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?

Tag You're It!

APRIL'S FOOL - and Every Other Month for that Matter!

“The words you speak become the house you live in.” ~Hafiz

It happened again.

I felt really small again and all my accomplishments-to-date were negated by my judgemental mind. I cannot tell you how it started. All I know is one minute I was having a great day then I felt it melt away. It wasn't a crash and burn situation. It felt more like a slow insidious termite infestation that you don't know about until your foot breaks threw the kitchen floor.

As my firm foundation crumbled my confidence morphed into doubt and 2nd guessing. THINKING these things stopped my forward motion. It was then that my THOUGHTS lasso'd my EMOTIONS. And my emotions then took over and hog-tied me but good!

Eventually I recognized it. Then I fought it

Then, after shedding some tears, I placed all this energy fully and gently in the light of my own LOVE and COMPASSION.

…and then I was large and limitless once again!


What is your bounce back strategy?

Tag You're It!

Becoming Wide and Open

"Your beliefs become your thoughts 

Your thoughts become your words
Your words become your actions
Your actions become your habits
Your habits become your character
Your character becomes your destiny"

~mohandas ghandi

There is an energy that is spoiling my peace. It crackles and shifts the silence within me. And deep down and all through everything I know - I know this energy is good.

Even though I feel nauseated by its unusual character and unfamiliar tones. Even though I know nothing about what is to come. Even though I feel afraid...I am willing to endure the uncertainty of cascading next events because deep down and all through everything I know - I know this energy is good.

I am opening to the changes of Spring.

I am open to the casting off of my cocoon. 

I am open to the emerging of my new me. 

I am open to the merging of the flows - the flow of my soul's river with the flow of the rhythms of the world. 

I am open to the merging of the flows because I know deep down and all through everything I feel - this merging is good.  

I am wide open.

Tag You're It!

A Teaching Creme Brûlée

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

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

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

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

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

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

What thing needs more of your attention today?

Tag You're It!

Don't Postpone Joy

Today I am here...

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

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

Knowing this is power. 

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

What do you nourish within yourself?

Tag You're It! 

Advocating for Meditation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does your path look like?

Tag You're It!

An Open Invitation

Crazy good explanation...I am so grateful for it's joyful clarity! http://omeleto.com/199433/

Good Purposeless-ness...from Other Voices

"like the lovely, free-form edge of a bird's wings, we cultivate our essence, an alchemy of soul.....this, simply by being present and alive.....yes, fully alive...…" 

~ in the blue

Our Strength Found in Fragile Depths 

"I am especially struck with the idea

of the purposeless life,

filling the well with snow.

I suppose all life is just that anyway,

but we are obsessed with purpose" 

~Thomas Merton

____________________

"The longing to live free from care, or to live what Merton in his letter to Suzuki calls the purposeless life, should not be mistaken for a simple disregard for others or for the world, or a willingness to live without care for persons or things. Rather, it expresses a hunger to discover a more honest, free, and open way of living in the world that enables one to see and respond to the other without succumbing to the temptation to think of such relationships only in terms of their utility and purpose. 

Indeed, one of the fundamental questions raised by the contemplative tradition has to do with how best to understand purpose and utility in human life, and whether the meaning of things depends on their having a purpose or a use. Also, whether an insistence on the fundamental value of utility and purposefulness undermines our very capacity to see and notice and respond to the world in its own terms. 

At its roots, these are also questions about what kind of value we attribute to things like play, imagination, attention, and prayer; and whether they can be understood, at least in conventional or economic terms, as having any purpose at all. Especially important in this regard is the cultivation of the kind of capacious awareness that can help us learn to feel and take in the beauty and power of the world for its own sake and refrain from evaluating it purely in terms of its utility. 

And while the cultivation and practice of such awareness may not be sufficient in itself to help us redress the pernicious effects of our utilitarian and acquisitive culture, the recovery of such capacity will almost certainly be necessary to the kind of sustained imaginative, ecological, and spiritual renewal of the world" 

~ Douglas Christie

_______________________

"liquid life in motion

So from the ground we felt that virtue branch

Through all our veins till we were whole, our wrists

As fresh and pure as water from a well,

Our hands made new to handle holy things,

The source of all our seeing rinsed and cleansed

Till earth and light and water entering there

Gave back to us the clear unfallen world."

~ Edwin Muir

In Blue | October 15, 2014 at 6:03 am | Tags: aliveness, awakening heart, awe, beauty defined, deep kindness, deep longing, deep play, fragile beauty, free spirit, fresh perspective, inner divinity, nurturing beauty, sacred awareness, seeking the sacred, spirit in flight | Categories: Beauty | URL: http://wp.me/p1Wc4z-2J5

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?

