The Owl

 

The Owl

I catch a glimpse 

of your unexpected form,

 a  timeless symbol of wisdom,

majestic and grand, 

perched confidently 

on the naked branch

 before me. 

My human mind 

protests your appearance

at this daylight hour,

but my heart stops 

in glorious surprise, 

as you, 

rotating your perfect head 

so fluidily,

glance for just 

a span of  breath

down at me,

  Merlin's secrets glowing 

in  your ancient eyes.

I am mesmerized.

You are disinterested. 

I can almost hear your sigh

as you shrug  your wings 

and turn your back on me.

I take a hestitant 

but reverent step,

over the  crackling 

brown and yellow leaves 

the hardwood around us 

has dropped 

like unwanted garments 

to the ground.

The chickadees laugh 

condescendingly 

from the tops of the tall spruce  

at the audacity of my attempts 

to have my hikers 

bring me closer

 to your presence,

while squirrels chatter 

anxiously  back and forth 

over the reason for your 

untimely visit,

making  tiny ,  

frantically moving silhouettes 

agains the silvery light 

of this late Autumn afternoon.

The dog pulls impatiently at the leash, 

oblvious to your closeness,

sniffing and wanting to move 

onto other things 

much farther down the path.

How can she not see you ?

How can she not be in awe?

Are  you just a magnificent 

and magical apparition 

appearing as an intervention

in my day of ordinary  dukha?

I have to know. 

Gingerly, I move closer,

holding my breath

as half frozen twigs and 

the forest's broken appendages 

snap beneath my feet.

You turn again to me,

just a look,

before you open up 

your great feathery wings, 

speckled with the pheonix's ashes.

And without a sound 

you leap off the perch,

glide silently through the air,

and are gone.

The magic that momentarily 

lifted my heart,

my life,

gives way to the chill 

of this last October day. 

© Dale-Lyn, October, 2020

Okay...don't judge remember.  

Wrote this fast...probably full of typos.  Will fix it up when I get back. 

Ran into this amazing owl on our walk this afternoon...never seen it before.  Beautiful and surprising.  I didn't have my camera so I had to take a picture in poetic image so I could remember...next best thing.

All is well! 

Become an Instrument, Rather than the Doer

Attend to Self-reform and social reform will take care of itself.

Maharshi

Overwhelmed

 I often write about how overwhelmed I am about the suffering of others.  I seem to have a special uncontrollable  focus on the adolescent and young adult age group.  I see so much suffering there.  The individuals I love, meet or hear about in that age group speak of great anxiety, major depression, a "need" to numb, addiction, and most sadly suicidal ideation (that too many follow through on).  It blows me away.  Just heard of another suicide in my community of a 14 year old boy.  It shook me to the core.

What can "i" do? 

I find myself asking, "Why?  What is going on with this age group? Why are they reacting to Life like this?" and more importantly I ask, "What can I do?" I see it as something I, as an individual, am supposed to fix and make better in some way. I feel guilty like I failed, when I see someone suffering and I cannot seem to relieve that suffering or worse when I didn't put great effort into trying. 

It-is I-Who is Doing-it?

Well...something hit me when I was reading Chapter Three from the book below. It actually hit me when I was writing yesterday, before I even read Chapter Three.  This is not "mine" to fix...at least not me as the individual I think I am. I am still stuck in the "It-is-I-who-is-doing-it" ideation, thinking I should take on one 'personal mission' after the other to save the world.  I, as the body cannot save the world. Only I, as the Self, can and that is only through surrendering to God.

I still see me, in this little clump of flesh, as a separate identity...doing this or that on my own accord.  I keep forgetting that I am not this body and whatever my body does is irrelevant if I am not aware of the Self beneath it that moves it...the Self that is all I am. It is foolish to think this 'little me'  should bear all the cares, burdens and responsibilities of Life. 

Be an Instrument

All I need to be;  All you need to be...is an instrument of God's peace.  Know yourself...the Self...first and then compassion will flow naturally; inspiration for 'right action' will come. 

Whatever you have to do, you will be made an instrument for doing it at the right time.  Do not imagine that you cannot do it unless you have the desire to.  It is not desire that gives you the necessary strength.  The strength is the Lord's. (page 54)

Find Self first. With that we find true wisdom and peace.  The world will then appear differently. Suffering will not be the burden it seems to be now.

When we keep our heart's open and loving, accepting and allowing... we will be guided, like the hand on a pen, to create what needs to be created, to fix what needs to be fixed. 

All is well.

Ramana Maharshi, The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharishi Kindle Edition

Climbing Arunachala

 The world is not external to you. Because you wrongly identify yourself with body, you see the world outside you and its suffering becomes apparent to you; but the world and its sufferings are not real.  Seek the reality and get rid of this surreal feeling.

Ramana Maharshi

I feel a great deal of relief to see my daily readership down below twenty again. My writing has been negative. I do not want to pass on any darkness, only light...so the fewer that read this during this slump the better.

Negative

 I am feeling heavy...like some big mass of negativity has attached its tenacious tenacles  to me and is clinging for dear life. It is yucky and while it is there it has my focus. So it is hard to see the light around it. I am very authentic in my writing...so you get what's there. Right now what is there is  not overly  "inspiring" and this blog is, believe it or not, meant to inspire. 

Inspiring eventually? 

Can it be inspiring? In the long run...it may be...if the reader can see beyond the ego's long and dramatic tale of woe to where this is all pointing. I am writing about waking up and my experience of waking up, as is yours possibly,   is taking place in daily life, on this plane of reality so many of us consider all there is.  I am seeking as Maharashi did to turn inward and connect with all there is. 

Unlike Maharshi, however, I am far from wise and a bit sloppy in my waking up. I am also not a renounciant of the world.  I am very much in it.

Arunachala

My day to day circumstance and activity  is my Arunachala.  It is what I climb  to seek the Ultimate Reality...to realize Self.  It isn't a hill though...it often feels like a steep mountain strewn with one obstacle after another.  Every time I hit a boulder on my path...I sigh heavily...recognize it, describe it with insignificant words and I plop a squat right in front of it.  I meditate and concentrate from  there. Sometimes the boulder moves and sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes...it seems so big and unsolvable, I just say "F... this!" and I retreat back down the hill. Sometimes I have the 'aha' realization about how this boulder is something "little me" has rolled there and recognizing that, it disappears...eventually. And there are times I don't have a clue why it is there or how to move it...so I find away over it or around it. And I continue to climb.

Suffering of Others

I have a lot of people suffering around me.  I am so so aware of that suffering...I soak it up like a big sponge and feel so responsible for "fixing"it.  When I can't, as in the situation I wrote about yesterday, I feel so helpless...so heavy...so far from the mountain peak. And yesterday, after a quite stressful month of crazy circumstances, I looked at the boulder and said "F... this". I  ran back down the mountain as fast as my little legs would take me.  

I wasn't there for this person. I closed down and it was so obvious to them, to me.  I just couldn't give.  I even resented giving. 

Keep Climbing!

Hmm! I am making my way back up again though.  That is the inspiring part, maybe.  I haven't given up on my mission ...my mission to become Self realized and my mission to be fully open for others. I am walking towards the boulder, knowing that...it isn't mine to move; knowing that I need help in accepting and allowing and believing that the other has the power 9with God's Grace) to move this boulder for themself. I can stay open. I can love and support.  I can be there...but it isn't mine to move.  

