Tag Archives: no mind

The Canvas is Everything; The Paint is Whatever You Can Find

26 Dec

We are visiting my parents in Georgia.  Yesterday while Chloe read The Great Gatsby for school, Eden and I found the concrete basement wall in the ping pong room to be our Canvas.

fullwall christmasday

The room was full of music from Eden’s Pandora station, snacks were brought by supportive grands, and we felt the freedom of no mistakes, no problems; being humans with paintbrushes is a blessed thing.

edenandflowers

basementflowers1Lots more to go, of course.

“Spiritual love is a position of standing with one hand extended into the universe and one hand extended into the world, letting ourselves be a conduit for passing energy.”  Christina Baldwin

At 46, I’m the assistant to the great energy running through this girl.  This morning she is on to writing a play and wants help with that…I’m happy to observe, support, allow whatever energies are coming through.

I am learning much about the spiritual connection of humans and making things from my daughters, but also from this path walking friend.  From the way M presents her food, to her beautiful creations, to the words and art she puts together, to the possessions she chooses to keep, to her human interactions… divinity is expressed through this vessel!  This insight then helps me see the divine in all of those around me, in their unique expressions and creations with the matter and form given to us like play dough in this kindergarten world of ours.

The arena of creativity was one of the first places I experienced the no time of the present moment.  And learned that the end result is not the point at all, the process is the dance:)

Also, a broad and messy thank you to whomever stumbles here and to those on whose blogs I’ve stumbled…Grateful for the dance we are all sharing here in this corner together.  Namaste.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Burn This.

19 Dec

Is there anything more important than remembering?

no.

Sometimes in the presence of grace, memories of egoic responses are a movie I watch about me as someone else from a distance.

 Last night after two days of intense looking at the cold, harsh truth through one lens (Where does one turn for help with teenage angst that won’t offer Zoloft as a solution?), I couldn’t help but “zoom out.” (Phrase borrowed from a teacher sublime, btw, Neilkramer.com…for another post!)

Still, here I am.   I am walking through the grocery, smiling, while the circumstances wouldn’t warrant that response 🙂

I fall in love with a cold lemon and the way it fits in my palm.

 A man with a froggy voice wishes me well; we share love through our eyes and I pass it on to the woman behind the plant counter which takes her by surprise!

All the while, I don’t remember my story.  I seem to let all unfold as it will – in this grace.  This grace will become a constant – is the constant, though there is still forgetting.

Burning up seems a sort of tragedy in one way, but these fires are gifts sent to me for just that purpose.

Just this and to realize that lemons are very sexy 😉

Amazing interwoven thread of connection from a wise and loving sol.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

12-12-12: Time to Get All Woo Woo

12 Dec

Image

Woo woo:  adj. concerned with emotions, mysticism, or spiritualism; other than rational or scientific; mysterious; new agey. Also n., a person who has mystical or new age beliefs.

I spent years dwelling in duplicity; I was attracted to tangible manifestations of the world unseen while I presented an outward persona of scientific rational scoff at anything skirting on the edges of verifiability.

The shedding of identity is so lovely in that nothing is sticky.  When beliefs are not required, openness allows the mystery to enter and gently unfold itself to one’s observing eye.  And still nothing sticks. No explanation needed.  No need for the adoption of a new woo woo identity or cloak of new age mumbo jumbo.  The seen and the unseen exist together; we can tangibly observe this with open eyes…and flash photography 🙂

My daughters have had some challenging years of late: divorce, discomfort, boat life,  stigma,  bi-polar papa, to name a few off the top of my head…A little behind the scenes aid might have been in order.

I took several photos of Eden on her birthday last fall on a late night walk around the marshy areas near our home…and her unseen protective (perhaps) forces were all about.

Image

This shot is taken in the pitch dark.  The shape of this flying light beside her seems like a butterfly, but the thick body seems to defy careful definition.  Then this same shape appeared in a tree a few weeks later.  Flying bats and insect appear in my photos all the time, but they do not light up like this, they reflect the flash back dully…this entity appears lit from within.

Image

I have named this light Eden’s farie.  Eden is loath to have a woo woo mama, but will ask to see this picture every once in a while, perhaps to validate to herself the forces that are around us everyday, watching, strengthening, guarding…who knows?

Just to add a bit of rationality…when I think of the full range of the light spectrum that we have discovered compared to the limited range that humans are able to perceive unaided, the existence of  “things’ outside our awareness no longer seems woo woo, but inevitable.  Just to over-think it 🙂

Woo woo, yes, but also simple exploration lovingly held in the open hands of wonder.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Quote

On Being A Human Guest House

10 Dec

“This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor…Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
― Rumi

Every morning?  Are you kidding, Rumi?

There has been a bit more frequent turnover in this guest house the past few days!

Some unexpected, intense visitors came bearing hidden gifts.  They seemed the sort you wouldn’t want around, until they left without saying goodbye; then I realized, they burned off a bit more of the ME, and left some sweet perfume in the emptiness of their departure.

The next group who made reservations seemed a bit more mellow upon arrival tonight.  And joyful.  They brought flourless chocolate cake as a gift!

