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?

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Peace From Wanting

"Normally, the test of greatness in the arts is the ability to state deep feelings and perceptions simply, clearly, and well. Indeed, it may well be said that until a person can express a thought clearly and simply, he hasn't yet fully understood it himself.” ~ Swami Kriyananda, from the book 'Art as a Hidden Message' 

We are all artists because we are always creating. 

This is my own simple prayer...

"I want everything I have. 

I have all I need. 

This is my very own peace."

What words do you use to create peace within yourself?

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I'm a Pepper. You're a Pepper...

organism

[awr-guh-niz-uh m]  noun   1. a form of life composed of mutually interdependent parts that maintain various vital processes.

To be an organism in my own life; to confidently behave in my own best interest without doubt, fear or judgement; this is my NIRVANA. 

This is not a selfish aim for in being such a thing I eclipse that part of myself that gets in my own way. You know what I am talking about...that voice that, at best - hinders or delays joy and at worst - scolds, malforms or denigrates a soul's truest nature.

An organism has no such voice. It has no inner child or half-baked notions which need overcoming. It just simply moves with ease as it is meant to for the good of itself and the body in which it lives. Ahhhh...this sounds so peaceful.

Now some may think my aspiring to be an organism might leave me small, faceless and without a personality. But my read is just the opposite. If I were fortunate enough to be an organism I would be a one-of-a-kind singular and perfect expression of myself. I would know innately my place in the world. And this "knowing" would gracefully carry me forward in the direction of my own ever unfolding destiny...joyfully and triumphantly. That doesn't seem small at all, now does it?  

If ALL THIS were actually the way of things, wouldn't you like to be an organism too? 

How do you describe your NIRVANA?

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Love Beyond Measure

"For I have learned that every

heart will get

What it prays for

Most " - hafiz

How much Love can you take? 

Let's talk volume here. Is it enough? Is it too much? Can you take just a little more? And just a little more again? Why is there a set amount that is allowed? Does it burn to feel the unbounded vastness of Love's light? Is it possible to conceive of this much Love being at your disposal?

Is a little trickle thru a tiny fissure in the granite of a great stone gorge all you can abide at this time? Any fissure can become a crack. And any crack can break wide open...if you let it.

What about a gusher? What about a geyser? What about an tidal wave? Now we are talking about more than just volume. We are adding velocity. It is too much, too fast! Make it stop - all this Love! It hurts too much!

Let's just stop this all together! Let's just stop this "stopping Love." Let's just let it flow and feel it however it arrives, accept it no matter what it looks like, who brings it, or how fast (or slowly) it comes. 

Make welcome Love. Make welcome Love. Make welcome Love.

This is my prayer.

What does your heart pray for?

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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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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

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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A Walk in the Park

"I am great sun but you do not see me.

I am your husband but you turn away.

I am the captive but you do not free me.

I am the captain but you do not obey.

I am the truth but you do not believe me.

I am that city where you will not stay.

I am your wife, your child but you will leave me.

I am that god to whom you will not pray.

I am your council but you do not hear me.

I am your lover whom you will slay.

I am the victor but you do not cheer me.

I am the holy dove that you will slay.

I am your life, but if you will not name me seal up your soul's tears and do not blame me." ~ from a 16th century inscription.

My job and my joy is to simply be myself. So why isn't this a walk in the park? Who better to know how to do this than me? No special training is required. Nothing need be bought or sold to achieve "Lani-ness" because I came complete, whole and perfect. And I will go out that way too... funny thing is this is true whether I recognize it or not. 

What has to happen to allow fresh, pure, and unencumbered Lani molecules to collect and disseminate with ease and grace?

Full throttle love. Full throttle trust. And full throttle imagination of what life could be like at it's best. When I allow these things it is a walk in the park to just be.

At this point I believe my job and my joy then changes. I believe my job and my joy then becomes dissolving into all that is... definitely NOT a walk in the park! I've got some work to do. 

What work do you have in front of you?

