Did you know that the word “patience” comes from a Latin verb “to suffer”?!  This gives new depth to the idea that you don’t want to pray for patience–all you’ll get is a chance to practice it.  And now it adds even another layer of meaning–to suffer more!

I don’t want to suffer.  I refuse to sacrifice any longer.  I don’t want to be a martyr and trudge through a life of living out of guilt or original sin.  I want to be free of pain and despair.  So I hereby give up patience.

But I do believe when the Buddha said–life is suffering he meant that it will always be an adjustment, mind and heart to the body and the world.  With our comparing brain, we are so often tortured from the inside about what should be, could be, shouldn’t have been, might be, etc.

With each deep long breath, I claim an easy surf on these human, earth-bound challenges.  I intend for this life to be an adventure rather than a struggle.  Heading into a tournament game is so much more thrilling than going into the arena to death with lions and gladiators. 

Faith is my surfboard and my snowboard, keeping me above the watery depths and hard ice.  All bumps are brilliant waves and exciting moguls that lift me high into the heavens above the here or there, yes and no, happy or sad silly stories of life.

Let’s RIDE!

Being an astrologer, I am aware of the movement of the planets–more than just the sun (seasons) and the moon cycles.  My story on how they affect us tiny blobs of protoplasm stuck to this gorgeous third globe from the sun is that they mirror what we have chosen as a dance in this life.  That is, where the planets were when we took our first breath reflects a blueprint of sorts, on how we are designed in this life.  Free will allows us to play with this design with infinite style. 

But the seasons do affect us.  I may have been born with curly hair, but I have a choice to flatten it out or simply cut it off.  However it took some experimentation on how to get it not to frizz.  So here we are in that time of year with a retrograde Mercury in the skies.  To us on earth it looks like Mercury is moving backwards.  Typically this is when we avoid signing contracts, confirming agreements, buying large purchases, etc.  It is a time where our best thinking needs to be revised–probably three times.

Here is a season that I’ve learned calls for the practice of humor and patience.  Flustered in the morning, there is no time to buy coffee.  Having time to help, I buy it and deliver it.  And she already bought it herself.  Aha ha ha.  I prepare for rain, and it is sunny.  I plan for one task, and everything appears on the way.  Pause.  Feel.  Rest.  Think again.  Pause.  Release.  Try again.  Pause.  Surrender.  Laugh out loud.

Today I learn a new dance with My Beautiful Smiling Teacher.

So here I am in the forest enjoying the walk and I come to a fork in the path.  Which way to go?  How do I choose?   The head chatters: “You’d better make the “right” choice!  You can’t change your mind.  You led people on that you wanted to go this way.  There are too many risks in the other way. You’d better get what you can, the other path has too many risks.”  This is the path of the mind, the shoulds, the play-it-safe.

And the other path beckons: “Here is the way to living large.  It is a risk, and it is a grown-up path.  It is unclear but the possibilities are wide and exciting.”  

The wind in the trees seem to whisper “There is no such thing as a wrong choice.  Each path is in the land of only Love.  You cannot fall off the path.  You are in our arms, even if you come to a clearing.  The wind will find you and caress you.  Follow the path of your heart.”

Walking hand in hand with the Dear One, I take the path of the heart.

I like the way the Buddhists remind me that life is just the way it is.  Struggle they call it–like the constant irritation of a wheel out of balance.  But if we get comfortable with this wobble, we are in heaven on earth.  If I can make peace with the barking dogs of doubt, fear, insufficiency and anxiety, then they are more friendly and don’t block my path.

But I also appreciate the religions that depict a personal face of the Divine.  I am human, after all, and it is nice to have a human face for a friend–even if it does have 8 hands or is in the shape of a huge loving elephant.  The details are only important when the dog that barks needs a specific master.

Lonely and afraid, I put myself in the womb of the Majestic Mother Elephant.  When I need courage, it is the Goddess of the Woods, the elk and cougar by Her side.  Yet when the illusion of duality ambushes me, it is the faceless Tao that soothes me.

I can’t figure out why more people don’t just use the god of choice for each day.  Why worry about which is the “right” one.  I like to invite them all to my day, the crowd of god faces makes my smallest step a huge party of the Presence.

