Confirmation - Living a New Awareness

(Photographs of the deer and Feathered Pipe Ranch by Anne Jablonski.)

Today I move with a new confidence; I let myself exist as a living confirmation of truth.

Someone very dear to me became distressed when he saw two people - a woman and a man - shifting through the trash for food. He had stopped at a gas station after deer hunting in an area that gets cold and snowy, so his vision of two other human beings in a state of wanting distressed him even more. His upset was compounded by the fact that despite a long day of effort, neither he nor his hunting companion had seen any deer. He was hungry, tired and cold himself.

The desperate couple before him, reduced to digging in a trash bin for scraps rattled him. Were they not direct evidence that there is an inherent lack of resources, that all of us should struggle and push or we might literally starve to death?

I became intrigued myself by the situation and sought to make the necessary mental shift to view the situation of hunger and lack - sometimes as it affects us, sometimes as we see it affecting others - differently. Around the same time, I read a post by Erich Schiffmann from his website addressing the same question. Erich wrote:

"Here we are in the middle of this predicament… and now what? And in the midst of figuring this out simultaneously having to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves—or suffer the consequences. And most of the time, it seems, we get so caught up in the survival side of things that we largely forget or ignore the initial question. But my feeling is the clearer we get on the “What’s going on?” question, the easier it will be to attend to the other needs." (http://movingintostillness.yuku.com/topic/7636)

It occurs to me that the struggle for survival plays out our worst fears about what will happen if we allow ourselves to make the mental shift; we are terrified that if we turn to the truth, to what is happening, it will be ugly. Surely we will starve, because from a "survival of the fittest" stand point we are orphaned, on our own out there.

It is time to stop letting those in a state of struggle around us reinforce our worst fears, and instead allow them to point out for all of us the strength of our own compassion. The compassion is the evidence that we are never alone, that there is never a time when we are abandoned. There are plenty of resources to attend to all our needs here, an evident abundance even on the days when the deer are scarce. As we turn to a new compassion for others, the couple digging in the trash, ourselves, everyone, we will find the confidence in the abundance that is always there.

When we are confident that there is enough, we will be more willing to share with others. Giving to others will never decrease the amount we have for ourselves. The irony is the more we contract, and grab what we perceive as scarce for us and ours, the more bleak matters will appear. Hording creates the perception of scarcity without fail.

Yes, digging through the trash is what fear looks like - it is an act of desperation. As much as possible the thing to do is to soothe the world and those around us when they become desperate, to let go of the resources we ourselves enjoy and distribute those resources to the best of our ability to those in need.

Then we will escape the more common psychological trash bin where we often find ourselves trapped. When we think there is not enough we feel deprived and we grab, desperate for what we are really worried about not getting - enough love. In that state of perceiving ourselves as orphaned - afraid and alone - we are forced to rely on a false independence. It's helpful to make the shift, to realize everyone is not out to get me, hurt me, take away love. When we shift we feel the supreme waves of an ocean of love through and around us; it's as if we're taking a bath in a love that is plentiful and never ending.

Abundance is real. The trick is to remain confident in that truth. When we slip we feel a tightening, pain and despair - a feeling tone that is clearly incorrect. Confidence is our knowing beyond belief, that the love and compassion are there within us, that ultimately they will melt our skepticism and denial.

Today is a day of confirmation.

Happy Thanksgiving and Thanks to the Everyone in Sedona

Thank you to Joe and Kris Neri, and everyone in Sedona who attended the event at The Well Red Coyote for making Friday night such a memorable evening.

Sedona is a mystical spot on the planet. It was lovely to get to visit, and see everyone there in person.

Happy, restful Thanksgiving!!!

Laura

Self Contained

It helps to think in terms of metaphor when arriving at a place of new perception. Moving as we are through a logical, linear culture it's tempting at times to take ourselves and the world around us literally, and seriously. The literal is helpful for grounding, but in order to reach a point of new perception we will have to let go, fly, jump off what seems solid and secure to us into the mysterious unknown.