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Joy Springs Up in Unexpected Places

Do you know the sound the cartoon dog makes when he shoots his head straight up and suddenly becomes aware of something? And his warm, sweet and goofy awareness changes everything and comically moves the story forward?

Well - I am making that sound - dumb lovable feisty me. I am suddenly aware that I am very open to allowing a loving universe help me resolve my challenges in surprising ways!

Tears don't just come for no reason. There is something that pushes them out. I know I am still grieving, but I am having a hard time thinking grief is the only reason I am crying right now. Is it because I am experiencing glimpses of loving again in a new way? An all inclusive vulnerable way that feels safe somehow because "with Love all things are possible." Kinda feels a little profound-ish, but YES, this is exactly it!

I know this is accurate because the convulsion of painful emotion stopped once I chose to see the truth beneath the tears. Wow - that was cool! (You get this way, this sensitivity, by having cried a lot - by the way.)

I used to share my Love with just my hubby - but know it seems I am cultivating a new experience of Love. It feels alien and very familiar at the same time. I am being lovable, loving and loved with, to and by everyone!

I wonder what this all means? I wonder if this miraculous life of mine is finally blooming right here in late February like the unexpected daffodils in my backyard? These silly flowers are in the wrong place. They have blossomed in the center of a new path I installed last year. But they are bright spots of yellow in an otherwise dreary winter scape just the same. They speak to me about unexpected joy.

Frankly, I will take what I can get. I have had a very tough year and a half. "Hey Universe, Thank You. And let's get ready to R - U - M - B - L - E !" Bring on your multiplicity of synchronistic & unexpected miracles! I am ready to be amazed and happy again! I am willing to enjoy Joy wherever it shows up on MY new path.

Are you willing to just allow Joy?

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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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In the stillness I remain...for now

In the stillness I remain until my song is ready to be sung. That is what 'Course in Miracles lady' said when I inquired about the nature of Grief. She spoke freely about the nature of Anger during her brief workshop. But she said not a word about Grief until I approached her afterward. She said, "Like Anger, Grief is natural. First we must feel the Grief, then there is Stillness, then your Song emerges." Quite pithy - huh? 

Well it has been some time now. Past are the blankets of Grief that covered me head-to-toe for weeks at a time. Now. like Coca Cola and Pepsi, I am feeling sorrow and melancholy in a variety of flavors and strengths. Whenever Grief shows up today, like Mark Nepo writes, "I become water. I let everything rinse its grief in me and reflect back as much light as I can." So it appears that Stillness is the more dominate state here and now.


You wouldn't think so, but being Still is damn challenging too. There exists this friction between wanting so much to move forward and seeming to be not moving at all. This Stillness is not because I am under resourced, under supported, beholden to anyone, or tied to any particular place. Nope - got plenty of Freedom. What I require is DIRECTION. 

I am neutral. I am Switzerland. I am Bud Lite, hospital food, Muzak, a politician running unopposed for office - I got no enthusiasm! I catch glimpses of it when I meet a fine man or create a fine meal or painting but these are not the stuffs I wish to build my new life upon.

Until my next chapter's motivation is revealed I am industrious. I do the busy work of Stillness. Like a toddler's day in preschool the work is important and foundational and elemental. 

In the morning we have painting, then we study metaphysics. Then lunch and playtime. Playtime is essential! Recess ends with a story and nap time, after which there is a snack. Then we explore another activity. All activities, if not educational, are at least FUN. 

I am not the best scheduler, which has me upset some times. And occasionally I pass judgement on myself or the days curriculum or lack there of. "If I could just get on with it!, I say to myself. But this is futile. If I could I would, just got no road map right now. 

But when I choose to take a loving and kind view of myself I find little hints here and there whispering to me about intuition being crucial in the next iteration of Lani 3.0. And great stores of power and love within me. And vast creative juices which cannot help but flow thru me. And perhaps I can help others in some way too? 

I know my direction will reveal itself when the time is best. But how long must we wait! Fa-La-Fuckin-La! Where is my damn song?


What causes you to throw a tantrum?

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