The day seemed awkward.  Communication snafu’d everywhere.  Truck overheating, tow truck crashing the bumper, bumping bumping.  Strange moments where forgotten items nagged at my brain like a hangnail catching on cashmere.  HA, like I wear cashmere!

In any case, it reminds me of a brilliant piece by Hafiz.  And that’s the truth.

First the fish needs to say:
Something just ain’t right about this camel ride,
And I’m feeling so damn thirsty.

My dad didn’t have much material things to leave me when he left this world.  But one of my most cherished possessions that he gave me is memorialized on one of his T-shirt, now mind, that says: “They say I have ADD, but they just don’t understand–Oh look!  A chicken!”  

I think ADD, like many other cluster “diagnoses” that (godlove’em) the medical profession labels as a dysfunction or syndrome, is just another protective device that children use to survive in those busy families (aka alcoholic, broken, abusive, rich & alienated, abandoned, etc).  It is a useful and successful idea to be distracted by the trees outside instead of listening to what is going on inside the house.

But I wonder what the opposite would be?  How about ACE: Attention Celebration Exercise?  We ace something when we focus and complete it.  We are aces when we get kudos for something we do.  I ace it when I get that ball in the hoop.  It is a word of accomplishment, progress in action, a sign of willingness to move forward.

And for that little kid who did everything possible not to admit or acknowledge the hurtful things, to ace a day is to practice celebration for all that is, for all I AM, for the grace that keeps me walking on this dear earth.

There’s a couple boxes of paint and caustic liquids that have to be brought to the hazardous waste dump.  Apparently these days you have to make an appointment to dispose of them.

Hello, I’d like to make an appointment to bring you my hazardous waste.  Yes, thank you.  This is what I’d like to drop off:
   * overflowing cans of regret that I could have done better
   * a bottle of deepening despair of being unemployed
   * a small box of anger that I’m not taken care of more diligently–by anyone
   * a package of stupidity filled with the thought I’d be “fixed” and “spiritual” by now
   * confusion in a container contaminating my days
   * sheets and cardboard covered with flailing splattered irritation

In exchange, there should be a “beneficial provision” allotment.  I’d take with me:
   * constant gratitude of the here and now
   * clearer perception to see the love around me
   * energetic desire for exercise
   * voracious hunger for good food
   * easy release of everything that does not serve me
   * massive dose of serenity allowing me to listen with generosity
and

A soft cloak of constant contact with the velveteen embrace of the Natural Universe who leans lovingly into my neck, whispering and giggling sweet nothings in my ear.

It’s September, getting cooler, still a bit of late summer warmth.  We had a very hot long dry summer for the northwest.  Some of us liked it, some of us didn’t.  I crave the rain and left the northeast because of the dry long hot summers.

In any case, this morning walking through the park, the dry dusty hot morning park, I heard a frog.  A deep bass plunking call from the depth of the browning green bushes.  A frog.  He is calling for a mate so late in the wrong season.  This frog song reminds me that seasons are not real.  This dry season for me is not to be believed.  Somehow.

The breathing that keeps my chest moving up and down is real.  Clicking keys is real.  Wet hair.  Socks.  Watch on my wrist. 

What if all I really have is gratitude?  What if that is what it’s all about?  Why can’t I be addicted to gratitude as I was with alcohol, pot, now caffeine and controlled Mt. Dew drinking?  What is it about bad stuff–slow stupid suicide in some ways–that is so attractive?  Why can’t I wake up feeling grateful, optimistic, happy to be alive no matter what?

Not a saint.  But my Love doesn’t care.  The Path is beneath my feet.  I am safe.  I am loved.  That is the most real thing.

Let’s take a look at the triangle.  Here’s an example of how a partnership can
work to be a strong steady structure–keeping some kind of spiritual pivot point
on the top.  What is the north star in
your partnership?  How do you return to a
center theme that gives a new perspective on all seeming dualities and back and
forth, tit for tat arguments.  You move
above the problem to a new view. 

Having
a spiritual perspective gets us to see that archway that can reveal the
connecting oneness.  From South Africa’s
reconciliation program to an honest non-interrupting conversation within
ourselves, bringing in a Higher Power’s compassionate energy soothes the edges
of the outer polarity and brings our vision to the centerpoint where we can
opposites can harmoniously reside.

As I embark on a four day journey with my partner–most of it on the back of a two-wheeled speeding vehicle, in close proximity, bending like the wind to the retrograde passions, I lean into my True Love.  She steers me calm and comforting wherever I go.

Look at a mobius strip.

So what the heck does this have to say about partnership.  Dunno.  But something about human coupling is this
phenomena of different but the same.  We
decide to face the world with a commitment to be a couple.  We tell the world–or as many of our family
& friends as can be gathered in one place–that we want to be together, that
we are now two entities addressed as one, residing in the same place (usually),
combining resources, collaborating on goals and sharing ideals.  And so many of us are so different than our
partners.  Are we really opposites, or
are we so far from the beginning of the mobius strip that we’ve forgotten the
bridge that connects us?

