Reality TV

Time is relative. It is a function and reflection of the priorities we have given to our heart.


It is the ultimate candid camera that never shuts off, Reality TV showing the world who we are.


How we use our time - or not - speaks louder than words, is the way we touch the world and others. Each tick a bread crumb saying this is the path I have chosen, this is the path to my heart.

Party of Four

My tremor hand was holding a rock. The feel of a rock heated by the sun permeating my palm is ever so calming. My eyes were dancing  from the ground, as she teased and grabbed my dragging, leg to the mountains.  Scanning the path for treasured feathers. If anyone has read but a few of these scriches, you know how treasured gifted feathers are to me.


A shadow cast over my body, and looking up I saw the graceful flight, not even a flap of the wings. One was joined by two and then two were joined by a third. They circled their glide over me, dropping down so I could see them close.


  My heart is filled with gratitude for those feathers gifted to me.  But as I watched the three soar, just above me, how often I keep my eyes looking down, settling for the most immediate, the things I can grasp. And I could not help but think the greatest feather, the most lasting treasure, remains, always, forever in flight. The giver waits, whole and in flight. Somehow, at that moment, with a dragging leg, the three were joined by a fourth.


“You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.” 
― John O'Donohue

Between 'Now' and 'All Else'

Sacredness will find the heart.

When I am ill, I can let the illness run its course or go to the doctor and not experience a longer illness. When a friend or loved one needs help I can risk my vulnerability and time, giving them my hand, or knowing they will figure it out and be ok, stand aside. I can intend on perfect health, serving others, time with loved ones, traveling, painting, writing or singing, or one day to be worthy of love and accept myself...when all else is done.

Sacredness will find the heart. It may come when we discover we have no more time, or experience a moment when time itself is threatened, but sacredness will find the heart. Between "now" and "all else" ......

"Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these
very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still
thou pourest, and still there is room to fill." 
-Rabindranath Tagore,

Inviting

The phrase "inviting heart" is rattling around sending the threads in my heart and mind flying like dandelion puffs caught in the wind.


My mother was a true southern woman when it came to hospitality. Effortlessly she would make any guest feel as if they were literally welcome to sit with their feet on the coffee table in their underwear if they so desired - and burp out loud, if so inclined. And yet, our greatest fear was a house fire and getting out in time - every door double locked and fastened and windows with broom handles in the window sill - she was terrified of someone breaking in.


An inviting heart..... asking in, receiving, welcoming, making the other comfortable and "at home" or better than home, turning no one away, accepting, providing food, quenching the other's thirst, conversation, sharing, laughter, hugs, silence that is comfortable with tears and words not requiring a voice, a washing away of all that you carried in and bathing you in the moments of now, surrounded with effortless grace and open arms, putting your feet on the coffee table as you sit in your underwear and burp - or even take a nap. An inviting heart whispering, "whoever, whatever you are, come in and take of all I have."


And if Life has given us the capacity to have such a heart...do we dare, can we even imagine what the invitation must read like, from Life's inviting heart, signed wistfully with

R.S.P.V.

Truth of Two

I have long had a fascination with words and language, the music they create, their textures and dance.  How a slight change or touch can create an entirely different song, dance or emotion and yet remain the same word or words.  They mirror the dance of Life.


The word beloved is actually two words. Be and loved.  Beloved would not exist if its origins, its source, its essence were not in existence first.

Be loved...

Embracing and accepting the love of ourselves, the love Life offers without condition, expectation or demand. And then, in truth, the intimacy of the heart absent of fear because it has learned to love itself and accept Life's love, which are without judgement, then, turn and gaze upon your

Beloved.

Simple Friday morning

The day awaits my exploration.


That simple.


And thank you for sharing the journey.  

"Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering" ~ Winnie the Pooh

Ultimate Ride

I don't do rides. I remember going to the fair with high school friends who cajoled me into doing the safe ride shaped like an open apple that turned but not to fast. The attendant pushed the bar down in our laps. I saw him turn back and look. He walked back to us, lifted the bar, took my hand and said, "not for you." I stood and watched.  My friends said I was so absolutely pale they thought they could see my skull. Even driving up hill when the road disappears can disorient me and cause my heart to quicken. 


