–the vast neutrality.
Tag Archives: Spirituality
hungry for this now
11 Jul
what is reflected in these eyes?
we all are.
we are this and are in need of nothing else.
This sort of gaze is unusual in our world. This picture arrests me. Not because of who this is. Mooji is a good teacher for me, but it is his eyes that I am drawn to. I see a clear mirror in this picture; perhaps no more words are needed.
i seek this, hunger for this lack of pretense. This blog helps me to see my words reflecting layers of story clouding just how close this clarity is.
I, too, am getting sick of words.
i lack nothing. I have never lacked for anything.
But I do Ask, Why are the pictures above and below unusual?
Patti Smith and William S. Burroughs
There is a certain nakedness here that arrests me, in this shot, as well.
Why do we not all see each other for real, young or old, pretty or plain; why do we not look each other in the eyes and see ourselves and grab hold like it means something?
never late
10 Jul
i aim to accept all that is – as it is – all the time, but intigrating such a basic truth to the deepest flow is a seeping in process. One such truth of acceptance is that I am never late – ever. I never again have to have that internal feeling of running late. It just doesn’t exist. Wherever I am, I am always right where I am supposed to be – and even if it looks to an outside observer that I am not on time, I actually am right on time.
When I believe my lateness to be true, my stomach churns, my heart rate increases, I am shaky. Worse than the body is the mental constructing – imagining the reactions of those who are waiting, writing stories of excuses, or indulging the worst case scenarios of the judgement from others.
That is helpful – body stress, mental stress, wigged out emotions!
I often have found myself with these physical symptoms of stress to varying degrees. But gradually I began to see that the messages of the physical and mental body are showing me my thoughts about being late are incorrect. I can release that stress immediately – there is no late.
This stress drop-kick is a bit like when one wakes up sick and clears her schedule – everything can be released just that easily.
Now, I do not think that, universally, I know anything. What about thoughtless people who leave others hanging, slackers who clear the decks to watch tv, what about societal expectations, jobs, commitments? There is no late here either. To me it seems that the natural consequences of the slackers’ untimeliness creates the perfect conditions for their experiences in their lives. If they get fired, broken-up-with, dismissed, left out because of perceived inconsiderate use of time, they will get what is best for their learning – or perhaps they are giving lessons to others suffering with fixed and hurtful rigidity as well.
The new flow – as it comes in more and more – is playing with us in connection to the clock and flow of time. Have you noticed? I hit a time crunch vortex a few days ago where 11 am compressed in a tesseract wrinkle to 4 pm – making the 5 hours feel like 20 minutes. I know the linear minded will say this is just the perception within me – and that is true – but perhaps these experiences creep in showing us about our believed entrapment within an imperceivably flexible force.
The clock is not a measuring tool for my worth, my perfection, my adherence to the rules; the clock is a guide to help me move from one thing to another, or to recognize and release things that do not flow with my natural rhythms and desire for the life I wish to create. The clock actually helps me to recognize a crunch or discordancy with who I am flowing to be.
the greatest fall
18 Jun
Talk of spirituality can be such a turn off. I know that feeling of squirm inside when someone speaks about spirit. Squish and uck!
Such a personal and internal thing – the soul beneath the experiences – the self in a cave behind the waterfall flow of life.
When it is spoken of, pointed to, preached about, proselytized outward, sung across the mountain – I turn into goth girl, sarcastic and cynic – blue about the lips.
I apologize for bringing it up if it makes you squirm.
In my journey, the floor has been yanked from underneath me over and over again. Just a few: the death of my brother when I was 14, loss of religion, loss of the conditioned aspects of life – roles – and a near death experience that brought me to a brink and made me choose to live. When there was no ground beneath me, what helped get me back into a body, back into the journey?
Voices and words of teachers that I found on my own had a place for me. Every teacher is just a pointer, showing his own way to a deeper thread, which he himself will tell you is unknowable.
I was just finishing typing this post and the doorbell rang. Some lovely southern ladies with hats and dresses came by and gave me a pamphlet for a convention about their religion. Hello. Didn’t even know the doorbell worked!
I hold gently the words as I gradually begin to relax and float down the stream, dissolving little bit by little bit into the water.
Today I get to meet my friend visiting from far away for a downtown Charleston bimble and explore!
Today I choose to live.
Sometimes people say they can smell freedom.
They say they fall more and more into the embrace of That which is unspeakable.
And I have to acknowledge that this is not merely an intellectual thought or conviction.
