Next Month...

I have discovered my mantra. What's a mantra? Nothing, what's a mantra with you?

Sorry.

A mantra is a word or phrase you can use during meditation to keep the mind from wandering too far down the road. You tie it to your inhale and exhale and repeat it over and over. It gives you a place to come back to when you start planning your grocery list when you are attempting to find inner peace and enlightenment.

The ancient yogis believed that each person had their own personal mantra but they needed an ancient yogi to give it to them. They let you borrow the Universal "Om" in the meantime. Since I have yet to meet an ancient yogi (cept myself of course), I decided to wait for my own to appear and one day it did. Or so I thought. I thought it was "shine". Very simple. Breathe in light, breathe out ssshhiiiinnnnne... It's worked for me for years.

I have discovered lately that I have another mantra that I actually use much more often. I've been watching myself talk to people lately. (another ancient yogi practice aka witnessing) I have been shocked at how often I repeat the phrase "next month". As in:

Next month I'll have more time.

Next month we can go/do/have/etc.

Next month I will get my house clean/that work done.

Usually I use it with my second most used mantra "after this month". As in "After this month, everything in the Universe will conspire to create perfection in my world and I will cease to have to do anything to make it happen." Right.

Yesterday I pulled a tarot card that snapped me back into reality. It's one I rarely get but it comes up quite frequently for others. It's called Laziness. It shows a man sitting back drinking a pina colada, wearing a bathrobe, and there are mirrors cracking all around him. The essential meaning of the card is that there is never a time where you are done. Done as in, there are no more mountains to climb, no more work for you to do, no more attempts at enlightenment. Boiiing! Even next month.

One of my favorite sayings of all time is the Zen:

Before enlightenment, I picked cabbages.
After enlightenment, I picked cabbages.

Yeah, time for me to quite thinking the cabbages will pick themselves and I'll get to drink the pina colada. I don't even LIKE pina coladas. Sheesh.

I do have one "next month" that I really like though:

Next month I become a Reiki Master Teacher. Yes, indeedy. That is my mantra this month.