In It Together

Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.

Rumi

When we pay attention, we see spiritual lessons, portals for awakening, showing up in our culture, in our every-day lives, and in dark times.

These days I’ve been reflecting on the message, we are all in this together, a message I hear often as a rallying cry for this moment in our collective history.  In the midst of great confusion and division, we are reminded of our interdependence: we are reminded to  watch out for each other; we are  reminded how much stronger we are when we lift each other up and if we have any chance of coming out the other side of the existential issues facing us these days, we will honor our commonality and come together in ways that show we understand we share this one earth and all breath the same air.

I wrote about resilience last month; how vulnerability underlies our ability to be open and flexible and move with whatever life throws our way.

If vulnerability is the “starting” point of resilience, interconnectedness is the “culmination”.

I matter to you and you matter to me.  

I am you.  

I am. 

Resilience is interconnectedness:  the capacity (non-defensively) to stand on your own two feet, think for yourself, have a moral compass that digs deep, and be centered and not blown away when someone questions you, not even when public opinion questions your value or worthiness.  The capacity to be alone, knowing full well you are living your life and no one can live it for you.  At the end of the day; at the beginning of the day, you have yourself; no one can eat for you, no one can complete you and there is no one saving you from death.  Here am I. 

But that is only half the picture.

The other half is the capacity to work and play well with others.  We are interdependent… everything is connected to everything else. Our safety and wellbeing are tied to each other. If "they" are not safe, there is no way that "we" can be safe. In a mutually dependent system, taking care of other people's safety is taking care of our own safety. To take care of their well-being is to take care of our own well-being.  “They” pollute the air and “we” cannot breathe; “we” decimate the forests and “they” cannot breathe.  Unconsciousness impacts us all. 

Resilience is holistic – the physical and spiritual truth of our interconnectedness reveals the transcendence of any either/or ways of being and living.  It is the field that Rumi points to.  We are alone and we are all in it together. 

It may look paradoxical to you, but it is not.

In fact, it is the very capacity to be alone that opens wide the capacity to love, to want the best for the other, to care how we impact others.  It is simply true and worth checking out for yourself. A side-note here:  It is important to be clear; I am not talking about a defensive, closed off alone, one that has come from hurt and disappointments.  This is an open heart alone, a brave and clear recognition of your wholeness, of your all rightness no matter what.  When we are capable of this being alone, we are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of the other person, even people we might not know or agree with; of caring for our common home, our common planet.  

This capacity for being alone allows the other absolute freedom, because you know that if the other leaves, you will be as whole as you are now.  Your wholeness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.

Again, it might seem paradoxical, but it isn’t . . . this capacity for being alone allows you to know real companionship, real give and take support, the very abiding connection we humans hunger for and need. 

We are alone and we are in this together. 

Every person, every animal, and critter; every tree and drop of ocean share just this one home.  Recognizing our true nature, our unity, we, from a mature and aware heart deeply care for the well-being of all.

Our survival depends on being able to recognize this but, as we are so poignantly aware, we are taught behaviors that disconnect us from this recognition. In word and in deed we are taught the story of separation, the story of an “other”.  We are taught to hold tightly to our way of life, to care mostly or only for the members of our family or tribe; that life is geared to winning and losing. 

We do not need to learn compassion, or kindness, courage and generosity.  We need to unlearn what we have been taught . . . what has blinded us from it.  We need to unlearn the story of separation.

Life supports consciousness, openness, clarity.  Life supports evolving consciousness and complexity – life on our planet began as hydrogen and look at the teeming diversity of life today. It is mind blowing.  Each of our lives began simply, with a narrow consciousness of ourselves and the world around us. Life supports growing up, opening our eyes and ears, expanding our perspectives, physically and emotionally and spiritually.  Our psyche is a storehouse for our ancestor’s experiences back to the beginning.  We have the advantage of everything that came before informing this very moment.

We are vehicles for consciousness evolving, emerging.  As always, life is moving, full of possibilities and potential.  Breaking apart, coming together.  As the pandemic spreads around the world a global consciousness is revealed, in some ways as never before.  And now . . . there does seem to be open fertile soil for coming together for the good of all.  May it be so. 

When we take into serious consideration we are naturally open and compassionate; we see we have the potential, every time, for choosing love over fear.  

For living from love instead of fear, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is worth visiting or revisiting.  The more we attend to our needs, our genuine needs that sustain life, the more natural it is to surrender our self-centeredness.  Another seeming paradox, but it is not. 

According to Maslow, seeking does not stem from lack of something, but from a desire to grow.  (I would suggest a desire to remember our wholeness) Once these growth needs have been reasonably satisfied, one may be able to reach the highest level called self-actualization.

Maslow later added another need:  

Transcendence needs - A person is motivated by values which transcend beyond the personal self (e.g., mystical experiences and certain experiences with nature, aesthetic experiences, sexual experiences, service to others, the pursuit of science, religious faith, etc.

Characteristics of self-actualizers

1. They perceive reality efficiently and can tolerate uncertainty;

2. Accept themselves and others for what they are;

3. Spontaneous in thought and action;

4. Problem-centered (not self-centered);

5. Unusual sense of humor;

6. Able to look at life objectively;

7. Highly creative;

8. Resistant to enculturation, but not purposely unconventional;

9. Concerned for the welfare of humanity;

10. Capable of deep appreciation of basic life-experience;

11. Establish deep satisfying interpersonal relationships with a few people;

12. Peak experiences;

13. Need for privacy;

14. Democratic attitudes;

15. Strong moral/ethical standards.

Behavior leading to self-actualization

(a) Experiencing life like a child, with full absorption and concentration;

(b) Trying new things instead of sticking to safe paths;

(c) Listening to your own feelings in evaluating experiences instead of the voice of tradition, authority or the majority;

(d) Avoiding pretense ('game playing') and being honest;

(e) Being prepared to be unpopular if your views do not coincide with those of the majority;

(f) Taking responsibility and working hard;

(g) Trying to identify your defenses and having the courage to give them up.

When we take into serious consideration the view of our world from outer space, we see a boundaryless unified whole, inhabited by complex and diverse life forms.  We see OUR home, crying out for our loving response. 

Perhaps the greatest gift you can give to this tired, splintered world is waking up to and moving from your fully realized (self-actualized) being.

Resilience

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs -- all this resinous, unretractable earth.

Jane Hirshfield

A tree is shaded by another tree and “responds” by turning towards an open sunny space and people around the world, from the beginning of time come through heart ache and tragedy with a heart full of love. 

For decades I felt compelled to understand how that could be.  I longed to know how Elie Wiesel and Viktor Frankl found their way to help others after surviving concentration camps.  The fact that Nelson Mandela could stay sane and kind despite serving 27 years in prison was, at that time, beyond my comprehension and our world teems with stories of courage and song and even laughter coming out of unspeakable suffering. 

We turn to resilience when our life crumbles . . . it is in break downs that we look for break throughs.  Most often, when faced with uncertainty and darkness, we turn to emotional and spiritual resilience.

Our world is breaking down in so many ways right now.  In many respects in our personal lives and on a jaw-dropping collective level.  I suspect none of us have experienced anything on this level before – a global pandemic, real questions about economic survival and inequality, social and civil unrest in the US, a reckoning climate crisis, a breakdown of systems, and a profound uncertainty and chaos – it is not yet fully known how our lives and our world are being impacted; will continue to be impacted and importantly, what is our response, personally and collectively.  

