Unpack Your Love

"I believe we are all held safely by Love."

"Unpack your Love" is what came through the meditations. "Unpack it. Open it. See into all it's light and shadow.  Inspect all that is included in your thinking about Love." 

My Love includes Attraction, Sex, Parenting, Kindness, Hurt, Compassion, Self-Loathing, Abandonment, Attachment and Detachment, Unconditional Trust, Grief, Joy and sushi! I guess this is NOT a carry-on bag?

I had only experienced Love like an ON/OFF switch. I loved my husband and he loved me. That was it! But I never knew how much Love could grow, that Love takes many forms, and that Love can show up in many different ways. Then Life and Death circumstances showed up and taught me more about Love. 

Experiencing my husband's complete surrender to an illness and his complete trust in me to care for him changed me. I saw how friends, new and old, supported us. In this way we have all been changed. And when Mike died I came to know him in another way. This changed me too. 

It was the hardest work I have ever done, but he and all my friends helped me to live again. Slowly I have come back from Hell. Slowly I have gotten to really know my authentic self. And it is Love in all these many forms that has shown me the way. 

Love begets more of itself; I have seen this. And I have experienced how Love surrounds and dwells inside all things. And through all of this I have felt Love get bigger and bigger and bigger. And it makes me wonder, "Just how big can Love get?"

To some this may sound cliche and simplistic. To others it may seem impossible. But Love grows exponentially when you nuture it. This is my Truth and to this day this Truth undergirds all my doings.

My own path is still uncertain, the details on how to make my dreams come true are fuzzy, but the clarity of how Love serves to guide my way is crystal clear. To this I am completely reverent. 

Gary Zukav, author of Seat of the Soul says, "Reverence is engaging in a form and a depth of contact with Life that is well beyond the shell of form and into essence."

I believe holding reverance for Love has caused me to look for Love in every circumstance. And in doing so Love teaches me to listen for it's lesson. This reverence for Love, in all it's forms, involves caring for my own well being first... and from this creates a great compassion for everyone else. This way instead of being ruled by or resistant to life's happenings I am moved forward by Love's immense power. Love has shown up in many forms for me over and over like this. In this way I have moved mountains.

I can move these mountains because Love has shown me they do not exist. 

What resides inside your ideas of Love?

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Becoming a Magician

"This is how I want to spend my life, 

collaborating with forces of inspiration 

I can neither see, nor prove, nor command, nor understand." 

~elizabeth gilbert from her book Big Magic. 

My life is everything I make it. In this way I am a magician!

Magician suggests things like: amazing feats, extreme skill, and secret slight of hand. I view a magician as one who grasps the unseen and harnesses it to become reality. My magical talents are derived from common sense knowledge, everyday emotion, consistent practice and unconditional trust that all is well.

At the highest level of interpretation, magic indicates there is an intricate and complex web of influences that binds the Universe to itself, and to everything else. So, for me, magic is essentially about communication, but on subtler levels...beyond the material world.

If you want to magically manifest your heart's desire into a mundane world, you will have to come to terms with the actuality, the workings and the efficient manipulation of this web, understanding its laws and vagaries. This web is what causes so-called 'coincidences', or those freak connections that we make right when we need them most. It is this system that brings the teacher to the student at exactly the right time, puts the very book we need on the bookshelf just when we needed it, draws the right person, website, or blog into our lives at the opportune moment.

Therefore it is essential, in order to achieve your highest possible destiny, that you do the work toward understanding this web of life. And in so doing, you too will become a team player... one who manifests all manner of things for your highest good and the highest good of others.

You can start today by experimenting with the way this web works. Begin by becoming aware of thoughts you are transmitting to yourself and others. What we put out eventually finds its way back to us - colored by everything it has touched along the way. This is the single most practical reason for positive thinking!

We need to consider our overall direction too. Are we doing things to actually fulfill our aspirations? We need to look at how every single action we take can be made into an act of magic. People miss this concept all the time. Begin today the practice of holding this idea in the forefront of your mind. Pay attention today how this practice alone changes the way you approach your daily activities.

