Yearning: Other Words Other Ways

We all yearn for something.

Christine Valters Painter stirs my yearning to be one with my soul's heart. I say yes and yes and yes to living from the inside out!

"This is not a poem
but a rain-soaked day keeping me inside
with you and you loving me like a storm.

This is not a poem but a record of a hundred mornings
when the sun lifted above the stone hills outside my window.
This is time for boiling water poured into the chipped cup
holding elderflower, hawthorn, mugwort.

This is not a poem but me standing perfectly still on the edge of the lake
in autumn, watching a hundred starlings like prayer flags fluttering.
This is my face buried in May’s first pink peony,
petals just now parting, eyes closed, inhaling.

This is not a poem but the field beyond thought and judgment
and the ways I tear myself apart on too many fine days.
This is the place where clocks no longer matter unless
it is the dusty gold watch which belonged to my grandfather.

This is not a poem but me standing desolate in a parade
of white gravestones, when a single bluebird lands and sings.
This is the bunch of Gerbera daisies you handed to me one foggy
February afternoon, pale yellow like the long-forgotten sun.
This is the first bite of bread after too many hungry days,
This is my grandmother whispering her secrets to me after dusk.

This is not a poem, but me taking off my clothes
and stepping eagerly into the cold mid-December sea.
This is the silence between breaths and in that stillness
this is me saying yes and yes and yes." ~christine valters painter 

For what do you yearn? What can you use to stir IT up?

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"When I Grew Out of…"

"When you feel peaceful joy, that is when you are near truth" ~rumi

I smiled when a friend used this phrase in an email recently,"When I grew out of…" It reminded me that, even after the age of 50, we do grow out of things. It let me know that whatever I am going through right now is important and okay and I will grow out of it. And from it I WILL GROW.

Let's do Spring this year ... consciously! Let's reflect on those things we have grown out of and those things we WILL grow out of! 

I have grown out of the sensibility of relying on others to do things for me. I am doing things for myself now! 

I have grown out of accepting denigrating thoughts about myself AS TRUE for I know they do not serve me in any way!

And I have grown out of judging. There is no possible way I could know the totality of me, much less the totality of you, so passing judgement seems absurd!

And I am currently growing out my old life. I can feel it receding fast like the sudden drawing back of sea water revealing 400 feet of shore line before a tidal wave slams into the coast. Sounds scary and violent and dramatic, I know, but it feels right and good and organic too. 

Birth is like that. 

So let's do Spring consciously this year! Let's reflect on those things we have grown out of and those things we WILL grow out of! And those things we are becoming!

I write these words out of Love and Compassion. This is what I have grown into. These are the things I am becoming! This is my place. I will allow the rest to unfold.

What compassionate words do you have for yourself?

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Renewed Willingness

"Freedom is available at anytime to anyone - and so is captivity." 

~martha beck

Renewing my heart's willingness to Love is my next task at hand. Here are some of my limiting beliefs... 

How do I fathom such a thing? 

Where does one heart end and another leave off? 

What kind of trial must I go through before allowing myself to love again? 

When will I know it is OK? 

Why am I making this so hard?

Today's Super-Equinox-Eclipse-Moon may be exactly the moment I have been looking for...or just another March 20th? It is said to be a profound time for new beginnings. Some claim the energy today is favorable for letting go of what no longer serves us and embarking on new and exciting journeys. 

And all I have to do is decide!


What limiting beliefs are you operating from?

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Good Grief

“You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation... and that it is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else." ~hermann hesse

Grief has sculpted me over these last 2 1/2 years. It has been my permission slip, my way in and out and through things. Lately though I have been taking note of the many moments I am "clean & sober" feeling good and in life's pocket again, without feelings of grief.

Having become so accustomed to feeling deeply pangs of deep sorrow, this now is strange. Comforting Grief connects me with he who is lost. But more so even, Grief has introduced me to my viscera - my deep feeling self. And I like being connected like that! 

Giving up Grief may actually be like quitting a substance that I have come to know and been most seductively soothed by. I am suddenly aware that letting go may be a challenge.

Stepping out from under this big black umbrella seems to be what is called for right now. I really can't waste another moment. I must become a responsible veteran of these "my griefy wars!" I want to own my own present experiences - taking on the world directly without the veil of Grief, without an excuse...but not without a net! 

No need to be a daredevil. 

Can I stay connected without Grief? Is there a practice 
i can put into action that will slide elegantly into grief's place?

So I am on the hunt to identify that thing that will be my entry point into the deepest parts of myself. I will let you know when I have found it! I think I know what it is already...and if you have been following me for a bit you may know too! 

How do you keep connected?

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Happy Valentine's Day!

