They call it life on life’s terms, when years pass and the labyrinth brings you back to another center along the same path. More words need to be shared here, especially as every cell in my body has changed since the last post.

Being human continually offers me a million different views, yet the same spirit is what opens my eyes. Trees are still in the windows. Children now with their own children. My home is quiet, and my body endures. I am now celebrating my calling, my natural work.

Here’s the thing: I am here to remind you how deeply you are loved. How being in and as love–the world is amazing. We are infinite beings dancing in a dear solid form of the blue-green earth. No matter the fear of death, taxes, screwed politics, bad insurance, health snafus, unfair litigation, puzzling end of relationships, anger or blessed moments with an infant’s first smile. I need to remind myself and you–we are the Flow. In love. No matter what.

There is a sadness, sure.  I am no longer looking out from under the covers at the forest, hearing the songbirds, watching the sun grace the treetops.  In the middle of a great change, puzzlement, wonder, sadness and the thrill of adventure whirls through the stillness.

I am practiced, however, to thoroughly sit with an apricot under a huge maple tree in a familiar park on a wide scarf and just sit.  Now it is in the basement bedroom of a friend.  For a number of days it will be in a high point of the Cascade Mountains near a walking trail that spans the country, from Canada to Mexico. And I will be celebrating another year living on this astounding planet.

Happy Birthday to me!

Wouldn’t it be amazing if all our actions were based on a call to love and be loved?  It would need to be after we see that every grasping, greedy, possessive, needy action was rooted in the need to love oneself.  Only then would war and other horrors be completely unnecessary.

My duty and honor is to make this real in my very tiny little individual heart, soul and life.

Act without doing, teach without speaking, love without grasping.  It is the practice of deep here and now.  Watching the sun light up the forest.  Birdsong a sound bath.  Quiet moment a comforter.  I am so grateful to be here and now.

That’s what Emmanuel says today.  The crows outside cackle, the forest is rooted in it.  But I am a human and argue with it.

No matter.  All spirit.  All waves.  All ripples and rushing energy from the mysterious mountaintops to the far away ocean.  I sit on a rocky river shore, hearts and love at every turn and know with every cell in my body the goodness and grace of All That Is.

The challenge is to chant that indubitable truth with every breath as I pack all my material entourage into boxes and drive 3000 miles to make a new nest and explore.

Putting on my explorer hat, I bow to the Divine within me, honor the love that made me and greet the shining day.

Just that point in moving when all the comfortable surrounding icons are displaced.  Dresser gone. Clothes in bags on the floor.  Boxes lining the living room.  Walking through the apartment aimlessly wondering on the next best action.  Crying for no reason and all reasons.

Embracing the delicate now.  Cozy under my colorful afghan.  Brilliant sun on deep layers of green forest.  Birds lazy in the warm late morning.  Here and now is a gift.

Integrating the here and now with there and then, however, is a constant spiritual practice.

Still.  I am.  Here.  Now.

I don’t even need to know where it begins.  Or ends.  Sitting here, watching the ever-changing ripples,the same over and over and over again, is eternity.  Always happening, never the same.

No desire.  Free of worry.  Allowing and willing.  The river flows and gurgles and rushes and is a symphony of cleansing, nourishing and light.

Yeah.  Well.  I wish my knees wouldn’t hurt, that I could get some real rest without the mind whirling, and eat that which nourishes instead of indigests!  That was the body-mind.  The human casing, the sweet protective part of my earth-heart.  Changes, moving, boxes, events, receiving, blessings, duties, friends.  Tired.

The only constant is change.  And I am so glad to be here. Now.  River watching.

I’m sure I’ve written about this before and will again.  And again.  As that is All There Is!!

When I open my heart to Yes Yes Yes!  Thank you thank you thank you!  See with the heart-eyes of only love, there are more flowers, brilliant birdsong, deep greens everywhere.

I thoroughly sit in easy satisfaction of this here and now.  Thus every here and now is eternally satisfying.  Even if I weep for puzzling reasons–or no reason at all.  Whether I am cranky, tired, have indigestion, lonely, or delightfully smiling at a baby.

This here and now is a gift.

I am SO grateful today.  For the Divine in my life who sang to me all the way through LA traffic to deep downtown.  For the palm tree tall in the distance from my new southern California apartment home.  For the busy, scared mind of mine that allows for the heart to stumble forward, despite all questions, doubts, fears and trepidation.

Birds still chatter in the forest.  I am still moving from one part of the country to another.  And once again I am deeply and more deeply rooted in faith.  All There Is is All That I Am.

As I am still.  Here and now.  Knowing the Presence.  Right here and right now.  Always.

PARTY FOREVER!!

Centered in All That Is, there is no place that is without harmony.  Oh, like massive loud traffic, or continuous highways, funky apartment hunting, insecurity, doubt and the puzzlement of the unknown?

Yup.

Staying centered is a practice.  Never perfect, always bouncing between the human mind and the rock steady heart.

I’m riding with the Divine today–into the traffic of love stuff.  Yahooooo!!

Whatever is going on, I just can’t deny that I am here and now, right where I am here.  Now.  The past has information that adds to where I place my next step.  But even the next step is unpredictable.

Plus there is the treasure hunt messages from the Divine that are only visible in this very mini-second.  Driving by apartments, I can make a choice (heart and mind agree) that I don’t want to live in a big pink saltbox building.  Now it could be after all my searching that’s where I end up, but at that moment, I move on to the next morsel of bread on the dark forest path.

Claiming grace in every breath, open to the thrill of the adventure, here and no–THIS here and no– is an eternal gift.