angelbirdflies

This dance of life has long been a conundrum to me, the ultimate zen koan. I tried hard to make sense of it all...to understand...to comprehend...to manage...ah yes... and to control... until something quite wonderful happened.  I came to the undeniable truth that I can't.  Whew!  In fact, that's the great comedic relief to the whole dog and pony show.  It's beyond our thinking.  We can lean into life, trust it and surrender. Not in some great sweeping, once-and-for-all enlightened " Aha!   I got this"  but in the ordinary moment-to-moment, leaning back into life. We can drop the opacity of self and embrace the unknown with all the hot messiness of our own misplaced longing. After all this time, all these books, all these workshops, all this practice and all this seeking it's humbling to admit that it's just not that complicated.  It doesn't require years of ascetic devotion or my poetically, pious pretense masquerading as " I'm gonna get...

True love is like the love of a parent for a child: even though you feel frustrated at times, this love is constant. It is similar to life, which might drive you bananas at times or be really nice.  This love is beyond the good moments and the difficult moments, which continue to happen. When you have awakened to this love that transcends every good and bad moment, a radical revolution occurs in your relationship with life itself.  This is a love that has no opposite, such as hate, but is present through everything, in all moments.  When you realize this, it is a revolution because, when you see that this love that you are loves the unlovable, loves what you're not supposed to love or what you were not allowed to love culturally, and is not paying attention to the separating rules of ego, you realize this is a different kind of love.  ~ From:  Emptiness Dancing , by Adyashanti. 

“Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.”     - Eckhart Tolle

We can experience countless sunrises and still fear the unknown darkness, lurking in the hidden recesses beyond our visible encounters.  Every day we experience the sun's birth afresh and fears are relegated once more to the periphery.  Yet in the dark of night, when our senses are blinded by the limitations of our perception, is it possible to lean back into the unseen, unknown and trust that all is well.  All is well. Gautama Buddha is credited with saying, "Be a light unto yourself".  Perhaps if we linger in that uncertainty, when all our senses are screaming for proof, and rest, even in the midst of our fearful imaginings, we will find ourselves self-luminous.  Lighting our own way in the dark. Perhaps.

I used to live in  A cramped house with confusion  And pain. But then I met the Friend And I started getting drunk  And singing all Night. Confusion and pain Started acting nasty, Making threats, With talk like this, "If you don't stop 'that'--- All that fun--- We're   Leaving." - Hafiz

Now That All your Worry Has proved such an Unlucrative Business, Why Not Find a better Job. - Hafiz

When I was very young, I heard a story and it goes something like this: There are two birds that fly over the deserts of California, the condor and the hummingbird.  If you ask the condor what the desert is like, it will describe death and carnage, blood, rot and decay.  If you ask the hummingbird what the desert is like, it will describe flowers dripping with sweet nectar and an unspeakable beauty hidden everywhere. Life is like that.  We find exactly what we are looking for.  We think it's the other way around.  We think it's random and "happening to us".  But the lens of our particular perception changes everything we see and all we experience. We literally find what we are looking for.  But we can't trick the looker.  All our positive thinking-new age-psycho babble doesn't focus the lens, our beliefs do. Life isn't "out there" happening to us.  It is in here, happening in us. If that's the case, perhaps we can stop our victim...

Nature is sanctuary... home... life. When I am surrounded by the natural world it is easier to discard my sense of pompous separation and acknowledge my interconnection with life's many disguises. When in nature it's ridiculous to assume a Pollyanna approach to its brilliance, waxing on about its kindness.  I know that I don't understand it. I know that I must remain open and alert to the possibilities arising in each moment. Nature demands respect and careful observation. Nature demands that we come to our senses. Literally. And practice once more our neglected sense of: smell as the scent of pine, wildflower, rain, moose, earth and wind speaks its olfactory dialog with our nose.   taste as our tongue receives the fresh tangy air of a pine forest.   hearing as we silence our cellphones and internal chatter long enough to listen and hear the rustle of wind in trees and the various sound each plant and tree and flower makes as it moves in conversation wit...

Three of my best best reasons for smiling throughout the long days and warm nights are as follows: Bodhi, nature and our beloved little dog too... and then there is just the big joy of SUMMER.  Ahhh.

