illuminating ruminating

Life Tapestry

2009-02-18T21:43:00.004-06:00

I think that right now many are struggling. Struggling to find themselves, struggling to figure out what’s next, where do they contribute, where does their life matter. Maybe the key is we all matter no matter how much or how little we’re doing. Every interaction we have with another human being matters. Each little encounter, no matter how small, impacts the tapestry of life. Smiling at someone walking past you. Swearing at someone walking past you. Even just ignoring someone walking past you can change everything in an instant. Either for you or for them or perhaps for both.

I know the briefest of smiles can change my day. I was driving along the highway one day. Sort of numb in my life at that moment. I noticed a man on a motorcycle just behind and me to my right. As he came up beside me he turned to me and gave me the biggest grin. He just stared at me and smiled. It lasted only moments but it felt longer than that. There was something so genuine and so pleasant in his smile that it made me smile right back and just completely lightened me. It made me laugh out loud and lifted me up in some way. It stayed with me the rest of the day and I know the smile on my face from that moment influenced all I came in contact with as well. It was like passing on joy throughout the day from one smile to the next. I’m sure that man had no idea the impact he would have on me. I still remember his face to this day and just thinking about it all brings a smile to me even now and this incident happened years ago.

So maybe I’m contributing without trying. I’m sure this man wasn’t trying. He was just being himself in a moment of his own joy on his motorcycle. He passed it along to me and I in turn to others. Perhaps that’s all we’re meant to do. Pass joy on to each other and inspire each other to more joy and more self expression.

Grateful

2009-02-09T13:35:00.003-06:00

I have been lucky lately. I have had a number of true moments of happiness. Just pure joy flowing through me. Even in just the simplest of things. It has been nice to feel this. It seems like it’s been a while. I’m not sure what has brought on this new found feeling of bliss. I think it’s perhaps the high after an extended period of pain. When the pain finally lifts and the discomfort is gone we can remember who we truly are. The truth of me perhaps is springing to the surface. I’ve been reaching for this part of me but have had had trouble accessing it lately. It now seems to be flowing much more abundantly. Perhaps I’m a little more present. Perhaps I’m just free of some old burdens. Either way I choose not to question it and just enjoy this time for myself. I am thankful for being able to feel this way. I know it eludes many of us most of the time. It may pass, but for now I’m soaking in every drenching moment that I can, basking in the beauty of being in this life. I am grateful.

Still Standing

2009-02-03T22:12:00.004-06:00

I’ve been going through a lot lately. What else is new? Faced with monumental decisions and questioning my own beingness I’ve managed to grow, falter, completely fall on my face, pick myself back up again and in the end survive it all. Sometimes I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’m still standing. At moments I thought the emotions would take me over and I’d be gone for good. Lost in the abyss of something I have no control over.

The other night I came in the door of my apartment and could barely make it past the entry way before falling to the floor barely able to breathe through the hyper-ventilations and the tears. I was overwhelmed with feeling and could do nothing to stop it. It was painful and wrenching, slightly terrifying and yet ultimately what needed to happen. I think it came from deep in my soul. A fear perhaps or a terror that before this moment was yet unexpressed. It needed to come out of me. I wasn’t happy about it yet felt I had no choice. I was frightened by the pain in my chest and the feeling of barely being able to catch my breath. The sobs rolled out of me with a deep resounding sound that sounded like someone else. I couldn’t focus on anything. Finally at some point my breath returned and I thought it might be over. The tears were subsiding and I seemed to be able to grasp where I was. This moment of respite did not last long. I had barely managed to stand up and make my way into the kitchen to put my groceries away when the feelings took me over again. Swooping down on me like a hoard of vultures. I felt slightly insane and uncharacteristically lost and alone. I called everyone I knew and no one answered. I felt like I needed to touch base with reality. Touch base with another human being to calm my fears and help pull me out of the abyss I was floating in. No one seemed to be there. I don’t know that I even knew what I was afraid of. I only knew I was having trouble facing this experience on my own. Eventually I reached my mother. She managed to catch me and bring me back to my sanity. I think just the comfort of another voice who cared reminded me of who I really was and that I was ok. Although my mother and I have not always seen eye to eye in the past she and I have grown to have a great love and appreciation for each other and at this point in my life I’m not sure what I’d do with out her. She was the perfect person for me to reach that evening. Of this I have no doubt. She said the things I needed to hear and it allowed for the healing of my own demons that evening as well as for more healing between she and I. I am truly grateful for her presence in my life.

My journey on this evening from intense pain to greater clarity was necessary for purging something deep within me. I seem to have come full circle in a pattern that I have created more than once in my life. I’m hoping this is the last time that I will create this experience. I hope the lesson is learned and the healing is complete. I’m still standing and I’m still loving myself. That has not always been the case in the past. I have a feeling I’ve put myself through a little more self torture than was necessary but I think I finally got the message. I’ve been reading Byron Katie’s book “A Thousand Names for Joy” lately and in the first chapter she says ‘Everything happens for you, not to you.’ This has been a good reminder for me. I know that all I’ve been through the past few weeks has been for me. An opportunity to figure out what I truly want, who I truly am and to trust my own process. I’ve had to dig deep and trust myself in a way I don’t think I have before. I’ve had to find true love. Love for myself, love for others and love for the process of life. It has been a challenging journey but a rewarding one in the end. I’m still not quite out of the woods but I’m working on it. The emotions still flood in unexpectedly but I allow myself to feel them and let the fear go knowing all along this is still an opportunity for me. How much more can I love?

Spontaneous Writing Pt. 3

2009-01-23T20:58:00.004-06:00

Let yourselves go. Let yourselves connect to the flow. Now is a time of great awakening. If you allow yourself to step into the current your life will explode with abundance and joy. New ideas will be known to you. You will resonate with the divine. All will be well. To avoid the current brings restlessness and lack of ease. Life will not flow. It is alright but it is not easy. Allow. Allow. Allow.

It is not easy to accept these changes coming so fast. It is necessary and complete. There is no going back. Forward is the only way. The choice is yours as to how, comfort or no. Find your way inward and ease will follow. Allow yourself to be guided. Trust in your instincts. They will guide you well. Where there is joy there is right choice. All else will dull you and make you miss the mark.