Acting with intent is another practice you can begin starting right now. For instance, if you cook a meal, cook it with the intention that it will sustain the very spirit of those who eat it. And back it up with deep abiding feelings. If you do the washing up, do it remembering that you are washing away the stains of the world. And make sure to back it up with the love and good feelings of being one who serves. If you are driving to see a friend, regard the journey as another step in your growth and development. Feel the excitement and wonder of the multitude of unknown good and gracious possibilities to come.

Get the idea?

Practicing everything with intent and deep abiding feeling plugs you into the clear and crystalline flow of your Emotions. Your power to manifest lies here - for Emotion is more than just a passing party or storm that happens to you. Emotion is energy. Emotion is that which connects you, a mortal human being, to the unseen spirit, the eternal spirit part of your being.

We are meant to use Emotion to create. Taking back this power takes daily practice. Daily practice strengthens this power. And...from personal experience, let me tell you it really gets the mundane stuff done quickly, efficiently and with a fuller heart than I had ever imagined!

Lastly, when working with your Emotions to become one who manifests, remember one thing - if you aren't happy with your life the way you've made it so far, accepting your inner magician is one way to access your power within. Working with your inner magician will make your life something brighter than it is and something way more satisfying.


Are you ready to begin?

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All Things are Possible

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible" ~walt disney

I am making room for the possibility of bliss. I am letting go of old constraints. I have reasoned that without opening up to the idea of bliss I would not be able to approach it. 

So I am making room to be in bliss, to become blind to that which harnesses me to old ways of being. I have not come this far through the muck and I have not restoratively lain by the sidelines for these many long nights to not get up and get going now that I am just that - restored.

Coming to a conclusion. Concluding a completion. I must be walking through this inner door and hanging up my old hat. I am unencumbered without moss on my feet. I have groaned and growed up. My peace is in knowing that now is the time to move on.  

Thank you for helping me see and be aware of these things for without this constant inner vision not much could manifest. And with this inner vision all things are possible!

Can you see inside yourself well enough...yet?

Tag. You're It!

More Truth about Love

"I love you and it is no concern of yours."~anonymous 

Perhaps you do not experience yourself this way, but my thoughts of you contain joy, wonder and adventure. These, of course, are my experiences. They come from me and you are not actually in them. But you reflect these feelings within me. And I like that!

And there is NO OBLIGATION for you to be anything other than who you believe yourself to be. You owe me nothing. My joy, my sense of wonder and my cultivation of adventure are mine alone. And in letting go of YOU I am somehow transformed and able to see this more clearly. 

This is the part that causes trouble. This is where many folks get tripped up because we believe our love resides in the other, is attached to the other, and depends on the other for us to feel it. And this gives rise to us holding back, hiding or being afraid.

I have experienced the opposite to be true. When I become transparent and vulnerable I am not losing anything. I will never be in danger as my feelings of love reside within me. Love is a choice. Love is my practice.

Being transparent and vulnerable is where the treasure is. This is where the growing happens. This is where we are each eachother's teacher and eachother's student. In it's purest form this is how LOVE works…in our own Joy, Compassion and Wholeness...without grasping, without attachment and without fear.

Oh, I know it ain't easy! It requires a lot of internal work and a real commitment to practice to get to these places of deep abiding Trust.

But I Trust this is the Truth. And I know you are my teacher in this. Thank you for showing me the way...one day at a time.

Who teaches you stuff? And what have you learned today?

Tag, You're It!

Belonging

"When you appreciate yourself, you realize that you don't have to feel wretched or condemned. You don't have to artificially puff yourself up, either. You discover your basic dignity, which comes along with gentleness. You have always possessed this, but you may never have recognized it before. You don't have to be a egomaniac to appreciate yourself. In fact, you appreciate yourself more when you are free of the ugliness of that egotism, which is actually based on self-hatred. Look in the mirror. Appreciate yourself. You look beautiful in a simple, humble way. When you choose your clothes, when you comb your hair, when you take a shower, you are expressing an element of complete and fundamental goodness, wakefulness, and decency. There is an alternative to feeling condemned. You actually can make friends with yourself." ~Chogyam Trungpa

1249 days since my husband died and still healing is a foot! Still I comb the underbrush of my soul for answers…today I ask, "Where do I belong?"

