Going for a Ride

It's easy to get overwhelmed.  My head is full of contingencies, swirling with what I should be doing, or where I should be or how I should organize my day, vacations, time alone.  It's easy to feel that way when I forget the truth, and think I am all alone, in control by myself.

The tiny, petty, "little" me sweats over the inconsequential, plotting desperately for plans in advance about what to do and who or when to do it with.  That person has forgotten the deeper, truer reality about who she is - that she is never abandoned or alone.  All that swirling of thoughts and concerns has no consequence.   Because we are never abandoned; we don't have to be in control. 

It's time to stop tormenting ourselves with plans and worries that don't matter, about tomorrows we cannot control.  The brain rot of small mind is of no consequence.  Its tendency is to cling, shrink, become very small.

Today I remember to relax, to erase every worry, to be at ease.  More than ease - today I revel in peace. 

Let's let ourselves be moved then.  Let's go for the ride.

Good News: We Already Know

There is an inherent intelligence to letting go.  The best part is there is nothing we need to do, nobody we need to become.  We are there already.

It's not egocentric to realize our own empowerment.   It only seems like ego when we perceive our being as separate from everything else.  I'm getting that it's time to start thinking of everything as one unit - one all - and then "random" happenings, creation makes sense.  In other words, we are the happening.

It's a matter of letting go of our insistence of viewing ourselves as contained in a physical space, trapped in an inaccurate world perception.   It's our moment, our movement - one big, all encompassing life, there wherever we are and always here.

Simultaneous, inherent intelligence, already happening all at once.

Ready for Change... Unexpected Delights

I needed a ride to the LAX airport and an Indian girl friend of mine offered to take me.   When it was time to go, a strange car pulled up in front of my house, and the father of her daughter got out and informed me that my friend had been called into an unexpected meeting - that he was to drive me instead. 

It was a harried drive to the airport.  I wondered if he had ever driven anyone there before: he was in the wrong lane in the Sepulveda tunnel, causing a near accident when he moved at the last minute; he kept cutting off buses or sitting tentatively behind cab lines; we had to turn around and re-circle the Departures twice.  It occurred to me I may miss my flight.

He talked nonstop the entire time.  He kept saying that we do not live in a material world at all - that we are spiritual beings in a spiritual world, but we don't always know that.  When he finally reached my terminal, he bowed to me, hands in prayer and said "namaste."  I did make my plane to the yoga retreat where I was headed, but what I didn't realize at the time was that the yoga was already happening - right there, right then with my driver.

I saw him again this morning in the park by my house meditating.   I was annoyed at first because he was sitting right in the spot where I go to meditate myself.  Then I noticed his face; he was deep into it, and I realized just how much of a presence this unassuming gentleman really was.  I sat next to him and meditated with him.  It felt good. 

When I opened my eyes he was gone, but I never heard the footsteps.

I've been thinking about change.  I'm realizing how I've been strangling myself with schedules and plans and regimens for my enlightenment - for pleasure.  It's my tendency, to want to control joy.  Of course the only way to get to that place is to let go of the plan, to step aside and realize it's already here, happening.  It's time to relinquish the strait jacket and allow the unexpected delights to register.  It's time to stop strangling the happening.

"Today I will make no decisions by myself..."   That's the scary line from A Course in Miracles that seems appropriate.  It's time for that.

Unplanned Illumination - Moving with Change

I was listening to the rustle of the wind in the leaves in the middle of the night.   My office faces our back yard and when I open the screen on the back door I can sit and write facing the yard.  It's like writing outside without the bugs.

Last night, I could feel the light  breeze over the plants and the large rubber tree back there, and it felt like the back yard was breathing. Its breath drifted through the leaves and the leaves hummed from the pure pleasure of it.  "Hello Wind..." I thought.

I could hear the voice of the wind answering me in the silence of the middle of the night, leaving me with this profound sense of illumination.  The best part about the experience was that it was completely unplanned.

