Flowing dreaminess

My life seems to be working in reverse today. I awoke when I fell asleep and in waking, I am dreaming. What I am experiencing has that liminal quality of the sweet space between sleep and wakefulness: grogginess, ease and contentment.

I was up earlier than anyone and settled into a cup of strong coffee and prayer. The candle flame nudged me in and my gliding pen and journal were ready to capture the moment. My heart was filled with gratitude for this place of deep joy. As if I had detached and really begun to see my life, all of its blessings, and that the frustrations and difficulties only make it richer; that hardness hides a bounty.

I understand that the adversity in my life emanates from two sources: myself and my journey. I am learning to surrender the difficulty I wreak, discovering the doubt and comparison are ego’s inventions to keep me trapped and beholden to it. I don’t want that life anymore. I want my life; to live authentically as only I can. I desire to follow my path, not the path parts of me think I should walk because it casts me in a better light, nets me greater success or wealth or would look good to others. And, as my true path becomes clearer, though usually only one step at a time, I sense that it is the road less traveled. That is it a more difficult path, but one that will shape me as Spirit desires and bring deep joy as I travel toward wholeness.

Dreaming/pastel on paper

As the sun was shedding its rest and my body began to quicken, I lay with important messages filtering in and out. I’ve forgotten the details, but not the residue nor their importance. I jotted this in my journal:

This place of rememberings, of snippets of dreams, I was feeling them, knowing their truth. Not sensing worries as if that had been my auto-pilot mode. Waking as if to remember because I had forgotten. Forgotten that I have a good life – a VERY good life. Something shifted me beyond the reach of everyday worry. Like I regained something that I had lost sight of … remembering freedom and not being confined by fear and worry … even the uncertainty in my life seems like a gift. I have new eyes; eyes of appreciation, gratitude, possibility, love and creativity. This is being present.

The idea of spiritual gifts has been on my heart and mind as I prepare to lead a workshop touching on the subject next month and have drafted a proposal for a full-day retreat this fall. I am uncovering my gift of healing, experienced its presence during the Quaker mystics weekend and am experimenting with directing it within. I resonate with the wounded-healer archetype and can tap its resources best if I fathom it within myself first. It’s much easier to listen to someone else’s wounds when ours have been [ad]dressed.

After journaling, I read the daily Henri Nouwen devotion, another part of my morning meditation:

Becoming Food For the World 

When Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, he summarized in these gestures his own life.  Jesus is chosen from all eternity, blessed at his baptism in the Jordan River, broken on the cross, and given as bread to the world.  Being chosen, blessed, broken, and given is the sacred journey of the Son of God, Jesus the Christ. When we take bread, bless it, break it, and give it with the words "This is the Body of Christ," we express our commitment to make our lives conform to the life of Christ.  We too want to live as people chosen, blessed, and broken, and thus become food for the world.

I have felt chosen, blessed and broken on my journey. Now, I am ready to be given as food for the world.

• How do my dreams [in]form me?

• What truth have they imparted?

• How do I experience the liminal space between sleep and wakefulness?

• When can I detach from fear and worry and see my life as it really is?

• How does that stir me to gratitude?

A quiet house

a single cat

wafting cup of coffee

candlelight and

a chilly July morning

appreciating the

little things

time with God:

heart to heart

believing in a

new gift, born of

pain and experience,

faith and abundance

recognizing the beauty

in my life, like being

cured of a gripping

illness that rendered

me absent

this flowing

dreaminess is the

reality, unlike the fear,

panic and constant

comparison

  

Listen to this post:

Presently detached

Listen to post:

Not only am I beginning to see my life as a metaphor, I am experiencing it that way and I wonder if this is real detachment.

This perspective of symbolism has been eeking its way in for awhile, providing crucial insight and helping me be more the observer in situations where I am too enmeshed. Now it's occurring in real time as events unfold and not merely as I look back. Take my 53rd birthday party, for example. Out of the blue, I decided I wanted (needed) a party and asked my husband and best friend. They were more than willing. And when my spouse asked whom I wanted to invite, I e-mailed him a most impromptu list. In hindsight, I recognize what a gift this was: inviting people I really wanted (and who were available and nearby as this was last-minute) and none out of obligation or responsibility.

