Today is the summer solstice, and the eternally long, wet spring has finally stepped aside to grant us the mercy of some sunshine.
Not that I've especially minded some of those cool days, with a gentle cloud cover and a soft rain, the air rich with moisture and fragrant still with fresh green life. This is the time of sweet blooming phlox and fuzzy fledglings, enough daylight hours to do most things you want to do, and bird music – one of my favorite things about spring and early summer. The soft, metered cooing of mourning doves reaches my ears even as i write this; the husky whistles of the nesting osprey; the busy chatter and trill of chickadees and cedar waxwings; even the noisy repertoire of the starlings who nested again above my balcony, decimated a few potted plants, and left some bird paint on my chair cushion the very day I put it outside. But on a day like this, it's easy to forgive.
For all the places I'd still like to visit, the restlessness that makes me want to fly away every other moment into some new adventure, there is still a blessing to be found in the beauty right at home. An ever more important art, I think, given the increasing noise of the world and its gadgets. The quiet call to peace in the chaos is easily missed – and utterly important for a soulful experience of life.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
tracks
Sometimes we think we're going the right direction – the tracks are laid and gleaming, polished and smooth, and our momentum builds on the straightaway of our sure-we're-sure thoughts. It's so easy, so tempting, to believe we're in control, and sometimes we're willing to pay the price of that false ticket when our lives aren't adding up the way we'd like.
The thing is, there are all kinds of roads we can take. Some lead to far outposts, interesting places to visit but far away from home. Some lead into tangled thickets of lessons we've already learned, a trip to the past that can be a very long detour. Some are joyrides, where we get to leave the map behind and just enjoy the adventure. And some are the routes we think we're expected to take, the ones laid out for us because they look good on paper.
While in some ways I believe there really are no "right" choices, I do believe there is a right track to follow. It's the one that rises up to meet us when we stop consuming and reacting to all the scattered stimuli around us and start listening to the deep hum of our own souls. It's the one that's really waiting for us to see it, the one that won't interrupt, that refuses to be flashy, that will patiently stand its ground until we've exhausted ourselves misreading signs and traveling in circles. When we've flailed long enough to become truly tired of the trip, that road will begin to shine just a little more brightly. And if we're brave enough to really stop trying to control the destination, and with a deep breath, let that hidden, perfect road show itself to us - that may be when we're finally ready for the ride of our lives.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
in between
Perhaps the trickiest thing about this earth walk is finding our way through the shadow places. Here, Truth can become obscured by our inner realities, the stories and thoughts that roost in our unconscious programming without our realizing it. These stories can sometimes keep us on an overgrown path for years, when the carefully tended and brighter road has been running parallel to us all along.
But there is a spiritual warriorship to be taken up if we are willing--the call to become aware of these hidden places, to gently wake them up, or to pull them by grasping hands out of their unseeing nooks. With vigilance, with dedication, with kind attention, we can heal even the deepest places within us. And each corner of mind that we brighten, each layer of cobwebbed thought we sweep away, brings us closer to our destination: freedom, and Peace.
But there is a spiritual warriorship to be taken up if we are willing--the call to become aware of these hidden places, to gently wake them up, or to pull them by grasping hands out of their unseeing nooks. With vigilance, with dedication, with kind attention, we can heal even the deepest places within us. And each corner of mind that we brighten, each layer of cobwebbed thought we sweep away, brings us closer to our destination: freedom, and Peace.
Monday, November 23, 2009
the paths we walk
I believe it is true that we create our own reality. I also believe that what we create is not always what we really want, because it is coming from the unconscious burdens we carry. I have always thought of this process like a movie projector: the Light shines through us, and the layers, images, beliefs and stories we have stockpiled in our minds, bodies and energy fields become the images cast out as the Light shines through them onto the screen of our lives. I think we are here to learn to be the choosers of our own slide show.
That said, what creations would you like to replace? What would you imagine your path ahead to look like? I'm thinking of one like this, full of color and magic and grace and delightful surprises at every turn, full of nature and kind compassion. One that continually unfolds in beauty under the powering light of awe. One that invites me forward, trusting, into an ever-opening embrace. One that is Perfect for me. One that I love.
May yours be the same.
That said, what creations would you like to replace? What would you imagine your path ahead to look like? I'm thinking of one like this, full of color and magic and grace and delightful surprises at every turn, full of nature and kind compassion. One that continually unfolds in beauty under the powering light of awe. One that invites me forward, trusting, into an ever-opening embrace. One that is Perfect for me. One that I love.
May yours be the same.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
autumn spirits
A wind ghosts outside today, restless and chill, reveling in its freedom to taunt wherever it will. It's the last day of October, Halloween – November's eve, with an unpredictable greybright sky, remnant scatters of brown-gold leaves adorning the trees, and the lengthening embrace of a darkness ready to take its turn.
This time of year is always difficult psychologically, especially after the time change. It seems so abrupt, being plunged into an inky black world upon leaving work for the day. And I never quite get used to it, never quite get past the feeling that I should rush home and be hunkered down in bed already. It seems much too late to be running errands, and the feel of the darkness pressing vise-like from both ends of the day leaves me with something of a sense of being squished, or hurried, or small.
But it's all just a balancing act, light and dark, summer and winter, expansion and contraction. And ironically, while winter's dark days make our world seem smaller, its longer nights allow more opportunity than ever to see, in the vast starry skies, just how tremendous the World really is.
This time of year is always difficult psychologically, especially after the time change. It seems so abrupt, being plunged into an inky black world upon leaving work for the day. And I never quite get used to it, never quite get past the feeling that I should rush home and be hunkered down in bed already. It seems much too late to be running errands, and the feel of the darkness pressing vise-like from both ends of the day leaves me with something of a sense of being squished, or hurried, or small.
But it's all just a balancing act, light and dark, summer and winter, expansion and contraction. And ironically, while winter's dark days make our world seem smaller, its longer nights allow more opportunity than ever to see, in the vast starry skies, just how tremendous the World really is.
Friday, October 9, 2009
morning
A new morning, every day.
There are so many cliches about starting over, beginning a new day, a blank canvas, a fresh start. I've written some myself, sometimes I just can't help it. The way I see it, when we're able to reach that particular state of mind, we are feeling inspired, and those cliches mean something.
The thing is, habits have a way of getting the best of us, often without us even knowing it. Thoughts are the worst. Before I know it, mine have laid down a nice comfortable little squatter's roost for themselves, and convinced me that things just are how they are in their tiny world, and I might as well accept the rules and throw in my lot. These thoughts reinforce themselves, pacing their same little animal trails through the meadows of my mind again and again, until the route is so well known that no effort is required to travel it. Stuck.
Of course, this may not matter so much if our habitual trails are positive or joyful ones. Mine were trained early on to prefer mucky wallows and safe shadows, a mire of excuses not to just live a happy life. So when my attention has wandered and those animal thoughts have been pacing, I begin to feel their dingy wet blanket effect on me...and that's when a sudden cliche inspiration of renewal is truly a diamond in the mire.
There are so many cliches about starting over, beginning a new day, a blank canvas, a fresh start. I've written some myself, sometimes I just can't help it. The way I see it, when we're able to reach that particular state of mind, we are feeling inspired, and those cliches mean something.
The thing is, habits have a way of getting the best of us, often without us even knowing it. Thoughts are the worst. Before I know it, mine have laid down a nice comfortable little squatter's roost for themselves, and convinced me that things just are how they are in their tiny world, and I might as well accept the rules and throw in my lot. These thoughts reinforce themselves, pacing their same little animal trails through the meadows of my mind again and again, until the route is so well known that no effort is required to travel it. Stuck.
Of course, this may not matter so much if our habitual trails are positive or joyful ones. Mine were trained early on to prefer mucky wallows and safe shadows, a mire of excuses not to just live a happy life. So when my attention has wandered and those animal thoughts have been pacing, I begin to feel their dingy wet blanket effect on me...and that's when a sudden cliche inspiration of renewal is truly a diamond in the mire.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
grass lines
I am fascinated by the dimensions in this photo, the different levels of being, all contained in a square foot or two. I think the elegantly sharp lines of the grass caught my eye first, against the placid smooth of the water. I love that contrast, and often find myself photographing the combination.
But more is revealed as I look longer. The reflections, in their complementary black, playing shadow to the living grass, yet taking on a distorted life of their own--wavy counterpart to the straight blades, able to play more freely with reality. And again, the brown grass beneath the water, yet another aspect of the grass's life cycle, highlighting the green glow of the shoots above the surface, not yet done growing.
We, too, are multi-dimensional, though we are generally far too unaware of it. Our daily outward expression often consumes our existence, but it is not who we really are. Beneath the surface are levels of awareness, emotion, habitual thought, possibility, intuitive perception, all of which form a backdrop, a context, a foundation, for the whole of who we are. There is a point, perhaps, at which identifying with only one of these dimensions results in a stagnant life, one that asks to be lived more fully and truthfully.
It is time, I think, for us to realize that we are much more than the products of our society--or worse, its followers. That we are rich and soulful and wise beyond what the world we've created around us would have us believe. To stop settling for helping it along on its often mindless path of no clear and good direction, and to let that Soul, that wisdom, step forward and awaken us to something richer and more satisfying. And better. For all of us.
But more is revealed as I look longer. The reflections, in their complementary black, playing shadow to the living grass, yet taking on a distorted life of their own--wavy counterpart to the straight blades, able to play more freely with reality. And again, the brown grass beneath the water, yet another aspect of the grass's life cycle, highlighting the green glow of the shoots above the surface, not yet done growing.
We, too, are multi-dimensional, though we are generally far too unaware of it. Our daily outward expression often consumes our existence, but it is not who we really are. Beneath the surface are levels of awareness, emotion, habitual thought, possibility, intuitive perception, all of which form a backdrop, a context, a foundation, for the whole of who we are. There is a point, perhaps, at which identifying with only one of these dimensions results in a stagnant life, one that asks to be lived more fully and truthfully.
It is time, I think, for us to realize that we are much more than the products of our society--or worse, its followers. That we are rich and soulful and wise beyond what the world we've created around us would have us believe. To stop settling for helping it along on its often mindless path of no clear and good direction, and to let that Soul, that wisdom, step forward and awaken us to something richer and more satisfying. And better. For all of us.
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