Rushing around in control-freak "small mind" mode I often miss the unplanned.  It's easy to feel as if I'm engaging in a struggle - a battle to push everything into set parameters.  The risk is that I bash into a wall that isn't there at all, struggling and attacking when there is nothing to attack.  In other words, if I'm walking around the world in battle-mode, it is because I am struggling within myself.

The wind last night helped me remember that every struggle is internal.  The fight only looks external, but really every joy, every fear, every anger, every pain belongs to me, and I can choose to pause, stop it, and listen to the wind.

Earthquakes and the Montana Sky

An earthquake just hit here at the beach in Los Angeles.  I was writing about clarity when it hit  - realizing what should have been obvious - that it's okay, preferable even, to approach what is happening from an angle of joy, to actually enjoy all of it.  I had just written those words, and the floor under the sofa where I sat rolled.

I've learned to love earthquakes.  There was one particular one that rattled things up a few years ago when I was camping in Montana; it was fun.  Now, I love it when the earth shakes and stuff gets spontaneously rattled.  There's an inner truth that becomes obvious in the shaking, a truth that's also reflected in the vast Montana night sky with its myriad, countless stars that are really planets, that are really other lifetimes, other memories of other moments, other aspects of self that miraculously appeared when we appeared.

The we that is the I that contains the all reveals itself, and we can see ourselves as conscious beings in a spiritual universe full of infinite possibilities.  It's random, it's impermanent, but it's also comforting and real at the same time.  Anything can happen when we go into that open space where it is silent but also dramatically alive.  That is the miracle - that we are alive, alive, alive forever in this one instant.

It Works!!

My friend Arlene Johnson had an art opening last night.  The image on this flyer is her expression of Sahasrara - the Crown Chakra.  Arlene explains it as the geometric design that reminds us of our Higher Consciousness.  In other words, the mandala is a vehicle for self-realization.

My daughter was drawn to the image instantly, telling all of us that it shows how she feels when she is singing.  Last night, this image and the other mandalas on the walls drew all of us in - and their song was healing, healing, healing.  Everyone there was somehow blessed.

My immediate family of husband and daughter expanded into the larger yogic family at the opening, and then later when we stumbled onto more unexpected friends at dinner, it felt as if there was no one but family around us.

It's easy to slip, to feel as though life is a bundle of unresolved conflicts we can never escape.  Fear, anger and worry can smother the truth of who we are, paralyzing us.  And then we are reminded, hit by that sudden  "oh," that tweaks us back into joy, and we become aware again of the constant love expressing itself in and through us.  It is a feeling of coming back - a reminder of the deep-seated, ancient truth of who we really are.

Thanks Arlene.

In This Instant... Spontaneous Healing and More

I've balked at the idea of spontaneous healing.  I get that I can erase my own mistakes - fix situations I may have misperceived quickly by simply shifting my perspective.  In other words, I'm beginning to realize that the only real obstacle to my own success is myself.  If I'm walking around angry or resentful or passionate or dreamy that is my choice.

All that self-analysis is frightening; after all, it shifts the blame for my discomfort right back on myself.  Spontaneous healing  - the idea that my thoughts and perceptions could affect other people is even more scary.  Healing involves letting go.  There used to be this rope swing at Feathered Pipe Ranch; it would rock high off the ground once you allowed yourself to slip (in an instant) onto it.  Then you would find yourself swinging in mid-air, sometimes over a lake, sometimes over the ground.  At some point it became appropriate to just let go of the rope and dive right into the lake.  The letting go took tons of nerve, but hey, everyone who got up there was hoping they'd have the guts to do just that in the end.

Allowing spontaneous healing is like letting go of that rope.  We want to let go into it, but all our internal shit swirls around in our head, keeping us tight, keeping us afraid.  It's time to relinquish that fear to this instant of pure, swirling, healing potential.  Yes, there is an obvious lack of personal control involved because the creative, healing source is limitless.  But if we put on the brakes at this point, try to stop that swing by dragging our feet inappropriately on the ground,  we're going to get hurt.  Spontaneous healing is not only possible but necessary - our redemption, our calling, the force of our creative being.  It is the force that will save the world.

(The picture is of "Babs" Barbara Brady in 2009.)