I basked in the wonderfulness of this particular group during the party as they intermingled, some never having met before. I even remarked that it seemed like a dream because, how, otherwise, would this specific collection have come together. I was detached and able to see how each person there has brought her/her gifts to my life and the difference in me that has made. It touched deep gratitude in me as I have been nurtured in some way by each of them. Perhaps that was the nudge to request such a party.

Removing oneself from a situation and viewing it metaphorically improves context and clarity. As a trained journalist, this has been a tool I have often applied to others and situations outside my own. As a marketer, it is typically easy for me to visualize and map a path for another company. In journaling, I have learned to do it looking back on my life. And, joyfully, in the present, I am able, perhaps through grace, to use this perspective now ... sometimes.

A new group I am attending is about accompanying the dying and we are collectively discovering that learning this type of companionship is also learning how to live. I think it, too, weaves in the detachment/objectivity factor and looking for the patterns in our lives. If we can delve into the shadow [and what greater shadow is there than death?], then we can explore all parts of ourselves ... even the ones we know least and fear most.

The ah-ha moments seem to happen more frequently and on deeper levels in this observer mode.

Yesterday, for example, was my regular shamanic-counseling session. I floated in on the wave of a wonderful birthday and spilled that in reading a book on button pushers, my biggest foe is not human, but the psychological and physical trap of fibromyalgia. A passage in the book suggests that we often let our button pushers control us and BINGO, that's when the hairs stood up on my neck and I understood my feistiest controller.

So, of course, being with such a wise and loving shaman, we went deeper and I received a very important revelation, one I realize will take some time to sink in, process and open to. Afterward, when it was time for bodywork and before my therapist (lucky me that my massage therapist and shaman are one in the same!) returned, I felt a physical presence lay hands on me and then a warm, gel-like layer permeate my entire backside, causing tingling and comfort from my toes to the base of my spine, even in the palms of my hands. This was no metaphor. It was real and it was healing.

Currently, I am sit resting in this, but I sense some form of detachment led me here. I am grateful.

• When have I experienced detachment?
• Has it been a process or rare flashes?
• What role do I believe grace plays in that?
• What am I currently processing or sitting with?
• How can I nurture my own openness to detachment?


so easy to get stuck
stuck in what is right ahead


like I live with blinders on


repeating the same thing
over and over and wondering
why it's happening again


then something lifts
me above and I see


everything differently


and either the path
becomes clear or


I see a destructive pattern
that I can now mend or
an old habit I can abandon


and I am eternally
grateful

When God's magic unfolds

Listen to this post:

Coincidence, karma, sychronicity or grace? I'm not sure what this is, but it's really happening and, I wonder, if it has something to do my my purposely attempting to live in the present. Well, not that I have  much to do with it.

• Last week, after days of deliberating, I sent off a package to a place I would love to work, where my gifts and interests would be a definite fit and I would like to be. Friday night, as we were having dinner in one of our favorite spots, the person to whom I addressed my package was sitting a table away. I approached him, mentioning I'd just sent him a large black portfolio-type envelope that could not be missed. A free-spiritied conversation ensured, ending in my writing my name and contact information on a scrap of paper (I really think had I had a business card with me, it would have looked planned or like I was stalking him) for him, agreeing we'd connect after he got the package.

What are the odds?