I do not fit snuggly into a world built on principles of clock time and corporeal senses alone. I may appear eccentric if I write about things like "equanimity" and "straddling eternity." But it is in the effemera I feel most hardy. My strength seems to build upon itself in the light of my spirit.

What do I do with this new found thing - this core within - which consists only of sweet air, energy and feeling? This thing that has no structure or mass, no handles to grasp, no parts to which I can point? How do I manage to live a life based from an open heart?

I am coming to know when my heart throbs and feels weighty I am tapped into this thing. This actual heaviness in my chest is confirmation for me. It lets me know "this is important." It seems my body can tell me when I am here connecting to whatever this is - my Truth.

I am building strength toward being more awake and available. I look forward to the day this is, if not an automatic response, at least a familiar one. In this way, perhaps I can then manage to live more often from this place - a place Steve Winwood calls "a higher love." In this way, I figure, then every day will be Valentine's Day. 

Wishing you a Happy Valentine's Day! 

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How Do I Achieve Inner Peace?

When I read these words to myself, sometimes on a daily basis, I become stronger in my belief that Change and Peace are on the same continuum and they always start (and end) inside of me.

"My whole being works best when I am able to achieve EQUANIMITY in life. I thrive when things are NOT tipped too much in one direction for too long. And when I realize EQUANIMITY for myself I experience a deep inner peace.

The entirety of everything is made up from one thing. That one thing is Divine. I call this divine thing Source because it exists eternally in, around, under, and through all “other” things.

I am just such an “other” thing. I am not Source as Source is the beginning of everything, but Source is ALL of me. This means that all the wholeness and perfection that Source is – I am. From this recognition I take confidence that I have the same power to manifest, just as Source does.

I accept that all of life is change and within all circumstances change is constant. From within this reality I create a subtle and gentle swing for myself in which I happily glide from here to there… and back again. From this place where I sit as things appear to shift  - my experience is always that ALL IS WELL.  I am Equanimity. I am Balance. I am Peace.

For this realization I give thanks. For this knowing I am humbly grateful.

Having written and read these words I let them go now.  I release these words into Source knowing the thing is already done and I am already Peaceful.  I release these words as I say, And so it is.”

Will you come and sit on my swing with me?

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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?

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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? 

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Hurdles - Present and Past

I have a thirsty fish in me
that can never find enough 
of what it's thirsty for!
~ Rumi

This was my father. 

He passed away 5 days ago. He was 75 and I loved him very much and I know he loved me.

And even though I have 2 years experience in the grief department and because I have this much experience in the grief department I am aware this means almost nothing. 

Grieving is a slippery character that creeps up unexpectedly and in a surprisingly different number of ways! So part of me is OK, part of me is on guard and cautious, part of me is angry at the timing and part of me hurts. And in this order... I think.

Unlike with my husband Michael's death, with whom I had a much more intimate relationship, my father's passing feels OK-er. We lived hundreds of miles apart for the majority of my life and I have not depended on him for anything since I was a teen. There was this distance both geographically and emotionally so I admit I might not be having strong feelings at the moment. But I suspect there will be 'karmic' repercussions that must be felt.

And unlike Michael, my father's death is more in keeping with natural expectations. He lead a life full of invention and inspiration and that life in him had begun to wane. For this reason I feel his soul may actually be in a good - or perhaps even a better place - with more flexibility and possibilities for growth. I am assuming our souls are continually learning.

Just working on the timing of this thing in regards to my own healing. I had just gotten back in the saddle, was on the horse and was learning how to trot. And while trotting I could SEE myself cantering and I was joyously anticipating some galloping soon!

Then this - a new hurdle - so I must readjust.

Now I am working on accepting what is and allowing it to unfold as it must. Its gonna do it anyway. I just have to get comfortable, hang on to the reins and go for it. 

Go up and over
     and thus continue forward 
          no matter what
     on this
my new path.

I just love a good metaphor - don't you?

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Paying Attention

A Centipede was happy quite 

until a frog in jest said,

"Pray which leg comes after which?"

This raised his doubts to such a pitch,

He lay bewildered in a ditch

Considering how to run.

~ Author Unknown

Taking yet another e-course with Thomas Moore, author of "Care of the Soul", we are studying The Holy Fool: Finding Spiritual Liberation in Foolishness and Humor. This is right up my alley some would say. Today's discussion is on 'The Fool as Inner Guide.'

Within this lesson is the idea of being NOBODY. Sounds strange and perhaps awful to some. The problem with adversity is that it is very hard to appreciate it in the moment. 

Being nobody can be very liberating. It can allow us to be unencumbered by societies' (and our own) expectations. Being nobody breaks open the cask of possibilities and, while frightening, is also very exciting.

Emily Dickenson's poem, "I am nobody" holds in high esteem this idea and suggests that 'if I am nobody than perhaps so are you.'

