Dissipation vs. dissolution.  Succumbing to the darkness or dissolving into the Spirit.  Well, that smacks of duality, Mr. Tao Teacher.  Being genuine.  Human, balanced in matter and heart-soul.

Yeah.  That’s as easy has carrying water a mile in my hands.  Or winning a fight with old memories and myths.  Or reminding myself how dear and loved I am in the cold quiet apartment before dawn.

Good thing You are here.  Sitting on the bed, playing with my teddy dog, giggling at my soppy tearful morning about nothing. She reminds me that I wanted to play this human game, and She told me there would be days like this.

So off to the races.  Even with the story of a sodden heart, the car is ready to roll.

So that means I can cry when I want to, yes?  Water follows the law, the Tao.  Melting, washing, cleansing, and nourishing–an essential teacher.

Shed light and create harmony–two goals of the leader who follows Tao.  Following the Spirit throughout the day.  In everyone I see, in every tedious moment performing mundane tasks that seem to have no real purpose.  Contrives of corporate busyness, machinations of complex emotional and mental mousetraps.

Follow the path of water.  Cry if I want to.  Seek the simple.  Do my work, then step back.  This, supposedly, is the path to serenity.

Keep it simple and watch for Godsigns today.  Allow for heart rocks to show up.  Be still and know that the Dear One is closer than the tender skin of my neck.  Nearer than the ring on my finger.  Softer sweet sustenance as the air I breathe.

Even in my dullest, numbest, molasses-trudging moments, She is dressed in stars and nods to me.  Be myself.  So right now it is a leaden thought of a long week.  How to get out of that hypnotic, story-filled dull nightmare?  Especially after dragging myself from a dream of sweet kissing.  I love to kiss.  It is such a tender touching of souls to souls to the fireworks of All That Is.

How to carry the kiss instead of the dragging dullness?  I have to search out in every moment of my day for the kiss.  That gentle touch of Her Presence.  The tickle of the treasure, a heart rock, the sunrise, a waving tree.

I trust the path and watch for surprises.

The Tao is No Thing.  God is No Thing.  This morning it is like nothing is happening.  Is it my procrastination?  Is it the wake of winter sliding me down a lazy hill?  Is it tired?  Is it the doldrums of an uneventful holiday looming?  Is it the end of a long month?

It is no thing.

We are meaning-making beings.  Every single thought is meaning placed on the natural easy meaningless flow of life.  Is it rest or meditation?  Is it lazy or stillness?  Is it a catastrophe or a purging of old useless structures?  Is it death or a new freedom?

Dunno.  Trying not to judge.  But my mind certainly has judgments there too.  I’m even tired of being grateful.  Today I think I’ll just listen.

Silence is a great source of strength.  Thus, sitting in silence, allowing the mind to dither itself to sleep, letting thoughts drift down the river, deepens my roots.

Manure makes excellent fertilizer.  Thus the shit of my life nourishes me, despite my childish desires to brush it all away.  The deepest cuts have yielded the truest and long-lasting awareness of the how of me, you, the planet, and the thrill of being spirit playing at being human.

Human is related to humus, dirt of the earth. Humility.  Even if God is No Thing, I am not that All That Is.  Even if I am everything that is in the wave of the Ocean.  I am not the Ocean.

But it sure sets my heart on fire when She sits in front of me, cross legged on my bed, on the quilt of love I planted for us.  Heart on fire.

The spiritual path is not about understanding, but being absolutely at peace and curious about everything.  It seems laughable to me, any quest that has understanding as a final goal.  Even standing under, there is something under me.

All creation is vibrations.  The frost on the leaves, the still cold trees gripping lazy leaves.  The bushes that climb and blind and wind around it all.  Me, the keys, the water and the air.

Just to be in sync with the vibrations around me, in my body, in you, in those gone, is certainly a path of not-understanding.  Like listening to soft music in the back of the back of the house, I can lean into it, but can’t hear the words or the individual notes.  I still hum the tune.

Today it is about allowing me to be a simple vibration.  Low frequency, steady amplitude.  Now to fix the car.

Opening up to the world from the inner center, that place without rules, judgments, beyond the right and wrong, transcends sorrows.  Or so says the Tao.

So my brother brings up the shock of 50 years ago, when Kennedy was killed in Dallas.  My mind dances over the visions and the memories.  And I wonder what would happen if I spoke to Jack myself.  I converse with those beyond the veil a lot, maybe he’s in the Grange Hall.

Well he’s talkative.  He says that all martyrs have a plan, but plans are stories and there are so many stories from his life.  That it was best he left as he did rather than other options.  That just like 9/11, sometimes tragedy and shock bring much needed change.  He says his life wasn’t that fabulous, but his death was important.  He had fun while he was there (Marilyn Monroe comes to mind–but maybe that’s me.)

It’s all about being present.  With family, with whatever story you choose, with integrity and easy paced living, simple flow.  Be who I am in every moment.

And for me it is about reaching for Her Hand, leaning on Her shoulder.  Being still to hear Her soft singing.

In and out.  Forever and surrounding.  Internally and externally, breath is the instant of life. Refreshment and release.

So I saw another warrior movie last night.  A teenage warrior movie.  Perhaps they all start with the angst of adolescence.  It was the familiar story of conventional imprisoning cultural mores and the fierce seething despair of rebellion. Perfect example of the Tao–the How of things.  The tension of breath–in and out, yes and no, here and there.

But none of that is real, really.  There is only one, all, always.  The war is within us.  The polarity is within us.  But there is no duality, just back and forth like a wave.

My practice is as much as possible to watch the pendulum rather than ride it, to observe the waves of grief and hilarity, rather than judge my life by a surge or a depth.  Yeah.  Sure.  But this morning I am cold and thinking of the warmth of the desert.

Not easy this human thing.

I keep the heat off, saving money and all.  I like the window open at night to breathe the whispers of the trees in my dreams.  So it is chilly here now.

Funny funny funny practice wherein I am not to take a microscope to the grains of time and sand–but to watch the waves of flowing dunes, my life.  Trusting in the how of Tao.  Riding surf rather than diving for plankton bill-paying futures.

There are fallow moments  Numb evenings.  Puzzling tired long commutes.

What sweet bliss to turn to You.  Whatever You are–the velvet fur of Your skin, the giggle of Your breath at my ear, the tickle at my neck.

Like the puppy of my mind, I run, jump, and dive into Your arms, snuggled into Your grace.

This conscious mind thing is a bitch.  Always comparing, judging, discerning.

I remember being a tree with rain being rain, cold being cold, lost branches just falling.  Birds in my hair, squirrels climbing, bugs eating.  Life was merely a flow of growth–reaching up and digging deep.  My clan, the trees, keep whispering these truths.  They are puzzled why I chose this incarnation as a walking, talking, thinking tree.  So am I.

The reward for the work comes from the work.

Today I struggle for the Presence. Body throbbing from some stretch of food.  No more bacon at night.  And allowing it to bring me to Your cheek to cheek to cheek to cheek.