• Yesterday, after clipping a newspaper ad out about 10 days ago, I attended a retreat workshop based on some spiritual teachings new to me. A Quaker friend introduced me to the practice about six months ago, or I would not have noticed the ad. I go, enter a bit late and look around to see a former language teacher from my high school. I sit where I can find a free spot and, soon, we are asked to shuffle ourselves. This is a workshop on change, after all. I gravitate to the table where this teacher is and introduce myself. She remembered me, though I was never her student. During a small-group exercise, I extraneously spit out I have fibromyalgia. I am really here to clarify my vocational path. "Let me tell you something," she says at my interjection. "I had fibromyalgia for 12 years and spent a year with a message therapist deeply working all of the negativity out of my body. It's gone now." I almost have no response because that's about how long I've had it. "I used to laugh at it and say, get out of me," she adds, A few minutes later, we are asked if our original intention that we jotted down on a notecard has changed. My hand involuntarily shoots up and the speaker points in my direction. "I am now realizing my has thanks to a comment from a group member," I announce. A shiver runs through my body as I recognize God has called me here for something bigger than vocational change. She has placed me here in a step toward healing. I exchange e-mail addresses with this teacher and we pledge to stay in touch.

What are the chances?

• I also remember several weeks ago searching for a book, one I have meant to read for 10 years, but seems so pertinent now, among my Quaker meetinghouse stacks to be interrupted by the hired minister who "happened" to be holding a just donated copy of exactly the book I needed.

How probable is that?

Do these things happen all of the time and yet we are only aware in rare moments? Do they happen only when we are opened?

Last week during one particular lap swim, I glided effortlessly the entire 44 lengths. That's rare, but I especially noticed and felt like I was encountering the wonderful flow of the living water. Usually, it seems like such a struggle. But my recent mantra has been one of acceptance and detachment, no more fighting and envying what I don't have.

Is that the difference? It's hard to know which is life and which is dream, but I'm not sure it matters as I am in a lovely space: the present.

• When have I felt swept up?
• To what do I attribute that?
• When has sychronicity played a role in my life?
• How was I opened in that time?
• What keeps me open?


accepting what is
not fighting it


is not the American way


we fight for what we believe
we fight for what is right
we fight for our God-given rights


we fight all of the time


addressing a past grievance or
one we perceive may happen


past and future


we don't learn the secret
of living now


when we do,
God's magic unfolds,
sweeping us along

NOW I've WON

Listen to this post:

I am being stripped. No, not because it's summer, although the thought is appealing.

I am being stripped to my core, I believe. Stripped of health, career, income, identity and ambition to name a few. Not easy things to lose in this culture. I have fought tooth and nail to cling to those standards and yet leave they must. The fighting and holding tight have only made me miserable. I hadn't understood this until I've taken my time to read, revel in and contemplate Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks.

Today's passages focused on suffering and that the light can only fully shine through when we are free of psychological suffering and the mind-made ego has been dissolved. Within the stillness of witnessing another human die and totally giving into that natural transformation, realizing there is nothing to do, we receive the benediction of peace.

The end of suffering, Tolle writes, is living as if we choose whatever we feel or experience. What a radical thought. I've been bumbling around in victim mode, cursing my woundedness. I have tried to practice gratitude and see the silver lining, but it wasn't until today that I realized why I should accept whatever surfaces: because I can't change it, only my attitude and the pain it causes. If I can detach and become observer and not live so rooted in my bodily pain and mindly story-spinning, I can free myself of so much dead weight. Namely, my ego. I have so completely convinced myself that I am irreversibly damaged, when that is so far from the Truth. That's my egoic trap, miring me in the self doubt that has plagued and paralyzed me.

I am not my body or my mind. I am something freer, more connected and eternal.

Years ago when a friend of my parents' mentioned at a wedding reception she didn't feel anything like the 70-something-year-old face she saw in the mirror, I didn't understand. I have begun to since. Part of me is blossoming while the other is withering. Actually, my body is not withering, aging, yes, but not withering as I have projected. I swim a half mile almost every day. There's no way I ever could do that when I was younger. Maybe I didn't experience pain then, but I wasn't pushing so hard and, honestly, things were more lubricated. But I was asleep.

Physical pain woke me up and set my course. Then my mind chimed in and I have been trapped in that endless loop. Now, something outside and within has awakened and wiped the tarnish off the mirror so I see the role of ego more clearly. I choose not to participate in that ruse anymore.

If I stay in the NOW, I've WON – my new mantra.