It is hard to see a break through as we come to terms with such a vast change, as we live through the in-between period.  Instead, for the most part, we are all living in a heightened daily question . . . what can we count on, what do we truly value, what can we realistically expect . . . of ourselves and our world, which way is up and which way is down. We are living in the jaw of a break down, as cracks in our world views are revealed. 

We are living in a collective state of vulnerability. 

We are born resilient.  Let that sink in.  It is in the marrow of our beings to be open (vulnerable) and naturally bend and flow. We have it in our DNA to learn and grow from hardships and disasters and traumas.  Every time you feel broken, every time you run from yourself . . . remember this – you are naturally cohesive and are designed to regain balance when knocked off center. 

I was a wide-eyed student of resilience for decades and whatever research I did brought me to the same place over and over.  It seems we come into the world with something no amount of scientific research could define.  When we really dig into the soil of resilience, we find love . . . 

No matter how much our mind fragments into pieces and parts and likes and dislikes, our natural state, our native being is whole.  No matter how much fear takes over, our natural state is love.

Knowing, knowing-in-your-bones-kind-of-knowing, that you are naturally whole, fully equipped to break apart, fall face down in the muck of it all, see no-where to turn, lose all sense of certainty and . . . knowing that, in the quietest soil of your heart is the sunshine that brings you to fully flower . . . knowing that, might you not courageously and consciously break open, fall down, fail, take an honest look at yourself in the mirror, and question your illusions?  

Being resilient begins with turning towards vulnerability.  We are vulnerable to the chaos and free-fall we are living through right now . . . we are vulnerable to the insecurity that comes from so much falling apart at the same time, and we are vulnerable to how we are feeling, what we are thinking and how we perceive everything that is happening in the outer world and the world within us.  

As counter-intuitive as it sounds, vulnerability is our friend; it is deceptively strong and pliable, a nutrient soil for creativity and resolutions. When vulnerability is welcomed completely; when we come to it without the slightest resistance, the ease we are seeking, is revealed; the freedom and creativity we long for opens and saturates us.  We tend to have strong ideas about being vulnerable . . . we will look weak, we will be weak; we will be taken advantage of, hurt in some unredeemable way, we will lose something necessary and not be able to function or survive well, and we might die from the feeling of vulnerability itself. 

It is this very mind-generated orientation to vulnerability that creates trouble for us though.  In truth, our vulnerability can be a doorway into deeper and deeper self-awareness.  It allows us to discover who we are not, what beliefs are keeping us small and opens us to listening to the love in our hearts.  Being friends with vulnerability can show us there really is nothing about us that needs to be fixed or corrected, we needn’t be at war with our human condition, our thoughts or our feelings; instead, with kindness and compassion and generosity, we discover we are essentially unguarded and sensitive and designed to be in direct contact with all of life, including our softest belly. 

We see the world as we are . . . and quite often we are unconscious to what is at play inside us as we look out into our world. Our entire life experience is a series of thoughts and emotions.  We know from all kinds of studies that people experience the same external circumstances as completely different, based on their thoughts, their emotional frame, their past experiences, their sense of self. 

What gets your attention? . . . more often than not there will be some slice of things, some particular dynamic, some specific attitude or phenomena that looms larger than other things that are happening or being highlighted and this particularity might get under your skin or trigger you.  And maybe even convince you that what you are seeing is absolutely and completely the way things are . . full stop, no questions asked!  

However, when we turn and face ourselves, kindly questioning our motives and recognizing our psychology and perception are limited and often cloudy; when we commit to self-awareness/consciousness we can begin to see our patterns of thinking and behaving.  As we become aware of these patterns, we can draw out the unconscious assumptions, and challenge them when they don’t serve us and are not aligned with reality.  Largely, we all have inbuilt reactions to adverse things that happen around us (or inside us).  From burning dinner to not being able to pay our bills, to losing something we hold dear, to a loved one dying, we have a learned response to all happenings or phenomena that we encounter in life, and those learned reactions dictate how we respond to a particular situation.  When it comes to something large and overwhelming the vast majority of us have a learned reaction of helplessness.  We throw up our hands.  

This learned reaction is not only untrue, it is fundamentally counterproductive.

Consider this seriously . . .you are not powerless.  Instead, you are in the midst of a potential opening.  Take notice of how your mind tries to insist on your helplessness (and collapses into that helplessness or fights against it with aggression) in the face of the challenge and refuse to buy into it.  Notice it and refute it, gently but firmly.  If need be, notice it and process it, gently but firmly. 

It often takes adversity for us humans to willingly change, to bring us to our knees.  More often than not, we stay complacent and habitual (even unconscious) when things are somewhat moving right along. 

When faced with things falling apart, personally and collectively, we come to a choice point.  We can open to expanding our consciousness, opening and aligning with the flow of life and reality, or we can settle deeper into reactivity, more entrenched in psychological patterns and smallness.  

You have the ability . . . the innate resilience to see every single challenge as an invitation. Whatever confronts you, there is your opening. A powerful thing you can do is to be present with how you perceive and behave in the situation, no matter what is arising in you. Yes, it can feel incredibly scary and vulnerable to be so transparent to yourself, which is why it is helpful to remember you are designed with the capacity to evolve.  Through intentional presence you have the option of making constructive use of the situation, maturing, transforming how you see yourself, how you see reality, and using yourself as a catalyst for change; in other words, you have the capacity to become more conscious . . . evolve . . . every time you come up against hardships. 

Imagine, if you will, the relief of being aligned with change instead of having to deny change is happening or believe you are supposed to have all the answers.  

Attached as we are to many forms of status quo in our lives, relationships, job, home, etc., we often delude ourselves that they are permanent.  But the fact is, nothing is permanent; everything is always changing, no matter how much we insist on standing still, hanging on to fleeting moments.  And resilience reminds us, always, we are “made” for change.  

We can make the conscious choice to grow, to expand, to open and keep opening.  We can make the conscious choice to let go of the old, reveal what has been hidden and consciously choose love. 

Every one of our actions begins as a thought or emotion.  Learning how to peacefully and compassionately navigate your thoughts and emotions is an important life skill you can build.  How not to panic or lash out when you experience “negative” or scary emotions is central to everything. It is the mishandling of our emotions that often leads to self/other-dislike/unhappiness, chaos, acting out, and our world’s biggest problems.  It’s rarely the sadness or frustration that is the main problem. It’s how you react: the taking it out on yourself or others, that becomes the big issue. 

And . . . yet . . . our biggest challenge lies in an ultimate detachment from the outcome. 

 We can be fully present with our thoughts and our feelings, we can be mindful about our environment and loving to everyone and everything . . . and . . . there is no guaranteed outcome, no matter what you might want or presume or envision or intend.  When you are honest with yourself, you look straight into what is authentic, knowing that anything can happen in any moment, in any way . . . knowing you can be surprised, you can be disappointed or maybe even upset . . .  slightly or in some major way, and you can find relief in that vulnerability.  It is possible to find rest in knowing there is no Hollywood ending; you don’t have to kid yourself with a false sense of perfection and you make peace with the fact that, when it comes to reality, it is ultimately mysterious and you are not going to ever fully understand its’ full nature.  