The only way to do that, make that wonderful metaphorical leap into truth is to let go of self judgment, the internal critique of ourselves and others and expect nothing. It's useful to identify hurtful internal voices, rising out of patterns of conditioning, that derogatory self talk that serves no valid purpose in our self understanding and keeps us spinning, hamster-like on a wheel that goes no where. We know we are falling prey to harmful, hurtful mind chatter when we feel tightening - for me it's my jaw that freezes, another friend of mine complains of "brain freeze" when he gets nervous, others have mentioned a habitual tightening in the lower back.

Seeing those around us as who they really are, the self contained truth of all that is beneath their chosen masks, is also helpful. It's easy to become frightened by the intensity of the love we find buried there when we strip away those fake, scary judgments. Different people become gifts to us in providing the comfort and support required to wipe away the stage makeup; a dear friend of mine, a poet in his own right, always models the unconditional love, acceptance and understanding that jogs me out of my own conditioned habits. He doesn't even live in the same town as I; he conveys his healing strength and acceptance via e-mails - electronic and telepathic.

It's the not knowing what we will find beneath all that mental grime that makes us hold back. Part of the realization is that we are all self contained - not in the sense of being independent, but in the sense of being all inclusive, of containing within ourselves all the parts necessary for completion.

Today I remember that I am self contained, that in the silence of being, of sitting still, I contain the entirety of the universe. I rest, cradled in the knowledge of myself as I truly am. I let go of fears and past traumas and allow myself the being, the permission of being, the vulnerability that comes from that being - now, always.

There is a sense of wonder, an authentic self that comes when we make that leap. We can embody the synergy of all things from that place of expanded awareness. I guess that's good news.

Positive Reviews on Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Write one for Bear Speaks if you can!!

I'll have pictures from the book signing in Sedona up here shortly.

Happy, happy Thanksgiving week.

The Wide Angle View

Yesterday the flight into Phoenix from Los Angeles was one of those smooth, clear flights that make me love flying. The sun was shining just the right amount onto everything I could see out the window as we took off, and Los Angeles from the air looked sublimely lovely. The cars moved along in a steady stream on the freeway, as we went further and further up in the air the houses became smaller and smaller dots, and then we were over the ocean where I got a clear view of Catalina Island, and the other channel islands with just the right amount mist around them to give them a mysterious, fogged in aura.

Usually my perspective of Los Angeles is limited. If I stand on the corner of Aviation and Rosecrans I can see the Trader Joe's where I go for food, the Barnes and Noble, (a significant spot in my life these days,) and the Office Depot where I get printer paper and the gel pens I've become attached to using. Just a few blocks south of that is the school where I teach. To the north about a half mile is the airport. That's the extent of my world when I look at it from my ground level position on the corner of Aviation and Rosecrans.

Up in the sky yesterday my perspective was much wider. The corner where I live my life on the ground wasn't even visible then - a tiny speck at most. I got this rush looking down at all of it, like "Wow," the city is so much larger than I usually notice.

I imagined what it would be like to shoot up into space even higher over it all in a rocket ship and look down at the planet from even a wider view. We've all seen pictures of Earth from space and even from the pictures there's that same sublime sense of "Wow."

Fortunately we don't have to get in an airplane or a space ship to get the wide angle perspective. We have our own internal launching pad within us all the time. It's a matter of sitting still in meditation, and yes, it works better when we are in the woods, or a park, someplace naturally beautiful, but it is always with us, this ability to hook into what's real, to shift our perspective from ground level over to the truth of what's happening.

It occurred to me that when I looked at things from the wide angle view I might become depressed; after all if where we usually are, for me that corner of Manhattan Beach, is so tiny, we must be insignificant. Actually, the opposite is true. The more I meditate, the more I hook into the large, eternal nature of everything, the more I realize how vast I can be when I allow myself this larger sense of awareness. The hook up is comforting, the hook up is healing, the hook up makes me feel limitless.

Now is an opportune time to get a larger perspective, to hook right in to what is true and real and accurate about where we are and who we are. It's incumbent upon all of us to do that as often as we can.

The Well Red Coyote

I'm speaking at the Well Red Coyote in Sedona, Arizona tomorrow, Friday, November 19 at 6:30 pm.

The talk is entitled "The Genesis of Bear Speaks: Unpacking the Seven Precepts."

Looking forward to being with many of you there.