• How does ego rule me?
• Where am I trapped?
• What have I glimpsed of freedom?
• What has been stripped from me?
• To what do I cling and why?


take it 
take it all 


it's not mine
anyway 


the desire and envy
jealousy and drive


my identity or the constantly
spinning story in my head


I only want
what's now


the place I am
connected

Stingy geodes and broken soles

Lesson for today:
Don't attempt to dislodge a geode from where it's probably been embedded for centuries.

Or you'll rip the top layer off your boot sole and it'll flap all the way home in a mocking rhythm of "leave me alone" or "told you so," negating your intention of a silent walk.

And I had thought the rock was just there waiting for me to choose it and pry it free. Silly human! Guess it desires to keep its secret contents just that.

I had not given much thought to geodes since I was a kid until I met and heard Quaker singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer at a fall writing colloquium in – where else? – Richmond, Indiana. She has a unique way of looking at the world, distilling it into song and pulling the listener in immediately:

"Some say geodes are made from pockets of tears,

Trapped away in small places for years upon years.

Pressed down and transformed, "til the true self is born.

And the whole world moved on like the last notes of a song,

A love letter sent without return address ..." [link to Carrie below]

That stubborn old rock is a wonderful metaphor and just imagine what it has experienced in all of that time.

Not only experienced, but absorbed and observed as it sat in silent detachment. I need that silent detachment periodically and it's the reason I am spending a week away, by myself, holed up in a beautiful condo in the woods, by a lake with more amenities than I need thanks to a very generous F/friend.

I did not even open the front door for the first 40 hours, just immersed myself in the silence and returning to edit and refine the book I desire to publish. Such a luxury: to only look after myself; leave all of my notes, journals and papers strewn about; work my derriere off; take a break whenever I wish; and return at any hour of the day or night. OK, so it's really only my second full day and I may be climbing the walls in another 24 hours or so.

But, I don't think so. I want to remember and emulate the lesson of the rock. I desire to be the detached observer, finding my natural body rhythms warped by the holiday push and return to my work on my terms and not in rushed snippets of time.

I was ready to explore the outside natural world this morning and find winter hikes exhilerating as the world seems more dense when quieter, hibernating and less cluttered with people. The morning's colors were striking as I walked along the lake: geodes and sedimentary layers in rusts and russets, bumped up against bleached branches resembling animal skulls like a Salvador Dali painting. And a steeling blue-green-gray lake etched with powder. The styrofoam debris and discarded, corroded pipes marred the serene canvas, yet are part of the package and a reminder the lake is man-made for flood control.

Control? Man in control. That's what I am trying to lose while I am here. I wish to be guided by the Divine and not my worldly urges and motivations.

Perhaps that's another lesson of the stingy geode: I could not possess it.

• When was the last time I picked up a rock and noticed?
• What did I experience?
• If I think about it, what lessons do rocks have for me as an adult? 
• When I was a child?
• How can I become the detached observer?


Past the garages
down the stairs


along the worn path,
littered with a limp lawn chair


and finally to the lake


with a narrow passageway 
around its perimeter


suspended in ice
dusted with sugar


uprooted trees provide
fairy haunts


a surprised bird brushes its wings


and I call an apology
for upsetting this
natural balance and silence


but I see I am not the first
nor will I be the last


yet I am grateful for
this taste, this escape


even now sitting
at my monitor
remembering,
savoring,
sharing


To hear Carrie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqL2MZaor4k

The grounded gypsy

I have a new friend who, as I write and, perhaps, you read this, is on her way back to British Columbia from Indiana. She's either on a bus or train, I'm not sure. Neither was she when we parted from the writing conference yesterday.

She cobbled her way to the conference by ferry, sleeper train and fortuitous ride on the fly. Her plans to drive with someone fell through last minute. Somehow, I know that didn't faze her.

I told her she was a gypsy and she didn't argue. She has an untethered, ethereal quality about her, which drew me to her.

My life seems anything but ethereal and untethered most of the time. Kids, appointments, schedules, projects, etc.

