Guides Part 2 - Trust

Two days ago I got a doozy of a flu; it started innocently enough - I felt tired. Then came the familiar sore throat, stuffy everything, aches, pains - welcome to the plague. As you may guess I am a horrible patient; I just want the whole "being sick" experience to be over fast. I dumped every medication I could get a hold of into my body: Nyquil in all its varieties, oscillococcinum, yin chao, herbal cough syrup, claritin, and the cherry on top, some antibiotics I conned a doctor into prescribing last month for a sore tooth I was convinced could turn into a sinus infection.

I've spent the past two days wandering around our small house in a snot nosed, coughing stupor. We'll need to go out today to get more tissues; I've gone through them all. And then there is the issue of the migraine headache medicine I've been carrying around in my purse for two years now - I do feel a throb on the right side of my head. I wonder - would that interact oddly with the smuggled antibiotics?

My daughter got disgusted with me - she was sick last week without all this fuss - she went to school with it. I have no intention of going to school with this mess in my head. Isn't that how all these germs spread in the first place?

Around midnight the whole mental nightmare lifted. I was thinking about guides - my inner guide in particular, and I felt a comforting presence in my room. I wonder if the presence isn't around all of us all the time - presence of being - I'll call it, and we make so much mental racket we just don't notice it.

I was lying there in my incensed Woody Allen like state of worry. I'd shifted from the head cold to other stuff: worries about myself and what I am doing, worries about my daughter, worries about pain in general.

I remembered this nun I taught with during the Rodney King riots in the nineties - how we were worried then about rioters coming into the school, hurting the kids somehow - and how she showed me this life sized sculpture of a hand - God's hand was the idea. There was a person in the palm of that hand, and she told me to relax, to remember that no matter what, God holds us in the palm of his hand. That was a revelatory moment for me because even if you don't believe in God, the image was still that of the universe, larger being, cradling us. No matter what happens or doesn't happen. No matter how shitty we feel.

This morning I'm remembering that solid hand below me, as I sip my tea, shuffle around the house, let myself heal. That hand that is the source of all things is of infinite comfort. It reminds us to not fall prey to temporal sorrows. It reminds us to not fall victim to anything false or toxic. We sit in the very hand of God.

Guides

Currently, many of us on the planet live as though we were split - we would deny our inner guides - the voice internalized in all of us as evidence of our holistic nature. I think every one hears the voice of at least one guide as they move through the physical world.

We all hear the voice, yet very rarely do we have the courage to stop and listen to its instructions. The voice becomes more apparent in spaces of relaxation and silence; ironically we drown it out in our world with loud noises - rushing around, moving from task to task in an upside down experience of our reality as though the movement, the rushing around were the point.

Communion with our inner voice is communion with truth at the purest level. There is a degree of falseness to our existence when we attempt to block or deny it. Our inner voice confirms again and again that we are loved and lovely. The voice continuously reminds us of our ecumenical connection with all things, and that reminder alone is cause for great joy.

Whoosh - Beyond Conflict

It's suspiciously easy to remember the oneness - the ecumenical existence of everyone and everything - when reading it, or writing it down on paper. The trick is to keep that feeling tone when we are in actual situations of conflict.

I'm discovering that conflict fans its annoying smoke screen more frequently at the end of the day - afternoon staff meetings when I'm tired, or later at home when we're all scrambling for dinner with growling stomachs.

It helps to remember that every physical action and reaction - eating, sleeping, holding the pen over the page - remains part of the truth of oneness whether I'm feeling it or not. In other words what appears to be physical is actually the expression of that oneness, and the key is to stay in a synergistic harmony with that, despite the growling tummy or drooping eyelids. One solution is an after noon nap - not possible during the work week for most of us. But at least we can tell ourselves in the meeting, or during that rushed dinner preparation: "I'm tired, my colleagues are probably tired too, my daughter's hungry," and then take it a bit easier when we know we are more apt to snap back into the old mind set of irritability and conflict.

The park by my house is extremely helpful; in the evenings after dinner I walk over there, sit still in front of the duck pond, breath, chill, and remember the "whoosh" of what's real. That's when true awareness hits again, and I can watch my racing thoughts from the day as an observer, secure in what I am knowing, enveloped in that reality internally and externally. Then it's possible to relax and reconnect with the miracle of this life in its entirety again. Thank goodness for the park!!

