Plaza (self-)consciousness

It was a nice warm afternoon and I was having trouble heading elsewhere to work on a project that required being inside.  I was sitting in the plaza enjoying the nice breeze and wondering how long I could put off heading where I was supposed to be.  It was relatively quiet in the plaza, and I only half-noticed a man juggling and a few kids running around.  One of the girls came over closer to me and I saw that she was watching the juggler.  He moved closer to us and asked how it was going and tossed her a ball.  She didn't quite know what to do with it so she tossed it back.
"Do you want to try to juggle?" he asked her.  She shook her head but did look a bit intrigued.
He turned and asked me the same question.  "I don't think so," I responded.  "I'm not very good at that type of thing."
"I just finished a class on conscious juggling," he told me.  "Have you heard of conscious juggling?"
"No.  I have heard of Zen hula-hooping."
Without missing a beat, he ended up telling me about this class.  As you try and juggle you pay attention to the things that come up for you.  Like feeling  uncomfortable or fearful or remembering being criticized as a kid for not doing something right.  "It tells you a lot about yourself."
The girl had come closer and was eyeing the four balls he kept quite adeptly in the air.
"Do you want to try?" he asked me.
"No, I think I would feel too self-conscious."   I realized my answer pretty much proved his point regarding conscious juggling.  But I still was not about to get up off the bench and give it a try.
"It can be very enlightening.  You can see things about yourself and work through them."  Yeah, I still wasn't going for it.
He and the girl tossed some balls back and forth for a few minutes.  A woman with a younger boy came over and called to her.  "It's time to go.  We are going to be late for goddess hour."
"What is goddess hour exactly?" I asked her mother.
"A woman who teaches dance has it once a week.  Stories about the goddess, singing, stretching."
The girl threw back her last ball.  "Who is your favorite goddess?" I asked.  Having worked at Milk and Honey, there were quite a few goddesses I was familiar with.
But she just stared at me.  I glanced at the juggler and we smiled. "Okay, then.  Well, have a nice time."
She ran off.  The juggler asked me where one could get good espresso in Sebastopol, so I was letting him know his options.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the girl and her mother stop.  Turning back to me the girl yelled, "Kwan yin!  It's Kwan yin!" 
I smiled and gave her a thumbs up.
"Goddess hour," the juggler chortled.  "Only in Sebastopol."
This coming from Conscious Juggling Guy.


Favorite line of the week:
"How are things going?"
"Well, I'm not feeling very spiritually aligned this morning."