Where can I lay down and be loved and accepted and feel vital and alive at the same time? 

This is where I belong!

I belong where I can live once again in ripeness and freedom, in nakedness without shame.

Why MUST I have just one fellow human to be this way with. Why is my 'where' so hard to find? 

Why is my belonging so important? What do I gain from where I belong?

Because when you belong to someone you feel connected and safe and warm. The idea of separation fades and ideas of love can be explored. I recall having this and I sure liked it a lot. I remember belonging...before. 

Now belonging has to be different because it just is. Though it has been the most painful work I have ever done, the loss of that old belonging has introduced me to other ideas about connection and love and safety I could have never visited before.

To be adrift belonging to no one. To skate on thin ice and melt upon the sun. To become while without another. To creep forward slowly on my hands and knees. To Trust the experience of pain enough to feel it fully while it surfaces and again as it passes away. To feel so connected yet so on my own. 

All of this is to come to 'where I belong.' All of this is the journey not just of a day, but of a lifetime. 

So I guess I have to be more patient...

What are you impatient for?

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A Simple Reminder...

“We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.” ~marcus anneals seneca

...good health, a magnificent home, many loving friends, one ever faithful dog, a myriad of artistic gifts, intimately communicative family members, a colossal wanderlust for adventure, a boundless trust in the flow of life and an ever growing capacity to receive love.

It really does raise the vibration of the moment to write this shit down!


What are you waiting for?

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The Cycle of Knowing and Not Knowing

Summer has ended. 

Fall has just begun. 

Hurdling toward shortening daylight and the contraction of things 

today I am reminiscing about

contemplation.

NOW 

is a good time to plant.

Hibernating, then germinating in the darkness of uncertainty

with time and patience thoughts break open

up

through 

thawing grounds. 

Once their time has come there will be no stopping them. 

Of this I am certain.

Planning ahead in the NOW. Is there really such a thing?

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Essentially Especially You

"You are a unique being. It is not in your doing, it is in your being that matters. This is where the magic happens. Your doing is just the last step in the distillation of you."

I was fortunate enough to visit a lavender distillery this summer in France. There I saw how fields of fragrant flowers are grown, harvested and then distilled into essential oils. Tons of lavender placed in huge vats were subjected to heat and steam so the essence of this marvelous plant could be extracted as it's most potent expression.

Would it be an absurd leap to consider living as an act of or process by which we distill our lives?  A distillery is simply a vessel (ourselves) in which is collected a large amount of a substance (our unique and highest visions for ourselves) in order to extract the most potent essence of the thing (a magnificent life!) 

Thank you for indulging my fragrant imagination!

In the past just taking what the outside world had given up was my way. Not a wit nor care did I give to the banquet of choice before me. This is just how I was taught it worked.

But what if...what if we have it backwards? What if our experiences could be distilled by carefully cultivating our visions of what we THINK is possible? What if CHOICE mattered more than circumstance to our field of dreams?

What if I start inside myself - with my hopes to give and receive love, with my desire to live in beauty and feel amazed or with my requirement to know I am safe and all is well?

In these past three years, since my husband's death, I have been actively collecting visions of my highest and most heartfelt desires and consciously choosing to declare them manifest. And you know what - they did indeed become distilled into some mighty potent experiences.

And the more I become aware that the happenings around me are simply the proof of what's seeded within me I am convinced this is the way of things. This is how we were meant to live - powerfully manifesting that which we can imagine. Not by knowing how, but by simply knowing ourselves and what we want from and for our lives.

