On love..

This day reminds me to reflect on what Love is.  Someone once tried to convince me it was pink and red, smelled nicely and tasted sweet. Another time, I was told it could only be expressed through the confines of romance, intimacy and sex.  And yet even more interesting perspectives elude to love as a thing, measured by it's weight, cut, shimmer and shine.  

These ideas, void of depth and truth.  Mere distractions from what we are aware of within our highest Self. 

Love is immeasurable, ever present, unwavering. Love doesn't come to us, love is within us. Love a way of being, a state of existence and a conscious choice we can make in each and every moment. 

Love is the smoldering embers of your soul that yearn to be ignited.  
Love is the whisper of your deepest desires that beckon to be heard.

Love is who you are at your core.  

You are love.  Immeasurable, ever-present, unwavering.

 "By attempting to organize the future, we aggravate the present moment"

In every moment we have everything we need.  

Open heart, open mind, open eyes.

Know that your Truth resides within you; a constant, vast, unconditional ocean.  

With patience, kindness, honesty, integrity and committment, there is nothing, nothing we cannot do. 

Shift your perspective, shift your life.

The art of letting go.

I've lost a lot of things lately. First, I let $60 cash slip out of my back pocket while bike riding home. Next, I had just completed a very satisfying blog entry, which came straight from the heart in the midst of a very creatively constipated few days, and in an instant, with the wrong click of a button (or some other kind of unexplained internet error) things froze, and just like that it was gone.  Lastly, and most recently, a friendship that recently took shape of one kind, is slowly shifting into something different - and its here that I realize the lesson here. The opportunity to walk away with something gained, despite material loss. That once an attachment is formed, be it to a thing, person, expectation or outcome, our relationship with it becomes out of balance. I have noticed this to be the case with each example above: the money, the piece of writing, and the friendship gone awry
 
Losing that money jolted me with the reminder to re-evaluate my current relationship with money, and how this relationship is serving me. This has helped me to make new decisions, shift some behaviors and feel more in alignment with my true vision. Letting go of an authentically inspired piece of writing, expressed in tune with my heart, has helped me to recognize that to write is not to preach, and I am unattached to response of review of my creativity. As for the friendship, like each and everyone of them, an opportunity to see my Self.  The trials and tribulations it presents allow me to look at my self and discern my patterns and habits.  Thus, allowing me to continue to deepen my relationship with, and understanding of, who I am.  It's not a matter of searching, really, but discovering from within. 

And so despite loss, I find myself filled with gratitude.

A birthday wish

 I would like for everyone I know to take a few moments for themselves.  Dismantling fear of judgment from others and from yourself, find stillness.  Setting aside political views and religious beliefs, settle into a few moments of silence.  There is no right way, there is no code of conduct or contract. No prerequisites or rules.  Forgive and forget your own assumptions and expectations and close your eyes.  Perhaps this is the first moment of stillness and silence you've afforded yourself all day; your mind is noisy and distracted, your body may be uncomfortable and restless.  Embrace that. Embrace every single thing about you and what may be coming up for you: feelings, emotions, itches. Breathe.  Breathe deep. Breath loudly.  No one is listening, no one is watching.  These moments are yours and yours alone. And you're beautiful.  Everything about you is radiant. You are giving yourself the most wonderfully rewarding gift you could. Your heart thanks yous, your back thanks yous, your lungs and feet and neck thank you. 

I thank you. 

I am in deep gratitude to everyone who carves out time to do this. You've chosen to practice patience, and begin to develop a stronger sense self-compassion. You've chosen to take a step in the direction of Truth.  In a world of violence, hatred and greed, you absolutely cannot go wrong with patience, compassion and truth. Imagine if everyone took time to do this? For just a moment imagine a person you find yourself frustrated with, or angry with. Be it a sibling or a world leader, imagine how different it would be if that person were just a little more patient, compassionate and honest.  

We've done enough damage to ourselves, our planet and each other. We owe  it to our children, our grandparents, our neighbors and our pets. We owe it to the trees, the ocean and the sun. We owe it to ourselves to become a more patient and compassionate person.

Now that you've filled your own self with radiant love, deep compassion and infinite gratitude share this with your friends.  If everyone I know passes this on to everyone they know, maybe one day we really will have a whole world of more patient, compassionate people.  And that would truly be the BEST birthday present in the whole world.

There is Truth within you.

My life continues to shift in a way I never saw coming.  I continue to deepen my relationship with myself, thus transforming my relationship with the world around me.  I find myself doing things that I have always wanted to do.  My life has come into form in such a way I never thought possible.  That is due, largely in part, because of the generosity of others.  I feel deeply blessed and immensely grateful for the ways I am being supported.  It is making it possible for me to have this unique opportunity of soul-stretching, mind-opening, personal growth.  