This morning, sitting outside, getting ready to close my eyes for my morning meditation, as always, I looked up to the sky and felt that same disorientation, nothing to ground me. I realized there were no clouds, nothing to say I am here, they are there and the sky is the background. Making myself continue to look (I confess my hands on the ground) a sweet tear trickled down my face.  I ground myself with horizons, mountains, trees, city skylines, trees and clouds. Even the expanse of the night sky contains the boundaries and grounding of the stars.  Boundaries that define me, tell me I am here, they are there and all else is simply the background painted to look at, like a framed piece of art.  But, don't you think, just maybe, the call, the whisper is to release the boundaries, release that which grounds and allow ourselves to ride into the expanse of unlimited being, love, life and unity? Maybe people like rides because they get to experience brief moments when they are released from boundaries, gravity and free fall.... Maybe the ride, the whispered call is to release and trust, to drop into the blue of the sky....the unlimited sky of who we are...the ultimate ride.

Tray table gone.

No seat to put in an upright position.

No seat belt.

No worry about an oxygen mask.

Take off.............

Taste the rain

Such a brief rain, not even twenty minutes. But how can one not go and walk and celebrate the drink given to the parched earth?


As I approached the lake, and watched the last of the dancing rain drops tap upon the lake's surface, I paused to wonder - what does rain feel like to the lake? Water upon water dancing. Does it feel different than the cascade of the fountain or the droplets spraying from a fish trying to fly? Compared to the parched dry earth, quickly soaking in the droplets before they are reclaimed by the sun, what does rain feel like upon the lake?


And then I pondered, how immune one can get to simply surviving, accepting the insults, mediocrity, the stress and pulls of life, that they become unnoticed - just more water upon water, like rain upon the lake. 


A fish suddenly jumped. A brilliant red Koi and splashed back into the water.  His jump was sassy, playful,free and unashamed.  Even with blurry eyes I could see the spray and ripples he created were different than those from the drops of rain. Maybe he wanted to taste the rain.

Threaded Bookmark

I gather feathers, I write and search for threads and if I’m graced, nature whispers to me a thread to ponder.  I know well the hurried gentle pat on the head and the sound of “that’s nice…” and their moving on. Standing beneath the night sky before dawn, like a hand paused in the middle of turning the page, the stars whispered of life as change yet life as being. A seed simply is, acts from its nature without question or fear.  Yet in that being is constant change as it unfolds into a flower, plant, blade of grass or tree. Being. Change. And in neither does it ask permission, to be understood or approved.  I gather feathers, I write and search for threads, and if I’m graced nature offers a whispered thread to ponder. And as the stars danced, their patterns like glitter spilled upon the table, I drew a deep breath in and whispered,

Sweet, sweet mercy, I, I…. am the thread.

You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour.
And there are things to be considered:

  Where are you living?

  What are you doing?  What are your relationships?  Are you in right relation?  Where is your water?  Know your garden.  It is time to speak your Truth.

Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water. See who is in there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

—The Elders Oraibi
Arizona Hopi Nation

Choosing my skin

Sitting outside, the morning sun stretching and expanding her light, her heat folded around my body and I began to sweat. Too early for this much heat, should not be this hot in the morning. My immediate thought was that this did not bode well for the rest of the day in an unairconditioned house with only one window to open. The heat continued to wrap my body, gently, but heated. Finally, with a giggle, I realized, unlike other mornings, I had a black tank top on instead of the white or gray. It is the nature of black to absorb the light and heat. When worn, it gathers the heat and holds it against us. It is simply the nature of black, no omen, nothing suggesting that the day would be this or that. Just the law of physics, of the universe that says this color will hold the heat. That simple.


The choice I made, the cloth skin I put on was creating discomfort. In the winter such a choice would have offered warmth against the cold.  But today, I needed a different skin but did not exercise my own law of energy or universe that said, I have a choice, but choice means I must pay attention. I sat in gratitude for the warmth and sweat, appreciating the gift of order and naturalness. I then changed my tank top and sat again where I was. Felt the warmth of the morning sun but not the heat and thanked the sweet Hands of Life, that today, each moment, it is I who choose my skin.  The rest, the outcome, is but a reflection of my choice.

Unkissed

Rumi's poetry inflames the passion of every heart in love. And yet, his words, and as he called it, his drunken state of wild openness were not for a lover. His unfettered passion was his love for Life and Being. Judy Garland's heart igniting words, "For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul" are actually the only lines of love and joy in a heart wrenching poem of the deadness felt after a lover has left her. What do they both share? A kiss.  


