Making Use of Randomness

"What you seek is seeking you." ~rumi

When I became aware of Leonard Mlodinow's book The Fragility of Grand Discoveries, which makes the case for randomness' role in science, it started me thinking. Books will do that! I wondered about making use of randomness in this teeny-tiny-little experiment called my life and what discoveries might be laying in wait for little 'ol me?

If random occurrences happen and if I have an over arching intention for my life, can I then make use of randomness while thriving in the ordinariness of my everyday?

Can I declare my life will be lived in JOY and with EASE and make it stick by living simply and allowing my current daily schedule a little room to stretch and breath between regular tasks of that living?

Can I be so bold as to engage in - say a 10 minute exercise - imagining - say twice daily - what that life would look and feel like? And then can I just let it go? And in letting it go can I then give up striving to achieve it?

Would this experiment in creating a mental equivalent of my best possible life make more familiar to me what those things felt like so that when they randomly occurred I would then be more apt to recognize them?

And upon recognizing them - my visions turned in to my actual experience - might this not give me confidence to engage in more imagining, more letting go and even more manifesting?

And could all this "better world thinking" be done while just doing the dishes, taking the dog for a walk, making the kid's lunches or simply preparing to sleep at night?

Can I start this practice from right where I am now? Am I really this powerful?

The answer is YES to everything - in case you haven't arrived there already. So…what's standing in your way? You got the goods - the yearning or longing for that which makes you happy. Begin imagining today what that looks like and how it feels to be in that place. Then let it go. Now you can be confident you have done all the work necessary to assist randomness in doing it's job! 


When can you start?

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The Happiest Place on Earth - Selling Mindfulness

"Nothing could be finer than meditating in Carolina..."

Wouldn't it be great if meditation was as American as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet? I wonder what kind of world we could create if meditation was demystified, re imagined or sold en mass like cereal or detergent?

Is it just me or are we seeing this already? MINDFULNESS jargon is all over the airwaves. Connecting your happiness and your satisfaction to 'the product' is the name of the game, isn't it? Let's take our cues from those who watch culture and see it shifting. Let's advance the tide even further and go right to the source! 

Check it out for yourself. I have substituted meditation as the product in these notable ads. Can you guess the original brands?

 
MEDITATION – Think Small.
MEDITATION – Think big.
MEDITATION – There is no substitute.
MEDITATION – Power, beauty and soul.
MEDITATION – Save Money. Live Better.
MEDITATION – I am what I am.
MEDITATION – Just do it.
MEDITATION – Impossible is Nothing
MEDITATION – Success. It’s a Mind Game.
MEDITATION – Solutions for a smart planet.
MEDITATION – Keeps going and going and going.
MEDITATION – Live in your world. Play in ours.
MEDITATION – Share moments. Share life.
MEDITATION – Your vision. Our future.
MEDITATION – When there is no tomorrow.
MEDITATION – The happiest place on earth.
MEDITATION – Pleasing people the world over.
MEDITATION – Connecting people.
MEDITATION – Make the most of now.
MEDITATION – Open Happiness.

Let me know when you see references to mindfulness or meditation in the guise of advertisements. Now that the seed has been planted, you may see these everywhere! And I won't leave you hanging. Just in case your interest is peaked here is a primer on how to do it from one of the best.

On Meditation by Norman Fischer

"This doesn’t work by thought and will. It doesn’t disregard thought and will, but thought and will are not the engine that makes this go. The engine that makes this go is taking a step back and trusting the body, trusting the breath, trusting the heart. We’re living our lives madly trying to hold onto everything, and it looks like it might work for awhile but in the end it always fails, and it never was working, and the way to be happy, the way to be loving, the way to be free is to really be willing to let go of everything on every occasion or at least to make that effort.

So the practice really works with sitting down, returning awareness to the body, returning awareness to the breath. It usually involves sitting up straight and opening up the body and lifting the body so that the breath can be unrestrained. And then returning the mind to the present moment of being alive, which is anchored in the breath, in the body.

