What I need is a referee to slow down the battle inside my head and to stop the clock and the action when there is foul play.  When the mind is offsides with horrific fears, or there’s a personal foul when I take an absurd causal remark to the heart.  Perhaps my heart grabs me by the helmet and tosses me to the ground when the pouty stubborn resistant and defiant one demands my attention.

As a battleground for instincts, I can have no peace.  Let the dear one, Krishna the blue charioteer, lead me between these fierce armies and take me by the hand to a peace beyond my understanding.

That seems to be the story of a confusing life–I’m not present to it, but I walk around and make noise as if I am here.  Well illustrated by the fact that I’ve been pretty regular writing in this blog, but for months I’ve been offline.  Website not renewed and I am truly talking to myself.  It’s a small audience, and it did feel alone in this vast amphitheater of self chatter.

I yearn to breathe deep and slow today.  I claim to be filled with the gift of kindness to myself especially.  I intend to see how the teeter totter of instincts can so easily, with a look, be thrown out of balance.  Like a small child I can quickly fall hard on the sand, terrified of embarrassment, being wrong, looking stupid and being hurt.

Nothing can hurt me as I am a child of the universe.  This is a playground, not a torture chamber.  The trees remind me of my decision to be true to myself in such a distracting environment.  I am rooted in pure Presence.  I breathe brilliant sweet air of here and now.  My branches dance with the wind of yes.

I
awake and ache.

Stiff
from being flat out

Tired
of tossing and turning for the right position

That
is instantly the wrong position.

My
limbs get numb

Rest
yields restlessness.

It
has been so many years in this body.

A
flower, a plant,

No
matter the twisting will

Turn
and turn again to face the sun.

Where
can I seek the light of love?

Is
seeking is the secret of the universe?

I
certainly seek being in the right place at the right time doing the right
thing.

My
quest has found love

Lost
love

Ignored
love

Dumped
love

Fought
for love and

Loved
so hard it turned into a fight.

I
yearn body and soul for the simple life

To
turn my head to the sun

But
I simply get twisted.

If
I could only

Take
direction from the trees

Grass
green

Leaves
falling

Mountain
stillness

Even
if beyond all clouds

Fierce
screaming winds

Sideways
rain obscuring sight

White
snow blindness

Frozen
in a glacier

I
have no other task but to seek.

Today I’ll just give up trying to figure anything out.  Ha.  As if it ever worked, if I ever could.  Life is empty and meaningless, and I am a meaning-making-machine.  I will let the world evolve into it’s own meaning today and watch for signs.

Signs of natural love in bare courageous wintering trees.  Hearing the twitter of tiny sparrows doing their cold weather business cloaked by the forest so open.  Watch the color of sunrise peek behind the gray clouds.  Just let the day be itself and follow like a good camper.

I am willing to watch for signs of the right Path, the proper turn on the Way.  What it would be to truly let Her have Her Way with me.  To be a true and loyal doe for Diana, an attendant to the Deva in the temple, an accolade to the Priestess who journeys, a silent nun to the One.

What to do when you feel marooned by yourself?  Or that you took off from a shore that just was completely used, built, populated, busy, exciting and exhausting towards the unknown gray fog in the huge great lake ahead.

It is the card when you have the staff of purpose, pushing the tiny boat through the murky emotional waters head forward into the unknown.  Part of me is huddled, sad to leave the familiar, tentative and scared.  There is nothing ahead in the horizon.  It is the deepest cold fog.  Shapes and shadows are like phantoms, clouds or mountains and change with each heave of the little craft of me.

But I will not topple or tip or flounder or sink.  It is a journey, not a dead end.  And the destination is not even the goal.  It is to be present to the gift of the Way.  I claim the cloak of Her warming love always on my shoulders, whether I feel it or not.  I grasp the truth of her Presence even when the travel seems to be endless inertia.

That’s what Krishna says over and over.  The one I love is the one who is detached from the outcome, who allows the river to flow without trying to dam it or dry it up or redirect it.  And wherever the river flows, the river flows.  Sometimes it floods the plain and leaves rich soil.  Sometimes the tears flood my days and leave a headache.

Whether with my brother in prison, my sister bent over with her hurt back, or a friend with delightful young sons, work forever undone, bills unpaid, dreams fading–to let them all just flow without grasping.

Today, I let all sadness and feelings of uselessness just float down the river of what I truly believe is endless love that courses through our bodies, is what we breathe, is the shining essence of every-thing.  I lean on the light today.

DO you ever feel totally dried up?  Like the sun has been sucking you dry of all energy?  Or in the Pacific Northwest, that you got stuck inside in the winter and like an abandoned house plant, you are limp, withered and alone? 

My feet are on the Path.  They have no elsewhere to go.  The dried reeds of summer flowers still sway in the wind with truth of being shining through dried tight bundles on tall waving stalks.  The lake glistens even in gray skies.  I breathe.

And I seek, and I believe, and I sit and I lean and I feel dried up.  I will be thrusted into the excitement of the office soon, distracted by the activity, the undone task, the interruptions, the emails the work I am called to do.

Today perhaps I hold back and sit on the next right action, the present perfect thought, and value the immediate smallest feeling.  I sense the scent of Her leaning over my shoulder with ever-Presence, no matter how my dry winter flower dances.

Days are like this.  Winter season comes.  Leaves leave.  Blood retreats to the roots, hides under the covers, and the cold rules the world.  We huddle near fires for warmth and comfort, bundle up in blankets and reticent to venture out.

It is like that this season for me.  I procrastinate, pout and stomp my feet that I don’t WANT to do what is in front of me.  I am a child at that point of needing to grow up and desperate to stay a baby in my mom’s arms.  So I cry and fuss and wail at the injustice of it all.

I am convinced that my God is the ultimate Parent, and in a kind, loving manner, just allows me my tantrum, sitting back calmly, knowing that I just need a nap.  She trusts in the deepest core of my nature to be at peace, as Spirit.  But this decision to be human is made to be distracting and tempting and hypnotic as desperate and troubled and problematic.

When it is really just a wonderful board game.  Moving pieces along just the right rules.  Winning some, losing some, playing again and again.  Sweet Heaven–I put myself on Your lap this morning, lean my tired tousled head on Your shoulder and ask you again for a lullaby.

Krishna says to Arjuna that the mind that is gifted with meditation is like “an unwavering flame in a windless place.”  Ah, to train that busy exploding mental gymnast to be a still and unmoving light, what an astounding idea.

But I am a restless human and barely am able to sit for a period without fidgeting.  I have sat in meditation for hours at a time and loved it, but these waves of discipline come and go.  I have walked for hours in nature, and that slow movement in heaven certainly brings me to an unwavering light of awareness that all is well.

All is well.  All is well.  All is well.  As St. Catherine said: In all things, all is well.

A dear friend comes to the door late one evening, sobbing uncontrollably.  Her companion cat–the noisy one–had a sudden fit and died instantly.  We held her and we talked as we all tearfully joined her in sadness.

Thank Heaven for these little beings who are nearby in every bit of our daily life.  Whether a dog we walk, rain or shine, or a cat that yells for breakfast every morning.  They are true companions and many of us seem to relate to them easier than with belief-busting, idea-bumping, passion-illiciting humans.

Here is to the little ones that love us, for their coming and going through our lives.  For the love they are made of and the love they teach us.  The Divine frosting that reminds us there is also a big cake within those little pitter patter.  That there is plenty and always love to be with us, snuggle, wag their tail delightedly–it is the delight of the Divine.