No, not perfection, not a Hollywood ending . . . instead, the beautiful vulnerability of love.

Love is the most vulnerable thing one will ever be.

Fully and unabashedly open-hearted love . . . raw-heart-beating love. 

What makes love so vulnerable is its’ openness to everything and everyone.  Keeping your heart open no matter what, having an open mind, listening sincerely and with genuine interest, not being attached to anything or anyone being a certain way – allowing all a freedom of being just what it is, not harming, either in word or action, including yourself.  Getting out of the way, open to how things really are. Giving everything without any strings or demands for reciprocity.

Love walks alongside, its’ arms gently around your shoulders, pouring through your being, respectful and at ease, giving so much space and closely touching/permeating, all at the same time.  Love is wide open spaciousness, always allowing room to fly; ride wider waves and sing at the top of your lungs. 

It is open arms holding a bigger picture.  It is being less sure about things and seeing more. 

Love is not about possessing someone, wanting to keep them safe and close by for your own needs.  Love is not about worrying about someone, fearful for their well-being and holding them extra tight, for your own security.  Love is not at all about fear or need, in fact. 

It is lighting up when you see a close and personal loved one.  It is seeing beauty in everyone’s face. 

Love, as impersonal as the sun.  Just as the sun shines indiscriminately, the consideration we can have towards every sentient being . . . our fellow humans, the animals and critters of the world, the trees and the earth itself, more than our own momentary needs, the desire for everyone’s and everything’s well-being.  

Love is the field Rumi speaks of when he invites us to meet him there – beyond right doing and wrong doing.  The open hearted, open minded, open armed love of knowing everyone and everything is sacred; love is transcendent of “differences” and is unconditional.

Love is utterly vulnerable and unprotected, standing firm and gently, in the open field, needing nothing and giving everything. 

“Cherish the one beside you

Know yourself as worthy

Honor your brothers and sisters even when you disagree with their politics, their religion or what they would do to be heard.”

                                                                                    Paul Selig

Enjoying Life

Hello again, from my home to yours. My heart remains with you as we find our collective footing, possibly feeling antsy and facing hard choices about health . . . and well-being.

And, once again, I reflect upon the simple and profound reality – no matter what the circumstances or situation we are in, our response is where the real juice is. I am not saying, by any stretch of the imagination, that what we are facing is not hard or challenging.

But suffering is optional.

We have so much more choice regarding our response to life than we believe we do.

What better time to remind yourself of your goodness, your essential nobility, your freedom and beauty?

What if you were to enjoy your life . . . right now.

Enjoying our life seems so simple and yet seems to evade and beguile us. It is as if we live under a spell and believe we do not have choice in the matter. Believing that external circumstances hold power over us and dictate how we feel and how we behave.

But we do have a choice. It seems that the very denying ourselves that capacity of joy amounts to an ocean of troubles.

Yes, even in the trenches we are living in, we have the capacity to be fully alive, happy to be alive. More often than not being vulnerable, being on our knees, opens the door to that realization. Vulnerability can be a softening agent. And here we are, all around the globe, looking into the mirror and, if we are willing, seeing our tender selves.

I think back to before the world shifted on its axis in response to the pandemic and I remember the hundreds of interactions and going-about-our-business-as-usual we took for granted.

Can’t this be a good clarifying moment – how much were we available to truly enjoy, relish and savor all those interactions and moments. It is so easy to get lost and distracted and not take in the full measure of our moment to moment life, as it is happening. What are the moments now and how can we become more present to them, more alive to our beating heart?

We long for the aliveness that comes with being energized and engaged, fully engaged in the here and now; we come alive when we listen to our deepest selves and move in tune with and in concert with our heart.

Being awake to our life, fully absorbed and present is our birth right –inherently enjoying, cherishing our life, no matter the circumstances, is “factory-loaded”.

We are designed to be relaxed, at ease and in a state of flow. We all know this instinctively; watch how your mind and body constrict, get tight, go small when you are fighting something or resisting something that just happened . . . or something that happened a long time ago or might happen in some other-than-now time.

And watch and feel your body and mind expand in the open spaciousness of gratitude, openness, love, and creativity. Notice how you feel when you have “lost” yourself in some movement or happening, conversation or activity. Taste the ease and forgetfulness of anything other than that moment.

In the Canadian sport, curling, the sweeper skates in front of the players, sweeping the ice of debris and melting a thin layer of the ice, under the heat of the broom. The sweeper is setting up a smooth run for the stone, to travel further and straighter along the path, by removing obstacles.

Clearing the cobwebs in our psyche and body has the same effect – clears the way for a revelation of our essential nature, for the pure expression of our hearts. For pure laughter and play, sorrow and aches.

It is the debris of our mental constructs, our conditioned beliefs and training that blocks the view of our natural state . . . the running commentary in our minds that insist upon complaining, judging and self-pitying. Repeating a mantra, convincingly: there is something wrong and we cannot afford to rest.

We all know the voice; in one way or another it sounds like this: “I am not good enough, or even more debilitating, I am not good. I don’t deserve to be happy or peaceful; I need to stay vigilant and keep myself safe, I need to become something other than I am.”

That is not who we are. Make space, room, to see through these deceptions, for real. Ask questions . . . poke holes . . . reflect deeply . . . get clear, kind and constructive feedback . . . get distance from the mind chatter . . . open your hands and let the sand drop away . . .

It can be helpful to know when something needs to be processed and when you can simply let go of the illusion. Some conditioning can be very sticky, some deeply embedded beliefs need tender attention and care, and some illusions might need to be seen through again, and maybe even again.

When all psychological work is held in the context and spirit of revealing your true nature, remembering . . . sweetly remembering you are here as life itself, the sweeping away of the debris is powerfully liberating. As our very own sweepers we can sharpen our powers of discernment for what is real and what is not, and deepen into our devotion for freedom and release from psychological conditioning.

See within your heart you really are meant to fully enjoy your life.

Why not lift our glass and toast each other for being alive . . . now!

AND NOW

And Now

Who looks outside dreams

Who looks inside awakens

                                                                                               Carl Jung

If you cannot go outside, go inside

Greetings to you all . . . from my stay at home to yours.  My heart is with every one of us connected to each other, whether we have met, talked remotely or come to each other solely through the written word. 

I want to especially reach out to those of you who are having a hard time with the way we are living right now.  My heart certainly goes out to you if you or a loved one is sick (or has died), if you are an essential worker who is in contact with others or you are finding ways to work from home and/or teach and entertain your children.  

I am keenly aware, though, how hard this forced isolation might be on many of you psychologically and emotionally.  If you and I were sitting across from each other (socially distant, of course;-)) I would want to know how you are feeling.  I would welcome an honest and real conversation – how is it for you these days?  The highs, the lows, and all the in-betweens. 

So much of the news speaks of folks finding creative and generous ways to deal with sheltering in place; it is often uplifting and inspiring to witness our resilience.  But we must also talk about how quarantine can be crushing, and how crises like this pandemic can and often do activate old traumas.  While it is essential we reach out and be kind to each other, being kind and loving to oneself (when that might seem impossible) is profoundly transformative and vital, possibly even more essential. 

