"The Christ" is "the anointed one." Anointed to do what? "To proclaim the Gospel (The Good News) to every sentient being!" What is the Good News? "You are all The Anointed One, anointed to do your thing for the true good of all!" We are all The Christ--The Anointed Ones! Anointed to do our thing in the service of all! What is "our thing"? It is our task to realize our thing and to live in its service. It is a matter of waking up to the truth of who we are and what is ours to do-- what we are about. Being and doing are one thing. When we are being who we are, we are doing what is ours to do. When we are doing what is ours to do, we are being who we are. Joseph Campbell said, "We all know when we are on the beam and when we are off it." Carl Jung said, "It is the individual’s task to differentiate themselves from all the others and stand on their own feet." And: "The development of the personality means fidelity to one's own law of being." And: "At bottom, there is only one striving, namely, the striving after your own being." And: "In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody. If we do not embody that, life is wasted." And: "Through pride, we are forever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience, a still, small, voice, says to us something is out of tune." And: "One can feel correctly only when feeling is disturbed by nothing else. And nothing disturbs feeling so much as thinking." And: “The highest and most decisive experience of all... is to be alone with ...[one’s] own self... The patient must be alone if he is to find out what it is that supports him when he can no longer support himself. Only this experience can give him an indestructible foundation." Marianne Moore said, "The cure for loneliness is solitude." Jim Dollar said, "We know when we are where we have no business being." We only have to listen within to know what we know. But who takes the time to sit still long enough to listen in the silence and know what is being said to us by us? We are The Christ, but. We are alienated within, cut off from ourselves, do not know what we know, and cannot be who we are because that interferes with our idea of who we want to be and of the life we want to live. Jesus spent his life talking about the return to the self. The "essential Jesus" can be found in The Sermon on the Mount, the Parable of the Prodigal's Father, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and the sutra built around the theme "Inasmuch as you have done it-- or not done it-- to one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you have done it-- or not done it-- unto me." We have done it-- or not done it-- to ourselves. We have to wake up to the truth of who we are and of what is ours to do-- of what we are about, and of what we are not about. We have to sit still, and be quiet long enough for the mud to settle and the water to clear, enabling us to know who we are and who we are not, and what is ours to do and what is not ours to do. We have to listen to our nighttime dreams, listen to our hearts, listen to our body, listen to our feelings and know what we know-- and do what we need to do to be who we are: The Christ-- the anointed one, anointed to do our thing for the good of sentient beings everywhere.
October 10, 2020
04
The work is ours to do alone. Sitting. Listening. Looking. Seeing. Hearing. Feeling. Trusting. Risking. Doing. Being. Becoming. We grow up on our own. Against our will. Because it is called for. And is the best of all our available options. All that we have been told about how things are is not how things are. This is how things are: There is the way things are, and there is what we can do about it, and that's that. And that is how things are. Part of what we can do about it is squaring ourselves up with the difference between how things are and how we wish they were, or how we want them to be. Coming to terms with how things are is being okay with things not being okay. And letting things be because they are. Within any context and all circumstances, there is what we can do and what we cannot do. Refusing to let what we cannot do keep us from fully exploring what we can do is the creative response to our situation, no matter what it is. Always the strategy is: Ask all of the questions that beg to be asked! Say all of the things that cry out to be said! Listen to everything! See what we look at! Feel what we are feeling! Know what we know! Bear the pain and keep on going!
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03
Martha Graham's dance, "Lamentation," says what words cannot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgf3xgbKYko), and in reflecting on her performance, she said about it and all of her performances, "The is always one person to whom you speak in the audience. One." That took me straight to the one disciple of the Buddha who "heard" his Flower Sermon. Mahākāśyapa is in every audience, as male or female. Do not think, "No one hears" (Or cares).
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02
Believe in what you are doing and do it! If you are going to believe in anything, let it be what you are doing! Why would we do anything we don't believe in? Yet, how many of us are doing things we don't believe in? Going through the motions. Paying the bills. So we can go through the motions. Wait!!! Time Out!!! It's one thing to go through the motions to pay the bills-- but we can't pay the bills to go through the motions! We have to pay the bills to do what we believe in doing! Are we doing anything we believe in? Anywhere in our life? If no, that's a problem. How can we live without believing in what we are doing? Without believing in the life we are living? We can't just go through the motions! Our heart has to be in something we are doing, else our life is a sham, a lie, an empty balloon on a stick and we are dead people walking around blank-eyed and soulless. Sound like anybody you know? The cure is to get our life back by finding something we believe in and doing it while we pay the bills any way we can. Where do we start finding something we can believe in? What was the last thing you believed in? What happened to that? What are some things you think you might be able to believe in? If you were going to believe in something, what would it be? What would it take to be able to do it? If you can't do it, start dreaming about doing it. Imagine doing it. Watch videos about doing it. Pretend to be able to do it. Start collecting items that are related to it. Read about it. Write about it. Build a fantasy life around it. Believe in your fantasies! If you can't go to the moon, make a life around studying everything about going to the moon! Work something you believe in into your life! Without something to believe in, we are just marking time until we die. We may as well be in prison. Do not die before you are dead! Promise me you won't!
