30-Day Review, 100-Day Gong

I sure wrote a lot about the concept of the 100-day Gong back in November and December. But I've been pretty silent on the subject since starting my Gong on the winter solstice.

I've been more focused on doing/being/embodying the Gong than on writing about it, although the preponderance of posts in the "Mindfulness" category should attest both to the nature of my Gong and to how much it's in the front of my mind and experience.

Today, though, is day 30, and it's time for an update. 30 is a good number for this Gong's subdivisions: not quite a third of 100, it's also at the three-and-a-third point in my own nine-day-cycle subdivision, so that when my third "nundina" ended on Friday, I was already looking toward this 30-day review point. 

WIth this "buddy system for days," it's fascinating to see how much more comfortable I can be setting goals in the face of the unknown. If one day doesn't bring it, there are days around it to tauten the focus.

I've been finding that this "buddy system for days" with which I started has expanded to an "everything is connected" buddy system where each practice supports each other practice.  

Listening to a podcast in Hebrew leads naturally into study of sounds. Sounding/chanting leads naturally into specific breathing exercises. 

Doing inner work toward clarity to end my horrendous issues around food and digestion has led, surprisingly, and naturally (surprisingly naturally?) into my creative writing practice. In a moment of despair in the kitchen, Spirit put a pen in my hand and told me it was my magic wand. (I thought the immersion blender was the kitchen's "magic wand"!) 

I don't know where I'm going with that piece of writing, except that it's a daily part of my Gong.

I have enjoyed the "once every three-day unit" frequency for posting blogs, and I hope it's working for you as well. In these past 30 days I don't think I've yet optimized the three-day cycle in terms of planning/researching/collecting images, and I definitely haven't created and built in effective promotion and distribution of the blog.

I want more individual souls to read and benefit from my blog! I know that I need to learn how to "get it out there" and put in the time to getting it out there; I could already do a better job just on Facebook and Twitter. I'm already very motivated to offer the very best writing, and I know that setting it before more readers will only increase this sense of devotion and motivation. So for the next 30 days, learning to promote the blog will be a daily component of the "writing" part of my Gong practice.

This dailiness, this three-day clustering, this nine-day chunking, this 30- 60- 90- day review -- perhaps in the end it will remind me what my Gong items were for this lifetime. The cyclic reminding on the daily level has been crucial, these last 30 days, to that sense of coherence, that the different practices cross-pollinate and support one another.

The "magic wand" has been a godsend too. Although there have still been times that I've felt overwhelmed by chores, the fact that my chart for each nine-day cycle includes a column for maintenance/restoration of order means I've been writing down bills, phone calls, take out trash/compost, etc., and then checking them off when I get them done. 

This little homage to entropy keeps it in its place but also makes that an honored place. Taking out the compost, or cleaning the sink, is an act of service and devotion to all the other practices in the Gong, and a way for one day to strengthen the next.

This 30-day mark is an interesting point of articulation for me. Over these last three days, my spiritual practices have transitioned in a way I'll share more in my next post. My most recent sleepless-with-pain night provided some more specific  ideas for what has to change in the gut department, which might include getting outside help. More on that later this week also.  And with the publication of two poems of mine in a wonderful, prestigious literary magazine, there will be more poetry coming too.

These are the gifts that 30 days offers the next thirty.