Give Me the Obscure Life?

Give me the obscure life - the cottage of the poor and humble - the work days of the world - the barren fields - the smallest share of all things except poetic perception.

Henry David Thoreau

I don't openly seek obscurity as Thoreau had done but I seem to be finding it. 

Whatever I do here I do, hopefully, for higher reasons than becoing 'known'...possibly for some form of expanding poetic perception, though I am not sure if this poetic perception is reaching anyone. Blog page stats are showing readersin the thousands.  The stats have never been trustworthy and always showed way too many readers in comparison to what Google analytics picks up. Lately, however, even worse. I noticed over 3 k a day on certain entries that are really not that great. Even the low numbers on analytics show many more readers than those who are actually engaging. Most of the so called "readers" there are showing 0 engagement. 

Atlas, this blog is as obscure as Thoreau's cabin in the woods was, as obscure as he remained until after death. Sometimes, I feel like this blog and I as a writer are receiving a small share of the things Life has to offer, if not the smallest. I believe the more obscure this becomes, the more it picks up scrapers and bot activity. In short, in this obscurity, I have absolutely no idea who, if anyone out there, is reading this. Hmmm! The reasonable person would probably say, "Why bother then?" But the unexplained compulsion within me says, "Keep going!" 

I can't tell you why, then, why I do what I do. It can't be for ego, if ego isn't getting what typical ego's need...to be seen, heard, validated etc...unless shamer ego is getting something from it - "See, there is a reason for my shame. " 

If a higher Self feels a need to serve, share, offer doesn't it need someone to give, serve, share and offer to? I guess that someone doesn't need to be outside this Self, does it? I am serving Self by being here regardless of the outcome.... regardless if I remain poor and humble while my fields remain barren for the rest of my days. Maybe someday, I will find the joy and peace in obscurity, as Thoreau had done. 

All is well

Tanha

First Noble Truth: Suffering exists. 

Second Noble Truth: There is a cause for suffering. 

Tanha [craving,desire,grasping, clinging, preference] is the cause.

The Buddha

No matter what you do. No matter how you try to pretend otherwise...suffering exists. Pain is a natural and necessary part of this life experience. Though Life is filled with ten thousand joys, it needs to be contrasted with 10,000 sorrows. The joy and the pain balance each other out. 

Denial, pretending, running from, selectively choosing what you will consciously accept as reality...does not change reality. Life is as it is; it is as it is.The more resistant you are to the contrasts that do not feel comfortable to your inner experience of living, the less open you are to reality; the less open you will be the the full experience of Life. This is suffering.

Tanha...the craving we have for certain things (joy) at the exclusion of their opposite (sorrow) creates suffering.

So, instead of resisting and saying "No! I will not accept that into 'm' reality!" when something we judge as "bad, wrong, shouldn't be" shows up, which leads to soul crushing resistance in the form of repression and suppression, we need to....

Relax in the face of discomfort.

Honor its right to exist and let it pass through.

All is well.

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (July 20. 2026) The Mind is a Voice of the Heart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_cDau9yNf0

Love and Samskaras in Relationships

 Love gives not but itself, and takes not but from itself. 

Kahil Gibran, The Prophet

If our relationships are really never about the other person, but all about whether or not our samskaras are opening us or closing us...we should, then, be happy in any relationship we are in?  The goal then is to stay open, not to find the perfect love match or friend? Is that what it means? 

As the quote above implies, Love doesn't come from the other person, it comes from us and our state of openness to that inner flow within us. If we are attracted to someone...it isn't them or anything really about them. They just happen to match the "good" stuff inside us...the expectations on our "must have " lists, the positive stuff (memories, very pleasant emotional experiences) we have stored away in hope of reliving, the  samskaras  that lead to an open flow of shakti. We are simply opening to the flow of love when they match our samskaras by something they do, say, or how they look and present themselves. 

If we are not attracted to another or even repulsed by them...it isn't them. It is simply that "something about them" triggers the samskaras within us that we do not want triggered, the trapped emotional energy we do not want to experience again. We resist feeling that way again so we close...seemingly to the other person, but in actuality we are closing to the mess we have inside crying to be dealt with, that is triggered by something this other says, does, or appears to be.

Love is all about whether or not we are open or closed. It is not about the other person. As I tell my children over and over again, no one can make you feel a certain way. They can simply trigger something already in you. Expectations and judgments of others are often the things that determine if we are open or closed to that inward flow of love in the presence of another. Remove the expectations and judgements and we will love everyone. 

How do we move expectations and judgements? 

By removing that which led to us forming them in the first place. That is, by releasing our samskaras.

How do we release our samskaras, crazy lady? 

By turning around and facing that which we have stuffed and stored whether it be joyful or painful. (Most samskaras we run from are the painful ones, of course. We resist pain and therefore we close up when we are theatened by the possibility of it. ) Have a good look at the conditioned programming that made you determine what you like and don't like, what you want and don't want.  If you are able, go back to that which led to those preferences. And then simply release that stuffed and stored emotional energy around those things. Release the samskaras. Purify. Clean up that which is blocking your flow of life. 

Okay, crazy lady, what if we are in an abusive relationship? Do we love our abuser? Do we stay? 

The quickest answer is, "Don't stay if your body, mind, or life is at risk. Get out in the safest way you can when you can. You do not have to put up with abuse of any kind!" 

So, this "Love is an inside game", doesn't apply here? Does that mean I am not responsible for the relationship?