Tag You're It!

A Healing Effect

"For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them."  ~ thich nhat hahn

Describing a feeling is never easy unless I have an acute sense of it's components. I have been living under an umbrella of grief for 23 months now so I can describe that pretty dog gone well...and I think I have. 

Over time I have developed tools, tricks and strategies to dodge, absorb and release much sorrow. But now - today and for the past several days - there is something new afoot. 

There is a freshly burning thing wanting to be revealed. It appears to be a calming answer to an earlier request. And I 'think' I am more grounded and whole because of it. Only time will tell if there is Truth here.

What seems to be building round the middle of my chest is a broad and natural heat, the likes of which one expects to find at the center of a heap of long composted garden waste. Yet this triple shredded compost is inside of me! This may sound strange but it is almost like a space has been made clear "for my husband" inside of my heart. We are connected together again in a new and profound way.

Am I receiving a gift of sorts? Or do I just have indigestion? 

It appears to be the antithesis of those irregular intense strikes of pain and loss. Yes - this feels of steadiness and comfort and love. It is as if by allowing Michael to become part of me - part of my heart - I am made more than whole.

Does any of this make any sense? How can one be more than whole? Is this kind of equation (100% + 1) even possible? The effect of being stretched beyond my current understanding is a feeling of empowerment, compassion and humility for it all.

The one familiar aspect of this new found formation within is finding myself in yet-another-transitional-place. Change has become quite normal to me. In fact it has become standard operating procedure!

As any good Buddhist will tell you, the only way to find permanent joy is by embracing the fact that nothing is permanent. And though I am not Buddhist, experience has shown me this is, ironically, the UNCHANGING Truth. 

This is all I am allowed to know at this time. When I know more I will be sure to tell you. For it is "the telling" that has become my healing. 

And I am hopeful, too, that there are healings in these writings of mine for others. For this is my task. And for this task my gratitude is unbounded.

How are you changing today?

Tag You're It!

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?

Tag! You're It!

In the Stream

Today I am noticing my open heart is a garden where everything placed in it grows. And everything that comes from it nourishes. And when I relax into the flow of life, life provides all that I need easily and comfortably. 

LIFE is on my side!

What better motivation can there be to arrange things in your life so your heart space is the preeminent filter through which all things flow?

Tag You're It

Summer Time Well Being

A long, long time ago in a far off land my best friend was a boy named Michael who lived up the street. We were both around 6 or 7 years old and we loved playing together. 

I recall sitting in the ivy under the big oak tree with big pillows stuffed under our broadly stripped cotton shirts and mom serving us lunch as we played at being Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. We also collected rudimentary fishing gear while wearing those unstuffed shirts and spent many lazy days catching snapper off a pier in the sound. 

We configured and re-configured race tracks in Mike's basement. And much to the chagrin of our older sisters - we played at being spies, learning how to be stealthy, sneaking up to eavesdrop on their older-kid-doings in the fields at the end of our street. I think that was the only time we were actually quiet!

We climbed trees, road bikes, caught frogs in window wells and butterflies in nets. We mixed potato chips with our Bazooka bubble gum as we watched the Wizard of Oz while propped up on our elbows on pillows on our bellies close to the TV set. Back then it was a real event because the Wizard of Oz only came on once a year! And as I recall this event also signaled the coming to the end of "summer time."

"Summer Time" was not only a season, but a quality of time. It was  when we generally enjoyed enjoying life. It was when school let out and we readily cast ourselves a drift to do NOTHING and loved every moment AND it's unfolding. There were no expectations of accomplishing goals or making the grade. We just got up with the day and made it up as we went along.

We were off the clock when we were in it. We were in summer time. We are now in summer time. We are well. We are just well... well... BEING.

How will you spend your summer time this year?

Tag You're It!

Happiness is a Choice

"Happiness can be cultivated" says Shawn Achor, author of Before Happiness. He calls it Happiness Hygiene and says it is as essential to living as brushing our teeth and eating right. Here are 5 Two Minute Happiness Drills which Achor's research has proven to actually have the power to make us happier people. His work challenges us to do one or more of these drills for 21 days in order to experience the real difference for ourselves.

Shawn says these practical changes in our behavior are happiness building blocks. These practices allow us to see more meaning in our lives thus increasing our happiness. Which in turn creates an experience of deeper and more enduring joy... for ourselves and others. That's right, Shawn says as we care for our own Happiness Hygiene there exists the real possibility it will spread to those around us.

So here are the 5 Two Minute Happiness Drills that may change the world! Or just make you smile more often. Either way - this is "good stuff making!"