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01
This is my credo, my statement of faith in what I am about: "I do not know what the hell I'm doing, and I am going to do it to my dying breath!" Two things flow from this. The first is the old saw/observation that people spend their entire lives climbing the ladder of success only to discover at the end that it was leaning against the wrong wall. I have every confidence that my ladder is leaning against the right wall. The second thing is my essential belief in the importance of muddling around in the middle, holding all of the extremes, all of the opposites, all of the contradictions, all of the polarities all of the variant points of view in view and bearing the agony/anguish of that tension, waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear to see what happens. I'm not here to make anything happen, but to assist the happening of whatever needs to happen. If you bear the tension long enough, something shifts, the mud settles, the water clears. The worst thing is to push for a solution that solves nothing and only temporarily eases the tension of mutually exclusive opposites. No pushing! No forcing! Wait to see what needs to happen, and assist its happening by calling attention to it and maintaining the tension of irreconcilable polarities! Give equal voice-- equal attention-- to all concerns. Do not dismiss, discount, disregard, deny, ignore anyone's rights, and bring the weight of realization-- of clarity-- to bear on the issues at hand. The issue of abortion, for instance, would take on an completely new shift if all of those clamoring for an end to abortion suddenly became pregnant. That is making the heart of the matter painfully apparent. When all of our polarities become painfully apparent, attitudes, viewpoints, and perspectives shift, and things change. Muddle around in the middle long enough to be clear about what's what, and things change. Of their own accord. There is nothing like clarity for illumining the way.
October 09, 2020
03
Waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear, it is important to exhibit the kind of stillness and confidence in the process that creates the atmosphere in which the mud can relax and trust itself to gravitational forces it cannot understand, but can allow to work its magic in assisting things seeking to find their place and give themselves to doing what they do best. The forces at work in our own life are not different from the gravitational force at work in the service of clarity. We belong to the things that stir us to life and call us forth to find what best suits our gifts and interests, and our deepest love-- a love we know noting of until it claims us and graces us with its call to service in devotion and loyalty to its needs and interests. We find our way to what owns us bit by bit, allowing "one book to open another," and always listening for what calls our name in each situation as it arises, allowing ourselves to be led-- even when we don't know we are being led-- to sacred places "transparent to transcendence," with nothing special about they that would set them apart, or suggest the wonders hidden from those who look without seeing what we behold. Swaddled in amazement, we feel ourselves carried from one wonder to another in a life that is merely following the flow from one day to the next, without a plan in mind, or an agenda directing the action. All we need do is listen and look, as we wait for the mud to settle and the water to clear.
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02
Faith has nothing to do with belief. Faith is faithfulness. Keeping faith with oneself and one another. Being faithful to one's center, core, foundation-- in the company of those who are being faithful to themselves, to their center, core, foundation-- and to one another. Faith as faithfulness is the center, core, foundation of ourselves and of the right kind of community. It has nothing to do with what we believe, and everything to do with what we know to be so because it forms the ground of our experience, and is the very essence of our being/doing. "Thanks be to God I am who/what I am!" (Paul of Tarsus) "What I do is me/for that I came!" (Gerard Manley Hopkins) Belief is a substitute for faith, a surrogate for the lived experience of ourselves in the world. "Know Thyself!" (The Delphic Oracle) "To Thine Own Self Be True!" (William Shakespeare) Our faith is in who we are and what is ours to do. Our faith is our life. Our life is our faith. The content of our faith is the body of work we create/produce as a testimony to who we are through the way we live our life and bring ourselves forth within the context and circumstances of the times and places of our living. The content of our faith is how we live our life.
