The Notion

Metaphorically, most of us discard some things to keep hold of the other things in our arms, be it a lover, a toxic friend, a hobby that's been outgrown, bad food, whatever...the importance of what you currently cradle is greater.  But, as we amble or race (however you choose to move) along our journey, those discarded things can be found glinting on the side of the road once again.  Certainly, picking up an old lover wouldn't be considered a good thing, nor the crappy food that we kicked to the curb

But, some things perhaps they call as a small voice; not heard as a sound but a notion.

Even as I sit here, I am hesitant; do I have the will to pick up with this blog again?  Haven't I said everything I wanted to say?  Who the hell is interested anyway?

In my arms, already a life filled with growing children and their activities. My time is spent ferrying them places, or exercising, cooking, cleaning, working...certain things that weren't so significant when I started this blog.

I've not forgotten entirely what it is to be spiritual or mindful because there are moments, sporadic moments, when I ask "Am I still here?" and the affirmation floats up with a, yes, I Am still here.

So, why am I here?  I don't know.  The notion to come here has popped up several times over the past few weeks, so today I decided to use my lunchtime wisely and try it out again; to heed the notion instead of brushing it aside.

Perhaps it's a call to be creative again since that is most sorely lacking in my life.

Oh look, there it is - Creativity.  Glittering on the side of the road.  I can pick it up but what do I discard to make room for it?  Do I need to discard anything at all?  Can't I have it all?

I'll see.

Slowing down outside the comfort zone

Sometimes an opportunity comes your way that from first glance, appears to be a forced hand. You feel as if you have no other option but to take it; staying in the current situation would be far worse in the long run. So, you grab the hand that's offered and fly with it.

Some time passes in this new realm and you are actually rather enjoying it. You are challenged every day to think differently, to work differently, and to behave differently. You are learning and doing things that you thought were far beyond your capabilities. In fact, for much of your adult life, you laughed at the prospect of doing just this kind of work because you believed yourself not to be intelligent enough in the field.

You spent all of your life maybe, preparing for this sharp turn along your journey. Perhaps a lifetime of rushing headlong, of acting first and thinking later, of jumping without looking just wore a soul out and now it's ready to take its time. Certainly, this new direction calls for thinking things through. It might take a little time to get used to but you are fortunate to have the support of some really great people who had the foresight to find the person who would fit, rather than the person with the qualifications.

The only downside is the lack of time for the creative side; writing and theatre have to take a backseat. When you ponder that, you're not as disappointed as you thought you would be. Well, perhaps a little melancholy because you have so many efforts sitting out there waiting for more words to be added. You believe there will be time in the future to revisit but for now, you are content with everything in your life. You are fine and settled and just right with your world and everyone in it.

Time to cruise outside the comfort zone.

Living in Echoes

I read something recently, some piece of advice. I can't for the life of me recall where I saw it and I will have to paraphrase, for I really just have a feel for the meaning as opposed to the words, but it went something like this:


"When we have a memory, particularly a painful one, we tend to live it as it actually just happened, or is happening. We play it out in such a way that we harness the emotions and run around with them which causes the pain to feel as it did when the original event happened. It would serve us better when the memory surfaces (as they always do, there's no way around that) to let it sit and try to feel for it as a jumping off point to something better.  Instead of it being a portal to pain, remember the benefits that came from it, be they immediate or some time after."


Ok, so I totally embellished what was probably just a one sentence affirmation, but you get it, right? I mean, who hasn't ridden that crazy horse time after time?


"Letting it go" isn't an easy thing to do. You can fling it away but it'll come back like the ball attached to the bat. You can hide from it, but it will still be there drumming its fingers on the dining room table waiting for you to continue feasting, dejected, on the scraps of the past.


But, what a concept to be able to see the event, the memory, to view it as if it were a screenshot from a movie. The moment your heart broke when he/she called it quits.  The last evening of your beloved restaurant. The day the realtor stuck a For Sale sign in the front yard of the house you could no longer afford to keep. Anything like that, any hurt moment...grab it and face it, look at it, don't run, don't hide.

Then know where you are right now, who you are, and how far you have journeyed from that moment.

Getting caught in echoes from the past is the easiest, least resistant thing we can do.  If you want to prolong hurt and anger in order to keep searching for answers, or to fool yourself into thinking that there must still be work done before the pain goes away, that is your choice.


Wouldn't it be a more compassionate thing for yourself to see the positive of the now; the benefits of lessons learned, even the most difficult?


Take a deep breath, because those echoes will just keep you in ever decreasing circles, and that's no life for you to be living.

As You Are

My daughter is going swimming with her classmates every Wednesday for the next four weeks.  It stirred memories of a time when I was in my teens, and on a similar outing with my schoolmates. Swimming with classmates wasn't a usual occurrence so being on view to everyone in very little clothing was embarrassing.  I wore a bikini, in which I felt wholly uncomfortable, as if my body was simply a mannequin.  Certainly my soul had shrunk into the darkness of a tilted awareness.

In those days, I was aware only of my pale skin, my thin ankles, of the knobby bones on the backs of my feet, of the bump in my nose, and my hip bones. Parts of me magnified by my peers and reflected onto my already shattered self-esteem. I remember sitting at the side of the pool, arms huddled around my waist in an effort to appear smaller, less noticeable. The only reason I had bought the bikini was because my next door neighbor had one in the same design but in nicer colors; blues and purples. I coveted hers whereas the colors of mine were like true leopard spots and I didn't really like it; I felt exposed.