For me, unlearning things taught, re-learning what works best and choosing to constantly question the Truth of what I see before me has helped me tap into the sweetest elixir of my lifetime. And it is comprised merely of all that I am and all I desire.

Our experiences are the distillation of our beliefs and self-defined limitations. This is the recipe for the most potent essence of "what is" in a life! Yes - it starts inside. And I expect it will end inside as well. I think this is called "introspection."

Have you diluted your essence by defining yourself by your external circumstances alone? Are you polluting your essential self with doubts and fears or by simple inattention? What are you putting into the pot that is then purified and extracted as the life you are living? Are you distilling the most potent possibility of you there is? Here's to finding your own way towards creating the essential you!

How do you include active introspection as part of your daily routine?

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Without Boundaries

"One must learn the patience of right timing but that patience itself is an active participation in the rhythm and balance of the Divine stream of life." ~david spangler

How am I without boundaries? Does South mean sweet tea and biscuits and North mean bagels and coffee? I have come to see that geography has less traction than new and old beliefs which take hold in me.

I am a person who cares deeply about how her hair looks, loves AC and red ripe tomatoes with mayo – is that Southern? You tell me. Yonder is a place I no longer go. Here and now is where I am meant to be.

Perhaps I am Northern in a Deepok Chopra way. It is within the cool colored chakras above the heart where I like to play. That’s where my peace and proclivities lay.

It is really hard to do, but I want to care less about stories, illusions and possibilities and care more about what is right here in front of me. I want to work hard to see and be the still eternal unchanging Truth among a steady stream of ripples and tides. I am sure this is where my lessons are. I am a work in progress of no particular hemisphere.

What are the things that bind us together - death and life, taxes and Facebook? Certainly not Facebook. So many things to Like and yet so many impersonal monsters breathing faithless fires and breeding so many half-true friends.

Geographical lines are flung out into space as we entertain each other with cats wearing hats and placards of uplifting crap. The bottom line is I am of this world and so are we all - each of us creating and dissolving our boundaries as we go.

My boundaries are more fragile and less sharp than ever. I have been training myself to trade judgment for wonder and expectation for joy. This exchange has swooshed me down a transcendent trail. A trek that has along side it a sun speckled waterway into which I am willingly flung.

Floating merrily merrily down that stream in my big blue-black inner tube, I bob boundlessly with the flow. 

I cannot tell you how long it will take me to reach the end - that place down stream where my imaginary friend has parked our trusty and even more imaginary jeep. But it does not matter as I have given up goal setting too. 

I am experiencing just being plopped in the center of the whole, suspended and positioned just so - so I can only look up as I go.

I am manifesting Peaceful Patience as I look for the Truth in all things. It will show me the way.

What are you manifesting?

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Is NOW enough?

"Could there be a preciousness and value to existence stemming from the very fact of its temporary duration?" ~alan lighman

What if that was all there is? What if it ended there? Would that be enough?

It was perfect.

The anticipation and then the meeting up a second time. All the stories, the descriptions, the listeneing to and answering of questions. The way you held your fork - then my hand, the short but long walk to our cars parked right next to eachother. And the eggs and coffee of course. 

It was perfect.

What if that was all there is? That kiss goodbye, that hug?

Why isn't NOW enough? 

Tag You're It!

Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and 3 Guys Named John

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” 

~john muir

Have you ever arrived at a point in your life - when you mandated a change must be made? This is a reminder that it is in the everyday ordinary in which we live. And it is here where we can make a difference - not anywhere else.

For me this means taking each moment provided me, each ordinary-regular-fill-your-tank-with-gas, grab-a-bite-to-eat and go-to-work-to-pay-your-bills moment and being present with it as much as possible. Not anticipating the good or the bad of it, but feeling my way forward with heart and soul. Filtering the ordinary through non-judgmental loving kindness and taking a stand for joy and ease. And by making a pledge toward this aim just like "with liberty and justice for all."

It is from this context I am righting my own personal ship of state. "Come on, Lani," I hear you thinking, "This is more of that positive-thinking-bullshit - isn't it? 