While they figure out how to move it (again with God's Grace and plan for them)...I can walk around it and continue my climb.  I will do much more service to this person and the world at large,  the higher up this mountain I can get.

So please if you are going to take anything from my ramblings ...please take that you need to keep climbing, no matter what is happening around you.  Keep climbing!

The power that created you created the world as well.  If God created the world it is His business to look after it, not yours.

Maharashi (page 55)

All is well! 

Desire for Grace

 Grace is not something outside you.  Infact your very desire for grace is due to grace already working in you.

Ramana Maharshi 

I want to share these words with someone in particular. I want to remind myself of them, as well. 

I am heavy with someone else's suffering.  I see it, feel it and am, among others,  very often the target for its release. This person, at times,  can  also be a very bright and shining star  radiating lots of beautiful light out onto the world. Amazing really!  Yet, I sometimes feel very, very heavy when I leave our interactions even though  I love them dearly.  I go there with the intention of simply being present, open, loving unconditionally. I want to be free of  any sense of "ego", identity, "little me" and be open for them as I "listen".   Sometimes, I am very successful at doing that.  Other times I am not. 

I am okay with suffering, I am.  I am okay with those deep dark emotions and the expression of them. Infact, I appreciate the expression...I see it as release and a step towards healing.  To be there for that is no problem. 

What frustrates me...is the mental resistance  to feeling better, I often encounter; the outward blaming and persecution, a lack of accountability, the pushing away ...very aggressively...with the hidden notation that I am somehow meant to be totally aware of,  that says, "Going and leaving me after I more or less push you out the door with a trail of curse words...is a very bad and insensitive thing to do. It will make me worse. You will make me worse if you attempt to protect yourself from me." 

Don't get me wrong, I truely understand to a fairly complex degree...mental illness. Suffering comes in many forms and I respect it, in whatever form it is expressed. But I don't appreciate how complicated "ego" can make it.  What frustrates me in this case, is not so much the condition but the ego.  Ego has claimed an identity with this diagnosis and is running with it. It is clinging to it as a self righteous rationalization  for the aggressive expression of anger and blame. It is collecting greivances and building story. It keeps the focus on the "litle me" of this person as a "victim"  at the expense of all those around. It "demands" help and solutions and at the same time it ourwardly and often very aggressively  resists every suggestion, every bit of help offered. 

The person below ego genuinely wants to get better. Ego, however, doesn't want to get better.  Ego is getting something from the illness and the situation. 

It is, I beleive,  threatened by the "natural" suffering this person is experiencing because it somehow knows that that suffering can lead to transcendence.  This person, at certain times, seems so close to waking up, to healing in the Ultimate way ...it is almost palpable.  They take a step in this direction, find a certain peace, attain a certain realization so few have  and boom...ego steps in again and pulls them away. Ego is brutal in its attempts to keep this person from "waking up". 

The person will come to me and say, "I want to have faith.  I want to believe.  I want to end suffering once and for all...show me how!" And I will  say, "I have a different way of seeing things ...you may or may not be ready.  Do you still want me to share, what I have learned?"  And they will say yes.  I will then give them pointers...sometimes they take them and seem to leap and bound toward recovery, toward Ultimate Healing ..They are grateful and peaceful...but just like that ego steps in and pulls them back.  Then they throw the pointers back in my face as if I pushed them on them. The resistance to any advice I give from then on...even if it is as simple as "splash some water on your face" or "just take a breath" is ten fold. 

Sigh!  I need grace in dealing with this person in the most helpful way possible and this person  needs grace in freeing self from ego's hold.  Without the ego's interference, the condition will be so much easier to manage.

All is well

Dualism in Understanding Ego

 Non dualism or dualism cannot be decided on theoretical grounds alone.  If the Self is realised, the question will not arise.  Whatever is born must die; whatever is acquired must be lost; but were you born? You are eternally existent.  The Self can never be lost.

Ramana Maharshi

I sat out with my tea in solitude and quiet this morning.  I was so appreciative of that...not only for selfish reasons but because our houseguest is now in rehab, a rehab his life literally depends on.  He seems genuinely determined to do better.  So proud of him. My heart goes out to him and all addicts struggling with this life destroying  condition. 

And I have my house back!  I so need the solitude that having my house to myself in the morning provides. 

"My" house...still ego there, isn't there? "I" am often aware and observe how ego still lingers around.  I am not sure how long I will be able to attach that "my" to this house even in egoic ways...so that hold on my life may soon be gone. I am okay with that.  I am remarkably okay with many things "ego" isn't okay with.

The Distinction Between "I" and "Ego"

Aha...I am making a distinctin between "I" and "ego". So on my journey of waking up... I go from being egocentric...to being dualistic. In my quest to be Self realized, and  non dualistic, I need to be free of ego's hold on my mind. Making this distinction between ego and "I" is a big step.  

Ego, of course, is my little self-identity sculpted by these ideas I have of myself and the world, by my attachment to external things as a measure of who I am, and by overidentification with "form", the most obvious form- my body....the second being "thought".  Ego is the form dancing on, upon, through the  space of stage. Always changing, moving, coming, going...

"I"...is that which remains when ego is no longer active or in the way.  It is awareness, presence, essence, spirit, higher consciousness, Deeper Self, God through 'me', ...whatever you want to call It.  These word-pointers  are not It.  It is everything!"  "I"is the space of stage upon which the form plays. Always still, quiet, eternal, there and observing....

Dualism: A Temporary Measure

So in order to reach the point of  observing the world non-dualistically we use dualism to see ego and to see "I" as two seperate things.  When we reach that state of Self-realizarion, however,  we will realize fully that there was never any  need to seperate the two, to see ego at all...because ego was never anything but a creation of the mind. It  was never real.  

There was, is, and ever will be just the Self. There is  just the Stage.  What "appears" on it is just illusion. 

I am learning.  I am learning!

All is well!

Arthur Osborne (editor) (2002) The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Kindle Edition

Surrender

 Surrender itself is a mighty prayer.

Ramana Maharshi 

I love that!  I am reading and I guess studying, The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi In His Own Words, by Arthur Osborne.  I an doing what Maharshi taught was not important. Theory, he said,  was secondary to practice and often got in the way of Self realization.  Yet here I am with 16 pages of notes and I haven't even gotten through the first chapter. I am a theory junkie...I seem to seek and need "the pointers''...I will read and study the teachings that will hopefully lead me to experience and from there I will realize I do not need teachings, lol

Anyway...I love the quote.  As I lay in the MRI tube today and it was making all its thunking and clanking noises...I decided it was a perfect opportunity to practice what I was learning. So I practiced with surrender and letting go. As I concentrated on breath I used the mantra, "Thy Will Be Done"...over and over again. And I felt so much peace.  Whatever this is...it is what it is... and its going to be okay.   I felt like I was praying in the most ultimate of ways and my prayer was being heard.

I'm good!

Sleepy Autumn

 Foliage, crimson  and vibrant red, fatigued by the evening hour,

surrenders to the briefest moment of  glorius   gold instead.

And  limbs undressing  lazily...stretch up against the greying sky

while   a yawning  Autumn,  puts the sleepy earth reluctantly to bed.

Me...October, 2020

Okay ...remember not to judge, eh? lol.  

The above words just popped  into my head on my way home this morning  when  I noticed how the once vibrant  red had given way to gold and then gold to bare trees. Early  Autumn, in my part of the world, is glorious and dramatic, then it becomes elegant with a subdued golden beauty to it ...and finally  sleepy, lazy and a litle sad.

