Naked In The Sun

We are divine beings in a state of recovery, re-discovering our divinity, winning back ourselves from states of delusion. However, the mind is very much a key player in the drama called life, because without it, the consciousness cannot experience the necessary friction for transcendence to occur. And transcendence is the whole purpose of the game. It is a kingly game when seen with eyes of understanding. If you stay stuck in personhood, life will kick your ass. But if you are open to Truth, then you are continuously expanding into greater and greater seeing. Finally, you will exclaim, ‘I love this stepping out of the shadow of myself into the bright light of my Self.’ If my words are true, it is you who make them true. They come alive inside you because you listen inside your heart and accept them. Not just the words, but what they point to somehow recognizes itself, and the stagnant, the suppressed, vanishes in the light of this real seeing. The serpent-mind loses its tongue in the presence of the real Self. You are the Self.

 Mooji

There is awakening – that emergence from a deep slumbering or sleep-walking through our lives, to some degree unconscious of the depths within and living inside a very small and limited sense of what it means to be alive – that awakening to the recognition or re-discovery of our divinity. There is that shift in consciousness from believing we are solely our small self – the part of us that feels alone and disconnected in varying degrees. The shift in consciousness or perspective that moves from the small self that is so-mightily tied to its survival at-all-costs to that gob-smacking jolt of our connectedness with all there is, that visceral awareness that we are all in this together, touching and experiencing, becoming conscious of the web of infinite awareness that contains and unites all life; that life-changing shift in perception that reveals an omnipotent intelligence holding and driving the ship and the profound realization that we are along for the ride, invited to know and be our true nature of awareness, of life living itself.  There is the awakening that we are awareness and awareness has just become aware of itself . . .

And then there is the greater and greater seeing, as consciousness and awareness expands . . . and expands.  And deepens. Part of the deepening is the continuing awareness and trust that the movement of life happens naturally, with no extra effort on our part.  A greater force has taken the wheel; the deepening movement into boundless and unlimited unity has a life of its own, drawing us toward becoming more and more fully alive within its mystery and fulfillment of a sacred marriage. The deepening bringing us more and more into the core of our being and the expansion reaching into infinity and the unknowable. 

It is through the embodiment of the awakening that the full light of what is true, what is most real, is made more and more visible, expressed and manifest.  It is how transcendence happens. 

There is seeking for the truth of what we are and there is embodiment of the truth of what we are.  

The rubber hits the road after the initial awakening, when we are called to a greater and greater maturity and willingness to uncover and cop to our pretenses.  It becomes downright uncomfortable whenever we do not express what is real and true. Life asks, over and over again, ‘show up, show up . . . transparent, vulnerable --- naked in the sun’.  It is an ongoing happening - making conscious use of what shows up in our lives – understanding the friction of consciousness Mooji speaks of, saying yes to the heart’s breaking and opening, over and over and over again as we allow ourselves to BE; the life-long process of being our true nature, which shows up by being whatever we are in each moment, humbly saying yes to serving/being a greater intelligence; called many different names (Divine, God, Awareness, Truth, Love, Source, Presence).  

Being sick for almost a year and a half has given me opportunity after opportunity to notice and to process a whole new level of embodiment.  I experience something different from Mooji when he says staying stuck in personhood life will kick our asses.  From where I sit, life can kick our asses at any time, not limited to being stuck in personhood at all.

Almost the entire time I have been ill, I have intuited something more going on.  I am sick, physically unwell and living with perplexing and relentless symptoms . . . and yet, it has seemed to me that another dimension is at play here. 

To begin with, doesn’t it make sense that we being vehicles for greater and greater consciousness and truth and love to shine and be unconditionally expressed, it matters, really matters, what condition the vehicle is in.  It makes so much sense to me that an ever-deepening sacred union or mystical marriage of Oneness, between human and God requires intentionally and increasingly readying the vessel (in this case our body/minds) through a good house cleaning or window washing or sorting through whatever is no longer useful. 

Paying attention to my body is not new to me.  Since awakening almost 11 years ago it has been pretty much a main focus.  Being aware of my body and physical movement has been fun, like learning a whole new skill and a part of me that I marveled at.  This is not uncommon for folks who “left their body” because of trauma.  

But being sick dropped me into an entirely new dimension. 

Listening attentively to my body has deepened and activated greater love. 

A simple and powerful truth about maturing, evolving, awakening, and healing is the wheels of change, transformation and transcendence lie within.  Circumstances, although understandably can take our breath away by how awful they are, are rarely, if ever, the stimulus of our disharmony.  Our reaction to what has happened is where the real juice lies.  It appears the more aware of this we are; the more willing we are to “make use” of what card life has dealt us, the less we suffer.  

The friction for me . . . the call to further transcendence . . . is being chronically sick in a body that, for most of my life, felt unsafe.  

What is it like to be at peace with, to embrace the body tensions and clenching, to compassionately be re-oriented from anxiety to understanding and support? 

Long Covid is a neurological virus that, among other things, impacts the nervous system and can wreak havoc on the gut and trigger PTSD.  

What a perfect storm for facing my traumatized body in a different way, revealing all those wordless places and cells and blood and bones that held the trauma . . . so much deeper than I could touch before. The more hidden the burial, the trickier to uncover and the more powerful to see. 

It is the facing; it is the living in the dark until our inner light reveals the truth that is breathtaking.  This is when actual transformation can happen.

As I continue to live with Long Covid, there appears to be a foot on the ground assimilation happening – the sacred union between form and formlessness, between being human and being divine is slowly strengthening.  

There is the human dimension.  One of the fall-outs of a traumatized nervous system that is often tense and clenched, is not being able to be clear about what the body needs.  More often than not, the first thought or response is a catastrophic one that only enhances the fogginess of PTSD.  Something awful is happening or about to happen.  And “I” have no idea what to do about it.  We are time and again, as traumatized humans, trained to be powerless or paralyzed, which is often how come we don’t know how to take care of ourselves in a real, present, and healthy way.

Awareness, Love watches and holds all of this.  Since there is no real separation between our small selves and our Selves, awareness, sees, touches, and knows the full state of trauma.  Awareness becomes aware of itself, (as form), and untroubled, untouched, appears to grow in magnitude and Love in the face of true openness and honest inquiry. 

This tender and wise holding opens into enormous clarity.  It quiets the mind, focuses attention on sensations.  Being aware of the sensations and pain and discomfort in the body directly, without any interference from the mind or history, or PTSD, tells you what is needed in that moment.  Where is the pain, what would either soothe or eliminate the discomfort, what support or help to ask for, how to move, how to benefit the situation.  And often, sitting in silence and simply being with the sensation can be just the ticket.  This clarity, when not known before, appears simple and yet, it speaks to the extraordinary experience of increased consciousness. 

This has been a visceral learning curve of trust.  We learn trust by going through the fire with an open heart.  Each time love “comes through” everything in us sits up and takes notice, layering the foundation for a deeper trust.  It is not something we can learn conceptually, which is why I bow to all of our bravery as we say yes to oneness – the sacred union with all of life, that being with . . . or as, whatever is showing up in this moment and the next.

Whenever we empty ourselves of anything that is distorting our true nature, whenever we detach from an identity that is an illusion, for the love of Source, for what is most Real, we are saying yes to Life, to transformation, to the Self.  We are saying yes to unconditional Love.  This can be the most priceless gift we have to give; the gift of surrender to something greater than ourselves.  And then . . . lo and behold . . . as many have stated . . . that which we seek is seeking us.  That very same Love we have given our all to will fill our Being over and over and over again.  This is the dance we are called to . . .  This is what the mystics have called a sacred union – the integration of our humanity and divinity, expressed uniquely through each of us.  This is a whole-hearted praise to being alive. 

“Your days are numbered.  Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun.”

Marcus Aurelius

Falling Backwards Into Life

This place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you.

Hafez

Love sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.

Hafez

I am still dealing with the effects of Long Covid and thought to say a few words about what it is like being present these days. 

There is so much I could say and write about . . . and plan to if and when I am fully recovered.  For now, a couple of things that stand out as I notice what it is like to stay conscious, and actually increase consciousness in the midst of so many obstacles. 

A while back, a very dear friend and her adult daughter were at a major park, filled with rides and hundreds of people.  My friend began to feel ill – ill enough to know she needed to lie down.  She and her daughter found a bench and sat down.  My friend put her head in her daughter’s lap and they stayed there until she felt well enough to walk to the car – perhaps an hour or so.

The reason my friend was telling me the story was to tell me about not feeling well.  While I registered that, in full; what really got my attention was a deeper discomfort in me.  One that let me know, under no circumstances, could I imagine putting my head in someone’s (anyone’s) lap when I felt unwell, inescapably vulnerable or unstable, or at the mercy of “who knows what might happen next”.   

Taking that to heart, I let that resistance sit and move in my consciousness and system.  Much to my pleasant surprise, I have by now, both metaphorically and literally put my head on friends’ and families’ laps.  

My body continues to be spent (14 months of not being well) and I live with daily symptoms of a messed-up gut (thanks to the virus), and yet, all the while my heart is deepening and becoming more alive.  Wonder of wonders, how love works.  Change, our inner worlds, the responses from the external world are countless and forever new. It was so sweet to notice that, even what appeared to be a deeply embedded pattern, when consciousness shone its light on it, was effortlessly shiftable and what initially looked like a behavior set in concrete, unmovable, loosened and relaxed. 

