angelbirdflies

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.

The lotus generally grows in mud or mirky waters but it always flowers fresh each day.  Perhaps all the pyscho-babbling-spiritual-mumbo-seeking-reaching-efforts to transform aren't necessary.  Perhaps, we can just surrender, knowing that there is mud and there's always going to be mud. Life is as it is.  And still we bloom.

I was recently asked why I blogged or engaged in a continual reflection on my thoughts or feelings.  Wasn't I at least a little ashamed to indulge my continual, narcissistic, self reflection in a world full of genuine need, suffering and pain.  This came at a time when I really had nothing left to battle with. I went belly up with shame.   My old answer didn't suffice.  I no longer blog for the same reason  that I once did.  There wasn't an adequate answer.  Shame asked, "who do you think you are to put your thoughts, ideas and writing out into the world?" Brown  defines shame as the "intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging".  Shame kicked my ass.   I thought of deleting the blog.   I felt ashamed of who I am, how I think, how I feel, how I live.  I came face to face with my own darkest self. Who am I to occupy space?  Who am I...

"The moment you see how important it is to love yourself you will stop making others suffer." -Buddha Perhaps we can stop treating ourselves like the enemy.  Perhaps we can stop focusing on the problems we see, because, let's face it, everyone has them and they tend to sprout new heads the moment we slay them.   Perhaps we can simply examine how we approach ourselves and learn to do it with some space, some kindness and YES love.

On the trail when I see a sign like this, I don't stand in dismay, staring at it, wondering what I might have done to warrant its closure.  Did I walk too vigorously?  Did I stray from the trail?  Was I too frequent or unusual with my foot traffic?  Ridiculous.  No.  I just find an alternate route and keep walking.  I trust the closure for it's own sake.  I look for emerging wildflowers.  I befriend the trail, as is.  It's time to apply the same logic to my life.  When a relationship ends.  When a shift happens.  When a trail closes.  I don't need to examine myself to the nth degree.  I can just see it for what it is.  Trail closed.  And walk on.

When I was nineteen I forced myself to sleep alone in the woods, far from civilization, once a month for a few years (weather permitting).  Then, one early morning, as I lay there wrestling with my fear it dawned on me... "I'm afraid of being alone."  It was that simple.  I got up, packed my bag and never slept alone in the woods again.  Twenty two years later, after several relationships and heart break, as I lay in bed wrestling with the dark I realized, "I'm afraid of being alone".  I can't just pack up my sleeping bag this time.  But the same compassion finally overtook me and I turned with loving kindness to the woman and said simply, "I know".  

Therefore, steal, or still, the echo, so that you don’t allow an event, however unpleasant or momentous, to claim any more time than it took for it to occur... What your foes do derives its significance or consequence from the way you react.  Therefore, rush through or past them as though they were yellow and not red lights.  Don’t linger on them mentally or verbally; don’t pride yourself on forgiving or forgetting them — worse come to worse, do the forgetting first.  This way you’ll spare your brain cells a lot of useless agitation; this way, perhaps, you may even save those pigheads from themselves, since the prospect of being forgotten is shorter than that of being forgiven.  So flip the channel: you can’t put this network out of circulation, but at least you can reduce its ratings. Now, this solution is not likely to please angels, but, then again, it’s bound to hurt demons, and for the moment that’s all that really matters. -Joseph Brodsky I re...

How do we love ourselves when we are at our most unloveable? How do we open our hearts with compassion to our own ardent stupidity and love ourselves anyway? And not turn toward some unsuspecting OTHER in the hope that they will alleviate the pain associated with coming face to face with our own shadow?  Or hide from it with our distraction of choice, meditation, exercise, do gooding or the host of others employed by humans across time?  In that fierce darkness, when all of our external brilliance has forsaken us and we stand naked, bald and exposed before the condemning mirror of other, can we in that bleak moment offer up a spacious presence for life as it is, right now.  Shaking and uncertain, I stand on that precipice expanding my heart large enough to hold me, unloved or unloveable, exactly as I am right now.