What I mean when I say “trying times” is that I’m trying too hard.  Do you recognize that?  I stretch and worry, double-book and try to please everyone on all sides. It doesn’t work very well.  The person that is NOT getting pleased is me.

I want to say “No, back off please.  I am NOT responsible for her work.”  even though I’m her manager.  argh.  And then to another I want to say, “Get out from that desk and let me sit there to look at that work you say you are doing.  You are NOT listening to me.”

Yeah.  That will work.  Sure.

So today is about calmly recognizing that I cannot be everything to all people.  Especially when I’m stretched thin and unrecognizable myself.  Being cranky does not fix things.  Or else I’d be living in luxury and peace.  HA.

I am free to love me.  I am at peace and ease to be me.  Every breath reminds me of the truth of me–which is a home for You.

So this morning I’ve been writing about the excruciating practice of self-improvement (argh, hate that phrase, but it it true).  Here it is:

We
have a choice to be different.  Being at
this step, we have shown signs of our willingness to be different, we’ve
seen how we don’t want to be, recognize what it would be to be different, and
now we practice. 

We are creatures of habit, and we’ve all moved through new habits–the
fact that you are here tonight is proof that you can do this–and want to do
more.  Recovery has taught me to practice
awareness and compassion when I see where I could be better. 

But literature
reminds us–compassionately–that we are human. 
Sometimes I think the whole trick to being human is to make a successful
mistake everyday.  We will never be perfect,
but we can be perfectly in spiritual progress by embracing and learning from
our bumps. 

How easy is it for you to
admit a mistake?  What do you do
feel?  How do you react?  What is the process by which you move on to
self-forgiveness and self-love towards change? 
Do you believe that mistakes are self-correcting?

And I take this into the day with my new prayer:

I claim through prayer and meditation a closer closer loving embrace with the Divine as I willingly stroll on the Path of Heaven with all my heart, body and soul.

I mean it reigns supreme!  But then again, maybe there are rules of laughter.

Do it all the time.
Especially when things get tough–just laugh hysterically and people will keep their distance.
Save funny pictures and review them often to chuckle.
Get friends together and have laugh contests.
See who can find the funniest birthday card.
Laugh until you are afraid you’re going to pee.
Get lots of laugh lines–they are badges of living a good life.
Laugh at yourself–you will be forever amused.
Get friends you can even laugh AT–they will turn around and laugh at you and you will be laughing together at the memories of more laughter.

Laughter is joy in action and if you are truly blessed
You will go out laughing.

First there is this weird thing called a body to deal with.  Eating, breathing, pooping.  Constant circulation of in and out.  Then there are emotions–feelings–urges, insights, tendencies, default stumbling blocks of old memories turned into irritations.

Then there is this feeling that I am a fish out of water.  Like I should really be weightless, or not having to breath every few seconds, or that just walking is a pain and tiresome.

Sure, I get the idea of “lessons” that keep bumping into me–but what’s with that?!  Did I really volunteer for this survival course?  That I won’t survive, by the way. 

And I thirst.  Every morning waking, I yearn for something I seem to lack.  With each feeling that goes through my body, I seem to be missing something, like my heart is only half-made and it every day seeks its completion.

I know it is You.  Her.  Him.  It.  The Trees.  The Rain.  The Green.  That’s why I press my cheek against the rough bark of a 300 year old douglas fir–You are in there.

Because the One I love lives inside of you, I get as close to you a I can.

I wake.
A day shows itself naked.  What shall we wear?

Oh that I can see
Beyond my bloated nothingness to
You.

I seek the view
From Your love-terraced
Garden.

When the fog bank of
Indecision, self-seeking, fear, abandonment, anger, frustration, ambition, mis-placed loyalty, codependency, dysfunction, irritation, self-righteousness and arrogance, boredom, and
down-right crankiness
distracts me,
I seek the sweet clear breath of
Your inspiration.

I relax.
I release all struggle.
I let go of the rope and
Fall back into
Your arms.

We sit on Your soft magic carpet
Above all strife, sickness and death–
Siddhartha is driving–
I need not run this show.

My soul is refreshed.
My body is restored.
And I dwell in Your Garden
Forever more.

So what is it that my blood pressure is up?  What does that mean, metaphysically?  I guess it is about the arteries (or is it the veins?) that seem to constrict, thus the flow of blood reveals to be more pressurized than normal.  The arteries become stiff and not elastic.