Spontaneous Writing Pt.2

2009-01-21T10:09:00.005-06:00

Everything is always as it should be. Nothing is out of place. ALL moves in synchronistic order. It cannot be otherwise. You are where you are because the ALL has brought you here. You could not avoid it. Each moment leads to the next without hesitation. We are along for the ride contributing our uniqueness to the whole along the way.

What would you like to do with this life of yours? Live it or ignore it? Most of you are ignoring it. It is passing you by. Take a moment to embrace your situation. See the divine order in it. You can move within it and create anew. You have choice. The more you are aware and go with the flow the more ease and joy you will have and the more you can create.

It may seem like a contradiction these words but it is not so. All is happening as it should and all is created anew. There is choice in the flow. You chose it ahead of time. You're taking the ride you signed up for. It's supposed to be fun. Don't let yourself fear. This is never your final destination, good or bad. We hope you know all are loved, loved always, and all will return to themselves, to God/the Universe. There is no end. Endings are illusions in a 3-dimensional world. There is nothing to fear.

Spontaneous Writing Pt.1

2009-01-20T18:17:00.006-06:00

It's been forever since I've written here. The month of December somehow flew by. There was so much going on for me I didn't manage to find the time to write. I intended this month, with a new year upon me, to begin anew and get to it. Yet here I am already 20 days into January and nada. Not good. Well, I'm finally getting my act together.

A couple of weeks ago I was inspired to sit down and write. I heard in my inner self that I should write down what wanted to flow through me. I had been drawn like that before but nothing much ever seem to come out of me. This time, however, words came out in perfect rhythm with my ability to write them down. I had wanted to type it but I kept getting to do it long hand. I sat down and without thinking wrote 3 full pages on an office note pad. After I was done I went back and read it and didn't think too much about it. I thought 'well that was interesting'. But that was about it. Nothing struck me one way or the other. A whole bunch of stuff has come up in my life since then and I decided to reread the pages again a couple of days ago. I was struck by the messages that came through that I now needed to hear. It seems the words I wrote weeks ago were somehow resonating for me now. I'm going to post pieces of what I wrote here today and over the next few blogs.

Love is the key. It opens all doors. Sounds familiar. We've all heard it before at some time or another. Do we know what it truly means? Would we not heed it if we did? If we knew love would open any door would we be willing to love more? For some, yes, for others, perhaps not. What does it take to love? It takes relinquishing desire. Relinquishing fear and frustration. What if you were never frustrated? How much easier would love be? So why be frustrated? It is the absence of love.

Letting go. What do we need to let go of to love? Attachment to pain would be a good one. Let go of that and love will appear. How much do we want love and how much do we avoid it? Rather silly. The Universe offers us love continuously. Where are we missing it? We're missing it in all the doing. What if for a moment you were just to stop and be. Not do, just be. Take a breath look around, feel your skin, notice the light, hear the sounds around you. The miraculousness of it all would take hold and you'd feel the beauty of it, the synchronicity of life. The love in it all.

Praying Mantis

2008-11-28T20:53:00.003-06:00

I found this guy outside my door when I came home from a friend’s house yesterday. I had never seen a praying mantis up that close before. I thought he was pretty cool. I decided to look him up in my animal totem book just for grins. I figured he must have some meaning. I’ve never seen one around where I live before and he was smack dab at eye level right near the top of my stairs. I took it as no coincidence.

So my book says that the praying mantis represents the power of stillness. I wasn’t sure how that would relate to me until today. I have definitely had ‘ants in my pants’ today as my mother would say. I just couldn’t quite settle down for some reason. I had a fabulous day yesterday and was truly thankful on the day that we happen to call Thanksgiving. I was surrounded by friends throughout the day and was surprised with unexpected gifts for my birthday and shared lots of laughter with many different people. All in all it was a great day. I thought that I would awaken today with the same sense of contentment I had had yesterday yet that was not to be the case. I was good for a while and had some fulfilling activities to do early in the morning that kept me going but after that I noticed I was just not quite comfortable. I couldn’t quite settle into myself like I had yesterday. I began to think about the mantis and thought perhaps I needed to recognize its significance. Perhaps the way to relieve the ants in my pants was not through activity but through stillness instead. It took me a while but eventually I managed to get myself to at least sit for a bit and regroup. I did a tarot card reading for myself and in the place that represents the ‘advice card’ I had a card called ‘Patience’. Fairly apropos. I think some of my antsyness today was due to lack of patience with my life. Perhaps sitting down to write this is finally bringing the needed stillness. I’m thankful to the praying mantis first of all for being just so interesting to look at but also for reminding me that perhaps it’s important to take some time to be still.

Standing Up

2008-11-26T21:53:00.002-06:00

Well, it’s been a strange and unusual month. I’ve been asking for change and I’ve been sure as heck getting it. My goodness. Unfortunately the changes I wanted were in my outer world and it seems like all I’m getting is change in my inner world. Ultimately the two are linked and the change in my inner landscape I’m sure will begin to manifest outwardly at some point. What’s been coming up in my life lately is the theme of standing up for myself. I realize that for a majority of my life I was so busy being the healer or trying to be understanding that I would lose myself in the process. I would tolerate too much from people and put up with actions and words that were ultimately harmful to me all in the name of understanding. I think it’s only recently that I’ve seen the extent to which I have taken care of others and ignored my own needs.

I’ve finally truly embraced the notion that I can have what I want. Not only can I have what I want but I can really allow it in as well. I had an epiphany of recognizing I can have joy and pleasure and embrace life in all its fullness. With that said though it’s still been a challenge for me to speak my truth when it comes to my own needs and my well being. I can speak the truth about all kinds of other things but in the case of standing for what I want it hasn’t come easily. I’ve gotten better over the years but I realize I have by no means mastered it yet. It may be a life long journey but I’m at least making headway at the moment.

I seem to be drawing more and more experiences into my life which are forcing me to face this issue. I’ve had friendships, relationships and jobs in the past couple of years which have had this theme running through them. I’ve tolerated mistreatment for too long. This has recently come to a head for me and I’ve had to risk a connection and a friendship in order to take care of myself. I realize that if in standing up for my own needs I lose someone than perhaps the relationship wasn’t what I thought it was.

