Yesterday I was looking for validity–love.  Today I feel ungood, so the chant is: I am good.  I see only good.  I do only good.  I breathe only good.  I hear only good.  I see only good.

Even being a “circulation” of good can get me stuck in this badminton game of duality.  I wrestle with the old human belief that “If I was good, I’d feel good.  So if I don’t feel good, I must not be good.”  Clear illogic never deters the negative protective fearful monkey brain ready to throw shit at itself into illusionary solutions of isolation and despair, thus perfectly fulfilling the prophecy of doom.

As always, nature reminds me of my folly.  Sweet acrid smell of spring sage.  Green butterfly leaves popping out of the poplars.  Green fields so brief that soon will yield to golden sun catchers.

I allow the sadness that cannot be understood to move through me.  Circulation of salt water through my salt blood body.  Allowing the seed casing of the hibernation to break open for the magical mystery of tomorrow.

Road trips are the best way to consider life–moving forward, watching the scenery, making side trips, and getting along in close quarters. The trip I just enjoyed was through the southwest United States and included a grandmother, mother, and a 6 year old.  Vast variety of views–internally and scenic.

Driving in a car for six days across rolling hills, expansive caverns and snowy mountain top fields added to sharing food, lodging and ideas of timing and privacy.  Family patterns opened up to strong feelings.  Tedium rustled up prickly bushes that scraped sensitive skins.  Delightful days spread out with Easter candy treats, hopping through hotel corridors and swimming in salt water pools.

Small road side chapels, tales of survival in pioneer poverty, magnificent power of the land moving for millions of years, tossing humans like little gnats that live for a day.

As in life, I am walking slowly on the path these days, reviewing my feelings, telling my tales, staring at the photos for clues.  Mystery of time that I am here and now once again.

Surrendering to the path.  Holding hands with the Divine One who whispers: “Just be with me, and I will be with you no matter where you walk.”

5-2-08

Love is every bridge.

No matter the argument, the question, the doubt, the
fear–love is every safe passage out of the darkness.  Affection, attraction, magneticism that draws
us to each other and the Divine.

What serves us and thrills us usually is the bliss of
righteousness.  What about the obsessed
killer and power-driven dictator?  They
are trying to get more of what they consider love, attention and physical
satisfaction.  Most of the time
short-lived.

How do we get so hypnotized by the illusion of material
fulfillment?  We are made of the earth,
and perhaps earth calls to earth.  There
is that part of us that craves union.  We
gravitate towards that which resonates with us, like metal fragments to a
magnet.

And within us all is completely, already a fulfillment.  We are filled with the spring of the earth,
the summer of the sun, the harvest of the autumn and the cool hibernation of
comfort that winter brings.  We are at one
with earth–and the spirit of One in every way.

4-30-08

Loyalty, respect, self-care, mythology, conversation, about
death.  Impending death, and a father who
has been ill for almost 20 years, off and on. 
Is it a codependent game, being sick so much?  If it is, should I be resentful?  Probably not. 
Should I jump on the bandwagon of my sibs in desperate concern to see
him, party with him, the LAST time?  I’m
just not sure.  Should I be honest in my
conversations about, well, his body is just wearing out, and it might be past time
for him to go.  What should I do?

How the hell would I know?

Love is kind, love is not jealous, love is calm, love is a
listening powerful force.  Love does not
criticize or judge, love does not analyze or try to figure things out.  Love allows the most simple “isness” of the
other.  And the feelings that that rise
from this “non-action” that is so uncomfortable in a do-gooder naughtier
catholic girl’s life, is sometimes so puzzling. 
I know there is nothing to do, I want to do something–if anything
completely escape, hide, run–but what to do when you’re not doing anything is
weird.

I guess that’s why I write. 
It is the perfect non-action doing. 
When I sit doing nothing, I express all the feelings and frustration
about not knowing what to do, knowing that there is nothing to do, wanting to
do something rash, wanting to let the addict take over, not wanting to feel the
sadness that there is nothing I can do.

