Beauty Many Places

Twenty years ago when I first left Oregon to move to North Carolina, the first thing my friends would ask on my monthly business trips back to the West Coast was "When are you moving back?"  I'd laugh, and, to their incredulity, I'd say "Never." They just couldn't imagine I could move from such a beautiful place as Oregon. There certainly were many beautiful places in Oregon. AND...North Carolina also had many beautiful spots.

When I left the Midwest for Oregon in my twenties, friends there also questioned my sanity when I left "God's Country," the name many Hoosiers call Indiana. There were many beautiful places in Indiana and Ohio, where I'd lived during two college years.

I've driven across the United States several times and on each trip I've discovered beauty in almost every state. In trips abroad I've found beauty in many spots there as well. Despite what my friends in Indiana might believe, if God created special places of beauty, he/she was most generous with them.

I am writing most of this post in Wilmington, Delaware, where I've just spent a lovely day. The gem in the crown of this city is certainly the riverfront, and as I think of beautiful places I've visited, they've often had focal points of water.

Wilmington's Riverfront includes several aspects of others in one setting. It is beautifully landscaped along a wide brick and concrete path, which is actively used by runners, walkers, and cyclists. Yesterday I took the water taxi from one end of the city to the other and back again. Like San Antonio, Wilmington's riverfront hosts several restaurants which were packed and bubbled forth with music and laughter...and cheers for World Cup goals from one. Crewers rowed their skulls along the river.

Wilmington also hosts some bits of human history. Harriett Tubman had led over 700 slaves to freedom using her Underground Railroad which ended in Wilmington.  During World War II, Wilmington fostered freedom in a different way: it was the largest producer of US Navy ships in the country.  What had once been shipyards now hosts the Riverfront path I have walked several times since arriving.

One of the unique characteristics here, though is the "urban wildlife preserve." Behind meticulously tended landscapes are wilder sanctuaries throughout, culminating in several hundred acres of preserved marshland at the end of development.

As I've reflected on this and lots of other places of beauty, I started to use the word "extraordinary," but "extraordinary" implies out of the ordinary.  Beautiful places so abound in our world that they are not out of the ordinary. Perhaps that is a problem. We've become so accustomed to the beauty around us that it has become ordinary, when it should quite rightly be remarkable. The brooks and streams, wild flowers, trees, and every other creation ought to take our breath away...daily, even hourly.  Sadly, most of the time it passes unnoticed.

If we would just notice what is working, we might also notice people cooperating and collaborating.  Ever notice when someone is attempting to open a door with their hands full (and sometimes when they aren't) that another person often opens the door.  Or, ask for directions in a public place, and several people within earshot will add pieces.  Comedian Jon Stewart once described that we know how to cooperate by explaining that cars making their way onto a freeway alternate methodically without direction.  The way that we cooperate and collaborate is a thing of beauty, which we seem to ignore until it stops working.

I've written about gratitude many times in this blog, but today I am wondering what it would be like if we all noticed both the natural beauty around us and the generally cooperative spirit of humanity.  Maybe that is where the gratitude journaling helps: it forces us to sit and remember things of beauty--natural and human--around us.  But, I think real magic might happen if we focused our intention on noticing beauty in the moment...oh, what a beautiful world it could be.


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Climate Change

I am intensely experiencing climate change today. Not that kind of climate change--the kind where temperate Washington is hammered with a brutal 4-month icy, snowy, cold winter and my former rainy home in Oregon is experiencing drought and forest fires in what is normally the rainy season--although the kind I write about today is related.

I've spent the last two weeks indoors, mostly in darkened rooms, recovering from eye surgery. Yet even in that environment, I've experienced my own personal climate change. My retina has been liberated from film and fluid that have darkened my world for almost two years. Even in dark rooms, I have felt like I have burst from an all-twilight life boldly into sunny high noon...24x7.

I've always been someone who needs light, but I didn't fully understand the impact until this week. I not only see better, but I feel lighter and brighter emotionally too.

Climate change worked it's way into my life in another way today. Just five days ago wind-chill temperatures were zero. Even though I was out very little, I could judge the temperature by how hard my heating system worked to keep my normally toasty apartment a little chilly.