Yes and no. You are definitely not responsible for what the other person does. You are not responsible for the abuse! That is theirs. You need to love yourself enough to protect and look after this life you have been given. At the same time, you need to explore why you got into that relationship. Of course, you do not want to beat yourself up too, for possibly repeating a subconscious pattern established long before you met your partner, but it is good to recognize if that is the case. Are you repeating patterns? Were you abused as a child? Do you feel worthy of a healthy relationship with self and others? Do you somehow feel you deserve less love than others? That you deserve punishment? Explore your core beliefs. Explore, hopefully with a trauma professional, your own past conditioning. It is very likely that there is a big samskara within you preventing you from feeling worthy of healthy love. With the manipulation techniques used by your partner in their attempt to get control, this negative belief could have been greatly reinforced to the point where you came to believe "you deserved what you got. " You didn't!!!

Is it wrong to still love my abusive partner?

You can still love your partner...at a distance until they get the help they need, which they may never get...in which case at a permanent distance. For many people in these relationships, it is a very confusing emotional roller coaster. They may feel love as well as hate. How can I still love this person? They may be torn between this perpetuated notion that they either love their partners all-in and accept the punishment, or hate their partners and get out. It is never that cut and dry. You can and likely do still feel love for this abusive partner. And it is okay to feel love. It was love that drew you in. It is okay to feel love. Just remember that love didn't come from them...it came from you and your big open heart. And true love begins with loving yourself, recognizing your worth. It is okay to still love your partner but just be careful an "attachment" or  a belief in, "this is all I deserve" or an "abandonment issue" is not keeping you stuck in an unhealthy relationship all because you do not love yourself enough. Open that flow of love for Self in your healing.

What about non-abusive relationships where I feel stuck, because emotional, intellectual, and physical needs are not met?

That is a complicated one. The first thing I would advise anyone to do, if I was in a position to advise anyone that is, is to explore what is iniside themselves first. Instead of focusing on what is wrong with the relationship, what is wrong with the other person...focus in a sense on what is wrong with you. "What is wrong" sounds pretty harsh I know...Let' try "What in me needs to be healed at the emotional, intellectual, and physical level." Then remove the responsibility and expectation for healing you from your partner. Heal yourself! Make it about you and getting what you need from you first before depending on someone else to fix what is broken in you or attempting to fix what you think is broken in someone else...and that is what we are basically doing when we ask others to meeto our needs. Start working on releasing your samskaras over fixing the other person, or fixing a relationship. It is not about them...it is ultimately about you and this simple question: Are you open or closed? 

Most of us are closed much more than we are open.Work on staying open and the relationship problem will take care of itself, in one way or another. 

Gracious, how I rambled on. All is well. 

Inspired by: 

Michael Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (July 20, 2026) The Mind is the Voice of the Heart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_cDau9yNf0

Heavy

 

Heavy...

I open eyes 

to a purring cat on my hip, sharp and determined claws

kneading biscuits in the abundant flesh that has become my body.

Familiar and sluggish twins ...also greet me: Weight on chest...and mind, 

a dark and much too pregnant cloud that refuses to open and give birth.

I wake up.

I slip from the bed.

Limbs heavy...

sandbags of their pain weigh down one aching foot

while the arms of their still unanswered cries for help wrap around the other calf

I stand.

I step down.

The floor gritty beneath my feet

The weight of  the world's suffering, presses me down into the morning.

 Toes and tendons, misshaped and deformed from the weight they have carried 

 curl forward into claws, the accepting resistance that has become an old  mother's norm.

I ground without grounding.

I do my best to uncurl.

Creaks and cracks, like a spoon through a bowl of Rice Crispies, 

poorly orchestrated musical notes escape from joints.

Bone against bone, hard thing rubbing against hard thing

body and life ...lacking moisture, softness, the precious lubrication of joy .

I straighten.

 I stretch

Charlie horses ...teasing....tormenting...twisting, grabbing at muscles,

tie aging sinew into knots when limbs are lengthened

I do not stamp their fire out.

The cramping, another whispered Hail Mary 

added to a penance I have long ago  kneeled to accept.

I know I must pay for all I have done and all I have failed to do

...whatever that may be. I don't know anymore. If I ever did.

I accept the pain.

I try to move.

Shoulders curl forward....gravity...too much for them to carry.

It seems I cannot move past it, into this dash of life I have been given.

Only the draft ...the innocent emptiness this hollow connection provides

and the wind of his breath behind me, pushing through the congested cough

I know too well

creates lift under my arms. Shoulders move to ears.

I am propelled like one of the tumbleweed-sized furballs on the floor

 over the mound of his dirty socks that grow and multiply beneath me,

and through the door.

I tumble farther away.

I move into another room, another day.

Weight on chest, hard to breathe; Weight on mind, hard to think clearly

Gravity’s pawn.  Like a shuffleboard puck I am slid from one task to another.

Against the force above me, I lift arms to do what must be done.

Flush toilets, run hands under taps, fill bowls, make coffee

sit to write something of meaning...ignore empty page

bring cup to lips, robotically use fingers to answer calls for help, never ending calls for help.

Write 2000 words ...depthless, superficial words like the "good morning" I offer.

Put away dishes, sweep the floors...well at least pick up broom

tapping, tapping, tapping.... fill the remaining pages of this chapter with something...anything...nothing

Arms tremble under the weight of hope and expectation the morning light from window offers.

Its reality burns the eyes. I look away.

