Sometime I have to remember to do nothing.  Stop doing, rushing, planning, figuring out, maneuvering, scheduling, even thinking.  Though that’s probably the hardest sometime–to stop the monkey mind chatter.

Just to sit and be.  Or walk and be.  Just to be a human merely being.  We did sign up for this spiritual adventure being encased in the most obtuse form of love vibration–the earth.  But it is beautiful and I yearn to see that beauty at every turn.

But this sign-up also included being a volunteer for aches, undistinguishable despair, restlessness, weariness, aging, sickness and other challenges of the day.  Heartache is a sore spot and a puzzlement too.

I ache for others far away.  Why?  Because I feel for them.  Is that codependency or empathy?  Am I feeling compassion or being distracted because I can’t help and be there with them?

Who knows.  I am here, I send love, I declare and chant for the wellness of all.  Perhaps today I will be singing that old prayer: May we be filled with loving kindness.  May we all be well.  May I be peaceful and at ease and may I be happy.

Life is just a big kindergarten with constant story time.  Is it the end of the world, or just my neighborhood–or a jet breaking the sound barrier?  Is it another complete market crash, or a computer glitch?  Is it a war, or time for a compromise?  Are we killing the earth, or will it merely shake us all off one day?

Does she love me?  Is he angry at me–or just in a cranky mood?  Do I have to scream at the grocery clerk or did she just make a mistake?  Shall I take this personal, or am I mad at a memory of my mom?

Pick one.  Any one.  Welcome to earth!

So I want to make a really good story today.  One with flowers and giggles, a tale of creativity rather than woe.  Perhaps I’ll see the snippets of fairies in the trees around my office, and the bushes will talk with me about the spring day.  It could be that my Mom visits, or my Dad calls out from the tree tops with laughter.  Stories like these lift my heart.

I’ve been on them before.  That part of the Path that is under water, muddy, slippery and cluttered with rocks and roots that grab your boots.  Slow going, losing balance, grasping at the bushes and holding on to trees

The vertical climbs and twisted trails bring me back to the breath.  I allow my feet to do their job, and the more they are challenged, the stronger they become.  As I become familiar with these difficulties, I am less afraid of them.  My body adjusts to a slower pace, my eyes are sharp and watch for obstacles, I allow myself to stand in the heat of struggle.

I claim the brilliance of the design in this narrow route.  I stand under the shadowy grove of parallel pines that massage my eyes.  I bow to the path, and feel the blessing of each step.  The Way wanders where it will and I let the fragrance of the forest have Her Way with me.

Change is constant.  All is moving, from sub-atomic particles to the galactic rotation around the center of the universe.  The universes themselves rotate around some magic center.  Magic because I have a limit to my imagination, let alone any scientific conceptual abilities.

From one second to another, uncertainty rules my life.  It is hilarious to watch those who attempt control.  There are many masters of this, but it strikes me as a trumped-up story that is proliferated for comfort. 

So I have to keep on bending at the knees, dipping and bowing, allowing the earth to move under my life as it breathes.  I bring in the air–inspired.  I release the air–gratitude.  Each movement of the bellows is new and tentative.  My chest will one day be still.

I cherish the certainty that Spirit is infinite.

How do we mix those two: honesty and love?  Especially when “love” was shown to be such a an act in some ways.  We “love” the brownies, our car, your story, my dress.  Even if someone said “I love you” when I was a kid, I guess I felt it, but when nothing else was said, no other information or intimate thoughts or feelings, it came out and grew into a goodbye greeting. I find I do that now–I wonder if I mean it–“Goodbye, I love you.”

Ha, maybe the two of them together was a real linkage: If I love you, I have to say goodbye.  Or just as I’m leaving I’ll tell you I love you.  Or it was the last word instead of the first.

Plus there was an act about loving in the family.  I do something for you, thus it equals that I love you.  And that turned out to be I have to always be doing something for you to prove that I love you.  And since you don’t do anything for me, you obviously don’t love me.  “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” was a phrase that always seemed like a lie.  Or a cover up.  If I love you I don’t have to say I’m sorry.  What kind of love is that–not to admit mistakes or gaffs or stepping in it and tracking it all over the carpet of our lives?

In any case, I’m learning more and more about how to do this combination.  “I don’t feel comfortable right now.”  “I’d rather not, thanks.”  “Can I have a hug?”  “Can I give you a hug.”  “I don’t want to be with you.”  “I don’t agree with you.”  Those phrases seem simple, but they have been only evident since I recognized I wasn’t being honest, and that I could express my truth without setting fire to the house.

These days I practice and practice making honest love to myself.

