First Stone

On this day to reflect how quickly my own thoughts, actions and words strike out at others and even myself. To no longer just pray for peace, harmony and love for the world but to intend to be myself the world I would see. In truth, I cast the first stone. May its ripples of hope and peace wash within and without.

Freeing Shadows

               What is the difference between knowing and feeling? It’s like the space between water and ice, the sea and sea bed, or the wick, flame and wax. 

               I walked the hilly mountain path. Into the wind. I sang and chanted the Knowing of Love, being Love and giving Love. In the wind I heard a whisper and thought it only the sound of my feet slipping on the rocks. But I knew the voice. I was walking into the wind. It began as a whisper. Grew quietly into a cry. “I am unloved. I am not loveable. I will never be good enough for anyone or anything.” I knew the voice and the 237 seasons that had shaped the words and then silenced them. Even the Knowing had, in some ways, silenced the voice but always knew it was there.

               I walked the hilly mountain path. Into the wind. I walked with Knowing. And as I walked I listened as the voice became stronger lengthening my stride up the hills. As I walked with Knowing I sat the voice free to cry, to yell, to fly. I walked the hilly mountain path. Into the wind. I walked with Knowing. The voice, the silent fear flew ahead, soared above and hung like a bird in the sky, so effortless, suspended in time. I found the Knowing and my heart chuckling softly as we walked into the wind. Even shadows deserve to be free.

               What is the difference between Knowing and feeling? It’s like the space between water and ice, the se and sea bed, or the wick, flame and wax. The space where no voice is silenced. The space where you walk into the wind with Knowing, watch feeling soar and fly no longer afraid. The space where feeling and Knowing become trust. 

Composite

Sometimes I marvel at the ability of the human mind to see only the pieces of shells lying upon the ocean or gulf shores. We scour for perfect shells, whole and complete.  To see only pieces, making even more as we walk over them never taking the time to look at their intricate colors or feel their texture and marvel at the intricacy of design and divine creation.

What makes this picture special is not the color or wholeness of the perfect shell.... it is the mosaic of the other shells in pieces or those so small they are unseen unless you bend down to look. The picture, the gift is a composite. It is not a portrait.

And so it is with my heart resting upon the shore of my life.

For the World to Sneeze

A sneeze attack this morning that made me giggle and my little dog bark and dance around me. When the attack subsided I pondered the silence. Why does someone say "Bless you" when you sneeze? Is it the age old belief that you almost die, a prayer to keep evil spirits away? No one answer or superstition has been confirmed, but we do, instinctively a blessing for the other pops out. 

Closing my eyes, with a smile I whispered "Bless you." In the pause between the blessing to myself and my giggle, I wondered why we wait until that superstitious moment to bless another. I flashed back to my first experience on the Boston subways as a teen and the 13 years commuting during rush hour in California ("rush" hour is the epitome of a misnomer).  The sea of faces not looking at each other. I thought of the 22% of children living in US poverty, 1 in 4 women live in domestic violence as do over 3 million children. So many statistics, numbers and unseen people behind the numbers, just like commuters they pass by us unseen.  And I wondered if the world would change if at that moment, 2 billion of the 4 billion people on earth sneezed and the other 2 billion said "Bless you."

Reflecting Choice

And if everything is a reflection of myself, my soul and heart, a part of all I see....

Then let my body dance like the waving fern limbs, supple, bending, swaying in the breeze.

Then let my spirit simply stretch her wings with no thought of how, and soar towards the heavens.

Then let my heart crack open like the butterfly's cocoon, the oak's acorn, the earth to blade of grass, and life pour forth.

So many images, aspirations and affirmations of what I could be and perhaps am.  My blurred eyes gently remind me... a reflection requires you to see.  Aspirations, affirmations and desires are the nectar but first you have to open your eyes, look and choose what you see.

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).

Invitation

I must go and remove all the seed from the ground and feeders. The store was out of sunflower seed and I had to buy a mix with berries and fruits. The ants have discovered the banquet and the birds and squirrels can no longer eat. Last night sweltered in the oppressive heat, no air conditioning to cool the body, my head exploded as I tried to make eyes that cannot see, read about ways to display my feathers. I have images but there will be no other hands to do what mine cannot, but I will get what I see. I hung some of my photographs, that make me smile and feel the sacredness of being, in plastic sheet protectors, taking several hours trying to hammer or hold a tiny nail with a hand that will not grasp. I laughed to feel my mother’s shame of not having picture frames.