My strong discomfort with such raw vulnerability revealed to me a protection so deep it wasn’t even conscious; for I am not speaking of a superficial distaste for dependency (I am happy to ask for help when I need it) or an insistence on being self-reliant.  This shudder of armor ran deep in the marrow of my being. I can well imagine dying without having known this shield; it being so subtle, hidden, and didn’t seem to be in the way of living life fully or loving well. And yet, here it was revealed, coming to awareness. It surprised me, and since it was such an intensely visceral sensation, it was clear to me that it needed attention, TLC, and integration. An unconscious part of me had been left out in the cold and needed to be seen and loved. Given an opening, life will always move in the service of true wholeness and unconditional love.  

Unconditional love must include our precious human selves.  I am often asked the same question when it comes to looking at our humanity, paying attention to how we are uniquely wired – the question usually has different flavors but it comes down to “why do that”. Why look at or show interest in our humanity, our personality.  Especially when you have had a glimpse or more of your true nature and the bounty of living from the infinitely larger and know that is the truest reality. 

Being awake (I love the mystics way of seeing awakening as a sacred marriage, a holy union) is being viscerally aware of our connectedness, how everything is interconnected . . . not divided, not apart . .  not distanced from anything. Unconditional love means nothing is left out. It is intimate with every bit of life. Unconditional love, by its very name . . . unconditional . . . is accepting and inclusive of ALL.  Presence means being present to what is appearing each moment. No matter what is showing up. Doesn’t that, therefore, include our humanity, our personalities. Awareness, the very ground of being, the formless, is expressed through form.  Doesn’t it make sense then that we are wired to be curious about this expression, wonder about our inner life, wonder what animates us, why we suffer, be called to know ourselves, in a nonending deepening inquiry. Compassionate and deep self-inquiry has the potential of opening our minds, hearts and fists, allowing unconditional love, clarity and awareness to flow endlessly in and through us. The infusion of such love and clarity opens our eyes and ears to the inner world of “others”, to a deepening kindness for all humanity and an understanding of our universal pain and suffering. It reveals our common source as well as opens us to be attuned and receptive to the essence of the animal kingdom, the make-up of the trees and the rivers and the flowers.

Typically, the question of why would I look at myself, especially the painful parts when our true nature transcends our personalities, often comes from being concerned with inflating self- involvement or egotism or placing undue value on what is real in the relative world but not the Absolute world. (Or not wanting to hurt). And yet, paradoxically, when we genuinely pay attention and explore and notice, non-judgmentally, beyond shame, how we are wired, self-involvement is dissolved. Within an honest and serious inquiry of our inner world – who am I – we open ourselves to the transcendent. 

Our inner life is so much more than a personal thing.  It can have a fundamental flavor to it.  Know thyself so consciousness might expand, so love may deepen – courage might grow – reactivity can be understood and evaporate.  We only have to look around to see the chaos of the world we live in; when many have no idea who they are, as humans much less as source. 

I don’t think we can truly know ourselves, take good long looks within, care how we treat the people in our lives and all sentient beings, without loving ourselves.  Accepting our humanity, opening our hearts and our fists so we allow life to dissolve our unconscious shields over and over and over again.  In many ways, many of us have become accustomed to living with our guard up to some degree, to feeling unworthy in one regard or another, to seeing the surface of ourselves as the whole picture.  It is in the inner delving, with kindness and compassion towards every part of our humanity, that we re-connect with our completeness; remember ourselves as we truly are – vast, eternal love. 

In the 10 years since awakening, it has become crystal clear that awakening is the beginning of a movement. There is no arrival and nothing is really stable.  I am reminded of this over and over each time I am challenged by something new showing up.  Being ill has reinforced this to the moon and back.

I have a strong and kind medical team working with me.  There is no known “cure” for L/C and I have relied a great deal on homeopathy.  The remedies have given me some relief, here and there, but the important thing for this essay is what I noticed inside myself.  I began to call myself Charlie Brown, after the cartoon character; specifically, when Lucy tells him to kick the football and time and time again, no matter how many times she grabs the football just as he is going to kick it, leaving him falling flat on his back, he still goes after kicking it.

I would find myself feeling better, almost, almost okay and would think, “ahh, I am better now and can begin to recover” only to face a disappointing crash when I felt awful again a day or so later.  No matter how many times this happened I seemed to have no control of interfering or stopping this dynamic or internal exchange/conversation – even while watching and noticing how I was setting myself up each and every time.  All I could do was to be fully present to it and hold it softly and lightly.

All I could do was be aware of it and live it out. 

I mimicked Charlie Brown until I came to the end of my rope.  Hanging onto hope was taking up so much energy; which was in short supply and leaving me wrung out.  I only realized this in hindsight when I came to see that I had actually lost hope. It had simply disappeared; was not operating anymore.  I was living in a state of not knowing (will I recover, is this my new normal, might it get worse) and now was living there without hope – knowing in my cells that I cannot know how this will go and I was up against living in a state I had not known before this moment.  I spent a lot of time reflecting on what hope meant to me and watching what it was like to not have it to grab hold of when there was no physical relief from being sick and no ready answers from the medical world.  I felt cold and adrift, not alive as this moved through my entire system.  This was a big deal; I had even written a book on resiliency!  Throughout my earlier years hope had kept me sane; it had been the driving force for meaning and growth and expansion.  

And now, in the snap of a finger, it was gone.  

And yet, to my delight and astonishment, the shock and the distress did not last very long. As soon as it became clear – named – I had lost hope, I felt better being conscious of what was happening. (The truth shall set you free). The delicious irony is that hope was taking up valuable real estate.  Without its energy and desires, there was space and room for greater presence and the sweet current of love to overflow even more.  The circumstances have not changed and yet my heart and my being are often lighter.

Whether it be fear/anxiety or hope we are holding onto, we are distancing ourselves from the present moment.  Hope was keeping me, in subtle and not so subtle ways, looking to the future and distracting me, again in subtle and not so subtle ways, from the physical sensations in my body. Understandably! I remember reading, many years ago, that most of us humans do not want to fully face reality.  It is not for the faint of heart.  It requires great devotion to looking for and knowing what is real, what is true, no matter how it feels.  Our minds, designed for survival and feeling good, cannot grok this. 

I don’t feel better physically, which is quite rough at times, but I see more clearly being grounded in the present moment reality of being sick, not holding out for an imagined wellness. In the here and now of things, in any given moment or day, I find myself feeling the pure sensation of pain in my gut; the feeling of PTSD from the trauma of feeling unsafe in my body resurfacing; feeling deep, deep love wash through me, either “just because”, or as I look at any of my beloveds’ faces; my mind being foggy from the pain in one moment and clearer than ever in another moment; the pure jangled nerves radiating from my nervous system reacting to chronic pain; gazing out my living room window aimlessly or over the months, watching the orchids on my side table bloom and the flowers die, and then bloom again; my heart’s unending gratitude for being conscious – amazingly, the whole universe is within us and what a marvel for anyone of us to know this.  

And no matter the circumstances, like a constant gentle warm rain or a perpetual flow of vibrant still energy, peace is steadfast.  To be, to be aware and in awe of the radiant source of ALL at the same time seeing, being and being aware of this particular human being, is something I have no words for.  I need a poet for that.   

I once asked a bird, how is it that you fly in this gravity of darkness? She responded, 'love lifts me.'

Hafez

 There is only one world.  Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry in yourself.  As to the things inside, you will never see them well unless you allow those outside to enter in.  

To pass from the inner light to the light of the sun, was not the work of the senses.  A click sufficed, a slight change in point of view, like turning one’s head a hundredth part of the circle.”

Jacques Lusseyran

And There Was Light

Being Real

Flow down and down into ever widening rings of being

                                                                                    Rumi

I began this blog in December of 2021 and was setting out to explore living an authentic life - being one with all there is.  What it meant to be real . . . whole . . transparent and undivided.   What it meant to not pretend, or hide behind a role, or deny whatever didn’t appear “spiritual”. We live in a world of pretend.  Pretend you know what you are doing. Pretend you know who you are. Pretend you are strong.  Pretend you are alright.  Pretend you are good at your job/school/relationships.   For this blog I was headed into mystical land – being real as in being one with reality . . . being reality. . . being!

I had this much written:

One of my first recollections of seeking and intuiting there had to be something more than the way I was living was a refrain that announced itself . . . on its own, unbiddenly – “I want a personal relationship with God.”  I was a young wife and mother and heard this call . . . this quiet, persistent and mysterious call, over and over again.

I wanted, more than anything, to find the real, to be real . . . to find my way out of the maze of pretense and illusion I felt stifled by.  I didn’t have those words at the time; I just knew I was “acting as-if”, wondering if everyone but me had been given an owner’s manual for life.  I had no idea most people felt that way – that we were living in a world that rewarded accomplishment or doing and seemed terrified of being, simply being.  

“If no one else, the dying must notice how unreal, how full of pretense, is all that we accomplish here, where nothing is allowed to be itself.”

Rainer Maria Rilke 

Be real – sounds so simple and yet . . . and yet . . . most of us spend our lives avoiding it, chasing it, and digging our way out from under all that keeps us from our natural state of truth-telling . . . our natural state of wholeness, simply being. Don’t we long for the genuine, even as we flee it?  We long for the genuine and, yet, intuit the immensity and totality surrender of being one with reality, which often scares us.

(A bit of a side note here – I find it uncannily ironic how life works.  I muse and reflect on oneness; intuiting an even deeper experience of beingness . . . I ask in a sincere fashion and the answer appears. But many times, in my experience, at least, that answer arrives according to its own mysterious cosmic timing, and often in disguise.  And it often comes in a way I am not prepared for, or I cannot imagine wanting, or can’t, at first, be gracious about accepting it.)