I slip into any distraction I can find.

I scroll

Heavy. Caught under gravity’s relentless palms 

I am shuffled from one senseless activity to another,

From one distant smiling face to another, 

from one more thing I do not need to buy to another,  

from Simon Cowell's surprised look to their leader's orange-faced lies,

Moving thumbs, going nowhere, doing nothing of value 

for a body and soul that stopped crying to be heard.

I am stuck.

 

I sigh

Clocks ticking impatiently in background, 

coughs and empty words breaking the silence

of meaningless watching, of mindless searching, 

a comfortable trap that takes over the day

numbing my weighted heart, veiling my clouded mind.

I sigh again

I watch as time passes.

Morning light becomes dusk. When dark enough, I make my way back to bed

Body now heavier, stiffer, more drained of life than it was in the morning light.

Head down on pillow...waiting ...for cat with desperate claws to remind this body, this human,

once again that it can feel something ....other than

Weight on chest. Mind, heavy with a rain that will not come.

I close my eyes.

© Dale-Lyn (Pen) July, 2026

Okay crazy lady, why don't you tell us what you really feel?  :)

Day after: I wrote this yesterday after listening to Mayim Baliak's podcast with a guest who was talking about distraction, among other things, and was inspired enough to write  a poem about scrolling. I didn't think it was supposed to be about this "me" at the time I was writing it. I really do not scroll that often...infact, most days I do not even know where my phone is... but I have on the rare occassion spent all day doing so. Still, this poem didn't feel"honest" to me. Today, I realize at the time I was writing, that I was also feeling pretty stuck and wanted to explore and express "what I really felt." So I reread the quickly written poem and found myself personalizing it and revamping it to do what the muse inside me really wanted to do with this poem....express herself honestly ...to express what it is like to feel "stuck"as a writer and as a person. This sense of stuckness can indeed lead to mindless activity like scrolling. I do believe we need to be honest with ourselves about what is going on inside us if we want to truly heal. I don't think I feel this way everyday but I definitely do some days. Being willing to recognize and sit with that experience is important. That is the amazing thing about poetry...it makes us honest.  Cra cra , I know :) ...but honest. 

All is well.

Inspired by: 

Mayim Bialik (August ?, 2025) # 1 Reason for Anxiety, Depression, and ADHD: How to Fix Your Focus and Your Mental Health    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dYb62PBK4k

 

 

Mui'nagati: Place of Bear

 Mou'in-bear and scratching and Medicine hands- medicine on hands;

Sunlight, like honey, dripping off claws.

The place, he said, was Mui'nagati (place of bear). the whole of the forest here is mapped out in Mi'kmaw nomenclature...I remember the unerving feeling of first entering bear grounds. ...you could feel the gravity of this medicine animal...the bear is a tutor of sorts that lumbers around the forest eating plants and animals...

Raymond Sewell

I seen a juvenile bear this morning running across  our yard and into the neighbor's. My first thought was, "He is looking for his mother. Where is his mother?" And I felt such grief and concern for the little bear. My trauma brain  is always hyper alert and anticipating the suffering in myself and others and feels compelled to do what I can to stop it...The reaction to the sighting reminded me of how my neural pathways are so wired towards the potential for suffering in this world.  So, when I see a young bear scurrying across the field without its mother in the morning...I assume it is suffering. I feel so much concern for the bear....and for its mother who is probably searching and worried about her young, if she is still in a position to worry, that is. I feel compelled to do something to help.  I felt so helpless this morning. How could I help in a case where nature does what nature does? D. assured me that the bear was old enough to be on its own. I wanted to believe that, but my brain wiring and my  gut were crying out that it wasn't.  

I followed the bear across the yard. On its retreat back to the wooded area it came from, it stopped and turned to look at me. We stared at each other for a few moments before it ran off. I couldn't help but feel that that exchange meant something beyond reminding me of my much too hardworking amygdala. 

You see, I often dream of bears. Out of nowhere, I win or receive pictures or statues of bears. I see them everywhere, it seems. I have had many a conversation with them as I stood only metres away from those that were raiding my garbage cans back at the other house. Though I am cautious, I am not afraid of them. I feel such awe and respect for bears. My heart breaks when I hear of people hunting them. I guess, I see them as a sacred animal. 

Who am I, a caucasion offspring of settlers who came from a country where bears are extinct, to see a bear as sacred? 

I don't know. I just do.  I know, in some crazy way, I dream and see them for a reason. I also see this place where I am living as sacred...I feel the people who have walked these grounds many, many years before the settlers arrived lingering around me when I look across the field or walk on the little cedar lined trail near by,  or when I watch the crows and all the others birds  flock around this yard. This place is really special in ways my little human mind does not quite understand. I feel it though...I just feel it...especially when I am meditating. 

So, I meditated out in the yard, after the sighting and before and after I practiced Hatha. During the first meditation I had a vision of me walking up to a Mi'kmaq campfire...centuries ago...as they were singing and dancing and worshipping the bear by moving like them under a big starlit sky. I was just watching...feeling that my white skin would lead them to reject me, so I didn't get too close. I placed my gift of tobacco down in hope someone there would pick it up and accept it. 

Then I went on with the meditation...forgetting about the bear and the land and fell into that state of no thought. I am not sure how long I sat there.  As I was coming to...I did ask for a sign from the ethereal world to show me that I, in this lifetime was being supported and guided and loved by beings in that formless realm. I was feeling down this morning and  feeling so alone in this venture towards Self that I have chosen.  I had woke up with chest pressure and very low energy so my mind was 'blah". Life seemed "hard". 