I believe if we’re all truly in our power and are doing what’s best for us than it’s usually what’s best for others around us. No matter what the outcome. It’s like that airplane deal where you put your oxygen mask on before helping the guy next to you. I’ve been living on barely any air trying to keep others afloat. If I continue I will be of no use to anyone. I think the way to greater success in my life will come from having the courage to accept nothing less than the best and what I truly want in all areas of my life. I’ve settled here and there without realizing it. Freedom is now arriving for me and it’s in the form of all my desires stemming from new found strength in being myself and letting that be good.

The Ringer

2008-11-25T21:20:00.000-06:00

Well I think I’ve put myself through the ringer recently. I think maybe I’ve done that a lot in my life. How crazy. It’s amazing the number of emotions I can go through in the span of a few hours. I’m not sure how I manage it but somehow I do. I’ve been learning a lot about myself lately. In general I’m pretty level headed and open but I see where sometimes my past gets the best of me. Fears I didn’t know I had have come to the surface. I think they boil down to fear of pain, of being hurt in some way. I think we’re all often dancing around our own pain. Doing whatever we can to avoid having any of it. Usually the sacrifice of that is true connection and love, not just romantic love but overall love. I’m one to face my pain head on if I can but I realize perhaps it takes me over before I gain control of it and even realize I’m having it. I know no one is responsible for how I feel but me, but it’s so easy to think it’s someone else causing our discomfort. Other people may be catalysts but the feelings are all our own. I know I choose how I feel because I can easily shift it most of the time. Those old, deeper feelings though are strong and can creep up before you know it. I guess the key is just awareness. I do my best to be aware and to be in the present moment. Perhaps I need to be more diligent. I have to learn to get control of my empathy as well. How come I’m still having trouble with that? It’s very disconcerting. It may be a gift when it comes to helping people but in my everyday life it can be a pain in the ass.

What Now

2008-11-04T21:34:00.003-06:00

Ok, so where the heck am I now? I seem to be in a new sort of abyss. Not one I’m used to being in. I’m calm yet I feel alone and like I’ve set in motion some events that I had no control over yet completely contributed to. It’s all a little disconcerting. I’m sure this makes no sense to the outside world. I can’t say I feel bad but there’s a subtle uneasiness. It’s not the kind of uneasiness that comes before doom. It may be the uneasiness that comes before change. Change. That has been a huge theme in my life lately. I was at a party on Halloween and they had a card reader there who said I’m going through an upheaval of change. That sounds about right. I’ve been confronted lately not only with myself but with the insanity around me. I’ve done my best to have compassion throughout my experiences but I think I might have fallen short this morning. Have I made a fatal error? Is there such a thing? Maybe the choices I made today are actually what totally needed to happen. I have a feeling that’s the case but I’m still not liking the abyss feeling that I’m experiencing. Do I have to be here in order to move forward? I think perhaps I do. Frightening as it may be I need to ride it out. I hope I have not forced something too soon or too badly. I don’t even know what that means. I guess I should just let go. Let myself float and land where I may. Let the life current carry me to where I most need to be. I think I fear loss. Loss of potential. Loss of a friend. Loss of a connection. I suppose if there was true connection there will be no loss. Events will show what will be. I must just be true to being me as best I can. Nurture myself in a time of unknowingness. I’m ready for some peace. Some love, some freedom. Perhaps now is the time of its arrival whether I am aware of it or ready for it or not.

Lost Track

2008-10-30T12:09:00.001-05:00

I think I’ve lost track of my life. I have no idea where it is. Where did I put it? I can’t seem to find it. It has all been a blur lately. I can’t say where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing. I can’t seem to keep anything straight. What is happening? Is it my heart? Is it opening in some new way? Is that causing the blurring? The lack of definition in my life? I used to have some sense of direction in my life, some path I was headed down but now it feels like I’m in some other dimension traveling many paths at once or maybe none at all. Perhaps I’m standing still. Is that the problem? I can’t quite tell. Some senses are heightened others are a little dimmer. I’ve lost track of my limbs. Am I even here? I have trouble remembering the simplest things. Names are a jumble. I have to search for productive thoughts. I am in whirlwind of sensation. Floating and falling at the same time. I am blissful yet unnerved. Free yet attached. Will I land? I am not clear.

Gratitude

2008-09-25T15:24:00.001-05:00

I’ve felt a little overwhelmed lately. Not your typical overwhelm but a whole new kind of overwhelm. One of complete gratitude. I’m not sure why it’s hitting me lately but it seems to be taking me over. I see how lucky I truly am. I am becoming more and more taken with how beautiful we all are. We all seem to be rushing here and there and just doing, doing, doing that we have no idea what’s right in front of us. Each other. How cool are we? We are these fabulously unique individuals and we’re so busy rushing past each other we don’t even notice.

Maybe something is shifting in me. Maybe my heart is opening even more. I’ve always been one to see the beauty in others, to see who they are inside rather than what they might be showing on the outside but I have to say lately it seems even deeper than that. It’s like everyone is so beautiful inside that it’s more than breathtaking, more than beautiful. We all have so much light to offer and so much love to give why aren’t we doing it more? Through my friends I am lucky enough to gain a unique insight and perspective on the world. I have a number of what I would consider pretty enlightened friends. They are all on a path of self exploration and of self expression and they are compassionate and desirous of more love in the world. They are all for ‘A New Earth’ as Eckhart Tolle calls it. Not a new agey woo woo kind of earth but an earth where all are loved and appreciated and all can be fully self-expressed and where all can be happy and safe. I see glimpses of this kind of life and it overwhelms me. We are so used to the drama in our lives and tend to enjoy focusing on it that we forget how great the little things are and how much there is around us to be grateful for.

