01

Henri Bergson talked about "élan vital" (in 1907) being the vital force moving us through our life to what matters most, to what means the most, to us. It is a magnetic force that pulls our heart past 10,000 "not its" to IT. It is like falling in love, though it might be a camera we fall in love with, or a piano. The Troubadours thought of the eyes as "the scouts of the heart," searching, searching for that which we are built to serve with our life. Joseph Campbell said that if a person resonates with something and ignores or dismisses the attraction, and remains locked into their career plan because it is a sure thing, and is safe and secure, like having Daddy take care of you all your life, and stays true to a risk-free life, then things "dry up," and they may have all the accoutrements of life, but the closest they ever came to being alive was when that special thing caught their eye, and they kept walking. What do you do then? Well, if your intentions are pure and you still can summons the will and the courage to live sincerely, spontaneously, in the service of your heart, you might well recover the quest-- but, you will have to be a little bit reckless and foolhardy, take some chances and put everything on the line in the service of adventure, with allegiance/loyalty to the directions of your heart. Seek the source of your heart's true desire and build your life around it, trusting things to be what they need to be to bring you forth into the life that remains to be lived. (Being brought forth is the secret cause for which we live. It is not "to be happy," but to be fully ourselves within the context and circumstances of our life. It is to hold nothing back in being who we are in service to what it takes/requires to be who we are, doing what needs us to do it with the life we are living). "Columbus took a chance," as the old saying goes, and so must we all in the work to be who we are fully, finally, at last. Cheating hell at the very end, and laughing at the wonder of doing what always needed to be done while there is still time for laughter and life.
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02

We are the balancing agents of the cosmos. Without us everything is chaos and devastation, with nothing but clashing rocks and heaving waves everywhere we look. We introduce peace in to the mix, integrating the opposites, bearing the tension of yin and yang, finding The Middle Way between mutually exclusive polarities, making all things one. Sadly, tragically, we have become the warring dichotomies we are here to neutralize. It happens when we choose sides and play favorites. We cannot choose sides and play favorites. This is what "Do Not Judge" means. No choosing sides. No playing favorites. The balancing agents must be balanced! The harmonizing influences must be harmonious! That means No Opinions! Stop it with the Right/Wrong! No more Good/Evil(Bad)! No more We/Them! Stick strictly to what needs to be done, here and now, in light of all things considered, in service of the optimal functioning of the whole! What is needed for the optimal functioning of the whole? Live in light of that! Do that! Everything serves the optimal functioning of everything else! What is it time for? Do that! (Which might mean Get Out Of The Way! Or, Wait It Out!) Learn to read the times and do what the times call to be done-- without imposing our idea of how things ought to be on things that have no business being that way! Here we are, now what? What is happening? What needs to be done in response? What is motivating our action? Are we living to align ourselves with The Way, or to impose our will upon The Way? Are we striving to have our way at the expense of every other consideration? If so, that is going to have an unpleasant outcome for all concerned. No sides, remember. That means having nothing personally at stake in any outcome. What needs to be done in light of the situation as a whole? Be clear about that. Do that. And if it isn't clear, wait for clarity. And if you don't have the luxury of being able to wait for clarity, then, "strive to do no harm."
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03

Joseph Campbell said that if we repress the impulse of our nature, the quest fails. Vitality shrivels. The land wastes away. Rivers dry up. Birds quit singing. Shadows lengthen. And hope wains. All because we lacked the courage of our sense of what needed to happen, and did not walk through the door that beckoned, thinking, "Maybe later." "Perhaps tomorrow." "Possibly some other time."
I wonder if you were laughing as you finished up today. I was.
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