Happy New Year!

"Contentment is life living through you.

Joy is life living through you.

Satisfaction and strength are life living through you.

Peace is life living through you.

...Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.

Let life live through you." 

                         ~Hokusai 

Wishing that you conjour good magic so that your best self ever is revealed to you in the coming new year!

A Teaching Creme Brûlée

“I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon.”
― Charlotte Brontë

I am no innocent bystander. Everything I do, say, think and believe affects my life. I had a teaching creme brûlée last nite. I knew it was OK to order it, but I did not pay enough attention to the description on the menu. It read, "enough for 2 or 3 people." So when the oval tart dish arrived - it was the size of a clown shoe - we were all very surprised. It was then I had a choice and I did the right thing. I ate just the right amount and had the rest wrapped up to take home. (I did offer to share it with my friends, but they so rightly would have none of it. I hang with very enlightened people!)

But I was again tested at home as I took the pudding from it's shiney folded black paper box to place it in a more durable container. "Gee - that is not as much as I thought," I thought. "Gee - that spoon tastes good. Ya know - I think the burnt sugar may dissolve before I get to it again tomorrow. Perhaps I should finish it tonite?"

Don don don donnnnnnn! Oblivious to the forbodding Beetoven-ish chords playing over me and the dish and the spoon, I carried my doom with me up the stairs to my bedroom. Yes - it was eaten. Yes - there was a belly ache. And yes - I had totally disregarded all my inner wisdom. 

I am no innocent bystander here. I created all of it just like I am creating this message to myself today, as a reminder. I am not powerless. I am NEVER powerless. All the choices I make bend my life forward!

Knowing this Truth I move onward being more aware in the moment of every single MOMENT!

What thing needs more of your attention today?

Tag You're It!

Don't Postpone Joy

Today I am here...

"Picture in your inner eye, your inner sight, four avocado seeds on the window sill. Three are suspended in a glass of water and have sprouted. One is still dry and papery and brown. Each of the sprouting seeds has its own character. One has two long roots, like two rubbery legs folding around each other in the bottom of the glass. Out of the top rises a cluster of tiny seedling leaves, and surprisingly, on this one, these leaves are white -- little tight white albino avocado seedling leaves, coming out of that big hard seed knob. Another has one short straight root and one straight shoot bearing green leaves at the top. The third has neither root nor shoot, but the whole seed has been split open by a thrust from inside, and the two halves shoved apart by the germinating seed force -- that little bunch of stuff, big as the end of your pinkie, shoving those big doors aside like a tiny Samson. It is a wonderful sight. And now let us look at the fourth seed, dry and papery and brown, nothing showing on the outside. But within are a life force and a living plantness which we cannot see with our ordinary eyes. If we are to behold the wrinkled old seed in truth, we have to behold it with imagination, with our inner eye. Only with the inner eye of imagination can we see inner forms of Being and Becoming. In this lifeless-looking seed there is a germinating center, totally alive and totally invisible."~ from The Crossing Point Selected Talks and Writings by M C Richards

I am the fourth seed today - "dry and papery and brown, nothing showing on the outside." I know when it is time I will robustly broadcast my own special leafy self - wide and tall and full. And I too will bear fruit which will bear seeds that will in turn bear fruit and so on and so on...

Knowing this is power. 

In the meantime I am NOT willing to postpone Joy until I sprout. For it is Joy that nourishes me. Yes - no matter the stage or state of my germination I will nourish Joy.

What do you nourish within yourself?

Tag You're It! 

Finding your G-spot

"If you can sit quietly after difficult news (even if in financial downturns you remain perfectly calm)... If you can see your neighbors travel to fantastic places without a twinge of jealously... If you can happily eat whatever is on your plate, or fall asleep after a day of running around without a drink or a pill... If you always find contentment just where you are... You are probably a dog." ~jack kornfield

We all have ideas of what it means to be spiritual. For me it is about the exquisite equanimity of this life. Creating balance so nothing throws me too far a field is a practice. And because I am human I need the practice. When I experience one of life's many challenges I have come to know I can change things myself and I do NOT need an EXTERNAL source to do the job. In this lies power. 

I love the life I am leading and when things get a little hairy or a bit off balance I love that I can easily turn things around by actively focusing my energy on all the abundance that surrounds me, all the love that is shared with me and all the love I am able to share with others. In a word - I am GRATEFUL! 

This is my G-spot. 

This provocative phrasing is deliberately chosen to get your attention. I want you to know this is serious business - the practice of moving actual energy within and around your own physical space. It is not just platitudinous gibber jabber. Nor, by the way, is it a heavy lift.

By regularly holding conscious thoughts that reveal joy, love and grace things do shift, energies do up level and experiences do become transformed.

And this is the place that feels real good to me, the place I cultivate within myself and the place from which I enjoy intimately sharing my life with others. 

Where is your energy focused? 

Tag You're It!

No Need for Struggle

"Don't keep pushing against closed doors. Look around for the open ones." ~ sanyana roman

Every now and then I get caught up in wanting a thing that may not be mine. I feel owed it. Or I need it. Or I just would like to have it because I briefly enjoyed it...so it must be mine.

For me, "being caught" is an indication I have stepped out of the flow of things and have begun a familiar dance of dragging myself against my better interest or anchoring myself when I could be happily moving along. Feelings of powerlessness show up as a life circumstance becomes harder than it has to be. And in the end - after some misbegotten actions or emotions - I get that it was never meant to be mine or perhaps there is a better way to do something.

I wonder why this happens? How come I retrace these steps now and then? 

It seems as if the wanted thing is the least of my concerns. I am coming to realize it is the unlearned lesson "to let go" that I am really after.

Do not get me wrong...struggle to achieve a goal is a good and mighty thing. It cultivates patience, trust, confidence, focus and concentration. But there are a myriad of ways to achieve and knowing that in the deeps of my soul is very liberating.

So I am learning to pay attention. And if it feels like I am being dragged down away from Joy... I stop. I reconsider my options all the while keeping my same goal in mind. It is having this kind of flexibility that eases my way forward. 

There really are endless ways to get there and still stay on your own path! And if you are lucky...and open... some of them may even surprise you!

Do you find flexibility to be one of your go to assets?

Tag You're it!

Lessons from the Farm

"…before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward that dream." ~from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Perhaps everybody knows these 3 things, but they were never explained to me so viscerally or so well as they were today!

Ask and you will receive. 

Walking past Flash, the dark brown and white speckled pony who is second in line in the pecking order between Tophat and Skippy, I was not focused on him there in the side pasture. I was focused on the six slips of hay I needed to get and dispense in the back pasture on this gray blue December day. So no mind was paid to Flash and his water barrel. After getting the hay in all the right places and on my coat and fat wool knitted scarf, Flash had not budged from his barrel to go eat. I took note and fed the goats. 

Suddenly there was no question what Flash wanted to see happen. Oh so that's the reason the blue barrel is lashed twice round the fence post. Wordlessly he was knocking the thing again and again so I Iet him know I hear you, "OK, OK...I get it...must put water in the empty water barrel NOW!" Requiring confirmation he did not leave his post to get his breakfast until he saw with his own pony's eyes the barrel and hose joined and the water flowing.  Ask and you will receive. The farm taught me this. 

Make every step count. 

Watching a 60 gallon barrel become full...just watching it is a gift. Resting there with intermittent rays of sunlight noiselessly raking the pasture, the peace of that moment was unmistakably given and received. 

Looking back at Flash's barrel, I worked out the time. Not clock time. Not the time to catch a bus or to meet a date. I needed to know the best approximate interval to begin walking, walking around the goat pen past the garage through the stone gate on to the muddy patch and beyond the guinea hen's squawk to get to the pump to turn the off the water that was currently filling the bucket. 

Figuring in real time this distance and pace to walk so I can shut off the hose at that exact perfect moment the bucket is filled is my kind of fun! I love this soft squishy numberless calculus involving just woman and foot and practical physics. When I got back to the barrel it appeared I had done it. We were all filled up, Flash and me, he with his water and me with my Joy! Make every step count. The farm taught me this.

Turn it off at the source. 

Flowing water is a must around here. A hose with many junctions provides flow all over the farm. The cutting off of the flow at the source would eliminate extra work and avoid unwanted complications. Turn the water off at the source, not at a junction otherwise you will just have to do it again and again until you get it right. Turn it off at the source. The farm taught me this.

So glad I got up this am. Seems nature and the animals are full of the Truth of Life. And so grateful I am awake and studying - never know when I will be tested again!

What teaches you stuff?

Tag You're it!

Advocating for Meditation

"Through the sacred art of pausing, we develop the capacity to stop hiding, to stop running away from our experience. We begin to trust in our natural intelligence, in our naturally wise heart, in our capacity to open to whatever arises. Like awakening from a dream, in the moment of pausing our trance recedes and Radical Acceptance becomes possible." ~tara branch

Everybody has their own unique natural state, their own baseline from which all their experiences begin. Some say we can move up the vibration of this - our unique natural state - to enhance our experience of life; to increase the amounts of JOY and LOVE we are able to know.

If you knew this to be the truth, why would you not set about immediately to begin doing it? 

"The realization of eternal truth comes at the expense of all of our illusions." ~adyashanti

Aha! Well I have had nothing to lose recently so my way of raising my vibration is through meditation. If I mindfully begin by setting my intention to make more abundant JOY and LOVE in my life and then practice quietly sitting still - in a way that makes sense for me - I have found I do generate just that. Not by direct effort, i.e. analytical planning out a strategy with steps and goals, but by simple use of my breath and my mind and my body in a standard practiced way. 

I use these same capacities, my breath, mind and body, in every other of life's routine situations. When I am brushing my teeth or washing my face or cooking a meal I use them to stay healthy, to shed cells, to grow and transform. So why not use my breath, mind and body (over time) to amp up my perception?

Like clothes that are worn in bright sunlight and washed and then hung on the line over and over again - Meditation has helped me to indirectly become slowly bleached of hardship and sorrow. My natural daily responses are fading away from material concerns and focusing more toward a wholistic embodiment of loving energy. I do not know where this will lead but this is the direction in which I am going! 

Oh I still go grocery shopping, make plans, art and money. But gradually I am coming to see with these newer more joyful and loving eyes. And I see that all is well. Really...I swear! And all this "all is well" jazz started by just sitting quietly and not trying at all. This is a feat in itself - I know.

And so unlike the way we have been taught to strive for JOY and LOVE. So alien and perverse and cliche! But it works for me. This is my chosen path. And I am still living the same life I have always lived - just better by every measure.

What does your path look like?

Tag You're It!

Getting Back to My Life

"A low point in life is sometimes a turning point. but you have to turn"  ~ thomas moore, author of Care of the Soul 

In a difficult moment I found myself saying aloud, "I can't wait to get back to my life!" And seconds later I recognized that this moment, every part and parcel of it, was my life. So I took a deep breath and thought to myself - just go with the flow.

Now I find myself thinking I am relinquishing too much control and must put order back into my life. I must invest in my own intentions. I am masterful and must take hold of the reins and choose a path!

Then I say aloud, "How do I do this exactly?"

Taking charge suggests taking action to me. Is this always the case you think?

Tag You're It!