On Angels - Being Bold

I used to think if someone was bold it meant they wore bright colors, that "bold" referred to a fearlessness that was limited to fashion. Now I'm realizing that being bold involves being relaxed and gentle, that when you are bold you are brave, not in the sense of being brass, but in the sense of self exposure, allowing yourself to be out there as yourself, open and revealed.

I've been thinking about hearts and angels; visualizing an angel's folded wings as forming the shape of a heart at my heart - if I were an artist, like Pat Olchefski-Winston, my brilliant friend who painted the bear for the cover of Bear Speaks, I would be able to draw it - this fantastical shape of angel wings centered in the human heart, my heart, opening it gently.

I don't know much about angels - but the concept of them is bold and comforting at the same time. Angels represent an unlimited expression of being; they defy time and space. It occurs to me that angels are all over the place, taking the form of people who are here to help. In other words we act as angels for each other whether or not we realize it.

Angels as expressions of love take many forms, some realized, some random, yet always lovely and supportive of being - the whole being the all - us. Us supporting us - beings of light with the power to transform and heal.

Today I am bold as I recognize that power and express it to its fullest intent - glad to be "out there," relieved to get past the smoke screens that distract us from the unlimited expression of our potential.

Happy Saturday!!!

Guidance, Reconciliation and Mold

Living by the beach as we do, we have this ongoing problem with mold in our walls. We can't afford an expensive mold removal service; that would involve removing entire walls of our house and insulating. My husband, daughter and I finally solved the problem by spraying with this high powered solution from Home Depot, painting an anti-mold primer over the surface, and then repainting our walls over that. The man who works in the paint department has assured me this solution is only temporary - that the mold is still there underneath, potentially ready to spring to the surface when the inevitable dampness of winter seeps into our walls.

It's interesting to think about hidden mold living in the dark in our house so easily activated. I suspect mind fogginess, blurring and inaccurate perceptions of other people around me can just as easily be triggered. When I am tired, physically hungry or just plain bored, that dark, inaccurate stuff that lies dormant in there can take over. Fortunately, my mind doesn't require a complete lobotomy to get rid of its inner gook; it's simply a matter of a good maintenance program - turning to meditation and breathing on a daily basis to clear things out in there. The mind mold doesn't stand a chance against the intelligence of reality.

When I remember to be guided by the truth - and let me be clear here, I'm talking about the truth that is love, that invariably dissolves away all our deepest, darkest fears and aggravations - then the love that is reality allows me to reconcile with the "outside" world.

The voice of the mold is a lie, vicious, vindictive, incessantly negative. It's easy to fall into a state of ignorant possession if we listen to its drama of pain and constant turmoil. But in the end that false inner voice is nothing but mind clutter, easily swept away to make room for the small, clear, lovely voice that is the truth, the voice that has always been there, the voice of reconciliation.

When we allow ourselves to reconcile our physical world, including all the dust, and grime and potential distractions that come with it, with the open spaces where everything is clear and possible, we abolish the extremism that leads to inner confusion and false judgments.

The we become energized by the happy conundrum that God, the infinite, is nothing and everything at the same time. The mold may be there, but we are able to notice it, sweep it away and move into the place where all things are possible. Today is the day when I vow "I can do this," and move past all the false brain rot into a happy outcome.

Today I move toward a place of reconciliation.

Ignition, Authenticity, and Seeing

There's this moment right before I light the candles in my living room to meditate in the mornings. The place is dark, feels like the middle of the night, and I feel stiff and cranky, convinced it would be more beneficial to get another few moments of sleep, convinced the meditation/prayer process is an elaborate form of bull shit.

And then I strike the match, put the flame to the candles, and something shifts. It happens very quickly, instantaneously actually. My cranky, tightness fades away, and I find my sitting in what is real.

I've tested out the legitimacy of this ignition. I watch my behavior, my interactions with other people and my surroundings on the days I give in to my initial resistance and "sleep in," skip the candles and the meditation. Invariably on those days I feel lousy, I catch myself in more augments with people, sometimes I find myself literally tripping through the day, prone to bruises and accidents. I'm actually more tired on the days I skip the sit.