Becoming Proactive

I have never been more appropriately challenged than by the exigencies put to me by my yoga practice. I'm not talking about yoga as in the physical practice of asana, but yoga as in recognizing my connection with other people. It's funny that the process of meditation - quieting my mind and sitting still - prompts me to action. The difference between yogic action and my usual flailing around is the level of clarity.

When we hook into a clear, meditative state, it's like contacting a dear friend we can turn to for help and guidance. There's a spirit of gentleness, kindness when someone teaches us as a friend, a symbiotic nature to the relationship - the teacher helps the student, but the student also helps the teacher. Because promptings and conversations from a yogic perspective are synergistic, they contain the potential for growth. Such conversation with our internal "friend," the teacher who is always there, have a healing quality - there's this opening from them for something miraculous to occur.

When we hook into this miraculous wisdom within ourselves we become advocates for life. Our movements from that standpoint become creative, life affirming, and involve an element of blissful surrender. It's as if we're reaching deep within ourselves and asking our "friend" for help in a quizzical and innocent fashion; there's a sweetness to taking guidance that way. I like it when my actions come from that sacred dialogue, because when they come from me alone, they run the risk of being obsessive, one sided, and uninspired.

Guided action is about finding love, being love, because that is all we are, all that is anyways. Yoga reminds me I am all that.

Instantaneous Kindness

Sometimes I feel such tension with my family, in-laws, my own folks, even my husband and daughter; the holidays are almost here again, and I know they should be fun and enjoyable, and yet they often end up full of hostility instead. So today seems like a opportune time to reaffirm the power of kindness, to remember that it leads to softening, and that softening leads to miracles.

The key is to shift my own mental perception of what is happening from one of hostility into the reality of joy. It would be a miracle if we could all just enjoy one another without any discomfort and tension. I need a "prescription," like something a doctor might prescribe for kindness, and because I'm an impatient person by nature I need to have it work instantaneously.

I know this is a tall order; it's taken years, (and numerous lifetimes if I buy into the idea of reincarnation,) to build this false tension and discomfort that blocks our joy now. Fortunately, the structure of of that hostility is false and only requires an instant revelation to be dismantled.

With the kids I teach at school I use acrostics to help them remember concepts - things like "Every Good Boy Does Fine," to remember scales on the piano, for instance. The acrostic here for shifting to kindness is "RIL." "R" is for Realize, reminding me to stop and notice the tightening occurring in my own mind and body, "I," stands for Identify, to know that the tightening is based on fear, my own inner, false worries about being judged and abandoned, and "L" reminds me to shift my perspective to one of Love instead.

I vow let today be The Last Judgment then - the instantaneous moment when I shift my interactions with the world from a point of tension to a point of love.

Book Signing At Mystic Journeys in Venice

I'll be there from 7 - 9 pm Friday night. The amazing and talented Stephen Doherty is singing and playing guitar there as well.

Check out the Schedule of Appearances for more information and the link to Mystic Journeys' website.

Remaining receptive today...

Kindness

(Hoisting prayer flags at Feathered Pipe Ranch in Montana)

Today I remember to be kind.

It doesn't cost anything, it isn't that difficult to do, and everyone else is counting on it.

OM

Gratitude - A Lovely Cup of Darjeeling Tea

I don't usually drink caffeinated teas; they can lead someone with my constitution to bounce all over the place. A person should only have so much energy at five in the morning. As it is, I tend to wake up before every else with our three cats, sip tea in the dark while padding over our creaky hardwood floors, usually knocking over something: a glass in the kitchen; books stacked in our less than organized living room; potted plants; and then apologize to my dear husband and daughter who are trying to sleep at that hour. They rarely hear me; they are consistently sound sleepers in the morning.

Someone bought me a gift a while back of several imported teas - they are all contain caffeine, but have exotic names like lemon pekoe, clove flavored chai, Ceylon of various types, and the oddest, English Tea No. 1. I've been avoiding them for fear they would wire me into a crazier being than I already am. This morning I broke down and had several cups of Darjeeling. I know for hard core tea drinkers Darjeeling is hardly exotic, but I've never tasted it before. It was wonderful. Yes, I bounced around for hours, especially after several cups of the stuff, but in the process I realized I'd been denying myself the enjoyment of a great gift because of restraints I'd determined earlier about what is good for me, and what I should allow myself to experience. I'm excited to try the other teas in my gift package now.

