I am stuck–or rather sitting–in a place of wonder.  Wonder and process of how to take care of myself so I can be open and overflowing for and to you.  Others.  Family.  Friends.  Like making sure I get the oxygen mask on in an airplane before I rush to help you with yours.  There is no way I can reach out when I am fighting for air myself.

My yearning is for willingness to pray that I love my body.  To stretch it each morning, feed it the best fuel, allow it the joy of interacting with the rest of Earth’s glorious creatures.  I treat it sometimes like a reluctant machine that is not maintained.

Before every concert the musicians gently tune up their instruments, twisting the knobs so the strings are taut, listening for the tone, replacing a reed perhaps.  Only then can they start their symphony with all their powers alert and ready.

I am packed I am showered, and I hereby nod and touch the hand of the Dear One.  This is my practice of tuning up for the day.

Both are illusions–dreams and fears.  Or are they?  A therapist once said to me–pretend that your life is a dream about self integration.  They believe that everything you see in a dream is a part of yourself seeking to be whole.  Take this dream theory and place it on your life.

So I have a dream that I had to forcefully pull a long icky worm/snake out of the bottom of my foot.  that it was beneath a callous I was scratching at.  Ugly and disturbing, I stuffed it into a plastic grocery bag and had to hold the top tight so it couldn’t get out.  All the day–in the dream–walking around talking to people in an event, directing visitors, I held onto this bag tightly as the snake tried to get out.  What the heck does that say about me and all my restless, irritable, discontent parts seeking integration–or escape?

And now a slight fear of handling a presentation today properly.  Where is the worm in that?

I shift it all aside for peace of mind.  The worm, the fear,  the disturbance is a part of my earth.  My spirit, however, rests in You–the Dear One who nestles Her soft fragrant face into my neck from behind me and says “You ARE earth, my dear.  This is how a flower thrives.”

Even though I am still puzzled, my breath is deeper, truer and I’m off to wave in the sweet spring breeze.

It is so hypnotic–and maybe we planned it that way–to have a body and it’s aches, wear, tear and stubborn resistance.  The mind is part of the body, set as a sentinel for the human longevity mostly it seems.  Except for when the mind goes rogue and insists on early death, suicide and violence.

But let me “immerse myself in the energy of the rising day” my Taoist reading tells me.  I laid in bed much too long this morning, breathing deep the sweet warm summer breeze that pulls in the rain.  Windows up in this old house, I pray my body allows for this same openness.

The bush outside my window waves at me, the treetop shudders with the wind visit.  I entreat the Divine to remind me all day today of the ease and kindness my body feels all around me, and the mind chatter rests on You that permeate my energy in all ways.

The Tao says crazy thing like: Those who follow the Tao follow the flow of life, yet and know and see the void.  Life is empty and meaningless, and thereby it holds all the universe.  I’m back to try and be a Know-Nothing.  Now I look for the empty space that makes life so full.

The hole in my ear allows for earrings, the empty space in my cup opens up and fills with juice, my clothes are but linings that my scarecrow body makes real and useful.

So then the feeling of a life that is empty bodes well for living a purpose.  I am here to fill up and overflow.

I had a long involved dream last night, going places, doing things with other people in tow–and my dear old (now gone) dog Lucky was by my side.  That’s heaven, to have your best and loyal companion walking with you.

We were strolling along a little stone wall next to a lake shore, and all of a sudden he jumped into the water and started playing in the waves like a puppy.  My first thought was, ugh, I’ll have to dry him off before i get him back in my friends car.  But he was having so much fun. I let him play and got him up walking with me and we rose up on a hill, now a small cliff overlooking what was more like the ocean.  And he dove off into the air diving into the water once again, splashing and diving and loving it.

My dear dog reminds me that Spirit calls us from where we walk for the joy of play.

It makes sense, don’t you think.  He was a lot like Jekyll & Hyde.  First of all he was opulently rich, never even exposed to suffering.  Then once he saw sickness and death, he exposed his body to severe asceticism, to the brink of death.  And finally, poof, under an embracing fig tree–he laughed it all off and recognized the Presence of Kindness.

Like most avatars, saints, gods on earth, his story allows us lowly humans some hope–because he did insane things like we sometime do.  Eating massive quantities of bad rich food, getting sick, going on strict diets, swearing off, then falling off the wagon and indulging.  Praying and meditating daily for months, then brushing away exercise, chants and angels in lieu of nihilism and negativity.

Thank all the gods for the Presence of Kindness that forever lives inside my soul, giggling when I throw a dirty tarp over it.  Singing sweet bird songs of fullness when I try to look away from the endless touch of nature that surrounds me.  Gratitude lifts me up today.

I was on a spiritual bliss journey.  Reading tarot to astrologers at a long-time very friendly family conference.  It felt like family.  And I got to sit next to all sorts of different parts of me at my table. 

I was a beautiful ex-stripper now a professional committed to a company that makes natural viagra.  I looked deep in the eyes of what would seem to be a tired housewife and discovered a rich blessed poet.  My cards revealed themselves in a tall blonde wide-eyed young woman who is unsure about her marriage, unconfident of her talents, and bright warm open love about her son.

My dear Divine Friend came to me time and after time to look me in the eyes to enjoy Her Gift of Me. 

So, we can all guess the “spiritual” significance of pain in the back–carrying too much, feeling pushed, unable to lift the load.  But letting go and just lying on a heating pad is not always the cure for the inner spirit that insists that the work (lifting, carrying, pushing) can be ignored.

It is amazing that the mind believes that it can push us to our demise with well trained judgment, criticism and harassment no matter what the body says.  That’s where my voices need some serious team building.

When a part of me says no, we all should honor that and stand or sit back to listen to the warnings,  Honoring each other is the way to a well-oiled human machine experience. 

So today I will be listening to the pain in my backside “we need to stretch this out”, And then again hearing the screamer that says “I don’t want to exercise or stretch or do anything cuz it hurts!”

Let me be as easy as the bush branches in the window, waving in the spring breeze, letting the Breath of Heaven move it where it will.  I will let Her have Her Way with me today once again.

We played dominos games last night with dear friends.  And I swept the hands, winning more than I had ever altogether!  It was an unusual feeling, as we get competitive and strategy is a bit up to chance.  Whatever dominos you happen to pick is the hand you are dealt.

It does feel good to beat the odds, squeal with that last tile on the table, hands up in the air and groans and yells from friends.  But I don’t try hard in life to beat anyone but the inside voices.  So my mentor tells me to use team building for my voices, to “win” the sometimes noisy anxious arguments that hammer through my head.

Team building for the voices instead of relying on serendipitous chance.  First we need to check in with each other and discuss our mutual vision for this life. 

Love and be loved is a good start.

The bushes have such normal confidence in forever.  Growth, hibernation, death, disintegration and growth again is never a decision or trouble or fear or doubt.  It just is.  Berries or blossoms follow the seasonal path as for eons of eons on the planet.

The house, however, may not last more than a speck of time, comparatively.  The chairs, the table, this sweet little laptop–all will be gone in a puff of time.  Not even any memory will hold my space.

Then again, my dust will serve for another’s season of life, even if it melts into the sea for a new ocean floor.  And for a tiny time, my bones may rest on the earth next to those my kin of thundering fallen trees.

What a dear thought, that we melt into this precious earth hand in hand.  But today I am a moving tree, and watch for the subtle path of heaven that leads me into mysterious ways glory and grace to behold.