All is well

Eleanor reclining

I spent quite a bit of time over this past weekend painting one of my favorite quotes onto a small table. I never felt like I got the font quite right, so I redid it a number of times, and each time, I felt better and better. The quote is:

All shall be well, And all shall be well. And all manner of thing, shall be well.” Julian of Norwich (From “Revelations of Divine Love, published around 1390)

There is something very soothing to me about reading and writing words with this kind of message. So today, I would love to write an affirmation for you. A book that has many wonderful affirmations is, “The Wisdom of Florence Scovel Shinn”. If you would like an affirmation, just say so in a comment, and I will choose one (without looking!) and write it back to you in a comment.

The moment I’ve waited for….

The magical artwork of Suzan Visser, “Marchen” (Fairy Tale)

There is no spiritual concept that has given me more trouble than the idea of living in the now…in the moment. The first time that I consciously remember hearing it, was when I was 30 years old and entered AA. The way that it was stated there was, “One Day at a time” and I had no idea what it meant, so I relegated it to the file in my brain labeled, “Meaningless, Stupid Concepts”. After all, if I couldn’t understand it then it must not be valuable.

This moment, always seemed so mundane, so unspectacular, as compared to what some future moment could be. Life to me was a struggle and a race to get something, and to get somewhere, better; some place in the future that was bright and fulfilled. When I tried to stay present, meditate, slow my thoughts down or drop them for just a little while, my mind would  begin to mock me with thoughts like, “You think that this is Ok? You are missing the boat. You should be doing something more. Success doesn’t just happen. You need to make it happen and you are not doing enough. What is the purpose of your life?”

The conscious mind is like a critical parent. It says things like, “What do you have to show for all the time that you spent just sitting?! You must produce something tangible, something that you can see, something that the world will applaud. Otherwise you are wasting your time and you are a waste”. If you said to it, “I watched a bird sitting on a telephone wire this morning.” It would say, “And?! Please tell me that you did more than that!” and if you said, “I did. I noticed that when a car rode by, it lifted both of its wings, as if to catch the wind, and it made me laugh”, the mind would shake its head and tell you that you were a hopeless failure, doomed to live a boring life of mediocrity.

But I have discovered that this is not true. I don’t understand the Now, but I have experienced moments, and sometimes hours of being present, and what I know is that it is vast, deep and so beyond the little minds capacity to understand, that while there, while in this state, all ideas about it being nothing, seem funny. It is heaven, and it cannot be understood with the mind, it must be felt, and as soon as we acknowledge it, it opens up a realm to us, that we had previously not experienced.

And it is right where I am, right where you are, right now.

Did you ever catch a glimpse of a flower and feel the beauty of it in your whole body? Or look at the face of someone you love and feel flooded with Love?…that is it. What we tend to do, what takes us out of this precious state, is rushing past these moments with thoughts like, “I wonder what kind of flower that is? or I forgot to water the flowers! or some other thought that seems more important…and then the mind is off and running.

We don’t think it’s enough to just be, and so we rush past the Now. We rush past heaven on our way to what we hope will be a heavenly future.

It is Friday, June 14th, 7:41 a.m. as I finish writing this. This moment is the culmination of a lifetime of hopes, dreams and love. What are you doing right now? Did you know that this is the moment you’ve been waiting for?

“Without stirring abroad, one can know the whole world. Without looking out of the window, one can see the way of heaven.” Lao Tzu

 

sanity

Fred napping (in one of my favorite spots) on this rainy morning

“Pets fulfill an incredible function that hasn’t been fully acknowledged and recognized in this world. They keep humanity sane.” Eckhart Tolle (recorded during a retreat at the Findhorn Foundation)

I was listening to an Echart Tolle CD the other day, and when I heard him say these words, I knew that I wanted to share them with you. 

I invite you to share any stories about how animals have positively effected your life.

time to bloom

The rose plant blooming inside Jack’s studio (I took the photo from outdoors)

Last year, a stem from one of the wild roses that grows in front of the studio, made its way under a wooden windowsill, and began to grow inside. All through the winter, it looked like a dead rose-bush, but Jack and I were so amazed that it had grown inside at all, that we left it. A few weeks ago, it started to bud and yesterday it was full of blooms.

Funny, when we first noticed the stem we both thought, “It shouldn’t be there. We should cut it back”, and at the same time we wondered what unspoken rule says that plants shouldn’t be allowed to grow into the house….especially if you are having fun watching them grow. What is that little voice that says, “This is wrong. It is out-of-place. Nobody else has/is something like this.”

So many times I’ve thought the same thing about myself … when I’ve done something or said something, and gotten one of those sideways glances of disapproval, and secretly thought, “There is something wrong with me. I had better tone it down.” For years, every time I left a party, I became overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and remorse, as I re-lived the conversations and happenings of the evening. My sister and I used to call it, “Post-party whiplash”, and it was hell.

I have decided that from now on…for how many days, months, or years, that I have left on this earth, I am going to love myself. All of me….even when I don’t like myself very much, I am still going to look for the perfection in my life and in myself. And I am going to love you too, even on days when you don’t like me very much, I am still going to look for the perfection in you.

No other way makes sense to me anymore…thinking critical thoughts about myself or others, thinking that there is something wrong with me or anyone,  just feels like such a waste of time…and I don’t want to waste any more time, and I don’t want to miss seeing myself, or anyone else, bloom.

“I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work with them, water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom. Till you yourself burst into bloom.” Clarissa Pinkola Estes

 

Being in the world …in a new way

Leo Tolstoy talking with his grandchildren …I just loved this photo that someone sent me the other day!