"I'm Nobody! Who are you?

Are you - Nobody - too?

Then there's a pair of us!

Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know!

How dreary - to be - Somebody!

How public - like a Frog - 

To tell one's name - the livelong June - 

To an admiring Bog!"

But I have always found it very important to recognize everyone I meet as important and somebody. Those who wear the costume of stranger - wait staff, clerks, and fellow classmates - are not NOBODY, but some bodies vibrating next to me. They are to be heard and valued. Sometimes, if I am not paying attention to my life I do not recognize their value in the moment. But when I take time to reflect on the day and on all the interactions I have had - this idea is reinforced 100%.

How can both these ideas - being nobody and being somebody - exist simultaneously? Being here - in this  paradoxical space - is a vast and benevolent experience. 

Don't think about it too long lest you end up capsized in a ditch unable to run. Just vibrate yourself on toward your next task at hand and remember with Love you are nobody and so am I!

Are you paying attention to your life?

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Change

"The birds are molting. If only man could molt also - his mind once a year its errors, his heart once a year its useless passions." 
~ james allen

This is WCHG radio sweeping you forward to a brighter day! Give a listen. Click on the names below - unless you don't want to feel empowered?

Change lifts and carries me forward with the help of Sam, Otis and Aretha. They each have their own way of singing Sam Cook's "A Change is Gonna Come" - can you believe this future anthem was originally the B side? Seems Sam and the record company were scared to put it out in 1964. 

Fear of change creates interesting circumstances...sound familiar?    

Let's face it, change is a heavy lift. It is made even heavier by the strength of my own Will which is comfortable, if not happy, with the place I am at. So I need a little more help from my friend Jennifer Holliday.

When she sings "I Am Changing"  I am on stage singing right along with her. And there are even people applauding us at the end!

My friends work their soulful magic by nourishing me with their affirming incantations. Their songs strengthen the light shining on all our unlimited possibilities. Listening to their power assists me to powerfully focus on allowing change to manifest in my own life. 

What helps you make change easier?

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My Ego - Not Yours! Mine. Mine. Mine.

I sent my ego to the "timeout chair" this morning. I am sitting here smiling imagining this silly and sweet happenstance.

What would my ego look like if I could see it? Is it a smaller version of myself? It seems to be an innocent who does not know any better, but is not me as a child. It is a part of who I am right now, the part that has limited vision and reflexively stomps or rejoices. 

I sent my ego to the timeout chair this morning not to be judged and sentenced. I am showing it the way forward toward a new sensibility because it is part of me that deserves to be loved and understood. I am rerouting it toward a more all encompassing nature beyond it's usual pattern of instantaneous and emotive "me-me-me-ness."

In order to reach for my best self, the person I am meant to be, I am sweetly aware of my lovely and energetic ego self that requires guidance... from me or from some kind of higher self. That is why the moment I recognized it needed to become recumbent and docile I sent my ego to the timeout chair to "think about what it had done"

For this awareness I am grateful. 

"OK, do you know why I had you sit there a while? Yes - that's right, you can get up now. I love you very much. Now go and play."

Have you a part of yourself that needs more guidance?

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So Many Passions

What does Passion mean to you? 

For the first half of my life I thought Passion was that feeling derived from sex and love. BTW this is also the time I thought sex & love were the same thing. 

Passion was that fleeting thing that waxed and waned according to life's circumstance. It conjured up images of operatic gestures and storylines about extreme choices made in sudden fits of itself.

But in more recent days I am coming to know a different kind of Passion. A more soulful call from deep within that is not sudden or fitful but gradual and steady. It calls to me when I seek it. It patiently waits on me to pick up it's trail. It is not dependent on conditions. It existed then, exists now and will always exist. This kind of uninterrupted Passion shows me the way.

Are these two branches from the same tree? Are they siblings, cousins or ancient ancestors? No I don't think so, their effects are both a call to action, but their way of doing things are so completely different.

Perhaps they overlap eachother like my younger and now older selves. Or perhaps they are companions which simultaneously inform each other like surf and shore? 

I can see conditional Passion's irregular waves roaring and breaking toward land creating an ever changing line on top of the shore. It alternates between exposing and covering up that other species of Passion, the unfluctuating one. Whether seen or unseen, unconditional Passion is like all shores everywhere - unceasingly directional, timeless and forever joining land to sea.

I love this place were the land and sea meet. I am fixed by it's constantly changing and changeless nature. It is here at the shore's edge we are able to see all the possibilities of becoming our truest selves. It is here where choice and moment meet and I become awake. 

I am grateful to be able to recognize this enduring flow of things and to periodically live in my own becoming.

How do you experience Passion?

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Like Walking on the Moon!