Not only can these times be difficult but we also live in a society that prides itself on doing well (whatever that might mean) and feeling good. We often judge and divide emotions into good and bad, happy and sad.  Part of what makes this time so difficult to those who are feeling quite low is the “agreed upon” notion that it is not okay to feel sad or angry or overwhelmed.  Feeling low or out of sorts has even been seen as a failure.  And yet, quite often, chasing after happiness . . . wanting only positive feelings . . . allowing only feel-good feelings is a flight from depth, from our interior life and the suffering around us. 

 And, in the spiritual world, the small self, our functioning ego, our default position has often been vilified in one way or another.  There is nothing wrong with the small self.  We were born into history, to a mother and father or caretaker, a culture, a society, who told us who we are.  The small self has been doing what it was designed to do. And in times like now, when we are in a health and economic crisis, that very same small self is likely to step up to the plate, assuming the role of hero/heroine (in its’ eyes).  

 If everything comes from the same source . . . everything and everyone is a manifestation of that singular source, is the small self not sacred?  Are we not missing something important when we deny what we don’t like or feel ill at ease with?

One thing seems for sure these days – we cannot get away from ourselves.  For better or worse, in sickness and in health.  Even as we home school our kids, even as we work from home, even as we take our temperature, even as we go to the grocery stores . . . it is as if we are in a meditation, there is no escaping “me”.  The thoughts in our heads; the pull of our hearts, and in many cases our psychological patterns and the original wounds of trauma showing themselves in bold relief; , signs of PTSD, loneliness, helplessness, abandonment, and depression – so understandable in the midst of the whole world turned upside down. 

It is not uncommon when present day catastrophes trigger old wounds.  

What if this upheaval could be a time of radical transformation?  What if we have the opportunity to bring old and deep wounds to the light of day with compassion – maybe even parts of ourselves that have not been accessible before, have been hidden in a cave, desiring to be revealed?  What if this enormous shift in our daily lives is revealing aspects of denied shadow material that longs for our attention, for present day attention - for kind and unconditional attention? 

If you are in pain these days, be gentle with yourself.  In many ways, human kind is at a crossroads right now and real human transformations are honest, raw, ugly, hopeful, frustrated, beautiful, and divine.  Transformation calls for great courage. 

Paradoxically, there is a sweetness in pure sadness and grief and loneliness, emotions born of empathy and solidarity.  As physical pain alerts us to something being amiss that needs our attention, sadness and grief can be a sign you care.  Loneliness can be reminding you that your natural state is connected in spirit, that you are not separate.  And overwhelm?  Well, this pandemic and financial crisis is overwhelming, no covering that up with wishes to feel alright or drum up some false sense of control will change that reality.  

 We are not yet completely sure how the virus will move or be a thing of the past, much less what our life, our perceptions, our world, our finances will look like when we are freer to move about.  Will we even shake hands again, go to the movie theatre and sit next to dozens of people; will we kiss a friend on the lips again or will we adopt new ways of greeting.  We are in the midst of goodbyes . . . without even knowing fully or partially what we are losing.  We are in the midst of missing simple things – meeting with friends for a meal; going to the grocery store on a whim, card games with grandparents . . . ordinary moments we might have taken for granted before the virus. 

 Perhaps this is a good time to set aside self-imposed pressures.  Pressures to be a certain way, to achieve and accomplish, to be on top of things, to be productive, or perfect, to be seen by others as (fill in the blank). We are in the midst of profound change so why not allow yourself the freedom to be just as you are – and listen to your heart.  Are you inclined to exercise, to sit still? Meditate, meet your shadow, wash the dishes?  Stay in bed and read all day?  Think differently, play more, listen more deeply?  Can this be a time of depth; there is more time alone, a potentially sacred vessel for self-love, for realization.  

 Real human transformation is slower than society is used to. Be slow. Let go of the crazy notion that superficially and quickly changing how you think about things, all will be well. Let the new way of living distract you from your desire for the status quo, from wishing it would be over and done with–turning, instead, to your authentic, real experience, right here, right now.  Let it change how you deeply think and how you see the world.  What if this tragedy tore down your faulty assumptions about yourself, became the soil of healing and gave you the courage of bold self-love, of bold compassion for all? 

I sense this time as an opportunity to enter consciously into deep silence.  As we temporarily halt our striving and re-connect to our deepest beauty and life-affirming sanity.  As we keep quiet and open to knowing ourselves anew.  As the world is upside down, so are we . . . so as you hang upside down, why not allow all the old stones (conditioned mind and false beliefs) fall out of your pockets.  

Embrace, consciously and intentionally, your most real self . . . know yourself as real, as what is true, not bound by fear or conventions.  Allow yourself to be known and seen, through and through. 

 In stillness, everything is beautiful, everything is unified and everything is known.

Open-Heartedness

I began reflecting on this latest blog before the coronavirus sped up and “took over”. 

I had been thinking about awareness in human form and how, from this human perspective, we are here – we do live in a body; we do think about our survival. 

And here we are . . . in the midst of a global upheaval and in the midst of having nowhere to go, in the sense of our usual busyness and distractions.  

If you are drawn to blogs like this one,  you likely know . . . (you have heard, you have had glimpses, maybe savored long and longer visits); there is something much deeper and more profoundly real about us than our drive for survival, a ground of being that is free and expansive. An endless, boundless spaciousness that effortlessly absorbs and dissolves mind chatter, conditioning and fears of survival; body and existential, just as a drop of poison dissolves in the ocean.  

An open-ended stream of ease and joy that is untouched and unbothered, no matter the size or intensity of the upheaval going on at the human level. 

And here we are . . . spacious awareness in human form, experiencing a pandemic.  How often have spiritual teachings pointed to the fact that, in truth, we cannot be certain of anything, not really.  And here we are . . . living inside a profound unknown and the visceral reminder that we are not in control and someone coughing on the other side of the world does impact us.

Talk about waking up from deep illusions. 

The illusion that we are in charge and the illusion that we somehow don’t all breath the same air. 

And here we are . . . stopped in our tracks and facing the truth of not being in charge.  Brought smack into reality . . . everything comes and goes, everything and everyone, at some point, comes to an end. 

To this end I have been thinking a lot these days about fear . . . about grief . . . and about death.  

In optimistic moments I wonder if we humans might make good use of this pandemic . . . the pandemic of the virus that is bringing just about everything and everyone to a halt and the pandemic of fear that is not only rampant right now but has governed how we live, always.  

Many are afraid right now. I don’t take lightly what it actually means to let go of perceived control.  Especially for those of us who have been through trauma. 

I notice how many layers and faces fear has.  I think it is one of the most unpopular emotions . . . we are often afraid of being afraid . . . what if I am overwhelmed and cannot bear it?  Or - I will feel weak; I will look weak. I will feel vulnerable . . . dear god, I will feel hopeless, and even worse helpless.  Often, we carry this dread of vulnerability and dependency from early, early on in childhood.  

And yet, an exquisite truth, when willing to face it, is the freedom that comes from viscerally knowing I am humble and nakedly vulnerable, directly exposed to all that is.  Ironically, true transcendence reveals itself in utter defenselessness. 

Back to fear: dig a bit deeper and you’ll find fear of loss and the inevitability of death, the reality of our mortality.  

Now, imagine, for a moment, getting real, facing this reality and feeling into all that might mean to you.  What if you didn’t demonize your fear, didn’t give into it and didn’t deny it or succumb to magical thinking?  

Instead, listen for its’ wisdom. What might it be telling you about what is at work; what is being broadcast? 

