I am getting the house painted and am in a quandary about picking a color. I remembered what Leonard Cohen told an interviewer once and I am paraphrasing. He said he asked himself if he was in a state of grace when he got up in the morning. He implied that if he wasn’t, he would wait until he was before doing anything.

For me the state of grace is the still point. I reach it easily now and it does not involve making choices. So instead of fretting about not knowing what color to paint the house, I just sit in silence and know that I don’t know.

It is windy today and I am watching 3 little pine trees sway in unison somewhere across the creek. They must be joined somehow for them to be so synchronous.

Grace goes on whether we know how it works or not, although it seems to help to come to silence and stillness.

I lose it when I sleep for I have nightmares. It as if my subconscious works overtime while I sleep. There are familiar themes of being deserted, not knowing how to phone someone, being inadequate in a thousand different ways.

In the light of day I find peace again, but it takes a little while. It would be nice to be able to “bookmark” states of grace, but I find we have to continue doing our inner work for them to happen.