I’ve been much more in the present moment lately too. It’s harder and harder for me to project much into my future. I think this being in the moment thing really brings one into the beauty of it all too. Just the slightest touch of someone or the sound of a friends voice or even just the color of the sky each day can take on all new meaning when we’re truly present to it. Some people may think I just have rose colored glasses on today but I don’t believe so. This state is becoming more permanent for me, I can tell. It’s enveloping me in a whole new way. I can’t seem to escape. Jill Bolte Taylor in her experience with having a stroke says that we all have nirvana accessible in our brains. I’m starting to experience what she’s talking about. It doesn’t mean we only feel bliss perhaps but what we do feel is precious in each moment. It’s time to breathe it in. Breathe it all in deeply and experience the now, experience each moment as it is. It’s pretty spectacular if we’re paying attention.

Conventions and Life

2008-09-11T14:48:00.002-05:00

So I haven’t been able to get myself to blog for a while. Call it writer’s block I guess. My life has just seemed weird. It’s not much of a description is it? Weird. I don’t know what else to call it. I’ve have moments of total clarity and then moments of feeling completely out to lunch. I’ve been managing to be more social lately. Getting myself out there in the world and connecting with people and friends. In the past that would have been enough to spark more creativity and excitement in me and yet now this has not been the case. What is going on? I feel somewhat stagnant no matter what I do. A strange feeling.

With all the convention hoo ha going on, life seems even more surreal. The republican convention particularly got me. Perhaps these things have always been this way and I just wasn’t paying attention but it seemed to me that people were being quite juvenile and putting down the other side. Well what good does it do to belittle? Isn’t that saying you’re not big enough to stand on your own merits? That in order to look good you have to pick on the other guy? It seems to be happening on the democratic side now as well. Very strange that this happens among adults. Haven’t we grown up at all? Especially by the time we’re in our 40’s, 50’s and 60’s you’d think we’d be past the name calling stage. No wonder our country’s a mess. The people running it are all children in big people bodies.

I wrote the above last week but being so out of sorts I never got myself to post it. I’m finally feeling like I’m back in the land of the living. Thank goodness! I did some clearing out of my space, including going through my dreaded filing cabinet, and somehow it triggered some aha’s that have brought me relief. I could suddenly see patterns in my life very clearly. I realized I had been creating some of the same outcomes all my life. The same thought patterns have kept me stuck for years. I thought I had broken through many ‘old ways’ in my life and I’m sure I have but I realized there were grooves that were deeper still that I was replaying and replaying. No wonder areas of my life have felt like a broken record. A friend of mine reminded me of it the other night when I was talking about my life. She said she’d heard that before. It took me couple of days to realize that she meant she’d heard it from me before! I don’t know what I thought originally. I guess that she’d heard other people say what I was saying. No it was me, repeating myself again and creating yet again a life I don’t want. You’d think I’d know better since I coach others on things like this yet sometimes it’s hardest to see our own patterns.

Anyway, it feels good to be awake and aware and to be shifting my patterns in a way that is now bringing me much more life and much more joy. I’ve been ready to move on from my past for a while now and seems the way is suddenly clear. I’m excited about it!

Lost Time

2008-07-26T14:04:00.000-05:00

My sense of time is all off. I haven’t been able to keep track of the date to save my life and even what day it is brings moments of confusion for me. I’m not sure what the deal is. The week seems to have crawled by and flown by all at the same time. How does that happen? Maybe I’m just losing my mind. Losing my mind might just possibly be a good thing. Jill Bolte Taylor the woman who wrote ‘My Stroke of Insight’ lost half her mind, literally, and found nirvana. Maybe if I lose my mind nirvana will take over. How nice would that be? Quite, I’m sure. I don’t think I’d like a stroke though. No need to go to extremes here. I think my current state may be due to the fact that my schedule this week has been all over the map. Without a sense of routine I think my sense of time went out the window. A friend of mine said that there are changes happening on the planet such that the days feel more like 16 hours long rather than 24. I have to admit that it certainly feels like the hazy, lazy days of life are over. I can’t remember the last time a day felt like it dragged by. It could be that I’m just getting older. They say it seems time speeds up as you go along. I always felt that that was because as we get older we have so much more to do, so many more responsibilities that take up time. As children most of our needs are usually met. We’re not spending our time trying to make money or trying to feed, house or clothe ourselves. So time seems to drag by with nothing to do. It seems to me even if I have nothing to do that the day flies by. Is it just perspective or is there something to what my friend said? Perhaps it’s both. Either way I think I need to find a way to be in the moment and yet still know where the heck I am.

Changing

2008-07-15T23:26:00.002-05:00

So lately I’ve been thinking about changing my life. Just completely giving up the old me, whoever that is, and starting anew. Like as if the me that led up to this point died suddenly and today is the first day of my life. Ultimately, if all we have is the ‘now’ then there is nothing else anyway. All that came before is really always just relegated to the land of thought. Who will I be now that I have no past? Interesting to ponder. If I have no recollection of previous hopes and dreams what are my dreams today? Good question. My past so often got in my way before, without it and old fears that went with it what do I want now? I have a feeling all the answers are coming. When I let myself just be, I find myself more and more in the present moment. I’m no longer lugging around old thoughts. It’s very freeing. The more present I am the more I have a feeling that life will lead the way to what’s next.

Nightline

2008-07-10T16:48:00.002-05:00

I happened to catch some of Nightline a couple of days ago. They had a story about buying a slave in Haiti in only 10 hours time. It was a sad story about many young girls who have been sold as slaves to people in their own country as well as to people in other countries. Some were sold for a mere $150. I’m sure some families think that they’re helping their children by giving them up when they feel they can’t care for them but I’m sure most of the places they go are far from better. One young girl they interviewed in this piece was beaten regularly, did house work and chores all day and slept on the floor at night. She was not allowed to attend school at all. In the end the people doing the story find her real mother and when she learns of her daughter’s fate she risks her own livelihood to save her daughter and put her in an orphanage. It’s a better place for the daughter but a heartbreaking ending nonetheless as the mother again has to leave her.

