedom toward and through death that has shaken me to get a small external glimpse of.

The thing we have in common is an unstoppable devotion to what we deem sacred. It’s just that the specifics are different.

Devotion itself is a thread of trust stitching a patchwork quilt of contentment and purpose. I trust my practices in art, in yoga, in silence, in chanting, in service, in generosity, in inquiry, in learning, in nature, in love, in family, in friendship, in finding my own definitions of god in my own ways. For me, these things bring meaning to life, and therefore I devote myself to them and gravitate to forming rituals around them. When I devote myself, more trust appears. When I feel trust, especially in something larger than myself, I feel relieved and content.

A spiritual practice can literally be whatever you connect with. Whatever feels connective and beautiful to you. It can be literally anything you want, you get to decide. Be creative about it. The point might not be the specific thing, but the devotion to it. This only needs to mean defining it and going there regardless of what you feel on any given day. We can apply this to anything. Buttering bread or crying at scenes in Star Wars movies can be your spiritual practice just as much as going to church or having a serious creative practice as spiritual practice (like so much of what I end up writing about here).

Just keep showing up

Keep showing up, in ways big and small, with curiosity and faith in whatever you’re called to discover meaning through, and believe it will count for something. It will.

But sometimes showing up can be hard. Or rather it can be too easy to simply not show up. That's ok. We don’t need to be perfect.

Furthermore, showing up to practice doesn’t aways result in instant joy and happiness. Sometimes it’s difficult, painful, or we don’t see the point. But there always is a point. Belief is what makes the difference. I think that what I believe in most about practice is that each dip into it is a momentary unification with something larger and constant, and each time we tap in, we grow that relationship a little bit more. Not every interaction we have with our practices is going to be groundbreaking. Some days it will be mundane and feel like a grind or going through the motions, other days it will be profoundly insightful, magical, deep, spacious.

The point is to just keep believing it’s all for something. Even if you aren’t always sure what it’s all for. Our practices, they are for something. My grandma was a good example of this, and although I feel I didn’t get to know her so much on the surface, I can feel the depth of this shared DNA - this gravity toward prioritizing rituals for what we believe in and centering them in our lives as foundations from which to be good and kind in the world. I think it’s very human and perhaps we all share this common potential.

We all have different figurines. But it’s all the same.

Happy Mother’s Day

♡