Our world has been interrupted, stopping the endless noise of divisions and distractions.  It is hard to listen when we are so busy all the time. But the foundation is giving way, buckling.

I think if we listen, we will see what we have been avoiding.

We are not well.  None of us; all of us are suffering. 

And here we are - stopped.  And now, what if we get still.  Get still and listen.  See through the illusion of being separate and discover how to genuinely consider the concerns of all.   Throughout time we have typically become our better selves during crisis.  Now we see that as people stay home, sheltering in place, for the good of the community. We see people offering their resources, talents, and services generously so everyone benefits.  We are asked to be cautious and yet kind; to be clear we either stand by each other or fall together.  

We are able to move beyond our individual concerns and divisions when we are not frightened; when we are willing to own our fears instead of blaming and scapegoating “others”, when we opt for genuine deep connection, free from fear and “control”. 

Experience has shown me over and over again, sitting still and being with whatever is happening, listening to the clock tick, feeding the crows; being with whatever I am feeling, effortlessly immerses me into the field of spacious well-being.  I am overcome with peace, gratitude and even joy.  It is how come the “now” is so magical, so clear and penetrating. 

And in this place, unity is the realest of real and being open hearted to everyone and everything is simply the way it is.  

When it comes down to it, the invitation is . . . no, not only an invitation, but an offering, a gift . . . to open our eyes, relinquish the out-of-whack reliance we have on our thinking minds and travel deep into the mind of the heart - fully open-hearted in the midst of a pandemic.  

Maybe, just maybe we will make use of this world-wide shock. 

May our hearts break open together.

Here’s a beautiful musical coming together I thought to share – may our hearts soar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eXT60rbBVk&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2FHyCmKSLEk_bgee3ftFm_xc9Cl5NjWP6K4jt6UGDRB5MIwYffbyagxSU

Who Am I?

Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it.

                                                                                    Luke 17:33 

 To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.

Eihei Dogen 

 We live in a dance.  From our arrival on this earth we form a sense of ourselves and if we are lucky something about this apparent separate self doesn’t feel all that real or trustworthy.

 To some degree or another we remember and/or forget our true nature, the deeper reality of pure awareness . . . of unity, of love.

 Waking up to our true nature includes embracing the very self that requires forgetting. 

 I have been a student of the self, most of my life.  I have had many an encounter with its’ shortcomings and its’ blindness.  I have also come to appreciate its’ dedication to survival and its’ brilliance in problem solving, planning and dreaming. 

 Donald Winnicott, a pediatrician turned psychologist studied thousands of infants.  He found humans by nature are born with two primal fears, which he and others observed in very young children.  One is the fear of falling forever, and the other is the fear of not being at all. 

 Stephen Jenkinson, a Canadian man who has shepherded thousands of dying people says people’s fear of dying is of not being here/not living in the eyes and minds of people left behind.  “Not being at all”.  

 Seems we carry this fear of not being from birth to death.

 Doesn’t this just make sense – doesn’t this speak to how lonely we often feel, how immensely important it is to us to be seen (or not seen when we feel ashamed)?  Doesn’t it make sense that this deep fear . . . this agony of non being might inform our human lacking and feeling of emptiness?  Doesn’t it make sense that this primal agony pervades our consciousness, begging the question, “Who am I really?”

 “Not being at all”.  We know, through psychology (and Mr. Rogers) that we need to be loved into being . . . it is through being seen, being accepted, being cared for, being mirrored and being guided and supported that we come into being; it is how we develop esteem, self-regard, confidence and a sense of place.

 And, dear god, to whatever degree we are not loved into being, all hell breaks loose. 

 If you have paid attention to yourself in any reflective and sustaining way you can see and feel the accommodations and coping in service of not feeling sufficiently loved, and working oh so hard to avoid facing and feeling that essential agony and the terror underneath the feeling of “not being”. 

And when we pay attention to the state of our world, isn’t it clear what we do to each other, to other living things, once these terrors and hurts and needs set in and are unconsciously lived out? 

To get a real sense of the impact of this original agony we have only to look at how we collectively live our lives . . . managing the best we can to cope with something so big it takes over everything.  From this illusory aloneness, we go the ends of the earth to fix ourselves and feel alright.  We drink, we take drugs, we shop ‘til we drop, we connect for a night or a lifetime without examining what is driving us. We are susceptible to other people’s opinions of what makes us tick, and how the world works.  We bank on “perfection” and make ourselves crazy chasing that illusion. We look for meaning and fulfillment in fantasy and superstition.  Often filled with fear, filled with seemingly bottomless needs, we move further and further from the original agony, desperate to not feel it and terrified our hunger and loneliness is the greatest truth about us.  

 We work hard at convincing ourselves we exist – even if it means a neurotic need to steer the ship, assert, opine, manipulate, crave constant stimulation, and even hate ourselves or feel overly important. 

 One of the greatest freedoms from the tyranny of our small selves is pure and abiding acceptance . . . and compassion. There is nothing quite like the unconditional loving embrace of everything we feel, think, act out, and judge. 

 Why, we have asked forever, would we turn towards this pain instead of away from it?  As upside down as it might sound - paying close (open and soft) attention to our suffering can be the very portal into the love we are seeking. 

 Talk about being loved into being!  Being loved into deeper and deeper being-ness.  We are invited to be with agony, pain or shock without any judgment or interpretation.  We are invited to give complete attention to it, without trying to escape or distract.  Trying to escape is not only a waste of energy but a recipe for continued suffering.  In your bones you know this to be true – no distraction . . . no escape has ever brought you true contentment. 

 A recognition of the love and consciousness of our true nature makes it possible for the unconscious patterns . . . the unconscious patterns that play out as suffering and separateness, to be seen, to be felt, and to come home.  Suffering ends and deep feeling is sweet.  Underneath, around and all about the suffering is the beauty and depth of aliveness and love. 

 Be still and feel.  Be still and see.

 I’m scared

Be scared

 I’m happy

Be happy

 I’m lonely

Be lonely

 I’m hungry

Be hungry

We have the capacity to be present

We have the capacity to attend

We have the capacity to be astonished

 We are invited to look, really look and discover the clouds, clouds of doubt, confusion and disorientation are far from the whole story, light years from the truth of the matter.  We are not alone; we are not disconnected and we swim in the very love and welcome we look for in every human encounter.  

 The very self we have come to embrace with love, the very self that has been loved into being is the one ultimately forgotten. 

 And here is the luscious irony – being nothing . . . being pure openness is liberating and exhilarating. It is the coming home; the very wholeness we feared was lost. 

In the depth of winter, I finally learned
that within me there lay an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

 I have had an irrational fear of unbalanced and disturbed people, walking out of my way hundreds of times to avoid contact.  Today I sit down in Starbuck’s at the only empty table, sandwiched between a gangly, toothless homeless man and a young nanny looking at her phone while her adorable “charge”, sitting in his stroller, smiles at me. 

 While getting my tea the man has stood up to read the title of the book I have put down on the tabletop.  He asks me about the book when I sit back down and I, politely, respond.  He wants to know where he could get the book if he wanted to read it. We chat a bit and I return to the book. 

 I feel the familiar tightening in my body as the man, turning back on himself, shouts out some nonsensical phrases.  I look at the baby, who is completely unmoved by the outburst. The baby curiously and calmly looks over at the man and turns back to his toy. 

