Gauntlet of Intent

Every child knows the parental voice of "We'll see" actually means "No." The dreaded "We'll see" that drops a child's shoulders. No way you can argue with "we'll see" as the gauntlet of "no" has not been tossed.

In a similar way I pondered how "intention" has been transformed. "He had good intentions." "I intended to..." It has also become a gauntlet-less no, a way to avoid the challenge. And the simple prayer that I may not go through life like a crab with my eyes set one way but my body moves another. That my intent and intentions will be deliberately set like the stones in a river. To accept the effort and the concentration. To be true to my heart and know the joy of "walking" on water trusting the stones of intent.

Why of What

I read and re-read the response – “What for?” The thread would not let go. They did not ask “why?” Is there a difference between “why?” and “what for?” Searching for the difference, “what” asks which thing or which particular one of many.” “Why” asks for what purpose, reason, or cause; with what intention, justification, or motive. “What” felt like an object or something expected to be received in exchange. “Why” went to the heart and mind and asked the source of the intent.

This time of the year especially, “what” abounds. Unless the gift disappoints the “what” no one asks “why.” Do we open “why” or “what”? Do we buy “what” or “why”? Can “what” oppose “why”?

I bowed my head and smiled. Wanting to respond truthfully to the question asked of me and the question I asked myself, I typed “love.” And with a silent pause, my fingers returned to the keyboard and typed “giggle.”

Match of Intent

Sometimes we act without thinking, moving from the heart's impulse. Sometimes decisions are made with jaw set not allowing ourselves to see anything else. Sometimes we don't even know we've made a decision until later when either with amazement or a thump to our forehead we cannot believe "I did that."  Sometimes the world would have us believe we made a decision but we simply did what was expected.

I stare at the candle and ponder wax, wick and flame. The wick standing upright announcing its willingness to accept the flame. The wax, hardened, yearns to melt and surrender to the union of flame and wick. But wax and wick can do no more than await the flame which I must light.  Without my desire for its light, my intent and my action, the candle is not a candle, it is an ornament. And so it is with my heart when I hold the match of decision and intent.

To Stand Faithful to Intent

There are moments and days when I think surely all this must be a dream and has not happened. Surely I will wake up in the cabin in the woods the dream having taught me a lesson in gratefulness for all the blessings I knew before I went to sleep. But if it be a dream, I have not awakened.  And if it be not a dream, my little heart sighs. Amidst the destruction and loss, and yes the whispers and images of nature, words that are woven into all mythology, poetry, art, faith and wisdom teachings keep coming back.   The only friend in the solitude, to sit, comfort, and paint a picture of then, now, and perhaps to be.

"You can choose between loveless and miraculous channels of expression. You can make an empty shell, but you cannot express nothing at all. You can wait, delay, paralyze yourself, or reduce your creativity almost to nothing. But you cannot abolish it. You can destroy your medium of communication, but not your potential. You did not create yourself" [Course in Miracles]

Am I the charred and scorched guardian of the tiny new life or perhaps the tiny new life itself?  Maybe the new life is part of the scorched and the two are one. I do not know. Sweet Hands of Life, help me stand my post, faithful to Your intent.

Tadpole heart

They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. But what creates the first step?  Have you ever pondered the act of walking? You get up from the table and walk to the kitchen, you walk to the copier, you walk to your car, you walk to this and from that.  You do not tell your legs, 'ok, let's go, time to walk, left, right, left, right.' You simply get up and go. Somewhere, without thinking, you mind had a thought that created a message to your legs and off you go. The mind didn't say, 'Would you like to start with the left or right leg this time?' 'Would you like to do a bit of the hokey pokey first?' 'Walk forward or backwards?' You had a thought, and without thinking the body obeyed. Sometimes we walk into a wall, like a battery operated car, forgetting to tell our legs to turn.  And then there are those walks that the emotions and events are so heavy that you literally do have to consciously tell your legs to move.  You almost have to will them 'left, right, left, right.'  Back to the original thread...what creates the first step? A thought? But I thought "kitchen" not "walk" and yet off I went, walking. Tis not the destination, it is the intent.  


Sometimes I picture the heart like a little tadpole squirting around in the lake with only a tiny tail propelling it. Later you see tiny little legs and then they begin to grow. Eventually the entire body changes and a frog is now squirting about the surface and on the bank.  To let my heart legs emerge so, like my physical legs, the unconscious and knowing intent begins the journey .... to love, to awaken, to be compassionate, to trust, to dare, to leap and risk, to reach out and to reach in... to simply carry me there. And then I smile, the legs are there.......... awaiting the intent. Should my heart, like my legs, lead me into a wall, freeze and immobilize in fear, to not blame the heart, but reawaken my intent. 


“Don't give in to your fears. If you do, you won't be able to talk to your heart.” 
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist