Costumes of My Mind

Like a two headed arrow, the deadline sharply approached as my ability to finish flew the other way. The whispered question, “What is my intention?” To get it all done. “What is my intention?” The whisper asked again. To get it done. And yet a third time, “What is my intention?” My hands fell softly into my lap as my breaths slowed and deepened. To love this life with an open heart. To see the miracles, wonder, and love streaming past me each moment. To see all that touches my life as my Teacher.  The whisper smiled. The silence transformed the arrowheads into the sun’s first stream of light. We create our misery. We create our bliss. To let them both go and with love and the mystery of awe, joyfully embrace and learn from what is.

On this day of tricks and treats, may I let go the costumes of my mind.

Undaunted Blue

Walking around the park lake yesterday, I pondered the morning's excursion to another lake and a path blanketed from the sun by trees and the sound of a river dancing.  In the midst of the tree limb'd canopy, a small opening filled with the sun pointing to a tiny blue flower, in solitude amidst the green fir fingers of new fir trees reaching for the sun.

As I walked and remembered, a tiny voice yelled at me, "I'll race you!" Stopping I saw a young boy on his Hot Wheel tricycle, his face fixed in anticipation. His mother and grandmother giggled in embarrassment. I knelt beside him and asked if he thought he could win. His tiny feet danced on the pedals and his eyes grew big. Assuming a runner's starting pose, I looked at him and counted us down.... We reached the tree's finish line the Hot Wheel and a boy's laughter crossed first.  Kneeling beside him I raised my arms in the air and told him to feel his strength. Timid at first, his arms flew up. The grandmother's hands likewise flew clasped to her heart. His mother laughed so hard I do not know if the picture she took with her phone was steady. I whispered, "Well done!" and bowed as I left.  Never has defeat tasted so sweet.

A tiny blue flower, defiant and determined, embraced by a sliver of sun. Tiny arms that felt the power of their courage. The joy of defeat. Simple fragments of a day, the threads of life.

Ginger Snap Thread

To know or be around me is to know or be with a child playing dress up in a tattered weary and old body. Sometimes I think I am like Peter Pan and have refused to grow up. With a giggle, Life conspired to make me an adult first and then I became a child.  I think, perhaps, I appreciate the gift more having received it in reverse.

And so the child dips her Ginger Snap cookie into the adult's cup of coffee. The adult sighs as her eyes refuse to see the words she needs to read.  The child giggles and slurps the soaked Ginger Snap cookie and while talking with her mouth full, observes to the adult, "You can see...maybe you're just learning to read."

“Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”  - A.A. Milne