Ironically as I was writing this...I looked outside to see a light coating of snow all over everything.  Hmmm!  The Canadian lanscape echoes the ever changing nature of Life.

All is well. 

Before Monday

 So all suffering is due to the false notion 'I am the body'. Getting rid of this is knowledge.

Ramana Maharshi, The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Chapter One

I just had a coffee date with my sisters, an old neighborhood friend and her mother.  It was lovely and I am grateful.  I am so appreciative of how life is providing such wonderful opportunities for me to connect with old friends.  In the last 5 weeks I have had that wonderful opportunity to meet with my best friend from high school, who now co-grandparents my grand daughter ; had coffee with another very good friend whom I have seen twice in the last 15 years; had a dinner date with 12 girls from my graduating  class; lunch with two old friends and today I met with old friends and neighbors.  I feel so blessed.  I really do.  It seems so timely. 

Before Monday

I don't know why...in my mind and in my mind only...I have this sense that I have to tie up loose ends, you know? I kind of have to reflect on my past and see the beauty in it and make peace with what wasn't so beautiful in dualistic terms. So it was nice that Life so kindly provided me the opportunity to reconnect to people from my past in the abundant way it did in this short time span...before Monday. It reminded me that there was so much sweetness to my life. 

I have also been working hard to complete things, help others in need, "sort out" the broken, make ammends etc before Monday.  For example, I had until December to finish my yoga recertification but had this urge, that I followed up on, to complete it before Monday.  I wanted and enjoyed spending as much time as I could with my granddaughter before Monday. Had to get the books I thought would be most helpful out there...before Monday. There are a couple of other things I need to do before Monday. 

Is My Life Going to Change?

You see, Monday  seems to mark one of those days where my life might  change dramtically.  Now, I know I thought that  before lol...many times.  Most recently I felt that way when I realized the mass wasn't "just ductal ectasia' like I was convincing myself it was.  I had this feeling before each test that I assumed would lead to someone telling me what it is.and thought, "Okay my Life is going to change when this happens."   That didn't work out so well...no one, almost a year later, has told me what it is...for reasons that seem to have  little to do with me or my case. 

And now it is so obviously "something." I have been having quite a bit of pain over the last week. What it is , I don't know. And the way things have been for me...I may not find out on Monday or  for two dozen Mondays after that.  Still I have this little almost instinctual need in me to prepare, tie up loose ends, get my loved ones 'sorted out' and to get myself centered with peaceful realization so I can accept what ever it is....before Monday. I tell myself it is silly...but yet the impulse pulls me along anyway. 

I am not afraid, really...I mean other than the silly  fear, accessing the health  care system, always leaves me with; the fear of egos getting in the way again just making it more complicated than it has to be. I am not dwelling "on what it could be." I am still very much living in my now.  I mean sometimes the old mind takes me places , especially with the pain...and  I can definitely call it pain now. ...but I just bring myself back to life in the here and  now. I am so grateful for what I have in my life right now. I find so much peace in it!

I don't talk to anyone about it.  Only a couple of people (besides all of you...lol) know of my situation.  When I stopped thinking about it upon getting the six month + wait...I stopped talking about it. (Not that I talked about it alot prior to that)  Best thing I could have done!  So now...besides you the reader... only one or two people know that I am actually going for another test. I only told them for logistic reasons to explain why I wouldn't be in a certain place etc. 

What is the point of this ramble? 

So I don't talk about this 'something'. I don't  dwell on it or worry about it. I am good where I am...right here, right now. Still...I find myself preparing for a possible life change come Monday.

Maybe we all should live like we don't know how much time we have left...no matter if we have something pending on Monday or not. Maybe we should just take each precious moment there is and fill it to the brim with friends, the making of ammends, time with loved ones, time doing what it is we love to do that benfits others.

Sigh! 

Whatever happens on Monday will happen.  Whatever this is will be. I can leave that stuff up to God and simply settle into my life right here and right now.

All is well. 

Pointing to the Light of Truth?

 

It is those who are not learned that are saved rather than those whose ego has not yet subsided in spite of their learning. The unlearned are saved from the relentless grip of the devil of self-infatuation; they are saved from the malady of a myriad whirling thoughts and words; they are saved from running after wealth. It is from more than one evil that they are saved.

Maharshi, Ramana. 

Feeling and Emoting

Well I am feeling so many things...and among them are old emotions poking at the surface trying to get out.  You know there is a difference between "emotions" and "feelings",  right?  Feelings represent what is happening right now...what we are experiencing, sensing in the moment. Feelings come in and flow through us and then are released.  Emotions, on the other hand, are lingering memories of feelings often stuffed below the surface and not truly experienced...therefore not released. So I am dealing with  a combination of feeling and emotion in my moment...all good.

Maharashi

I am reading Maharshi's words.  Which is kind of uncanny being that he really wasn't one for words.  In fact, he believed that words, concepts, "theoretical knowledge" got in the way of truth. He believed the way to realization was practical and experential rather than one derived through "theory". Yet he reluctantly recognized that for so many of us who are addicted to thinking and gaining this type of knowledge...that the use of this vice may be needed to break through our conditioning into Truth. Of course, once we realized Truth...we wouldn't need concepts anymore.

Pointing to Light.

I guess, it is like  trying to  understand what light is.  If I asked you to point to the light in the room could you? All the teachings, words, concepts are just pointers but they really cannot show us light, can they? You cannot point to light. And if I asked you to point to the source of light, what would you point to?  You might point to the sun shining in through the open window, the light fixture above your head or the lamp on the end table...or maybe even the switch on the wall.  But is that the source of light?  No..they are just tools and conduits for light to come through. Even the sun...radiates light, but is it the source of light?  

You cannot point to light, nor can you point to its source yet you know light on the experential level. Don't you? Don't all living things move toward the light?  But we cannot point to it...We can just experience it.  If I tried to explain it and where it comes from...it would just be a complicated mess of technical terms, theories and rationalizations...but those would never be light or do it justice. 

Truth is Light

Truth is light.  I cannot point to truth...it can only be experienced...but I can point to the conduits (teachers) and tools ( teachings) used to explain it but I have to be very careful not to get so caught up in the technical jargon or on focus on the teacher that I get lost and confused in the pointers ...thinking I expereince it when "I think".  If I rely on the pointers I may actually erronously believe they are showing me what is there...when nothing can.  It can only be experienced. 

Does that make sense?

All is well

Maharshi, Ramana. The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words (p. 8). Sri Ramanasramam. Kindle Edition. 

Nothing Gold Can Stay

 Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost Nothing Gold Can Stay

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148652/nothing-gold-can-stay-5c095cc5ab67

Lovely day out there. The trees stretch up into the sky, allowing their day time garments to slip off them so easily as they prepare to settle in for a long winter's nap.  I mean...it isn't bed time yet! There is still colour,  lots of beautiful colour, if not on the tree branches, it is on the ground around those weathered trunks...There is still so much life there! 

I have mixed feelings as I look out at my pear trees from this window. Some are so bare, creating a sad silhouette against that grey silvery sky one expects in late Autumn...and others are still proudly holding out their bright orange and yellow limbs, absorbing every bit of light that comes through the cloud cover. I want to cry and I want to smile when I look out there.  What is up with that?

