Why is it that addicts can’t be addicted to good stuff?  I suppose there are some out there that do get the “spirit” and are stuck on good stuff, like religion or meditation. 

Ok, let me rephrase this: why can’t I get addicted to what’s good for me–like carrots and tai chi and meditation and vegetables and brown rice.  Geez.  Is it just my humanity, my personality, the seasons, the planets.  Or am I just really in a lazy time.

I used to avoid the word discipline, well, I guess I do still.  However hearing that a meaning of the word is “to remember what you love” gives me hope.  I remember I love the feeling after doing tai chi.  I remember that I love walking quietly in meditation.  I remember loving the work I do listening to others and seeing their divine spark within.

But then again.  I LOVE brownies with french vanilla bean ice cream, and carmel sauce.  Some how my little earthly mouth waters more over that than carrots.

Today I will remember what I love so to carve those taste memories for what feeds me, heals me, soothes me, comforts me for the whole day.  I choose to remember Her sweet check next to mine, Her soft giggle that reminds me this human life was my idea and to live in what I love with each breath.

What a web we have here.  The tangled threads of communication between each other amazes me.  It seems sometimes a miracle that we can really trust that one word from me truly is heard by you.  No matter if I’m tedious about spelling and locution, how I speak, my body language, tone of voice and the font I use. 

There are some days that I wonder if I’m speaking in my own special tongue that is gibberish to every person standing wide-eyed and nodding in front of me.  They are trying to be nice and acting like they recognize my speech, but maybe they are complacent and ignorant of any meaning.

Then once in a while the light shines in their eyes and I see You in there smiling so sweetly and warm.  Perhaps we are the fingers of God reaching out to each other, finding a way to fold neatly together, held in a mudra of peace.

The mind cracks me up–when I’m balanced.  It thinks it runs the show.  I mean..really!  Try “thinking” a change of the weather, or through heartache or feelings.  Well it doesn’t work for me.

Understanding is such a tease.  There is something in us that struggles again and again with the belief that if I just understand it, I will feel better.  Ha.  It is more true to say if I feel better, I won’t have to worry about understanding.

And beneath all the feelings and desire for understanding is the hunger to feel safe and loved.  That’s what it gets down to for me.  A cross look, a mistake, a long tiring drive, a misunderstanind–all these melt down to the feeling that I’m alone and unloved.

Which, of course, is a big fat lie.  The Dear One is forever with me, always loving.  Our funny chess game together is that She keeps locking me down with the pieces of my life trying to make me think–get it “think”–differently.

But my heart is trump, I’ve got a hand of aces and I know She’ll let me win if I throw them up in the air and laugh full out with joy.  “I LOVE this game with You!!!”

So Hafiz says that we take life too seriously.  That it is really all about laughing through a game with God who, after all, knows all the moves.  You can take that seriously of course, and argue the lack of free will in the face of a manipulative supreme being.  Shake your fist to the sky and wrestle with the angel in the middle of the night.

Or you can enjoy the game.  I play against people better at games than me all the time and the tide still seems to go back and forth and we both laugh.  Maybe God gets giggling when She pretends to think She won’t win?  Maybe She lets me think I win now and again and pouts like I do when I sometimes hit the wall.

I’m not very competitive though.  I love the interaction, not the reward.  I will ride the carousel and even forget to reach for the ring.  It is more like a dance to me–partners moving sensuously together with the music.

And She is such a wonderful dancer–letting Her lead is divine.

So the story is that Mercury is retrograde–plans, communication, transportation–all may seem thwarted, backwards, snafu’d.  It’s just a joke–a huge practical joke that God and the planets love to play on us.  It’s not just Mercury (or really any planet), it’s just the natural season of snafu.

Mistakes glomm onto me like lint on a hot towel.  My eyes do tricks on me.  I go to the store for one thing, come away with 10 things and forget that one needed item.  I talk about this, you want to talk about that; we bump.  I plan for this project, I make all the dots and lines and numbers line up, and all the meetings are moved three times in one morning.  I watch the traffic sites, calculate my route, and we watch 5 police cars in the middle of the road for nothing.

