Some of us say that our spirit woke up.  We see differently–sometimes with the eyes of Spirit, the eyes of Love.  If I look around me with the eyes of love, all I see is love stuff in form.  From tiny cards, keys, toys, tools on the desk that someone made as they produced their living for self, health and family, to photos around me of family grown and gone.

Can I spend a day really seeing that all there is, is love?  From each thought that evolved each thing I see, including people to the brilliant green growing earth around me–can all that be the stuff of love?

I’m human.  I get stuck in “what’s in it for me.”  It is hard some days to see that any hope I can shine out to others is a gift that keeps coming back to me.  I was a warrior in my last life, and tromped through distant lands, carving out countries, pushing back hoards, saving the weak and making a stand for the righteous. 

These days I push papers around my desk and fight for procedures for a small group of hard-working women who seem to falter at the years of diligence and tiny scribbles of details.  Love IS in the details; in every detail.

Today I honor and cherish every smallest detail of my life–shining out the stuff of love.

Let me see how simple life is.  Give me a tiny nudge that I take my hands off my eyes and instead of seeing trouble, let me see love incarnate in the humans, the trees, the sky, the sweet fragrance of fall air.

Lift from me all self-centered fears that I do not get what I think I want, that I don’t lose what I think I have, that I need so much to be in view of those I want to love me.  Remove the stiff stories in my feeble mind that sets up such rigid walkways.  Free me to be a new me.

Whisper in my ears of such dullness how to see You in All That Is.  Every single keyboard, comma, shirt, backache, and voice on the phone.  Allow to rest in the single truth that You are the only reality, dressed up in a million costumes.

Halloween is coming.  Maybe I’ll dress up as You.

It’s a gift to be simple
It’s a gift to be free.
It’s a gift to come down where we ought to be.

And when we are in the place just right
We will be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
To laugh, to love, we will not be ashamed.
To turn, to turn, it will be a delight

Till by turning turning
We turn round right.

This is a song by Judy Collins set to an old hymn tune or something or a Beethoven melody–don’t know the details.

I just need the simplicity and ease, truth and comfort of this song today.  So as I easily embark into a situation of confusion, powerlessness, fear, distrust and self-doubt, I turn easily, comfortably in truth and delight.

I may not “get out of here” alive, but the longer I’m on the planet, the more I want to enjoy every minute of it.  Gratitude distracts me from achy muscles, out of shape old body, tired joints.  Simply watching a tree wave at me as the wind whispers sweet nothings–how could heaven be better?

There’s this story about a woman who died, and when she got to heaven she started arguing with the angel at the gate that she wasn’t ready yet. “What do you mean you’re not ready?” said the angel.  “I haven’t danced enough!” she said.  The angel smiled and seemed to understand and he sent her back for more dancing.

I want to dance and sing and complain and wrestle with that angel every morning about more dancing and singing.  Wrestling, in fact, is a dance.

So today amid catastrophic management, unfinished business, “no time”, rushed meetings, stiff shoulder, missed exercises, I relish and cherish the blessing it is to be twirling in this Divine human dance.

Just do something different.  Change the rules, make them laugh.  Say yes instead of no.  Don’t say anything and watch them squirm.  Bring a heart rock instead of flowers.  Write a poem instead of buying another saucepan.

Surprise the world today with joy in the midst of angst.  Love the unlovable.  Cherish the garbage.  Be grateful for the pain.  Twist the world around in your fingers like the hair on your head.

Today the Divine and I are going to watch for jokes–point out the fun, giggle behind the scenes at the serious ones, laugh through the meetings behind the door.  And just simply pull the chair out the rug out the rules out the pain of false beliefs out from under your mind.

Nothing is real and miracles is the heaven where we live.

I throw myself on the Path of Heaven.

Actually, I’m on it all the time, it’s all in how I see it.  This IS heaven.  The most brilliant world, beautiful earth, fascinating creatures, ever-present love that binds us together.

Pain, tragedy, loss, death?  Well, nature doesn’t mourn itself?  Why should we.  What if this was the most magnificent planet in the universe?  And WE got the REWARD of being here?!?! 

Again, it’s in the perception.  Destruction is hard to see for humans.  Especially when the mind and body keeps thinking it will endure forever.  The spirit does last forever, but not the body and the mind.

My body and mind today, then, cherish this here and now.  No matter the “rush”  no matter the disorganization causing impossible tasks, the frustration, the boredom the insufficiencies the fear. 

Today it is about being really really really glad to be human.

One of the principles of NLP–neurolinguistic practice (I think that’s what it stands for!) is that all failure is merely feedback.  Actually, they don’t believe in failure.  It is just the results–always–of a successful experiment.  Our difficulty lies in the fact that we continue to do something we already discovered doesn’t work.  It’s changing our minds about how to move towards a new goal in a new way.

Doing something different to achieve different results.  I’m not sure why that is such an amazing concept that often takes me MUCH time to prove.  I believe it is those persistent inner voices that insist it should be the way it is “supposed” to be.  And that perhaps I’m doing something wrong in the continuous (erroneous) behavior–or better yet–I’m just simply wrong and it will never work for me.

Successful mistakes are brilliant.  Dissatsifaction is an excellent motivator.  Spirituality is gained through massive imperfection.  Stumbling through the day helps me learn to fly.

Today riding on the back of a magnificent swan-or better yet–a Canadian goose the size of my sweet sportscar!  She sqwaaks as She leads a V-shaped group of giggling angels along the scope of the endless lake.  From shore to shore of the day I am carried.

If I align my mind with the Spirit within me, Spirit surrounding me, they we are all on the same Path.  But when my mind demands rules to be played, it’s like hearing a football referee whistling for time out in a ping pong game.  Or a boxing ref trying to separate a tackler going for a sack.  The rules don’t match the game.

There are few, if any, rules.  But once born we have the breathing thing, gravity insists and the soft cultural insinuations learned in my mother’s arms.  Be a nice girl, you are smart (but perhaps not pretty), what a good thing it is to be a helper!, etc.  The mind, being a trainable organ, takes it’s cues for survival and does whatever it can to stay alive and well.

But being a “good girl” does not mean that I never please anyone, or avoid conflict to the point of my own pain.  Helping others is not the same as stretching myself so thin that I am sick with anxiety.  And it turns out that being a smart ass just doesn’t make me friends.

The rules of the mind are not dependable markers on the Path.  The mind gets frantic, but the spirit never.  So I just have to remember that the Way is a labyrinth–purposefully made to confuse the mind.

Today, a tired mind but spirited soul.

Moving my body slowly but decisively.  Waving my hands in clouds.  Spinning from side to side warding off and grabbing the sparrow’s tail.

Somehow this simple five minute set of movements tunes me up, reminds my body that I do indeed honor its continuous reliability.  Thank you body for long hours, questionable fuel, endurance, creation and sustenance. 

What a lovely idea to merge with earth so granularly that as I touch the keys I continue the connection–earth to earth.  But the movement is initiated by the Spirit inside me, conceptualizing and manifesting the click, the little tiny lines on my monitor screen and deeper and deeper the thoughts, the feelings pouring out.

In this very unique and fleeting here and now, I am blessed to be human.  Thrilled to be spirit.  and enjoying the ride.

I wrote this for my kids, but it is, after all, for me to connect.

With the help of heaven,
I’m strong
I’m healthy
I’m good.

Every day
in every way
I’m getting
better and
better and
better.

I am
I can
I will
be
healthy
wealthy
wise and
safe.

‘nuf said.