I have a mixture of different emotions in me...I guess...all there, right at the surface. And as I look in, without judgment, I see it is just emotion...It is an energy that has been strapulated (extrapulated lol...strapulated is not a word) from the layers and layers of story that once brought it to life and that also  fiercely kept  it  down below the surface. Without all that story, rationalization, mental interpretation, trapped emotion has made its way up out of hiding places and crawled into those spaces that prepare it for release. 

I feel sadness and the lingering fingers of grief resting up against the back of my eyes, waiting for the right moment to come through.  I feel confusion, tension, anger, laughter, joy, peace and a need for the utterance of kind, forgiving  words playing with the corners of my mouth. I feel my head coming forward, not so much in shame anymore, but in reverance for something I can not see or explain. It is like I am being touched by this Inviisble Something ...a light, soft, loving hand on the top of my  head, a kind parental gesture.  I assume it is meant to reassure me that it is all going to be okay...however it turns out...whatever happens to my leaves...whether I am stripped bare soon or I get to hold onto them for a little longer...it is all going to be okay.

There is a release of accumulate knots  and a healing going on inside of me.  This Invisible Something is going on ...inside all of us...if we dare to take a moment to accept the need for it, ask for it and allow it. 

I am accepting, asking and allowing.

All is well.

Bigger than me

 

Bigger Than Me

This tiny whisper

muted and meek

echoing in the 

 murky depth of

my being

calling out

calling in 

is

bigger than 'me'. 

This tiny hand 

that shakes me awake

and pulls me

like that of 

a persistent toddler 

to this chair

when the rest of 

the world seems

to be 

still  

fast asleep

is 

bigger than 'me'.

This tiny tear

that gracefully 

slips from my core

and trickles 

like refreshing

rain 

down a grateful cheek 

when I close my eyes

is

bigger than 'me'.

This tiny breath 

that flows in and out

in perfect rhythm 

on the direction

of a conductor's baton

I can not see

or understand 

is

bigger than 'me.'

This tiny nothingness

that fills my insides

and surpasses all 

mind defined borders 

to gather in 

infinite space

merging  who I am

with everything

and every no-thing

is

bigger than 'me.'

© Dale-Lyn , October, 2020

Ride the Wave

 There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads onto fortune;

Omitted,  all the voyages of their life,

is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat, 

and we must take the current when it serves.

Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act IV , Scene III

Hmm! Do you believe that we are given only one chance, one opportunity for happiness, fortune, success and if we don't jump on that opportunity when it is presented to us we will suffer for the rest of our lives? Of course Brutus is discussing a battle strategy with Cassius when he uses these infamous words...not the secrets to eternal happiness... but Shakespeare had the knack of making everything in his writings apply to man's eternal search for meaning, didn't he? 

Missing the Boat (or the tide) or Jumping On It? 

I was reminded of these words upon listenng to Eckhart Tolle this morning.  I reclaimed my spot at the dining room table where I could also look out at the colorful and bright world around me and found myself questioning, as I often do, "What the heck is my purpose here now that my external world has turned upside down and I seem to be waking up to what is really important as a result? What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life? Do I make any plans or do I just 'go with the flow', if it isn't too late?"  

And that led me to  ask the other usual question that keeps coming up, "Why am I , almost spontaneously, writing  about my 'waking up' experiences and exposing my vulnerability so openly on a blog, in articles and books  for the world to see?  What is up with that...that's not 'me'? I am usually so quiet and reserved. Am I to just keep doing that?" 

Then , I came across this video...it didn't just pop up.  I did have to scroll down a list of provided videos for it but there it was: Life After Awareness/Do you Let the Universe Take Control?  In this video, Eckhart Tolle, talks about the difference between a plan for Life devised by ego and one devised by spirit. ( Again 'spirit' is just a term, a pointer to something that really cannot be described, right? You may prefer 'soul', 'Self', 'higher consciousness', 'the deeper I', 'the being', 'essence', 'presence', the 'wise Self', 'the formless Self' etc etc ) 

Ego or Spirit's Plan 

We know we are following ego's plan when our mission is flawed and limited by the need to enhance 'self' '.  What we tend to "do" from this egoic place seems ineffective, met with struggle, hardship and heartache.  There is always an underlying and problematic "self seeking" that gets in the way of our plan, rather than taking us to its successful fruition. We are seeking gratification in the form of external praise, reward , money or success. We become "stressed".

In spirit's plan there is no self seeking.  We somehow know that whatever is done through us has nothing to do with "little me". We recognize the higher consciousness' need and enjoyment when it come to creating form.  We are used as a tool for it to to do that through.  Whatever we create, when spirit is leading, comes through us.  It isn't "ours".  There is nothing personal in it.  When there is no ego in our planning, therefore in our doing, the mission flows and is easily accomplished. We also may feel great passion and an intense desire to follow the inspiration.

Tolle says the accomplishment of spirit's plan can come spontaneously in the evolution of creative impulses. Or it can come in an inspired feeling like "this is supposed to come through me." That is the way it is with poetry for me.  I have this feeling that whatever is coming through is "supposed" to come through and I am not supposed to judge it as good or bad because it really has little to do with me?? 

So how do I know that what I am doing here is a part of my spirit's plan for me? That whetever you are doing is a part of the plan for you? Maybe we can ask ourselves these questions. 

• Is there a lot of stress? Do you feel pressured? Do you feel worried and anxious to complete it or to follow the plan? Tolle warns us that stress is usually a  sure sign that ego, not spirit, is involved.  We are not to confuse the intensity that comes  with a true creative impulse with the stress that comes with ego's. 
• Is the plan flowing smoothly?  If the plan is spirit's it will usually flow smoothly. Even if obstacles arise, they are easily transformed, swept away  or averted. If it is ego's plan...there will be hardship after hardship.
• Is ego trying to strengthen the idea of 'little me'?  How personal is this mission you are undertaking?  Do you use a lot of "I,me. mine"? Do you puff up proudly when the little me is stroked for the efforts and curl up in a ball when it is critcized or rejected for it? If so...it isn't Spirit's plan you are following.
• Do you see the action as something you do or something that is done through you?  If you do not see yourself as simply a tool used by consciousness so it can play with form through you, then again, ego is making plans for your life. 
• Is there joy? If it is spirit's plan you are following there will be peace and joy in the doing.
• Are you being supported by the Universe? Is there grace?  When we follow God's plan for us/ spirit's plan...we will be supported.  Things will be added on to us. The right opportunities, the right people, the right coincidences and successes  will just show up to ease us along our path. It is not this we seek...it is simply to be of service to the higher call...but Life will support us.  If we are met with hardship, struggle, heartache and stress...that is ego's doing not spirit's. 

I love this quote from Patanjali 

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all of your thoughts break their bonds. Your mind transcends limitations; your consciousness expands in every direction; and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person than you ever dreamed yourself to be.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/358433-when-you-are-inspired-by-some-great-purpose-some-extraordinary

Are  my writing projects these days a part of ego's or spirit's plan? 

So am I following spirit's mission when I write about the stuff I write about or when I come  here?  I honestly do not know for sure.  I am not really seeking personal gratification in the form of noteriety, payment or success.  This is not the type of stuff ego would probably want me to write anyway lol. It is almost "embarrassed" or "ashamed".  It shrivels up when I post any poetry here. It certainly wants to puff me up but does not see my writing topic these days as a means to do it.  Yet that seems to be all Ic an write about.  I am pulled here every morning despite ego's reprimands. 