However, the past five days at a rather intense spiritual writing conference allowed space and time for detaching and freedom. To the point that, about halfway through, I had to ask what day, specifically, it was. I didn't have to know or, really, even care. Meals were provided (including all sorts of gluten-free goodies like brownies, cookies and muffins I usually must bypass), a schedule was available, I had a comfy bed at a nearby 17-room Victorian house and there were beautiful grounds to traverse anytime. A paradise of sorts.

A paradise for hard work and harder lessons, which would never have occurred in my normal life.

The work of finding clarity for the next step of my life by examining the experience of others, searching my soul, seeing a plethora of possibilities, winnowing that list and settling in to what truly fits me right now. It's only with a day of perspective that I can begin to unearth some direction. There's so much swimming inside my body and mind that needs to calm, dissipate or be expelled. For me, it's not a mental process, but more of a bodily one. There was a lot of talk at the conference of embodiment. I know I physically take things in, so this spoke very deeply to me. Now, I need to unload and only keep what is mine.

A tough challenge.

So while I might prefer to be ethereal and untethered as I have been, I must ground myself to incorporate the conference experience within the context of my daily life. Another opportunity to balance the inner and outer worlds. I find the only way to do that is to take a periodic break from the grind, truly detach, then come back refreshed and, hopefully, in a different place.

I think my new friend has figured out how to live that inner-outer balance with regularity. She's a wonderful model of the grounded gypsy.

• When do I detach and untether myself?
• What happens when I do?
• How does that shape my life as a result?
• What is my inner-outer balance and how do I tend it when it becomes lopsided?
• Is there someone in my life that can be my model or guide?


Push, push, push
rush, rush rush

get this done
and that

write it down,
mark it off

it feels so
mechanical

as if I'm at the
mercy of some
sinister plan

that will eat
me alive

unless

I step
away

take a
time out

regularly

turn that
blasted
machine off

and myself
back on


ahhhh ...
so much better

Simply act and let go

Yesterday, we packed up the car and the kids and headed out for a winter hike. There’s something so peaceful and removed, for me, about hiking in winter. I think it echoes my spiritual life this time of year: I tend to hibernate, draw inward and percolate.

I haven’t always been in tune with those spiritual and bodily cycles, but now that I am, I enjoy the seasons (my own and nature’s) more, knowing it’s only temporary and I should extract as much as I can now, for this time is fleeting.

First, we walked around a pioneer village with an old Quaker meeting house, and stumbled onto something called the spirit village, a place where someone recreates ancient Native American life. I felt more comforted there than peering in the windows of the meeting house (I was on the outside). Perhaps that’s because we entered the large lean-to hidden in the woods and the sacred long house.

From there, we crossed the street and found a trail that looped through “old woods” and down a rocky, craggy peninsula to a scant beach and lookout. The small coastline was ao alluring with it’s foreign landscape: dried-out overturned trees, icy waters silently swirled around weathered trunk knobs (this lake had once been land), white sand and minute, muted pebbles. It was otherworldly, much as the whole hike had been. The only (wild)life present were an occasional bird, a lone fisherman skidding his canoe through the broken ice to a more remote area and one couple, chiseling a heart in the sand.

It was a place of detached beauty.

And the lesson I took is one of detachment. No matter what I am called to do, I must simply act and let go of any result. I learned that years ago in a meditation group when we read the Bhagavad Gita. But it’s so much easier to read about than to practice.

There’s a wonderful story I often think of when I resist that detachment:

In 1954, during President Eisenhower’s tenure, the Fellowship of Reconciliation launched a campaign to pressure our government into feeding China by symbolically flooding the White House with bags of rice. We did not aid China and the mass act seemed like a failure until a former press staffer confided that when cabinet members urged bombing, the president walked to the mailroom to see how much rice had been sent. He concluded too many Americans held a concern for China, so bombing was out of the question.

Amazing, huh? Often, we may never know the result.

• What are my attachments?
• When have I been able to fully let something go?
• Has there been a time when I did see an end result that confirmed my action(s)?
• Can I use that as an example the next time when I need to release something?