It is a deep inner thing; a felt experience in the Heart beyond words and thoughts, and yet I have to tell you that what you are falling into Is and was already here—unchangingly.
It is what you already are and no distance is involved.
Has anyone ever heard of a falling where there was no distance?
This is the fall where there is no distance.
It’s the greatest fall; the falling away of delusion.
~ Mooji
10th of June, 2013
glory be
7 Jun
in the middle of the night – it all becomes so clear.
Sleeplessness can be the same as sleeping.
I do not know what is on television,
I have no news except the sky – a storm arrives
without
a name known by me.
I can easily escape this bed, this house, this little body shell –
I am as big as my whole city, silent
watching the clouds roll in on eye level. The lightning
illumines the billowing mass insurgency of storm.
wind whips – I have no body, yet I am here.
sky dome cracks in two, crashes down,
the vacuum of space sucks out all the filth of man-
who cares where it goes now.
A night can pass this way.
Clockwinder, I see the mystery of
Birds awakening before the light.
Why now do I shrink?
Back in this woman body,
listening with human ears,
the rattle of the shutters,
the bending of the trees;
glory be.
Thoughts knock on every door;
one little crack and in they rush,
silly men in suits.
I do not follow them,
or read from their notepads.
The meeting at eight is cancelled, you know,
Loosen the ties, get thee to the beach.
Choke yourself on salt and surf,
and let the rip tide take you out.
nothing left to lose
4 JunJust now, I sliced a purple onion to put in my garbanzo bean salad – have you looked at one of those lately?
– How utterly beautiful they are –
But the slicing brought a deluge of tears so strong, that I shut my eyes and continued to cut by feel only, slice, slice slice, above the whoosh of the dishwasher. The tears stung and cleaned me out – even if onion induced – nothing feels better than a good cry.
Now I have those onions carmelizing in the pan; will that be good in a salad? I don’t know, but I will try.
I am moving forward without so much definition of just what exactly that means.
Moving is such an opportunity for release and reinvention. We are only going 8 miles or so. Boxing up, throwing out, I am seeing what it is that constitutes our lives; all of this activity gives perspective. We are a collection of stuff. We are a collection of shared experiences. We, my daughters and I, while away a bit of time together – and then things change – some so gradually you hardly notice, and other things disappear overnight. AH!
I found some old journals full of anguished thoughts. I visited my dear younger self in her sorrow. These sorrows in that time, as well as joys, did pass. The self I visited then is no longer the me of now, and the future me will look back at the me of now with loving tenderness.
The journey is important, but not in the way the mind wants to make it so.
Getting the sticky parts out can be a bit uncomfortable and embarrassing to the self that can be embarrassed. The real self recognizes there is no shame in the journey.
I forget. I expose my shadows in the mirror of my experiences. I fall down mind spirals that I no longer think are possible. When I return, what is left?
Nothing left to lose. It is insane to believe in loss.
The world of self-esteem, Own it, girl, strut your stuff, I’m all that 🙂 has a hard time with some of these ideas. The loss of identity in some ears sounds like the opposite of a healthy outlook. Funny!
Stripping down to the real thing is the opposite of adding on or building up –
what is here is all that
wednesday morning yin and yang
29 MayPushing into the paradox of identity, into the two sides of the coin of personality where:
flexibility=strength or flexibility=passivity=weakness
alone=lonely or alone=freedom
retreating into the shell of the comfort zone or being still and knowing I am
pushing the ego identity out into the world for approval and validation or doing in the world in unison with the natural flow
These are some yin or yang that keep reappearing for me.
Of course all definitions fall away – this is known.
“The moment you can say to existence I am perfect as I am, happy as I am, in the east this is called shraddah, trust.”
“When you have accepted yourself you have accepted existence. Compassion arises when you are perfectly grounded in your being – you say, Yes this is the way I am. You have no ideals to fulfill.”
Osho
(Thank you Erin for the Osho!)
It is the mind that divides these things into math equations.
Stepping into my own –
Look at what options can appear – In a 2D world – 3D is mind-blowing.
Polarity in the 3D is something else entirely from a 4D View.
There comes a moment for me when I am so tired of the identity that I MUST plop myself down and sit under tree as long as I must.
Am I sitting under the tree or Am I hanging on through the curves and riding the sharp drops with my hands up?
Every moment is presented to me in the passenger seat; I’m strapped in – in agreement and acceptance. The master playwright is watching from within with a grin – leading me to the edge of breaking out.
Every moment is THE one.
Take the attitude that you will discover the Truth today!