Also with writing one does receive a lot of rejection...ego hates rejection but spirit just tells me to get back up on the horse and try again. It is not impeded by rejection...and it almost uses it to learn from, revamp, and make better what I put out there.  So the fact that I have yet to give up doing what I am doing...tells me my mission is guided by something so much bigger than "little me".

I get so much inspiration to write certain things.  Ideas come to me so fast I cannot keep up with all of them. 

Hmmm! So I don't know if my tide has come in or if I missed it.  I also don't know what is in store for me in the future, I don't.  I guess... I just know I need to do what I am doing...waking up and writing about it...no matter how much my ego protests. I am taking this current and riding this wave.

All is well.

https://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/shakespeare/juliuscaesar/page_186/

Eckhart Tolle ( Jan, 2020) Life After Awareness/ Do You Let the Universe Take Control? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjioVaqoyU0

Something Sweet

Something sweet can be found in sadness, a soft melancholy whisper that breathes life into a withering soul. 

(from a poem I wrote years ago)

There is the sweetest, most comforting rain out there and I could close my eyes and get lost in its perfect percussion, its steadiness, its simple surety.  Man...I love that sound.

My body has been heavy and tired with something that has  yet to surface into my mind. It comes to my eyes. Sometimes it flows through and other times it just stops there.  And it doesn't matter...I won't use mind to force it out, to explain it or contaminate it in anyway.  I will just watch it and let it be what it is. There is a sweetness to it that I can't explain with words.   

Wow! I am feeling and so aware of something beyond mind...a wisdom, like the rain, that is natural and sure in its intention to cleanse and refresh.  I want  to close my eyes and just sink into it .  

I guess this isn't a time for words. 

All is well

 Typos, typos, typos!  How distracting they must be...I am trying to slow my thoughts down so my fingers can keep up and look down at the keys as I write...but that really doesn't help...being that many of the letters are missing from the keys lol. I go back to quickly edit but my own brain has gotten so used to the 'e' before 'i' when it should be the opposite, the confused 'because' , the 'teh' rather than 'the'...the misuse of effect vs affect...and ascribe vs subscribe vs prescribe etc...that they don't always get picked up and changed.  Bare...aha...'bear'  with me...maybe I can find a spell checker/grammar checker on this interface yet.

All is well. 

Gratitude

 True gratitude comes from knowing you belong in the infinite dance of life.

Deepak Chopra 

I am sooo grateful right now...in this moment, right here, right now.  I am grateful because I have a warm happy buzz...or I could have a warm happy buzz because I am grateful...the interbeing between feeling good and gratitude at play. 

Why I am grateful?

The Weather

It is a beautiful, amazing day.  The sun is brilliant and the trees are ablaze with colour and light!Just seeing the beauty of an October afternoon here in my part of the world is enough to make anyone feel grateful.

The Meditation

I had the most amazing meditative experience this morning.  I sat down in my studio, in a chair, rather than on a cushion...had the incense burning, the soft zen music playing in the background and I closed my eyes and asked the force within, which is much greater than "little me" and "little me's idea of problems" to help me out a bit.  I knew I needed some healing...some release of the emotions I had brewing inside me.  I had no expectations, I just sat with what was...focused on breath and the experience of the "inner body" and it happened.  

At first, it felt like I was going to cough up a fur ball.  My stomach actually hurt and the contractions on the exhale seemed to intensify without any conscious control on my part. Sounds..like the kind one makes when they are about to wail... started coming from my mouth...I didn't resist(but I did open my eyes to make sure no one was looking)...I just told myself I would allow it...whatever it was going to be, to happen.  

I wanted to "think" and internally comment on what was happening to me. I gently pushed all thought, narrative or story that ego wanted to add to the feelings away. I just stayed with what was. I stayed with what I was feeling, what I was experiencing in my body and I breathed.  

The fur ball didn't come up even after what seemed like several long minutes but eventually the tears started coming.  One by one, a slow trickle at first. I just felt each one as it made its way down my cheek and then it got more intense, more heavy and determined.  What was happening in my core was becoming  the liquid release from my eyes.    I wanted to add commentary, story, reasons and thought...but I kept pulling myself back to breathing and experiencing. I kept pulling myself back for about forty minutes.  I felt so cleansed, so rejuvenated when I was done. So so grateful.

A Step Forward: Opening up and Accepting a Fear

One of the triggers for my ego which reminded me of my need to meditate in a healing way was a simple assumption that I would take my step son to the drug store to get his Methadone.  Such a simple task which would not be any sweat off my back if it didn't involve driving.  

You see...I have this fear of driving that comes and goes.  I would like to say it is there because of an accident I had in my twenties but it was there long before that, generated by a deeply ingrained belief that I, because of some comparable defectiveness,  will hurt someone. (long story) I will therefore  avoid driving if I can and when asked to take others places or if it is assumed I will take someone places, ego jumps in and takes over.  The fear, as well as an anger and resentment, will often suddenly abrupt. There are times this reaction will suddenly appear, seemingly out of nowhere, overwhelmning me.  Such as the case this morning. 

Normally, I would do whatever I could to resist, supress or diminish the feeling.  I would try to find away out of the situation...avoid!  I would find and express reasons why I can't do what was asked of me and express why it was "wrong" that it  was asked or assumed. I would try to make it an anger/blame  thing which makes me puff up with the illusion of strength  rather than a fear thing which makes me more vulnerable, open and weak. 

Today...I didn't do what I normally would do. I didn't resist it and give in to my usual way of dealing with this.  I took a deep breath and I watched the emotion; I watched my internal reaction to it as it resurfaced.  I watched what I was saying to myself, what I wanted to say to others.  I watched how my body was feeling and I connected it all to this belief I have been, for a while, been in the process of removing from its hiding place and laying on the table. I knew a thought was causing my reaction...I knew this very same thought has caused a lot of so called challenges and problems in the past.  It limited me so much and so unecessarily over the deacdes of my life. I reminded myself it was just a thought and there was no substance to it.  

Then ...with this realization...I went down into my yoga studio and I asked for help. Help came. I opened up and released some very stuck emotions and beliefs. 

When I was done, I serenly walked up the stairs, got dressed and drove him over.  I was open on the way over and expressed that I have an irrational fear when it comes to driving but that I am working on overcoming it. I opened up my vulnerable side.I was honest, first of all to myself, and then to others. I felt like I didn't have to hide this fear anymore or live in shame because of it. I didn't have to beat myself up or push myself to "fight" this fear.  I explained why I wouldn't park in certain spots.  He was great with it and didn't seem  too upset that I made him walk across the park to go to the bank after he was done. I drove home serenly and calmly and I somehow felt very much at peace. 

Meeting With old Friends

Then, with this newfound acceptance of myself where I was right now in my healing,  I  had a lovely lunch with old friends. It was so nice. I felt so peaceful, happy and appreciative as I sat there ..grateful for them, the lunch, the day...everything. I was able to be so "present".

Simply Because I am

 I realize now it was not the so called circumstances but the being open  to Self and to life... that flooded me with this peaceful feeling. I felt and feel grateful because I am alive. 

So it could have been a rainy grey day near the end of November when the trees are bare and sad looking, instead of a glorious day ablaze with colour.  It could have been a meditation practice where I couldn't get out of my head and where people kept coming in to interupt me, instead of the lovely practice it was. There could have been a fender bender on the way over to the drug store or I could have met some external shaming because of my expression of fear instead of the serene and uncomplicated , accepting drive it was. It could have been an encounter with a very rude obnoxious person instead of the lovely meeting with two beautiful people . I still could have had a day to be grateful for! 