Listening is loving. If we listened with our whole bodies, what might we hear?  With our senses, with our hearts and with our presence?  You can not actually deeply listen and think at the same time. Stillness and yet openess.  Spacious benevolence. Love.

Nothing good can be lost." - Steinbeck If that were the case, how might we live differently? I'll tell you one thing for certain, I'd sure as hell let go, lean in and rest back a whole lot more.

"What is love but the acceptance of the other, whatever he is." --  Anaïs Nin  to Henry Miller I have been contemplating love, real love and not just the "feeling" of love, for a long time now. Most of us are infatuated with an ideal of love or "mate" and not with human beings.  We set up arbitrary parameters saying, "I will love you if... or as long as...".  These parameters provide an artifice of safety from which we expect our beloved other to protect us from all the many unpleasant feelings arising within the scope of intimate interaction. When our ideal of other does not coincide with the fact of other, we unabashedly turn toward our beloved  with a vengeance, prepared to crucify him or her for imperfections and abandon our beloved, thirsty and trodden underfoot, along the dusty path of disappointment.  Joseph Campbell wrote,  "Perfection is inhuman. Human beings are not perfect. What evokes our love – and I mean love, not lust...

We are always growing.  I have decided that I prefer to grow without bystanders shouting their suggestions in my ear or throwing shit balls at me promising compost.  But we are always growing.

The heart hides in folds of thought, belief, protections and projections.  It hides its spendor in the dark of it own making and mistakes the darkness for reality and "necessary". Then we open, sometimes just the smallest fissure in the veneer of self, and our undeniable splendor breaks free.  

Bodhi celebrated his half birthday on June 26th (a fun bonus of having your birthday on December 26th).  To celebrate we hiked in our mutual wonderland of nature and enjoyed cake and Bodhi's favorite noodles for supper upon our return. As he ate his Ramen noodles and extolled the many virtues of said noodles, Bodhi looked askance at me, "I LOVE salad too!  I wonder what Ramen tastes like with lettuce in it?"  He tossed in a few chopped leaves of romaine, stirred and tasted.  "Nope.  No good mom.  I guess some things taste better on their own and not so good when they are mixed together." Bodhi was quiet for a minute, thinking.  Then he said, "Mom, people are like that too.  Some people are beautiful and fun but when you put them together...bleh.  Owen and I are kind of like that.  We don't mix well but we are both good on our own."  He quietly contemplated a moment longer, before turning to me, "Mom, you just haven't found a ...

Sometimes we need to look after the flower of our lives by adopting a different perspective.  Tonight as I talked with two dear friends they shared a fresh vantage, full of love and respect.  It's easy to take for granted the impact we have on one another.  Don't.

Yes. As is. As you are. As I am. As this arising moment is. Yes.

I'm just finishing Jess Walter's wonderful beachy read, Beautiful Ruins  and I ran across this timely quote: "All we have is the story we tell.  Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-- what we believe-- none of it is real; it's all part of the story we tell. But here's the thing: it's our goddamned story!...No one gets to tell you what your life means".   No one gets to tell your story.  We/I devote so much to energy to who  you/they/he/she think I am.  We/I try to improve upon or manage that perception.  In truth that's letting everyone else write our personal story.  The picture above is the outside me, the one carefully crafted with hopes to please, the me you see. The picture below is a rudimentary sampling of what I actually see.  I don't see me from the outsiders perspective. I see life in all its wonderful and terrible disguises, all the time.  What inane purpose ...

I was rather dreading a departure from Hawaii and my beloved God parents and my return to normalcy.  I came home and daily life descended, as I knew it would, with its occasional loneliness and regular responsibilities.  For a few days, while Bodhi was with his Dad and Owen gone for the summer, I moped.  And then I looked around.  WOW!  All the spring rains have turned my home into a lush paradise, complete with variations of green and floral bounty to rival any of my haunts on Kauai.  Beauty is literally all around.  And now that Bodhi's laughter once more fills our home, moping has been all but forgotten. And small adventures fill our days... like bike rides to the gym, trips to the market, neighborhood walks, stumbling upon one stranger after another who generously open their lives and hearts to us with the warm friendliness of summer. 

Back from Kauai...ahh.  What a way to start summer.  Sand, sea, love, family and a long deep exhale.