Sometimes I seem to have too much courage, but it is really more like resistance and frustration.  I tend to push and insist.  What I seek is courage to be patient, to wait until the next right action comes right up to me and move my hands automatically.  I pray for the ease and stillneess to watch the river of events and reach out for the perfect ripple to caress in the waves.

I can’t change the river–the flow, the power, the majesty, the terror, the force or the beauty.  I can jump into it and let the swirling rapids take me away in whirpools of frantic bubbles.  I can claim an unsinkable raft made by my faith, fashioned by conscious spiritual contact and travel to astounding countries along its sweeping course. 

Uninhibited and spontaneous is what it feels like when I go with the flow of Tao, the Way.  To observe structure until confident when to ignore it.  To empty the mind and fill the core.  HA!

This human/spirit balance is hilarious.  Especially when they ask you to purge your body in order to send a scope up there and look for irregularities.  The body revolts viciously.  Is that fair?  My body has done me very well–as the results of the test prove.  I may decide to NEVER subject my little self to that indignity. 

And there goes the mind again, taking charge with a story.  Today’s story includes a year-end work review from a tough boss.  I am as flexible as a reed, relaxed as a tiny stream falling down the hill to the river, settled as a stone.

The Dear One giggles as I polish my heart for a shining day.

“Free from desire, you can embrace the mystery.”  The Tao again, as usual, simple and silly.

But this means that sometimes goals can focus my brain in to a hypnotic trance and i don’t see the surroundings, just my feet on the path with determination in each step.  I must stand in the path, stop the flow and BE part of the flow around me.

Trees move, but don’t tread the path like I do. Being a walking tree, I do miss the slow passage of time with each inch of spectacular growth and seasonal spurt of sap.  Standing still on the path helps to be at one with the Tao around me.  I can even cherish every twist and turn of seeming banal slow flow.

Be the Tao they say.  Today I chant this to see this–be what I am where I am just as I am.  Watch the brilliance, mystery and magic of human spirit twisting candycane in each breath.  I am red and white, sweet and curved, hanging on the Tree of Life.

Compassion means “passion with” someone else.  You feel what they feel.  You take a trip in their moccasins and see life from their viewpoint.

So today I head over to visit a mother sitting in a hospital chapel while in another room on another floor her young daughter has the hemispheres of her brain detached from one another in the hopes that her epileptic seizures will be reduced.  This is not a simple procedure and there is anxiety afoot.

I pray for compassion today–to just sit with her, feel her feelings without judgment.  Allow myself to feel a little grateful that it is not me–that’s my human part I have to admit.  And let the purest fullest Spirit surround us knowing that we are only on a human journey–that the earth we walk on this path is infinite Love stuff.  We cannot fall off the anchoring ground of Divine Presence; we never will topple on this sometimes tossing boat on the Ocean of Goodness.

Ahoy, let’s sail!

Is there a way to succeed at being human when we feel so ordinary, lost in the crowd, hypnotized by fame and the media?  To live a common life in an uncommon manner–what does that look like?

Living with integrity–true to myself–is a practice, what with my mind constantly teasing me with comparisons and “less than”.  it is a helpful organ, my thoughts, but it is trained from eons of measuring danger, competing for survival and maneuvering along the path.  I finally accept that Oprah probably won’t ask me to be on her show–now that it is cancelled.  Dreams of accolades for foggy accomplishments fade.

Today my prayer is to be in my body as I show up for my job, answer the phone, reply to emails, make little plans for the weekend.  The roast is in the crockpot and the cats are fed.  I will send encouragement to my brother and chat with a friend. 

Sweet One, see me as one of your perfect violets, brilliant in spring for as long as I raise my petals to Your Light.

What is the spiritual significance of gas?  Eating air?  Too many beans?  Too close to the ground of life?  Hot air of arrogance?  Bloating of eating too much earth?  Whatever it is, I need to learn the lesson because I’ve been dangerously close to killing people in public places with this noxious emissions coming from my body.  Yipes!

I’m full of it?  That would work no matter if I’m not make loud popping sounds from my bottom end. Needing to produce and create?  That would work too.  Imbibing rather than producing.  There’s another idea.  Taking in a bad mix of life?  Hmmm, could be.

The opposite would be to cut down on fancy foods–have a fast of intake–and drink lots of water.  Allow myself a cry perhaps, Piss away lots of silly thoughts and clean out my plumbing.

Ha, today is certainly about letting go.

You can’t grab it, see it, understand it, know it, feel it.  The Tao cannot be named.  But you can BE it–at ease in your own life.

At ease in my life.  Easy does it.  Does what?  Dunno.  Does whatever you believe you seek.  The answer to every question is peace.  Beyond understanding.  Wisdom recognizes that understanding is often useless.

Just standing at ease today.  As I head off to the trees for a retreat from the noise and papers, I let the moments fall where they will, preparations, travel, maps, growling tummy–one second pretends to follow another.  In each breath is the comfort of the tree of my body, the sky of un-knowing, the dear rock beneath the illusion of my feet.  Wrap me up like a present to the earth with sweet cotton and let my eyes be open for the birds.

Gathering peace of a sleeping house around me, I sit in the center of the circle of being. No where to go, nothing to do, all day to do it.  Emptying the moment out and watching it flow through me like a gurgling brook discovered in a moss-covered forest floor.

Light warms my shoulders and loosens the cement wall that pretends to shield me from burdens.  A breeze caresses with the pine fragrance of ancient would and I treasure the gift to hear the birds that call forth the dawn.

There is no other place than here; no other time than now.  I seize it, laugh and laugh and laugh watching the water of time seep through my fingers, as if any grasping in the middle of an ocean can catch this exquisite moment.

The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment, but experience all things.  When i stretch to be extra good, very spiritual or knowledgeable, I can get off balance in the twisted profile of myself trying to “be” something or look right.  The Magician is distracted by the audience clapping at his slight of hand.

Let me lean on You.  Oh Sweet Presence, let me feel your fragrance, touch your song, and rest in Your beauty–Earth.  My body is as precious as the dawn, from dirty to wrinkles to tired muscles.  I offer my treasured self as a favorite jacket to You to use as You will. 

Let me watch as You breathe winter’s cleansing wind through my bare branches, letting that which does not serve fall to rest in Your soft soil  arms.

Surfing the Way, allowing for the Flow, letting the River move me –my declaration of union with the Tao today.

From this to that, emails, helping, lunching, driving, paying bills, planning dinner, weekend scheduling, deep sea diving into that hypnotic human experience.  I anchor in this present moment so fleeting that Divine Comfort of gnosis–being At One with All That Is.

A human merely being allowing the dancing waves of feelings foam and sparkle around me.  Paddling through deep dark waters of the unknown beyond me.  Watching other realities past by me as I float down my very own river current.  Allowance, honoring and accepting the gift of this dear sweet beautiful planet.