Seeing the story was sad in itself. It’s amazing to me this is still going on the world. We obviously have a long way to go to be completely civilized. I think what got me most though is the following night on Nightline, a representative of Haiti, I think he was an ambassador of some kind, came on to say that this was not how it was in all of Haiti and that this was not the norm. Well, to me that has little meaning. I think he wanted to try to save face for his country but the fact that it goes on at all, even if it’s less than an epidemic is horrifying. We as a people should be outraged that it happens even once, anywhere. I know it goes on throughout the world, even in the United States. I’ve seen articles of children, especially young girls, kept as slaves in the States more regularly than I dare to imagine. When will we all wake up and treat each other humanely? I look forward to that day. Maybe I’m an idealist but I do think we are all capable of living as one, with kindness toward one another. I’m right there with John Lennon, imagining a better world every day.

Love

2008-06-28T12:39:00.004-05:00

Love. I have it within myself. Lots of it in fact. Yet I think I spent most of my life looking for it out there. Outside of myself, in the world. I know for sure it comes from within, yet in moments I still long for it from without. I find myself hopeful of meeting someone out there to match me in love. What does that even mean? To me I guess it means connecting with someone who's willing to go as deeply as possible into love, to bring it up and out from within and share it. So many people seem to be afraid to share the thing we each want most, love. Why is that? I have so much love to give and to share. I'm learning to give it freely but I sense there are moments when perhaps I hold it back. How silly of me. If I hold it back I'm replacing it with fear most likely. How fun is that? Not much. It certainly doesn't feel good. I think I replaced the love with fear long ago because the love was not received, so it made me afraid, hurt, self conscious. I thought there must be something wrong with me. Here I had all this love to give and no one wanted it. I withdrew it and gradually the fear replaced it. Not a good trade if you ask me. It has taken me a long time to find the love I buried and it's taken courage for me to begin to let it out again. It has been well worth bringing it out again though. It's truly the only way to live. I believe it's who we truly are anyway. Love.

Plastic Filled Bird Bellies!

2008-05-29T16:56:00.001-05:00

Plastic in bird bellies. Will it ever end? What are we doing to this planet? Albatrosses are now recognizing plastic as food. That’s insane! How horrifying. On a show on PBS they showed the stomach contents of numerous dead Albatrosses and their bellies were literally filled with plastic! Aaack. They pulled out pacifiers and plastic pellets and other pieces that looked like remnants of plastic lighters. The plastic in their bellies is killing these birds. Not only does it do harm to their insides it stops them from being able to eat anything else and from being able to absorb nutrients. What a horrible thing!

It turns out that there’s an area in the ocean between the mainland and Hawaii that’s about twice the size of Texas where trash gathers and just floats on the ocean. Most of it is plastic trash. It has become a plastic soup. Birds fly over these areas looking for food and are picking up the plastic as if it were edible. Apparently a significant percentage of this plastic comes from ships but the majority of it comes from land. Why do people think they can just dump trash in the ocean? Where do they think it’s going to go? Especially plastic trash. Plastic doesn’t break down. Many plastics can last thousands of years! I wish people would wake up and think about that. We should be using plastic only on the things we want to last a long time. Instead we use it to make things we use for mere seconds or minutes. Total insanity.

Now they’re discovering that certain plastic containers leech Bisphenol A into the water and liquids they hold. In some areas the toxin has also leeched into rivers and streams and gets into the animals and fish. It acts as an estrogen and has been changing the sex of fish! Just a trillionth of a gram can cause the problem. I find the whole thing quite disturbing and frightening. You would think we would all want to take immediate action but so far these containers and plastics are still out there!

On top of everything according to statistics only 5% of plastic is reincarnated as another product. That leaves 95% of the plastic we create floating out there somewhere in our lakes, our streams, our oceans and our backyards. It’s time to sit up and take notice and think about our actions. Will enough of us do it? Will enough of us care to make a difference? If not we may end up killing more that just the Albatrosses.

Letting Go

2008-05-13T14:55:00.003-05:00

Deep letting go. Sometimes it’s hard to handle.
Not because it hurts to let go, which it might,
but because we feel different afterwards.
Sometimes the difference feels like improvement. And ultimately it always is.
But sometimes the letting go leaves us separate. No longer caught up in the drama with everyone else.
I’m free of the drama for which I am forever grateful,
but where does it leave me?
How do I relate? Where do I fit in?
Do I care if I fit in?
Sometimes I suppose I do,
but often I don’t.
I’m not quite sure how to operate in the world.
It’s an awkward feeling, like a baby bird trying to fly for the very first time.
There’ll be freedom in the flying but initially it’s awkward.
It may also be a solitary journey.
I suppose it shouldn’t matter. The flying will be worth it.

A Moment of Presence

2008-05-12T18:17:00.001-05:00

I was sitting at a stop light the other day and I saw a bug on my windshield. I knew the light would be a couple of minutes so I decided to practice just being in the moment and being present to what was around me. I noticed the bug and decided to just really look at it and see it without naming it or judging it. I just looked at it as an unknown creature, something I’d never seen before. Much to my surprise I found him completely fascinating. Instead of being turned off by him because he was a bug, which would be my normal M.O., I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was about a quarter to half an inch long and beetle like in nature. As I looked closely I could see him scratching one of his legs. Then he did some break dance moves with his head, then scratched again. It was almost endearing in an odd sort of way. He made some more movements that were dance like and quite amusing. Another scratch and a little head grooming and After about a minute he finally seemed ready to go. He lifted up what looked like four wings, almost lady bug like in nature, and in what seemed like slow motion slowly lifted straight up then took off up over my car. I was mesmerized. It was almost as if his show was just for me. Now if anyone had told me I would get complete enjoyment out of watching a bug on my windshield while at a stop light I would have thought they were crazy but I have to say the experience brought me sheer joy.
It’s interesting how things seem different when we look at them with new eyes. Seeing things without labeling or naming them changes them in many ways. If we could do that more, in all aspects of our lives, life would take on new dimension and new meaning. Everything would be appreciated. It’s interesting how much we take for granted and how much detail we miss in our lives simply because we’re always thinking and always somewhere else in our heads rather than present to what’s right in front of us. It was an interesting experiment for me, one that I intend to repeat as often as possible.