 Another table has become available and I watch as the temptation to move crosses my awareness.  Beside not wanting to hurt his feelings I am aware of sitting up straighter inside.  Here it is . . . the eternal now, full bore presence . . . presenting a choice.  Will I give into the habit of fear?  What does love have to say in this timeless moment?   

 Life, presence announces itself . . . when we are still and receptive.  Not for the first time I become aware of my body, my cleaner and cleaner psyche being used as a conduit for unconditional love. Growing little by little; and, at a time like now, more pronounced. 

 Now watching, with delight, as fear evaporates, knowing full well there really was no choice; surrender is the abiding and accepted mode.  Without constriction love holds sway. I am comfortable, still inside.

 In this very moment I am in touch with deep being, clear and resonant, and I am in touch with becoming.  It feels like there is an ever-increasing, deepening into greater embodiment.  

 The human experience of the divine – conditional and unconditional love, temporal and eternal.

 I remain at the table reading my book.  The man turns to me and tells me it is his birthday next week . . . I tell him it is also my grandson’s birthday that day.

“How old will he be”.  When I tell him, he responds he is old enough to get married.

“I sure hope not.”

“Oh Grandma!” We are fully engaged as he tells me I am being silly to want him not to be married.

He turns to the baby, calling over me to engage the child.  We both smile and talk with the baby, who has begun blowing us both kisses.

We go about our independent business; I read, the baby plays with his toy truck and the man talks to himself and fidgets. Sometime the three of us interact; intermittently the man barks into the air, seeming to have some uncontrollable tics. 

When the barista quietly walks over to the man, putting his body between my table and the man’s, providing him with some privacy and respect, it is pretty clear others in the coffee shop have become bothered by the man’s presence.  I hear the barista tell the man he can come back tomorrow.

Everything in me has significantly softened and I find myself wanting to reach out and gently touch the barista’s arm, asking him not to tell the man he has to leave.

The man barks loudly all the way to the door, after telling me he knows why he has been kicked out but decided not to say anything. 

Wisdom, love and compassion flow mysteriously and without effort when self-thoughts, behaviors and patterns are well lit and seen through.  Love, undivided awareness illumines it all, revealing the end of the sense of separation, revealing the truth of your whole being and revealing the truth of “we are in this together”. 

Endings

Living with a fully open heart, no matter what.

How’s that for counterintuitive . . . allow your heart to open wider and wider, open wide and feel everything . . . no matter the state of the world.  No matter the state of your interior or relationships. 

I spent the majority of my life protecting my heart; having no conscious recollection of when exactly it closed or began to close.  I was, for better or for worse, painfully aware of feeling closed off; not in touch with melting or softening moments.

I am far from alone in believing in that apparent protection. We work hard to avoid feeling vulnerable, enfeebled or weak. Babies and children are naturally sensitive – open and attuned – not yet being fully defended.

But when we as adults cry, or recoil or shudder we judge ourselves and others as being weak; we are supposed to be brave and strong.  Not wanting to feel or appear weak, we distance from our feelings.  We defend against hurt and rejection. We defend against grief, fear, confusion, and uncertainty, not wanting to acknowledge we have been impacted and/or feel threatened. 

For the most part . . . to one degree or another, we deny we are going to die. 

Knowing we live in a world of change . . . a world in which everyone and everything comes and goes . . . we, fighting against this reality, fend off a strumming dread . . . it can feel unbearable to lose what we love or need or believe we cannot live without. 

I can hear a chorus shouting . . . duh!  Why wouldn’t we be?  Living in this world of judgment, guaranteed loss, and rejection.  

And yet, the deeper truth is a fully opened heart – an awakened heart – knows no boundaries and meets everything and everyone without judgment and without distancing.  Effortlessly.  

It is impervious to suffering . It does not close down.  

Heart closed I suffered mightily.  Heart open I feel deeply and do not suffer. 

Endings!

If I had known the last time I ate a See’s candy that it was the very last time I would taste this, would I have savored it more fully.

Friends and I have met at a beach-side cafe for Sunday brunch . . . countless times.  They are now physically incapable of the drive and the energy such an outing takes.  Did I have any inkling when we last met at the cafe we would never meet there again?  And if I had, would our visit have registered more deeply?

Someone I knew has died and two of my friends who are experiencing terminal illnesses have worsened and talk about wanting to die.  Stores and restaurants that have been open for business for decades are shuttered, there are more people without a home, sometimes splayed across a well-walked sidewalk.  The college year has begun and many are empty nesters. Trees that have grown to unimaginable heights have been cut down. Scientists tell us some crazily high percentage of wild animals are no longer roaming our earth.

The news is filled with one extinction after another as we, collectively, try to get our heads out of the sand when it comes to the fragility of our planet and the very real possibility of it being too late to save our home.

What happens as you are reading this, so far?  More often than not, we tell ourselves to look away; it is too hard, it is too sad to whole-heartedly face all those endings.  

When we do bravely turn towards endings, there is something profoundly paradoxical and beautiful about meeting our sorrow fully and completely.  There is something enlivening about knowing, really knowing we are going to die, not be here.  What is it like feeling the warm water of the shower knowing this experience will not last forever.  

What is it like hearing the sound of a loved one’s voice knowing one of you will die or leave? 

What is it like to grieve . . . deeply grieve with no ground beneath you?  What is it like to love your life so greatly it brings you to your knees?

These are evocative questions . . . they are a wake-up call to not miss how it feels to hear the voice of your loved one. To not miss the millions of moments you have, right while you are experiencing them.  To open your heart  indiscriminately. 

The deeper I feel, the closer I come to direct contact with the real, the more alive I am. It turns out that knowing, viscerally knowing/accepting endings . . . my own, my loved ones, the world itself . . . heartbreaking as it is, is vibrant and beautiful.  Stunningly beautiful.  Much to my delight and surprise, knowing I will die, maybe tomorrow and maybe years from now, affords me greater and greater gratitude for the simplest things – the strawberry in my cereal, eye contact with a stranger, hiking on rocky terrain. 

The heart is vast . . . vast beyond our minds’ comprehension and with great grace and ease is naturally receptive to grief . . . to gratitude  . . . to sorrow, and to love, its very nature.  

We are born a bundle of sensations, turning towards warmth and gentle embraces. This open, unguarded and tender beingness is deep within us.  We are the very warmth and embrace we yearn for.

We long for the return to our natural being . . . a direct contact with sensation and uncomplicated feeling.  We long to love big, really, really big. 

No Other

 Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.

                                                                                                Italian proverb

I first heard the word wholeness from Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist.  His view of our humanity/our divinity resonated in me, especially his recognition of our innate wholeness.  

We are one, holy and wholly one.  We are all that is. 

Jung referred to our oneness as the Self.  The truth and beauty and undividedness of our essential being.  The Self, a representation of the wholeness/truth that we are.

Who am I?

I am that

I am all there is

What does it look like to remember and embody wholeness?  What does it feel like to know, deeply and viscerally know there is no other?

Remembering our full being, remembering and owning wholeness requires us to become conscious . . . in an unfolding and every widening/deepening way. 

We are privileged with a capacity for self-awareness.  

Jung found a calling within all of us to individuate . . . to remember our wholeness, the Self. Through self-inquiry, we, often, first become conscious of our distinct personalities.  We become self aware by exploring our interior and integrating all our energies, all our parts, our memories, and history . . . 