So, after the first meditation, and that request that I soon forgot about, just like I had forgotten about the bear, I began to practice hatha yoga wearing the PJ bottoms I went to bed in. Now I have had these PJ's for years and always thought that it was reindeers on the pattern. Even found myself running into the house this morning wondering what people were going to say if they seen me in my "Christmas" PJ's, as I looked down at them, convinced I was seeing reindeer. Anyway, as I began the Hatha and was bending down into uttasana...I looked at my pajamas to see that it wasn't reindeer but bears.  So many bears.  I knew then, I had my sign. 

When singing bear song, we mimic bear movements and tether to that bear spirit or vibe. We lay tmawei(tobacco) down for everything we take...

Okay, more kooky science at a distance...I read this while I was writing this entry, hours after I had my vision. How do you explain that in a way that makes sense to a practical mind?  Sometimes, I freak myself out. lol

All is well in this world, and apparently, in the other.

Raymond Sewell/NiCHE (August 9,2024) Bear Medicine. https://niche-canada.org/2024/08/09/bear-medicine/

Begin Being Good and Kind Now (Thoreau)

 Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness a forethought, go about doing good.....If I were to preach at all in this strain I should rather say, set about being good.

Henry David Thoreau (Chapter One, Walden)

Your Life begins now...right now and at this moment.  It isn't back there in some past, no matter what you have done or do. It isn't up there in a future that never comes either. It is now. So begin now, wherever you are, whatever you now feel yourself to be...and with out planning on how kindness should look...just set out to do kind things...to serve this Life.  Better still...set out to be the kindness that you are.

All is well.

Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walden: Life in the Woods. Boston Publishing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaME4iHUhSE

Loving Self

 

"You are already enough."

You will start to see that, you will be that.

Your world will get brighter,

 your load will get lighter

And with life you will see that 

you can be a lover, not a fighter.

And that life...you deserve it.

Because you are worth it.

And there is no point in letting yourself

keep forgetting

because no matter what you say or do:

you are perfect.

Adam Roa

I was looking for some inspiring words on Self-love today and I was led to this amazing poet's Ted Talk. His spoken-word is all about what "hippies' like me also write about, speak about, read about, learn about but too often fail to put into action. He inspired me. It was what I needed at the time. 

I have been dealing with a loved one in another downward spiral and everytime she goes down I seem to go down with her. Not only does my love for her lead to great concern, I always feel too much what others feel, confusing my emotional perspective with theirs. When they are expressing how down they are, I find myself down. When they express in action or word how up they are...I find myself up. I absorb people's greif, anger, confusion, insecurity, fear, worry, joy, peace, and bliss if it were my own, just by being in the same room with them. It gets very confusing and chaotic inside this me.  That is one of the reasons I need solitude more than others might. What is up with that?  

If it is a loved one, that feeling entanglement is even more intense. If they express self love, I find myself loving this human I call "me'; when they express self-hate, I find myself questioning my own worth. I have a loved one who is in alot of pain, who fluctuates quite often from feelings of deep depression, to hypomania. She pulls me up and down the emotional ladder with her. I moved away in hope that it would give her the ability to find her own strength, to learn to stand on her own, to get the professional help she really needs... but also because I was burning out from the up and down momentum her emotional dysregulation was pulling me in. (This dysregulation leads to a lot of extreme behaviours , often directed against me).  I thought the distance would help both of us and in a way it did...but...yep there is a but coming...she still reaches out in a myriad of ways asking me ( more or less demanding) that I slip down into that darkness with her when she goes down. She believes that is the only way I will "validate her experience and be there for her in the way she needs".  I, am evolved enough to know that her way is not healthy for either of us.  It is best I stay up here where I am able to reach a hand down to pull her up when she is ready for me to take her to the professional support systems out there (she too often is resistant to grabbing my hands and going towards that type of help). I can stay cool, calm, firm, yet there when I am up here looking down into her darkness. She hates that and  tells me I am being nothing but robotic and mechanical. She makes my "lack of love and support"  known to all who will hear her. So, though I still stay up here physically...I feel like I am down there with her emotionally.  I feel great compassion for anyone suffering, especially when it is someone I love. I also still cannot seperate my emotions from hers sometimes.  I think I am okay and cool by distancing myself in some way, but whatever she has going on sticks to me, gets absorbed into my pours, and becomes a part of me. I find myself depressed when she is depressed. And on top of that I feel the guilt she so wants me to feel at those times for not jumping down into that hole with her. Worse: Her expressed self-hate makes me experience my own  lack of self-love.

I want her to love herself enough  to do the hard work of facing her demons and getting help. To give her what she truly needs, I need to not only stop somehow getting all tangled up in her emotions, but I also neeed to model self-love. I mean truly model what it means to love one's self. Can I do that? That requires my own healing, the facing of my own demons, the releasing of whatever is holding me back, and putting myself first. That's a big challenge. Sometimes, it absolutely shocks me to realize how little I care for this human I call me, how I keep putting her needs beneath so many others. To see the beliefs and to hear the self-talk that still lingers inside this mind I call "mine" is ridiculous. Modelling self-love in action is a very big challenge.  I am working on it but it is a big challenge .

Why on Earth would you share something so personal, crazy lady?