Hmmm, me–rigid and stiff?!  HA.  Yes.  Well, that could be.  Thus exercise can help that flexibility.

Maybe it is just the illusion of life’s busyness.  Maybe it is the calcification of belief systems that this or that doesn’t work, I’m too old, can’t teach an old dog new tricks, etc.

Today feel the release and the bending of my heart.  I sway as I stand in the morning life of Divine Love, thus life becomes a dance–a lilting waltz of flowing fire.

Sometimes sharing the light inside yields a brilliant golden glow that falls all over our shoulders in the sun having a picnic.  The face besides me laughs in the bright realization of human fun.  The furrowed brows open up and the head lifts up in a loud chuckle with a new view.

But other times I pull the covers over me and know that any sliver of sunlight that breaks out of my creviced body and heart will only bring a growl of resistance.  There are times and people who are determined black holes–sucking in the light, the earth, the hope, the possibilities around them into the densest despair.

And often the light merely bounces around from mirrored face to reflections in the lake.

I polish the globe of me around that light every morning and shine shine shine.  It’s not my business where the light goes, just to hold it in my heart and do everything I can to let it shine.

My life is rich with conversations with people in all kinds of recovery–it is like being on a spiritual hamster wheel–seeing the same concepts that I’ve lived, relishing the newness of more pleasant ways to choose life.  So here is a typical conversation that I think hits some normal human conundrums.
________________________

“I did not pay for any of it and I feel so small.” What an excellent and
familiar phrase.  Receiving has been an astounding spiritual practice
for me.  It was explained to me as if we are a circulation of good
inside of us.  If we don’t open up and graciously receive, the pipeline
to goodness is blocked.  I kept just giving all my money to the kids,
and my spiritual mentor said to me, “If God gave you a beautiful jewel,
would you just throw it away?”  “No!”  “Well then,” he said, “Appreciate
everything you are given, and hold on to what you are given and cherish
it.  Then you might share it with others.”  I was then aware of all sorts of gifts–lunches, presents,
friends, time of rest, messages, etc.  And saw the world as a gift to
simply breathe in and open up to receive.  Plus we love to give to
people, yes?  We should then let others enjoy the true pleasure of
giving–to us!

I remember having to let
go of what others thought of my marriage.  When you mentioned the
“inequity and control in our marriage”–that’s someone else’s opinion of
what they see–based on their own personal experience.  If you want to
be like them, you might value their opinion.  If you want to enjoy where
you are, see it from your point of view.  I hear much much balance and
increased depth going on with your conversations and self-assertion.  It
looks to be like you are both learning more ways to be open and kind to
one another. 

“I know he isn’t going to leave but I also know I probably will not
get
my way.  I feel stuck in a box.”  The techniques I would suggest
for that is to again, practice your truth in a compassionate manner. 
The fear (barking dog) of my partner leaving is ever-present, actually. 
I believe it is the ageless human fear of being unloved, and it being
“my” fault.  It is a classic adult child of an alcoholic fear–that the kid, powerless over
alcoholic/dysfunctional/

I’ve been hearing offhand stories of weird deaths lately.  Of isolating men dying inside apartments and not being discovered until their decaying bodies alert the neighbors.  About murder outside someone’s door.  What’s that about?

We all die.  We are all visitors.  Sometimes slowly, quickly, inadvertently, easily, or with anguishing struggle, we wear out.  The earth of us gets tired.  We have pull dates when the skin, the heart, the toes, the nose simply spoils.  Time to return to the sweet loam of dead things under our tired feet.

Thus it is essential that I keep the conversation going with the other side of the veil.  “Hello God!  Hi Mom!  Yo Dad–whassup?!”  Or like the brilliant awareness of my ancestors, I have a death chant that I keep on my lips as much as possible.  While standing in line, riding a scooter, feeling pain, taking risks, wandering the office halls–“I love you I love you I love you I love you.”

It is a lullaby that is sung from me to you, me to Her, Her to me, trees to me, me to trees, breath in me, to my breath, earth to me, me to the dear tender real home of earth.

Today I claim the presence of Inanna, who rescued the World Tree, a huluppu poplar tree, with roots in the earth, branches in the sky.  At its roots was a sacred snake, in its truth a lilitu a female spirit, and in its branches the Anzu bird, with a head of a lion.

Thus I am grounded deep.  I am female and flexible.  I am a boundary creature, slithering on the earth, swimming without limbs and climbing in spirals.  I fly above the earth, I rest in the branches and I am strong as a lion.

Today I rescue the world.