What made this day "good"...if we dare get dualistic and use the good/bad adjectives and judgements...is that I was open and accepting of "what is" and  of who "I am" right here, right now.  I am grateful becasue of this and I am this because I am grateful. 

Please ..if you get anything from this long winded tale...learn to "not close" on what is and  on who you are right here, right now in this moment of your journey. 

Use the mantra, maybe, "I am grateful because I simply am." 

All is well!

Home sick

 

I have arrived.  I am home.  In the here and the now...

Thich Nhat Hanh

Away From Home

I have not been meditating the way I usually do every morning.  My household is a little upside down right now in order to accomodate someone who needs it. The living room couch was all we had to offer.   That may sound like a complaint but it isn't meant to be anything but a fact...really. 

I have become accustomed to a particular spot on my dining room  table, just off the living room, for my morning ritual.  I sit in a chair there, not on a cushion, where I  am surrounded by windows that let the  beautiful light  and/or beautiful outside world in. It is sooo peaceful there...only because I decided it was lol.  Anyway...it is nolonger a secluded spot so I move into this room...my office...and here I am accustomed to writing.  The space has the energy of written thought in it. So even when I sit to meditate...I seldom follow through lol.  I find myself tapping away instead. Sigh!

Anyway...Like many of you, I am sure, I am feeling a little challenged  by life circumstance and a body that really is "expressive" (How is that for a way to describe the ticker acting up and the other little things I got going on in it?) As a result I often find myself lost, away from my peaceful center, overidentified with the thoughts and ideas going around in my head...reacting to them and not "home".

Home to me is that place where everything makes sense even when we don't understand a lick of it, lol. Home is always peaceful and calm, serene and still with big beautiful windows ( much like my dining room) where I can peer out and only see beauty.  When I am home, I am not affected by what is going on out there, you know? The light streams in brigtening everything so I see clearly what is important and what isn't. 

It is home I go to when I meditate.  I am home when I practice mindfulness, appreciation and acceptance for all that is. When I am experiencing Life in the here and now rather than "thinking" about it or creating stories around it...I am home.  Sigh!  I miss home. 

The thing is...home is still in me..never left nor will it.  Home is something I carry with me...not a place I have to go to.  I can deal with these challenging life situations so much better if I ground myself in home than I would if I keep getting  lost in my crazy mind. 

How do we go home when the outside world is so messy? 

• Slow down, stop and breathe. When things are chaotic around us, we often have the tendency to move with them or against them, don't we?  If your living room is upside down...what would you naturally be inclined to do?  Clean it up,  right? (well if you are not me, that is)  Fix it!  Make it better! And though it  is okay to do that to some extent...neither good or bad...it is not going to take you home.  The only way to go home is through quiet and a slowing down or a ceasing of action...if only for a few moments at a time.  So when you notice the chaos, the challenges, the body shouting at you...maybe you can resist the urge to "do" something and just stop, sit somewhere ( or walk slowly as in a walking meditation) and focus on breath going in and breath going out. Stillness in silence is the door and the breath is like the key to the door that opens into home. 
• Remind yourself where home is. Home isn't down the road or miles away. It isn't a distance away from you...home is simply deeper inside you.
• Go deeper instead of farther away. So resist the urge to reach out, seek out or freak out.  With that breath, just close your eyes and slip deeper below the external chaos, below the thinking and the story, below the "idea" of you to who you really are...Self.  Self is home. 
• Be here and now.  That is really what it is all about ...being here in this now, this moment.  Life can only be here and now.  When we wish for the moment to be different, when we numb from it through our busy work and desire to fix it, make it something it isn't...when we are stuck in the past or waiting for the future...we miss Life...we miss the "experience" of being home. So no matter what appears to be happening to you or around you...be here, be now.
• Home is self-cleaning.  The cool thing about this is that we do not have to clean up messes or make Life any different than what it is.  Life is self cleaning; home is self cleaning.  Chaos will come; chaos will go.  Illness will come; illness will go. Challenges will come; challenges will go. People will come in; people will leave. Circumstances will come' circumstances will go. Just sit back and observe.
• Relax through the body We need to learn to relax with what is. What is your body feeling right now? Scan it, notice the sensations. If you notice tension, breathe into it, encourage the body to relax and let go of it.  What are you feeling internally? Can you notice the heart  beat, the pulsations in your palms...any inner vibration?  Just notice and be aware.
• Experience Life through the body.  Now what is Life like in your body?  So many of us are numb to the body and therefore numb to Life.  When we sink into the body and become aware of it...we are closer to home. 
• If your help is needed you will be summoned. If we need to do something...we will be summoned with an inspiration or a little internal push. Wait for that inspiration to avoid acting from ego which is always a reaction taking us farther from home rather than closer to it.

All is well!

Life, the Teacher

 

Life itself is your teacher and you are in a state of constant learning.

Bruce Lee

My goodness...Life is one persistent and determined teacher. She doesn't get all rawled up in the classroom and run out saying, "I can't get this through to you!  I can't take it anymore!"  (I felt like doing that a few times in my own career, lol) 

Life: The Determined Teacher

She just calmly, wisely, and consistently keeps plopping the lessons down on the desk and waits for them to be mastered. She waits for us to "get it".  If we don't, or if we fail to complete them or go to her with "the dog ate my homework" excuses, she just gives us more of the same lessons and  if she feels we need it, she will give us  even more challenging ones. She doesn't say a thing, doesn't get harsh or mad in her tone or mannerisms...she just keeps plopping the lessons down, one after the other and waits, so patiently waits for us to learn.  

Well I can't even see over my desk now...the papers are piled so high. And I don't even know where or how to start getting through what I am supposed to get through...but...I can also trust in her kindness, her patience and her deep desire to help me too, can't I?

Another Challenging Lesson

I had another lesson plopped on my desk this morning.  We have  been waiting for an individual who desperately needed rehab as a life saving measure ( and I am not exaggerating here) to get into rehab. He had some issues with a bad high last week and has been staying with us until his admitting date which was supposed to be today.  He has been waiting for what seemed like a long time to get in.  Anyway, during that bad dose with meth, he also injected a strong ( often lethal) opiate...and did so without the most hygienic of measures and ended up with an injection abcess at the site...which turned out to be a full blown infection.  Being that he had two valve replacements last year for staph endocarditis ( a bacterial infection in the heart). ...he is indeed highly at risk.  It places him in the "medical patient" category and rehabs are often not equipped to handle medical patients. 

So we ( by we...I mean, him, his Dad and myself)  were left with the decision...an ethical dilemna so to speak: Do we drive him there anyway and not say anything (which would have been totally dishonest) and hope for the best medically ( he is on a strong antibiotic...but my guess he  could need IV antibiotics) or call and be up front, knowing that it will delay rehab. 

The question comes up...what is riskier...going without rehab and fatally overdosing on the drugs he has been using  or developing endocarditis or an osteomyelitis?   I did not want to be the one who made  or "strongly guided" the decision.  I am  just the "step" but this morning I "strongly guided' the call to rehab and as I thought it would be...he will not be going. Sigh!!!!

What has this got to do with me?