Lately, I've been asked different variations of the question, "what are you doing?"  This could elude ro anything from at the current moment, to with my life in general.  In the past I was able to come up with a pretty quick, clear and acceptable answer, "I'm a ________" or "I plan to __________" However, lately these simple, yet loaded questions, have been more difficult for me to answer. To me, it's no mystery what I'm doing.  I am living.  Breathing. Growing.  Learning. Participating in life. Getting to understand myself fully so that I may fully give of myself.  I meditate often, do yoga daily.  I do what probably looks like a whole lot of nothing.  But I tell ya.  The difference in my experience with life in general is entirely different than my life a year ago. There is no need to attempt to embellish or come up with a catchy delivery.  The Truth is fascinating all on it's own.  We allow our own fears to stop us of from living our dreams.  I do.  You probably do.  In someway or another we tell ourselves "we can't" and therefore we don't.  

I started noticing how often I told myself that in the course of a week, a day even.  It was shocking.  After I began to notice this pattern, I began opening to the possibility that perhaps in fact, I can. Suddenly, I realized how powerful this made me.  In exploring this more, I realized that the things I told myself I couldn't do, actually broke down to the things that scare me.  In fact, this shift began taking place in Nepal.  Gosh, many times we had no idea what we were doing. We began our day with no plan, no expectation, and ended it having had the most incredible experiences. I remember discovering a set of stone steps going up a mountain that we had already been hiking up for a while.  We had no clue how high the steps went, or what we would find at the top of them.  We just kept going.  After a while it got soft of meditative.  Step. Step. Step. As we all wondered aloud if we should continue to follow the steps, a group of ancient looking women tromped past us on their way down shouting, "Shiva Puri! Shiva Puri!" waving towards the top of the mountain. They all carried baskets on their heads, some with canes and those with shoes on wore thin sandals. We decided that Shiva Puri must be some beautiful temple at the top of the mountain, which these women just came from, and we would definitely be able to do the hike if these women were on their way down. Step. Step. Step. I remember my legs burning, and even despite a bit of a chill to the air, I took off a layer I had sweat through. The physical challenge was only one piece. Becca burst into tears at one point out of frustration with the uncertainty of whether or not we should continue on.   I told her that I wasn't thinking about what was at the top, I was just taking it one step at a time. If I looked up ahead of me and saw the never-ending set of stairs, I would start to feel exhausted, but when I just looked down at the one step ahead of me, I felt fine. After what felt like a million stairs, the stone steps stopped and a treacherous trail began.  Okay, treacherous is an overstatement for dramatic effect.  A trail nonetheless was a relieving break from the stairs and gave us hope we were near the top.  It was still quite a hike before the trail leveled off onto a grassy patch  that seemed to be the top.  Yes, it was that anti-climactic that we weren't even sure we'd made it to the top.  However, I felt no disappointment.  I was overjoyed that we had made it to the top despite the haze that prevented us from seeing the backdrop of the Himalayan Mountain Ranges. We laid in the soft green grass under the sunshine and allowed our pulses to regulate and our bodies to rest.  We breathed in the fresh, crisp air and laughed at ourselves.

Anything is possible.  Our approach to life is our choice and is what determines our experience here.  Fearlessly allowing our true vision to surface.  Letting doubt slip away as we patiently and confidently move, one step at a time while letting go of the expectation of a certain outcome. For then, it doesn't matter if there is a temple or not - We are just happy to be here now. 

 

Life is good.  I mean that.  Life is amazing. 

Why do we suffer? What is is that truly causes us anger, sadness, discomfort, fear? Why did we believe it when someone told us, "life is hard?"  That is the biggest fallacy of humankind. Life is work. Life is messy. Life is not always easy, or kind, of fair.  But life is good. 

Really none of this is any secret.  The big "secret" to life, the key to happiness?  Sitting right under our nose.  Or, under our feet really.  Despite our constant haggling about who is right about God (the unnecessary bloodshed, catastrophic loss of human life), there is no denying the absolutely amazing, perfect and Divine work of Mother Nature.  Whatever house in which you worship, whatever party you register as, witnessing the cycle of a garden is a Miracle. Sitting near a river watching the vast, silent and complex eco-systems is a Miracle.  I was blown away when I learned that forest fires actually help support the health of a forest.  What needs to go, Mother Nature takes care of.  Nature is a miracle.  She's bountiful, resilient, and generous. We're part of that insurance policy by being here on this earth. How luck we are! 

And somehow we certainly do a good job at making life hard.  We even seem to enjoy giving ourselves things to worry about. We've created schedules that are too full for a walk in the park, a swim in the ocean, an afternoon under a tree with no one to talk to but the birds.  We've come up with every excuse in the book to keep us from stillness.  Silence. A chance to deeply connect with our Selves and to deeply connect with the living world around us.  In fact, despite our technological advances in science, industry and medicine, it seems to me that the world is a far more dangerous place today than possibly ever.  And that came from us.  That is man-made. We are sick, unhappy, and most unfortunate unfulfilled. 

Alas, each day we have countless opportunities to change that. Each and every moment there is a chance to wake up. Shift our perspective, shift our awareness, shift our experience with life. I have found that connecting to Earth, has helped me to make this shift; to connect with myself, my inner visions and a depth of Spirit I could never convey in words.  This shift has transformed me in a way I hope for all the people I know and love to experience for themselves.  To find love in each person, moment, place. To have complete, unconditional, undeniable faith.  To truly treat the other beings around us as we wish to be treated. To share. To learn. To shed and harbored judgment, patterns or habits that are destructive to our soul. To be patient with each other and with ourselves. For that's when life gets good.