How do we really know which way to go when puzzled?  Watch for signs on the path, openings, water, earth rising or falling all indicating a direction.  What about if I’m in the middle of a big lake–or the ocean–with no sign of a shore, compass missing, stars all darkened with clouds?

Or even if letters and calls and appointments and duties line up pointing to individual tasks, what if energy just slips out of my feet and the body, a lump, dumbly decides to ignore it all?

It is a down day, a slow walk, a faithful non-action.  I believe in bliss, eternal safety and know that my feet never leave the path–here or beyond the veil.  I’m just not that comfortable with some human stories.  “You should put your dog down,” or “Listen to my story,” or or or…go take a nap.

The will of Heaven has spoken.  Bless this day.

Thanks for ME being here, actually.  Today I celebrate my birth (oh, and there’s a big party for me in France too).  So instead of the story of how terribly old, the judgments of where and what I should be by “now”, the history, the past memories fading and that many people who remember the details of my birth are on the other side–today I am happy to be here just the way I’m being here.

Excellent gray sky day, warm and cool.  My dear dog has energy today, the cat screaming for the new treats.  My honey-pie is out “getting coffee” (aka presents for me!), and we are off on a little road trip to grace our eyes with Pacific Northwest beauty.

It is truly a gift of grace to be present to this human life.  I believe I volunteered for it, and it was a really good idea.  There have been many moments in the past when I was desperate to leave it, furious at existence, and destitute in despair.

A deep breath brings me into the arms of my Creator at the very time I sing to the trees who clap their hands for me.  We all celebrate this adventure.  Thank you, thank me, thank My Divine Love for here and now.

One as all and all as One.

The mind can’t handle vastness, and the heart gets confused
with the day to day details.  Thirty
houses line the walk with the dog with endless matrix of connections–can’t comprehend.  But we are all one.

So how can that work, or how can we continue to grasp it,
work with it, even though we truly can’t figure it out.  We have similar experiences: birth, good
days, bad days, death.  We all need
shelter, food and clothing and the acquisition of these bring similar
experiences.  Thus we can assume what
someone is feeling or thinking if they are shopping, or walking or at a
funeral.

But the intricacies of differences are so vast.  Perhaps we merely concentrate on the
similarities and leave the rest.

The practice of keeping focused on the one-ness that we
share is the point, I suppose.  How to do
this when you/I feel cranky, low energy, lethargic, uncaring.  Perhaps commiseration and compassion that we
all recognize these cycles of feelings. 
Faith that, as the nature of a cycle is to return to a similar spot as
previous, lethargy is not forever.

Pruning rose bushes, pulling out woody lavender bushes, the
spring time is a cleaning, a shoring up of energy for deeper roots.  These cuttings help us inevitably turn
corners in our lives, and the forced deeper roots find purer nourishment in the
rich earth.

So resting on cycles of lethargy and creativity, feelings of
apartness and wholeness are views from the spiral rollercoaster of our
lives.  Detaching from the abyss and
paying attention to the path above it affords exquisite views and breathless
excitement.  We keep our eye on the road
ahead, just ahead.  When we stop, we
anchor in the earth.

Today and time.  Time
isn’t real, we all get that in some way, I think.  There are seasons, day, night, movement of
the planets–all cycles or spirals that slowly change in the depth of the
revolution.  But time, when we talk about
it, is really a topic of the choices we make.

“I don’t have time” really means that I have other
priorities than what you are suggesting, or I don’t want to change my addictive
priorities, i.e., I don’t have time to exercise, but let’s go out and have a
drink.  There is a saying that the people
who are the busiest are those you ask for help–because they “make time”.

So when we fuss about not having time, it’s time (sic) to
look at choices and priorities.  Do we
put the kids first really, or business? 
Do we choose to sit in quiet meditative-type silence, or run off to get
that latte?  Do I turn away from my
computer and connect with the trees over there, bending in the wind, waving at
me?  And the next question is–what would
happen if I did consciously choose something that is in the ideal of me and
decide against the quick-fix, instant gratification voice inside of me.

Life would maybe be a bit slower.  The murky illusionary waters of confusion and
doubt and despair and fear just might subside and the truth would be seen–that
blue sky beyond all clouds: Divine Moments, pure Beauty, and instantly
gratifying peace.

It’s time.

Stillness would be even better than listening.  Ha.  I crave stillness.  Sometimes it feels like isolation, but the empty sound, the quiet room is so luxurious.  Years of siblings and children and partners and work and crowds settle so far in the background to a still room.

Still waters reveal the deep.  If I release the chatter of my brain onto paper–the screen, actually–a breeze goes through my mind and the fragrance of lavender shifts my head and heart into another dimension.  Not a place, or a face, but dry sweet flower meadow. 

I crystalize that scent and claim its infinite stillness through this day.  As I am still and aware of those who use me as a screen to clear out the chatter of their bickering voices.  I rest against the Tree of Life and watch them dance.