A litany of ‘have not’ and ‘cannot’? No, each one is an invitation. With a hand that tremors I extend my list to you. The invitation is that your open hand extends yours to me.  Take not my list and withhold your own. Nor will I take yours and in silence keep mine.  It is the exchange, the invitation and offering that heals. Oh yes, the ants may still be there, the feathers remain undisplayed, but the invitation, the offering and acceptance is what transforms the have not and cannot into Life itself. That is the beauty of the souls walking together upon this sweet earth.  Together….to gather. 

In Lak'ech - you are my other me.

Absent no soul

My brain is muddled and so when I go to walk the lake’s path, in my pocket I carry five stones.  With each journey around the lake a stone is moved from one pocket to the other.  I no longer have to doubt myself with a ‘was that two or three?’  As I walk, I draw to those upon my heart, the ripples and breeze dancing upon the lake and grass,  tickling the leaves, and the mountain rising as I crest the hill. 

Sometimes I get miffed, when the last stone has joined the others and I am making my way up the hill that is my reward, when suddenly I realize I have forgotten someone or some need.  As if I only had one shot to speak to the Sweet Hands of Life, and they will go untended.  And so, I now carry a sixth stone in the pocket of my heart.  It is simple and passes from my heart to the Sweet Hands of Life, after I have whispered, “So shall it be.”  A simple phrase…”Absent no soul from the light.”

And if you should see this simple little scrich of my heart, though I know not your name.  Know that this little stone “Absent no soul from the light” bears your name.

 

"In Lak' ech".... you are my other me

Did not see

I studied the birds and the squirrels. I had watched where they hopped and scampered. I walked the area of their feeding and knew well where the seed fell.  I was certain I was safe spraying the weed killer in those patches where they were breaking the cement.  My arms not strong enough to use the gas tool that would cut them down, the chemical was my only choice. I did not use it carelessly, I was deliberate and conscious of every spot I would spray.  And as I sprayed I saw a moth struggling and knew immediately I had not been as conscious as I thought.


The butterfly lives hundreds of miles away from where I was spraying, but it brought to mind the Theory of Chaos.  Everything is connected.  If a butterfly flaps its wings in Borneo it is part of the tornado that slashes its way through Kansas.  We are connected with all of life.  We know that somehow, but yet we don't comprehend it fully.  Everything I do, or don't do, is connected to something else, someone or something.  If I could truly embed that in my soul, I think my life would be very different. 


 "In Lak' ech" - Mayan for "you are my other me".  A pondering that is, in part, responsible for these ramblings and ponderings.  A tiny, but beautiful moth, I did not know existed, in its struggle and death, has become both the victim of my actions and my teacher.  I can replace the patio cement.  Nature will give birth to another moth.  But life is absent that one moth because I did not see.  "In Lak' ech" - Life is my other me.

The face I see

Most of the history written, philosophies, and social sciences come from the western world (Euro-American).  Recently there has been a counter force challenging the exclusive western perception.  For example, IQ tests and even personality tests used to diagnose abnormal behavior are based upon western ideals of normal and average.  One particular western ideal is individualism. You hear it everyday. “Be independent.” “Make your own decisions.” “Stand on your own two feet.” “Pay your own way.” “Follow your heart.”  Think of the pride Americans take in our history of forging out across the unknown lands to settle, populate and tame the wild west.  We are rugged individualists.  That is not the same concept or value held in much of the eastern world.  In the eastern culture, collectivism, or the group is the most important value.  It does not mean that you demean or diminish yourself as an individual but simply that the health of the group (family, community, society, etc.) takes precedence.  The collectivist point of view would not brag about individual accomplishments, would not promote one over the many. 

A very inadequate summary, my apologies.  But can you see how the two perspectives would write different histories, develop different philosophies and define normal differently? Even spiritually, can you see how their world view would differ from the western view? If the east –west concept is too vague, consider the rural farming communities of old built on cooperation of neighbors and embraced within an extended family of support.  Their individual survival, what was important, was the survival of all, together, a community.  Compare that view to a large metropolitian city like New York where most feel like a stranger to the other million or so people.  No nuclear families.  If you have more I must have less. Competitive and individualistic.