All of us have this choice, not simply in the morning when we pray or meditate, but all through the day. We can choose - did I mention it was instantaneous? It doesn't take a minute, a second, .35 seconds, it happens the moment we remember to do it - we can always, at all times, choose to be authentic, and fashion ourselves into who we really are instead of being pejorative. The root of the word pejorative is perjury. When we allow ourselves to trip around in a tight daze, unaware or ourselves and the truth of who we are, we commit perjury.

Today is a good time to be honest. It doesn't make sense to act like a clenching, grabbing being when that is false. It makes sense to tune in to the truth. We do that when we notice we are tight, and then ask for help, from the inside out. For me it helps to visualize people in my mind's eye who love and know my authentic self. One of those personages for me is poet Gary Lemons. He gave a poetry reading at Feathered Pipe Ranch this summer and his presence was so authentic, so real, that it inspires me whenever I visualize him sitting there. Another person who helps jog me into the truth is my grandmother. As a child when we'd go to her house - and she didn't even speak English, the acknowledging happened without a word - she'd look at me and I'd see the truth of myself in her eyes.

The formula is: notice the tightening, ask for truth, and invoke the presence of someone who sees that truth in us. We don't have to sit down and light literal candles to do that.

Today I am open to the ignition, ready to see and be seen.

Life Lines - Shifting from Goals to Alignment

There comes a point when we realize that goals are mental tricks we play on our own heads; we set them up, race toward this future moment when we'll arrive, be happy, and stop struggling. The problem with that mentality is we never reach the finish line. By definition the "finish line" keeps shifting, and we find ourselves in a constant struggle. Eventually we reach the point where we don't even know where the finish line is anymore, and that is when we are close to realizing the inherent illusion to the whole goal mentality.

The point isn't reaching somewhere, the point is shifting our perspective of what is happening, so that we are aligned with the truth. We will be infinitely supported when we are in alignment. We'll have this point of transcendence where time and space stop altogether and we find ourselves wanting for nothing, able to just be, satisfied, grateful, right in the moment. For me those moments come when I am teaching, practicing yoga asanas, or writing. Time stands still in those instances and I find myself literally swept away into what is happening right then.

It's a matter of knowing we are safe in the moment as it is, sitting right in it without fear. A trick to determining whether we are moving into alignment is whether our body feels tight and anxious. The feeling tone of peace, expansion, and a sense of connection helps to trigger movement in the right direction; peace feels good, right, and tightness feels lousy.

In those times when we feel lost, out of alignment, it helps to look for a life line. There will always be something - we just need to make the mental shift to see it. Maybe our life line will come in terms of words from a song on the radio, maybe if we are trapped, a spider spinning an intricate web in a corner of the room will catch our attention, maybe a friend will show up, answer our mental or verbal call for help at just the right moment. If nothing else we can always turn to the breath - there's always that.

I'm realizing it's my job to also act as a life line for other people. They are counting on me to be there for them, to not be too busy, wrapped up in my fake dramas to the point where I'm unaware of them.

When we move in a state of peace, connection and expansion we won't get hurt, and we won't hurt others. I guess that's another sign of being in correct alignment - it will never hurt. The only hurt that is possible is mental, our own mental gyrations when we act from fear, when we miss the life lines that are always there, when we stop being a life line ourselves for others.

It's time to wake up and realize the perfection that is here, now, always, thankful for the life lines, thankful for the moment, thankful for life.

Invocation of Presence

I like the word invocation. It implies that even when we feel isolated or rattled, floored by an earthquake - be it physical or psychological - there is never a time when we cannot invoke the presence of reality, and find a sense of inner security.

I have a friend I contact on line with the words: "are you there?" Even if he is not there at that particular moment, I know he will eventually e-mail back with the comforting response: "I am now."

With my husband it is simply a matter of pausing in the movement of our daily life together, and saying "Hi Layton." With his "Hello Laura" back at me, we acknowledge each other's presence, reconfirming that we are in this life together.