4-28-08

The phenonmena of watching people transform before your
eyes.  One conversation at a time, with
space between us still, experiences that ferment, practice that purifies the
dross.  Alchemical changes in
personalities.  They seek and are willing
to ask stories.  Successful stories,
dismal failure stories, tentative stories, God stories, temptation and despair
stories.  But it is in this sharing of
stories that we see ourselves transformed and those sitting with us breathe in
hope.

Strength and hope is in the eye of the beholder; experience
is easy to talk about.  You don’t even
have to consider if you have hope or strength, just babble like an idiot if you
wish.  Drunkalogs, hysteria and chaos are
impeccable teachers–if you live to tell the tale.  Even tales of how someone was straight or
horribly out there and died, can be markers for those of us still on the
earth-bound path.

Shaman go to hell and come back to tell the tale.  Christ died for our sins on the cross.  Buddha surrendered from excruciating
self-asceticism and sitting quietly under the Bodhi tree, found
liberation.  Mohammed was thrown to the
ground by an angel and forced to “recite”–terrified, his lyrical ballads of
deep love remain today in their original language.  These are exceptional story tellers.

And Shakespeare, and the Brothers Grimm, and Aesop and Lao
Tzu and the aborigines of all continents. 
Stories from beyond the past. 
Just think of the stories that died, fading from voice to voice to
memory to voice.  And those burned and pillaged
in blind army rage in Constantinople and Moscow
and Tibet and Ohio.  But there must be a soft string of a lullabye
inside our hearts and minds that reminds us of these stories.  Embedded in the tarot cards, carved into
boulders, buried deep in the womb-caves of the earth and even mowed into
circles in our ripe crops.

Perhaps we cannot put words to them–they resonate within us
thoroughly ringing our heart stings with hope and strength.  The stories in the wind.

4-24-08

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.

4-15-08

Peace beyond all understanding. 

Energy beyond all understanding.

Faith and joy and love beyond all understanding.

How the hell does that work?!  Why is it that I think if I understand
something that I will feel better, or more probably, be able to solve it.  Like I could reverse engineer that my brother
is horrible to his kid, or untangle why my boss can’t in any way praise
anyone.  The mind thinks that it is in
charge, and if it doesn’t grasp what is going on, it cannot function.  It makes sense because it is a linear–need to
see what is happening, human organ.  But
truly after all these years of love, mysticism, faith and miracles, why can’t I
release and surrender to the unknown better and better?

Faith that all will work out no matter if I can see how or
not.  Belief that these aches and pains,
even if they are the “arthrtitis” word, I can live with.  That if I have to do that torture called
“exercise” on a regular basis, I will find joy in it, or allow it to take me to
a place of healing perhaps.

Perhaps if I get familiar with not understanding, I can feel
that deep healing more and more.  That
intrinsic cellular womb-like peace that soothes bones, muscles, even the
mind.  I bow to the will of heaven and
stand for all Good for All.

I bow to the Grace of Heaven, and stand for the Truth of All
Good.

That’s what today will be about.

4-14-08

Today the machines were beeping and thrusting and groaning
in the meadow and the fields beyond the trees. 
I set it aside, as these fields were my friends.  Friends, however, do come and go and change
and flex.

How do we keep the oneness when separation and change seems
to keep us from that moment of feeling the oneness?  Here’s where memories, I guess, come into our
use for good.  Remembering the spirit
beneath the thing.  The essence that was
the thought, the mental picture before the thing.  Do plants, bushes and threes have this mental
image?  One theory is that they started
in the mind of god, perhaps in the mind of Nature.  Nature has her eye on this field for a perfect
pine tree in the middle, and the seed that lands there in bird poop has the
image and mental picture of the pine growing tall.  But what about the mental picture of the
bulldozer plowing it down?  I guess that
is in the mind of the committee that decided it was time for another soccer
field.

How to just flex with all that stuff.  Today’s message was be moving, be flexible, be
free.  If I am moving and flexible I am
free from the rigidity of that’s the ONLY way it can be.  I can ONLY type my morning meditation in the
living room, but someone is in there watching TV.  I can only be happy walking in this field
they are destroying, but the field is transforming for the laughter and cheers
of a playfield–that many families and committees and governing boards have
decided is a good idea.  How do I flex and
bend and stretch–reach for the sky.