Then, of course, other things happen. You have thoughts, you have feelings. You might have a pain, an ache, visions, memories, reflections. All these things arise, but instead of applying yourself to them and getting entangled in them, you just bear witness to it, let it go, come back to the breathing and the body, and what happens is you release a whole lot of stuff in yourself. A whole new process comes into being that would not have been there if you were always fixing and choosing and doing and making. This way you’re allowing something to take place within your heart."

Try it! You'll like it.

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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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A Daily Practice

"Fish live in streams

Birds nest in trees

Human beings dwell

In warm hearts."

~Japanese folk Zen saying

Keeping my heart open is the plan for the day. It is the plan for everyday. It is a mantra, a philosophy, a way of life.

Keeping my heart open allows all my periodic fears to be passers by and not live-in lovers.

Keeping my heart open allows change and surprise to be trusted companions instead of unwelcome apes leaving banana peels across my path.

Keeping my heart open creates wonder within every breath I take, beneath every step I make and behind every blink of my big 'ol fascinated eyes.

Keeping my heart open is my daily practice.

What is your daily practice that supports you NO-MATTER-WHAT?

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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?

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Turning the Corner

"...while the voice of social conditioning manifests itself as a stream of thoughts in the head, wisdom often appears as emotions or physical sensations in the body." ~martha beck

Unfoldment

Rough hune husks fall away

Making tender tendrils shown

Creeping vines and shoots gather

In a storm of awakening

I am anew

I am crossing over

I am peachy keen apple sheen and picked clean of waste and affirmative prayers

I will not shine without my own permission

I await the next unfoldment

For what do you need your own permission?

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Viva Les Questions!

"It can't just be about others because it's too depleting. It can't just be about ourselves because it's too lonely." ~Jason Garner

Everywhere everyday opportunities arise to help ourselves and to help others but where is the balance? How can we next make the right decision to help ourselves or to help others? What kind of mastermind can hone in on the right thing today to do right now?

These are an awful lot of questions. But I have found when I ask questions it is not my responsibility to answer them. It is only my responsibility to form them from a deep and meaningful place within my heart. And I know if I do this, from this place, the answers will come to me easily.

Takes a load off doesn't it? 

It is so great to know you don't have to have the answers. You only have to ask the RIGHT question! 

These questions are both the key to our suffering and the key to our joy. I am certain you are totally aware we all have easy access to our own questions. They just naturally exist in us all. They are as individual to each of us ad our own particular journeys. And they all contain the answers we are seeking within them!

Just ask them. 

Just ask them WITH FEELING from a sincere place deep inside your heart knowing in the asking the answer lies. 

I have found great peace in allowing myself to just live in my questions like this  - for I know the answers will come. 

Got any questions?

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What Is is OK

Work in Progress

Glimpses of letting go

Glimpses of holding on

And the living in between

Galloping forward 

I am a work in progress 

Rocking back and forth this way

Steadiness seems out of the question right now

But as sure as the letting go and the holding on and the in between happen over and over again

I will survive

I will thrive

I am alive

Hum 

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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Transported by Joy

The sun is shining and the cool winds of a burgeoning spring are blowing thru my hair. I am driving home after a great day of doing what I love. I am joy. 

Time is stopped as a wonderful feeling surges from within. Then I see the break lights. But there is no thing that can come between me and pure joy... if I am Joy.  Not even this road with its many apartments which have many children who are all falling forward off the school bus as it seems to stop every 40 to 50 feet. 

Yes, time is stopped. And now my car is stopped. But I keep zooming forward. Suddenly I am transported. I am on NC 210 approaching the bridge that connects the mainland to the island. This metal swing bridge is my way into Surf City on Topsail Island, North Carolina. We are stopped because the bridge is slowly swinging toward perpendicular to let a boat sail from the ocean into the bay.

