is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea
She is a Sunday morning wrapped in blankets,
because she is in love with her bed,
but she is the furthest thing from lazy.
She is driven and focused on
making the best of every day she is given.
Her room is her safe haven
where most of her best ideas
are turned into a playbook for an undefeated spirit.
She is the kind that likes to smile
as she battles those believing
she is anything but extraordinary.
She’s always two moves ahead,
before you realize you’ve already lost.
She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of the fear.
She let go of the judgments.
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.
Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice.
She didn’t read a book on how to let go.
She didn’t search the scriptures.
She just let go.
She let go of all of the memories that held her back.
She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.
She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go.
She didn’t journal about it.
She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.
She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.
She just let go.
She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.
She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
She didn’t call the prayer line.
She didn’t utter one word.
She just let go.
No one was around when it happened.
There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked her or praised her.
No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort.
There was no struggle.
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be.
A small smile came over her face.
A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…
I’m having way too much fun with my letter board. Apparently, I am easily amused, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. 🙂
The universe is a funny thing. Lately, I’ve been doing a better job of paying attention to what the universe is trying to teach me. Sometimes things come together in such an interesting way. Synchronicity at work. Years ago I had record album by The Police called Synchronicity. I loved that album. Ironically, it contains the song Every Breath You Take, which I later came to hate, but the album is still great. Especially the song Synchronicity II. It refers to Carl Jung’s theory of synchronicity and tells the story of an emasculated husband and harried father whose home, work life, and environment are dispiriting and depressing.
Many miles away…
Anyhow, back to what the universe is telling me. Several months ago, I requested that the library purchase the book Gift of injury: the strength athlete’s guide to recovering from back injury and winning again by Stuart McGill. I just got the notification that it has arrived and I can pick it up. That very night, my back went out, and for the past few days, I’ve had the worst and most painful back spasms of my life. Non-stop. If you are reading this, you know me well, and you know that I don’t tolerate weakness in myself very well. And by very well, I mean not at all. 😉 I am not good at needing help. I am not good at being dependent on anyone for anything. But in the past few days, I’ve had times where I couldn’t get up off the floor on my own. Talk about humbling. I am trying to practice more lovingkindness toward myself, more patience with myself, and more acceptance of myself.
Earlier this week I was scanning through the documentaries on Netflix. I love a good documentary. I stumbled upon Ram Dass: Going Home. It was a really interesting film. Since suffering a life-changing stroke twenty years ago, he has been living at his home on Maui and deepening his spiritual practice — which is centered on love and his idea of merging with his surroundings and all living things.
Some of my favorite lines :
I am loving awareness.
I don’t wish you the stroke, I wish you the grace from the stroke.
While having my back go out is nothing like a stroke, it’s minor and temporary. But it did make me see that I have people who are dependable and that I can practice grace quite well. I am learning.
My spring of love
In your presence, I found a garden filled with flowers,
In your existence, the pelting rain felt like blissful showers,
With you came the spring,
With you, birds began to sing,
Remnants of my heart were set into motion,
On the possibility of a future fusion.
Of all the seasons my love had succumbed itself to,
Spring was the only one which could be attributed to you,
For you blossomed like daisies,
And smelled like soft breezes,
Your smile was my harvest,
The only crop that yielded most.
Every day we add another experience to the weave of our lives. Some are brighter hues, others are darker, but the blend is unbelievably beautiful.
Browsing, woolgathering, meandering, wandering, drifting, that state when exploring, when looking to find what it might be possible to find rather than seeking one particular goal, is the means of locomotion. I often think that hunter-gatherers must move a lot like this, seeking game or plant foods, flexible about what might show up on any given day. I was lucky that children were weeds, not hothouse flowers, in those days, left to our own devices, and my own devices led in two directions: north to the river, or south to the library.
There are ecological reasons to question how books are made out of trees but metaphysical reasons to rejoice in the linkage between forests and libraries, here in this public library, in the town I grew up in, with the fiber from tens of thousands of trees rolled out into paper, printed and then bound into books, stacked up in rows on the shelves that fill this place and make narrow corridors for readers to travel through, a labyrinth of words that is also an invitation to wander inside the texts. The same kind of shade and shelter that can be found in an aisle of books and an avenue of trees, and in the longevity of both, and the mere fact that both, if not butchered or burned, may outlive us.
