Wide open.

Allowing each email, paper, movement, next action to flow to me and flow away from me.  Never  mind finding errors, that’s the flotsam and jetsam of each other moment.  Allow oversleeping to float by with the morning wake up wash.

Dread, sweet dreams, confusion and the puzzle of life is just a jigsaw.  No need fretting about a single piece.  Move on.  Lots more.

Having my imaginary Friend really helps.  To lean on, one young elephant to the old. To talk to, a witness and confidant.  To listen as She sings a ballad of eternal joy, ache and power–that’s what got me here in the first place.

Sing sing singing.

Being “at one” with all that is, is the essential atonement of human to spirit, spirit to human.  It is the balance of the magnificent experience of being encased and at one with this amazing planet, and steadfast in the endless limitless, eternal spirit that created All That Is.

Whatever that is.

This here and now is a gift.  Every hard moment is good exercise for me, my spirit, my flowing humanness.  It all points back to the Divine One embracing.

I lean on the bulk protection of the Elephant, the sweet fur coat of the Love, and hold hands with the Warrior within me that paves the way through my chattering fears.

Been bursting into tears lately.  Another big change on the horizon.  Feeling the flow move me and I’ve been fighting it.  The tears and sobs are my release–ok ok ok, I’ll go with the flow.

And now to use this flow of tears for useful purposes.  To nourish, fill up and overflow in expression.  Sigh.  Life as a human with a spiritual awareness. Aamazing how I resist.

I claim the content of what is happening, how it is happening and that it is happening.  Interesting practice, exercise and complete surrender.

I am releasing the reins of my life to the dear elephant who leans Herself into my heart, the Ganesha of magnificent love who removes all obstacles and stands for me in steadfast grace.

So how do I honor the feeling of dread that I wake with today?  Allowing it without being imprisoned by it.

I search through the planets and how they are shining on me today.  I work those trines, I allow for alternatives,  I do the smallest next indicated thing, even if it is a new first page of a book.  Or a series of just the first page.  I wear a different shirt.  I decide not to see friends.  I decide to see and contact newer acquaintances, even if I’m not sure I want to be with them.  Mix it up I guess.

Open myself to the wave.  trust the wave, and it will not drown me.  When it rains, it just rains.

And Pema says to me.  The Buddha says to me, Milarepa says to me: when resistance is gone, so are the demons.

I surrender surrender surrender Dorothy.  Resistance is futile.  I surrender.

Anxiety hit me last night.  I took a look at my astrological chart and saw the season coming up.  Big planets hitting my corners, bumping, new waves, the chance to surf or plunge.  Today I choose awareness so that I can ride the ups, the downs the ins, the outs of human life.

After all, it is a rollercoaster I begged for, this life.  I know the truth of easy flow, no matter what season.

But being in it, doing it, watching, awareness and clarity–still I am ambushed by the over-protective, hyper-vigilant, ready for trouble mind of mine.

My true nature IS the water, IS the flow, Is “how” it happens.  I am both the process and the product, the yin and the yang.  I am the doer and the being of me.

Still.  I dive into the heart of the One.  Maybe She is the Flow, but She, He, It, the personal face of the All That Is, comforts me, and I lean on Her shoulder now.  I am washed in Her love, knowing I am always feeling Her warmth, like a child embraced in the heavenly fur coat of Her arms.

One is no thing.  Emptiness and zero, open and no where.

Two is Tao in action–polarities, illusionary dualities, the wave, the day, up and down.

Three is the result of how the polarities interact–something new begins.  Man, woman, child.  Idea, material, new thing.

So they say to have, be empty and something new arrives.  To give, receive and there is a conversation.  To create, find a hole and look to a new container.

Open to the day, I am rich.

But if I am still.  I can let the radiance of how it works shine through me.

Watching a young friend bring forth her baby after a long day of him stubbornly refusing to show himself.  Now all are smiles and sleep.  Allowing things to flow as they go, grateful for the passage, the ride, the swim, the bumps, the grinds the smiles.

My heart is the Divine Heart–in, with, surrounding me.  I live and breathe from that precious Home. I am grounded in the truth of the Way, the Light, and the Love.

The Tao is so different from the religion of my childhood.  It seems to have so little dogma, recitation, rules and commandments that, if broken, yield guilt and shame.  Instead it is a subtle puzzle that keeps pointing to “how” everything comes about AS the “first principle.”  Very different.

How it is, is it.  The Tao is the process from what looks to be nothing, to all that happens, to all that is.  I do like puzzles, so it keeps me asking questions.  Unlike the religious upbringing of my youth that gave answers and discouraged questions.

As Lao puts it: How do I know?  I look inside myself and see.

And along with that today I take the tools of mindfulness and gratitude.  Being here now in the Tao and great-full.

Thrive: to open up to the ease, joy and brilliance of the very moment.

Prosper: to flow in the richness of the moment.

And the human part of me snickers.  Yeah.  Right.  Stories of the achy old body, the inner organs feeling out of sync, short term memory ripped from my consciousness, change that looms ahead. Thrive & prosper eh?!

Well Pema says to stick with my own little garden plot.  To see the rocks and hard ground, mulch it with the shit of my life, dig it in, let the humility/humus enrich my soil with loving kindness.

Now I see the sun hit the tops of the trees outside my window.  Birds sing to the late winter dawn.  The air brings warm promises.

Kindness reveals my dear love of the Divine.  The Divine reveals endless love to, with, in, around, above, below me always. Surrounded in love, I lean on goodness and ease.

I claim the grace that is the best of me.  I honor and love the feisty human arguments.  I bow to the gifts of this spectacularly polarized human adventure.

It’s hard to determine what the “first principle” is. Taoists refer to it all the time, but, since the Tao is undefinable, it is not explained.  As much as I can tell, it is like watching a river.

It flows.  it is never ending, always rushing, bouncing, foaming, polishing.  if a good fisherman knows the way the river flows, through seasons and time of day, she can catch the best fish.

So I learn more and more to be aware of how the flow is around me.  Not pushing the river, struggling to make life what it is not.  Yet pointing my little raft in the direction I choose, hopefully over instead of against the rocks.  I am not a salmon, therefore after a while of going against the flow, I surrender to the current, lie back on my little tire tube and bounce downstream.

The Divine is present in me, my raft, the river, the shore, the air the mountains and the flow.