What’s up with this heart stretching, aching stuff?  Why do we have this in our chest when it is pulled from my office desk to miles and miles away where my sister is weeping?  How can I alleviate this pain and break the stupid barriers of time and space and go to comfort her?  Why can’t I grab all the money I can get my hands on to go and rescue her?

Damn ideas of time and space and having a heart.  Whose idea was this human thing anyway?!  What good does it do the Divine to feel these feelings through me?!

Time (sic) to trust.  To be here and now the best I can.  To chant the easy, calm, love, safe words that keep me in my body instead of trying to send my spirit elsewhere resulting in me reacting and distracted.

I declare and claim all the love to shine through my body.  To root me in my life here and now.  I know the Divine has no limits, thus as I relish my day, so the waves of comfort vibrate through the universe to all who suffer.  I call upon the flowing compassion of Kwan Yin today to wash us warm with Her Love.

I saw a mediocre but noisy movie in 3-D last night about the battle between the gods and humans–big spectacular monsters, brilliantly beautiful heroines and a bland hunk of a hero who followed the unexpressible tough guy role.  Like so many, he will go far.  No need for acting.

In any case, it still mimicked the humanity-old struggle of the so-called gods outside of us and the combination of divine-human inside of us.  We are truly a synthesis of the two.  We can’t control the weather and monsters, but we know human feeling and love like no god seems to be able.  Or so the story goes.

These myths are ageless stories of how we do combine these elements.  A god comes down, son of the heavens, and gives his life for us in order to show us that we can rise above everything–even death.  An avatar spends an early life in luxury, a middle life in dismal fasting, and a mature life in balance–showing us the middle way.  A woman–many women–give birth to the world, nurture all of nature, and somehow also destroys everything to bring us a new fresh blossom of peace.

I’m glad I’ve claimed all these gods as my own, and can play with their stories in my life every day.  All of these tales end up in eventual reconciliation–even though the initial separation itself was an illusion.  Hurray to the beauty and power within!

I hear the birds heralding the soft gray dawn.  Cold spring morning.  Snow in the passes.  Squaws and dark clouds that dump rain and move to stalk nearby neighborhoods.

Sounds of my dear companion in the next room.  Stretching of a cat who softly mews for my touch.  Clicking of the keys.

Morning has broken.  Like the first morning.  Memories of family run from my heart to my eyes tempting tears.  There and then was so different than here and now.  Why do memories ache?  Is it truly “good grief”?  Why is it hard to hold the dearness in my body when another person’s body is so long gone?  Is it truly a spiritual existence in a temporary human form?  How do I know that is true?

I guess it doesn’t matter.  My world is made up of my stories.  And I want it to be a good story, a fun story, a story that, well maybe I can weep whenever, but not right now.  Right now I want to pull a bright jacket of thanksgiving around me for the soft cozy home I have.  Here I intend to energize my form and create a day of treasure–a treasure chest of stories to tell at a later here and now.

I have these days resisting getting up.  Turning off the alarm and then oversleeping.  Rushing around in a tizzy.  Don’t wanna get up.  Don’t wanna go to work.  Should I drive or bus?  What shall I wear?  It seems like such a silly stupid struggle this human crap.

I mean, it really doesn’t matter and I make a big deal out of it.  Pushing the river.  Struggling instead of going with the flow.

That’s why I need these tiny moments each morning to remember who I really am.  I am a Divine emanation.  I am a shaft of light from the big Bang of love stuff that started it all off on this lovely blue-green planet.  I am music from the Master’s Hands.  I am a flute through which She plays the lilting song that mesmerizes the galaxies to dance.  Leaning on Her soft shoulder, I melt into a slow rhythm remembering who I AM.

All life is, I think, is getting used to the bumps.  Laughing while bumping.  Maybe I should write a book: how to laugh while bumping with others.  That’s all we do, you know.  I’m bumping now (assuming this is being read by others–ha!).  At least bumping up within myself–what to say, how to say it, the inner critic & editor vs. the babbling excitable heart.

Every relationship is a soft bump or a hard bump.  Hard sell salesman seem to bump hard–how do I handle it?  Do I body slam them back, or use one of my trusty tai chi verbal martial arts “ward off” maneuvers.  My staff complains.  Shall I wring their necks, or find a way to guide us to a solution?  My cat yells at me for food.  Do I lovingly talk back and encourage him, or give him a brush-off and say “LATER”! 

We get polished, and/or we bump like billiard balls and knock ourselves across the years out of sight into a dark corner pocket.  We act like roller derby gals, slamming each other down like dominos. 

Or perhaps we dance a nice slow dance.  Hand on someone’s shoulder.  Hand on her waist.  Allowing the music to sway us here and there, step by step.