Fireworks

2008-04-23T12:02:00.003-05:00

I went to see fireworks the other day. It was part of the Fiesta hoopla that's going on in SA this week. I know that I always like fireworks but I was surprised at how much joy they instilled in me this time. I was like a kid in the candy store with free reign. I was practically giddy. It was so much fun to see each each firework explode into color. The whole audience would react together at the particularly big or fancy ones. We seemed to ebb and flow in our emotions as a group. By the time it was all done my face was almost sore from smiling so widely and I couldn't help but laugh and gush about the experience. Maybe I'm just a big dork, which is most likely the case, but I am definitely a sucker for the loud booms and bright colors of fireworks. It made me yearn for more joy. As much as I consider myself a pretty happy person I realize I could use more pure joy like that. I'm definitely on a quest for more laughter in my life. I don't think we all get enough of it.

Human Race

2008-04-06T20:25:00.001-05:00

I was watching 20/20 last weekend and they had a story about people with vitiligo. Vitiligo causes loss of pigmentation of the skin, basically what presumably happened with Michael Jackson. With him we may never know for sure but the people they showed on 20/20 proved it can certainly happen. Anyway, one women who had been born black had slowly lost her color over the years and now in her late forties or fifties is completely white skinned. What I found interesting is that she talked about being discriminated against within her own community. For her it was very disturbing. It’s amazing to me that this happened. Even though she was born African American she is less than fully accepted because she now looks white. Her husband and children are black. They implied in the show that when they were out as a family they would often get noticed and be looked at differently. You would think in this day and age any mixing of races would be at least somewhat less of an issue. The woman said she feels like a black person on the inside and still relates to life from that perspective yet is treated differently because her outsides now look different.

With Obama in the presidential race, racial issues are all more in the forefront again. When are we going to get over it and realize that we are all human beings? We are all after the same things in life. Why do we keep reliving the past and putting it in our now?

Esther and Jerry Hicks, a couple who do seminars on the Law of Attraction with Abraham, had something to say on this race issue. I found it quite interesting. In a recent seminar a black woman talked about preparing her son for Martin Luther King weekend. She said she took out a book to show him about slavery, etc but that her son seemed to glaze over. Abraham responded by saying ‘Why activate that story within him. None of it has anything to do with him. Why give him that burden to carry?’ I think this statement absolutely makes sense. It’s all in the past. Abraham went on to say that ‘socialization is an interesting thing. It’s a catalyst to identify who you are.’ In passing down our family heritages we are as Abraham put it saying ‘These are things I felt bad about and my mother before me and her mother before her and her mother before her….All of us have felt bad about these things and we too are wanting to make sure you feel bad about it too.’ Sounds crazy doesn’t it? But that’s what we are doing every time this all comes up. It’s not that we shouldn’t celebrate the good, like how amazing Martin Luther King was, but we have to stop rehashing the bad. It just makes us feel bad and doesn’t really help our ‘now’. We need to deal with what’s in our present and relate to people based on that. I know it’s not how most of us operate. We like to hold on to the past for dear life but I think the only way for real change is to let it go.

I hope that some day we can just see each other as people not as people of any particular color or race. And we can deal with each other based on the now and our actions in the now not what some of our ancestors may have done years ago.

If you’d like to hear more of what was said at the seminar mentioned above you can find a video at www.youtube.com/user/AbrahamHicks.

Car Encounters

2008-03-18T22:44:00.002-05:00

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve written anything here. My life has been a bit tumultuous lately. It all started on a Sunday night just before midnight and I was literally hopping into bed when I heard someone knocking on my door. I don’t usually have late night visitors so I was a little jarred by it. It turns out my neighbor across the street had just stopped 2 young men from stealing my Honda Civic right out of my driveway. I was shocked. I live in a pretty nice area and I had never had any kind of problems before. Apparently she had looked out her window at just the right moment and they saw her see them and they took off. Ten seconds more and they probably would have been off with my car.

I called the police and waited outside in the cold in my pajamas until they had taken all the info they needed and had finger printed my car. Of course there was no evidence to speak of so not much was likely to come of it. Finally around 2:30 I got back to bed. I was a little shaken but ultimately so exhausted that I was able to sleep. I had had to unhook the battery because whatever they did had made it impossible to turn the radio off so I wasn’t worried about anyone coming to try to take it again.

Tuesday morning the insurance guy came to appraise the situation and it turned out that what looked originally like a good bit of damage to my steering column turned out to be easily fixable. Between myself and the insurance guy we got it all put back together and the only thing I needed was a $30 piece of plastic to cover everything. I was extremely excited. I had thought the experience was really going to cost me but $30 was nothing and it didn’t even need to be done right away. I drove my car that day feeling like quite the happy camper.

It’s funny that same night I went to bed and had a slight twinge thinking maybe I should unhook my battery again in case they come back. Then I thought to myself well how many nights was I going to do that for? When would I let it go and what were the odds of them coming back anyway? Well it turns out the odds of them coming back were excellent. The next morning at 8am I opened my blinds to find an empty driveway. It makes me laugh now but I was far from happy at the moment. I couldn’t believe they had actually come back! As soon as I fixed it, it was gone. Craziness.

I had had a dream during the night where someone stole my car. It woke me up at 3:30 in the morning. I thought about checking my driveway then but I figured it was not likely to be gone and even if it was I didn’t want to deal with it at 3am. I eventually fell back asleep. Little did I know how prophetic the dream was. I think I may need to pay more attention in the future.

The police found my car within 2 days. Apparently 2 other civics like mine had been stolen the same night. They found mine and another the same morning. I was actually a little disappointed. Part of me was hoping it was gone for good. I think I just didn’t want to have to deal with it. I’m not sure. Ever since the whole car thing started something had been bothering me and I’d been trying to figure out exactly what it is. Yes, I know you’re thinking ‘well duh you’re car was stolen that alone should be bothering you’. But I have to say I’m not particularly attached to my car. In fact, not at all. I wasn’t even really worried about what parts may or may not be broken or taken. Yet, the stress I’ve felt has been fairly acute. People have said ‘You must feel so violated.” But I kept thinking to myself ‘no, I can’t say I exactly feel violated.’ I’ve been trying to ponder what I’m feeling. I’ve felt stressed and uneasy but not violated. Very strange.