At first it seems odd that the most intimate and tender expression of love, where the emotions of the heart and mind are given physical shape in the lips, we cannot give ourselves. We cannot kiss ourselves with the kiss of a mother upon her child as he sleeps, the kiss of lovers aware, the kiss upon the face of a loved one whose soul has just left to begin a new journey. We cannot kiss ourselves.  And maybe that is why Rumi and Judy Garland's words resonate so strongly, they reflect our need, our desire to be so loved, worthy and tendered that we experience the kiss.  Perhaps Life, in creating us without this ever so beautiful expression, did so as a reminder. To be so loved, so tendered, so worthy we must love, tender and give worthiness to ourselves first.  To know only the kiss of the heart's inward touch, the lips of silent compassion and surrender to who we are. To whisper to our sense of self, "For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul."

Bookmark of Intention

Three weeks ago I went to the waterfall river with one intent- to lay my body down and feel the current rush over my body. To feel, well, simply alive.


I gathered my witnesses..... and then laid my body down. The water was freezing. The rushing dirt and river rocks gathering inside my hair and clothes had not been planned. The river of my laughter flowed through the mountains, trees, rushing with the river's current...and dirt and rocks. Ok, yes, I confess, one bad word as well as the cold water almost made my heart stop.



For those moments, I changed the course of a river. The river bed where I laid was forever changed. Rocks that without my body would have arrived at one destination were diverted to another. For those moments my body, mind, spirit joined with nature in a brief creation.  My intent was to simply feel alive. It wasn't until I laid in the grass three weeks later, looking at the clouds, that I realized the effects of my intent.


Where am I trying to go with this post? Sigh, another bookmark to return to on a cloud filled day when I am wiser. For now, the thread of truth I know, is that however small, no matter if I think my intentions affect only me, when intention touches life, Life and all about you changes. Intention creates. Creation brings change. The river of intention reflects my attention. What will I do with it?

Hunger of White

Give a young child a crayon and color book and watch their small hands dance and swish across the page.  The passion of an artist spilling the pallet of oils or watercolors across the canvas, laughing to feel the hunger of the empty whiteness. The child sees no dark lines and shapes that define things, cartoon characters, bodies or animals. Swoooooosh, whiiiiisk, sliiiide and glide their hand dancing with the colors til the blank imprinted ink defining this from that surrenders to burnt orange, cobalt blue, lavender, maroon, yellow and red. 


Hold your crayon lightly and color your day.  Go ahead, trust the child. Color your day. Melt into the sun.

Seesaw Wisdom

My mother was obsessed with cleaning and her kitchen. No one could help her wash dishes or clean. Only she could make sure it was done correctly. And she most definitely did NOT teach her daughter how to cook.  I am 58 and I still do not know how to cook. The language of cooking is as foreign as the language of Martians. To get my Brownie badge, the one exception was made and I entered her sacred kitchen to make brownies from a boxed mix. The directions were quite clear- "50 strokes by hand." Hmmmm. Must be a reason you cannot use a spoon, it clearly says by hand. So...... squish...one..squish...two... My mother entered the kitchen and to her horror her daughter was mixing the batter, by hand.  Lesson over.  Later, regretting her lack of wisdom, she gave me a Barbie Easy Cook Book for children hoping I would learn to cook...I was in my 20's and living away from home.  I tried.  Finally in frustration I called her. She could tell I was mad.  I had been to every store, asked every clerk and no one, no ONE had tisp flour! How were you supposed to make the recipe if you could not get tisp flour! A long silence. Then in her ever so slow southern drawl, she asked me to read exactly what the recipe said (perhaps remembering the 50 strokes by hand).  I did.  Another looooonnng pause.  Quietly she informed me that "tisp" was an abbreviation for teaspoon - tsp. Not a brand or type. TSP mean teaspoon. Sigh...and giggle.


You have probably seen the quotes, plaques and necklaces that have "Live Laugh Love" engraved.  Maybe there is a reason for the order of the words.  Laughter, like the pivot on a seesaw, keeps the ups and downs of life and love in balance. 
This simple thread offered to you, in hopes that today you will mix the batter of life with your hands and feel the squish and I dare you to ask a store clerk what aisle tisp flour is on. Mostly, I hope you laugh.

"Lookey"

Some mornings I look at the sky, only to calculate the chance of rain. There are mornings I do not look. Most mornings I see the textures, colors and shapes, the sea horses, pig heads, Snoopy, hearts and dragons.

