Thank you to theachristie29 for reminding me of this gentle movie, Once. Seems like a “love” story, but really points back to the self and the deeper, real current of the love coming from no separation.
Tag Archives: Relationship
It’s Okay.
3 Jan
Everything is Okay. It is.
I’ve been here before. The first time felt like coming home – remembering the place from which everything is okay.
I don’t know why or how I could cloudy up again once I knew this place existed, but that too is…okay!
There are mixtures of okay and not okay all around. Large thrashings of misery, small whimpering expressions of pain, happy laughter, birds coming to life in the glowing morning, everything is okay – and it always has been.
I think it is coming up on 2 years when a breakthrough of okayness came while we were still living on the boat. The marriage was in free fall, but something had shifted in me.
There was a fundraiser that my husband had planned to attend. I mentioned that we could go together, but the time of leaving, the time of coming home, the price, the gas of separate cars, and the destruction of the planet came into the discussion and I ended up staying on the boat while he went out.
As the light came in through the hatch the next morning, I realized that he had never come home. And I felt peace. (One beautiful thing about living on a boat is the way the light comes in through the hatches and wakes you up.) A week before this peace, I would have been angry, worried, tied in a knot. The light hit my eyes, his absence was realized and I wished him well where ever he was.
Soon after, I was able to make the steps I needed for moving my life in a more appropriate direction, but the drama was sucked out – a gift of the universe – helping me to come to the place where everything was okay.
A strange aside, I actually can smell the air of this place. It is sweet, mild, delicious, slightly tropical (even in winter) – The Place of Okay has a tangible smell! Does anyone else share that sensation?
So, how do I go from that place of peace to an off-kilter, reactive state again with the throws of teenage misery? I don’t know. Every time I remember The Place of Okay, I imagine it is for good. And one of the days, it will be…which seems more than okay.
The Subtlety of No Agenda
2 JanOh my goodness. I just stumbled on a teaching much needed at this time.
I’ve been in a struggle for many months – which I have alluded to in this blogging expression, but I haven’t wanted to spell it out because the struggle, while mine, is not only mine. My daughter has had an incorrect thought, from my perspective. This lens she is looking through is a distorted doozy which has caused her much unhappiness and suffering. Thoughts of separation do cause suffering.
But what I was not able to see was my agenda here. I have not been able to fix her thought, correct it, punish it, banish it…The therapist wanted to medicate it. Living with it expressing itself so aggressively, so painfully everyday for months and months has been exhausting. Often I was smooth and nonreactive, but fatigue or sticky spots in me got activated and I was reacting largely at times.
I feel so cagey talking about it as “the thought.” But it is not mine to share in a public way. Just now on my jog around the block, a metaphorical equivalent occurred to me that might illustrate just why this “thought” is so difficult. Imagine you are married and your spouse thinks that you are having an affair. You are not, but nothing you can say or do changes this idea in your spouse. This is a powerful and dangerous thought to daily, family life. Every moment is rife with evidence to support the belief – if you laugh on the phone, arrive late, engage in talk with someone, answer an email…any normal behavior can be interpreted as fuel to feed this incorrect perception. The accused in this scenario can try to reassure, try to convince, try to walk the straight and narrow, but until the thought is no longer there, life is full of suffering for the believer of that thought.
Some days I think the incorrect thought is gone for good; actually, it seemed to leave for a whole week recently. I got cocky and relieved and imagined it gone, so that when it reared its ugly head again, well, that is when I tipped the boat over.
I’ve tried everything…why? I know better, but I have never been faced with such large suffering that I cannot fix, run from, or tolerate. This only leaves what?
Opening my heart.
And staying there.
Resistance to this suffering feeds “it” and engages my own ego as well.
Here is a teacher I stumbled across who reflects the subtlety of having no agenda in the face of the ego of another in the delusion of separation. The practice of being present and totally open in the face of such suffering unlocked a difficult situation for this man.
Rupert Spira shows me here how this “other” that I am judging as incorrect is my own, intimate self. There is no other than awareness. Reacting, constricting in any way is judgement. This is a slow and quiet answering that takes Mr. Spira 13 minutes, but this talk is full of truth for me today.
Man Overboard
29 Dec
Sometimes falling out of the boat is the best thing that can happen.
When I found myself once again in a struggle with existence, relationships, overwhelm, and fatigue last night and this morning, it took me a while to remember to give up. Now “I” give up, for real…back to little “i” once again!
Time to get back in the boat and let the mother carry me…mothering for the mother.
“Leave your existence to existence, stop caring for yourself
so much and let the universe care for you;
it is the best mother.
There has to be some trust, not just belief,
because trust is intimate…
something lets go to this invitation to stop holding yourself
and let’s go to existence instead.
The very letting go will be observed in your presence.”
-Mooji
I orchestrated the perfect scenarios to pressure wash the hidden corners of clinging. Turns out, I have an identity that is called “The Good Mother,” and when she feels threatened, she rocks the boat a bit. Actually, she turned the boat on end so I could finally see the imaginary WEIGHT of her. She was dried off, tenderly cradled and sent on, back into the energetic stream.
It all sounds so easy after the fact, but in the throws of forgetting, the thrashing is anything but easy.
How many of these labels do we carry around with us? Good Mother, Hard Worker, Good Girl, Quick Student…what are some others? Let’s get them on their way. They are really heavy! The Light Body is actually Lighter 🙂 Universe likes to Pun!
Enjoy your flow in the river, if you happen here. Nice to share the ride with you!
The Canvas is Everything; The Paint is Whatever You Can Find
26 DecWe 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.
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.
Lots 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.
Come Closer
4 Dec
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.
Life as Improv 