In early January I became ill with Covid and have, since that day, 7+ months ago, lived with long Covid. 

Covid has become a guru – enforcing the reality of being sick, day after day, and taxing me in ways I have faltered over and over, – mainly, what it is like to be one with bodily misery?   Being miserable.

It is one thing to be open and present when things feel good or even good enough.  As humans we don’t really want to stay with the nakedness of our present moment when we are in pain.  It goes against the grain to stay present to misery.  These are the times that only tender gentleness and caressing love can give us the strength to settle into the truth of our experience.  To fully be one with pain and suffering.

Since awakening . . . that profound shift in perspective . . . life has focused on embodying that perspective. Sinking the realization into the body, unfolding and expanding the mystery of “I AM” so the body can absorb the good news increasingly and be progressively more fully alive.  Given my history of trauma and dissociation from my body, it has been a marvel and a challenge to inhabit my body consciously, intentionally, and persistently.  Walking and hiking trails I become aware, over and over, how alien my body had been to me, how foreign the concept of balance had been and I have marveled at what it was like to live in a dynamic body. As I grew in confidence and awareness of what my body could do and what its limitations were, I experienced subtle and not so subtle ways of living in the world in a more aligned and carefree way . . . it was as if awareness had a more viable and capacious vessel for expression and movement.

Being sick for a prolonged period of time, (and given the newness of this ailment there are no answers as to how long it might last), I come face to face with my body in a much less pleasurable state – what it is like to be sick.  What it is like to wake up each morning feeling lousy.

Consciousness narrows – focusing solely on the body and its discomforts and feelings of wretchedness.   Given how the body keeps the score, I discover deep patterns of fear and anxiety in my cells; fear of my body and fear in my body; (this is not new news; I have, for the most part, been phobic about being sick)but I am taken aback when I come upon a deeply buried stone in my heart.

Self-awareness is a magic potion.  It gives us insight into what we are not, what needs to be released so we know ourselves as the transcendent and it gives us guidance for expressing the divine through our unique personalities.  It clears the way for being – being presence, being reality.

I am in the land of having to learn more about my body – given the lifetime of ignoring it and distancing from it, I am often clueless as to what it needs, especially when I am sick.  I am called . . . pulled, actually, into the whirling waters of body awareness, right in the middle of the storm.

I feel miserable, day after day.  The medical world is unprepared for this malady and I have no idea what to do for myself. I am too fatigued to brush my teeth and months of being profoundly depleted from the fatigue impacts my nervous system, which begins to panic from insufficient energy. Being aware, being awake, living here, now, in this moment of being sick, means being miserable – I am pierced as I notice having no distance from this feeling – the first time this happens – I actually feel forsaken.  Where did peace go?  Where is the light of conscious awareness? 

My personality’s  MO’s “comfort” of keeping upbeat flies out the window. The distance between “keeping my fingers crossed” and “we shall see” is thousands of miles wide – the difference between living with a certain hope for a certain outcome and living with a genuine not knowing and not pretending I can know or make something happen is breathtaking.  Viscerally I am in the space of uncertainty – I genuinely cannot know how this illness will unfold.  Uncertainty has taken a bigger seat at the table and truly means business.  No amount of bargaining or arguing gets me out of facing the unknown.

I reflect upon Krishnamurti living in chronic pain with what he called “the process”.  He spoke of it as his system having to adapt to his new levels of awareness and consciousness and what a toll it took on him physically.  I reflect upon Brother Lawrence and his chronic sciatica and I reflect on Rumi’s guest house – welcoming everything into our being; i.e. misery, uncertainty, not being in control (implying all is God).  I reflect on Ghandi being shot and calling out Ram, Ram, Ram with each bullet.  Reality is reality . . . indifferent, benign, infinitely loving/accepting, and holding everything with equanimity.  In our limited understanding of the sublime mystery of things we see things as good or bad. It can only be God if it feels good.

The truth of it, though, which I am experiencing in real time, in the cells of my being . . . is . . . it is Reality even when it doesn’t feel good.  God as a bullet – the wonder of it, the very moment of shock, taking in all reality with grace and equanimity – a fountain of grace. 

Deep inside myself I know I am being shown an opportunity – I might even call it a gift.  With the tide gone out, I am able to see parts of myself washed to shore that were buried and unknown. I begin to feel a gradual ease and peace around being sick and less and less fear and anxiety. It is an opportunity to expand, to learn, to deepen and to release clutter and knots that are in the way of clearer wisdom and deepening unconditional love.  Within the deep realization of my true nature - being, my personal evolution of becoming/maturing continues. There is no end, no arrival . . . spiritual maturity carries on, operates naturally– in eternal timelessness.  

I am not shying away from the challenge of the experience. It has been brutal and at times I felt like a feral child with only a small flashlight at my disposal, woefully inadequate.   But there is the beauty of it . . . the blessed beauty of this process of transformation . . . this process of increasingly becoming our true, true expressions, as our hearts open wider and our humanity becomes a clearer and clearer reflection and embodiment of being.   It is the truth of that, the love of that, that lifts me and inspires me and holds me as I live smack inside the chaos.

Every living thing resides in the ground of being . . . Awareness . . . Reality . . . the Self, the Kingdom of God . . . Ground of Being . . .Emptiness. . . Infinite Spaciousness . . . Unconditional Love. (Call it what you will) Every one of us humans are in relationship to that ground of being and to the extent we are consciously aware of our true nature, we are open to and listen carefully as we become more conscious of that relationship and more and more authentically aligned with our pure being.  Everything is energy – inextricably connected – the universal I of pure being and the relative I of personality.  We all reside in and emerge from  the very same source and are connected by the invisible tapestry of universal beingness.

The patterns we encounter in the process of becoming/evolving have been called many things – Carl Jung called them complexes, knots of unconscious feelings and beliefs, originating from trauma that are split off from the conscious psyche – Ken Wilber referred to patterns and unconscious behaviors as indicators that it was time to grow up (as well as wake up) and the spiritual world often speaks of being identified with the pattern or thinking.  I, perhaps influenced by Jung, often experience our patterns as knotted and twisted energy, cutting off the life force of authenticity and flow.

We are designed to evolve in consciousness and become more of who we are in this world, our unique and fallible personalities – we can lean into our challenges, our messes, our imperfections, our misery – we do not have to pretend to feel any way other than we are feeling.  As we recognize the interconnectedness between the ground of our being and our becoming/expanding/spiritual maturing, the more sensitive we become.  The more we recognize that everyone, at the deepest level, resides in the ground of being, the easier it becomes to be kindly honest and truthful about ourselves.  It actually becomes harder and harder to pretend we are something we are not.  We are unable to turn away from ourselves. This is life in its completeness.  This, which the mind has so much trouble grokking, is love.

At times I am cranky.

At times love comes up behind me and takes me in its arms, cradling my body or caressing my cheeks.

At times I sob and sob.  The sobs coming from a pressure in my chest.  I love that it is pure sensation – not coming from my mind or memories.

At times I sit still, eyes closed and content in silence

At times I have no contact with the outside world (other than doctor appointments and family and friends helping hands when needed)

At times I feel simply miserable.

At times my heart aches and breaks (maybe softening the dark, cold stone buried from long ago)

It is all a seamless, unbroken and undivided whole.  Teeming with equanimity.  It is all God; it is all Reality.  It is all Being.

We fear our serpent,” he said,” as we also fear the numinosum –

so we run from it…

All we have to give the world and God is ourselves as we are.

But this is the hardest of all tasks.”

                                                                        Carl Jung

The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight. –

                                                                                                             Joseph Campbell

Encountering

I Confess

I stalked her
in the grocery store: her crown
of snowy braids held in place by a great silver clip,
her erect bearing, radiating tenderness,
watching
the way she placed yogurt and avocados in her 
basket,
beaming peace like the North Star.
I wanted to ask, "What aisle did you find
your serenity in, do you know
how to be married for fifty years or how to live 
alone,
excuse me for interrupting, but you seem to 
possess
some knowledge that makes the earth turn and 
burn on its axis—"
But we don’t request such things from strangers
nowadays. So I said, "I love your hair.

                                                Alison Luterman

A man stopped his truck alongside me as I walked along the country road on a brisk fall day.  He rolled his window down and said it was a pretty good day.  

He was not in a rush, nor was I.  Neither of us were distracted or suspicious, leaving lots of room for a sweet encounter.  “It’s a pretty good day.  I like the simple things, like being above ground and that the mosquitoes are gone,” he tells me.

Whether it be a simple and passing moment between two strangers or a lingering and deep encounter with a loved one, being alive within nature . . . or for that matter, a meeting of oneself in an open way . . . we all know the joy of being present. 

Being present is encountering . . . fully taking in the essence or the state of whatever or whomever is in the field of awareness in that moment.  Encountering without the meddling of our mind.   It is living from the deepest place within; being, the marvel of simply being, unburdened being . . . easily and naturally attentive to life living itself.  People in their cars, on the sidewalk or country road, shopping for groceries, sharing a meal, walking their dogs.  Squirrels running up a tree, gathering acorns, and scampering back down the tree to bury their winter food in the ground.

Everyday life is full of things, activities, tasks, people, critters and nature available for that encounter with its essence.

Encounters coming from presence, arising from still silence, are sacred.  Sitting in the vast open space of presence we meet the sky and the moving clouds and savor its beauty; maybe even lose all sense of anything else happening in that moment – the sky and clouds showing off and communing.  Just because and for no reason.  