Surf City is where I enjoy waking at 6 am to help the sun rise; where I joyously host friends and family with great food, games and music; and where days unevenly stretch, lean and fade... much to everyone's delight.

It is here - in this would-be traffic jam - I transition to timelessness. The only thing moving is a warm, sweet and salty breeze but I do not care. I am on the edge just before all heaven breaks loose. Today I humbly acknowledge a break in the fabric of time and space because right NOW I am at longitude 34.4697° N and latitude 77.4719° W. 

Did I say latitude… should have said attitude… @Topsail_Island.calm!

Have you ever been transported by Joy?

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Beginning Anew...Again

“The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.” ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

"A time comes in your life when you finally get it…when, in the midst of all your fears and insanity, you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out…enough! Enough fighting and crying and blaming and struggling to hold on. Then, like a child quieting down after a tantrum, you blink back your tears and begin to look at the world through new eyes. This is your awakening.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are…and that’s OK. They are entitled to their own views and opinions. You learn the importance of loving and championing yourself…and in the process a sense of new found confidence is born of self-approval. You stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you – or didn’t do for you – and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected. 

You make it a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting, and to stay open to every wonderful possibility. Finally, with courage in your heart, you take a stand, you take a deep breath, and you begin to design the life you want to live as best as you can." ~ Sonny Carrol

Darkness, Play, Joy

"What if this is what it looks like while my dream of the end of Apartheid is happening?  What if my being in this very situation is... part of... my overcoming?"~Nelson Mandela about his imprisonment

"Just how do we deal with agitations of the dark? How do we make our way through the tangle of being confused or sad or blocked in understanding a way to tomorrow? It seems natural enough to treat our problems like an overgrown path and go hacking our way through, doing small violence to ourselves. Yet this insight from an ancient Chinese text implies something harder and simpler. It implies that agitation itself is dark, that only when we can keep our hands off will there be room for light. It seems that agitations of the dark always cover over.  For myself, I worked for years covering over sore lesions of esteem with agitations of accomplishment, till my heart was covered over with a thicket of achievements. Only when I put the achievements aside did the light begin to move. Only then did a Universal warmth reach my sore center. Only when I let the dark energies rest did I begin to heal" ~Mark Nepo

"Play is simply the pleasure that comes from doing something directly for the soul and spirit, something that is free of the heavy ego and the seriousness of our own intentions. This idea takes us back to the important discussion we had about enjoying life rather than justifying it by working hard and being intent on helping others. Thoreau once said that if a neighbor came to his house to help him, he'd go out the back door. (not his exact words). If helping isn't a form of play, then it, too, may not be very spiritual. The lack of play is a sign of too much ego or a history of repression." ~Thomas Moore

"When we are willing to be intimate with what actually is here now, to look directly at all of our experience, we might recognize that this is our life, however different from our thoughts and ideas about it. It is as if we hunker down and actually get very real, recognizing that our thoughts of gaining and losing, good and bad, happy and sad, are what distance us from ourselves. When we breathe in fully and pause, we clear a space in our mind without judgment. If we are willing to hang in with the practice over and over again, noticing how our thoughts of gaining or losing distance us from ourselves and from what is, we open ourselves to a whole new reality. We came into intimacy with everything; we enter a world of joy that is so close, to pervasive, that we are surprised we haven't been aware of its presence all along. Once Dongshan was asked, 'What is the deepest truth? What is the wisdom that liberates?' His response was, 'I am always close to this.' It is the closeness itself- the intimacy with what is here with us now- that is the truth that liberates us. Imagine being so close to your experience of life!" ~Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara

What do you think about thinking?

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Monkeying around with Religion

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we see in them.” Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton was a trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, mystic and a student of comparative religion.

Some may have observed a recent shift toward writing about contemplation, religion and spirituality. The catalyst for this is an e-course called "Crafting your own Religion" in which I am a participate. It is being taught by Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul , amongst other books on religion, mind and spirit. 