In yoga the word "namaste" is a hello like that. It means the light in me salutes the light in you. The "namaste" doesn't always have to be visual, the namaste is an invocation of presence, the realizing in an instant that the perceived other is part of self, made of the same life stuff as you are.

The biblical character of Ishmael reminds me how namaste works. He finds himself alone, cast away from his father, and he wanders through the desert in a stupor. But by his very name - Ishmael - he is assured that when he calls to God, there will be an answer.

This calling, this invocation of presence, is a mental act. We can call for presence at any time. No matter how alone or abandoned we may feel we will always get a response, for the simple reason that we are alive.

The important theme here is that we are not alone. Once we accept all of what we see, feel, and experience for who and what it is, we can realize that fundamental truth.

Whenever we sink into despair, not knowing what to do, it is helpful to remain open and innocent to what is happening, and then the essential truth of all that is will flow over and through us. In that sense we are specific and expansive at the same time.

The challenge then is to integrate both aspects of ourselves, and to remember to invoke presence. Someone will always be there - real, alive, part of us.

Relax or "Shut Up and Hold On"

Yesterday as I was driving down Artesia Boulevard a truck in front of me was going too slowly for my taste. It had a bumper sticker that read: "Shut Up and Hold On." About the time the driver turned out of way it occurred to me those words are an effective mantra: shut up and hold on.

We can feel so limited, so conflicted about where we are supposed to be, and how we are supposed to get there. Our intentions get muddled, and before we know it we are wandering through the day in a state of mental road rage; we're apt to become impatient and confused at the same time.

The more we try to figure it all out - sort things, schedule them, pigeon hole the world according to our stubborn, individual will - the more likely we are to fall victim to worry and hopelessness. The truth is we aren't in control; once we sort one scenario in our head, a new one always invades, keeping us permanently trapped in a state of spinning inertia.

The solution is to relax, stop the mental gymnastics, and realize there is nothing that we need within the infinitesimal point of time where we are now. We can be ready - but relaxed also, knowing that we cannot be abandoned and that everything sits exactly as it should. We are perfectly aligned for what is happening right now.

Today I remember to relax, acknowledge any feelings of frustration, uncertainty, or impatience - acknowledge them and then let them go. We aren't in control anyways.

Relax, relax, relax - we don't know exactly where the ride will take us, and that's part of the mystery, of what is happening right now, here, where we are. "Shut up and hold on." That works for me today.

Sky Grounding - Noticing

My first official day back as a school teacher was yesterday. I was conflicted about heading back to that "day job" - wondering about time and its demands. The issue arises as to how to maintain cosmic awareness of the truth, at the same time as one navigates through the concrete world of working, paying taxes, child care, and laundry - the everyday melee of modern life.

It occurs to me how important it is to remain grounded - but in the Infinite. Stuff goes of kilter, breaks when we wander around without a foundation. As I was setting up my classroom, I toppled my new, classroom phone and shattered the monitor to it. At the same time, back on the home front, my husband lost his grip on a spice from the rack above the counter and broke a cat shaped spoon holder we use to lay ladles on when we make spaghetti sauce. I was fond of that particular spoon holder; it cost six dollars. The school phone was worth six hundred.

My worst teaching day occurred three years ago. I was rehearsing kids for a production of "Into the Woods" when one of my young performers, a trained ballerina, slipped and cracked her arm in three places. It looked like a piece of inert rubber after her fall. Yet, amazingly the surgeons in triage were able to repair it.

Today I make a point to notice what is happening. I notice others for who they are, without judgment. I notice when I am tightening in my body, and my own mental habits. I make a point of noticing how fast or slowly I move through space, the tonal quality of my voice as I speak. I notice when fear and habit get the better of me, and I become ungrounded.

Lots of things seem to "break" as we move through the spaces around us - not only physical objects or our bodies. Families and our relationships with others may seem equally fragile. But ultimately, all our perceived injuries are soluble. There is no misalignment that cannot be corrected, because there we are never alone as we move through linear space and time. There is no where we can move where the Infinite is not, so nothing, not even our perceived separation can ever be truly broken.

We are always here, we are always safe, we will always heal. Sky grounding - seems like a good idea for today.