This depth of encounter takes us beyond our illusion of separation; there is no distance between – the lines have blurred and vastness takes over.  When the obstacles of personality and egoism have dissolved, we experience everything . . . everything, as one seamless whole.  There is no this and that, no me and other, no form and formless. 

Encountering feels like the earth has opened up and swallowed you whole, leaving you with a shimmering sense of the eternal.  Engaging in the pure felt sense . . . the touch of experience, not abstractly or from a distance, but feeling the timeless now with ever-increasing sensitivity reveals to us ITS actual condition . . . directly!  And reveals, in its jaw dropping radiance, we are that.  Whole, undivided. 

 Encountering heart break upon hearing how drought-dry trees are literally falling over and dying, encountering children’s laughter, encountering a friend’s grouchiness or hostility. Encountering the lush orange, inside a persimmon, its star radiating out from the center; the lyrics of a Stephen Sondheim song. (Presence does not discriminate nor does it have any preference.  In fact, it is unburdened and unaffected by whatever shows up). 

Being aware of whatever is showing up in awareness, without judgment, fear and agenda both leaves us wide open to this deeper reality and requires us to be wide open, indiscriminately taking anything and everything in.  To our minds this is heresy; you’d have to be nuts to not put-up buffers. 

Look deeper and then deeper still.  We are invited to slow down, slow down, sinking into sweetness, away from the conditioned mind; allow stillness to be felt, to be heard, tasted and savored.  The movement of slow and deeper are connective threads; they are entry ways to getting and staying connected. . . genuinely connected . . . to yourself and to the world you move in.  When we slow down and sink deeper our energy will naturally go towards and into the depths of our being. Experiencing life from deeper and slower is not dependent on our moving slowly; even when we are rushing or excited, it is possible to experience everything from an inward and downward slowed down encounter. It might not be apparent in the rush of excitement but when we do stop and look deep within, there is being – sweet, unaltered, omnipresent. We are invited to find this out for ourselves – beckoned into the depth of our being . . . called to encounter the real, the truth of our vast, silent, spacious and timeless essence.

We yearn for real connection.  Connections without masks (the psychological ones) or pretending. Even as we are caught up in the social requirements of relating on the surface of things and making nice or competing, we long for something more deeply satisfying.  We want to see and be seen, in deep ways. 

Typically, we humans live with a feeling of isolation.  To one degree or another, we are cut off from ourselves, cut off from others, cut off from the world, cut off from nature, leaving us unsatisfied and longing for contentment, joy, unconditional love; even when we cannot name this longing.  Often not knowing what we are looking for, we spend our days distracting ourselves, working hard to keep away from the abyss of our yearning.  

If and when we really look within, we are likely to find that we humans are made in such a way that we are, crazy as it sounds, attached to our suffering, to our mind’s perspective.  We become convinced that our suffering is real, it is necessary, and it gives us a sense of self and purpose.  If we are fortunate, we intuit a call to seeing through the mind’s perspective and an even deeper call to its surrender – surrender of what we have counted on to cope, surrender of what we have assumed we would not live without.  After all, how could we not see it this way (until we do not) given how we have lived in this mode our whole lives, our society has collectively agreed that our mind’s viewpoint holds sway and we are, most often, terrified of knowing, really knowing we are not in charge of our lives as we thought we were. 

The stillness, the spaciousness, the presence we intuitively know, both calls to us and lies hidden underneath the human drive for survival . . . this mechanism we so fervently cling to.  This is the rubber hits the road reality, the apparent abyss . . . questioning the messages we get from the ego’s demand and insistence on its realness and it-must-survive-at-all -costs implications. 

Encountering the real, beyond our mind is an ego death. This ego death (living beyond the survival machine) is shifting from the point of view of the conditioned mind to the perspective of wholeness. . . oneness.  Ego death comes from a deep devotion to the truth . . . from deep surrender and deep listening . . . observing . . .encountering.  Listening from silence and stillness is the sacred encountering.  We are often not accustomed to really listening; it takes practice and sincerity to listen closely and deeply; what we hear is often quickly interpreted, figured out, analyzed and explained by our minds.  

Paradoxically, to enable ego death requires self-understanding.  It appears we need to know ourselves, know what is in the way of realizing our essential being, know our defenses and patterns, know egoism up close and personal; in order to open our fists and let it all go. 

I remember my closed fists, the sentries at the gates and I remember being guarded making sense to me, given my heart had been broken, time and again.  And I remember something deeper calling, over and over – being challenged to drop defenses, intuitively knowing being defended was not the way to go.  There is something deeper afoot.  How did I really want to spend life – how did I really want to live – dead/unfeeling inside? Numb? Watching from outside my body?  As if?  Disconnected? Superficially? 

Even before tasting it, I knew I wanted to feel alive and accessible. I yearned for my heart to be open. I wanted to be truly alive . . . all the time, every day, every moment.  No matter what it took. 

Self-understanding appears to be essential to awakening– before, during and after. To be consciously attuned, to be aware of being aware, to expand and to be love appears to call for self-understanding, an ongoing noticing and honest looking at yourself kind of self-understanding . . . not every once-in-a-while understanding, but every day, every moment. Saying it that way can make it sound like very hard work, but really it doesn’t have to be.  With kindness and curiosity, with compassion and lack of judgment self-understanding does not have to be burdensome or harsh; instead, it can be open, effortless, and welcomingly revealing.  

In a way it is very simple, although the opposite of what we have been taught. See through the mind’s demand to shield you from life.  Drop defenses and show up.  Drop defenses and be real, let life live freely, allow pain and heartbreak, joy and awe, fear and regrets move through you, like electricity coursing through wires.  

It really is simple.  True encountering (love/acceptance with no conditions) is the fire needed to face and dissolve all defenses.  It is the power to face anything – heartbreak, leave-takings, rejections, isolation, fear and doubt – anything.  It is a two-step dance – open to presence, open to the love that you are, and put down your guard.  Layer after layer of guard.  

Be still and greet life. 

The free soul is rare but you know it when you see it – basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.

                                                                                    Charles Bukowski

Darkness, Our Ole Friend

Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

Rainer Maria Rilke

I am sitting on the sand overlooking the Pacific Ocean, watching the birds soar and dive into the waves.  It is an overcast day, grey sky, grey clouds and grey sea, which has a beautiful soft light to it all.  The serenity is palpable as is the hypnotic rhythm of the waves.

The sea is closer to the beach house in recorded history – it is not hard to imagine the day the sea simply swallows the dunes and the homes on the shore; reclaiming the land, decks and rooves, windows and stones, awash in the waves of the ocean.  As I sit on the beach, miles from this moment of sweetness, acres and acres of California are burning, devastating forests and homes and businesses.

We live in a world of duality . . . a world of opposites. Serenity and upheaval, eat or be eaten, light and dark.  We know which way is up because there is down; most of our experiences are seen as good or bad and for the most part we are taught there is a right way to do things and behave and there is a wrong way, often important learning for our developmental growth, hopefully helping us get along in the world.  When we stop and question the state of our world and our lives, we are far more used to conflict than we want to be in our heart of hearts.  We watch and suffer as we become divided at times and find moments of unity at other times. 

In moments of reflection, we might wonder who are victims and who are oppressors.  Who is the mystic and who is the terrorist?  Am I the good guy or the problem?  At some point, if we are paying close attention, we come to the realization that it is far from black and white, there is nothing simple or obvious about it.  There are only sides of things, shades of grey, nuances and textures.  Everything is enormously complex and fluid and inseparable from everything else. When we genuinely look closely at this, we see that nothing actually settles into the neat boxes of black and white that make it so easy to judge and hate each other.  Haven’t we all, at some point, in our human condition, acted out many of the roles – hurting someone and being hurt?  Being pig headed in one moment and being quietly kind to a stranger in another.  Haven’t we all experienced ourselves being confused and making matters worse?  Or what about being able to genuinely walk in the shoes of the person or group that feels threatening, maybe even dangerous? 

I remember sitting and listening to a speaker; I suspect the speaker was vital and alive, probably animated and honest . . . connected to what she was saying.  But mostly what has stayed with me is the unbidden (and important) insight that came to me, as truth can and does show up when we least expect it.  I saw that, to me, everything about life was black and white/one dimensional/flat and, in that moment, I intuited a technicolor reality, not having any idea, at that time, what that really meant for my life.  

We live in a dualistic world that is expanding, ever so much so.   We are designed to open and grow (just as our alive planet expands) and get bigger and bigger, opening our minds, hearts and gumptions wider and wider, increasing the capacity to contain and embrace and accept (love) all that appears as dark and light, pleasant and unpleasant, sweet and sour, good and bad - with equal neutrality – not holding onto either perspective.

We are invited to play . . . to play with the profound polarity of it being this way and that way.  Left is opposite of right; it is hard to imagine a world of up without down. The paradox that always co-exists, gifting us with the possibility of experiencing what is beyond our human mind. The paradox of we are one and we are two at the same time.  We are no thing and we are every-thing. They come together and yet they appear as opposites. 

Technicolor! The technicolor of experiencing that which is beyond our human mind. The technicolor I intuited listening to the speaker is the shimmering of transcendence (the field beyond right doing and wrong doing that Rumi points to) that shows up when we are living full up of presence.  When we are present to this moment, the ordinary thing that is happening right now, the very thing in our immediate awareness, everything is vibrationally alive, encapsulating and transcending opposites, transcending our conditioned mind, our personalities . . . our personhood.  Living in technicolor, present-based reality is overwhelmingly moving; breathtaking in fact.  