...not if you live it. 

Not if you take it out of your head and turn it into your experience. That is when what you think manifests into real world stuff. No need to take my word for it. Do the experiment for yourself. Make a commitment to a new context.

You may not have realized it, but your doing it anyway. Your life is lived either within a default context made for you by circumstance or within a context you decide upon and give your full attention to. And when you decide to shine a light on that context you will find things do get easier and you are a lot less lost. You will be able to measure any situation against it. Choices become easy as your declaration to "live a life of peaceful serenity" or "live in joy and ease" becomes your guide.

How does one choose a new context? No one can do it for you. You must ask for inner guidance. If you have never done that before here is how John Pendergast describes that process...

"The mind likes a simple yes or no, yet life presents itself in endless shades of gray. A creative response will be nuanced and unique for each situation. If we are unsure of our next step or puzzled by something, it is good to slow down and check inside for guidance. I have learned that there is an art to sitting with a question that catalyzes the emergence of a deeper intelligence. The first step is to clarify the question. What are you really asking? Take time to make it as clear as possible. Once you have formulated it, pose it to yourself and then be quiet. It is like dropping a stone into a pond- toss it in and then watch the ripples. Don't look to your thinking mind for an answer. This is not an analytic process. Let your attention rest in your heart center. A response can come from any direction- a felt sense, a waking or dream image, an emotion, or a direct knowing. If the response feels resonant, act on it and see how it works out."

Picking just one context from which to live is the way to go. MORE THAN ONE DILUTES AND CONFUSES. Seek out that which matters to you most at this moment and make a simple declaration, one that can be made in a single sentence. This is what you are after. Do not feel constrained that this declaration must become your family's motto in perpetuity and be engraved on a crest or a stone. This declaration is for now. It is not forever.

When you make a declaration you become powerfully focused and clear. Then you can say "yes" and "no" to people and mean it because you can gauge your answer from within your new context.  It is then, and only then you will begin to actively change the trajectory of your life because you will be standing in your natural truth and not anyone else's.


Nature stands in it's own truth every day without equivocating. If you still find it challenging to tap into where your truest nature stands here are some helpful words from John O'Donohue to help you...

Celtic wisdom was deeply aware that Nature had a mind and spirit of its own. Mountains have great souls full of memory. A mountain watches over a landscape and lures its mind towards the horizon. Streams and rivers never rest; they are relentless nomads who claim neither shape nor place. Stones and fields inhabit a Zen-like stillness and seem immune to all desire. Nature is always wrapped in seamless prayer. Unlike us, Nature does not seem to suffer the separation or distance that thought brings. Nature never seems cut off from her own presence. She lives all the time in the embrace of her own unity. Perhaps, unknown to us, she sympathizes with our relentless dislocation and distraction. She certainly knows how to calm our turbulent minds when we trust ourselves into the silence and stillness of her embrace. Amongst Nature we come to remember the wisdom of our own inner nature."

As I am made from nature and conceive of myself as part of the interplay with nature I accept the challenge to move organically through my life freely and unbounded like nature. I have gleaned much wisdom from walking in nature. From a mature tree struck down in a forest slowly becoming a fine and fertile host for the growth of another or from feeling a stand of saplings stalwartly guarding and guiding me along a strange new path. 

I hope I have given you a place to start and introduced you to the tools you already possess to manifest your own extraordinary life. 

It is amongst the ordinary I have found the extraordinary. There's no where else it could be!

Can life be both regular and extra special at the same time?

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Create From Inside Out

"Truth itself is something you live, not something you think."

~martha beck

How about them apples? You can say anything you like. You can think all day on a subject. And you can feel as happy or as sad as you like. But it is the actual manifestation of what is in front of you that shows you your Truth.

The rest is meaningless.

Can it really be that simple? As I look around at my life, I am surrounded by loving folks who care about my well being and I care about theirs. And who's company and good humor I enjoy. I am safe and secure and have just to ask for anything I really need and in most cases I or someone else provides it to me. And I am constantly creating new opportunities for joy and beauty to be experienced in this world.