Today I move slowly, drink lots of fluids, do what I am asked
to do, mention ideas, and release them as soon as I speak them.  How they land on the boss, the group, my
partner is not my business, in some way. 
Like the long fuzzy red seeds that fall from the newly greening spring
tree–looking like dead caterpillars–yet completely giving themselves to their
brilliant purpose of growth–and they throw themselves out to the world in
glee–or perhaps that is me–to give give and not concern myself with the gravel
road or the deep moist earth, or the bird.

I’m flexible and free for this free fall.

4-13-08

Looking for a new place to worship, I congregate with the
bushes, the grass and the trees in my neighborhood.  So, what’s the spiritual talk today, O Wise
Ones?

Create beauty.  Create
freedom.  Create a space for grace.  Especially inspiring this is such an
empassioned path.  Once addiction is
assuaged, instincts in manageable balance, how can I open up my whole person to
channel through and out of me the beauty that I am, that I see and that
surrounds me.

Attention to the idea of creation has blasted open my eyes
to the depth of potential humility.  Try
sketching a flower or a sunset.  I would
sit on the beach, paintbrush poised, colors wet and ready waiting for the sun’s
colors.  Just as she would wink behind
the purpling Olympics, I’d splash and swipe colors on the papers.  Over and over again, with each stroke the
orange would turn to coral and with another look it was pink and then a soft
pearl salmon.  Then the mountains would
take over with deepening purple to solid black silhouettes.

There was one of these fast fashioned limp paper renditions
that gave a miniscule glimpse to the beauty, the hundred-dimensional brilliance
of that moment that takes place every day, whether I am there to see and feebly
reproduce it or not.

Creating beauty isn’t about creating it, but feeling it pass
through each cell in the body–the mere attempt of trying to manipulate the
brush, which colors could come close to that gestalt of magnificence in the sky
opens a path in the body, brain and heart for appreciation of the Divine.

So the next time at the beach, appreciation is voiced “NICE
sunset!” recognizing more beauty creates that love and freedom inside that is
the pure Now of Oneness.  And today, I
work with the earth for joy in a garden, the backyard mechanics for peace in
order, and slowly move my body to appreciation of All That Is.

4-7-08

There is a difference between writing for a purpose, and
noting words along the Way.  Catching the
wonder words that come to me through the bushes, trees and birds, is like
playing lacross with the Divine.  I hold
my net alert and the juicy fruit comes towards me or near me or whispers to me
from the brush and I swing the net and catch it.  Once in my capture, it instantly shrivels a
bit.  I put descriptions on it, I quickly
tie it down to my small piece of paper, scribbing with a pen that hardly works
with sleepy eyes and tired hands.  Through
the redundant thrashing about trying to be still for truth and beauty and life
there comes a gift.

No words resemble the Divine.  It is like a child with crayons with her
first depiction of a bird–stick wings, circle inside circle of body, no eyes,
perhaps one twiggy leg.  “LOOK MOM!”  And mom hesitates, says “Wow, that’s
terrific!” In the hopes that the child names it for her.  I must expect that these tiny markings on the
screen, transcribed sometimes from small marks on tiny cards, are less than
pointing at the moon.  Look in the sky:
clouds!  My finger shoots up to the
heavens–see the stars?!?!

Obvious and ambiguous, obscure and passionate, I falter
especially when I try to explain to you rather than to sit in the wonder.  Breathing deeply, meditatively, endlessly
stretching that wombl-like country between the breathes–that s what I would
describe to you.  Instantaneous
fascination with the jewel gurgling water rapids as I pour it into my
teacup.  Brilliant timeless stunning
awareness of the mystery of the pure child’s wide eyes holding up his
motorcycle toy.  And even that sinking in
the couch, anchor-less inertia that plagues the moments between moments when
all human purpose seems hysterically useless–there, being held by the Divine
Hand, snuggled with the loving soft angels, across the table from the Friend
who allows me to dive drunk into her love–that is what I want to tell you
about.