Perhaps it is because I have been on the planet for a number of years and experienced the death of family and friends that I can see the sunshine through the shadow of death.  Perhaps it is because I’ve built bridges to the other side using every tool that comes across my path.  Or maybe it is just because I’m inevitably getting closer to it than I am to birth.

Since I was a child I wondered why we spend such celebration and excitement at birth and such black sad depression at death.  Aren’t they the same doorway?  Wouldn’t it make sense that we return to from whence we came?  More than dust to dust, but spirit to spirit.  Wouldn’t it be a much more exciting celebration to return to Spirit than it was to come into this earth-world of breathing, gravity, feelings, beliefs, and games?

I envy those that work near death.  Those that sit near the dying, watch the fading eyes, listen to the frantic fears and the stories of long ago.  There is both the shadow of the Dark Angel near the window, his job to escort the spirit to Spirit, and the brilliant White Light of blissful peace.

Having had a near death experience, I know there is nothing like getting that close to leaving that makes the day sparkle.  All my concerns fade and I want to throw out huge blooming bouquets of gratitude.

How can I feel so small and sad in a world with such natural splendor, easy magnificence and brilliant thoughtless beauty.  Golden grass covering the field higher than my messy hair.  Shiney leaves reaching over me.  Slashed bushes already knee-high, rebirthing themselves with leaves knowingly smiling: We will win in the end and cover the earth when you are gone.

So what is the purpose of thoughtful worrying figuring out mental mastrubating humans–just to realize that the mind is just a futile gamester?  To be co-creative?  What can I create that is valid, worthy–oops there’s that judgment again.

Shall I just enjoy a little castle in the sand and smile as my time tide melts in into the earth?  If there is no beginning and end, it is the act of building–from being to action to manifest–that is the thing.  Not preserving or press release photos or even any response.

The question “What matters?” is a trick.  There is no meaning but what we make.  No fate but what we make.  And that is pure freedom.  Freedom reverts me to stillness…until that mental manipulator messes with me again with what “matters.”  Meaning is over-rated, but stillness is always precious.

Maybe I was asked: “Why do you want to be human?” and I answered, “Because I can.”

So if I am at one with nature, there is no thought beyond
the now.  These words, one by letter by
one by letter by word by sentence, are just in the now.  I need not worry or even consider if they
root in you, whoever you are, out there in the then of the future. 

Like the birds, I eat what I find on the ground, food at the
grocery–organic or not, sleep in a cozy bed, shoes at the second-hand store,
and inspiration in the air, the people, the day, the chant, the sky.  After I take all this in, digested or not, it
is then released.  Perhaps as I fly
through the day a word drops into your fertile ear of a soul.  Maybe when I’m sitting chatting in the bushes
of a coffee shop, listening to the addict in you or me, I drop a word seed on
the table that you pick up and scribble in your notebook.  Perhaps it will take root.  Perhaps it will sit stale and dry in those
pages and never anchor in your well-fertilized mind.

The brilliant point of Love is that I ingest the delicious
path through the woods, listen to the trees and sing with the birds.  Slowly listen to the wisdom of the gravel
beneath my feet and feed.  I rolls around
my insides, just like these words by letters by words, and are released.  A fuzzy caterpillar-looking seed, or a tight
pinecone wood flower, or a dandelion angle wing thought.  It may burrow into your cells and you then
digest and release.

I’m not known for my physical beauty, and even my mother used to say that beautiful people had to try harder to be accepted for themselves rather than their looks.  Maybe she said that to me because I wasn’t so beautiful, and maybe she said it because she was.

In any case, I’ve been a member of an international organization that has clarified it does not promote itself.  It has grown to astronomical numbers because it just is–and people share the benefits of membership (high initiation costs tho).  Attraction rather than promotion.

Maybe that’s why it seems so hard for me to promote the gifts I’ve been given.  To be a flute for the Divine message: You are the Beloved.  Forever and always.  This is an amazing adventure you chose, and you are always safe and loved.

The message comes through the cards, the blueprint of planets at your birth, through the recovery process and the ageless practice of prayer and meditation.  Philosophy, healing, metaphysics and therapy all intend to remind us of this.

That is why I am here and now, fingers clicking, to remind myself from the gentle tapping of the leaves in the cool breeze, sparkling chatter of birds, indelible signs of Presence everywhere, through me to you.

My practice of spirit these days is to tune myself into the flow.  To align myself with the vibrations of All That Is.  Walking in the shifting bluster wind and opening my sensual pores to the soft applause of the delicate apple tree leaves.  Standing close to the thriving shiny green against green delicate clapping, then taking in the wide view of thirty feet pines bowing and poplars waving.

I cleave to their vibrancy and yearn to be as easy in growth.  They do not worry about what to wear (actually, I rarely worry about that!).  There is no concern about procrastination, or inner disturbance or absolute confusion in the clenching illusionary conflict between drive and opportunity, insecurity and arrogance.

Be a tree, the wind whispers, the dancing leaves giggle.  I claim that I am thoroughly harmonized and bow to the gentle love of the Presence.