Love is a many splendid thing, but it is NOT something concrete -  nor is Will, Reason or Imagination. Yet we've all experienced these insubstantial (yet very foundational) things. 

We've all felt love for a person, place or thing. We've all willed ourselves out of bed. And we're always Reasoning... "Is it better to do thing A or thing B?"

In general, none of these intangibles can be weighed on a scale, held in our hands or seen with our eyes. But they are no less real than the frozen tundra of Greenland, a fig leaf or the elephant in the room. I am sure you get the picture - right? 

Yet because they are unseen they always seem to be neglected. There just never is a good time to examine the weight of them on our lives. Or the unlimited possibilities of holding them in our consciousness. Or to experiment with them to see how they can help us manifest a better life for ourselves.

For me, when I caught wind that I could intentionally make muscular my ability to see and fortify Love or Intuition -- insert your desired intangible here -- it felt exactly like walking on the moon! What a strange and beautiful place to be, but how do I navigate? At first, in this unfamiliar place I was unable to grasp things with my goofy large gloves and only able to breath from my own limited supply of recirculated air. And I was sure the tank would run out sooner or later. Then I started to take a walk out into the unknown.

Now, after some time playing with these ideas, the gloves have come off. I am untethered! I am examining "the thing" I want from every angle. How do I feel about it? What do I believe. Why do I believe what I believe? Is this belief of mine really true? 

This helps me form a clearer picture of what I want and what I do not want. And from this place IT IS EASY to hold in my consciousness exactly the effect I want to show up in my life. And damn it if I don't see real evidence of my most heartfelt desires right in front of these new eyes of mine. They may not be in the form, color or shape I pictured but they are just what I ordered! 

The trick I found was in not planning how, but just holding the result in mind and more importantly feeling how I would feel when my intangible showed up. Then, having refined it, just let it go.

This takes some practice. I've had to renegotiate within a different gravitational pull. But now -that I sort of have the hang of it - the air is less rare and my tank is always full!

What new thing will you try today?

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non-judgmental awareness

"The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it." ~thich nhat hahn

Ahhhhhh - to be in non-judgmental awareness is a lovely vacation of sorts. It is a getaway from the push and pull of things. When I am here all that crosses my "virtual desk of life" is not labeled or catogorized or responded to...only experienced as exactly what it is in it's wholeness. In that moment I am the witness.

Not an easy task I realize, but a fun game to play. The apparatus I find most useful in getting there is an open heart. With my heart wide open things expand in their meaning and I find insights in the most common of things.  When I can be in this space life gets larger and is more path-worthy. It is in non-judgmental awareness I find myself more strongly attuned to those subtler senses of intuition & perception.

This all reminds me of the beginning credits in old movies. This movie was filmed in CinemaScope. Not really sure what Cinemascope means, but for me it feels like the picture will be bigger and better than I had ever experienced in the past. 

This life was "lived in Non-JudgmentalAwareness." 

That can only be good - right?

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Perfectly Imperfect!!

Yes - it feels good to see how life is unfolding warts and all; to generate appreciation for a stubbed toe or a missed class. 

There are six pots in my second story window box and one is not getting water due to an out-of-joint drip line. So a little dry brown sprig of dead Asparagus Fern sits stiffly up in the middle of five thriving vessels brimming over with tri-colored Ivys and red Impatiens. As I drive up to my house it waves at me welcoming me home. And I smile. I smile because I know it is OK until I get around to fixing it. And honestly - I am in no hurry.

It is my flag, my banner, my reminder that within all of everything there is some ugly stuff. And knowing this - I mean knowing in the deepest part of myself - I am comforted. And in accepting this life in all of it's manifestations, for me, brings ease to flow.

I am preparing myself for the hard days ahead - when dates will mean more than usual. In celebrating imperfection I am learning to stand my ground as I willingly allow all that comes my way to surge forth. This is how I am healing myself.

You see Michael, my husband now deceased, would have been 54 near the end of July. And it will be two years since his passing sometime in August. And I will celebrate my birthday in between these luminescent dates. Right now the calendar is not looking like my friend. 

But I am finding strength in being conscious so as I encounter those things that wrench my heart sideways I can let them go and watch them pass. BTW - this does not hurt any less, but it heals more. 

In deciding to enjoy a perfectly imperfect life this summer I can happily follow my joys at the same time I am grieving great loss. Contradictory things like this are in everyday life. My experience in revealing this truth, for me, is good stuff making! 

This is why I can laugh as I look down at my freshly shaven legs today. I have left a tiny trail of hairs. a mohawk, front and center on my right shin. Just another sign "all is well" even if a bit uneven! 

So tomorrow I will get on with it. I have a few chores to do. Got a second story garden to till, one leg to shave and a whole lot of healing to do.

What's on your to do list today?

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