Today the class was asked to consider perhaps taking a few practices from monastic or cloistered traditions toward crafting our own religions, i.e. taking a deeper dive into things! TM used the word "serious". This sounded serious to me suggesting we take religion seriously. And it felt like a red flag. I have never cottoned to folks who take religion too seriously. But leaning into something to craft a thing most to my own liking is the whole point of the class. So - from my heart - here are vows I might subscribe to and some text I might like to see illuminated in a manuscript.

Thomas Moore says, "Vows help us to avoid forgetfulness and distraction & anchor our vision." Here are my three simple vows:

To be responsible with all human relationships, i.e., be transparent, vulnerable, present & available

To do my best in all things without judgement or expectation

To laugh and be joyful

My scriptorium text (currently) would be 

"Don't think of yourself as an intestinal tract and a tangle of nerves in the skull, that will not work unless you drink coffee. Think of yourself as incandescent power, illuminated perhaps and forever talked to by God and his messengers... Think if Tiffany's made a mosquito, how wonderful we would think it was!" ~ Brenda Ueland 

The vows and quote above appear to advocate an innocence or child's eye view. But from my current perspective this is a fine and wonderful thing. For to partition off from our waking selves "childlike wonder" seems most forgetful indeed!

If you were to monk-ey around with monastic ways what would you do?

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Valentine's Day

I do not fit snugly into a world built on principles of clock time and corporeal senses alone. I may appear eccentric if I write about things like "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, at least a familiar response. In this way, perhaps I can then manage to live more often from this place - a place of 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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Thinking About Contemplation

I am struck by the difference in the participants when one contemplates verses when one meditates. It seems to me meditation requires joyous wide and vast emptiness and contemplation joyously lets in all comers. Both allow for emergence of higher understanding. Both require an acknowledgement of an inner life and willingness to see. I am so grateful for this cleaving of ideas which I never knew before!

But it seems meditation is private and contemplation leans toward being more public. Evoking a contemplative state wants grandeur and simplicity to intertwine with all of our senses. And it wants us to document it somehow - in verse, song, essay, art or other - to hopefully evoke itself again in others.

Both straddle eternity.

Have you made time to be contemplative today?

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Collaborating with Doubt

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves..."  ~ Rilke 

In agreeing to Collaborate with what is, rather than combat it, I arrive at a warm and welcoming threshold. Even if 'what is' is uncomfortable.

Not sure why, but I have been working against myself. I confoundedly keep choosing to wade inside old patterns that no longer serve me. And what makes it SUPER silly is I am totally aware, but keep doing it anyway!

Feeling caught or trapped in this fixed behavior pattern made me doubt myself and all my recent so loftily intentions. Which in turn caused an uptick in confusion and a down tick of self confidence. So today my previously fabulous self is treading water in the deep end of all things unsure...again!

Some folks say this swing toward disorientation is normal before one experiences a breakthrough. I say doesn't matter what folks say. This feeling sucks!  

So what does a situation like this call for?

That's it! Questioning is in order...and lots of it!

If I can begin to honor my Doubt and stop judging it as something all together bad, Doubt can be liberated from a hazy destination to a new experience of a gracious invitation. If you allow it, Doubt begins the process of reflection. It is a call to form a meaningful question which is always a pointer towards a meaningful answer! 

Doubt is the threshold to your most sacred path of knowing.

To embrace Doubt is to honor ourselves and our own journey. And don't worry because "The Universe is so well balanced that the mere fact that you have a problem serves as a sign that there is a solution." Seems fitting that this quote is by Anonymous! 

How comfortable are you with uncertainty?

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Clarity 2.0

Clarity is a fleeting pain in the ass. The prevailing winds change, clarity gently brushes against your cheek, then drifts on. So you better be ready for it or it may just pass you by like it never happened. 