Seeing the world as it really is.  The ordinary is seen as IT.  When the conditioned mind falls away (even for a moment) it tends to explode that dualistic energy and suddenly the world is seen as it is, exquisitely real and immediate, ending the search for anything other than this ordinary, right now, moment. 

In knowing our true nature – in experientially knowing it is all, ultimately, impersonal we are then free to play with the polarity and opposites and consciousness of the relative. Only when the ocean is known can the waves of the ocean be enjoyed and known for the miracle it is. 

Often what keeps us from living in presence is our fear of the dark.  What we don’t want to look at, what we are afraid of, what we judge to be off the table, remains in the shadow of the psyche, remains dull and full of projections and judgments. This projection of the dark (towards ourselves or another) keeps us from seeing the miracle of the cup of tea in front of us.  The projections of the fears and hopes that live within our conditioned mind keeps us from really experiencing ourself or the cup of tea. 

We all suffer from the anxiety and anticipation of what darkness means to us.  How we live with that suffering is what makes a difference.  We have the makings within ourselves to transcend the opposites of duality and discover ourselves as pure presence, the field of equanimity beyond all suffering. This is what we come back to, an equanimity that can bring us to our knees in awe.  Incredibly so. Wake up to the oneness so you can enter into the holiness of this relative realm.  

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, spent his lifetime paying attention to our psyches, often using a map of opposites that lives within us.  Who hasn’t experienced the power and force of seemingly conflicting energies running through our system . . . being a good girl/boy and harboring resentment, showing the world how tough or strong we are all the while hiding neediness and tenderness, being ‘on your game’ all day long and needing one more drink at night . . . anything and everything that shows up in our conscious mind has a compensatory energy in our unconscious, sometimes close to the surface and other times the compensatory opposite is buried deep in the unconscious and it is only by paying attention to its signals that we become aware of the conflicting energy.

We live with layers and layers of unconscious material, hidden away in the darker recesses of our psyches, not only accessible to our consciousness but apparently designed to be manifested and lived.  In the largest context we are whole (Jung called the divine within all of us the Self) . . . we are made up of the material of the stars and the universe and are designed to integrate fully and live from oneness. 

In fact, what arises from the unconscious can be the very soul of transcendence when allowed into the light of day by conscious awareness.  When we are willing to sit still, (not react); when we give ourselves the time and space to allow the conflicting energies free reign to alchemically mix and heal and transform, the natural process (Jung called it the transcendent function) will deliver us to a new, wider and deeper prospective.

I know this to be true.  Having looked deeply into the dark, over and over, discovering each time, like the very first time, expansiveness and clarity and profound love in the heart of the darkness.  Yes, it is challenging and daunting and sometimes downright terrifying to look, but turning towards and leaning into the dark has revealed, again and again, the scrumptious sacredness of this life we are living, this mysterious experiment we are in the midst of, the potency of the ordinary, and the folly of believing in the story of separation. 

It is easy to feel thankful when things are going well – it is another kettle of fish to not resist when things are hard and ugly, opening ourselves to life as it is even when we have no inkling of how, or even if, we will find our way through the challenge or difficulty.  Being grateful for the dark is a game changer.  It cuts through a morass of assumptions and resistances – almost like the deepest within us sits up and takes notice of our serious devotion to knowing what is real and what is true, regardless of the aversion and fears of the darkness.  

This willingness, this devotion can be a portal into the presence of the moment. . . into the deeper truth – the eternal nature of presence that goes on and on forever, opening wide, in slow motion, peaceful and full of creativity and aliveness . . . where everything is truly alright, no matter the circumstances. 

Experiencing the opposites, look into darkness and wake up to the consistent presence of light.  Sit still, listen carefully, and discover the treasure within: the energies of wholeness, oneness; the treasure of your very real nature that activates beyond good and bad – the very real essential nature that is at your fingertips.  

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I will give myself to it.

 I circle around God, around the primordial tower.

I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

Rainer Maria Rilke

It's An Inside Job

To Come Home to Yourself

May all that is unforgiven in you,

Be released.

May your fears yield

Their deepest tranquilities.

May all that is unlived in you,

Blossom into a future,

Graced with love.

                        John O'Donohue

One of the greatest gifts we can receive in this life is being dissatisfied.

Contrary to what most of us have heard and learned, being disillusioned and disappointed can be the quiet still voice beckoning us to question our lives; it can be a wake-up call to explore a lifetime of inquiry– the privilege and the quest of discovering, and then living from, the root of our deepest longing desires.  In asking ourselves what we so fiercely hunger for, we open ourselves to the experience of being – simple and effortless being – the very thing our heart and soul yearns for.  

We open ourselves to the river of our own unique, effortless beingness.  To the desire to be connected . . . at one with . . . every other being we encounter.  To feel at home on this earth and in our bodies.  To unabashedly love, to know what it is like to cherish ourselves, our life, all life.  

There are no guidebooks for this – no one size fits all – no one else that can fully or truly know our path into becoming – each one of us is the only one that can respond to this demand; the life that is given to us for us to realize. 

The grief for some inexpressible loss we feel, the sorrow we taste and the fear we are oh-so-familiar with sings out to let us know we are out of touch with our deepest longings and when we allow the welling up of disappointments and disillusionments to get our fully open and attentive focus, we are brought closer to our sweet and tender selves, allowing our hearts to open out in ever deepening trust; allowing our intuition, to whatever degree has long been restrained or even out of reach,  to flower into action, and allowing the weight of worry and angst to lift and lift and lift. 

To become the being of your deepest burning desires is a marvel. If you can find a creative and dynamic harmony between your essential Self and your life, you will have found something infinitely and authentically priceless. This gift of harmony, our birthright, will simply bubble up and out of you, without any effort, easily touching every aspect and morsel of your daily life.  A gift of harmony that automatically fans out beyond you, often experienced as compassion, kindness and ease.  

Who amongst us has not looked outside ourselves for confidence, for harmony – if I were an accomplished flutist, was thinner, not a people-pleaser, more adventurous. . . then I would be happy, content and feel good about myself. Then I would be free to be myself.  Who amongst us has not wished away depression, anxiety and despair, convinced our lives would be more worthwhile living if and when we didn’t feel so badly?  Who amongst us has not looked outside ourselves, persuaded there is some safe and secure shield from life’s hardships, some warm blanket and hot meal that would, forever, keep us from harm? Who amongst us has not been convinced circumstances and/or someone is the cause of our unhappiness or happiness? 

Turn inward instead and listen. Listen with every cell in your body. Listen, thoroughly wanting to hear. Our inner lives are astonishing and vast and mysterious and infinite.  We contain the enormity of presence within us, as much as we are held within its deep stillness.  Each one of us is an individual authentic and profound expression of conscious beingness – regardless of what form that expression is taking, regardless of our opinion or feeling about it.  

Be open to the powers that be – the mysterious and ecstatic flow of life, begging for expression – expression that only you can set in motion. 

If you are not feeling it go deeper – The stillness of presence, the enormity of what you truly are, is sitting inside yourself.

Learn what you are, not through another but by watching yourself.  Openly . . . heart, mind, gut and fists open. . . watch yourself.  Not in a condemning way, not falling into the trap of believing something is wrong with you, somehow you are not alright, something about you needs fixing or to be different.  Watch yourself without any form of reaction or resistance and watch the very act of neutral noticing burn away the foolishness, the illusions one has about oneself. 

It is quite a revelation to discover that the condition you wanted to avoid is the exact same condition you find yourself in and that suffering is not a sign that something is wrong with you.  It is a revelation that the prison wasn’t the place or the condition or the circumstances, but the perspective; the most radical change happens within your exact same life.  The biggest and most profound shift happens not by becoming richer or more accomplished or not being depressed or . . . the really big one . . . being more certain or pain free; it happens by waking up in the exact same life. 

Living in the midst of your day-to-day relationships, responsibilities, likes, dislikes, comings and goings, is a rich, rich soil.  All these can become the very means for the purification of your heart.  

By finding ourselves we become our Self.  

No reasoning will describe this or capture it; nor will discussing it or explaining it. Our minds simply cannot comprehend this; more often than not our minds will lead us on a wild goose chase trying to understand and finagle. 

The discovery lies in the choice of experiencing it and being lost in the simplicity of it. 

What appears to matter is the profound experience of having journeyed through mountains and deep seas to come back to where you started; your own self. Having touched or fallen into the vastness of your true nature, your unique instrument of the totality is now a more conscious self that is oh-so-real, openly transparent; a self that is more familiar and accepting of how it ticks, no longer disconnected from other selves, a self which is attuned and alive . . . vibrating and quivering as life itself. . . at-one-with the tuning note of the infinite vastness that it now knows itself to be.  

Give up the desire for suffering.

Know yourself to be life itself, all of it.  Know yourself as silence and experience yourself as an expression of that silence. Discover your very own sweet expression of the all, and celebrate that quirky and unique, god-given creation. 

It does seem to be that love is looking at Itself with love!

Loving Life No Matter What

If the falling of a hoof ever rings the temple bells,
If a lonely man's final scream before he hangs himself
And the nightingale's perfect lyric of happiness all become an equal cause to dance,
The Sun has at last parted it's curtain before you -
God has stopped playing child's games with your mind
and dragged you backstage by the hair,
Shown to you the only possible reason for this bizarre and spectacular existence.
Go running through the streets creating divine chaos,
Make everyone and yourself ecstatically mad for the Friend's beautiful open arms.
Go running through this world giving love, giving love,
If the falling of a hoof upon this earth ever rings the Temple Bell.