Like a child that comes running, little hand clutching the paper flying behind their excited body, eyes filled with wonder, squealing "Look!" as they hand you their artwork, Natures squeals her whisper "Look!" And, like the child, the sweet Hands and Artist of Life, hope the artwork offered is worthy of the refrigerator in your eyes and heart.

Missing piece

There are times when the path seems too daunting.  The most challenging times are when the sense of unworthiness, inability, or nothing to offer glue my feet to the path's opening. 
Lao Tzu wrote:

If there is to be peace in the world
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home
There must be peace in the heart.

 The often scary and overwhelming truth that begins to melt the glue, is the realization that I am part of the wheel that connects everyone and everything. I am part of the dance. And so, I enter the forest. After all, "There is only the dance" (T.S. Elliot).

White fire in the mirror

Offering my thanks for the wildfires that have been quenched and prayers for the scarred earth and displaced animals, the Old Woman called to my eyes and her white sky fire arising.  She reminds me that what appears to be dead is very much alive burning with the white fire of the Lotus.  Old, misshaped, weathered by life, parts of herself are truly dead but she is alive.  As in life, the winds of change and choice will erase the image of her white fire reaching.  But only the image will be erased.  I saw.  I know the fire was and is there.  I bow my head with the promise to not forget nor the mirror she held up to me.

“You do not resemble anyone. ..You do not fit in a house with anyone. You have left the closed-in corner where you lived. Domestic animals get ridden to work. Not you. You are as you are, an indescribable message on the air.”  ~Rumi

Gilligan's Three Hour Tour

A riddle - how many times does a hiker have to pass a bench - gracefully placed on a mountain path- before they realize they are lost and going in circles?


Answer - at least four and I smile.

A new path and mountain to hike. An hour to enjoy the quiet solitude of new.  Three hours later - and four passes of the bench - I realized I was lost, had lost the path and no one knew where I was. Not even myself-specifically, that is. I stood pondering which way to go, began singing softly the theme song to Gilligan's Island - emphasizing the chorus .... "A three hour tour."  


Turning I saw the tree growing out of the mountain ledge, my sigh of wonder and awe replacing the song. Turning once again I saw the road. No path to the road, but the road was there. I thanked the tree and plowed my way down the mountain to the road. Sometimes I get so caught in the journey I do not notice I am lost and going in circles.  It is when I still myself that I can see the strength. In seeing the strength I can find the road and return.

Unseen conversation

Would anything change, 

would it make a difference,

 if my lips said nothing

 instead of something?

 Only my eyes know the answer - 

what to say or not -

 to the one who dares to look, 

ignoring my lips 

which are not so wise.

Forgiveness

My dragging leg caught her stem. I heard a crack. Kneeling down I touched her stem, which at the time had only green leaves.  Going out to feed the birds she greeted me.

forgiveness.

Texture of release

"Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round your life as a dog does his master's chase. Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still. Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality.  Be not simply good - be good for something.  All fables indeed have their morals, but the innocent enjoy  the story.

Let nothing come between you and the light.  Respect men as brothers only.  When you travel to the celestial city, carry no letter of introduction.  When you knock ask to see God - none of the servants. "
Henry David Thoreau


Annie 7/9/12 released in peace and love.

Leave to the night

'Don't go back to sleep,' Rumi pleads. Awaken to the day, to your heart, loving and life. Life and love have so much to share, but sharing means you too must engage in the conversation. So much awaits, don't go back to sleep. And sweet mercy, to awaken with such hunger, excitement and abandonment, that when others, the world, my own negative thinking says that I can't do it, too great a risk, to throw my hands up like a child and squeal,

"I would love to kiss you."

" The price of kissing is your life."

Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,

"What a bargain, let's buy it."

-Rumi

Leave to the night the sleep and its dreams, they are the door calling us forth into the day. Don't go back to sleep.

Saying 'Hello' Before You Leave- "It's Time to Ride"

Everyone has left but family. You are ready. I will leave this here, before you leave, to honor the precious being you are and celebrate what will be. No need to write in past tense, you are ready to become, again. And when the news came, I kept the promise and laughed.  I did not, however, promise what I would do after the laughter.

What will you choose my friend? You had been undecided.  Will you decide to take the rocket ship or make your grand entrance upon angel’s wings?  I found another laugh, to think, knowing you, you found yet another option.  Perhaps a rocket ship steered with high powered angel’s wings.  And such a grand entrance it will be I am sure.