What do I believe? Getting clear here will help me move to the next level in my life, I am thinking. As long as I can remember I have always understood that I am you and you are me - that we are the same. Never studied a religion to learn this - it is part of me. I am skeptical about all beliefs in established systems, i.e., Religion. But I do value ownership of a personally derived belief system.

The big movement for me has been coming to a complete understanding that Love rules the universe. From this I understand that as life's circumstances arise the only question I need ask is, "Does this serve me?" I am the liver of a life that serves this Life for the good and this life in turn serves me for the good. Life is a big Love snowball that way. And it all starts within me. 

So now seems a good time to define things for myself. So here are a few 'new rules' for my new life. Please note: I have never been good at following rules, so setting rules down in writing does not necessarily mean they will be followed. There is always a catch - isn't there?

1. Filter all things through your heart as it knows best.

2. Recognize Wonder as sacred as this is life affirming.

3. No more Toiling (not life affirming.) 

4. All emotions are good messengers, especially the uncomfortable ones. 

5. Carry your Mirth with you at all times, it is your Awareness Emergency kit 

6. Always seek Truth over Illusion as freedom reigns there.

I am sure if I made a thorough study of world religions or philosophers throughout history these rules, or something like them, would show up everywhere. But these organically made personalized collection of tenets suit me perfectly - in the same way the sound of a laugh matches to a person. Your laugh is part of you. No other set of modulated tones will ever do.  (BTW if you have never paid attention to the sound of your laugh, try it... pure ecstasy.)

Found within my heart, these tenets are the wind that fill my sails and give me direction. The boat, of course, is me. My body and personality are the physical mechanism by which I manifest. In this way I see my journey taking place and my heart's desire coming true.

As for the direction and strength of the wind, i.e., the plan - that I have no part in. I surrender that to a higher vision fore I know my vision is far too limited. So instead I give up judgments and expectations. And I relinquish the need to know what tomorrow looks like. This affords all manner of gracious possibilities to form organically. 

My job is to have an intention and to pay attention!

What are your beliefs?

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Far-Fetched Ideas

"That is a REALLY far-fetched idea," she was told by someone somewhere once upon a time. But who cares. It is a place to start. If we hold back in our imaginary places we are lost... without hope or at least moving forward only within our existing paradigms.  

Paradigm: Origin: 1475–85;  Late Latin paradīgma  < Greek parádeigma>  pattern 

(verbid of paradeiknýnai  to show side by side), equivalent to para- para-¹  + deik-,  base of deiknýnai  to show (see deictic) + -ma  noun suffix

And while your existing patterns may be fine, if we are living consciously, we can examine these patterns. We can begin to pick and choose that which we enjoy and begin to discard the routines that no longer serve our evolving selves. 

Why not? I am sorry, have we something to lose here? Yes we do. Our crutches, our sleep walking ways, our corral which fences us in keeping us in the comfortable familiar place  looking always toward the ground and not the sky.

I will begin today by reminding myself of the good things I have collected in my life. We are a collection of what we love, are we not?  Here are the things I love...

The Beach, 
The dog, 
The children of friends,
The friends, 
The warm bed, 
The out reached hand, 
The clever word play,
The well painted eye of a rooster,
The deep and far reaching conversation,  
The love of a good man, 
The satisfied rolling over after a magnificent union, 
The morning light shining through neon tangerine and orange leaves, 
The walk to exercise my body and relieve my mind,
The far flung pass to the almost out of bounds receiver, 
The crunch of a crisp green salad with a vibrant homemade green goddess dressing, 
The completion of a task long avoided, 
The sun  - in any position in the sky, 
The low slung large harvest moon, 
The songs that make my eyes tear up or my body want to dance and 
The tears and the pee caused by uncontrollable laughter shared with anyone else who wants to play along.

This collection of lovely fragments and wisps remind me of who I am. Perhaps these Truths are the first step to revealing my deepest desires?  Finger's crossed. 

Today I will follow those feelings that tell me what I love and what I can do without from now on!

What is on your list?

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