Rumi

Nothing short of a sacred marriage, a mystical union of god and human, wonder and grapple, animal energy and the exalted heart and mind will open our hearts and give way to us being okay with, at ease with, and even grateful for what we, in our minds, judge to be right or wrong, suitable or too dark to be talked about much less faced.  Nothing short of transcendence will allow the curtains to part so we can know, truly know, the neutral open arms of that kind of love.  The kind of love that parts the curtains and has you sincerely responding, instead of reacting, no matter what life is dishing out.  

Throughout time, including present day, mystics and spiritual teachers have pointed to the reality of our deepest essence – our I Am-ness, the immeasurable and radiant holy that animates every one of us and every living thing.  Mystics and spiritual teachers point to the seamless whole of animating awareness that surrounds and permeates all; that in its unbroken formlessness has no opposite, no outside, no inside, no beginning nor end – inviting those who have ears to hear what is most real. 

Mystics and spiritual teachers point to awakening to that – awake to that which is beyond our humanity, beyond our limited understanding of who we are; who we think we are in terms of our ego selves, our temperament, personality, behavior or morality.   Awake to what we truly are; to our delicious and natural being-ness. 

But, often, much to our surprise, once we have fallen head over heels into the blissful spaciousness of our being, we discover we are really at a starting line, a wide open and undefined arising, a point that will, with no say or control on our part, expand and deepen . . . a call (truthfully, it is more like an insistence if we are humble and truly listening) to embodying all that has been realized.  

Like the hero/heroine’s journey, once the treasure has been revealed, once the light shines its beacon illuminating what we truly are, we are brought back to where we started; we are invited into manifested I AM-ness, faced with our temperament, personality, behavior and morality but from a radically different point of view; from an ever increasing expanded and elevated loving, consciousness perspective. 

 We are called to an ongoing and embodied expression of our deepest realizations; embodied in our every-day life, in our human relationships, in the nitty-gritty difficulties of daily living.  In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says, “Those who know the All yet do not know themselves are deprived of everything.” 

With that being true . . . enter stage left . . . self-awareness.  

Goodness has no counterpart. To know this, viscerally know this, asks us to pay close attention to our conditioned mind; to our assumptions and beliefs; to our patterns of behavior and motivations.  The mystical journey is one of negation – it is an emptying out process, a clearing or sweeping of what it is not and preparing the ground for what is. Most of us consider goodness to be the opposite of bad, wrong . . . and even evil.  Most of us believe we have to work hard to be good, to be loving, to be kind.  When we live on the surface of our mind goodness feels like an achievement, a let’s-work-hard at this love thing.  

We often do not trust goodness, much less have easy access to it in regular life, and yet it is through goodness that the divine reveals itself.  We often do not trust divinity and, worried that there is something wrong with us we turn our heads and our hearts away from anything closely resembling the shadow side of our thoughts and behavior and can find ourselves feeling righteous when other people behave badly.  We are confused about morality and we are confused about what we consider dark, ugly and frightening. 

God (consciousness/awareness/presence) knows no morality – In the profoundest sense living an authentic, fully realized life has nothing to do with whether there is a desire to cheat on your exam in order to get into graduate school or a desire to drink a case of beer before visiting relatives you don’t like, or breaking promise after promise.  Living a fully realized life does not mean hiding our bad habits nor behaviors that make us cringe; you know . . . the real wincey ones . . . like seeing our extreme self-centeredness, realizing we are taking advantage of or hurting others or not feeling empathic.   

The real truth is God works in mysterious ways and as the Baal Shem Tov exclaims, “Let me fall if I must.  The one I will become will catch me.”

Often, the portal into a deepening mystical union is through the darkness, the shadowy parts we do everything we can to get around.  Imagine, if you can, feeling grateful for the light while the night is still dark.

Resistance

When Rumi points to responding to the sweetness and the tragic in the same way, I hear the sound and power of non-resistance.  Not resisting what we want to avoid; in fact, turning towards the very resistance and the dark corners of our patterns, behaviors, thoughts and motivations that typically show up in the dark night of change, healing and the unknown. We resist changing because the old patterns are so familiar, even if they are self-limiting and harming or dysfunctional.  We kid ourselves into believing it is better to stay with the well-known rather than venture out into the unknown. 

I have a great deal of respect for resistance; it is often the cause of our suffering and it can reveal the place . . . the material that needs attention and opens doors to seeing our patterns.  Rather than reacting, we are called to be curious towards it and explore this edge of fear.  Noticing our resistance can be a game changer, showing us where to look and possibly heralding a breakthrough. 

Resistance is manifested in the mind. It might show up through avoidance, making excuses and blaming (including self-blame). It might manifest as tension in the muscles and the heart and belly of the body.  Resistance can show up in the densely energetic form of escape or distraction, rejection and denial of feelings, hot headed emotions, numbness and complaining, cajoling or persuading (again, including towards yourself). 

And here’s a mind-twister.  For most of us, distancing ourselves from our emotions, running away from our painful feelings, shuts out everything good as well – adding layers of more pain, confusion, suffering and separation.   Numbing our pain removes us from goodness and love - the very essence of our being, the fruit of a sacred marriage, the moving beyond mind-made good and bad.  

Through the power and clarity of non-resistance, through the softening of the rigidity within, through the spacious flow of open-hearted, open-armed seeing, we become receptive to the potential of transformation and the ongoing realization of our essential nature.  The stillness of what is most real, most true . . . touches, moves and changes all form.

Through listening and understanding, love abounds, the situation will likely change and you will expand and grow, ever-more embodying the fullness of your being.  

 Devotion

Going back to Rumi’s poem at the beginning of this essay, I read ‘the sun has at last parted its curtain’ and I sink into what it feels like to be fully and sincerely devoted to being free, no matter what.  

Whether it be devotion to mastering the piano, tending to a sick child, to a cup of tea with a dear friend, or devotion to loving the real with all our heart, mind, soul and body, that honest give-it-all-you-got attention and wonder. . . the deliciousness of curiosity and unhindered exploration; parts the curtains and grace takes over.

I love the word ‘devotion’.  It has captivated me for most of my adult life, so much so that I find my heart and body opening – metaphorically standing with my arms wide open or prone flat on the ground.  Devotion is commitment, sincerity, intention, foundational and poised in a certain direction.

Our souls, our intuition, our instincts, our small quiet voices call out to us – over and over and over again – talk about devotion.  How do we connect to this place within us, this immeasurable call of the sacred?

Whether it is to realize or embody our natural being devotion shows up as an effortless but intentional orientation to our day-to-day life.  Without contemplation, without conscious inquiry our conditioning is going to run on automatic pilot, falling into conditioned values, viewpoints and ways of being.  Inquiry into what’s my life really about, what’s my foundation . . . we are called to be devoted to that in a sustained and deep way. What is it that you are devoting your life to – your very precious and finite time here – in the nitty gritty day to day living, what is important to you? 

After awakening we are faced with a paradox:  On one hand, the revelation of our true nature, once viscerally experienced, is complete in of itself and on the other hand, we, if listening closely, hear the wisdom of knowing there is more to come; there is always more to come. 

With humility, we grow in trust and commitment to all that is real after an awakening, however strong the pull might be to feel good and deny our human messiness.  Sages and mystics have been clear on the folly of putting our heads in the sand: 

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

                                                                        Jesus, The Gospel of Thomas

Bringing forth all that is within, integrating the dark and the light within will transform our whole being.  Forget being a bystander; descend into your depths, face yourself, resistance and all.  Forget judgments, fear, and shame, face yourself compassionately and wisely.  Facing ourselves, resistance and all; facing ourselves compassionately and wisely, breaks us open wider and wider.  Authenticity is felt as a sense of aliveness and acceptance for this life - in the midst of joy and anguish alike . . . in the midst of everything, no matter what.  We feel open, undefended and intimately connected to our innermost Self.  Then the sweetness, goodness, compassion and depth of the Self is reflected in our life and, effortlessly, benefits all beings. 

 “Breathing in and breathing out the one breath of the universe”

                                                                        Hildegard of Bingen

Killing The Buddha

"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."

Lin Chi 

There is a conversation happening in parts of the spiritual community around the shadow side of gurus and teachers and readings. 

How and when is it helpful to be guided to what you have not yet realized on your own – how and when does the relationship between a teacher . . . or even teachings . . . and a seeker enable the light to go on inside the seeker; and how do you determine when the relationship might be a crutch?  How does a seeker know when to cut the cord?  Is there a role for the teacher in clipping the student’s wings? 

Some of the conversation is questioning what might be going on in the seeker and what might be going on in the teacher or guru in terms of unconscious motivations.  

We all certainly have heard or even experienced the more blatant abuses – power, financial, sexual – but I am looking at the more subtle ties of dependency between gurus/teachers/readings and seekers.  For this exploration I am looking more into what that dependency is like for the seeker, leaving the conversation about the teacher’s role for another time. 

I have a special place in my heart for this conversation.  I was grateful to rely on spiritual teachings and a spiritual teacher in learning to trust the quiet voice of wisdom and spirit inside my heart; it felt necessary and ended up being profoundly fruitful;  and  I can attest to the joy . . . the sweetest of joys, of fully turning within, not needing to look outside for guidance or direction (nor, turning away when help is needed), instead, sinking into my own true nature and listening to the sound and guidance of my own beating heart. 