A few days after they found my car I finally got a call from the insurance appraiser and he told me it will probably cost $1200-1400 to fix everything and that the car is not in bad shape. Not comforting. It turns out that all this expense is so that the thieves who stole my car could get the platinum out of my catalytic converter and sell it for about $130. Part of the reason the cost to fix it is so high is not just because they took my catalytic converter but they also left all the windows and the moon roof open in the rain overnight. The first night in months that it’s rained and that’s the night they leave it out and open. Aaack.

I tried to deal with all the uneasiness I was feeling. Nothing seemed to relieve it. It wasn’t until I got the final lowdown on the state of my car that I finally just lost it. I just got really upset. I think it had all been bubbling under the surface but just hadn’t broken through yet. It turns out that what was stressing me out was the expectation of having to deal with the insurance company and getting my car fixed and with the run around one always seems to get when it comes to car repairs. I think when I found out what needed fixing it just brought that all home for me.

And sure enough the more I feared the worst the more I got the worst. It took over a week to get my car towed to a place that could fix it and I spent hours on the phone with different insurance people trying to get everything handled. Each insurance person would tell me something a little different and then the mechanic at the shop would tell me one thing about what was best and the insurance company would tell me another. I felt like no one was particularly on my side. I just wanted everyone to do the right thing but it felt like that wasn’t happening. Eventually I decided to just let it all go. I happened to pull a card out of this deck of Universal Cards I have that said ‘Surrender’. I thought ‘yes, that’s what I need to do’. I gave myself the weekend to just forget about it. I just took time out to be still and to enjoy myself.

I think just walking away for a bit shifted my energy and I’m feeling much better now. All the uneasiness is gone. I decided yesterday I was just going to feel thankful that it’s all working out so perfectly. I practiced feeling that yesterday and this morning. I think it has worked. I went to see my car today and although it was pretty disappointing to see how bad the inside looked I was encouraged that it could be fixed. And a new person at the shop is now taking care of getting everything fixed for me and he is definitely on my side. It all feels much better. I even managed to get the insurance company to pay for a week of the rental car since they took so long to tow it to the proper place.

I think although I wasn’t particularly attached to my car. I had expectations of what would happen and how people would respond and I dreaded those expectations. I think in dreading them I drew them right to me. What a drag. As soon as I turned my energy and thoughts about it around I got totally different energy coming at me. I think I had to go through all this to really let some deep seated stuff go and to really see my patterns. I wouldn’t want to do it this way again though. I think I’ve had enough trauma for a while. Hopefully, the end result of all this will turn out to be a fabulous gift from the Universe. We’ll see!

Water Bottles and trash

2008-02-19T16:59:00.000-06:00

I heard recently on the news that we drink 1 billion bottles of water per week and that only 24% of those bottles get recycled. What a frightening thing. Where the heck are the $750,000 bottles/per week going? Are they all just ending up in landfills somewhere? You’d think we’d have plastic mountains by now. It’s almost unfathomable, that amount of bottles. And how many weeks has this been going on? And for how many more weeks will it continue? Does anybody think about this? I get overwhelmed by it.

I do my best to recycle as much as I can but I know I’m not perfect at it. What about the people who don’t think about it at all? Obviously a lot of us don’t if 75% of our water bottles alone are ending up in the trash. What about all the other bottles and plastic containers like soda bottles, detergent bottles, yogurt containers and other food containers, etc. How many of those are we discarding on a daily basis? What do we think is going to happen to these? They don’t really biodegrade.

Sometimes I wonder about all the trash in general. I used to work at a theme park years ago (in another life) and just the amount of trash that that place would generate in one day was completely amazing. And that was only a fraction of the population of this city’s population. Can you imagine how much trash just our cities alone produce every day?! Aaack. It’s amazing we have any resources left at all. And it’s only getting worse. We are a society of consumerism. More is still not enough.

It reminds me of a cartoon I saw as a kid. It had Yogi Bear and Boo Boo and Snagglepuss in it along with other Hanna Barberra characters. They were on an ark of some kind. I can’t quite recall the name of the show at the moment but they happen upon this island and the man who lives there has a big fabulous home and he offers them everything they’ve ever wanted. Fabulous food, extravagant items, etc. They’re all living it up and enjoying themselves until one of them discovers that behind all the beauty of the house and the things is this machine that’s basically chewing up all the trees and everything on the island in order to make all the goodies. It turns out there was an ugly side to all the extravagance. In the story the characters aren’t happy about it. I think we could learn something from them. Seems like we’re doing the same thing and what’s behind the scenes isn’t very pretty!

Torture and the Enemy

2008-02-17T10:59:00.000-06:00

So I heard recently on NPR that when it comes to interrogating for information from would-be terrorists or prisoners what is acceptable to the United States government is this: the pain associated with dying and or the pain associated with organ failure. Meaning that we can cause this amount of pain in order to get what we want from them. Sounds like torture to me yet our government claims we don’t torture people. I don’t know about that. I would have thought by now that we would be more ‘civilized’. Have we not changed at all over the centuries? I think people can justify torture because the one being tortured is the so-called ‘enemy’. Aren’t they still human beings? I think we have to be really removed from our own humanity to be able to torture another. Maybe we’re all just really angry and project our own pain on to these ‘enemies’ so it feels okay to hurt them.

Some might argue that we have to get the information so we can stop the bad guys. Perhaps, but don’t we become just like the ‘bad guys’ when we treat people like this? Where do we draw the line? Where does humanity end and brutality begin? It can be a rather slippery slope. I’m not sure there’s a good solution militarily speaking. The best solution is love but how does this help? Love isn’t necessarily going to catch Osama Bin Laden is it? Who knows maybe it would. I don’t think the world has ever truly tried it. There’s probably not enough of us willing to give it a go. Ghandi tried non-violence. He certainly made an impact but unfortunately we’re still hurting each other. I do believe the Beatles got it right when they said ‘all you need is love’. The key is getting enough of us to agree!.