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01
Purity is the great enemy of truth. Purity is truth to the far extreme. Truth without contradiction. Truth without contraries. Truth without truth. A mockery of truth. An imposter of truth. A pretender of truth. A sound-alike. A wanna-be. A Lie. Watch the flow of the game over the next 10 to 20 years. Keep your eye on the ball. The truth is that "extremes beget extremes." Those who remain steadfastly in the center become the enemy of the opposite poles. Yet, the center is the fulcrum, the pivot point, "the still point of the turning world" (T.S. Eliot). The center is our only hope. The cross of Christ bearing the pain of his own self-realization. "You shall know the truth," he said, "and the truth shall set you free." The truth of what? Free from what? Free for what? The truth of the moment. Of this moment. of this here-and-now. Free from/for what? Free from denial/mindlessness/unawareness/blindness/stupidity... Free for doing what needs to be done here and now, in this moment just as it is. Free for responding appropriately to the moment as it is being lived in seeing/hearing what is called for and providing it, doing it, regardless of what you might have said/done in the last moment, or any previous moment-- or what you ever imagined that you would do in any moment. Freedom to be who you are, living out of your own center in response to the craziness-- the madness-- of a world gone to the extremes, where: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity" (W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"). Freedom to be what is needed even there, especially there, in the heart of anarchy amid the Clashing Rocks and the Heaving Waves of the Wine-Dark Sea.
October 08, 2020
02
The most important commandment in the Old Testament didn't make the top ten, though it lends itself to an interpretation that makes it #1 even there. Seeing "The Lord Thy God" in each of our neighbors would put "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" in the place of, as Jesus would say, loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, and as the most important commandment puts it, "Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark." Honor thy neighbor's right to themselves and to all that belongs to them! Do not mind thy neighbor's business! Do not violate thy neighbor's boundaries! Do not invade thy neighbor's sacred space! Do not denigrate thy neighbor in any way! Respect thy neighbor as thou desireth to be respected! Know where you stop and your neighbor starts and do not step over the line! How may ways did Jesus say that? He made it the central element in what he had to say. Everything comes down to seeing our neighbor as equal to us in every way. And to seeing everyone as our neighbor. And everyone is Every. Single. One. We are to be everyone's neighbor, treating them all as though they are our neighbor. Why is this hard? Why is it not being done?
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01
We do not receive the help we need. And if it is offered, it isn't what we have in mind. Given the choice, do you go for feeling better or getting better? When the treatment is worse than the disease-- or worse than the symptoms-- what do we do? Where do we go with the pain of damned if we do and damned if we don't? With the agony of endless agony? In the meantime, what? When there is no balm in Gilead, where do we go for relief from our anguish? For alleviation from our pain? Where do we find what we need to do what needs to be done about any of it? Therapy is found in the damnedest places. The dairy barn at the Louisiana Central Hospital brought people back to life by giving them cows to milk and feed, to pasture and tend. What does a cow have to do with our problems? Who would ever think, "A cow is just what I need"? How long would a physician last who prescribed a cow to care for to those seeking solace for the burdens they bear? Don't disparage cows! Seek out their equivalent in your own time and place! You who have needs, lend yourself to the service of that which has need of you! You who languish for a lack of help, provide help to that which languishes for what you have to offer! Be good for someone, some thing! The world will shift on its axis, reorient itself in its orbit. All because you dared to love a cow!
October 07, 2020
03
We live our way to the truth of who we are coming to terms with the truth of how things are, of how the world is, of how life is, of the way things work moment-to-moment, one situation at a time, one day at a time, over the full course of our life. The Spiritual Journey, is the Hero's Journey, is another term for Growing Up. Growing up is coming to terms with how things are and how we are and how best to deal with the contradictions/dichotomies at work within and without throughout our life. We want things to be different than they are. We want to be different than we are. And how well we bear the pain of the difference between how things are and how we want them to be on all levels of life and being is the essence of growing up, of waking up, of squaring up with how it is with us at various points in our life. Our identity changes over the time of our living. Living changes us. Living requires us to change. The people who refuse to change, who live static, rigid, lives are dead people. They may be 98.6 and ambulatory, but they have no life about them, they haven't been alive for years past remembering. How we respond to our life through all the stages of our existence is the marker declaring our degree of vitality, interest in, and enthusiasm for our life and the experience of being alive. Our life is naturally designed to bring us forth, to show us who we are, by requiring things of us we do not know we are capable of. We have to be fluid and flexible enough to sit before what is being asked of us and explore/imagine/consider how we might best respond to it in the here and now of our living. This is to say that new epiphanies, recognitions, realizations, understandings, visions and additional illumination are required--and available/possible-- at every point along the way from birth to death. And so, it is said that the awakening of every enlightened being requires a return to the state of unenlightenment. We never out-grow the need to respond creatively/imaginatively to the circumstances and situations of life here and now throughout the times and places of life in the world. The Spiritual Journey has no end. The "Circumambulation of the Self" (Carl Jung) is eternal and everlasting. We are always becoming who we are. And the longer we are conscious of the process, the more we are able to laugh and dance along the way.
