The human world is certainly a challenge–or at least it can be.  When we take the material world a bit too seriously, we are doomed.  Nothing changes the mountain.  Weather persists despite all complaints and the tides will not stop when we scream. 

Life comes in, goes up, expands and contracts.  Going with this Tao-flow is our navigational practice.  When a child meets trauma and drama, how can a parent pave their way for them?  There is no calming a fellow worker when they are convinced of injustice.  A brother is sentenced to harsh realities, and we send prayers and music.

As a fellow who was dying said: “I’ve got the easy part–it’s you all left here that have the hard work.”

Today I die to the illusionary tragedy of some lives around me and revel in the bliss intrinsic in the bright wet green and gold of autumn leaves.  What is essential is invisible to the eye.

I have the delight of officiating at a wedding this weekend.  It is such a joy to bless the committed love of a couple in the witnessing presence of their family and friends.  It is a risk they take too, in this culture, to say “forever, and sometimes it is like watching crazed gamblers throw all their money on their gut-wrenching intuition.

I’ve done a number of weddings.  Some persist and some didn’t last long at all.  I don’t give out any guarantees, as i am just a witness and do the blessing to call it good.  It is not easy to keep a companionship going when we all grow so fast, differently and vigorously search for more of our good in our own ways.

But watching the love–no matter if it looks like their child already brewing or running around, their parents presence from the other side, or pomp and circumstance with champagne, lace and laughter.  Seeing families set aside their differences so multiple sets of parents sit in the same room to wish a young couple luck.  I relish this positive energy.

May we all be blessed with loving kindness coming together to make more and more.

I need to be securely above it all today.  In front of me is a long intense meeting with two teams determined to find more efficient procedures.  It is a rich opportunity–especially for me to keep my mouth shut.

I call on the four directions, the deepest kindness in the earth and the easy comfort of water to center me in flexibility, flow and compassion.  First for myself, and then for the energetic intelligent and discerning colleagues that will join me today for this earnest consideration.

With me always is my Muse, the Dear One, the One who sees and hears and feels All That Is.  As I rest on Her comfort flying carpet looking down on these excitable spirits with their sacred contracts, I am enveloped in peace and goodness.

She refreshes my soul.  Surely goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life and i will rest in the arms of my Lady forevermore.

In one of those blah moods here, I am forever grateful that I can allow life to be like water.  It is clear.  I don’t need to focus on the minute puzzles inside the atoms.  It flows.  There is nothing I have to do for the next moment to arrive.  it is endlessly flexible.  A lesson to me to bend when the corners come at me. 

Easy does it–for water.  It has carved grand canyons throughout the earth and it soothes the skin of a newborn baby.

Today I allow myself to go with the flow along the Way.

Ok, so that’s part of my scatological spirituality approach, but it just seems obvious.  We eat life, take it in, process it, and then let go of what we don’t use.

Sometimes it creates gas–for good or for worse.  Sometimes it yields rich manure for growth–though at the time, it looks and smells awful.  Shit does simply happen on earth.  From naturally burning forests, deep murky swamps and oil from dinosaur poop (is that really true?!?!).

In any case, it is the acceptance of this natural cycle that seems the real spiritual practice.  Allowing for a deteriorating body, watching a forgetful mind, accepting a restless trouble-making childish heart.

Today I count on my inner light and vision to know the highest perspective.  I believe I am an earnest human created from starlight to flow with a mirror dance: spirit-human, human-spirit.  Just remembering this choice I made lifts me.

The hallucinogenic illusion of life is distracting.  Health, news, visitors, boredom, and that ever-present trap of uselessness ambushes me.  I go days without touching the source.

Today the voices of “why bother” are afoot.  Still I read some words that pull me from this abyss, sit here, squinting at the screen without my glasses, sending my journey from human to spirit and back again .

It is the eternity between these tiresome breaths that I see the Divine One, the endless It, the sweet soothing Soul that connects me to All That Is.  It is the deep green shadows between the trees.  I hear it in the crow squak and the sparrow twitter.  The music of far away, long ago, strumming through magical electronic devices.  I rest in the safety of my dearly chosen car.  The spaces between the breaths save me from mere life.

I spent a number of days in the rain forest.  Not the jungles of the southern hemisphere, but the cool lush wet Pacific Northwest.  I sat on the porch of an old house, wrapped in a blanket my so brought me from far away lands and watched the monsoon drop.  Rain as a steady rich wall of water everywhere I looked. 

The trees reveled in it.  The verdant grass just smiled soaking up more green from the invisible constant sheets of infinite drops.  The rush and wind of air and water soothed every cell in my body.

Today I revisit and honor that immersion that remains in the organs I carry around with me.  I stand tall as those trees feeling the limitless swim.  My toes hold onto every sensation of walking through the thick wet grass to the rock shore river.  I once again sit until the stones speak and the rushing water sings.

The stars are inside my heart.  The river my blood and the rain my comfort.

My voice has quieted.  The urge to be heard is now soft.  Perhaps I don’t have anything to say, and part of me feels dull and uninspired.  I still hear within a rigid rebellious selfish pre-teen girl insisting that she just wants to stay in her room and read the whole Bobbsey Twins series and eat cookies.

Some people say that I’m still healing.  Perhaps others think that I’m just a boor.  Doesn’t matter–I’m stuck with me through thick and thin.  Thicker as the years past.  Getting older is sure not for sissies.

But I do search with all my senses between the lines of computers, work, bills, duties, the puzzlement of relationships, cars needing repair–through all these daily distractions–I search for the peace that passes all understanding.

I see it in the gentle wave of a browning flower, curled up and past tempting bees.  I feel it in the dawn breeze.  I hear it even in the growl of jets overhead and cherish those tender moments when my whole body, mind and soul quiver in the conscious awareness of precious Spirit. 

It is good to feel my Voice come through for me still.

So this Taoist book I’m reading says that real meditation can only happen in serene enviroments–a quiet room, a still garden–without distractions.  Well then I’m screwed.  My life is constant noise and distraction–and that’s when it’s quiet around me.  It’s my mind.

In some instances I find serenity most in screaming squealing rock pounding songs–it distracts my mind and my heart can be still from the continuous nattering of the brain.

Perhaps it is called mindfulness, but my practice these days is to find myself walking hurriedly from one meeting to another, or trudging from a long day into bumper-to-bumper traffic and finding the stillness within.

It only takes a couple long deep breaths to find You there, to find the You in the trees in front of my office building.  To find You in the movement of the branches, to see You in the eyes of a co-worker, to watch You reach through to me in an email.

I just breathe into the center of peace which resides in my heart and keep my eyes out for You.

Without any training in feelings, they’d scare me.  Why was Dad mad at me when I got hurt?  Why did Mom yell at me when I went to sensitivity training as a teen?  Shouting and silent pouting, I see in retrospect, was as good as I was trained in feelings.

Through long years in recovery for me, I heard about the dysfunctional family rules: “Don’t feel.  Don’t talk.  And certainly don’t talk about your feelings.”  Since no one knew really what to do with them, we’ll just cross that river of DeNile and pretend they aren’t there–no matter how many times we crash into that huge menacing monster of an elephant in the room.

I’ve learned to give them some slack, like friends, to hear them out before judging them.  Since I’ve had kids myself, I see my feelings as small children (certainly they weren’t trained to practice maturity!). 

So I weep when it comes over me and see the path of the tears later.  I temper the fierce rising rage that travels up the back of my spine and walk her around the block before speaking to my boss.  I simmer for a day or two before I assert myself to my partner or child.

Today I hold hands with my feelings and we swim the depths of friendship–with myself.