I want him in rehab for all kinds of reasons. Mostly because I want him well and alive but also for selfish reasons. I don't want to deal with this.  I don't like dealing  with the egos of others, as I mentioned before and dealing with  the"addicted  ego"  ...man is that tough! I don't feel well physically right now ...so it makes it  even tougher. ( Had another up all night with the abdominal thing last night). I seem to be soaking up the "darkness" that comes with this too...if that makes sense. There is a lot of "negativity". That triggers my ego.  So I am a mess. I don't always see the light. 

I want to be the light, I want to help, I want to give but the question arises...can I?  Do I have enough in my cup now? And being that this requires so much from me, will it deplete me to the point I cannot deal with the other big things in my life? 

What does Life want me to learn?

So I am trying to quickly figure out the lesson Life just handed me.  What does she want me to learn? 

I know I have been sucking up, rushing past and trodding over  the moments of the last few days to get to the moment of him being in rehab.  Maybe she wants me to learn to stay present and to accept what is as it is and when it is? Or to see beyond my petty needs to the needs of others? To see beyond ego and darkness  to the goodness and light? To prioritize caring for myself at a time I feel so pressured to care for others? To just learn to give it all up to God? To once and for all fall below surface reality to the safety and peace of what is really important...if I can do it here, I can do it anywhere? 

Man...I don't know.  My head is full, my heart is heavy but I have my hand up.  I will ask the teacher for some one on one remedial help. She will come to my desk, won't she? 

All is well!

Soul Mining

 

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine

?? Don't know who wrote this song? 

Man...I am kind of making myself nauseated with all this "poor me" crap I have whirling around in my my mind.  Yes, I have encountered some darkness.  And what do we do when we encounter darkness? Shed a little light on it.  

Darkness

What do we do, then,  when we perceive suffering? 

We slip down past it into the deeper realms of who we are. 

Now we might think, because we are going deeper, it will be darker...like going into a tunnel, mine, hole or cave. It may be darker on the way down...true.  There is the proverbial "dark night of the soul"  to consider...so named for a reason. As we move towards the depths of truth, there may be some confusion, fear of the unknown and the pains of letting go of what was familar to us. We may get walloped with more than our fair share of external challenges ( so it seems).  What we knew as reality, the body's version of light that we have come to believe is the only light there is gets dim, dimmer and dark on the way there.

Miners Going Into Darkness

We are in a sense miners. What does a miner wear on his/her hard hat, that they turn on, as they begin their descent away from the surface reality? A light ( which ironically is usually situated where the third eye is said to be). They use a light to guide them, give them comfort and allow them to see where they are going when they get down below surface level. 

We have such a light, an inner light, we seldom access because we are either so dependent on the eyes on our heads to determine reality (our five senses) and if our eyes don't see it  we convince ourselves there is nothing there to shine light on.  Or we absolutely refuse to hop on the elevator that takes us down.  We refuse to leave the surface level and go deeper.  So we don't access this light within.

Pushed Toward the Elevator

What if the things on the surface becomes so challenging  and so chaotic that old ways of dealing with them just don't seem to work anymore?  What if one gets so tired and beat down by surface level reality they just do not want to stay on the surface anymore?  What if someone, or something reminds the someone or something within them of another, better  place to be that exists beyond the darkness? What if they got on the elevator to go down? What light do they turn on?

Faith...The Light In The Soul Miner's Head and Heart. 

Faith is the light we can turn on on our way to Light. Truth is ...the darkness we so often resist takes us to light. Unlike most of the human population who stay on the surface level, and unlike the miner who stays on the level of darkness...we are called to go even deeper. 

At the deepest level we experience a light so different, so much more powerful than anything we can imagine. To get there we often need to travel into darkness and uncertainty first.  The little light we have inside us ...faith...can be the thing that is needed to get us there, to get us on the elevator in the first place and through the dark night to the truth of who we are. We need to have faith as we fall deeper into Self, that the light of Life is there...heck we need to have just an inkling in our conscious minds that we are not just going to the light, we are the light of Life.  Faith is the light we use to get to the realization that we need no light because we are Light. 

Unlike the Miner

We are unlike the miner in other ways. We aren't mining for coal.  We aren't mining for ore or precious gems to bring back to the surface.  We are mining for Light, for Self, for Truth and it is that we bring back to the surface with us. It is this we give back to the world. 

We do not have to "work" and struggle as hard as the miner does, either. Going deeper is not about "doing"or "thinking", it is about "being". 

And we also know, unlike the miner, that when we return to the surface we are not going home. We understand that the surface world is not our reality...it is temporary and perishable, offering nothing that can sustain us and fulfill us.  It's light is artificial and dim compared to the Light we find below the surface.  

We can enjoy being on the surface, play with what's there and definitely shed our light to all...but once we encounter the Light below  we will never be home on the surface of our existence.  Home is in the depth of who we are. The Kingdom of Heaven/God  is within. The more we go home, the more home we bring to the surface and the smoother and more beautiful  that world gets.

So let the light of faith in you take you through the darkness that comes with challenge to the greatest Light of all.  Let the Light shine in you and through you to all.

Hmmm! Now that is something to think about.

All is well!

See Grace not Evil

... the extremely important point is this: as far as man's earthly life is concerned, if he believes in evil, he experiences evil; if he believes in disease, he experiences disease; if he believes in hell and the devil, he suffers all the tortures they offer each time he falls from what his own mind considers to be grace.

Andersen, Uell S..

Did I Slime You? 

All is well! I apologize for my relaying the heavy information...my sharing the challenges of my life right now ...as boring or as as distracting as they may be for others to hear about. Someone once told me that sharing the heavy negative experiences of our lives is like "sliming" someone...like pouring a big bucket of gooey, sticky gunk all over them...so that they have to walk through the rest of their days with this stinky mess, that does not wipe off easily, stuck to them. I didn't mena to make you slimy and stinky :) 

 It is also a "complaint" isn't it?  In a sense I have gone beyond expressing a certain "what is" so that I recognize, allow and accept it...to complaining about it.  That is not great.  I will never get through the 21 day complaint free challenge, if I keep that up lol.  

Thinking Negatively Does Not Serve

And Andersen reminds us  that thinking the way I do will definitely not serve me or others. I can see how it doesn't  serve me.  I see how it is effecting my thought processes.  I have not had a violent dream in eons...last night my dream was as violent as they come.  I was every protagonist in the dream running from the antagonists which were definitely the epitome of what we know as "evil".  They hurt, destroyed and made others suffer because, as they told me, they enjoyed it.  Instead of standing up to them, like I usually do in my dreams, I ran. 

What does this tell the Jungian in me...I am being overwhelmned by negativity and have a sense that faith in my ability to handle it is missing.  This is anxiety by the way...pure and simple and I woke up anxious. I have not felt that way in a long time.

Deny evil; Embrace Grace

Now Andersen tells us to "deny all evil".  I am going to say...do not ignore the challenges, the emotional reactions they seem to effect in us...just ignore the idea of "evil"which is the belief that some force that seems stronger than us is out to get us.  That is illuison.  

When life seems heavy and you feel like you are having to run from it, like I did in my dreams last night...stop yourself, take a deep breath, connect to the something that is all powerful...powerful enough to move mountains...and turn around and deal with what is in front of you.  Just face it.  