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02
We cannot live one dimensionally in in a multi-dimension world. This is the failure of Evangelical Christianity and of strict religiosity world wide. "Walking the straight and narrow" is not about prudishly, puritanically, keeping the rules. It is about walking gingerly, consciously, carefully along the slippery slope, the dangerous path, the razor's edge, between the Clashing Rocks, the Scylla and Charybdis, the dualities, dichotomies, duplexities of day-to-day, moment-to-moment, life in the world of normal, apparent, reality. There is no static way of being. Balance and harmony are about controlling the wobbles, like riding a bicycle. We have to live free in our soul, like the spirit that blows where it will-- which is another way of saying, "Not knowing what it will do next"! Jesus lived that way, raising the dead in one minute, and leaving the dead to bury the dead in the next. Forgiven the woman guilty of adultery one day, and cursing the innocent fig tree on another. Do not look for, expect, demand, insist upon consistency, uniformity, absence of deviation from yourself or one another! Sometimes, we do it this way, and sometimes, we do it that way, as the occasion requires. We dance with the music of the times. We do what the situation calls for-- without being burdened with having to "toe the line" and "mind our p's and q's" by doing what we are "spozed to do" in all times and places because we dare not "get out of line" or express our own individual gifts and genus in the way we go about our life. Grant yourself the freedom of getting out of character-- because it is required by the circumstances, or just for the hell of it! Do things that are "not you"! Expand your range! Open yourself to the possibilities! Live beyond your limits! Outside your boundaries! Live to find out--to discover-- what you are capable of! Experiment with new roles! Try out for different parts! Explore! Experiment! Bring yourself to life in the time left for living! Why hold anything back?
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01
When the light comes on, everything/nothing changes. Life goes on as it always does and nothing about life is as it was for the one for whom the light comes on. Now, that one has to live with a foot in two worlds, and walk two paths at the same time-- living in this world in light of that world-- with this and that world informing and influencing the way they live in that and this world. The two worlds interact/interface in the one for whom the light goes on. They cannot live in either world as though the other does not exist. The two worlds are not mutually exclusive. They both are conjoint with the other and create the "Mysterium Coniunctionis" (Carl Jung's term meaning the "Mystery of the Conjunction"), which is the ground of all of our dualities, and which we live to integrate and express/exhibit by the way we manage the challenge of living in two worlds at the same time, walking two paths at the same time, and consciously realizing and living in the tension of the interplay between the worlds (Which might be better thought of as "dimensions" within the world of normal, apparent, physical reality) moment-by-moment within all of the times and places of our existence. We are living within an optical illusion. Now it's this way, now it's that way. Which way is is? Both ways simultaneously! How do we manage our life living both ways at once? Playfully! Laughing and dancing all the way! It is the Tevya dialogue in "Fiddler on the Roof": "But, this cannot be so if that is so!" "You are right! That is also so!" Laughing and living in the tension of all opposites, of all dichotomies, being so at the same time! The two become one in us! And we become one with all things! Integrating what cannot be reconciled, and bearing the agona, the agony, of the tension playfully, laughingly, every step along the Way, by doing it the way it needs to be done, the way it is being called for, in each situation as it arises all our life long. Sometimes we do it like this, and sometimes we do it like that, and sometimes we do not do it at all! When to do what is our call to make, lovingly, laughingly, playfully, doing what is called for in each moment, the way only we can do it, moment-by-moment, "singing and dancing in the rain."
October 06, 2020
02
The old Taoists recommended that we "turn the light around," and look inwardly for what we are seeking externally, which would be something worth living for. Some reason, some purpose, some meaning for it all. Life is its own meaning, but it takes realizing that and living as though it is so to turn the light around. Living as though our life is meaningful just as it is is the shift that opens us to the truth of the immense value of the here and now. This! Is "the still point of the turning world"! (T.S. Eliot) This! Is the moment of our Illumination! It only takes looking to see that it is so! Two mushrooms seen properly, are the bell of awakening. Any time can be the time of our realization. How we see what we look at is more important than what we look at. Turn the light around!
