We are born again and again and again.  Renewed each moment with our choice.

Funny thing about wearing glasses, it truly is a small shield.  Losing eyesight corresponds to slowly wanting to fade away from the cold hard facts.  But the paradigm holds that at any time I can get new glasses onto the world. 

Perhaps a higher power is like a pair of glasses.  Oh Sweet Ganesha, I beg that with your magnifying vision, I see only the best of everyone I meet.  Dear Adonai, give me your eyes that I see but the beauty and blessedness of all creation. To the Deva of Mt. Tahoma, I bow to your highest vision above the clouds.

Thus I switch glasses as often as I notice that I my sight is blurred.  When I forget where you end and I start, when I am struggling to mind read what it is you are doing, on occasion when the fog settles on my chest like an old cat in front of my face.

Just like that first time I donned my specs, I am flabbergasted, delighted and amazed at seeing each individual brilliant leaf on the tree of this life.

Standing like a tree, rooted and reaching at the same time.  Allowing the wind to caress and move me as the spirit does, bending and sometimes trembling.  Leaving seasons behind me with a colorful flair, despite that days sometimes turn brown and brittle, melting into the sidewalk of banality.

Still saplings line the street, forgotten bushes rise up thrilled for air and soil.  Thus I chant through the hours, breathing deep to watch for the very smallest next indicated action to alight on my arm like a surprising ladybug of good luck.

The highest spiritual principle is that there is nothing to do.  “Being” a human intertwined with Gaia’s brilliant body is the ultimate divine delight.

What to do when feelings rise up from the gut through the chest pounding through the heart, catching in the throat, drying out the mouth and watering the eyes?  A whole life dedicated to avoid feelings now naked and vulnerable when these nasty ragged flags block all views.

Today is sadness.  No visible sign of cause, just little forgettings, imaginary anxieties and mourning myths.  I was taught by example that feelings were not allowed, that they messed the house up for all of us and caused conflicts.  We didn’t want to see how deeply unhappy my mother was or how charmingly irresponsible my dad was.  They too, taught so very well by example.

So today I want to be one of those stubborn glowing yellow leaves that grip to the slender branches, determined to stay bright and waving, ignoring the fall. 

Or perhaps they are ready and excited to soar.

Crazy time to move so slowly and go so fast.  Hello and poof–goodbye.  These are more examples of the illusion of duality, while polarity can not be denied.  There is this linear movement we postulate from seasons to seasons, visits, lives, jobs, friendships–here again, gone again.

But as Krishna said to that despairing young man before battle: None of you have ever been born and none of you will ever die.  Go out there and be the best warrior you can! 

Enjoy the fray, thrill to victory, anguish to defeat!  We are all on the funway riding on the spectacular variety of twists and turns of rollercoaster, ferris wheel and/or bumper cars.  whoopeeee!

Today I watch with wide-eyes.  I stand still for the heavenly show, directed, cast, designed and produced by the Divine within me!

Cycles, seasons, here-there, then-now, none of these involves the illusion of duality.  But being human, I feel tossed back and forth on the pendulum of polarity.  Human-spirit, happy-sad, anxious-calm.  And they tell me that this is the “struggle” Siddhartha spoke about, the wobbly shopping cart wheel that never really goes away. 

My practice is to sing to that wobble and laugh at the fear.  Fear and excitement, actually, have the same physical symptoms: fast breath, stiff limbs, hysterical laughter, wide eyes.  I am so thrilled to be looking for another job.  I am trembling with adventure to go each day to the place where I have been dismissed to smile at those that just smile at me.

Astounding to feel the conflict, like a tense playoff game–working so hard to get to this level and being declared unfit to continue, watching the rest of the team play with an inexperienced coach, and my preparation for joining a winning team elsewhere.

I stand in the I Am.  I am the ease I seek.  I am the peace that shines from within.

There is this very well-known teacher who started every one of His miracles with “raising His eyes to the heavens, He gave thanks and broke the bread.”  Poof, thousands of people were fed and satisfied with seven baskets of loaves and fishes. 

The secret throughout that story–and so many other stories of brilliant sages and devas–is that to start a miracle, we give thanks for the FACT that it is already done.  That satisfaction is now, never in the future.  That being filled up is here, not over there or in the past.

Thus do I set these seeds of completion in the sweet rich soil of here and now, all that is, the eternal I AM: Thanks for the wonderful new job where I am surrounded by passionate and appreciative people working every day to improve the world with the most thrilling of my talents.  I celebrate that my relationships–friendships, lover, partner, children, siblings and acquaintances are better and better every day, deeper and relished.  I am grateful for the hope in my country that springs forth endless fruit and harvest.  In rooted thanksgiving for the comforting Presence that chatters in the leaves, bows from the branches, stands powerful from the wide wooden trunks towering above me.

And over and over and over and over again for Her Love, Her Hand, Her Smile around me, throughout me, above me, beneath me; closer than my skin within me.

Ha, like a cow, I would live my life in a wild field graceful in green brown chaos.  Arches of full red berries, fruit unfit to eat-ripe robust and perfect.  Leaves golden turning brown–easily. 

Cold is just cold.

Lichen-laced trees, scattered flags still flying, applause the cool autumn wind.  Signs of spring nestings in bare trees, songs from wintering birds chattering from hidden holds.

Bushes making cozy briar walls.  New life, end life, green healing, brown leavings–ease in all seasons.  Winter is just a sunrise, sunset cycle here.  There are no tears of change.

But I am a human tree now, beset with feelings and a discerning mind.  I must yield to seasons, but not be stiff and rigid.  I bend.  I bow.  I dance.

Verbatim, from a walk on the Way:

The Way is clear, it is my faith that is foggy.

Step in shit; the smell will fade.  The soles will return to hold mere dirt.

The sky is brilliant.

I am warm. I am brilliant, shiney & beautiful.  I am smart.  I am filled still with ease.

The forest seems so fragile since the leaving.  Ideas and demonstrations so staunch are now transparent.

It is before She rises and after She rests that the sky blushes.  Anticipation and gratitude.

It is in bare trees that nests of hope and faith reveal themselves.

Clearing is a cleansing.

The heavens send a sudden season and there is a leaving.  A bare cold feeling without that greening.  She hides within bare branches and covers herselv with ice and snow.  Roots deep in the soil soul grasp the hidden comfort.

My challenge today–and always–is to listen.  It comes from a word meaning list, and to hear.  Lots of time I think I’m listening, but I’m making my own list rather than hearing that being spoken in front of me.  If you listen long enough to someone, you can hear the fear squirming and hissing beneath the stories.

Instead, I have been hissing and complaining, spilling my fear out so much that other people have tripped over it, got caught in it and finally said “enough.”  Thus, I’m looking for another job.  “Job” is another hypnotic story, and I intend to be still and listen to my heart more than the screaming “shoulds” in my earth-bound mind.

To sit and let the wind go through my hair, to hear the whispers of the Divine from the person in front of me, to love and feel the love bounce bak to caraess me–that is my chant today.