How do we learn about ourselves? We see ourselves reflected in relationship.   Whether it be nature, our fellow humans and critters or our very own depth . . it is in relationship to the perceived that we, when open and receptive, can discover who we are and who we are not.  It is in relationship that we are invited to expand and grow and evolve, becoming more conscious of ourselves, the world we share, and love itself. 

Have you ever gone on a favorite hike with a friend and been delighted to see something you have not seen before because you are now seeing your surroundings through his or her eyes?

The delight and wonder of being introduced to new vistas.

We are extraordinarily fortunate to have life reflect back to us the invisible spirit /life force that animates our beings . . . that enlivens all living things.  After all, isn’t it possible to go through an entire lifetime and not have had anyone or anything point to the exquisite and unending depth within your very being?  The wonder of hearing that love and compassion, silence and spaciousness is what you are. What is it like to pick up Rumi as he implores you to look within? We can taste and sense the silence, the presence stirring deep within us, perhaps for the very first time, by listening to Adyashanti.  Or have him ask piercing questions: “Is my life an expression of the deepest thing I know to be true?”

When we truly listen, we can fall into silence reflected to us by the redwood trees as we walk in the forest.  Or the freshly fallen snow on a winter day, or a walk in the deep snow in the woods. When we are breath-taken by beauty, we are tasting the grace of pure harmony.  

Life is speaking, reaching out all the time . . . reflecting ourselves back to ourselves when we truly listen.   Love is healing, through reflecting, always, the innate goodness of all beings. 

We are all born dependent, not able to care for ourselves, relying on others to keep us alive.  We needed others to show us, tell us, care us into self-awareness, letting us know (or failing in some cases) we exist and we belong.  We are educated to be a person, to think of ourselves as worthy if we amount to someone deemed valuable and to succeed, reach the top of some mythical mountain.  We are taught to depend on others to tell us what to think; not how to think, and so we look to leaders.  We are taught to think of ourselves as separate from others and needing to make our way in the world of competition and comparison. 

If and when we have experienced trauma, there will be another layer of dependency to contend with.  We can be left with a profound experience of relative emptiness, leaving us looking for someone or something to fill us, no matter the cost to us.   Looking to someone to make sense of the inner chaos and fragmentation we might be living with. 

Collectively, we formed tribes to have safety and comfort in numbers – relied on each other for where danger lay.  We attach ourselves to a group or an ideology, a particular country or religion or spirituality, safe havens to convince ourselves we are safe as long as we belong with others who see the world in the same way.  

We are a woven tapestry of everything we have learned throughout our lives.  

I don’t think we can overestimate the power of this conditioning. 

From this conditioning, we will often do anything in order to belong!  In the relative world it makes sense, doesn’t it, given we live in a realm that operates, fully and completely, from a belief that we are on our own, separate and disconnected from each other, separate from nature, removed from our deep essence and out of touch with the spirit that pervades every molecule and cell of existence. 

Within that sense of aloneness (to whatever degree we are conscious of feeling alone) doesn’t it seem imperative . . . even necessary from a survival point of view, that we belong to someone, to something?  That we have a place, a tribe, a family, a partner, our own woods or flag or belief system to hold onto.   The feeling of belonging is powerful, giving us a sense of connectedness and in many ways a false sense of security and safety.  We can kid ourselves that no harm will come to us or we can hide behind others who know more and will take care of whatever needs to be taken care of.  Defining ourselves in this way (including the labels of our careers, achievements and affiliation) gives us that sense of belonging and boosts our egos.  We feel we are not alone when we are part of something bigger than ourselves. 

Or we can kid ourselves by defending against this vulnerability and stake a claim of preferring to be on our own, hiding behind a wall of “self-reliant protection”.  

Perhaps the fundamental reason we seek belonging with all our might is the intuitive knowing we all carry that we are at one with everything and everyone, and yet we believe ourselves to be alone.  Trying to grok this contradiction, we go grasping around in the dark looking in all the wrong places for the realization of knowing, viscerally knowing . . . “I” belong.  I belong everywhere.  I belong all the time.  I belong to everything.  I am All. 

It could be said it is a gigantic evolutionary leap to seek and follow guidance within our very own hearts, to become adults, in every sense of that word, and to know, really know, the connectedness of everything and everyone.  It could be said it is a gigantic evolutionary leap to let go of our fears of not belonging in the relative world, trusting we are whole and can stand on our own two feet, in all our glory. 

We are drawn to this state of being, as we are drawn to self-realization, sensing the profound freedom and liberation it implies.  

And yet, I suspect we intuitively recognize the enormity of standing on our own two feet . . . the shock of being adrift in the ocean without a lifeline or getting used to uncertainty as a constant companion, walking in the woods without a map.  

But here is the plain and simple truth – each and every one of us is alone in the world.  It takes great courage and devotion to meet the truth of our aloneness. After all, most of worldly activity is subconsciously designed to drown out the deep yearning . . . the roar within us for what is most deeply real – the distraction and clammer of society seducing us into a false sense of belonging.  No wonder we often come away feeling empty-handed or weary or confused. 

When we face our aloneness, bravely turn away from the collective mind or the perceived safety of someone else’s wisdom, something within begins to open.  And deepen. Over and over again, as we unpeel or discard layer after layer of guardedness, as we blow away the stickiness of cobwebs; a natural spacious opening breathes life throughout our hearts.  Opening into a sense of true belonging, into the cadence of our very own heartbeat. Opening into our truest selves, our true Self within our very own lives.   

Paradoxically, resting and abiding in the home of our own hearts, doors and windows begin to open to the world . . . to everyone and everything; unexpectedly (from the mind’s point of view) resting within ourselves isn’t narcissistic or myopic.  When we are no longer running away from our aloneness, connections, all connections become more real, more creative, open hearted, juicier and more and more authentic.  In fact, self-absorption slowly fades away as the innocent heart opens and widens. It turns out to be what we have longed for all along. The blessings are not found in other people, gurus or teachers.  The blessings are not found in other places. These gifts are at home in the warmth of our heart, in the light of our infinitely deepening being. 

The most profound relationships (teachers, gurus, partners, friends and life itself) lead us here, pointing to the preciousness of solitude, a homecoming to our own deepest belonging.  You know this and a true teacher knows this.  

“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.”

                                                                                                Carl Jung

there comes a time

when you have to let go

all the words

all the teaching

and trust the infinite

Billy Doyle

Death - Rebirth

I’ve only one thing to do and that is . . .

. . . . be the wave that I am and sink back into the ocean

Fiona Apple

"When a caterpillar enters its chrysalis, it dissolves itself, quite literally, into liquid. In this state, what was a caterpillar and will be a butterfly is neither one nor the other, it’s a sort of living soup. Within this living soup are the imaginal cells that will catalyze its transformation into winged maturity."

Rebecca Solnit

When I was in graduate school, I remember one lively discussion in particular.  We were talking about what was known about healing and transformation.  What was it and what made it possible?  A fellow student asked the professor how come some people “got better” -  became more conscious,  and others couldn’t.   

“Those who can withstand . . . endure . . . see their way through pain and discomfort will heal and grow.”

I asked a similar question when I did my research on resiliency and came to the very same conclusion. 

Awakening spiritually is surrendering – it is a movement of subtraction, undoing, and therefore means living inside a profound letting go and uncertainty.  It is a letting go of the familiar and the known, the limited and the relied upon, dissolving, at least for the caterpillar, literally into liquid. The caterpillar is becoming no-more!  For however long it takes it is neither a caterpillar nor is it a butterfly. 

To the ego this is crazy talk, terrifying. Like letting go of the trapeze behind before getting hold of the bars in front.  Like the Saturday between good Friday and Easter.  To the ego, in the world of ‘trying’ it is like a combative tug of war.

To presence, inside silence, letting go is a sweet, sweet call into the most effortless movement, into profound rest.  To presence, to silence it is the beloved beckoning to the lover. The very nature of presence is openness . . . always there, softly holding and containing. 

I clearly remember my delight and surprise when the shift out of separation into oneness proved gentle and oh-so-natural.  The extraordinary so ordinary.  And the ordinary exquisitely extraordinary. Like slowly falling back or down into a bed deliciously padded with layer upon layer of soft cotton.  Like the autumn leaves swaying and floating or carried along with the winds as they fall from the tree and glide to earth.  

Not at all what I had expected. Certainly not what my ego had conjured and fretted about – expecting it to feel . . . no, to be terrifying - like a long, horrific fall over the cliff of the Grand Canyon.  

We essentially are natural beings; we are designed to evolve, grow and transform.  We are designed to wake up to our true being, to remember, to come back home to ourselves, our Selves.  When we are devoted to growing and to waking up, we will consciously find ourselves in the land of uncertainty, having to remember . . . in our bones remember the imaginal cells that will carry us to the “other side”.  

The longing to wake up comes from the deepest place in us.  It is this longing, this whiff of an invisible world that propels us to withstand the terrors and confusion we experience when we sincerely open into the unknown and let the clinging to the familiar and the known sift through our fingers. 

The longing to wake up comes from the deepest place in us. But it often gets hijacked by the ego and misunderstood as freedom from any kind of uncertainty.  We often act as if we are allergic to that in between place, setting our hopes instead on some kind of pain free life or perfect personality, some sort of completion.

It is the taste of something much larger than ourselves that will allow the letting go into expansiveness. Yes, it may require courage, but in its purest sense it is a call to a deep relaxation – a relaxation of sliding into that gentle and tender sweetness, a relaxation of resting in the arms of the deeply treasured and dearly loved.  