If you say, you are going to take a year off work to search for the Truth, it will take at least a year.
For, like this the mind has just been given a one-year visa to continue indulging in its antics.
Truth is not a gift to be handed out at the end of one year’s seeking.
It is here now.
Say, “Yes, I am fully here, in the heart, for this”.
Be willing ‘to get it’ today.
‘To get it’ means to blow away the mist of falsehood, of ego identity and vain projections through the light of perfect understanding.
With such an attitude, nothing will deter you from your goal.
~ Mooji
Zmar, Portugal, 10th of May 2013
How many times and in how many ways does one need to hear –
Now, Here Now, I Am?
happy accidents
28 May
All of life seems a flow from one happy accident to another – each with the underlying message – I am cared for and guided on my path. The inner and outer seem to meet – my inner dialogue, dreams, longings, needs seem to be read and reflected into the outer world in such a way that defies explanation.
You have this experience too, right?
I have few such incidents that are bubbling to the surface today.
Years ago I found a 20$ bill on the ground in my wealthy, large lawned neighborhood where there was no one to return it to. I said a little prayer over the money, that I could give it to someone who needed it more than I did at the time. In finding this money, I had the realization of my material comfort. I put the bill in my pocket. Later the same day, I was approached by a woman in a parking lot trying to sell me a bag of pecans from a tree; she told me of her great needs. I was able to reach into my pocket and hand her the twenty. I got to pass on a bill that was never mine – and play a bit in the universal flow. At this same time, I often felt like a failure for just being home and raising my kids in a pretentious and competitive environment. A tap on the shoulder from a higher lens was well-spent on me then – a clue to keep on going – not all was as it seemed.
Last fall, I was meeting my friend for breakfast on an easy sunday morning, when I was hit from behind, which crumpled the body of the car in a way that damaged nothing except the aesthetics. The insurance paid me $1686 to get the body repaired. The next week, my car needed $1700 dollars of engine repairs. Money that would be hard to come by was now serendipitously HERE NOW in my account from the fender bender.
The past few days have been a flow from one sync to the next. Here’s just one: My daughter, Chloe, and I headed out to spend time together with no destination in mind. We chose at each intersection, right or left, and ended up at a casual spot for a little snack downtown. As we pulled into the parking lot, we recognized our next door neighbors from Charlotte, NC, from 6 years ago, were walking into the very restaurant right at that moment. Mr. Johnson had been like a grandfather to my daughters. He snuck away from his table and joined us at ours, caught up with Chloe in his loving way, in the gloaming hour. We returned from the restaurant to watch the film The Beginners, which we had never seen, and found that the main character Oliver carried out the motif of driving first with his mother and later with a lover by pointing the ways to go at each intersection – the film mirroring our freewheeling ways from earlier in the evening – driving without a destination in mind, ending up exactly where we ought.
In many 3D ways, my life may seem a mess. When I am open and clear, I see the pattern behind the mess. I will be where I need to be; I will see what I need to see; I will do what seems like my doing – but it will be more than that. And I will see the inner reflected in the outer.
The Sync Book is a fun romp through the experiences of many wise voices on this topic.
I find that I do not tire of these tales. The melting between the inner and outer and the melding of the self with everyone else points to the mystery and the deeper layers that actually are present in every moment – if we are open to flow.
There are 5 videos in a row,here, all a few minutes long.
cheap and easy high
24 May
I’m so full of juice, my palms are turning orange.
Daily Juice Rituals constitute a new spiritual practice.
Join me; we can change the world with the sacrifices of and indulgence in carrots, ginger, kale, apples…
There is the gathering of the veggies which are placed in the alter of a large bowl.
Then there is the transmission Of sending them through the machine,
Then we mindfully receive the juice, down it, thanking the life force that contributes to health,
Then we lovingly wash the machine .
Finally, there is the high. Not a joke – the zinging is for real.
I bought the juicer in a time of great anguish in my house. While a certain soul cried and thrashed in the car, I defiantly marched into the health food store, bought the juicer with holiday gifted money, loaded a bag full of organic veggies, and celebrated life through juice despite the dark time for my loved one.
My joys are so simple anymore.
I haven’t missed a day in this practice since December.
I’m not trying to convert, just sharing my awareness today of the ritual aspect of this consumption. Okay, maybe I do want to start a juicing cult. We could gather on a hillside by the sea near the Yucatan Peninsula –
Whose in?
Peanut butter on rice cakes, butter on toast, wine with your dinner, a corner of a chocolate bar…anything can be a practice – everything is holy!
Life as Improv 