You will begin your new journey.  Each of us will begin our own.  You will no longer be bound, restricted, free from all that tried to hold you back.  You will change into such beautiful light like the sun that knows not skin, tissue or bone and fills every cell, igniting within the brilliance from without.  But know this my friend, the person you are has likewise changed so many others and ignited within each the spark you give from without.  With soft soft eyes, ‘Well done Annie, my friend.’

Maybe a rocket ship, maybe angel’s wings, maybe a rocket ship with angel’s wings.  Or, perhaps, like the hummingbird that sent my spirit into such blissful joy this morning.  Thanks for the flyby my friend. Thanks for the whisper, ‘Tis time to ride….. watch me fly!’

Namaste.

"I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing,
"I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu.
"And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,
"And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying."
An' he said: "Some day, I hope you get the chance,
"To live like you were dyin'." 

Like tomorrow was a gift,
And you got eternity,
To think about what you’d do with it.
An' what did you do with it?
An' what can I do with it?
An' what would I do with it? 

-Tim McGraw “Live Like You Were Dying”

Eyes to the sky

The sky has been, will always be so translucent and blue. The sun brilliant and fiery orange. They make no excuses nor apologize for their appearance, their life or the gifts they offer and well aware of how often they go unnoticed.


 'Here I am. Here are my gifts. Opened or unopened, they are yours.'  


Do you think today would be different if we could be so giving and accepting as the sky and sun? If we approached ourselves, our partners, children, co-workers and strangers with the same self-acceptance and acceptance of them, no if, and, or fixing, just a blue sky and fiery sun spread over our lives and theirs- how different would it be? . Loving and embracing that our our own hearts, or they may respond as the blackened velvety night sky and luminous white moon. Love without definition. Love abiding. Love that sees only the sky.

Singing touch

If rain never touched a leaf, a window pane, the earth or lake, would it have a sound? Sometimes I think of rain as nature's tears, other times laughter and other times her gentle touch to heal and nourish. Whatever the expression, to hear the music Nature knows it must touch another, it cannot fall alone. The wind has a voice that does not require touch to speak, but the music of rain, of Love, Joy, Sadness, and Life, must be poured and bathe another to sing.

Hidden face

Exhale the "One day" the "I wish" the "Why?" and "If only" so you can see my face 

as the clouds follow your breath's release. You believe in the clouds that cloak and cover, will you not likewise believe in Me and the gift of Life awaiting your belief?

Breathe.

Humble offering

I know my thoughts are ever so odd, the things that I see and the whispered scriches.  Loose threads and ramblings.

And so, I simply leave this image here, a humble pause for you to hear your own whispered scrich and what you need to see.

Namaste.

Beyond the Garden

I cherish my plants. The bamboo and little cypress and bonsai trees and the plants outside that greet me each morning.  As I tended the bamboo I heard the whisper ‘Beyond the garden.’  I left the house shortly afterwards and sat on a rock sitting 10,000 feet above the earth pondering the whisper.

Gardens are to be cherished.  But at some point, for me, they become a metaphor of life.  I carve out a little piece of my full spirit, make a garden, and call it me.  The gardens we create let us feel needed, we tend them, they can even make us feel important, even let us feel in control and the tiny piece can even bring joy.  But I am not called to live in a carved out garden, a sliver of myself.  Called to go beyond the garden and fully awaken my expansive soul. Perhaps that is why nature calls so longingly and strong.

‘Look and see! Cherish your gardens, your niches in life, but they are only reminders of how much awaits, how big your spirit is and your heart. Cherish and tend your gardens, honor, compassion, and gentleness.  But they are not you as you were meant to be.  Do not be satisfied with one plant one piece of yourself you call your own when all of this, all of you is waiting for you to answer the call. Beyond the garden my child. My little one, beyond the garden the bounty of your full self awaits. Step out, step out and embrace the calling in your heart. Beyond the garden. Beyond the garden my child, You await.’  

Standing on top of the rock I realized if anything in the world breathed the quintessence of the will to live it is nature.  Stretching my arms out, face to the wind,  I shouted “Alive. Live. A Life. Life. Life lived.”   

Walking the path back to the car, still breathing the wind, the ever present doubt whispered, ‘Dark days will still overwhelm you, you know.’  Stopping I placed my hand on a tree and whispered back, ‘Perhaps.  But I have stepped beyond the garden and hung onto the wind.’