Again...I cannot express enough that suffering is not personal...it is universal. To heal one's self is to heal all. So, though our story lines differ and there are different details in the narrative...suffering is suffering.  It exists; there is a root cause for it; and there is a way through it. Getting beyond it begins with understanding it isn't personal. Self-love is really achieved when we realize who we all are...not these little me's with a series of personal problems...but One Greater Self with none.

I feel compelled to share that.

All is well. 

Adam Roa/ Tedx Talks /Frankfurt (2026) Treat Yourself Like Someone You Love ( Learning to Love Yourself)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2L4s6mdKUc

Thoreau on The Art of Putting Foundations Under Castles in the Air

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of works.

Henry David Longfellow

I love those words above. Thoreau was a man who saw beauty in almost everything, especially in nature and art. He was also a man who saw beauty in the "conscious endeavor"- the untouched potential of humans to beautify and enhance the lens through which  they viewed the world. The energy we use to create art can be used to change  or create a perspective, to change or beautify the way we think. "The highest works" just requires a "conscious endeavor" ...the use of a very powerful mind most humans do not know they possess. It requires intention, imagination and follow through.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost, that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. 

Have you built castles in the air in terms of what you feel called to do or in your dreams and fantasies of all the possible trajectories your life can take? 

I have. I see myself so clearly, at times writing, sharing my work, standing in front of an audience using the speaking and teaching skills I have somehow gained over the years...as if that was where my life was taking me all along. I also have a PhD (for the Philosophy part of Doctor of Philosophy...something that wraps my love for learning, my love for questioning and playing with "thought", all the loose and misdirected learning and studying I have spent my  life doing to this point.... up in a pretty ribboned package.) Those are the castles floating in the air above my head. 

Have I done the work of trying to put foundations under them?  

Maybe I have not done enough work...yet...but I have done some. I write everyday. I have finally streamlined my writing focus, outside of here, to one book that hopefully will lead me to teach about its contents.  I have many years of formal education...as scattered and misdirected as my course accomplishments may be.  I looked and continue to look into programs that will guide me toward a PhD in a timely and cost-effective way. I don't yet know how to get there financially. I know I can write a thesis and a dissertation, no problem, but am not sure of the steps to formalizing that endeavor when I am broker than broke.lol. 

Hmm! I see the castles. I do.  Just not sure how to build the foundations under them.  My mind is saying things like, "You do not have enough money to pay off your existing debt, how are you going to pay for graduate education?"  "You are in your sixties, you will be 102 years old by the time the foundation is built, if it ever gets built." " Like Thoreau, you may never make a cent writing or ever be known until long after you die, if at all." "Whose going to want to hear you, of all people, speak about this woo-woo crap."

I know this is just an echo from a fading away "little me"...a last-ditch attempt for all those old limiting beliefs, left over from the old programming that is losing its power over me, to be heard. Yet, I am obviously still listening because my castles remain foundation less in many ways.

Hmm! But maybe the greatest gift in pursuing this beautifying art of the mind, the power of conscious endeavor, this foundation making, for any of us, is not so much in the achieving of these dreams in some future that never exists, but in the way it affects the quality of our days...now. When I can get beyond the doubts that drag the energy down, I feel myself becoming lighter, lifting up in the direction of the castles. Instead of all the reasons why this isn't possible, I start thinking about the possibilities. I become more energized, more excited, more alive, and the quality of my day changes. Life becomes a little more beautiful than it already is.  That in itself is enough isn't it?

All is well.

Henry David Thoreau (1854 ) Walden-Life in the Woods.  Boston Publishing

Watch Your Mind!

 

Most people are challenged by their minds more than they are by the actual situtation...The greatest challenge is their own mind not the circumstances of their life....The "miserable" is supplied by your mind...The more it complains about what is, the stronger the facticious self is.

Eckhart Tolle

I just reminded D to say to me when he notices me running off into complaining or rambling about the problem of "what is"..."Watch Your Mind!"

If we do not continually watch our minds on this journey of discovering who we truly are, especially in the earlier and even mid points of it, the mind will take us for a ride on the resistance train. We will "express" this resistance over and over again in our words, our actions, our thoughts, and in the energy we put out there.  When we are not watching our minds we get pulled in so deep we believe we are victims in the stories it is creating. We lose our place as witness, objective observer, accepting experiencer. We stop standing back watching, noticing, allowing, and experiencing from a distance, and we, instead, get all caught up in it. That getting all caught up in it...prevents us from seeing clearly the solution to the so called "problem" as well as the truth of who we are. 

So, if you or someone else notices you are saying or thinking that there is something wrong with "what is" unfolding before you or through you at any given moment, "Watch Your Mind!" If you, or someone else, hears you complaining, "Watch your mind!" . If you are tripping over the story's narrative ( and that is really all this idea of life you have is-a story) and getting all caught up in it, "Watch your mind!" 

Just watch that mind of yours and when you are mindful of its tendency to pull you in...you are less likely to lose yourself in its drama of resistance that often comes in the form of complaint.

All is well. 

Eckhart Tolle ( July 2026) Knowing This Can Make You Feel Happier. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQSSoZ3S9lk&t=273s

Digging Deeper to a Tender, Loving Heart

...Keep sitting with what comes up...the deeper you dig, the more tender you will become...raw fear can open into the wide expanse of genuiness, compassion, gratitude, and acceptance of the moment...a tender heart appears naturally when you are able to stay present...

Unknown

All is well!

Ready for a Committed Practice of Getting Rid of Garbage?

