Isn’t it nice when you feel that mutual admiration with another person–and they seem to feel it with you too? I seem to be dealing with enjoying the state of satisfaction lately. A new job is settled down to routine, wolves are fed and stopped howling at my door, commute is accepted. And yet I find that when things settle down, or seem to go well, no drama, that I get restless.
I’m not irritated or discontent–yet. But I am familiar with the restlessness and recognize that it is time to find another creative endeavor. Hmmm, maybe cleaning out the basement would do it. …..Naaaa.
I pray today to be more crystallizing grateful for the mutual admiration that I feel with those who nourish my spirit. They ask about me, laugh at my jokes, and give me warm hugs. If I stay centered in the here and now, I may feel that ever-present admiration from the Lady of all Love, Sweet One that dances in the dark when I sleep, wide-womb Ganesha that shields me beneath her chest, endlessly rooted ancient Tree that stands by me forever. Now that’s mutual admiration.
I don’t want to be new, I don’t want to be different–sounds too much like a struggle. But with each breath I take, there is a new moment I stand on the planet. Each movement I make, no matter how routine, is a different day. I am renewed each wave of sweet spring fragrance. The trees are bigger, the tulips regenerate, new birds.
I saw a duck with a dozen ducklings swimming in a big puddle yesterday. The runt of the litter was running faster than her siblings, but she was not the last in the line.
Life finds a way to run and thrive and giggle and jump and look around for the brilliance of beauty.
There’s all this talk these days about “change your thinking, change your life.” Making intentions, screaming affirmations, creating your own reality. Sure, makes sense. Everything you see around us started with a thought–the keyboard, my blog, the clothes I wear, my job, etc.
But what about when life just gives you a bump. Somebody dies unexpectedly. You lose a job and can’t find one like you used to. A cold sore comes out of no where and each movement of my lip hurts and I’m obsessed with how ugly it looks. From tragedy to hangnails, stuff just simply happens. And I didn’t intend it, or affirm it, or work to manifest it. What’s up with that?!
Dunno. But I suppose the best phrase that helps is: “I may not be responsible FOR it, but I am responsible TO it.” And sometimes just facing it, allowing it, seeing it as a symbol or a sign, and just rolling with it, helps to assuage the frustration of it.
That and a big does of gratitude gets me through some days. No heat in the car? Just keep breathing, I have a car. Body not working quite right; deal with it with a smile. My body is upright and I’ve got viable daily work.
Always bringing the Divine Energy into the complaint, hearing Her smother a giggle at my little stamping foot like a toddler tired and cranky wanting to play at naptime.
Soft rhythm of the waves. Tide going out. Halyard clanging. Majesty of snow and ice that glistens through swaying cloud veils. Small rounded rocks. Sun heating my back. Shadow of pen.
Barnacle berries, stubborn frost on stool-sized stones. They seem to welcome the bejeweled wraps that cover their silent gray. Shells littering the rocky shore. Remains of beings still existing. Scattered and silent teeth formed in waves with purple hearts amid rubble from the mountains polished by the sea beneath my feet.
Surrounded by such a slow polishing, vulnerable allowance, open-hearted surrender to the shifting of sands and time. I am exhausted at the thought of such stillness. My whole being beats and throbs at the message to be unmoving. To let the winds have their way with me.
Today I let Her have her most brilliant barnacle Way with me.
Quiet Waters. I spent the weekend at Kah Mogk on a tiny inlet of the Puget Sound watching the clouds play hide and seek with the dappled wall of snow-topped Olympic Mountains. Eagles circle the water spying new salmon. Sun drenches the rolling lawn with warmth. Towering pines and huddled cedars soften the soft earth with cool shadows.
This is my body’s home. This is the earth, the dust, that somehow got into my mother’s womb and my father’s sperm and clustered into these arms and legs and heart and head and feet. I walk here like it is the only path. I sit and rock under the endless sky of tree-tops that is the view from my cradle.
I weep and weep when it is time to say goodbye. My tiny body being ripped from the earth, from my kin, my tribe. I honored the home as much as I could this time. I came to recognize that the only way I can return for good is when my body is burnt to dust again.
The love in that land gently reminded me to stand and sway. That I breathe each moment to honor the forest I carry in my heart.
This is the #1 rule that keeps
old negative behavior patterns going.We
are taught:
Don’t feel. Don’t talk. And certainly don’t talk about your feelings.