Jung intuited the fact that we all have the whole world within us.  The dictator’s impulse for complete power and control.  Mother Teresa’s calling to touch the untouchables.  The ancestor’s ethnic or cultural traditions, the push for achievement, the receptivity of being still.  The win at any cost; open hearted generosity, feeling frail and weak, loving no matter what, the capacity for arrogance and greed, and the fear of dying alone. His map of the psyche (soul) encouraged us to recognize and integrate all that is within us.  

Imagine being compassionate, empathetic and kind to every emotion you feel, to every thought you have, to every “mistake” you make; in fact, imagine being open to its energy, open and curious.

For the longest time I understood this map (and put it to good use) conceptually.  It helped me feel empathic towards myself, forgive and understand folks who had “wronged” me and gave me an expansive view of our humanity. By exploring my own deep emotions, no matter how “ugly” they might be by my standards I, non-judgmentally, learned to compassionately understand what was driving me and my fellow human as well.  

It simply made sense to me that as we, through making conscious what was unconscious, would be cooperating with an evolution of consciousness . . . an expansion that erases the illusion of there being an “other.” 

In our heart of hearts whether we are consciously aware or not (remember, have glimpses, ripening in the truth of it) we know there is no other.   

Instead, most often, we run from everything we cannot tolerate. We hate, disavow and often project out onto others what we refuse to own within ourselves. 

We, personally and culturally, are a tangle of defense mechanisms.  We try to suppress everything that’s not comfortable for us. We distance ourselves from our shadows (Jung’s term), all ugliness relegated to the basement or cut out of awareness.  We defend ourselves against what we don’t want to recognize, to know, to face or to accept. 

We deny our “negative” feelings, the parts of ourselves we consider abhorrent and undesirable and anything that appears contrary to how we see ourselves.  

And yet, there really is no human emotion or behavior that, if we are willing to kindly look, we cannot relate to, understand, accept, and be with in a constructive way. 

And when we do not look, when we stay asleep at the wheel?

What we do not bring to consciousness will be acted out, played out.  Period!  

Isn’t it agonizingly obvious that we act out against ourselves, against each other, against our best interests and against our environment over and over again?   

What does it mean to own our shit . . . stop blaming ourselves and others, end projections?

Give yourself the gift of sweet encounters that are judgment free, not filled with suspicion and assumptions.  Meet the toothless truck driver delivering wood and be available for a genuine connection.  Why not meet yourself in such a way, over and over again?

When you know, in your bones, there is nothing wrong or shameful with how you feel, or how you think, or . . . even yes . . . the hurtful and traumatic things you have experienced or done . . . when you are able to own your shadow, take back projection after projection, you are open to genuine transformation.  When you know you are not missing anything, there is nothing to gain or get, you are free to be authentic and fully alive.  When you know you are connected to every living being you are attuned to the truth of things. 

You know those films of an explosion in reverse?  How everything comes flying back together and the world is in one piece again?

Transforming our apparent brokenness, our fragmented psyches back into the eternal wholeness at the core of our being is like that.  Embodying the deepest being you know is like that. You are not your fears, your smallness, you are the graciousness, the dignity of all that is. You are not your psychological patterns, your conditioning; you are the consciousness from which that all comes. 

Bring back all your disowned pieces and discover for yourself that what you see, what you perceive, what you construct, even what you know is a small sliver, a minutiae form of consciousness.  Discover the humble truth; your perception of reality is incomplete, a mere tip of the iceberg.

There is hidden (in plain sight) vastness, infinite wholeness.  

You are all that.

Consciousness . . . life . . . is always dancing, moving, alive and fully present; permeating and animating everything that makes up our world, from the spec of sand on the beaches to the stars in the sky, from the rhinoceros to our morning tea, from the bruise on our shin to everything our hearts desire.

We are called to wake up to that oneness.  

Open your eyes, your hearts and your ears to your deepest vitality, allowing yourself to be a vehicle for consciousness to widen and deepen and flow without restriction. 

Waking up to knowing, viscerally knowing, that everything and everyone comes out of the same cloth. 

 There is no other.

Home

The mere mention of home stirs something comforting and beckoning in my heart and soul.

Earlier in my life I had a dream, over and over again, that I was moving into a larger home; some magnificent home that was expansive and roomy – wherever I might roam or explore I would not be crowded or limited. I could open my arms wide and wider still. It felt big and I felt free.

Or . . . I dreamt that I, marvelously, discovered endless nooks and crannies to the home I already lived in. Much to my delight I kept discovering places I hadn’t known were there before. A room here, an alcove hidden under the stairs, an opening in a closet. The feeling inside the dream was the same, over and over again, unmitigated joy.

Growing up I had coloring books and paper dolls. I collected all sorts of dolls and loved playing jacks and pick up sticks. I played hop scotch and caught (and let go) lightening bugs in a glass jar.

But all I wanted, longed for and yearned after was a doll house. A wooden, stable, two storied doll house, with wall paper and furniture, wainscoting on the wall, a stairway with a wooden bannister and a family of four that would sleep in the beds and comb their hair in front of the bathroom mirror.

Truth be known, I wanted to move right into that home.

It can easily be said this yearning for home was extra pronounced since my childhood was very difficult. And yet this longing for home runs deeper than that – I think our souls are calling us to remember our natural, essential self.

No matter how we distract ourselves, no matter what mask or costume we put on, no matter how many achievements or accomplishments we rack up it is not uncommon to feel displaced, unsatisfied, far from home . . . in an inner sense. Deep down we know we are not at rest.

We try hard to convince ourselves to feel at home, at rest, when we fit in, find the perfect-fit clothing or the newest computer or appliance, have enough money to pay all our bills, know the “right” people, have a loving family, discover the real meaning to life, are “on top of things”, and mostly, no longer feel frightened, or alienated, or misplaced, bad, or inadequate (in one way or another) about yourself.

Maybe you know, in your heart of hearts, there is more to life than you are living. Maybe you spend a lot of time looking for a sign or an answer to what that might be.

There is a very strong societal undertow convincing us that home . . . the very thing, the very sign or answer that will do the trick and make us feel alright, at ease, comfortable, is outside ourselves.

This illusion is widespread . . . the belief that deep contentment is dependent on someone or something external. Our world manipulates this hunger for the real: Drink the right drink and you will be . . . courageous, loved, fit as a fiddle forever. Find the right partner/have the right family and all will be right in your world . . . forever. If you are fortunate enough to be disillusioned, maybe even over and over and over again, you realize that what you are looking for is not “out there”. The longed for rest, the longed for home has little to nothing to do with the external circumstances, no matter how comfortable, cozy and just right our living situation or mind-state might be. And the longed for rest, longed for home has little to nothing to do with perceived safety or certainty. For sure!

Anyone of us fortunate to know this, really know this, can stop the vicious cycle of trying to find our deepest peace in the wrong places. And trying, trying by banging our heads against the wall in a useless attempt to control, manage or avoid the uncertainty and impermanence of life itself, and, of course, death, the really, really big unavoidable truth of the matter.

Home is interior, an inside job. Deep rest is a state of being.

