Archive for the ‘blessed day’ Category

I ask myself, no, I hesitate as I type this, do I really ask myself?

I think not. I think I know, no, I know I know, what enrichment is….

It is a day not long ago, a trying one, and just when a pause interspersed itself, Louis Armstrong came on, singing Hello Dolly and I heard my grandfather singing, singing like Louis. Yeah, I know, no one sings like Louis, but if you heard my grandfather, you too would shake your head.

I read Ronnie’s post on The Door to the Universe is You and it fit, it resonated, and I said, damn, I thought my landscape was limited, I thought, with my headlamp, flashlight, and pickax meandering through the labryinth of my mind that I could find the creased bits of parchment to give me the map to the treasure chest, but you see, in my mind, in my search, the treasure chest had boundaries…I read Ronnie’s post, the door to the universe is you, and my heart exploded.

Let me add, as I wrote this, my husband, that beautiful man, was trying to get us ahead, up on a stool, changing lights and before I could type the word “exploded”, well, the bulb crashed to the ground, and yes, it exploded everywhere.

So am I enriched? More than I can describe. It is the hug of a child, slippery from the bath, throwing him upon a deep comforter to cushion the fun, the giggles, the sheer delight in the moment.

We are what we decide, no matter what life hands us. And yes, I have been handed lemons, but heck, it’s easy make lemonade. The thing is, I can’t help the lemons I have been given, so what choice is there? I’m in charge of me, I decide how I feel.

I have learned, I have many hats, I decide which ones I wear and when, and sometimes, just sometimes, I wear them all at once.

Enrichment?

Who decides?

You do.

Namaste.

I read something this morning about there being Universal truths or laws which do not change, while perception and knowledge, perhaps awareness, does vary. For a full view, grab a cup of coffee or tea and stop in at the: The Naked Soul

Moments later, the post went through my mind, and it caused me to think, ok, maybe there is something much stronger here than I would like to admit because my mind can be that of a skeptic, full of resistance. I was thinking about how much the “bad” news affects me, brings me down, makes me sad that we cannot snap our fingers and fix the world.

I then thought: hmmm, I sure am attracting a lot of negative energy my way.

I jumped on the search engine and decided to do something different, to find the “good” news. I’m going to focus on the “good” news for awhile and see how it goes.

The Good News Network

How do I meet you, where you want to be met?

How do I speak to you as you want to be spoken to?

How do I hear you as you want to be heard?

Do I need to anticipate your words and thoughts, before I put my own on the page?

I am struck, today as many days, by who will be our next statistics.

Reading the news, I realize, you are removed from me. Are you the heart, the soul, the courage I call to with these words?

Are you who I write to without knowing as I read stories or hear stories in and on the news, more “numbers”, more “statistics”, God forgive me, you are removed from me.

Because today I am ok.

Today I am here, in a country I love, in a place where I am adored, in a world where the best of all dreams have manifested. To me the best of all dreams is what I inhabit, the love of a select few, so pure; yet, not without its moments of impatience. Within and around this world, I have food, a roof, electricity, I have the ability to pay bills. I have feet, legs that carry me to my car to start my day, I have a career, esteemed some would say, but that is not the pivotal signifigance, the pivotal signifigance is that I have and embody, at least to this day, the wherewithal to carry on.

Who would I be without it?

Where would I be?

And despite this awareness of fortune and luck, I read the news, devour the news, surf for different versions of the same story, wanting, panting over the search, the journey for the truth to figure out how it is any of us could treat each other as if we were not part of the “us”.

Can I see a mother in the news grieving, struggling despite the news to carry on, because really, what else is there to do?

I wonder at the ones we mark as misfits as this global world closes into itself, where will they go? Trapped where they are not wanted and don’t belong; yet, marked from exit? And suppose, just suppose, we are wrong in our adjustment of perception, so much so, that we brand the innocent guilty? Can we live with that?

I know, statistics can meter out that the price of a few innocent lives are worth it to capture the maybe guilty ones…but something deep within my heart cries out, screams and says, suppose, just suppose, it was you or I? or a beloved child that we knew, as well as we can know anything, who was and is good, what then?

I have never spent much time on the depth of literature or biblical studies, not that I don’t have degrees, learning or education, it is simply that my mind seemed to discard that which did not ring true with the collective human heart.

I don’t care. I simply don’t care what the Bible has to say, I think the truth for humanity lives within us and resonates so true and so pure from the most beautiful part of our hearts and souls, that truth of that nature is hard to disavow.