Hermetic philosophy (try piecing together the whole
Kybalion someday) describes duality as a huge arch of which we can only discern
the two pillars on either side.  Black
& white, Boam & Joachim, right & wrong, red & blue, you &
me, them & us.  But if it were
traced, if we could visualize through all dimensions, we’d see the top of the
arch where red turns to blue in lavender, you & me come together in
agreement and them & us agree to live in peace.

A partnership of two people is a celebration of their
commitment to this truth of Oneness. 
Plus it is a symbol of the unity within our selves and with whatever
created us.  We were certainly “at one”
with our mothers–there are not many babies completely gestated in test
tubes–yet.  And even at this microscopic
conception opposites become one in a seed that can make others.

There are so many ways to look at this–we are made
of earth, we breath the air, we drink the water, we cook and eat the fire.  It looks like seasons and different forms,
but it is just the perception of change. And as we know now, the only constant in the universe, is change.

Partners share what they both like to do: county
fairs, movies, soup, cats, red curtains, parking spaces, values, gods,
children, businesses and certainly more. 
And they have differences that sometime seem exasperated by each
other.  Sometimes what you do makes me
just furious because it is so different from what I want to do.  But when partners share conversation about
these differences, there is that magic moment when the paper on the Mobius
strip is taped together.

Sharing fears, disappointments, hopes, regrets,
resentments (even to each other) and deep desires are the bridges that remind
us how we are indeed at One with the universe and each other.  Tracing that pencil line from you to me, one
side to the other without trying to reconcile, somehow unites us.

Human have been surrounded by opposites since we
noticed our hands, the night, and our shadows. 
And we’ve been fighting them ever since. 
Lighting up the night, one hand not knowing what the other is doing, and
screaming when we notice our dark side. 
What if we could make friends with the other side, hold our own hands
and fold our legs on top of one another. 
Opposites but compatible, coming from two universes and harmonious.

A Mobius strip is can be illustrated by taking long
strip of paper,say, ½ wide, 6 inches long, twisting it, and taping it
“backwards” to the other end.  If you
take a pencil and start at any point, and while keeping the pencil on the paper,
mark a line completely on the paper. 
Your pencil will not leave the paper, and it will return to the point it
started–you have in front of you a piece of paper with two sides–and only one
side.

Cosmophysicists have postulated that this is what
the universe looks like–a seemingly two sided, one-sided entity.  And this is how spiritual systems describe
the spiritual beings having a human existence, so-called duality, opposites,
marriage and the ultimate truth of our lives–we are at one with all there is.  Or rephrased: at One with All There Is.  Or “at-oned” with all.

Here’s where it can be seen that it looks like you
and I are separate beings, but we are connected by some tenuous pencil line to
each other.  Degrees of so-called
separation.  The molecules of the air
connected to your skin and mine.  A quick
reading of these words written by me here and now, read by you there and then
(here and now).  In fact, we are both
breaking the barriers of time and space. 
I write here and now, you read here and now–in the same/different time
and space.

A journey that spirals back onto itself is a Path of contemplation.  I grasp the hand of the Divine One who leans back into me.

This practice of listening for the words of the day from the Divine and letting them course through my body, mind, soul, spirit and fingers, should be the first thing.  Then again, I’m very sensitive to the “shoulds.”  I am aware that “should” comes up when there is a “rule” of life hidden down there–in order to be good, better, best, spiritual, right.

HA!  Being right–what a joke!  Where did we ever get the idea that we “should” be acknowledged as “right”!?!

In any case, the first thing to do when you’re ready for a symphony is to tune up.  And allowing the words that vibrate me to serenity with this practice of listening and writing harmonizes every cell in my body. 

I tilt my head into Her cheek at my neck and rest forever this moment–indescribable comfort.

I’m familiar with the study of acting.  An amazing amount of work goes into this discipline studying emotions.  What does that feel like?  What does that feeling look like?  How is it different for him, her and me?  What would a repressed feeling look like?

Certainly I’ve realized that so much of my life was acting out a role for you.  What do you want me to do, feel, say?  Ok, I’ll do it.  It is like being a chameleon bat–I have to bounce off you what kind of costume and mask that I wear in our conversation and interaction.  This presumes that I am, of course, an excellent mind reader.  I “assume” I am, that is–and that makes an “ass” out of “u” and “me.”  (love that kind of stuff with words)

Today is a splash of cold water on my face to once again ask–what is the real me?  What is it that I feel all by myself inside?  And if I want to be a different person, what would that feel like?

What if I acted as “if” I were completely happy?!

Some days life is about better and better questions.