A few years ago, I was hosting a party at our home and found myself very wound up, so much so, that If someone had asked me where I was energetically (and if I could have stopped long enough to really check in with myself), I would’ve felt my energy very concentrated in the front of my head, in “little mind” (thoughts fraught with tension). Being so locked in mind, I was almost completely unaware of the larger dimension of myself, and only vaguely aware of anything or anyone else.

I was in “git er done” mode, and my mind was fast and furiously telling me what to do: “Take the cheese out one hour before everyone arrives.”, “Dress the salad, no wait, it might get soggy, let people put their own dressing on.”, “Make sure you clean the bath tub (in case someone pulls the shower curtain back to check).”, “Vacuum. No, let Jack vacuum”. “Hey where is Jack? He seems to disappear when I really need him!”, “I can’t stand doing this all alone.”, “I need help!”, “Jack never helps.”, “This is indicative of the larger problems in our relationship”, “We really aren’t partners at all.” …..”Our marriage is in trouble”, ……on and on and on.

The mind, when allowed to run the show (our lives), is like an insane ringleader trying to run the circus. I’ve dealt with it by staying completely captive of its demands and trying to fulfill each one to the letter (and ended up wiped out by the end), by deciding to detach myself; not do anything that brings up those feelings (with the resultant feeling that I was on the side-lines of life), and finally, by trying to stay present wherever I am, and whatever I am doing.

I used to be quite close to a woman who was very talented, creative, and also had this intense desire (like my own) to make things perfect. She chose to retreat almost completely from the world. …and I knew why. This “thing” that emerges when we take on an important project or event (that is very meaningful to us) can feel like a monster. We hate the way we feel when we’re in the grips of it, and we think it is the event (or people who our mind has told us are the cause of the current problem) so we want to get rid of the situation or straighten “them” out, and find ourselves saying things like, “Never again!”….and truthfully, it can feel easier to avoid it..and after a little while, we begin to believe that we’ve conquered it. But we just haven’t. It has just gone unchallenged. It is still there, and we think that it is the real us. And we fear it.

But it isn’t us. It is a part of sleeping humanity’s consciousness, and it is a part of our experience until we begin to wake up. And just becoming aware of it, it loses some of its power over us. The more we stay present (out of compulsive thought) during experiences that challenge us, the more we stay in touch with what is happening within us, the more we wake up to the real Self, our Divine Self. The Self that can be “In the world, but knows it is not of this world”. The part that is aware that we are something much greater than these flesh and bone bodies who eat, drink, talk, think, dance, sleep, and plan,…so we can eat, drink, talk, think, dance, sleep and plan in new and better ways. In ways that bring Light to everything we touch with our hands and with our minds.

“Sometimes say softly to yourself: ‘Now…now. What is happening to me now? This is now. What is coming to me now? this moment?‘ Then suddenly you begin to see the world as you had not seen it before, to hear people’s voices and not only what they are saying but what they are trying to say and you sense the whole truth about them. And you sense existence, not piecemeal–not this object and that–, but as a translucent whole.” pg 53, from “If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit” by Brenda Ueland (published in 1938)

Nothing to prove

Eleanor under the kitchen chair

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” Soren Kierkegaard

My brother emailed me this quote yesterday. He knew that I would love it. I’ve dared quite a few things in my lifetime, some of them turned out to be wonderful, some, mini-disasters, but I’ve learned more about myself from all of them, and as I think back on the difference, what I know is this: when I acted from a positive longing for more Life, when the action (or decision) felt like it was coming from a deeper part of me, even if the action itself seemed quite risky, like skydiving or doing a firewalk, the end result was positive. And when I was doing something to prove a point, or show someone, or I was in a low, disempowered state, the results were not so good.

Years ago, I was dating a man who I knew in my heart wasn’t right for me. But I wanted him to be so bad! One of his complaints about me was that I was too needy and too dependent, so one day, I took a trip to the White Mountains by myself to hike. I remember my motivation: to prove to him that I was independent and that I didn’t need him (hoping that this would make him want me). I was uneasy the whole time.

About a mile into my hike, two men came up the trail behind me and I could feel that they were trouble. I ran ahead and hid in the woods about 50 feet from the trail. I thought that my heart would explode inside my chest, I was so scarred. They milled around the area (where I entered the woods) until some hikers came up behind them, and when I saw these hikers, I almost flew out of the woods, surprising everyone, and asked if I could join them. The two men did not continue their hike but turned around and went back down the trail.

This isn’t about making rules like, “You should never hike alone.” It is not the activity itself, it’s how we are feeling about it in the moment, that guides us to good or bad decisions. I’ve learned that my inner voice always guides me to make those right decisions and if I am in doubt, I need only look at my motivation, and check in with how I am feeling.

Don’t do anything to try to impress anyone. It doesn’t work. Don’t do anything to prove to others, or to show others, that you are not afraid, or that you are really something special. It doesn’t work.

Make decisions about your life from your heart, and you can not go wrong.

 

Brightening the path

It was 90 degrees here on Saturday…and Noah napped the day away

A very good friend of mine is about to move to Maine. She and I have talked about moving for the past couple of years, and now her dream has taken concrete form, and she is stepping into it. Since the day that she first described the kind of place she wanted, I began imagining her and her husband riding their bikes to the ocean. That was my prayer for her.

It has surprised me when people (who know what good friends we are) say, “Aren’t you upset that she is leaving? Won’t you miss her?”

No, I’m not upset …actually the opposite. I am truly delighted that she is living the life of her dreams, and I don’t think about what life will be like her without her, because she is here now. I try not to imagine unhappy futures for myself or for anyone else. I also think that our conversations would feel like a burden to her, if I believed that her move was a loss for me.

Every person who follows the Light of their heart’s desire, brightens the path for all of us.

“Loving your neighbor means not to limit your neighbor in word, thought, or deed.” Florence Scovel Shinn, (1871-1940)