 Your whole being; your whole Life changes just by getting rid of the garbage you stored inside yourself. 

Michael A. Singer

The book I am writing/rewriting now is all about getting rid of the garbage that is in the way of us experiencing Life the way we were meant to. 

What is the garbage? The garbage is all the things we felt we could not handle in terms of experiences over the years.  The garbage is a collection of our samskaras...the building blocks of a psyche that lives to protect itself by closing and resisting many aspects of the living experience. The garbage blocks the natural and pure stream of Life, the shakti, the joy, the bliss, the love from pouring through. 

So, if we clean up the stream; if we clear it out so Life in all its natural beauty; so who we are at the deepest level, can flow through....the experience of being who we are, the experience of living will change dramatically for the better.

The process requires a committed practice. Are you ready for that?

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/Sounds True ( July, 2026) Why People's Opinions Have Power Over You. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i075A2vAtAE&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Beyond Belief in Illness

 Whatever you focus on will grow.

Mayim Bialik (quoting/paraphrasing someone else )

I listened to a wonderful podcast last night where Mayim and Jonathon were interviewing Dr. Ellen Langers from Harvard, a leading expert in mindfulness and the power of positive perception. (I actually believe she might have been one of the psyc professors that lectured in the Positive Psychology Course I took through the School of Positive Transformation years ago? If not, she should have been lol). 

I have been writing here for years about my belief that the mind controls the body and that our mindsets determine the quality of our lives, have I not? This realization has been growing in intensity within me over the decades. This change in perspective has not only come from my years studying psychology, ACIM, and the work of people like Bruce Lipton, but it has also come through my own life expereince. I was unknowingly testing its validity for a very long time. 

When I, after decades of effort, could not get a diagnosis and therefore physical and financial support, for what I thought were "very real things going on in my body", fearing I would succumb without that type of label and support, I was in a terrible state. Something in my life had to change. I either had to continually bust my back trying to get an elusive diagnosis or I had to rearrange my perspective. I decided to rearrange the way I was seeing.

It began with a finger from the universe pointing me to A Course in Miracles, and to Wayne Dyer, and later, Bruce Lipton, followed by a host of others. From exploring these teachings, I began to see (albeit very slowly) that what I thought I wanted was not what I needed. I began to see how such a label, such a confirmation would not help me but limit me even farther. I began to gradually see how it was my belief in illness that was bringing me down, not the lack of  valdiation and support .  

More ironically, I would much later see that it was a deeply stuffed core belief that I didn't deserve a diagnosis or support that kept me from getting it.  In a round about way, this distorted core belief  of unworthiness that was impacting my life since the beginning, long before I "got sick", was also saving my life. Though I couldn't see it at the time, believing that I would not get help because I was not worthy of it led me to not get the label I thought I needed. Without the label there was no external confirmation for my belief in illness. Despite how hard I tried, how hard I prayed, how  hard I attempted to manifest a diagnosis and the the help and support that would come with it, this belief that I would never get one, prevented me from getting one. The strangest and kookiest things would happen in my attempts. I would end up going without one.  It was suggested on  occassion that I was mentally ill, not physically so  or I was attention seeking and  "malingering". I was even called a liar on more than one occassion. My core belief of unworthiness kept getting in the way. 

After so many attempts, I began to believe that maybe they (doctors, specialists,insurance companies) were right and I was wrong.  Maybe there was nothing going on in my body .  Maybe I was "just crazy and lying" to myself and others. I started to doubt my own symptoms and therefore started to doubt that my body was sick. I started to explore that possibility of mind over matter. I began to explore my own mind, my past, and my samskaras. I began to see a need for healing psychologically. (Any psychological issue I tapped into, however, was just incidentally a comorbid happening taking place as my body was beginning to express illness. At this point several people in my family began to express the same physical symtomology that I had been expressing for years...they were getting diagnosed). I put my energy towards healing psychologically which took me to healing at an even deeper level...spiritually.

 I began to see that as more important than healing this body. I began to practice the mind-body connection through yoga, revamping my practice.Though it took some time, and a lot of falling flat on my face ( I really felt sick and limited in many ways), I began to "get beyond" each symptom or physical anomaly that showed up in my body. By removing my focus from it and "doing" despite it, I eventually got past many of the things that would have normally knocked me down. I began to focus less and care less what this body was doing.  The body itself, though I respected it and cared for it, meant less and less to me. A diagnosis meant less and less to me.  I started rearranging my life to care for body and mind without the need for physical, social, and finacial support a solid diagnosis would give me. Ironically, at the same time my focus was changing, certain specialists were starting to believe me and were diagnosing me with one tiny thing after another.  I was getting some of the treatment I needed but it mattered less. I stopped caring what my body was doing. Though I continued to take care of it by taking the prescribed medication and seeing my doctor, medical labels and treatment became less and less important to me.  

An example: Amongst many of the "little things I had going on with this heart, I was having bouts of bradycardia...heart rates dropping and staying in the low forties and thirties. Once I and the medical team connected the low heart rates with the very, very low blood pressures that would come with them and  a drastic fatigue that would lead to fainting on occassion, I became very focused on the  bradycardia. I thought if I could stop it, my life would return to normal.  At one point, I was in a cardiologist office about to sign the consent for a pacemaker when suddenly it hit me so hard. A thought emerged out of nowhere, "No! I don't need this. Maybe, I can heal myself." and that led to a discussion where the cardiologist and I agreed to "temporarily" try other things. That was in 2014. Though my pulse continues to drop into the 30's, I have not fainted since I made that decision to not go ahead.  I barely know when I am brady anymore. The thing is...it doesn't matter. If I faint...if this body succumbs even...it doesn't matter. I am okay with it. I live as if I am fine. And when the other cardiac  symptoms come...and they still come ...I just relax into them.  I casually notice and watch them in some sort of awe wondering what will happen next. I do what I know I need to do and I go on.  They do not overtake me anymore.