Just got to laugh and laugh and laugh.  Who ever said that we needed to take this life SERIOUSLY!?!?  What if, instead of a human tragedy, or drama, that this was intended to be FUN!  What if this was a tremendously GOOD idea–to be human, to walk this precious earth, to hug trees and play with children and try on ruffled clothes or sink my toes in warm mud.

Today I laugh with the dancing planets, bowing trees and brilliant day.

Under the trees this weekend.  Big trees, tall trees, covered with moss at the bottom so their limps hung out like zombies.  Their tops touching the sky, the ground soft with their tiny tender droppings.  The sound of the rushing river washes over the gentle forest, a constant meditative ohhmmmm.  Reminding me that this IS my home.

I weep when I leave the trees.  These are my soul mates.  This is my roots, my home.  I never want to leave.  I can’t remember why I need to go back.  I sob as I decamp, feeling so lonely as a small human.

But they gave me a hopeful reminder as I looked up at the firry sky above me.  Their soft whisper gave me hope and strength: This IS your home.  You are just visiting the city.  Have a nice visit and we’ll see you soon.

Now I can relax as I rush to dress and fight traffic, that I’m just visiting here.  It brings gratitude into my day and I live in my home, the oooohhhmmm, with every breath.

I’m an easy drunk for God.  Give me one tiny gulp of You and I’m loaded and silly.  I don’t even need any olives or cherries or pickles or anything, just the sight of the green trees, the smell of the forest tavern, and a deep drink of Your natural fragrance–and I’m dizzy on my feet.

I want to pour You over me like warm scented bath water and I am ready for the wedding night.  I choose to dive into the lake of your cool refreshing Love on a hot human day.  I grab for You in the scorching heat of a frozen mind and quaff down You–cool and intoxicating.

You are the satisfaction of my thirst, the fulfillment of my hunger.  So keep the drinks coming!

Off to the woods again this weekend.  Despite the soft rains expected.  It is, after all, just rain.

I’m cultivating an internal vision–that as I walk down the white bare narrow hallways 4 stories up in the office catacombs, that I see myself treading on a soft cushion of pine needles and moss beneath the towering cedars, smell the deep forest fragrance, and watch the sun play hide and seek with the tiny salal leaves waving in the teasing gentle breeze.

My steps slow down, my shoulders drop and I breathe slower and deeper.

I may have the tool of powerlessness at each sudden crisis and exciting situation at my desk that fires up, but I also have the powerful tool of my imagination.  It’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

It is fascinating how we wrestle with the invisible here.  Wanting to rip the “veil”, dancing with shadows, picking at my feet.  What a fascinating existence to know that most of what exists is empty space.  All solid form is really infinitesimal particles of dervishes swirling around universes of nothing.

Or is it nothing?  This is the joke of ALL That Is, that nothing is everything and other “things” is nothing.  So we make up stories.  At least that’s one way to see it.  Stories about working for a living, eating, breathing and sorrow at death.  Tall tales of drunken escapades, bad marriages and hilarious road trips.

I really do believe today that human life is about stories–yours and mine can be so vastly different.  Today I endeavor my story to be about easy service at my job, comfortable listening to those who sit with me, and endless dreams of the Divine One whispering at my shoulder, touching my hair, and making me laugh.

Saturday night a life left the earth–at least from most eyes.  He was a dear man, loved to fish, loyal to his family, hard and compassionate worker.  He also lived in the 60s and remembered the fights for freedom on campus that we had.  All of a sudden his heart was attacked and the body said “enough.”

Even though I wasn’t as close as a friend, we worked side by side for years.  I remember his laugh, his rolling eyes complaint about the talkative neighbor near his cubicle.  He had a little sports car to enjoy–though his son borrowed it now and again.  And there was the big fish he almost caught all the time.

He’s fine on the other side, I’m fine on this side.  My 3-dimensional self has and probably will shed more tears.  I have a sketch of his in my office now–his “notes” of meetings were involved sketches of hills, trees and clouds.  Now he can sketch from another viewpoint.

Just remember Larry.  Another near-death experience that reminds me how precious life is.