Like a miracle, today temperatures have broken into the 60s (16-17 C). Street musicians once again serenade walkers and runners on the sidewalks. Attired in shorts and skorts, tennis players flocked to the University courts near my home. Undaunted by many remaining piles of snow up to three-feet high, I spotted several 80-and 90-somethings walking with their push-carts to run errands, and one  elderly women, who had walked to a bench with her walker, stopped me to chat.

Like them, I feel lighter, too. I lost 10 pounds today! Layers of turtlenecks, sweaters, our heaviest coats, boots, hats, earmuffs, and scarves finally shed in a day after months of being one with us.

We have many kinds of climate in our lives. While the reality of global climate change cannot be denied, many of them are influenced by our minds and hormones. The reality of the change I feel in my brighter world cannot be denied. Nor can the uplift of spirit in shedding that 10 pounds of winter attire to walk in the warmth of early spring sunshine. It's enough to make me jump for joy...and that, too, can be a climate change.

Harvard researcher Amy Cuddy has researched the victory stance. You know it: arms extended upward with chin up and head back, just as an athlete crosses a finish line. She says that when we take that position, our bodies release hormones associated with winning, without doing anything else! If we want to be winners, all we have to do is take the stance, and we change to the inner climate of a winner. (If you haven't watched her TED talk, it should be must-viewing for life.*)

So today I am going to jump for joy, change my inner climate to match the outer climate...and head to my balcony to get ready for the inevitability of those first crocus sprouts, which will pop through the soil any day now. Yes!

*Link to Amy Cuddy's TED talk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc


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Rewriting Our Stories

Our minds play tricks on us, and the really tricky thing is they can totally transform for either good or bad how we experience life. Events in our lives are by and large neutral. They only become positive or negative because of what our minds tell us.

For instance, there are number if stories about people who were distressed because they missed a plane only to later learn that the plane had crashed.

Or there is the story about the man walking down the street, who was knocked over by a skateboarder, only see a heavy flower pot land on the sidewalk where he would have been if he'd kept walking.

If we are to experience everything as a gift, I believe it is essential that we become conscious of our stories and then rewrite them so that they help us see the gift.

This morning I cheerfully headed out for work, and I was hardly out the door before I began encountering delays. When I got to the corner where I would normally enter the Metro, the entry was closed. I was directed to a different entry.

I was just inside the alternative entry, when I saw my train leaving the station. When I made it to the platform, there were no times for upcoming train departures. A disabled train had blocked the tracks, and trains were bottlenecked from coming into the city. The missed train was the last for a while.  A long delay ensued, thereby assuring that I will miss my first meeting.

I finally entered a train that was packed like sardines. When I was almost to the station where I would change trains, the driver pulled in the station and said, "This train is out of service." So, everyone on the packed train offloaded.

At this point, I decided to walk a long block to another line where I would catch the train I would have changed to if my train had made it to the expected change point. It seems that was not an original thought. Hundreds of others joined me in the race to the other line, pushing and shoving all the way.

I allowed myself only a moment's pity before asking, "What's the gift? What's the gift?" Then I laughed out loud. I'd been struggling to fit exercise into my schedule thus week. Each of my delays had added more walking or escalators to climb. Was this a serious workout? Of course not. But it did get my heart rate up for a bit. By choosing to see all the delays as a gift, I started the day with a smile on my face and grace in my heart.

I was proud of myself for being awake enough to notice and to rewrite my story. That is a powerful act, choosing how to experience life without regard to circumstances.

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Going to school

My life has seemed to go in cycles.  For a few years life flows swimmingly.  Money, relationships, health, and career all work well. Then, for no apparent reason, one day it shifts, and life can be very difficult for the next few.  While I certainly think the easy times are much more fun, in truth, I am sure that the difficult ones are more important to the evolution of my soul. 

I think of the difficult times as when we are in "spiritual school."  It is easy to have faith when everything is easy. I have learned the most about faith when it is tested.  Like in the life of the Biblical Job, if we are able to remember that we are on a spiritual journey, we come out the other side stronger and closer to whatever we consider the divine.  When things really fall apart, we are going to spiritual graduate school.

When I was publishing a book each year, writing several newspaper columns, consulting globally, and delivering a reasonable number of keynote addresses, I had lots of people around me who loved me.  Then the economy went bust...and my business with it.  Suddenly, most of my "friends" evaporated.  I found out who my true friends were.  I would never have learned what makes a real friend without those times.

Similarly, I won't ever really learn about forgiveness and gratitude until I need to forgive someone for a particularly wicked deed and then take it one step further to expressing gratitude for the deed. Twenty years ago a friend and I would talk about "being in lesson" at moments like that.  We would know that there was a spiritual purpose for our challenging times.  The more challenging the times, the more we were sure we were "in lesson."

School goes in other cycles too.  A different friend and I were talking over dinner Sunday about the same lessons that seem to keep showing up in our lives every few years. In my belief system those repeating lessons are ones that our souls signed up to master.  But, with each cycle, we learn something different.

I am a bit reluctant to announce at this early stage, but I feel a difficult cycle is approaching an end.  You may recall that a few days ago, I wrote about feeling as if I were pregnant (11/2/12.)  I've been restless and keep feeling like I have been about to deliver something.  Today, I think my "baby" is an easier stage of life.  In several arenas in life, I feel little breakthroughs, harbingers of better times.  I feel as if it might almost be safe to relax.  Ah!

While I look forward to easier times, I am cognizant of being truly grateful for the years I've been "in spiritual school," maybe this time for a spiritual post-doc. 

Being led

Yesterday I wrote about some little miracles that happened to me last evening.  I wasn't even finished before I was thinking of lots others.  I could literally write a book about all of them, but highlights from a pilgrimage a few years ago simply tell the story of what can happen if we just get out of the way and allow ourselves to be led.

In June 1998, I was given very clear guidance about some things that I was supposed to do before fall.  I had been in Greece to speak at a conference.  On the short flight from Athens to a different meeting on Rhodes, I decided to meditate.  With great force strong guidance came to me.  In the preceding year, I had written my book Choice Point, and, in retrospect, I felt that following this guidance was my "training."  I was going to be asked to do everything I'd written.  Just totally surrender and allow myself to be led.

I was told to come back to Greece for a month long pilgrimage, but before I did, I was to travel from my home in North Carolina back to my old home towns in Oregon.  I was specifically told to see three aging women, all of whom had been important to me "for they are not long for this world."  I was puzzled, but followed as guided.

In July, I headed first to Eugene and then south to Medford and Prospect. I saw all three women, and while it was great to see them, quite frankly, they all seemed fine.  At the end of August I left for a month in Greece.  I had no itinerary, was told to take no credit cards, and very little cash.  I was supposed to listen for guidance.  The only guidance I received other than that was to "make my way to Thessaloniki," where I was to ask for the English-speaking priest for additional direction and to take four copies of the book.  The guidance continued that it would be clear to me who was to receive them. 

It was quite a journey, staying in what was then one of Europe's most expensive tourist destinations with $25/day for room, board, and everything else. Yet at every turn, someone would show up on my path with a place to stay or a good, but inexpensive place to stay or eat.  I walked a lot and met remarkable people on the journey.  About a week into my journey, I had guidance to call my house sitter.  He told me that one of the three woman had been diagnosed with advance stage abdominal cancer and had died in just a few days.  The second one would be gone in just a few months.  The third began to be consumed by Alzheimer's disease.  If I hadn't followed where I was led, I would have missed rich last time with each of them.

I made my way to Thessaloniki where I had an amazing experience with an English-speaking priest.  Along the way, I had wonderful connections with people each of which taught me something for my spiritual journey.  And, I travelled around the country with my four books for over three weeks.  I have to say, I was beginning to have doubts, but everything else had gone so perfectly, that in my heart, I knew I would still be guided.  With the first three copies, each time I just knew in the moment when it was the right person to receive a book.

The remarkable part of the "book distribution," however, came the last day of the trip.  I was to lunch with a Greek-American business woman with whom I'd become acquainted when speaking at a business conference in the US the year before.  That summer there had been a series of one-day strikes, and on my last day in Athens, the train operators were striking.  The trains had been my way of getting around. Athens was in gridlock.  Between buses and walking, I made my appointment. After lunch, I told her about my remaining book.

Loula was not a timid woman and seemed to know everyone in Athens intimately. She was one of those people who is "in charge," and nothing will get in her way when she is intent upon something. Loula directed me to the senior editor at a Greek women's magazine.  She told me that he would be expecting me; however, she warned that the Rolling Stones were playing Athens for the first time in over two decades, and he had tickets.  I must go there directly, and, oh, by the way, the publishing house was in a neighboring town outside of Athens.  OK.  The trains aren't running, and I still have to get my book.  This is clearly out of my hands.

Loula walked out on the street where hundreds of people, abandoned by their trains, were fighting for an available taxi.  She just walked up to one that was occupied, opened the door, said something to the driver and the other passengers, shoved me in, threw money at the driver, and slammed the door.  I have no clue where I am going.  My Greek wasn't good enough to communicate, so I just sheepishly slid back on the seat with a timid smile.

In 15 to 20 minutes, the taxi pulled up in front of the hostel where I was staying and let me out.  As the button says, "That was easy!"  It was about 4:30, and my contact would be leaving the office at 6.  The man at the front desk had been very helpful previously about helping me with train connections.  I told him what I needed to do.  He looked at the clock skeptically, and said, "You know the trains are on strike."  I smiled.  He whispered, "There is a rumor that the trains will start running again at 5 because the train operators don't want to infuriate all the people who would miss the Stones concert if the trains aren't running."  I was about 15 minutes from the station.

Bolting up the steps to my room two at a time, I headed for the book and a fast refresh.  I was out the door in just a few minutes.  I walked into the station at 4:58.  At 5 p.m., the gates opened, and I jumped on the first train.  I arrived at the small town where the publishing house was located and found my way about two blocks to the office.  I had a lovely interview with the editor who gave me a nice goodie bag, and promptly at 6 p.m., he announced that he needed to leave for the concert. 

While I can relate the events that occurred that afternoon in September 1998, I cannot find words to describe the experience.    It was literally like being carried on an invisible flow with the ease of any unfolding miracle intent on me getting my book into this man's hands. There was quite literally no effort on my part. I just went where I was led. If any of these transition points hadn't gone perfectly, I wouldn't have had my interview, announcing Leading from the Heart to Greece.  It happened with the ease of a miracle.  Actually, the whole month in Greece happened with the ease of dozens of miracles.

Einstein once wrote, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."  When I get out of the way and allow myself to be led, everything is a miracle.

Little Miracles

Sometimes little miracles just show up. Our job is to recognize them. First off, an angel came to my door this evening. Just like that. And she spent almost an hour with me, showing me features of this blog. Thank you, Filiz!

One of the things you will be able to do in the future is to sign up for email notifications when I make a post. Some of you may think you've done so already, but since you weren't receiving them, Filiz helped me troubleshoot. I hadn't set things up right on my end. We think we've accomplished that now. However, you will need to go in and register again at the top of the column on the right.

Filiz also showed me some other features that I will be playing with so you may be noticing some changes in the days ahead.

The other little miracle is my new app that allows me to post from my iPhone. Since I spend quite a bit of time on trains each week, hopefully that means I will have fewer 1 a.m. posts...or not. This is my first post from my phone.

Life is full of little miracles. Most of the time most of us just take them for granted. Yet I find that, when in bring attention to the gifts that come into my life, I am always reminded of the divine preciseness of the Universe in delivering to me just what I need, exactly when I need it.

That may be a good place to pick up tomorrow.

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Pregnant?

I've just spent several minutes looking for a word.  I didn't find the right one.  I've felt funny today, and I am searching for a word to describe the feeling. 

Some ancient cultures celebrated depression.  They described that depression as a time when a person gathered courage to make a leap into a new phase of life.  I don't really feel depressed in the way that we usually use that word.  But, it does seem to me today like I am getting ready for a big change.   I should be pacing or something. So, I did what I do when I need to pace: I cooked for several hours.

What is the word?  I thought maybe it was "listless."  I looked it up to be sure. "Lacking energy, interest, or the willingness to make an effort."  Not that.  I've had plenty of energy.  I went for a long walk on a beautiful fall Saturday and enjoyed our first burst of fall color.  However, I do feel a lack of interest, and I've struggled to "make an effort," well, because I felt so strongly that change is coming that anything I would do today felt like it would be irrelevant tomorrow.

In these busy times where we are all supposed to have a goal or direction and keep moving in that way, we put little value on the transitions, and I am not sure that those transitions may not be much more important.  Whether it is gathering steam for a leap or grieving a loved one, those times when we just need to "be" are undervalued, and maybe even disparaged by some.  We need them to build courage for what is next.  We need them to help us get ready for a world that will be so different from the one in which we currently exist that we will not recognize it.

When I was a small child, my parents bred dogs, and on the day that the mother was about to give birth, she paced and was restless beyond belief. I think what I may be feeling today is...pregnant.  (Not in the having a baby sense.  I'm passed that.) Really feeling that I am about to give birth to something, and I don't know what it is.  It is exciting and at the same time terrifying.  Will I be able to stand up to the challenge of birthing this thing?  What will it look like? What will it mean for my life? While I am terrified, I am restless.  I want to get on with it, but the gestation period is clearly not complete. 

So I wait with pregnant anticipation to see what the Universe has in store for me.

Going toward or running away?

The most primitive part of our brains--the part that formed millions of years before our rational brains--is hardwired to respond to fear.  When humans existed in the wilds, and life was a day-to-day struggle for survival, what is called the "reptilian brain" developed two basic instantaneous responses to threat: "fight" or "flight."  Interestingly, this primitive response will literally short-circuit the rational part of the brain when threat is perceived, stopping it from functioning. 

What does all this have to do with the spiritual journey? Almost everything, actually.  Because the reptilian brain is programmed for survival, it will try to keep us in survival mode.  It's purpose is to keep us alive.  By definition, living in constant fear is constraining and limiting.

The spiritual life is expansive.  It is one of learning, growth, and acceptance.  We are sent into this world with service to perform, spiritual growth lessons to learn, and gifts and talents to develop. If we do any of these things well, we will regularly look fear in the face. If we listen to what we know in our hearts, though, what compels us is the urge to thrive. 

It seems to me that there must almost always be the grappling of these two forces within us: the part of us that wants only for us to survive wrestling with the part of us that wants to grow, perform our service, use our talents...and thrive. Contraction versus expansion.

Not so many years ago, I can recall having made the statement that I'd never made a decision which was based on money considerations.  I would have said that I always listen to my heart and just know that if I do so, everything will work out.  Except when it didn't.  About 12 years ago, I lost everything...really. But for friends that allowed me to use spare bedrooms, I would have been in the streets. 

Circumstances from my early childhood had left me fiercely independent from a very early age.  I had gone from being a successful global consultant, author and professional speaker with a lovely home and office overlooking a lake to having no assets, being homeless and not knowing how I would pay for food.  How could that have happened to me?  I'd had a savings account since I was an infant and a well-funded retirement since my early thirties.  Then I had nothing.  I was terrified.  I plugged into my reptilian brain, and I haven't fully been able to shake it. 

I struggle with that.  I want to thrive.  I want to do the work I came into the world to do.  I want to learn and grow and to use my gifts.  Quite thankfully for this blog, I am getting my writer's groove back.  I really believe that we are to listen to our hearts and do what makes them sing.  The spiritual journey is about following that to which we are drawn, rather than running from what we fear.

After I'd completed my end-of-the-day ritual of affirmations, gratitude journal, and prayer last night, and had turned out the lights, I suddenly knew that something was wrong in what I'd posted yesterday.  Throwing back the covers and turning the light back on, I padded out to my desk and rebooted my computer in my otherwise dark apartment.  I felt it urgent to correct before I slept. Really, I think I needed to acknowledge my truth.

Yesterday I compared the human connection to Love source to that of the aspen grove which appears to be hundreds or thousands of trees, but shares a common root structure and is connect at the most fundamental level.  We look like individual people, but in truth, we are connected through a common source: Love. What I had said is that when we are connected to source that we couldn't be hurt.  I realized that was my reptilian brain talking about avoiding hurt.  My change, although apparently only a minor one, was to say that when we are connected through Love, we are safe and peaceful.  The shift is from running away from something--hurt--to moving toward something we want--Love, peace, and safety.  Such a small thing...and everything. 

On the spiritual journey, when I can be awake enough to remember (translate that I have disengaged my reptilian brain,) my real lesson is to follow Love. What I wan to move toward. That's all...and everything.

Celebrating little successes

A pilot once explained to me what happens when I fly from one major city to another, say from New York to San Francisco.  Although the pictures in the airline magazines draw the route as a nice arc from one city to the other, the journey is really anything but a perfect arc.  Imagine a zigzag arc, like it was cut with pinking shears. While the aviator is going east to west, there are many north and south adjustments to keep the plane on course.

After yesterday's post, I headed to bed thinking about how hard I am on myself sometimes for not getting "it"--whatever it is--perfectly.  Sometimes I miss my target a little in one direction.  Then I adjust and miss it a little in the other.  All in all, I like to think that similar to the course of the airplane, I know where I want to go but doing so on an arc that looks a bit like it was cut with the pinking shears.

What I hope is most important is that I am attempting to live a conscious life.  I sincerely want to connect with others, heart to heart.  I yearn to have this planet be a more loving place.  Whether I go on autopilot for part of each day and miss opportunities to connect with others is less crucial than that I actually did so three times today.  Today, I celebrate the little successes and know that most of the time, I am headed in the direction of love.

The Sleeping State That Men Call Waking

I want to start this post with an apology.  On behalf of all the spiritual writers, myself included among them, who make it sound like evolving oneself is easy, I want to say "I'm sorry."  It isn't.  For those of us who work full-time, have household and family responsibilities, and hope just every now and then to do something that is fun, staying present can be exceedingly hard.  Without being awake, we cannot do any of the things that will evolve us spiritually, which may explain why so many writers across the centuries have indicated that being conscious is the most important thing to the spiritual journey.

When I had my business, I worked way more hours than I do now, but I was driving the car called my life.  If I wanted to take a little extra time to connect with a clerk in the store, I didn't have a boss waiting to say I was AWOL (absent without leave) because I was a few minutes late. If I wanted to take extra time to workout and de-stress during my lunch hour or even linger longer enjoying the sun, I knew my trade-off was working later, and I could make that trade. It was wrong of me to have written with a "just-do-it" tone.  I had just forgotten how hard it is to be present when life is framed by the expectations of others.

During the week, it feels like I step on a treadmill that goes faster and faster until I drop off exhausted at the end of the week...and I don't even have kids to pick up and drop off at school and a host of growth activities.  (My hat's off to those of you who have those things in your daily routine.)

I didn't totally go to sleep today because I remembered after two opportunities that I'd missed that I didn't make the heart connection for The Grocery Store Game (10/25/13.)  I celebrate that I didn't just snooze through the whole opportunity.   Even when I threw a couple dollars in a busker's case, I did so as I walked by rather than making a connection. However, I stopped at an art exhibit on the way home from work, and I did remember to make connection there. Yeah!!

The Hindu sacred text the Upanishads refers to "the sleeping state that men call waking."  When I first read it, a stunned knowing came over me.  "Yes! That is exactly what it is like," I thought.  I am walking around, and most people observing me would say I am awake.  I even believe myself to be awake. Yet as I autopilot through life, I really am asleep at the wheel of this car called my life.  I snooze through opportunities to connect.  I doze through appreciating the wonder around me. I forget to feel  gratitude for all the gifts with which I am blessed.  I miss the opportunity to show true appreciation to the busker singing a great rendition of "Hotel California."

In my effort to truly show up for my life, one time I put random reminders on my Outlook calendar  to remind me to wake up, but I became so accustomed to them that I began to sleep through them as well.

So, I am sorry for making this journey to consciousness seem easy.  I find solace that at least back as far as 2,600 years when the Upanishads were written, men and women have struggled to stay awake.  For that 2,600 years, people like you and me have shared "the sleeping state that men call waking," and they have periodically actually been awake.  For that, we can celebrate. 

And, each day we begin anew on the journey to the waking state that men call waking.  I like to think that suddenly one day, it will just happen--being awake, that is.  I will go through a whole day, totally attuned to what is going on around me.  Until then, I will be delighted at widening the margins on my autopilot life.  Ten percent one day, and maybe 25 the next.  Though I may backslide, as I clearly have done, holding the intention of moving to higher levels of consciousness feels to me like real progress.

What goes around comes around

In my blog on gratitude (9/24/13), I described keeping a daily record of gifts I received and those I'd given.  No matter how hard I tried to keep up with what I received, I just couldn't.  A funny thing has happened over the last few days since I have been playing The Grocery Store Game (10/25/13) again.
What has been occurring parallels what happens with the gratitude lists.  The more I try to connect with others, heart to heart, the more people do and say kind things to me. 

I have been pondering this and what it means.  I really think that what we put out does come back to us, but I am pretty confident that it cannot be put out for the purpose of bringing things to us.  A giving heart is pure in motivation.  If something comes back to me, I am grateful, but I shouldn't give for the purpose of getting. 

So I believe it is with connecting, heart to heart, with people.  If something comes back to me, that is nice, but if I connect with the purpose of getting something in return, I have put up a wall between my heart and that of the person with whom I wish to connect.

There is an old expression: "what goes around comes around."  It suggests that how we live in the world is how we will experience the world around us.  We really plant the seeds for what we want in our own hearts, reflected in our actions.  When we give gifts or connection, that is what we attract to ourselves.  If it is done for selfish reasons--hoping to get something back, selfishness is what we will experience coming back.  If we do from pureness of heart, that too is what we will receive.

Seeds of Faith

This is my first full year in my apartment, and I am still planting my balcony garden. Thursday a box full of plants and bulbs was waiting for me when I got home.  For me there is something therapeutic about getting my fingers in the soil, so when I embarked on the chore of planting, I did so with much joy.

Fall is a time when I become most consciously aware of faith.  As I put out the plants that will grace my home next spring, I do so with a great deal of faith.  I trust that if I do my part--plant them right, fertilize, and then water them regularly--they will do their part. 

The magic isn't limited to my balcony.  In the park behind my home, seeds are or have been dropped and are working their way into the ground to grow roots.  Fruits and vegetables left too long in the field have broken open and dispersed their seeds.  Wild flowers have gone to seed. The wind has scattered their seeds as well. In something of a mystery, during the winter when the elements seem most inhospitable to fostering life, a magical process of starting life is going on.

This mysterious cycle of life occurs so regularly that it is easy to lose touch with the wonder of what is occurring.  In many ways, what occurs in our own spiritual development parallels what happens in nature.  Each day as I attempt to grow more whole, whether it be in how I eat or exercise or in my focus on creating heart connections with the clerks in the grocery store. 

I take actions each day, not because I expect something will miraculously change in an instant.  I take actions in alignment with my intentions for who I am becoming because I have faith that if I do those actions to which I've committed every day, then a few months down the road in what seems like an overnight success, the seeds I've been planting will spring forth in a new me.

Spiritual growth, like planting my garden, is an act of faith. If I act consistently over time, I will grow into a new person, as surely as the tulip bulbs I planted yesterday will blossom in shades of purple and pink. I have faith that I will grow into more wholeness, and by so doing, I will plant seeds for a better world.

The River of Peace

Back in the day before blogs, my regular writing gigs were columns in business publications.  I've never had difficulty writing, once I had a topic, but there have been times that I stared at the computer screen for a while, waiting for inspiration.  I remember encountering a friend who had just finished reading Leading from the Heart on one of those days. 

"Hey!" I said.  "What really stands out to you from the book?" 

Without a hesitation, he responded, "The River of Peace."  We chatted a bit about the topic, and when I headed back to the office and computer, I knew that would be the topic of that week's column. 

In the book, I described what Joseph Campbell called The River of Peace, which flows between the banks of Fear and Desire.  As he described it, we can float through life in peace as long as there is neither anything we fear nor anything we desire enough to leave our place of peace.

Then, as I've drawn on many a flip-chart, I added to The River of Peace, making it The River of Peace, Love, and Joy, those consummate spiritual qualities for which most of us yearn.  As I talk about the banks, I "X" through the word "Desire," because I say that most things that we desire enough to leave The River of Peace are actually driven by fear.  So, I say, The River of Peace, Love, and Joy actually lies between two banks of fear.

Today, I ponder The River of Peace.

After two weeks of furlough, we finally have glimmers of hope that the government may soon be open again.  As I compare my dwindling checking account to the monthly bills that have arrived, part of me is quite joyful.  The fear of not being able to pay my bills and what that might mean clearly underlies the desire to pay my bills.  Far greater are other fears. 

As I've written in this blog, I've reclaimed the woman I had been until recent employment.  I am the creative, the writer, the coach, and the speaker. I am smart and have a sense of humor. I am joyful. I take care of myself.  I love my life.  What I really fear is that the darkness that consumed me so totally that it took nine days of furlough to reclaim my being will eat me alive again.  Having almost birthed an e-book from a hard copy book and germinated at least two new books, I am terrified that my creative self will be subsumed by "Just follow orders!" or "No one asked what you thought."

AND, I want peace, love and joy even more.  I want to embrace my work with the passion and creativity that I brought to it for almost three decades.  I want to jump out of bed, looking forward to helping people work together better. I want to love my colleagues and laugh with them throughout the day. I know that is what awaits me in The River of Peace, Love, and Joy. My spiritual work: stay in the river.  Staying in the river implies staying present...in the present.  That's it!  That's all there is.  :-)  That's all...

What Does It Mean to be a Friend?

Today I have been in intense exploration of the question, "What does it mean to be a friend?"  Although I say "today," because today it has been very focused, I believe that I've been playing with this question for almost a week.  Last Sunday I watched Brene Brown on OWN's Lifeclass.  She is a prominent researcher on "vulnerability" and "shame."  She said that in a lifetime, we should count ourselves lucky to have one or two friends with whom we can totally share who we are--to whom we can open our hearts, and they are willing to just empathize with us.  She calls it opening our "arena" to that person and letting them in to our vulnerability.

"Wow!" I thought.  One or two in a life time.  I must be very fortunate indeed with so many friends.  That is when the pondering began.  I have people I do things with. I have people I turn to for spirited discourse. I have people that I strategize with.  I have people I know I can depend on and who know they can depend on me.  But, do I truly have people in my life that I can totally open my heart to and with whom I can share my "shame"?  Do I have people who can just sit there and be with me and ride through it with me without trying to "fix" me or somehow move me around my vulnerability?  I am not sure that I do...and I have a really evolved group of friends, well populated from the "helping professions."

I am a staunch believer in when I am pointing my finger at others, I should notice three other fingers pointing back at me.  So I noticed.  Could I really sit with one of my "friends" and ride with them into their shame and vulnerability?  I'd like to think that I could, but the truth is that I am more likely to help them reframe, excuse, justify, strategize, or encourage than to just sit with them in their vulnerability. 

Have I unconsciously invited a group of people into my life that could function with me at a superficial level because that is my comfort zone?  They don't show their vulnerability, and I don't show my own, and we can safely avoid the discomfort of just being empathetic with each other.  That hurts.  But, what to do about it? Do I need new people?  I hope not. Can I change the fundamental nature of my relationship with the people in my lives?  I hope so, but wonder. 

I am tired of hiding behind a wall that I've built to keep others from knowing who I am in my heart, and I am terrified at coming from behind the wall.  But the wall is built of stuff I need to forgive myself and others for.  The wall is built of the past and keeps me from the present.  The wall is what keeps me from being fully who I am.  What I know in my heart is that if I can find the courage to come behind the wall, "my people" will be there for me.  The question for me is can I forgive, be in the present, and be fully who I am?  Now that is the question.

Birthing the Intentions of Spring

After a week typing it and completing the first proofreading of The Game Called Life manuscript yesterday, I decided I needed to do something different today.  With a steady downpour outside, a long walk was not an option I chose.

My desk is stacked and sadly overflowing, so cleaning my desk seemed in order.  I've been at it for about five hours now, and I can truthfully say that I cannot tell that I've done anything.  Really!  Much of the sorting that I've been doing has been turning handwritten notes from meditations and retreats into word documents that I could file and refer to.  Other pages in the stacks have been thoughts for various books that I am working on. 

Among the pages of notes, I found intentions for the rest of the year from my spring retreat.  While I am still without a life partner again for almost 20 years, I am amazed at how much on the list is gradually becoming reality.  The summer must have been a germination period, because since my mid-September retreat and thanks to both this blog and the government shutdown and my furlough, my intentions have been in fast-forward.  Making a contribution to the healing of the world, using my voice, and writing daily have become a reality.  I hope this blog is making a difference, and I am confident that when The Game Called Life is an e-book, it will dramatically contribute to the healing of our world.

At the end of the page of intentions, I had printed in larger letters "WHAT IS MY INTENTION?"  I believe that referred to what my single underlying intention was from all the others.  I had a drawing and the words "living at the choice point."  Choice Point is a book that I wrote in the late 90s but has never been published. It is about living in conscious communion, moment-by-moment, with All That Is. For me that means, following what I know to be true in my heart. I call the process "living a prayer."  As I looked over the list, it was true: the only way I could do anything on the list is by living a prayer. 

I definitely am not there, but I am markedly farther along than I was six months ago when I wrote this.  I truly believe that I have planted seeds over the summer and in this furlough that predict I will be still farther along the path when I cross the one-year anniversary of my last spring retreat.  And, that's what it is all about--consciously attempting to do better and better at living a spiritually rich life.  In my heart I know that is where I am intended to be.