The Big Picture

2008-02-14T08:53:00.002-06:00

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just click a button to see the ‘big picture’. As I was surfing the net this morning, shopping for a gift. I was offered the chance to click to see the ‘big picture’ of the item I was looking at. Unfortunately the big picture was a little blurry but it did enlarge it enough to be helpful. Sometimes I wish viewing my life in a bigger perspective was as easy as clicking a button. How much easier would decisions and choices be if we could see farther out? See how it affected the whole. Maybe it wouldn’t be easier at all but the option sounds nice.

I’ve been struggling with both the little and the big picture of my life lately. I can’t seem to keep them both in focus. I’ve decided that focusing on the little one, the here and now is the best bet but I have to say that fear of how it affects the big picture creeps in fairly often. What if what I do now is wrong? Wrong? What does that even mean? Is there such a thing as wrong? Maybe there are just choices and no right or wrongs. If we choose something that doesn’t work out or we don’t like we can just re-choose. So what’s the hang up? I just don’t know. Fear I guess. Fear we’ll miss out or choose badly. Well choices are what life is about. One can’t escape them. I guess we might as well embrace them. Maybe I could see how many choices I can make in a day and make it a game for myself. The one with the most choices made wins. Ha! I’d probably lose that game if pitted against someone else. They say successful people make lots of choices often and just keep choosing. Why do I struggle with that? I know when I make more choices more quickly my life does seem to flow better. Time to get choosing then.

Free Will

2008-02-11T08:57:00.000-06:00

So the topic of free will has been coming up a lot lately. Seems like a lot of my friends are questioning whether or not they have control over anything. Why is it some are successful and others aren’t? Do we have choice or is everything predetermined or better yet totally random? Yikes. Somehow I hope it’s not totally random. I actually don’t believe it is. But I have to say lately I’ve struggled myself with whether or not I have a destiny that’s absolute or whether I totally create my own reality. What if both are true? I have free will and can create my own reality but that I also follow a general path that I laid out for myself ahead of time.

There are spiritual connotations to all this. Depending on your religious belief or affiliation you might think God controls it all. Others of a more Buddhist nature may believe we are more a part of God and that we co-create. Does religion determine your experience or are there laws in the universe that are absolute? The law of attraction is a big one lately. The movie The Secret touches on that. I haven’t actually had a chance to see the movie but I’m familiar with the concepts. The movie got mixed reactions from many people. Unfortunately it seemed to focus on getting material things we want with the Law of Attraction rather than perhaps the peace and happiness we could draw to ourselves with the same techniques. I guess I can only comment peripherally since I haven’t seen it. I’ve tried some of the Law of Attraction stuff myself. Sometimes with success and sometimes not. So what happened? Is it just that some things are predetermined? Or is it that I somehow got in my own way during the attraction process? How do I know for sure? Living this human life thing can be a pain in the butt.

Running Man

2007-10-07T14:35:00.000-05:00

I was sitting at a WNBA game recently and suddenly it hit me. It’s the ‘Running Man’ right here and now. I’m living it, or at least coming close anyway. I felt like I was in a bad movie. Everything was loud and insane. The sign says scream so we scream. The video feed scans the audience and stops on people and tells them what to do. Most of them comply. We have plastic blow up sticks that we use to make sound instead of clapping. Loud piercing sound at that. Lights flash and music blares it’s a wild ride. I guess I spend too much time at home. Being out and about was an experience in sensory overload. It made me realize that the future I used to see in movies as a kid has finally arrived and scarily it’s not too far off from some of the things I wrote off as exaggerated sci-fi. I don’t know how many people remember the Running Man movie. It was one of Schwartznegger’s earlier ones. It was set in the future where reality TV was the thing of the day ( something back in 1987 when the film was made we really didn’t have). Men accused of crimes had to run from crazy people trying to kill them. Hence they were ‘running men’. I was so struck by how much I felt we were there in the movie’s version of the future that I went and looked up the movie on IMDB when I got home to refresh my memory of the film. This is what I found, very interesting if you ask me. I didn’t realized how close it actually was to what I felt I was experiencing. Here’s some of the synopsis.
‘In the year 2017, the world economy has collapsed. The great freedoms of the United States are no longer… and it has become a militarized police state, censoring all film, art, literature, and communications.’
(Hmmm not too far from the truth. Granted our economy hasn’t collapsed but somehow it seems that might not be that far off. President Bush has managed to help us along on this path with all the crazy spending on the war. Do you realize we are spending 12 billion dollars a month in Iraq?! Ouch. Well that’s a topic for another day. And though it may not be a militarized state many of our rights have certainly been usurped. People are taken into custody for less than valid reasons. Our phones are tapped at will and our internet and other activities are watched and listened into as a matter of ‘national security’. We’re working on that police state. Slowly but surely.)
‘The United States has sealed off it's borders…’
(Yet another familiar idea. Certainly something of an issue that is on the table now. Who do we let in? Do we let anyone in? Are our borders safe? What about that fence Bush is talking about along the Southern border? Hopefully we won’t ever get to the state of completely sealing ourselves off but it’s interesting that this is happening.)
‘In the police state America has become, criminals have a choice. They can serve their sentences in prison or they can take part in "The Running Man" a government owned violent game-show where contestants running for freedom are pursued by "Stalkers" wrestler-like bounty hunters. "The Running Man" is the top rating show on network TV.’
Ok, so at the moment we don’t have criminals in our reality TV shows but are we that far off from it? Right now we’re willing to subject ourselves without being criminals. We do it for money or for our fifteen minutes of fame. Is Fear Factor that far off from the Running Man? Or look at other shows like Survivor or the new Pirate show (which I don’t know much about but it doesn’t sound good). We put ourselves through torture on TV and the worst part is other people watch it! Craziness. I wouldn’t be surprised if by 2017, the year the movie is set in, we have shows where we watch the criminal or the accused fight for their lives on TV. If we don’t wake up and start taking a look at ourselves now, we could get there.

Growing up in the seventies and eighties I don’t think I could have imagined the world of today. Some of it perhaps, like technology and such, but the rest I don’t think so. I would have thought by now that people would have matured some and become more aware of themselves and each other. But a look at what’s on TV now shows me otherwise. We still have not come that far from the days of the Gladiators. We still need that spectator sport where we judge each other and watch each other suffer. Very strange.