I think our society has succumbed, has bowed itself to the inevitability to evolution on an industrial and technological level. Really, I have no better choice, no better solution, I know not what a better world would be for us, I do know this, we are culpable, day after day, in the moment exiting sleep and upon awakening, that is the breath within which we embrace the best version of who we are and we shrug it off, most of us, and don a suit of clothes, to play charades for the better part of our days.

I do not have the one answer, the one path, the signs or the miracles that point the way.

Sometimes though, what doesn’t work, can point the way.

We spend so much time afraid of each other, who has what, who will do what, that we cannot live.

What would happen if 98 percent of the world chose differently? Chose to have a voice and use that voice and live in whatever best version of the Divine we could embody?

Is it really so far fetched?

Isn’t that truly part of what we search for, this life cycle of questions and answers?

Can’t we just accept there are many things we do not know, but despite that, acknowledge there are things we can agree upon to honor each other?

I sat here, for a blessed moment or two, doing nothing but seeing.

I saw that despite my attempts to clean up my shelves, a piece of paper had a mind of its own and somehow became lodged between one shelf and another, in a space which served to highlight it: A Novena to St. Jude.

Now I have always known St. Jude is powerful and clever, but this beats all, quite a funny way of reminding me I owe him a few prayers of gratitude.

I sat again, unwilling to pick up the novena prayer, not quite yet, this is my stillness and prayer to me is active in a way mere thought is not.

I had just stopped working on a memorandum, research, the pursuit of questions without quantifiable answers, but whose answers, when found exonerate or impose liability and to be frank, I was done, I was “still”.

So I continued to stare thinking about a series of email exchanges regarding how much is too much, when does thought and excavating the past liberate us and when does it encumber us?

My eye glanced to a lovely book, an older version: Little Pictures of Japan. And I was drawn to its cover and wanted to jump in and indulge myself in its ability to take the complex and make it simple but I didn’t.

I continued to sit and stare.

My mind became drawn to a book: Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak. One of my absolute favorites from childhood.

I stood up, I picked it up, walked back to my chair and sat down.

I love it just as much today: the child on a journey, confronting and meeting his fears, and regarding them unblinking.

Yes. It was the perfect ending to that line of thought if I had not just stepped outside afterward and for the second time today heard a long forgotten song playing from a neighbor’s home which propelled me to view myself remotely as a beautiful and pure child and to want to smother that child with kisses and thank her for her dreams, for her courage to believe, for her vision and to promise her, I would begin to take down the walls that stood in her path.

See Ronnie’s Out of My Head piece:  Where the Wild Things Were

Imagine the past as an Octopus.

-Wikepedia

The arms.

The tendrils.

Extending, reaching into your mouth, your eyes, ears, nose.

Slithering and grabbing hold of your mind.

You stand there,

watching,

allowing it to occur,

not caring enough

or

not knowing how to defend yourself.

Imagine then,

removing the tendrils,

taking them from your eyes, your ears, your mouth.

Remove the Octopus.

I read a lot about spirituality, powers untapped of the universe, etc.

Tonight, I enjoy a piece that Ronnie at Out of my Head wrote about how to take simple steps to make it happen.

Maybe some of you are like me, you need a picture drawn, not The Last Supper, but a small and well defined cartoon, few brush strokes to get to the heart of the matter.

Well, Ronnie did that for me, and yes, I guess I spurred her on a bit, but so what? I wanted the answer.

Open Letter to God (original)

Hi God.

It’s me, again.

I know that you hear me everyday, chatting, begging, pleading, reasoning-asking for faith. You would think the mere fact I turn to you is faith itself, wouldn’t You?

But I know me, and You know me, and I am wrestling with my ego, unwilling to give it up, unwilling, because I think I will lose me, and my faith in You in the process.

Is that what they call, a paradox?

My “second” letter to You I started in a small, discounted, bound leather brown book, gold edged pages, a piece of fabric to mark where I left off. Small enough to go with me wherever I choose, anywhere but in my pocket. I will get back to that, that the book I choose to speak to You within could not fit within the smallest spaces. But not yet God, not yet.

I started my book, the first page, like this:

“To any who may enter here, turning the pages – remember – this is my journey – my perception of the world. Without collective consciousness, you may find yourself lost and without understanding as to my wording, my intent, my context and that will be as it is.

Namaste.”

But I continued God, I turned the page.

Another day I said to You:

I am unsure whether it is truly a grand awakening or as we stumble step by step, we find ourselves in a new place of thought.