What I’m Reading: This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel I always email myself quotes I like from books that I’m reading. Another good reason to love my Kindle! Here’s one from this book that made me laugh:
“Missionary position was, as far as she could tell, like vanilla ice cream: purported to be boring and chosen only by passionless, unimaginative, exhausted people but really the best one. She liked to look at Penn’s face so close that it split into pieces like a modernist painting. She liked the length of his front pressed against the length of hers. She felt that people who needed to do it upside down and backward from behind—or who added candied bacon or smoked sea salt or pieces of raw cookies to their ice cream—were probably compensating for a product that was inferior to begin with.”
Just for the record, I actually like vanilla ice cream. Really good, well-made, high-quality vanilla ice cream. I also like tasty additions to said vanilla ice cream sometimes. Life is all about variety, you know? 😉
What I’m Watching: Howard’s End on Amazon streaming.I loved the book by E. M. Forster, and I loved the 1992 Merchant Ivory film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. I’m a sucker for a well-written period piece with beautiful cinematography.
What I’m Listening To: I like listening to Spotify and the Instrumental Study playlist is great!
Come,
Let’s sleep under the sky.
Share the same blanket of stars,
And the ground of cold grass.
We’ll map out constellations,
And call them ‘ours’.
Read each other poetry,
The writer is our hearts.
Under the watchful eye of the moon,
Wrapping my arms around you,
I’ll whisper the stories,
That I’m scared to tell in the daylight.
Till the morning, we’ll lay,
Legs and bodies, intertwined.
Seeing the world go by,
And being infinite,
Even if just for a night.
Find someone who can handle your darkest truths, who don’t change the subject when you share your pain, or try to make you feel bad for feeling bad.
Find someone who understands we all struggle, some of us more than others, and that there’s no weakness in admitting it. In fact, few things take as much strength.
Find someone who wants to be real, however that looks and feels, and who wants you to be real, too.
Find someone who gets that life is hard, and who gets that life is also beautiful, and who aren’t afraid to honor both those realities.
Find someone who helps you feel more at home in your heart, mind, and body, and who take joy in your joy. Find someone who loves you, for real, and who accepts you, for real, just as you are.
One day Buddha was walking through a village.
A very angry and rude young man came up and began insulting him. “You have no right teaching others,” he shouted. “You are as stupid as everyone else. You are nothing but a fake.”
Buddha was not upset by these insults. Instead, he asked the young man “Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?”
The man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, “It would belong to me because I bought the gift.”
The Buddha smiled and said, ”That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not get insulted, then the anger falls back on you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy, not me. All you have done is hurt yourself.”
If you want to stop hurting yourself, you must get rid of your anger and become loving instead. When you hate others, you yourself become unhappy. But when you love others, everyone is happy.
If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the night sky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this.
If anyone wants to know what “spirit” is,
or what “God’s fragrance” means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this.
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means
to “die for love,” point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.
When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
-Rumi
I started succeeding when I started leaving small fights for small fighters.
I stopped fighting those who gossiped about me…
I stopped fighting for attention…
I stopped fighting to meet public expectation of me…
I stopped fighting for my rights with stupid people..
I left such fights for those who have nothing else to fight…
And I started fighting for
my vision,
my dreams,
my ideas and
my destiny.
The day I gave up on small fights is the day I started becoming successful.
Some fights are not worth your time.
Choose what you fight for wisely.
“I am larger, better than I thought; I did not know I held so much goodness.”
– Walt Whitman
May I be filled with lovingkindness.
May I be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May I be well in body and mind.
May I be at ease and happy.
May you be filled with lovingkindness.
May you be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May you be well in body and mind.
May you be at ease and happy.
His passing has left an intellectual vacuum in his wake. But it’s not empty. Think of it as a kind of vacuum energy permeating the fabric of spacetime that defies measure. Stephen Hawking, RIP 1942-2018
We are all just a car crash,
a diagnosis,
an unexpected phone call,
a newfound love,
or a broken heart away from becoming a completely different person.
How beautifully fragile are we
that so many things can
take but a moment
to alter
who we are
for forever?
Remember this every day.
And I rise. Again and again. Like a phoenix.
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we alll shine on
Ev’ryone come on
Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Ev’ryone you meet
Why in the world are we here
Surely not to live in pain and fear
If you fall in love with your best friend, that love has an excellent chance of withstanding the test of time. Not just lasting, but growing exponentially.
“Chemistry is you touching my arm and it setting fire to my mind.” nayyirah waheed
Lots of more thoughts, but my brain is mush tonight so it will have to wait. Hope everyone has a great weekend. 🙂
