Intensive

I will own to feeling rather tired and stressed this week. This is largely due to anticipation of the one-day sitting on Saturday which heralds the three-week intensive. There is a lot to organise, and there are many unknowns. I woke up much earlier than I needed to this morning and my first thought was 'Who can I get to ring the wake-up bell on Sunday?'
I know that, once we get into the intensive, I will enjoy being on that schedule, having a lot of sitting and study time (after the Tour de France finishes each day... and, by the way, I am very happy that a Manxman and a Welshman are making headlines), but in the meantime I am finding it hard to settle. Apart from full days, taking care of the usual details, rehearsing for tomorrow's Full Moon Ceremony, I have activities on each evening this week - Young Urban Zen on Monday (which I did find hugely energising again), a meeting about the Five Wishes document on Tuesday, the talk last night, the reading for Fire Monks tonight (this will be the first time we have run the new sound system in the dining room, and we have spent quite some time working on the video live-stream set-up, and haven't even sorted out the projection part of it yet), and on Friday night we will be into the intensive. After that I don't have a free evening for another three weeks...
After the talk last night I decided to go up on the roof for a moment, and found Tanya there, relaxing with a cigarette; we looked at the almost full moon together and chatted, and I could feel myself unwinding as well. I remembered the quote from Uchiyama Roshi which I have posted before: "Only when I look up at the sky does it preach that there is a world in which we do not need to be excited". Everything is alright as it is. Even the stressful stuff.