So, belief and focus is so powerful.  I know that. If we believe the body will get sick it will get sick.  If that belief is reinforced by society...it could even succumb to that belief. If we believe we are not allowed to get sick and will not be believed when we do get sick...well...things may turn out the way they did for me.  (not that I want anyone operating under such a belief). I am so grateful for this understanding and what it is doing in my own personal experience of Life.  Do not get me wrong though...I have not yet healed from these nasty core beliefs of unworthiness but I am getting there. I have not yet fully internalized this understanding that I can change this personalized version of Life through belief ( I am still struggling a bit because of some life diminishing core beliefs still linger within)...But I know what I want to grow ( true healing) and I therefore know what to put my focus on so it does. I hope you do too. 

All is well.

Maureen Salamen/Harvard Health Publishing (November 1, 2022) Beyond Momentary Calm. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/beyond-momentary-calm

Mayim Bailik's Breakdown (February, 2026) Your Body is Obeying Your Beliefs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCUAxJ8YSus&t=2s

Money and Soul Contracts

 Did you sign up for money struggles?

All is well!

Michael Singer On Fear

 You don't want to be locked in the prison of your fears. 

Michael A. Singer

Singer echoes what I have been writing about for years...what the book I am rewriting/revamping is all about. Of course, he isn't regurgitating what I have written or what I think...it seems infact that I am the one regurgitating what he teaches, says, thinks. Truth is, we just think alike.

Anyway, to honor his teaching today I will qoute him directly.

The mind has 7000 things that cuold bother it. And the world could do 7 million things that could bother the inside.You are not going to fix it [by attempting to change the outside]? What is the alternative if it bothers me? To learn to be okay that it bothers you.

If you say "I can't handle it," it will bother you.  If you say," I can handle it", it won't

Learn to relax in the face of the tendency to resist. 

There is no way you are controlling that outside every moment of your life in a way that the inside doesn't get bothered by it. 

It will stop bothering you when you stop being bothered by the fact that it is bothering you. 

"Is it reasonable that I am bothering myself about it?" 

Learn to be okay that it bothers you

Can you be comfortable with the fact that it is uncomfortable? If the reward is big enough!

I am going to go deeper even if it is bothers me

The deeper you go inside, you will start to feel the energy opening up inside of you...get comfortable with not feeling comfortable.

The more you are comfortable with being uncomfortable, you become comfortable.

Fear is at the root of the discomfort.

You're inside; you're not outside. Your outside conditions mean nothing. 

You built a house around your fear.

What if I learn to handle the fear? Can I handle the discomfort of fear?

"I need to be okay with feeling fear."  Life is trying to teach you to be okay with the fear. 

Work through the cherubim with the flaming sword

Relax your way through....

They are not problems ...they are growth experiences. What is? Every thing!

All is well!

Michael A. Singer ( l, 202) Fear-the Hidden Root of Suffering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c6hiWjUs9U

As Unreal as the Clothing We Wear

 Yes, death is always painful...but nothing real has actually died there, just an illusionary identity.

Eckhart Tolle

Tolle is speaking to the death of the "me" that occurs in what was deemed by Saint John of the Cross to be, "The dark night of the soul." This idea of "me" is an  illusionary identity ...nothing has really died, just this idea we may have had of ourselves.  It is painful, as I am learning through my own experience in this dark night, not so much like the pain of "grief"that comes with losing someone to death  but in the pain of confusion.  Like "Why is this happening? What does it all mean?" and "Who am I without this "me" identity? What do I do now? "

So, those are the questions this human is asking herself these days. The answers are coming, albeit not all that clearly written or quickly lol...but they are coming.

As those answers come, deeper questions arise about reality and my eyes begin to open to greater truths. Now, I look at the above quote and also think it can apply to the death of the body.  I have friends and loved ones presently grieving the loss of their loved ones right now...one the loss of a brother to cancer, and another the loss of a nephew to a sudden health crisis. I  feel deeply for them as I think about how difficult grief is. (from my own experience with it). With no intention, what so ever, to diminish this pain of grief they are likely experiencing, I find mind asking other questions. 

Why is death so challenging and difficult? 

This answer emerges: Because we believe the death of the body and personality means the death of that consciosness that made that personality and that moved that body. We erroneously see it as the end of the being we have come to know. 

But what if "nothing real has actually died here, just an illusionary identity" applies to this sort of death as well. 

Say what, crazy lady? 

We assumed the being that we loved was just the body and personality...what if these were simply the false identities the being wore while here? What if the formless essence of who they truly are/were  lives on; is still around? The more I ask and the more I ponder...I somehow "have the felt experience" that that is the truth.

This understanding, of course, will not remove the pain of losing the physical presence of what we have come to know...but it may help to alleviate some of the suffering that comes with grief. 

I hold the view that death is rather like changing one's clothes. It is not an end in itself.

The Dalai Lama

Hmm! Something worthy of thinking about, isn't it? 