Don’t say
anything; ignore it, it will go away.
Don’t be a
wimp; stop complaining.
It’s nobody’s
business; we can handle it ourselves.
It’s none of
your business.
Shut up.What do you know?!
Don’t get
involved.
It’s not that
bad.I’m FINE.(Freaked
out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional).
One example
of this tendency would be dealing with an alcoholic 25-50 years ago: no one
want’s the embarrassing truth to get out. Even families who may have had members with mental illness, unexplained
sickness (epilepsy, fetal alcohol syndrome, attention deficit disorder,
addiction), and even crimes, would be adamant about keeping things quiet.Years ago even divorce was a source of humiliation
and details were hid securely in a closet.
The problem
now is that you are as sick as your
secrets–even those handed down from generation to generation without
words.They can fester like an
untreated, unacknowledged wound.The
abhorrence of speaking about a trauma, abomination, tragedy, betrayal or
abandonment is too much to bear. Unfortunately, the task of carrying it around during our lives,
pretending to forget about it, is like having a mangled arm at our side,
bleeding profusely, and covering it up, arguing with others that “We’re
just fine.”
A solution
is to find a safe place to unload these secrets.It used to be called
“confession”.Now we sit with
hundreds of different kinds of therapists and counselors.We search out similar people with familiar
backgrounds.Writing can help.You don’t have to show it to anyone, just get
those sick memories, resentments, burdens out of your mind.The “Anonymous” groups can be a
place to listen.No one uses last names
or discloses identifying details; they just share pain and experiences all
laced with hope of healing.You
will find that your secret is not totally unique, that there are others who’ve
been through the pain and you can search out a path of untangling.
Dig out the
secrets, wash out the wound (tears are inevitable), open up that closet door
and let the light shine in.
Branches near branches for crows.Coral dawn peeking between the grey clouds, then snuggling back under the covers. Flat polished stones embedded in the narrow road revealed beneath fine chatting gravel. Firm bedrock beneath surrender.
Control and design cravings are like moving gravel around a steady path. All paths are paths. Some wet, cumbersome, tangled, flat, rocky. Some more trodden thatn others with hidden rocks revealed. Gravel comes from boulders that are the earth that is my home.
English daisies find their way to landscape all soccer fields.
Songbirds, here are your words, my love. Singing praises of gracious grace to walk these paths.
Today my god is the Earth, Gaia, Urantia. I’m sure there are a million names for this true blue green orb lazily speeding around the Sol. To all the Devas who surround Her, to the lucky clouds who embrace Her, I bow and praise.
What a terrific idea it was to be human. How thrilled I am to have grabbed that golden ring and get the chance to walk the soft earth, wiggle my toes in mud, have my hair tossed with the breeze and tree branches. I spend hours watching the earth and wonder of the gift it would be to memorize how a bush waves with the morning wind along the edge of the field. Or the delight of holding the melody of a single pre-dawn birdsong in my heart forever.
Dearest Gaia, Mother of all life, cradle rocking enormity of eternity, I honor You. May all that I do send you a full blossom of love to be planted in Your soul. Thank you for Your unending mercy when I trip, fall, cry, and raise my tiny fist at Your simple Path. Grant that I bring only more love to the Way of my days, blessed with Your beauty and grace.
What is it about tears? Maybe the question is more–what is it about deep grief and sadness? As a spiritual being, there is no endings, no loss, no death. But as a human merely being on this dear material world, loss simply hurts. Maybe it is the simple act of tearing one thing away from another, like a carrot ripped from the soil, or even gently pruning branches. Just the distinction of one thing being pulled from another that was together for a while creating a different kind of energy.
I’ve been known to weep instantly when I see a huge tree cut down. I will stand on that fresh stump and feel the wide trunk and forever reaching arms and cry cry cry. But even the ghost of tree softly reminds me that it is not gone, just disappeared into another dimension as a sprout.
I am reminded of an esteemed and honored rabbi who, after hearing the death of a dear friend, burst into tears. When his fellow monk asked him why he cried when we are aware of the spiritual realm, the rabbi said “When God sends us sadness, we should cry.” Like the Buddhists say, “When it rains, it just rains.”
I question no feelings today. I allow the weeping as I enjoy the laughter. I am clear like the field after a rain smiling tearfully at the unveiled sun. A leaf on the slow rolling stream, I let the life of the Divine bounce me giggling to Her singing like a baby on Her knee.
