Here and now is the place to start.  To watch the light open up the day.  Dawn birds chatter and wake the forest, then quiet to do their daily business.   A leader reveals the light, the Tao, the How, the Way that the flow is going.  The chi of life does indeed flow.  With or without us.

But sometimes the flow is slow.  The light is dim.  The birdsong is very soft.  My practice then is deep listening.  Quiet watching.  Simple moves.  Tentative actions.  The silence is revealing and filled with stories.  It takes much time for them to sing their tragic songs, play out the drama and drop the curtain.

Practicing the Presence softens the nothing.  Comforts the numbness.  Soothes the soul.

For more deep quiet slow silent open hearted listening.

A small community in the Pacific Northwest mountains was buried in a sudden mudslide.  And the rain keeps on pouring, the river swells, debris covering homes, families and small town life.  No one seems ready for death.  It is so distracting.

But it makes life so so sweet and precious.  Thank you Oso for the reminder.  Whether driving in my car, sitting with my dear friend, or making a meal–each moment is brilliant with the trembling vibration of good.  My quiet empty moments in this small apartment are filled with new meaning.

There is no avoiding the slide, the crash, the missing plane.  I surrender.  I surrender.  I surrender.  And allow much time to sit and stare at the trees.

I am so glad to be here and now.

Weird being human.  The mind gives so many illusions of power and control.  But there is no way to unfold life faster than it flows.  Spring takes time to warm, winter only slowly chills.

It is that morning story when it looks like nothing is happening that the earth is warming, roots sneaking deeper into new soil, the wet mist loosening up old resistance.  But the human mind is stubborn and puzzled.

Let it flow also means “leave it alone.”

Not sure what they are good for.  Maybe expecting the unexpected, accepting the expectations being way off.  All plans are a gamble.  What an ongoing practice it is to just gently set a foot down, lean into it with my weight and pick up the other foot in anticipating of it going somewhere next.

Tai chi stepping.  One step at a time–not even 12 steps, but one.

When I’m so used to planning a dance for others, keeping focus on just. my. next. step. is a combination of release, surrender and absolute rest  in the nothingness of right here. right now.  Clicking keys.  Crows.  Colorful afghan. Cozy morning.  Gentle rain.

Loving Pema’s note today: The trick is not getting caught in hope and fear…just go forward with curiosity, wondering where this experiment will lead.

Adventure.

Sometimes change is a choice.  Sometimes it is not a choice, but a sudden helicopter crash when a dear one dies at work.  Or a wrong turn and disablement for a year or more.  Or a tiny baby changes everything in the family.

Good changes can bring grief if I’m observant–changes of the past come to haunt me.  Changes in the future whisper horrible threats.  So much of it in my head.

Watching with gentleness and curiosity–what a practice!

Every morning I ask myself-how am I centered here and now. What roots me here, despite my daily ferocious drive to dive into some kind of heaven.

My question is often prompted by change. Do pure spirits never feel change? Why does it cause turmoil? My dear brother removed a pesky ad virus from my computer–hurray! But now it doesn’t connect right.

today is about deep acceptance and anchoring to the gravitational pull of Divine endless constant sweet omnipresent touching eternal personal love.

So focusing on an intention can aid that dream to fulfill–especially if action shows the proof of willingness.  Feeling and a concerted thought naturally yields reality.  Consciousness creates form.

It seems like we are all standing in a brilliantly cool river–the Flow, the Tao the Force–and set our little toy sailboats on the current.  Towards–??  Not sure.  We can’t be at the beginning of the river and at the end.  Maybe that’s good–just to create a little paper boat and watch it sail, not worried if it sinks or flows forever.

The point is, perhaps for me, to create the intentional boat of my chosen horizon.  Which current do I want to sail?  I might want to get across the Sound, but in a sailboat that will tack back and forth.  Reminding me that it is the journey, not the destination that is the little sailboat of this human life.

As Hafiz says so well: Me and God are like two big fat people in a tiny boat–we keep bumping into each other and laughing.

Gentle with the sore muscles–in my body and in my heart.  Stretched because of tai chi and fear of a sick baby.  Tender apprehension of arguments trying to hide new fears.

My resolution to befriend my fear–giving up fearing my fear–for lent reminds me that the divine finds ways to allow this exercise to take place.  Argh!  Ok, how about I enjoy life and give up fear blocking the way.  How about if I give up melancholy for lent instead.  Then when melancholy knocks at my door, I can invite her in without much of a fuss.  Fear is a bit nosier.

But whether the clamor of fear or the soft whine of melancholy, I hereby root myself in goodness.  Good mess.  Goo ness. The sweetness of Your Presence, like a perfect meal, a fabulous movie, a brilliant sunrise, a dear friend.

True love lives.

Ah, but the fear is such a noisy wave.  Filled with stories from the mind of death, destruction, drama and trauma, it is hard to be still in the midst of the STORY of a storm approaching.  Hard to see life anything but preparing for sadness.  all because a new precious life beings.

The human dilemma–life so precious, death so finally sure.  The joke that birth is just death turned inside out, and we celebrate birth endlessly and prepare for death with such a dull heavy weight.

Gentleness and awareness as the pond waters swirl.  It might just be a spring breeze.

Now that I’ve resumed a tai chi class, I can feel the healing in my muscles because I ache the next day.  Some people get this the day after a good gym workout. Funny how we observe these aches and say “wow, that was good for me.”‘  But when someone leaves our lives, dies, or doesn’t “love” us any more, the ache is not so welcomed.

Polarity is one of the natural “hows” of the universe.  What goes up, comes down.  A cold seasons shifts.  Leaves fall and grow back again.  Trees are tall and strong.  Then they fall.

It is amazing to me how the tiniest of organs, the most fleeting of and impossible to identify places, the mind, can create a completely different universe: I will eventually be completely happy.  Someone will love me and my life will be perfect.  I will come into a lot of money and then I will feel secure.

Hilarious.

I sit in ache.  I hear the birds of dawn chattering at a new day–again.  Nothing is happening except the clatter of the keys.  And all is well.  As it was in the beginning, is now and after.

So it ever is.