The heart-felt spaciousness of pure presence gives you the freedom to fully feel absolutely everything that’s arising for you. Every feeling that’s showing up . . . comfortable and uncomfortable . . . sadness, joy, frustration, anger, sorrow, happiness, melancholy, despair, fear . . .  is welcomed, embraced and experienced. Spiritual awakening is the freedom to feel absolutely everything that’s showing up for you, not about being free from painful or ecstatic feelings.  What is felt, what is known, is bathed in presence. No matter what arises, it can be soaked in love and let go; can dissolve and go on its way, giving way to the next moment and the next after that. 

Have you noticed . . .whenever you are accepted completely, unconditionally, if even for a moment, you begin to open and feel more; perhaps more deeply . . . more honestly?  Acceptance, feeling loved gives you the courage to open even further, gives you assurance, warms you from the inside out.

We live in a body that moves and desires and stretches beyond imagination. We live in a body that gets sick, ages, breaks, and dies.  We live in a psyche with a history and memories, full of all sorts of thoughts on that history, all sorts of perspectives and grudges and ‘certainties’.  We live inside a psyche that feels, sometimes deeply and sometimes overwhelms us.  

Complete and radical acceptance of all that gives you confidence to be yourself, be authentic, honest.  (Who amongst us have not experienced judgment or a lack of respect and seen how quickly that shuts us down- whether that judgment is coming from you or from someone else). Acceptance beckons, “be yourself . . . I love you just as you are, not what you do or look like or what you have.” 

Have you noticed? . . . when you do not have to meet outside expectations or demands; when your true being is respected and loved, fragmented parts of you are invited into the fold and integrate, effortlessly.  

This is love. This is why love realizes us so deeply. 

And the part that still appears a blessed miracle to me - when you are loved as you are, as all parts of you are loved and included, change happens; not according to someone else’s idea of how you should be – but instead, you unfold according to your own genuineness. You sing the song in your heart; you dance the movement in your being. When you are loved, you transform. You don't adapt or alter or become fixed, you transform. You come alive, as life being lived through you alive.  As undoing happens, as old skins are sloughed, you are incrementally renewed and expanded into new dimensions of your effortless being.  

And to my continual appreciation and awe the opening continues and there appears no end to what love does.  I remember silent prayers that my heart would open – not having any idea how the world as I saw it had to die first.  The letting go of the folly of separate existence and return to the real existence of oneness.  The very devotion to fall deeply in love with everything, coming from deep within, slays you . . . liquefies you . . . and revives you.  

It is a dance.  Acceptance and letting go.  The letting go is a falling into love.  What allows us to endure, withstand and find our way through the pain and suffering of being human is love, is acceptance, is compassion.

Every act of acceptance . . . every act of love moves mountains.  Life can be a love affair as the parts, and pieces and phases of life that are unconscious are irresistibly drawn and, like moths to flame, softened and transformed within the light of consciousness. 

“We are in the soup (always).  Why not become a butterfly.”

                                                                                                Rebecca Solnit

Come Dance With Me

Every child has known God, Not the God of names,

Not the God of don'ts,

Not the God who ever does Anything weird,

But the God who knows only 4 words

And keeps repeating them, saying:

"Come Dance with Me."

Hafiz

As we sink deeper into presence, into the wide-open spaciousness of wholeness, into clear-eyed intelligence and life in its’ never-ending fullness, all manner of motion is welcomed freely.  

We are turning and life beckons us to dance with it.  We are movement and we are change. We are alive and we are invited to know ourselves, examine our lives and dance our hearts out.

The more all aspects of movement are free to dance, truly embraced and free, the more we recognize that being and its unfolding are one faultless and harmonious whole.  Nothing is excluded. 

We all derive from the one source of consciousness.  In silent stillness, when you listen deeply, you can touch and feel the heart dance in the presence of completeness.  In the stillness of presence, paying close attention, consciousness illuminates your radiant being, a being that is steady and untouched by the ups and downs of daily living. 

This numinous state of being, calmly sitting at the kitchen table drinking a steaming hot cup of tea.  Unbothered by the comings and goings of the world, unconcerned with endings . . . or beginnings.  Just Being, in equanimity.  As the sun is, just is, without care; even with all that is going on.  The sun rises.  The sun sets. Breathing in and breathing out . . . sipping tea, the world is falling apart . . . breathe in and breathe out the sweet scent of peace.  Breathe deeper and exhale smooth and even calmness. 

Self-realization - your essential nature, pure consciousness, reflecting all that is, exactly as it is. It is this clarity that makes self-awareness possible. The deeper you sink into presence, the more you have the ability to self-reflect in profound ways. This reflection, which from the ego’s point of view, can be terrifying, when seen from the calm, holding breathe of presence opens and opens, in deeper ways . . . broader ways, with no end to the beauty of Self recognizing Self.  The beauty of everything and anything.  Everything and anything just the way it is.

Much of seeking is longing for the peace that surrounds seeing things just as they are, not mangled and packaged by judgments and conditioned beliefs. The longing to respond as life, creatively, with authentic and effective impact.  

Examining your life and becoming more conscious and more self-aware of what makes you tick is powerful.  Looking at your beliefs and habits, your conditioned patterns and motivations . . . touching into them with open arms and warm acceptance can rescue you from distortions and illusions that have you convinced there is some absolute right and wrong, some objectively good and bad way to live.  

‘Right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ . . . so often the language of worry, fretting and shame . . . shame in not living up to some abstract and conceptual moral code of illusory saving grace. 

I have been reflecting on shame, and its tendency to keep one away from oneself and the Self . . . at all costs. 

We come into this world needing to be loved.  Given the limited nature of the human psyche every one of us experiences not feeling loved in one way or another.

A child, reasonably and naturally self-centered, internalizes not being sufficiently loved, believes he or she is lacking or bad; somehow or another is to blame for any such lacking.

This begins a cycle of shame.

We are so conditioned to think that something is wrong . . . with me, my life, the world and that we need to fix, change, improve it.  

This cycle of shame is piled on by many religions and institutions.  We are taught we need improving and we are shamed when we stray off paths. The belief that something is wrong with us is often so deeply embedded in the psyche that it goes unexamined, simply assumed it is true and, again, often without even questioning it, build a case for our wrongness. 

Shame has done its’ job well.  Kept you from going near not feeling loved, not feeling wanted, not feeling worthy.   Shame is a dense, thick and sticky defense . . . and it is powerfully effective in keeping you small and asleep. 

To begin with, it might be kinder to get to know this gatekeeper slowly  – if you collapse, a little or a lot, when things don’t go as planned, when you have been rejected, when something is not ‘perfect’, when you make a mistake, when you have been criticized (or even disagreed with) look into the shadows for shame.

Shame guards against love as well – crazy and sad as that sounds.  If you shy away from, run in the opposite direction when you are complimented, told how ‘good’  or lovely you are, met with a soft and open heart, invited towards intimacy, look into the shadows for shame.

Shame has the power to steer you away from deeply examining your life, and even more profoundly, keeping you from sinking deeper into presence and, even crazier, blind you from your true nature. 

Resist the (understandable) temptation to either hide from or act upon shame.  I can tell you, first-hand, when you get to the point where any shadow material neither scares you nor browbeats you, (or for that matter, pretends to be a good and familiar friend) it loosens and liberates within the open arms of loving presence.   Love wins every time, through radical acceptance and inclusion of whatever shows up. 

Decades ago, I visited Dachau, the WWII concentration camp.  It is located outside Munich, walking distance to quaint cafes, homes and tree lined streets.  The energy of the camp, which covers what seems like acres of land, was palpably dark and horrific. I remember literally bursting into tears the second I stepped foot into the camp and it seemed to me my outburst was as much a reaction (physical) to the heavy, dank, thick and oppressive energy as it was to the understanding of where I was and what it meant. 

The camp was pretty preserved – the buildings and the fencing and the guard towers.  It didn’t take any imagination to know where I was and what I was seeing.  

The darkness was overwhelming, making it hard to walk and rendering me speechless.

In the middle of the camp the Carmelite nuns maintain a small chapel.  The Carmelite nun Sister Maria Theresia deliberately chose the former Dachau concentration camp because of the horrors that took place there.  It was to become a place of offering and prayer and so establish a living symbol of hope. The courtyard and the church are publicly accessible through an opening in a former guard tower.  Since 1964 they have prayed, rung church bells and lit candles in the chapel, around the clock.  Many nuns lived on the premise.  The energy in the church was light, breathable, and radiant.  Its’ presence seemed to be contained within its’ walls.  I sat there for some time, grateful for the reprieve from the overpowering darkness of the camp.

I left the church, having to walk the full distance back to my car, meaning retracing my steps through the entire camp. 

I was profoundly struck by how good I felt – how at ease and light hearted I felt, step by step back through the camp. I still took in the buildings, the fencing and the darkness, but the horrors of the camp had lost its’ power.  I didn’t try to make any sense of things; but I couldn’t help notice and be awed at how different I felt having spent time in the stillness inside the church.

The feeling of that experience has remained with me all these years later.  The energy, the light and the silence of the church, small in size, dwarfed by the size and intensity of the energy in the camp, is palpably and experientially stronger and more powerful.  

This is something we all get to find out for ourselves, from within.  The power of love over fear, compassion over shame. The immensity of love, and the smallness of fear and shame when we look it in its’ eyes. 

“May today there be peace within.  May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.  May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others.  May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.  May you be content with yourself just the way you are.  Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.  It is there for each and every one of us.”

                                                                                    St. Therese of Avila