Love when the metaphor takes 3D form 🙂

May we all honor the revolving door of our being and the guests we are sent.  I bow to my teenage permanent tenants and to the life and lessons they bring into my space.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Latent Tool Fan

6 Dec

I missed this band while I was busy playing a mother.  So much fun to be introduced to a whole body of work by my friend!  Fearless rage, shadow exploration, mirror work, discovery – delicious!  This is a student project on You Tube…I share this song in my poetry unit every semester!  Teacher is a bit of a thrasher 🙂

Today Tool is my musical break from grading essays and averaging this semester’s work.  If I read too many  essays in a row without a joyful break,  the grades spiral down.

With my feet upon the ground
I lose myself between the sounds
And open wide to suck it in
I feel it move across my skin
I’m reaching up and reaching out
I’m reaching for the random, for
Whatever will bewilder me
Whatever will be willed on me
And following our will and wind
We may just go where no one’s been
We’ll ride the spiral to the end
We may just go where no one’s been

Spiral out, keep going

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Come Closer

4 Dec

Image

Found this note on the sidewalk today.

When I saw it on the ground, I kept walking and I smirked a bit, I admit, thinking of the smart ass things one could write  on the note and leave back on his/her  car.

On my way back the note was still there, waiting for me to pick it up.

The receiver of such a message might have never even seen it, judging from it’s sidewalk location.

So much here in these few  words…

This note expresses displeasure and perhaps, he/she did have quite a difficult time trying to get through the car door.  It is annoying when some seem so oblivious to the idea of sharing space with others.  But I also imagine being on the receiving end of this note.  Would this note cause the receiver to park differently next time?  Would the humanity shared be bridged here?

I don’t think so.

I know all about annoying behavior.  I am so annoying.  I know I am.  My daughters say I repeat myself over and over again, which sends their impatience through the roof.  I don’t mean to, but often, there are misunderstandings if I don’t – rides needed that never show up, missed events, items forgotten…

Sharing space is tricky for me.

I have been overcoming clausterphobia since moving off the boat.  This condition has caused me to allow the voice in my mind to tell me that I can’t breath and I need to escape any way possible to get out of elevators, cars, classrooms…In this state of mind, there is actually no oxygen.  In these moments of blindness, human angels have appeared to me, helping me to breath, short breath in, long breath out.  A math professor across the hall, whom I have only seen in passing, got in my face, “Darth Vader” breaths he said.  And by helping me CLOSELY in this way, he helped me shift to where there was oxygen again, room in my lungs to take it in.   Breath. Life. Space. Options. Possibility.

Sometimes when my mind said it needed space, it actually needed the help of someone coming closer, as close as possible.  Paradoxical, that.

Right now my daughter and I are head to head.  I feel held over a barrel of ego and distortion through an incorrect lens.  This makes me want to get out; the circular dynamic  feels as if it takes all oxygen from the room, from the world…and yet if I can rest in the state of being (not mind) where there is breath, life, space, possibility – I can move in closer.

Could I park any closer to the shadows in my life?

Nope.

Addendum:  Just found my therapy session for my claustrophobia.

Here is Some Helpful Advice 😉

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

YOU ARE HERE!

2 Dec

Image

Gosh.  I know right where I am.

A few days pass.  In between grading poetry anthologies, I take a little journey into reading the blogs out there that I have never seen.  Along this journey, I run across Awakeandfindingpurpose.wordpress.com and there I find another path walker sharing nakedly and beautifully.  This find then leads to some more bread crumbs along the way to Theawakeneddreamer.com…Wowza.  I am ready to hear this voice and experience stepping into her “telling” right now.

Rocking on my heels…ready to stop, and drop it all, no fear, just “come on fellas, show a girl the launching pad?”  Ah hahahahahaha.  Cue Alicia Silverstone Clueless voice, “As if….”

The empty mind times feel as nourishing as a bowl full of steamed spinach, a pure glass of water after a walk by the marsh.  Then the busy mind times feel like consuming cheeze doodles and dr. pepper.  Ugh.

So much has fallen away that I am full of longing for the rest to fall away.  I have had a shift; now I “know” the Eckhart Tolle park bench moment is coming.  Of course it is.  Everything to this point has led me along, and Everything will always continue to do so.  “She” let go of the grass reeds on the bank of the raging river a while ago.

I used to sneak away when my girls were young to go to a Thich Nhat Hanh Meditation Group in the basement of a Modern Baptist Church in Charlotte for one-half hour of sitting and one-half hour of walking meditation, followed by an awkward discussion of thoughts jumbled with ideology jumbled with all manner of open and closed, seeing and blind.  And I remember saying out loud, “Gosh, I just realized in the past few weeks that over 98% of what I think about is unnecessary.”  And a woman gave me and look, and said, “Really.  That’s messed up.  What do you think about?”  Indeed 🙂 What do we all think about?  But I was so new to the path, I thought I had said something so obviously stupid and wrong.

Most MIND is pretty close to that percentage…I stop and listen to mind chatter throughout the day.  What is it going on about?  At best, most of it is unnecessary, noisy blabbering, at worst painful confusion.

Paradoxically,  I don’t have to do anything about it.  I don’t have to sit on it, stuff it down.

Image

I just look at it.

It is going away… Soon, perhaps today it will fall away entirely; how beautiful!

“silence is the language of god,
all else is poor translation.”

― Rumi

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Newer Entries →