I'm suddenly aware of other "gifts" in my life, off the usual list of experiences I think I "should" enjoy, that are, ultimately delightful. It's easy to have pre-conditioned notions about how things should be - a marriage based on dictates I've taken from the inner most reaches of my ego; or a relationship with my daughter and friends I think must follow certain guidelines to be legitimate. Reality always reminds me how silly those preconceived guidelines can be.

My daughter continues to violate the "rules" about how a teen aged girl should act; like most teenagers she has an unnerving knack for seeing right through adult facades. Uncharacteristically, my daughter begs for time together, savoring aspects of our relationship that don't meet the traditional framework for a mother and teenager. Like Darjeeling tea, I've never been any one's mother before; it's best to just admit neither of us are following traditional, probably false guidelines for how that relationship should be, and just bounce through it joyously as it is.

I'm learning to stop holding my friendships up to these preconceived frameworks also. It's fun to just let go, spin with all the amazing stuff happening with the men and women I'm interacting with everyday, and to realize I don't understand everything about those connections. When I surf through my friendships, open and and with a sense of curiosity about where they will lead, when I don't preplan what is happening, I'm discovering just how fun they can be. There's no reason to feel restricted about how and when I should connect with anyone in my life.

It's a challenge for me to let go of my need to organize, limit and control in my writing, my teaching, everything that happens in a given day. But when I do, I'm finding that I enjoy the moment more, I'm finding myself swept away with gratitude, appreciating new sensations, like a delicious cup of Darjeeling tea I'm tasting for the first time.

Seeing - Shifting Mental Perceptions

There are times when I am swept away by restlessness, this odd feeling of being trapped in the ordinary day to day existence of life as I currently perceive it. I was listening to Stephen Hawking talk about "wormholes" a few nights ago - short cuts in outer space that allow matter to cut through the restraints of ordinary time. It would be fun to jump into a wormhole when I feel edgy like this, to beam myself all around space and time at will. From my new vantage point I would look back at where I am now and see things afresh.

It occurs to me that I am constantly formulating the people around me in my mind. They exist as entities outside myself of course - everyone exists outside all of us, but to an extent, we also invent those we encounter in our minds to suit our own perception of reality. Our current perceptions of others can be pretty inaccurate. Especially when we find ourselves in an intense relationship, head over heels in love, or in a power struggle with someone of the ilk of a mother-in-law or boss, it's tough to stay neutral.

Even labeling people as they pertain to us - my husband, my daughter, my mother, my teacher - skews our perception of them. I wonder if there is way of going past those inaccurate, quick perceptions of everyone and everything without jumping through a wormhole ala Stephen Hawking. I wonder how often we really look at other people, and see them as they are, without judgment, without the mental gloss. The correct perception is one where the inherent perfection of everything is evident. The correct perception is one where we shut up enough to live.

The other day I was convinced, if only for a few moments, that I was trapped in the ladies room at the doctor's office. The room had two doors - one leading out to the hallway that opened easily, and another one, on the other side that was locked, probably a storage closet for cleaning supplies. I was in a such a rush coming out of the stall, that I turned the wrong way, and became convinced that the locked door was the way out, that I was somehow trapped in there. There I was pounding at the supply closet door, annoyed, frustrated, when really the whole time I had just gotten twisted around somehow. The exit was there all along, completely unimpeded, but I was unaware of its existence. I even got out my cell phone at one point to call for help. It was all silly, but also revealing about how we can misperceive our world.

We've become confused about other people and what's happening. It's important for us to readjust that confusion to the point of truth. It's all mental, how we see our families, our friends, our lovers, along with what we expect of them. One function of a wormhole - and I'm convinced that like the open exit door in that women's room, wormholes do exist - is to help us realize that we don't need to feel constrained by time or space, that we have been viewing everything around us in our daily world through an inaccurate lens.

Once we realize our own misperception, the door easily opens to the fantastical, potent reality that is. That is when we can exit the dark world of our own mental judgments into someplace lovely.

(The photograph was taken by the talented Pat Olchefski-Winston at our book signing at the Ojai Yoga Crib last weekend. It's hard to see the universe as anything but lovely there.)