She is hiding in the tall wide-bladed grass that lines the wire fence.  In the tightly folded daisies and in the soothing late morning bird calls.  She plays peekaboo with me in the sun behind the clouds, in the pouring rain pelting the windows, and stepping slow by step by slow with my old dog. 

It is astounding that I don’t see Her some days.  As if I hold my hands over my eyes and scream, “I’M LOST!  Where are you!?”  She has to gently take my hands in Hers and softly whisper, “I am here.  I am always here.”

The trick of that phrase: “Ask and it is answered, seek and you shall find, knock and it is answered” is that you have to ask, seek and knock at every door.  The seeker only discovers the find on the journey.

I walk, ask, seek, and I am always in the find, the discovery, the treasure of the Presence of Her Divine Smile.

I’m in an “in-between” time.  Left a life that kept me busy each day, distracting me from my purpose and major metaphysical questions.  Without that busyness, I’m in the middle of a foggy lake with one paddle wondering which way to go, and even more, why should I move at all?

Thankfully, in my walks each morning with the dog I am shoulder-to-shoulder with the Divine and have the chance to seek inspiration to keep breathing.  The dog gave me the sign today.  He’s an old dude, moving very slowly, doesn’t run for balls any more and gives a slight passing interest in any other dog.  

But he does two things religiously–he sniffs and he pisses.  He will spend inordinate amounts of time investigating a scent on each blade of grass, refusing to move until he has satisfied his curiosity.  And then he pisses.  He marks his place “I was here,” and then moves on.

I take my meditative lesson from the Divine within the dog today.  I explore and sniff every little creative new adventure that comes along my day.  I meet each moment with fascination, looking at my life as new and different and unique.  Then I release all that I don’t need to observe my next adventure. 

Great-full for another sniff at lilacs, greening, friends, duties, peace and Divine Companionship.

I’ve walked in this park for more than twenty years.  I remember when the playground was on the other side, when we fought to keep that chestnut tree and when my daughter taught the dog to climb that low bending apple tree.

A circle of maples surround the wading pool.  The grass is dotted with tiny English daisies rubbing their yellow eyes with their slowly unfolding white petals to the hazy morning sun.  Red spotted white roddies appear for me.  Dandelions yell from the edge of the green field, “Better you pick them than us–har har har!!”  Felled pine branches catch my their wood flowers land mines seeking roots.  Bluebell bunches near the soccer nets at rest.  Bleached wooden bleachers sit out on the side of the field, replaced by sturdy metal stands.

Times change and remain the same.  Still the questions–who am I?  What am I?  And what am I doing here?  I cycle back always to no answer that makes sense except to ask better questions.

What is next to play with?  Which dance shall I practice now?  Painting my toes?  Baking bread?  Take a shower.  Rest in Her Presence.  Write my letter to you.  A friend phones and poof–I am called to listen. 

Heaven has paved Her path beneath my feet that never leave the edge of my shadow, but are eternally guided by Her Sweet Soft Hand in mine.

Pride, from “prud” meaning magnificent and stately, having
spirit and high mettle.  Pride, a sense
of one’s own dignity or worth, self-respect; delight and satisfaction in one’s
own achievements.  Of course, there are
other definitions that talk about an instinct out of balance, puffed up and
swollen. 

But the question with me today is how to find that
balance.  If I am truly indulging myself
in the womb of the Divine and I want to share the words I find there with
others, how can I shine with self-respect and pride of my achievements?  How can I recognize the channel of
magnificence without tipping ever so slightly and definitively into arrogance
revealing fear, or the despair which is self-pity and pride in reverse?

Well, if you were standing on a teeter totter, you’d have
one foot on one side and one foot on the other side and, as some sayings go,
might feel like you’re pissing on the present. 
Or maybe it is about being completely compassionate as I go back and forth,
and not get defensive and upset when someone calls me on it.  Imagine my surprise when a friend agrees
with me to my sudden awareness that I seem to have false pride.  I was upset that she immediately agreed with my
self-assessment!  Thus evident: a
distinct and acute example of the flipping seesaw.

So the opposite of pride is humility, being right sized and honest,
recognizing that there is a God and I’m not it. 
Humility is a healer of pain, that’s for sure.  So if I can be proud of my achievements and
not feel pain, maybe that would be a good marker of the middle way.  Humble is about being close to the ground, so
keeping to a word of mouth or a ground swell, or keeping the sharing
close?  But there there is the part of me
that wants to scream and burst out about the human/Divine partnership!