Growing up, I'd ask my Mum if I was pretty, and she'd always reply that I wasn’t chocolate box pretty, like Lisa Miles, who was classically pretty and popular, but that was it.  No explanation as to what "chocolate box pretty" meant.  It took me a long time to grow into my face; like an ugly duckling. I was never convinced by my Mum’s words. Not that she meant any harm, perhaps she didn't really identify with my teen self. There's a whole story there about generational happenings but I won't go into that.

So, my daughter comes to me this morning in her swimsuit which is a little low cut in the front but is okay for an eight year old. I make sure it still fits since it’s winter and the last time she wore it was in the summer. It fits just fine but she tugs at the top and is concerned about revealing the freckle on her chest. I give her a big hug and tell her that it’s beautiful. That she’s beautiful. From the brown fleck in her iris, to her chest freckle; it all makes her unique and gorgeous. She gives me a big hug and skips away.

Among the benefits of age is wisdom. I’ve grown into myself so much that I’m able to accept the bumps and bony bits as part of me, and I love them because they make up the whole, and that whole is pretty amazing. In a world where judgments lurk in the shadows on magazine covers, or commercials, or on social media, it’s important for my daughter to know that she is wonderful just as she is. She may not be chocolate box pretty but I would never tell her; it would be a chink of doubt in her otherwise fierce soul. She needs to know for herself that she is beautiful no matter what marks or quirks she has, and no matter what her peers may tell her. And if I can help build her esteem then I will tell her truthfully that I think every single cell in her body is absolutely wonderful.

My son is a little harder to convince but I’m working on that.

Shall We Dance?

Like the cunning wolf, Ego hangs out behind the treeline calling all the shots; handling us like puppets. We wonder why we think and say and do the things that we do.

This warrior has been resting on her laurels a fair bit lately, allowing the Soul and Ego fine chances to duke it out but this morning I ripped up their unspoken contract into tiny pieces and decided to begin again.

And that's the wonderful thing; there are no wrong turns or endings; the choice is ours to come and go into and out of the soul. If a warrior has done any prior work, they simply pick up where they left off. There's no feeling of drudgery or having a blank page to fill up once more, because the journey was already started.

There's an anticipation in returning to this phase; feels akin to awakening from hibernation. I look forward to present moments, allowing thoughts without interaction, and quality time on the cushion.

Accepting the wolf and the shadows within is a back and forth dance. And I seem to dance fairly well.

 

Welcome Home.

The thing I loved to do became a burden. It was time to push it behind for a while, let it curl up like a tired cat to sleep. In time, it will have been rejuvenated, will have shorn its tiresome aura, its toxicity, and I will be able to love it once more.

Now I can focus on the spirits that matter. I can support, and be there. It's coming home and it's most welcome.

I brought out my cushion (which is actually a giant stuffed monkey) and got down into myself for the first time in a very long while. Almost immediately after the timer bell rang, fat words drifted up to say Hello and the smile on my face stretched from ear to ear.

It was wonderful, and so reassuring to confirm that I am always there even if the ego drags me this way and that.

“This body is not me; I am not caught in this body, I am life without boundaries, I have never been born and I have never died. Over there the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies. All manifests from the basis of consciousness. Since beginningless time I have always been free. Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out. Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek. So smile to me and take my hand and wave goodbye. Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before. We shall always be meeting again at the true source, always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Death, No Fear

My husband says I am an enigma. He looks at me quizzically. "You're intelligent," he says, "and yet, you believe in chakras and stuff." I love him; he is the practical, realistic one. I am the intuitive one, and a believer of the teachings of many spiritual guides. We balance each other, my husband and me. Eleven years of mawwage tomorrow and how fucking wonderful it is to be right where we are with each other. After the rocky slopes; the slippery slopes, and the glaciers of silence, we are the most connected right now.

Welcome home.

Collectively Speaking

So I read another headline (they're everywhere) with words that serve only to kindle fear, panic, and irrational reactions. By all accounts, the world is in a complete tizzy and it's coming from all angles and sources; above ground, underground, in the air, from the people, by the people...and on and on.

Imagine this....imagine when we've come to a crashing stop for whatever reason. The Earth no longer supports human life or animal life - except maybe the cockroach; it seems pretty hardy. But not mankind. Imagine collectively, the human race's mind as a light entity drifting up to wherever to face some sort of judgment, to look back, to fully realize the enormity and breadth of its existence; its impact, its awesome power.

I like to think that collectively, mankind might feel remorse and think, oh yeah...the mindful stuff, the Love and Peace stuff.  Huh....maybe we should've done that instead.

In that state, I don't think there is any other way to feel. Above the sphere crammed with bodies, its gravity stuck with its flesh and bone population, it is only then that we certainly, definitely feel peace, love and absolute awareness.

I am a bystander. I observe angry people in their cars, hackles raised, ugly faces, boiling blood reactions.  I read trolls in comments whose only purpose is to stir up hatred and volatility. There was a time when I would have jumped right in with them and had my say; flung criticisms at complete strangers to fuel the anger. I have hopped in my car seat like a hot bean at other drivers, and on more than one occasion informed them of precisely how I felt by way of a finger, or a look, or an aggressive driving maneuver.

Now I am older and wiser.  Not meditating anymore, and often forget to be aware, but the work I've done in the last few years has laid a lasting foundation of love, peace, hope, harmony, mindfulness, and ironically, forgetful awareness.

Maybe all who have passed are simply circling the Earth in another realm, all-knowing that there is no deity, no idol. All that exists is pure consciousness and they are biding time until the human race is devoid of that flesh and bone.  Perhaps then, everyone that has ever been in all of humanity, alive and dead, will come together and the light in the Universe will shine so brightly that the darkness mankind created will be revealed.

Perhaps, even now, in the midst of so many crises and horrors, we are gathering knowledge to take with us to another place, in another time, in another dimension, and in another form.

Hopefully we will go there with a better blueprint.