Is one view right or wrong? Is one healthy and one sick? Maybe we should just say they both are right and melt them into a stew of indicollectivism.  And where the hell am I going with such a pondering? The scientific Human Genome Project set out to map all the human genomes to map our evolutionary, biological and comparative history.  So far, they have identified only 25,000 or so unique genomes – they were expecting much more.  Of those 25,000 do you know we only have 300 that are unique from those of a mouse?  We are all so similar to all of life and yet we are so different.  Differences can be modified but the differences remain, perhaps even sacred to all of life.

When I say I love you or when I say you are my other me – who are you?  You have been shaped by your family. You have been shaped by your community, religion, school and experiences or even the color of your skin.  You are a repository of collective images, labels, definitions and perceptions of right and wrong, normal and not, good and evil, cans and cannots.  But you are also the individual I see, the individual I love, the person standing in front of me. And within that repository you have made choices that in many ways reshaped the collective influence, making you, you.  The you standing before me, holding my hand or my heart, may be the mouse in you, the collective and shared you.  Tomorrow, you may be the 300 genomes, shaped by your choices that make you uniquely human and an individual.  Both are you. It’s not that you bring your “baggage” or wounds, you simply bring who you are.  It is not a “take it or leave it” attitude, we all have rough edges we would like to soften and habits we know we need to change.  But it begins with acceptance.  It begins with the wonder and amazement as the “you” unfolds before me. So many layers. So much to discover.  Your vulnerability to let me see, so humbling.

My point? I chuckle, yes, sometimes I do think too much.  To say I love you or to embrace you are my other me means my heart reaches out to all of you, today, this moment, the face that you gift to me.  And in that embrace, that joining as one, we create a symphony not a solo, dialogue not a soliloquy, two yet one, and we expand, together, beyond what we were before the embrace.  In learning how to love myself I expand the love I can give to you.  You are my other me. You are not me. Like holding hands, it is more comfortable and warm when right holds left, awkward when left holds left or right holds right. But when the two hands slip and fold together, a link is created that makes them one.  You are my other me. You are my teacher. You are the telescope that opens up the universe or the submarine beneath the oceans opening up such a vast diverse universe.  You are the one hand slipped warmly into mine.

Squigglies

Looking at a 3-D image of the earth all the lines outlining so many countries, tiny and large, and within the countries more lines defining individual states, I was overwhelmed.  Within the area of each squiggled line people were grouped and gathered.  The squiggles marked their differences from those outside the squiggles.  Wars, genocide, and various “cleansings,” not to mention prejudice and oppression,  power and greed occur because of the squiggles.  I no longer saw countries, I saw lines in the sand screaming “you are different from me -stay out! This is mine – I will not freely share!”

Such ponderings, considering seven billion people in the world, was too much for my little brain.  I had to change the lens on my heart’s camera and see a smaller frame, more close up.  The solitary tears began to weep.  I too live within squiggles.  I have defined myself.  Not only that, but others have drawn squiggles around me and defined me.  I am squiggles within squiggles.  As I interact with people I draw my own squiggles.  I hide behind mine.  The globe looked so defined and orderly.  My everyday interactions are like squiggle bumper cars.

What if we saw the squiggled world drawn with an Etch-A-Sketch?  What if we could shake it and make all the squiggles just disappear?  Sigh.  I know I can be simplistic and naive.  But what if?  Again, too much for my little brain and heart.  I need another question.  What if, what if I began to erase my own squiggles?  What if I no longer defined myself as this or that, or having this gift or talent, or not having or being this or that?  What if I erased my squiggles and determined to just move without having boundaries?  I cannot stop others from drawing squiggles around me.  But what would it feel like to no longer have the clash of squiggles against squiggles? What if their squiggles met no resistance?  What if their squiggles had to become fluid, no longer rigid and fixed because squiggle-less, I was no longer rigid or fixed?  Would their squiggles become like the ripples on a lake that simply melt into the calm surface?

Reality is, you throw a rock into the water ripples will erupt upon the surface.  But if you make the lake big enough, like a sea or the ocean or even the universe, no matter the size of the rock, the ripples will dissolve into the calm nature of the water.  What if I start with my squiggles and another starts with theirs, and then another and another?  Together maybe we can make the lake big enough and squiggled ripples will dissolve in the calm waters of compassion and unity.  Another sigh.  And as I sigh I read the previous sentence…. “What if I start….”  I must be willing to be the first drop into the ocean.  It starts with me.  It starts with my own squiggles.  The Etch-A-Sketch is mine.