That’s why I speak here. To sit here with my
laptop on my lap, feet out on the bench, starring at the bush with tiny buds,
trees gathering the spring raindrops that turn into bursting and unraveling
leaves.  Rambling about
what I feel in the delight of the Divine (contrasted with the anguish and
stuttering of the human translator), and reaching you, breaking all time and space barriers.

It is truly about letting the Truth, Comfort and humming of
the endless good to move through my cells, thoughts, feelings, fingers,
reminding me of the river of energy as the Way. 
I am the movement of the Way, I am surfing the Way, I am splashing and
laughing and throwing it all over me.  I
sit on the mossy banks and watch the Way, I am, you are, All
that is, is the Way.

Say you were wired backwards.  Perhaps home as a kid was loud, chaotic–even supposedly a “big happy family” that felt scary and unpredictable.  Stuff happened all the time.  There was no stability and vacations started out with dad screaming: “We’re going to have fun if it KILLS us!!” 

So we grow up excellent at crisis situations, office management, paralegal–handling conflict as a way of work, familiar with anxiety and fear.  Then all of a sudden you learn different tools and life calms down.  Friends are communicative, family situations are discuss and clarified.  Weird but true.

What the heck do we do with happiness?  As a kid, I really felt the only way to be happy was to be in denial or inebriated.  I didn’t trust being happy–someone was setting me up for something or I did something wrong.

Today I surf on what looks like happiness around me–tulips, tall green grass, and cherry blossoms.  Maybe beauty is a sign of being comfortable with life which seems very much like enjoying being happy.

I breathe in beauty, I breathe out comfort.

Compassion and detachment–seem like opposites to me, but
promoted as the new human goal.  So
sitting on the bedside, ready to switch gears to work, a could loose ends
threatening to unravel in my brain.  The loved one sits up with anger, frustration, excitement–focused,
determined, empassioned. 

Let me backtrack.  I’m
in training these days in relationships. 
My early exposure was distorted by a deep desire for attention aimed at
parents whose own attention deficit distracted them.  Short attention spans were certainly given
to me.  But whether it was their modeling,
or my reaction and perception of their modeling, it is clear that I want to
relate in a different way.  I want to be
loyal, attentive, caring, but not condescending care-taking, pitying or cold.  My goals are to be completely present,
authentically honest and conscientious of the intention to deepen rather than
be distracted.

So, here I am ready for work, taking care of myself,
right?  And the blazing eyes are firing at me with one of those heavy silent area bombs that spread through the room with a
scary empty anticipation.  Time for sitting and listening.  While I try figure
out which shirt to wear, consider the cold, wonder if it is snowing, flipping
back and forth whether to take the car, skimming over the highlights of my day
in regard to what I’m going to wear, who I’m going to meet with.  And back to intense attention to the partner.

I can never reach in there and calm the turbulent
moment.  My ideas repeated for years can
not be expected to suddenly yield that lightbulb “Aha!”  These feeling are NOT about me
helping with a solution, they are feelings. 
What the heck do partners do with another’s feelings?  Listen and try to keep my mouth shut.  But encouragement should be in there
somehow.  Most of the time my
encouragement comes out as a suggestion to be positive, lighten up, look at the
bright side, you are already a success. 
It doesn’t seem to hit the mark.

And maybe that’s it–that I have to stop being so
climactic–thinking I can say just the right thing, make a distinct difference
in a brief conversation.  It actually
isn’t about a conversation.  It’s about
just simply being attentive.  Somehow
reaching for the presence of love that I didn’t feel from my folks (7 kids, low
rent, multiple jobs–honest distractions).

So today, it is about compassion without solutions.  Tonglen, I think the Buddhists call it, when
you take another’s assumed feelings (do we every really know what another is
feeling), or being completely open to the person’s feelings, and letting them
go through us like a wind.  Allowing
their present moment to be our present moment, to brush away all of the past
future and personal moments that clutter and separate us from another.  Ahh, a life time’s practice.

I am at One with you as One. 
And just thoroughly being At-One, somehow, is that compassionate
detachment.