Who knew just describing the life you have in front of you right NOW could show you the beliefs from which you are working? I know this life I am living is meant to be Joyful and Easy. I have worked diligently paying attention to examples of this in my life and have made a point to be grateful for each significant occurrence along those lines.

It was not always like this. Before my adventures in "paying attention" life simply occurred and I went where circumstance took me. The idea "that I manifested what was before me" was no where in my belief system. All I knew was every now and then I needed to react to a circumstance in front of me and every know and then I had to make a hard choice. I never knew everything was my choice and I could even choose before stuff happened to adjust the trajectory of my life!

Oh, by the way, I also know I am powerful and in the driver's seat.

And thus, over the past three years, I have proved my belief to be true a sufficient number of times - enough to have actually changed my life to resemble the beliefs I am holding.


What Truths would you like to hold for yourself?

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Attachment

"Susnset in a Glass" Photo by Alice Reid 2015

"You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather."

~pema chodron

Letting go of attachment is enlarging my experience of love. Unconfined Love can be totally free to embrace without fear of losing anything or anyone. It can just be love. That is a good thing...right? Having a broader vision of what love is and can be is a great aspiration...right?

Then why does it frighten me so? What is it I feel I will lose when I loosen my grip? On letting go of needing confirmation of my own worthiness. On letting go of requirements and ownership and rules of engagement.

Am I more connected or less connected? 

I have no idea. 

Perhaps if I continue to lean into this, toward having more experiences with loving this way, it will show me the way...

What are you experimenting with?

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Healing Is Available Right Now!

"The wound is the place where the light enters you." ~rumi

I worked really hard on becoming numb in all the acceptable ways. I turned on the television and watched familiar shows until they just became color and noise. I ate and ate and ate until there was no more empty room left on the inside of me. At one point I even had things that I had put in my mouth coming out in the other direction. It just happened once, just when I coughed, just for a moment - nothing serious. So I actually dismissed it as an accident, a fluke, a freak occurrence and not as a manifestation of something 'needing to come up.' And then to make sure my numbing was complete I stayed up way too late.  

This awareness is what I awoke to this AFTERNOON! Yes - it had worked, all my senses had congealed around me like some sallow dense stuff you rinse off a canned holiday ham. Only I am the ham! So aside from feeding the dog, doing the dishes and taking care of the bare minimum I am recovering from numbing myself so gorge-essly.

Why did I feel I had to again make sure I was not going to feel anything? What triggered this infatuation with sensory death? 

Because I really wanted an answer I posed this question to that transcendent part of myself. The part of myself that sees farther and loves more deeply. I went home in my mind and to my heart and asked "why am I numbing myself again?"

To make space for the answer I had to wake up.  So I used the wake up tools I had at my disposal - my own hands and my breath. By placing my hands gently on my heart and simultaneously breathing in slowly I sent a signal I meant business. 

I have been doing this for three years now - this deliberate set of mannerisms. To be very specific the body gestures are breathing in deeply through my nose alone, consciously keeping my mouth closed and holding my heart space with my hands. I have trained myself to listen deeply in this manner. 

At first is was simply a way to calm myself when great waves of pain and grief showed up. It helped me to accept a highly electrically charged moment and assisted me in moving the most difficult emotions along to their completion. In short this simple practice saved my life. 

Over time, as uncertainty became a regular thing, I found I could count on this practice whenever I recognized some discomfort or a shift occurring. This "heart and breath thing" was a healing path between what was happening all around me and what was happening inside me. 

This path has become a place. It is a sweet, warm and familiar source of comfort and calm. At the time I had no idea I was creating an opening to a trusted reservoir of new insights that would help me on my way toward real and transcendent growth.

This path is where my work gets done. Just like the way we go to work each day - horizontally on roads and streets, I travel this familiar path - vertically from form to spirit and back again, to help me do my work. The work of manifesting the best life I can imagine, one lived everyday in Joy and Ease.