I had one of my protagaonists do that last night...it was scary as heck but this me in this strange huuman form I was in, a man...turned around and asked the person wanting to kill me..."Is this what you really want to to do? You really cannot hurt me...not really and running is too exhausting." I then proceded to scare him/her with this idea of  hell as punishment.  Well I got my head blown off but...I didn't feel anything in my dream lol...I just found myself very quickly in another body running like the dickens away lol

Anyway my point is...the answer is not to succumb to this notion of "evil" but to add light to the darkness, add faith, add Love. This is grace.  Grace is all around us, even in those dark corners of our minds. Shine the light there and Grace will be seen. Grace will show us that there is no such thing as "evil". 

Sure express yourself but just be careful about getting lost in a story that takes you beyond acceptance to "sliming" not just others but the eyes by which you can see grace.

Hmmm!

All is well. 

Andersen, Uell S.. Three Magic Words . BN Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Faith Moves Boulders and Mountains

 

He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, "Move from here to there," and it will move. Nothing will be impossible to you." 

Matthew 17:20 (NIV) https://biblehub.com/matthew/17-20.htm

Not sure what to write about this morning.  I sit here looking out the window of my office as the wind blows the branches of the big trees this way and that...what strength and power there is in something we can't even see!  Aha...The strength and power in that which we can't percieve with our five senses.  That's a good topic to write about.

Waking Up to Truth 

I have been waking with that very "real", very "intense" if not "urgent" feeling in my underarm. Last night...when I expereinced it...I just knew it was sooo real.  Over the course of the  last few weeks, once my "waiting period of denying and ignoring everything to keep my sanity"  was over ...I have been open to hearing my body's attempts at communicationg with me. I have been waking up knowing that what it wanted me to pay attention to was real.  In those moments of complete unobstructed awareness that come with the sacred hours , if we are fortunate to awaken in them, there is only truth.  Throughout the waking hours of the day that followed, however, I found myself  diminishing its reality or significance.  It went from a " This is truly something whether it is known by others or not!"...to a "Well maybe it is just this or just that" and finally, "Gosh it is nothing and once again I am creating something when there is nothing there." 

But at night...when I wake up from a deep sleep...I hear it.  I come from a point where I am not thinking about it, not dwelling on it...therefore I am not manifesting it...I just feel it so intently. Last night I knew I couldn't deny it any longer.  I won't ignore this.  I won't beleive when  others call it something it isn't either. Sigh! 

Is this what I wanted to write about?

No! It just came out lol. Maybe it has something to do with my topic choice.  I guess I want to talk about faith in the unseen that has the power to move mountains even if it comes in a form as tiny as a mustard seed. I want to write about that ...I do.  I believe it is there so close...for all of us.  I am walking towards it....( I use the getting somewhere thing again even though I know it isn't about getting somewhere but more a falling into what is) but there is this big dark boulder in front of me again.  It didn't just show up as a random occurence of nature, either. 

Faith Beyond the Boulder

I rolled this boulder over onto my path with my reaction to the end of the waiting period, that added to the other serious family situations I was dealing with .  Everything got dark, light got obscured because something was in my way again and it was in my way because I put it there. It is like when  the six months plus was over ...I woke up from hibernation, walked over to where it was hid  behind a bunch of trees and I  rolled it back onto my path. Why? Why would I do that?

It was almost like that is what I was supposed to do. Old habits die hard, don't they? Like many people do, I have these dark limiting beliefs attached to my very core and it is these beliefs that led me to put the boulder in front of me, as yet another obstacle to get through.  It isn't life doing anything...no matter how over zealous it seems to be in providing learning opportunities for me, for us...it is the unconsconcious attachment to the familar beliefs that leads us onto these obstacle strewn paths in our minds and in our lives. ... leaving me standing  a distance from the faith I want and deseprately need at this time. 

Faithless

When we feel like we are standing away from this faith that moves mountains...we are usually just stuck in our minds, in our stories, our fear.  This is what being faithless is maybe. When we are in this deep dark forest of thought, limiting belief and reactivity...we do not see the truth  that is and always will be "right there". We do not see what is.  (When I say "see" I mean ...true seeing that has nothing to do with the eyes) We lose , for example, touch with the body's experience of the world, the unseen.  Do you know what your body is expereincing right now in this moment? Do you "feel" it or is it like you are "thinking" about what your body is doing here and now? Thought and limiting belief take us into a story about life rather than  the expereince of living through the body right here right now. 

The belief in unworthiness that so many cling to; the belief that we are seperate and alone, at the mercy of a big, bad unpredictable world that has  been ingrained in most of us...is the source of my boulder rolling habit. Pathetic, I know but I also know that I am not alone in my tendency to roll boulders onto my path. Most of us do it. We focus on the boulder and we do not "feel" life.  We are numb to it. We therefore do not recognize our capacity for faith. 

What will Faith do?

I don't know if faith will make this thing I have under my arm validated, treated and go away but it will bring me remarkable peace wouldn't it?  If we could just fall back into faith like a performer falls from the stage into a sea of arms, knowing we will be carried somewhere...even if we do not know where...wow! There would be no need for reactivity, story, or fear.  There wouldn't be the constant pressure of trying to fix, struggle agianst, "do" something about it. We would just trust it was all being taken care of in the way that is best for all. We would expereince  the sweet release and relief of letting go. The mountain of our resistance to what is , is what gets moved with faith. 

Belief -less Awareness is Faith

When I awake before this belief has a chance to do what it does...when there is just me and the moment and the body...I feel the "what is" of my body and my life. There is no boulder between me and it therefore what I am expereincing at that moment  isn't generated by thought, story, worry or fear.  It simply is what it is...my body talking to me, telling me there is something in it that needs release.  Maybe it is this beleif it wants gone.  Who knows?. 

In that moment I can do two things...roll the boulder over onto my path or I can simply be with "what is".  Being with "what is" is where the truth  is...falling back into that truth is faith, the faith that  moves mountains.  That which moves the mountain...like the wind...can not be seen...only experienced.  

Hmmm! That is enough rambling for one day.

All is well. 

Being There

Being there at the moment is everything!

Unknown

 Hmmm! I was going to come here to talk about a lovely meeting with old friends I had last evening but before I had a chance to write, I received a call from someone who is deeply suffering. Having a slip  in his attempt at recovery, he injected something that left him with severe paranoid delusions .  He is terrified and I could do nothing but assure him that he was safe, that what he was believing was not true. (In truth, I  fear some permanent damage was done).  I just felt his pain and it was hard.  He is on his way here and I will sit with him a bit but he needs help I am not equipped to give him. 

I am afraid he won't get the help he needs in this "overwhelmned" system because he is an "addict". And that is all people see now.   He was already sent home twice.  It is a  case of "co-morbidity" but the addict is seen first and the pain condition   sometimes, if ever, afterwards.  Sigh!  

I am already feeling heavy. And I am just the "step"...you know.  Poor D....I feel his pain too over this.  I soak up emotion like a sponge...always have.  I learned to close down some over the years but closing down to suffering, both my own and others, has led to me closing down to life.  I don't want to do that. I want to stay open and loving no matter what...allowing that Love that is in all of us, is all of us, to come out, to be there for him and for me.  It is just so damn tough, you know?  

Being with that group of wonderful ladies yesterday reminded me of the goodness of people, of the goodness of Life.  This type of suffering can to...because this is a part of Life...just as much a part of Life as happy conversations around a table of old friends and acquaintances . Hmmm!

My prayer now, in such situations, " Lord..make  me be an instrument of your peace..." You know the rest, don't you?  I love those eloquent words of Saint Francis...they keep me going sometimes. 

It is all good.