Home is interior and a state of being that is not swayed by our thoughts and feelings that come and go, nor by the circumstances that we cling to or run from and also come and go. Nothing lasts forever. No matter how many comforts and safety you accrue it is only a matter of time until something changes, someone leaves or dies, and the very thing that you counted on as home has evaporated. No matter how many therapy sessions you have or how well you meditate, you will likely feel constricted or reactive at some point. What we are really seeking is the equanimity to rest anytime, anywhere, whether our world is stable for now, listing left or right, or even coming apart at the seams. What we are seeking is the spacious presence for all our thoughts . . . all our feelings . . . all our humanity.

It can appear to be such an irony – peace . . . home . . . rest is knowing (viscerally knowing) we are not in control, so much so, we are willing to surrender, let go of our stronghold on how we think things should be, how we wish things are, how we insist things should be when they aren’t . . . let go of our concerted (and ultimately useless) efforts to reign in our lives to our liking and/or how we feel. Surrendering the insistence that what has already happened shouldn’t have happened. Such an irony . . .

The irony . . . it is in the very giving up of the pretenses we use to fool ourselves, the willingness to stop performing (whatever role we have attached to) as if we will die if we are not liked or respected or accepted, in being willing to look, really look at how hard we are working to not “get hurt or rejected” and feel worthy of love . . . letting go of this attempt to make ourselves feel at home, all the while knowing, deep down, that we are at odds with ourselves; the giving up of all that can open us to the truly remarkable thing:

We are whole, worthy and well.

Our true home is the center-most depths of our inner being, in the all around, above, below and sideways space that fills us to the brim and beyond when we open to the reality of things . . to the truth and fullness that shows up when we are radically honest and real . . . when we show up as our natural being, in our natural state, when we are present. Present to what is true.

Being present is home. Being present in this very moment, always, is home.

That is where life is living itself.

This is where roominess, our opening ourselves wider and wider, our unbound rest, no matter what, resides. Contrary to what our tribal instincts tell us, genuine home is unguarded, inclusive, and universally sacred. It is opening to life’s movement, open to the humdrum, the miraculous, the radical, the unexpected, the heart breaks – humbling us, allowing us to see with fresh eyes over and over again, as everything appears and disappears, comes and goes.

Letting go of our desires and wishes for things/us to be different than they are opens us to the power and direct contact of the present. Accepting things as they are, as they have happened opens the door to profound creativity, unrestricted options, clear thinking, and heightened awareness.

Living inside this very moment the rain is just the rain, the tears are just tears, the twig is just a twig and the scowl on your partner’s face is just a scowl. Living inside the home of this very moment sorrow is sorrow, disappointment is just that and all the comings and goings of your life means no more than being present to it as it unfolds.

The presence of home is unflappable, dynamic, and wholeheartedly welcoming. Our job is to listen . . . to heed.

Embodiment

I have a life-time of familiarity with my psyche, having watched it within a millisecond of its sometimes absurd and most times illuminating shift-shaping. I know its nooks and valleys and other than any worrisome possibility of going psychotic I was pretty comfortable with the dark and light places I found myself. And I knew how to get help when I needed someone else’s guiding light.

But not my body. My body, in the past, has scared the hell out of me and now here I am. I mean here I am in the grounded, earthy, sensual sense and I mean here I am in the profoundly spiritual realm of here am I. Being conscious, being aware of being human in the exact same moment of being human.

Being embodied. There is something completely wondrous about it to me. It sits deep in my solar plexus. Settling into the contours of my shape gives me the gift of being real. And congruent. It is as if I live inside the deepest bowels of the earth, when it used to feel like floating. To defend myself against insult and injury to my body I had lived as if I was far removed from it, hence floating . . . energetically apart, so seemingly unaware of having a body.

And now, with no removal, no separation, consciously embodied, I marvel at the real part of things, the way, being embodied, is showing up and, increasingly, from moment to moment, affording me realness. I would not have said, since awakening, that I was pretending or putting undue effort into interactions with other folks. I would not have said I was pushing to make something happen. But relatively speaking, I was. In retrospect I can see, my body, tired to the bone, knew it.

It is the quiet that first gets my attention. Or maybe, better expressed using the word neutrality. From this unassuming and powerful state of quiet . . . neutrality . . . everything has slowed down. Cooking a new dish, I recognize . . . easily captured now in this slowed down state . . . the assumption that I am feeling good about the activity; feeling happy and peaceful. But I don’t. Not particularly. I am simply going about the business of chopping and roasting, reading a recipe and paying close attention since I have not cooked this before.

It is what happens next (automatically) that gets my attention. In this recognition of it not being what I assumed it was and settling into whatever it really is, in this case, neutral, unemotional, maybe even indifferent, a just is ness. . . with absolutely nothing needing to be done or different about it . . . is restful. Bodily restful. Grounded restful. A first time ever full body restful.

This is ness . . . a knowing that keeps deepening and widening. And now it is quietly alive in my body.

Awakening, that radical shift in perception . . . the movement from seeing through the ego’s eyes to seeing from awareness, to being awareness . . . all that, all that is the beginning. Even though others had said this very thing I was still surprised; I had the illusion that the long sought after freedom was the be-all and end-all of things.

Now six years later I marvel at the embodiment of freedom, at the evaporation of anxiety that lived in the cells of my body, having a life of its own. The embodiment that is landing me even more deeply inside here and now.

Since awakening I have had a sixth sense/ intuition of something needing to unfold, reveal itself. I felt “unfinished”, not even fully knowing what that might mean. I would say to myself that the body needed to awaken.

I turned to yoga, to meditative body scanning, to cranial-sacral and Feldenkrais work. My nervous system, from years and decades of hyper vigilance was in a low level state of anxiety. Automatically and chronically. I wanted to kiss Scott Kiloby when I heard him say, about himself, “the body had not yet gotten the good news”, in reference to his state of being after awakening.

I had been afraid of illness, whenever something felt “off” with my body I would worry. My mind would quickly go to some possible catastrophe, and even though I didn’t buy into the thoughts, my body would tense and tighten. Since I was so out of touch with my body I didn’t have a reasonable read on things; my beleaguered body would hold the worry as a state of emergency when, in fact, there was no danger.

I became more and more conscious of this pattern, strikingly so and as all the varying body workers offered their skills and kindness, the love that we all are continued to, from deep inside me, embrace and contain all the cells of my nervous system. Always held in warm, soothing, and caressing arms, quieting and relaxing.

My body seems to have gotten the good news and the original shift in perception has deepened considerably. This more integrated and deeper awareness of how things really are feels innocent. Innocent like a young child who moves through the day and the world attuned to what comes to her attention. That might be the mesmerizing movement of color as the clothes spin in the washer . . . it might be a wash of feeling . . . it might be the ticking of a clock or the bark of a tree. This is how it goes when anxiety is not clouding perception. A simple fresh and neutral look at what is showing up in awareness at this particular moment.

And now there is an is ness in my body as well. A sensation is a sensation – an ache or pain or limitation is just that. A deepening of trust – the body speaks – and I listen.

It is a Technicolor embodiment – the irony is not lost on me. Becoming a full human being, alive and at home in my body, open and transparent, further reveals and expands the animating presence and unconditional love that is our essential nature.

This presence, this unconditional love, this is ness is silent, oh so quiet, and neutral . . . innocent; empty of this full humanity it so loves.

And is larger and more real (the realest) than anything my mere humanity can fathom.

We are, indeed, divinely human