1. SAY ALOUD three NEW gratitudes when you awake each morning.

2. MOVE your body in fun mindful cardio activity - OK this one wants about 10 - 15 minutes!

3. SIT in stillness or meditate - quietly watching your breath for 2 minutes does count!

4. SEND A THANK YOU note, email, or call to someone you know.

5. WRITE a detailed recollection of a happy moment from last 24 hours for just 2 minutes.

If you are like me --- looking at implementing yet another regular routine can feel daunting.  Well suck this one up & GET HAPPY DAMN IT! It is only two minutes... and we need you on our team! 

Too rough?

Tag You're It!

Enlightened Down South

The day is bright with possibilities after stretching and strengthening my back and my spirit. The instructor asked us to set our intention for the day. Was a beautiful yoga class @YogaGarden this am. 

My intention came to me quickly - "I allow Grace, Love & Abundance into my life." 

Seems like a no brainer. Of course we all want Grace, Love & Abundance. But you got to make them welcome. You have to know you are deserving of all things good. You gotta let them in! 

So I did just that, then I did my yoga and then I gave thanks for the free flow of Grace, Love & Abundance to me and from me towards others. That's what flow means - it is a give and take, a gracious sharing back and forth.

And then I took my new-age-yoga-doin-self out for a BBQ sandwich. Amen and pass the moist towelettes! This is enlightenment down south. Namaste Y'all.

How did you nourish yourself today?

Tag You're It!

Self Love

Soulfully attending to body, mind and spirit manifests all manner of actual good things into being. Here is another list to tack up on the mirror or place by the bed to remind us of this!

The Top Ten Reasons Why I Exercise By Jessica Ortner 

1) Movement in your body means movement in your life. Over and over again, I’ve seen how true that is for me and my life. When I’m feeling stuck, I know I need to move.

2) Movement is an expression of gratitude toward my body for all it does for me.

3) Movement makes me feel connected to my body and its intelligence, which helps me make better decisions and keeps me feeling like my best self.

4) I’m smarter and more creative when I’m exercising. (Research backs this up; exercise causes increased blood flow to the brain, which stimulates the creative centers in the brain.)

5) Movement is a spiritual experience for me, like a physical form of prayer or a moving meditation.

6) Movement makes me feel strong, confident, beautiful, and sexy, like a force to be reckoned with.

7) Movement helps me be in the present moment, which helps me feel at peace.

8) Movement is one of the ways I show myself love, so when I exercise, I’m reminding myself that I’m worthy of my own love.

9)  Movement makes me feel playful and energetic.

10) Movement makes me feel powerful in a deep and authentic way.

Notice what’s missing here? “Burning calories” and “losing weight” appear exactly nowhere on my list.

Gonna take these ideas and run with them! Nothing bad can ever happen by loving yourself...don't you just think?

Tag You're It!

Rinse and Repeat

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift…" 

~ Albert Einstein

Knowing this I ask again --- what does it feel like to receive unconditional love? 

Now without labeling, without using words or employing images - or memory even - can you summon up the feeling? Can you use your subtler senses to bask in It's immensity? 

Mmm mmm good! 

Now - as most shampoo bottles instruct - rinse and repeat. Rinse off the conditions in which you find yourself and stretch yourself to repeat feeling this feeling once daily.

It would be monumental if we could daily attend to our emotional and intuitive hygiene in this way. Taking a moment each day of our lives to rinse and repeat might allow our day (and thus our lives) to unfold more favorably. 

This is the manner in which I am living today. I am stretching myself beyond what is, letting go of business as usual and allowing what serves best to unfold before me. It is scary. It is uncomfortable. I have much less control, but I know that by attending to my emotional hygiene there is a much richer chance I might evolve toward a greater vision for my life than I can currently conceive.

Got any questions? Me too - loads. But gonna set them aside to feel my way forward today?

Could you let go - even just a little today - to make room for new possibilities?

Tag You're It!

Imagine

What does it feel like to receive unconditional love?

Tag You're It!

The Rush of Simple Pleasure

I felt there again. It was so sweet, that connection to one's I love. We had dinner, my dear friends and I. We discussed all sorts of real and true things about our daily lives, but nothing heavy, nothing too deep. Just regular sharing and regular joy. 

Their, now 2, baby's care came first as we juggled conversation with eating and with all other things. We were together in my home feeling...good. 

The keel is evening out as this is the life I picture for myself. Loving people sharing a lovely time. Closeness and warmth - no dramas, no tears for a change. 

Just the pleasantness of good food, your company and me. I am steeped in gratitude for awareness of this simple pleasure.

What makes up a simple pleasure for you?

Tag You're It!