Ahhh...

Ahhh... That was quite a day! A day of firey valor in the battle of the lacy placemats! A day of conquest over dirty tealeaves and victory over broken plumbing! A day of frantic preparation for Zuko's wedding tomorrow.

I have never seen Mai burn so many things. And she isn't even a firebender!

But now, we can all rest. I hope Zuko gets some sleep tonight; he is going to need it, heh! It is good to rest, whether asleep or awake. Some, I know, consider rest to be a waste of time, but that is only what it looks like. It is as necessary as anything in life. Without it we lose our perspective, and then even our hardest work becomes a tangle that turns us away from our better selves.

True rest is not doing nothing. It is meditation, which must be mindful, and active. When you meditate, you must actively clear your mind of all thought. This is not easy. Our minds are very busy, heh! But you must push away every thought. As soon as you do, I am sure a flood of other thoughts will take their place! Push them away again. And again. And again. Don't worry, you will get them back. Let go of them. Let them all go.

This can take quite a while, especially when you are not used to this kind of resting. And you may feel like you are wasting your time. But a man lost in the wilderness needs to stop and check his map, even if that means he must stop moving for a moment! We all are lost in the fabulous wilderness of life, and we all must stop often and take our bearings, or else we may find ourselves rushing down pathways we would never have wanted to take. This is one of the best ways you can use your time.

When the worries of your life come and invade your meditation, that is normal. When you cannot clear your mind because you have so much to be concerned about, that is normal. Keep pushing it all away. And be gentle about it! If you try to force your thoughts away too harshly, they can come rebounding back and hit you in the head, ha ha!

Before you know it, you will find your mind calming. Its wild waves and storms will settle into tiny ripples. The mountains that tower over you will shrink to little bumps in your path. Now that you have pushed all your thoughts away, only the best will come back. You see, false worries are fragile things, but we protect them, holding them close to ourselves, as if that will protect us. As soon as they are pushed out of the safety of our minds, they fall away like husks in the wind. Only truth can survive independent of our minds.

As only the most sensible thoughts return to us, we find our perspective renewed. You may think you don't need your perspective renewed, but that is a sure sign that you do, ha ha! Because we all do, regularly. The universe is too big for us, life is too complex for us. We must re-check our course constantly as we navigate through our existence. As unneccessary fears fall away through meditation, we are at last able to spend our energies where they are truly needed.

I helped Teo meditate when he found me hiding from Mai today. I mean, when he found me taking a much-needed break from the confusion of the palace today! He did very well at it. He said it gave him new ideas for his wheeled chair! He also said that meditation was like a "reset button." Okay.