All is well. 

Eckhart Tolle (July, 2026) There is Always Light at the End of the Tunnel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSyMKS7g0NQ&t=425s

Writing and Standing Up to Live with All of It.

 How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

Henry David Thoreau

Am I vain or am I finally maturing as a writer and as a human being?

I write, or at least try to write, what I have lived as I stand here in this life experience...on very wobbly legs, mind you. :) I try to strip away all the egoic costumes I am used to wearing to create an image and to just be the imperfect, struggling human, the imperfect, struggling writer, and the imperfect, struggling learner that I am. That raw vulnerability and imperfect presentation is unsettling for many. The may find it hard to read this.  It is often unsettling for this "me" that is becoming less and less the driver of this life experience, to stand in Life and write about it.

Whatever remains of this "me" wants comfort and ease, a certain freedom from pain and suffering.  It erronously believes through its conditioned programming that it "should"  get what it wants as a writer: appreciation, validation, publication, payment, notoriety, a certian life style, and freedom from this life it is experiencing now  as it  does what it does. It should also be free from the unwanted:  criticism, rejection, obscurity, poverty, difficulty, and invalidation for what  it offers the world. Somehow "me" thinks if I get what ego wants and avoid what it doesn't want, I will be fulfilled as a writer, and as a human. But as Singer reminds us

Getting what you want doesn't work!

Knowing that it doesn't work, however, doesn't mean we need to pretend we do not want the things we want and that we want the things we do not want, that we renounce, that we stuff the wanting  and the unwnating way down inside us either.

Suppressing our preferences doesnt work.

What about expressing those preferences and aversions?

 Expressing our preferences doesn't work...

Yet, isn't that what you do here -express what you see as your desires and aversions?

Expression in the above, I believe, refers to our seeking and doing to have our desires manifested or "expressed" in our everyday life circumstances, and to avoid our aversions.

So though I write, aware of these desires and dislikes, I try to stay unattached to the outcome of this writing. I am definitely not fully evolved or enlightened, but I have matured enough to know that I will keep writing, as I feel pulled to do, independent of the possible outcomes that will be expressed in the life circumstances this human may encounter. I know now, after so many experiences with desire and aversion in this lifetime, that spending energy attempting to get what I want and avoid what I, as "me", don't want is a ridiculous waste of time and precious resources.  It will never make this "me" happy.  It will simply lead to more suffering. 

"Been there, done that." 

Knowing that, Singer tells us, is a sign that we are becoming mature souls. I have evolved enough to understand... 

If you are okay getting what you don't want or  not getting what you want...you are enlightened. 

Again, I am not sure how evolved or enlightened I am at this point but hopefully I am getting there. 

Go through what you need to go through  ...grow through what you need to grow through...mature with every experience...you actually become deeper because you went through the experiences you go through.

You go through what you need to go through...everthing you go through is for the purpose of  liberation...taking you to God...pulling you up. 

All is well

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (July 2, 2026) There Are No Problems, Only Experiences.

Henry David ThoreauWalden(1854) Walden: Life in the Woods.  Ticknor and Fields.

Thoreau on Not Succumbing to Limiting Belief Regarding Human Possibility

 It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion,  which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. 

We are all convinced that we are only capable of so much, aren't we? So true to our convictions that our conditioning keeps us stuck in a certain level of being and doing. These limiting beliefs are passed down from the generations before us. What makes these "old people" wiser than us? Why do we adhere to the essaging the passed down and limit ourselves accordingly.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can.

Do we really know what we are capable of other than assuming limitation based on what we were taught?  

But man's capacities have never been measured, nor are we to judge of what we ca do by an precedents, So little has been tried. 

We really don't know, do we, and it is okay that we don't? Such not-knowing leads us into exploring and experimenting with truth like Thoreau had done on Walden Pond. 

As Confucios said, "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge..."

All is well.

Henry David Thoreau/Full Text Archive. Chapter One: Economy in Walden Walden.https://www.fulltextarchive.com/book/Walden-by-Henry-David-Thoreau/

Truth Rather Than This

 Rather than love, than money, than fame , give me truth.

Henry David Thoreau

Hmm! I now know what Thoreau meant by "with a success unexpected in common hours" . He meant that his success, possibly the success we are all destined for if we would only allow such a success, was in discovering the truth of what this life experience is all about; about what is truly important, and what isn't; about who we are etc. In common hours...when we are busy tramping around the busy world in an attempt to satisfy an unquenchable "me"...we will not discover that truth. 

Hmm! I often longed to do what Thoreau did...go out to a cabin in the woods and just "be" for awhile.

All is well.

Living the Life You Imagined?

 I have learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of their dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.

Henry David Thoreau

What experiment is Thoreau talking about that gave him this insight to "advance confidently" in the direction of his dreams? 

He spent two years in a little one room cabin in the woods, on the property of his sccessful mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. From that experiment and the writing of it he became one of the world's greatest transcendental writers. (I am not sure if that is what he meant by success but...)

I am reading "Walden" now...well listening to it on a free adio book I found on line. It's pretty cool.

I ask myself, " Am I living the life I have imagined?" Hmm! Big question. What about you, are you living the life you imagined? Are you meeting with success?  

And what exactly is "success?" And what are the "common hours?" 

Those are questions best left for another day. 

Happy Canada day to all fellow canucks!!! 

All is well. 

Audio Books. Walden (Full  Audio Book) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaME4iHUhSE&t=561s