I desire in these pages to embrace my voice, my connection with God, to truly hear the voice of God and live with that knowledge.

We know so little, barely skimming the surface of this Earth. What can I say as to how much I know of ultimate Truth or knowledge?

I long to amass, piece by piece, a web, a ladder, a matrix of higher learning. Why is there so much unknown? It came to me that with a shift in the energy fields, a rebalancing, we could accomplish anything. We could form energy barriers to prevent destruction of humanity along shorelines. Energy bumper fields to prevent cars, trains and planes form impact and consequent calamity.

On some level, answers are known. At the point it becomes realized, we will have most likely also have abolished the need for mechanical transport.

The hardest part is breaking out of the self created barriers. The nine to five of the imposed Society.

I no longer have any aspiration to remain a lawyer. None. I find it distasteful and I resent people’s refusal to move toward resolution.

I want to cry. Big, tearing gulping sobs. It is my own own inaction that keeps me stuck in place.

Hi God. Yup, me.

Here I sit. In a “County”, a seat of justice. I drove down the highway, a torrential rain pour. I was lucky I even brought myself to drive 50 mph and the other people, flying by, driving so fast, do they wonder what would happen if they hydroplaned?

Same day, later than who I was this morning. So much later that I must try three times to flip the pages of this journal, so thick the leaf edge, I don’t dare believe I bought this for myself to speak to God. I throw down my old glasses, they fall from my nose anyway, so stretched the arms have become. I don’t need them to read these pages.

So, anything new?

There is so very much I write in my head, between the moments – now and before – it never gets on the page. For now, I will put aside this journal, this memorable me, put it aside and read the book I bought on Gandi. I so passionately want to continue reading and I will slip inside the realm of semi-consciousness sleep state, when I dream in guarded dreams of tomorrow.

*If they ever obliterate tactile writing and reading, I will elect to ascend, immediately.

Siting outside today, another day without a blackberry. How much more peaceful. Sitting outside, a small diner, with tables set out on brick pavers. Small sign says: ‘sorry, we do not accept credit cards’.

Quickly I ask, how much for a cup of coffee and a toasted english muffin? $2.25, plus tax. I check. I have a five and some change, fair enough for a decent tip, I order.

I sit across from the courthouse, another case where settlement negotiations will change and the mood of the equity judge, King of all Kings, or as Alice said, the King of nothing, all at once, is less predictable than a storm at Sea.

I had a dream last night, I’m sure of not many things, but this I recall…a bird coming to land on my shoulder, momentarily frightened as I am not sure if it will claw me; then my fear becomes less and I began to worry of the bird relieving itself on my back. It begins to sing with me. I ran around to show people the miracle, but another bird, a small sparrow, flew into my mouth.

I’m tired now God. I will go, there is never a moment You don’t hear me anyway.

***Hey God, as an afterthought, I sound like I’m just stamping my feet.

***Upon further thought God, I need to say, although You know this already, I was in fact stamping my feet.  I complain about the justice system, about being a lawyer, and the simple fact is, I simply wish we lived in a world where we needed neither a justice system nor lawyers.  My acts of complaining about it, poking at different sectors of the system, does nothing to change the whole and only adds negativity.  So thanks for listening.

I am so untethered in this world. I often have to ask what day of the week yesterday was and find myself laughing that the very next day I had already forgotten.

I am often lost in thought, but find now, recently, thoughts fly through me more readily and I am supremely grateful for this change, that no longer makes me need, want, struggle to hold onto thoughts.

I recently posted about seeing birds, and then yesterday, none swooped before my car. I had been sick the night before and I think I did not awake with an open heart and the birds were not drawn to me. Today, I awoke differently and within several hundred yards, I had to duck as I drove, so close the first bird came, and I had to smile because it hit me, I had opened my heart.

I am reading a book: What is the What, by Dave Eggers, a fictionalized account of one man’s life, a Sudanese Refugee. The Preface, in part, set forth:

“Even when my hours were darkest, I believed that some day I could share my experiences with readers, so as to prevent the same horrors from repeating themselves. This book is a form of struggle, and it keeps my spirit alive to struggle. To struggle is to strengthen my faith, my hope, and my belief in humanity. Thank you for reading this book, and I wish you a blessed day.”

-Valentino Achak Deng

I read the last seven words over and over again…”and I wish you a blessed day”.

I was stunned, astounded and touched, that this person, the voice of the book, What is the What, wished me, a reader a blessed day.

In turn, I wish you, “a blessed day”.

Namaste.