I'm one of those people who go into denial when faced with medical issues; I show up at the doctor's office only when a situation becomes intolerable. By intolerable I mean the pain has to be excruciating, the condition has to completely interfere with work, play and writing, in other words I show up to my wonderful doctor when I can't stand it anymore.
The same goes for mechanical difficulties: I replace the clothes washer when it floods the kitchen, I service the car when it flat-out stops. My high levels of denial correspond with my lack of ability to recognize that I am not the one in control of everything all the time. Admitting lack of control demands a release into what is that I find scary and disabling. Needless to say, this "control freak" attitude can cause havoc in personal relationships too; if my darling husband would rather catalog birds and grow bananas than delve into the mysteries of meditation and prayer with me I tend to take it as a personal challenge. The universe finds my "I'm the one in charge" attitude amusing to be sure; things always come around to reminding me as to the truth - that I am a dependent entity on those around me - that at times I need the help of doctors, car mechanics, plumbers and neighbors to feel my best, that I can't make my husband study the hidden implications of prayer any more than he can give me a huge charge out of bird watching.
Controlling what happens is never the issue. Allowing for the revelation in what is happening and learning to release into all of it the key. Joy comes from observing the happenings, and accepting them in all of their totality. Then, the miracles all around us become more than apparent - the miracle that is inherent in living, the miracle of every breath we have the honor of taking, the miracle of our inter-dependence. When we approach out being with a sense of that awe and gratitude for all of it, we can see ourselves as beyond all limits, even the limits of our need to control.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Significant, Instantaneous "Yes"
Erich Schiffmann leads free form tonight in Santa Monica and that is always so much fun. This time there will be live music, so the level of joy coming out of the place should be amplified even louder.
Life is here, right now and it's a blast to get that sense of innocence from doing yoga and moving with other people doing the same thing. The time spent hanging out with others of like mind that way is so significant - like instantaneous healing is not only possible, but here, now.
It's three in the morning or something like that in LA. Back for sleep - and remembering to blast that instantaneous "yes" all over the place all day tomorrow.
Life is here, right now and it's a blast to get that sense of innocence from doing yoga and moving with other people doing the same thing. The time spent hanging out with others of like mind that way is so significant - like instantaneous healing is not only possible, but here, now.
It's three in the morning or something like that in LA. Back for sleep - and remembering to blast that instantaneous "yes" all over the place all day tomorrow.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Revelations
It's quiet now, the middle of the night in Los Angeles. The day has been rushed, with an element of the "out of control" about it. Even if I wanted to plan it, the unexpected jerk of my car as it malfunctioned yet one more time, the surprise e-mail from a long lost cousin, the surprise interaction with a police officer who looked suspiciously like another dear cousin of mine, a retired police captain herself, (yes, I ran a stop sign folks, but my car was lurching around when it happened,) and then the discovery that I can't plan any of what happens, not really. There is a sense now that the activity has ceased, that maybe everything earlier was happening, is still happening all at once.
All the evidence around us points to the fact that life is continuous. The revelation becomes a matter of us seeing all of it, constant, like the story of Michelangelo seeing forms in slabs of rock and then carving out the excess to reveal what was already there. Revelation becomes the uncovering of what has always been - the unveiling of what is - from the pieces of rocks surrounding it.
So now that every one's calmed down in my house, I'm going to remember to look for the revelatory in what happens, even if its a dream I might have when I manage to get to sleep, and especially if it comes in the form of the helpful, (possibly disguised at first,) face of a police officer or a car mechanic or a doctor or a fellow teacher or a cousin or my immediate family. In the midst of the noise, the rushing, those faces are always there. It's time to look for the evidence of them, at the revelations in what is ordinary because that is what is here anyway - all the time.
All the evidence around us points to the fact that life is continuous. The revelation becomes a matter of us seeing all of it, constant, like the story of Michelangelo seeing forms in slabs of rock and then carving out the excess to reveal what was already there. Revelation becomes the uncovering of what has always been - the unveiling of what is - from the pieces of rocks surrounding it.
So now that every one's calmed down in my house, I'm going to remember to look for the revelatory in what happens, even if its a dream I might have when I manage to get to sleep, and especially if it comes in the form of the helpful, (possibly disguised at first,) face of a police officer or a car mechanic or a doctor or a fellow teacher or a cousin or my immediate family. In the midst of the noise, the rushing, those faces are always there. It's time to look for the evidence of them, at the revelations in what is ordinary because that is what is here anyway - all the time.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Glitches - Remembering to Listen
Lots of stuff went seemingly wrong this week: computer connections kept going out, medical problems cropped up from the past, people I work with put up barriers to my plans, and the cherry on top was a computer training session I found myself in for a hand-held teaching device called the "Mobi." If you ever want to feel incompetent learn a new technology with a room of twenty-year olds; I got to experience first hand how my own students must feel when I throw material at them too fast. And then there was the whole business of the shootings in Arizona; I read in the Los Angeles Times that the man accused was into "lucid dreaming." I looked "lucid dreaming" up on Wikipedia and found that it means having control over what happens in one's dreams; I would like to have control of my dream images. Does that mean I'm on the same mental wavelength as the assassin? Added background to all these glitches was an an affecting book I read this week about Jewish children rounded into camps during World War II in Paris: Sarah's Key.
So I woke today with lots of questions: obviously computer connection problems are not on par with the Nazis or the shootings in Tuscon. Those occurrences seem enough to make a person paranoid - enough to make anyone clutch and grub for what belongs to them because it is possible for tragedy to strike at any time.
This morning I decided to sit still, listen, and be willing to hear the truth about what is occurring. I am reminded that the truth is always with us no matter what set backs may occur. We can sit with the truth at any time by definition of who we are - alive, part of being. Every breath we take confirms that fact of our aliveness.
When it seems that doors are closing and something shuts down, we can always hook into a sense of renewal. And that reality confirms that our soul is indomitable, that there is a resilience to truth that can never be defeated. The truth sits with us during what may appear to be our darkest hour, through what may seem to be frustrating or down right evil. It helps to remember the evidence, that there is constant renewal happening in us, as us, with every movement, color, sound, that proves our existence, that shifts our perception back to what is real.
So I woke today with lots of questions: obviously computer connection problems are not on par with the Nazis or the shootings in Tuscon. Those occurrences seem enough to make a person paranoid - enough to make anyone clutch and grub for what belongs to them because it is possible for tragedy to strike at any time.
This morning I decided to sit still, listen, and be willing to hear the truth about what is occurring. I am reminded that the truth is always with us no matter what set backs may occur. We can sit with the truth at any time by definition of who we are - alive, part of being. Every breath we take confirms that fact of our aliveness.
When it seems that doors are closing and something shuts down, we can always hook into a sense of renewal. And that reality confirms that our soul is indomitable, that there is a resilience to truth that can never be defeated. The truth sits with us during what may appear to be our darkest hour, through what may seem to be frustrating or down right evil. It helps to remember the evidence, that there is constant renewal happening in us, as us, with every movement, color, sound, that proves our existence, that shifts our perception back to what is real.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Lighten Up
I've been told to write shorter, lighter entries. This photograph of light was taken by my friend Anne Jablonski at Feathered Pipe Ranch.
So today I'm writing about light and how it feels to lighten up. The reason I turn in desperation to all of my "little" addictions (they are of course "little" because they are fake) is how weighted down I often get by what I perceive as external expectations and demands. The big epiphany here is that nothing is external; the only weight - guilt, fear, burden - comes from my own head!
Lots of us talk about "out of body experiences," floating around outside ourselves when the pain of all that self-imposed weight gets too heavy, but the truth is that we are never "out" of our bodies. We do however, have the capacity to expand our awareness into a larger physical and mental space. The Truth is here, undeniable; and when we yearn for anything else, it is because we are missing the force of that life, the joy that is always in us right now. When we are weighted down by burdens and false obligations we don't feel that reality.
It's time to give up the perceived weight over to Truth, to let Truth carry us straight into the heart of love.
Today I remember to be light - to allow myself to expand and illuminate the full body of who I am. As light I can acknowledge the full extent of myself.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
A Gentle Reminder...
Be Love, and see what happens. Let go of wants and desires and arguments and silly hypotheticals about dark alleys and lack of food and not having enough, and turn straight toward unadulterated, unfiltered Love just for a bit, just for a moment, just for as long as you can stand and see where it leads, see what happens.
Don’t push it. The Love Being can’t be pushed. Don’t demand it. Understanding it doesn’t work on demand. Don’t lean on metaphysical concepts because they seem metaphysical or exciting or odd or because you think they’ll make you special. Don’t think at all – if only for a moment. Just BE LOVE and see what happens.
Can we be Love for a day, a minute, a second? A second’s not so long, but a second is plenty long enough.
Let go of struggling with being the student, the mother, the teacher, the lover, the flirt, the healer, the intellect, and just Be. For a second. We’re ready to see what happens.
It may feel odd at first but that is because you do not want what you think you want. You have everything you need for what you truly are and then some! There is no lack.
Do you imagine you need attention or food or fame or acknowledgements here and everywhere, that you are special? Your ego demands to be fed because that is how it functions, because those aspects of Being are a very pleasurable part of the fun. But don’t grapple for them, cling to them. The grapple makes them fade.
Am I Jesus? Am I Moses, or John Lennon, or Neil Young? Did Joseph Smith get special revelations? Ordinary revelations are what we are talking here. Nothing strange or off the wall. Nothing elevating because you are already elevated. No extra tumble in the hay that will be better than any other tumble that you are already tumbling through here, now.
You are already in it; just turn to it, just be it, just realize it. Just for a moment. Come back to Love. Let that be it for today. Be Raw Love. Let go of everything else and watch what happens.
Don’t push it. The Love Being can’t be pushed. Don’t demand it. Understanding it doesn’t work on demand. Don’t lean on metaphysical concepts because they seem metaphysical or exciting or odd or because you think they’ll make you special. Don’t think at all – if only for a moment. Just BE LOVE and see what happens.
Can we be Love for a day, a minute, a second? A second’s not so long, but a second is plenty long enough.
Let go of struggling with being the student, the mother, the teacher, the lover, the flirt, the healer, the intellect, and just Be. For a second. We’re ready to see what happens.
It may feel odd at first but that is because you do not want what you think you want. You have everything you need for what you truly are and then some! There is no lack.
Do you imagine you need attention or food or fame or acknowledgements here and everywhere, that you are special? Your ego demands to be fed because that is how it functions, because those aspects of Being are a very pleasurable part of the fun. But don’t grapple for them, cling to them. The grapple makes them fade.
Am I Jesus? Am I Moses, or John Lennon, or Neil Young? Did Joseph Smith get special revelations? Ordinary revelations are what we are talking here. Nothing strange or off the wall. Nothing elevating because you are already elevated. No extra tumble in the hay that will be better than any other tumble that you are already tumbling through here, now.
You are already in it; just turn to it, just be it, just realize it. Just for a moment. Come back to Love. Let that be it for today. Be Raw Love. Let go of everything else and watch what happens.
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