So with hands in place, breath flowing and my eyes closed - did I mention closing the eyes? - it is to this trusted space I turned to see what's up with the numbing thing. And I am sure the answer will come. And I will grow some more!

Where do you go when you are awake?

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Self-Love is the Bread of Life

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I will meet you there. When the soul lies down in the grass the world is too full to talk about" ~rumi 

I am getting used to taking care of myself again. I did it before I was married. A burst of tears erupts as missing Michael pushes forward. He had my back. Who has my back now asks my tears? I must have my own back. This does not sound like Self-Love. This sounds more like I am a Survivalist, separate and alone.

Read a great quote from some mystic recently, "I love you and it is no concern of yours." suggesting an awakened stance that love is formed from within and is meant to be given away. Are we not all connected and do we not all have lessons to share with one another? This is how Self-Love and the Survivalist come together. 

Self-Love is essential because it is the place from which we must start. It is the love we have for ourselves that allows us to give love to others. It is the starter, as in a cherished bread dough. You always keep a bit of the 'mother' for yourself as you pass it on to others. As it is kept and given away, it expands and grows. 

Fermentation of love within yourself allows time for love to develop more fully. This in turn improves the longevity of love shared. And it creates greater complexities and depth of that love.

The Survivalist maintains the starter. Self-Love is the starter. It feeds all other possibilities. Pass the bread please.

How do you nourish yourself?

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Giving In

Seems who I thought I was got in the way of who I am...

Being human - the spiral seeks me out. They say grief is an ever changing spiral on which we travel. And at certain points you can just expect your feelings of grief to be heightened. So you should prepare for them. 

Thought I was doing a good job but...

Seems who I thought I was got in the way of who I am. I imagined myself as the standard bearer for Joy and Gratitude and 'Uber Great Becoming' I forgot to allow for this part of the story - the tough and painful part. The part where I feel so sad. Old habits die hard. Guess I still have places in me that equate sorrow with weakness. So any way - I kept my grief at bay as long as I could hoping this time, this August, would be different.

I am super great at traipsing thru my daily schedule holding up my end of the bargin. Then I collapse, reluctanlty, because I do not want to be a weak-lilly-livered-fraud.

I know I am not a fraud, I have made some serious strides, created some wonderful moments. And most recently some exciting outcomes have been made manifest. Maybe this is why I resisted so much this time. I imagined I had control over things. Ha!

Nope.

Still hurts. Still sucks. Still grief has a grip on my wellbeing. Just got to ride it out again, this monsoon of tears. I have done it so many times before so I know it can be done. Just would have be nice to have a shoulder to lean on this time. That - I imagine - will be a happy day when I allow that!

Do we ever heal?

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Beginner's Mind

"Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything." ~a. a. milne, winnie-the-pooh

For a while now I had thought I knew enough to be a teacher. But now I realize the wealth is in the learning. I am ready to have beginner's mind again - to be curious and vitally alive and awake in my studies. I want to know more and I want to be taught. I am open and ready to receive more than I currently comprehend.

What am I studing? I am ready to learn more about Love. I want to know how big Love can get? I want to experience the length, depth and breadth of what Love is.

When I hold myself apart as a teacher I am less open. I am held back from feeling, I am singular and alone. There is a kind of sealing off when I think I know a subject so well.

Oh but if I am the student... how much more could I feel? How much richer the experience when I open myself up freely and willingly ready to expand past known limits!

Yes - I want to learn how big Love can get. And I want to know how to give Love as a gift and how to receive it the same way. I want to witness Love in all situations and I want to charm and cox Love out of places one does not ordinarily expect to find Love. I want to know how many different kinds of Love there are and to know thier names and identify how each one of them feels. I want to see Love and feel Love and taste Love and create Love and hear, live and be Love.

Yes - how wonderful to be a student again, to have my eyes and heart wide open searching in earnest for the truth of Love in all things.

Now to find my teachers...

In a subject you know very well, can you see the merits of beginner's mind?

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