We went on a trip, inside and outside, to the place of my childhood.  From one coast to the other, across the continent so endless below the roaring, bumping jet.

The railroad ties my father placed as steps are still along the side of the hill.  My climbing tree has grown.  There are tiny handprints in the cement belonging to us years ago.  But everything else is gone: house, home, lilacs, elm tree out front, mother, father, family.  A parklike grassy hill dedicated to cauderized lifves.

Back again to the lush northwest, the early summer dawn birds bring me back to all I’ve stored inside me.  And another cycle of love dances in the trees.

With the help of Heaven,
I’m strong
I’m healthy
I’m good.

Everyday in every way
I’m getting better and better and better.

I am
I can
I will be
healthy, wealthy, wise and safe.

Breathe in me the way to love You
That I might faultlessly love You.
Pour me the wisdom wine
By which I am intoxicated with You.

With your silent eyes, just look at me
And I will know where to find You.

Seek out the wandering senses
And lead them back to the sanctuary in Your heart
Call back the marauding mind
And counsel it how to return to You.

You can hide behind life, You can hide behind dualities.
You can hide behind the ocean, You can hide behind daily life.
You can hide behind theological conundrums, and
You can hide behind unanswered prayer.

But You cannot hide behind my love.
In the mirroring light of my love You are revealed.

I wish I practiced Tai Chi every morning  Or meditation. Or prayer.  But I don’t get down onmy knees or even stretch.  My practice is that of a struggling human, remembering the glory of being human, the choice of this delight.

The Tao says:because i am content with myself, I don’t need the approval of others.  I wonder if that will ever feel like my skin within.  It is hard to imagine a life without wanting o bounce off someone and feel the ball of appreciation come back to me.  It was a relfex installed in me a a very young age.

Bouncing Divine Love off the wall of Goodness and Presence.  That’s a good mantra for today.

Feel your feelings they say, so your spleen is trim and healthy.  Sit in those emotions and let them go all the way through you, open your heart.  ARGH.  When it is a tragedy of a brutal teenage murder of passion, or a random drive-by shooting from a madman, the puzzlement of the meaning freezes me.  I can hardly cry.

I feel for the mothers–even if drunk and angry themselves, for the loss of the sweet chile.  Or the loss of the myth that they held a child in love.

The thought that helps is the giggle when the spirit leaves the body and shuffles off the coil yet another time to jump into pure spirit.  Imagining the laughter about setting up and completing such spiritual contracts throughout the community family and world.

the word that come to me in meditation was “Splendid!”  Not to be pondered, but just to repeat over and over again.  Death: splendid!

Time, energy, chance, attitude–life–rolls to me and through me as waves.  Sound is waves; isn’t gravity some kind of waves?  In any case, I do my best to ride them.  I watch surfers off the beach in Tofino, BC bob up and down the crest and fallow, waiting for the big one, for that rush of bliss along the slope of brilliance.

So sometimes I sit, allowing the Divine to guide me through the day.  Tiny little neon arrow signs indicate what to do next, how to move, which paper to pick up, answer the phone or not, eat-or not.

In the end, it is about the exhilaration of the stillness between actions when I see Her face, feel the Tao surrounding me, breathing me, that I cherish this human heart of mine.

They say to cling to the Tao like a shadow, but to move without a shadow.  To move with the Tao as if I am it’s spirit angel, but to move through life without any wake of debris.

I really am not sure, being human, that I can move through this life without a wake.  Everything has a wake in the material world.  I am not THE Tao, I am one with the Tao–different.  Even birds leave an indistinguishable wake in the air as they fly, boats on a lake, me talking through life.  My hope and goal and practice is that it is a good “wake”–ha!  That when i am remembered, it is for a smile, or a laugh, or a kind word. 

But today Dear One, I want to cling to you like Your shadow, stepping in Your steps immediately as You lift Your precious foot. Hiding behind you like a gigglng game.  Wrapping myself around Your shoulders when You face the Light.  Whispering in Your ear about my endless love.

it is a generational story as it is a routine.  I am happy–sic–that I believe I can change myview and mood to a happier stance with mental manipulation.  Conscious and deliberate action.

Everything has a story–the lilacs outside my window, the cup holding my tea, the tossed treasures in my desk basket.  These stories influence my feelings.  I like lilacs, and might go out and pick one before i go to work.  I love the little funny things in the basket–notes, pens, an intricate carving of Ganesha, an egg cup holding paper clips–they all present on my desk because they soothe my mind as I lazily wake to the day.  I have struggled to carve out this little view.

And this writing is a practice of happiness, to remember the divine’s touch, scent and caring–no matter how She shows Herself.  “Indeed” She says, nodding at me from within the crow that prances on my deck railing.  “Indeed.”

I am called by ideas.  I am stalled by ideas.  How can I nourish the calling and ease the stalling?  Here is my prayer:

Sweet One–call me out.  Dribble honey traces along the Way of Your wish.  Send the spring birds to wake me out of my complacency.  Whisper soft energy songs to my old bones and body.  Lift my spirits with Your smile.

Remind me that You are always near, nuzzling my neck, pulling my hand, raising Your brilliant eyes that move my feet and hands and heart and soul.

Move me. Use me.  Wake me.  Love me.

in the now is Tao.  The Divine.  The power of the present.  It is so fleeting that most of the time, I am stuck with a foot in the past and a foot in the future, the crevice in between freezing me.

I write, I correct, i go back, I think, I go forward.  I’m chilly.  More tea.  Need to go, maybe not yet.  The chatter is endless.

I am that I am.  It is in the infinitesimal second that I stand timeless with the Divine, sunlight, peace, deep presence of wisdom.  I crystalize this “now” for all time.