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o1
Attending what I am doing, moment-to-moment is among the hardest things for me to do. Just knowing what I am doing now-- not generally, vaguely, "I'm driving." "I'm walking." But specifically. Precisely. "My turn is coming up." "Watch the kid on the skateboard!" Being here, now, is the hardest thing. Of course we are here, now. We know that. And we miss our turn, and send the kid on the skateboard to his heavenly reward. All because we know what we are doing without attending it, without being aware of it, without knowing what we know, specifically, precisely. We live disconnected from the time and place of our living, thinking about anything, everything, but the here and now. So what? How we answer that question makes all the difference. Here and now is all there ever is. If we are not present and accounted for, fully here, fully now, when will we ever be alive? We do not come to life until something in our present moment commands our full attention and brings us to life. Puppies can do it. And kittens. And babies/grandbabies... We all can remember experiences, good and bad, that have grabbed us and hurled us in to the Now, but it takes something special. We can't be here, now, for no reason. We are shanghaied by other things, fear, desire, duty drag us off into endless walk-a-bouts, meandering among the possibilities and the impossibilities, lost and unavailable to turns coming up and kids on skateboards. But. Any moment can be "transparent to transcendence" (Joseph Campbell), transporting us instantly into the rapture of awe and wonder-- not because it is obvious, not because we are whammed by it unexpectedly, but because we simply sat, looking, until we saw--until we see--it. We can be so present to any moment that every moment has the potential of being a portkey, transporting us from this dimension into the other dimension of numinous, ineffable, unspeakable truth. Bringing that dimension into this dimension, moving from this dimension into that dimension, is the gift of attentive presence, bringing us to life in the life we are living. Eyes that see are the same eyes that don't see, waiting us to open ourselves to what is here and now but turning the light around and seeking within the switch that turns the light on and enables us to see what we are looking at for the very first time.
October 05, 2020
02
What would it take for you to be at peace with your life just as it is? Which includes doing what it takes to make your life more like it needs to be than it is. What does your life need to be that it isn't? Where is your life deficient? Where is your life excessive? Where is your life being neglected/ignored? Where is your life being restricted/confined? Where is your life being overrun/violated/disrupted? In what ways do you need help with your life? To what degree are you aware of your relationship with your life? In what ways does your life reflect/exhibit/express/incarnate/reveal who you are? In what ways does your life inhibit/conceal/deny/oppose/repress who you are? How would you describe your relationship with your life? In what ways do you tend and serve your life? In what ways do you expect your life to tend and serve you? In what ways do you cooperate/collaborate with your life? In what ways do you contend/clash with your life? What do you need from your life? What does your life need from you?
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01
If you wait until you are drowning to learn how to swim, you make it harder on yourself than it needs to be. See how many places you can apply this pithy little insight throughout your life. It will change your life.
October 04, 2020
02
Living from our own center with nothing at stake in the outcome is like singing in the shower, or dancing in the rain. It is a spontaneous, impromptu, improvisational response to our situation as it arises and opens before us, calling us to dance with life in becoming one with the moment and the opportunity it offers us to express ourselves by offering what is ours to give in response to the need of the moment and the time that is at hand. And this, without contrivance or agenda, or any thought of what is in it for us, or how we might seize the moment for our benefit, advantage, gain or profit, and "come out ahead" in any sense of the term. We're dancing, man! "And there is only the dance!" (T.S. Eliot) The key to living well is to live as though we are dancing. When the music begins, our cares drop away. We don't know who the President is, or what our worries are, or how we are going to manage with "the wolf at our door." We dance. And dancing brings forth the joy of life. The joy of being here, now, alive in this moment and able to dance. The music is there in every moment, waiting for ears that hear, and toes that tap, and hearts that can dance with life!
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01
Abraham's retort to God, "Shall not the judge of the earth do right?" is one Job should have used. Instead, Job cowers before the "Might Makes Right" defense God uses to justify leaving Job unprotected against the wiles of Satan. And Baruch would have done well to use it against God's, "I'll give you your life as a prize of war," excuse for refusing to be more of a "very present help in time of trouble." The question is one we shun and ostracize in the forlorn hope that God will make it up to us if we are patient and faithful in trusting ourselves to the ultimate triumph of "God's Plan" at work through inconceivable evil to save the day and all the long-suffering True Believers at the End of Time. Habakkuk and Jesus stand out in having the courage of their own convictions, in declaring their loyalty and allegiance to doing what is right in each situation as it arises, no matter what-- with the outcome playing no part in their ongoing and eternal devotion to doing what needs to be done moment-by-moment, day-by-day, their whole life long. In so doing, they point the way for us all. Why something happens or fails to happen is irrelevant to the situation at hand. Doing what is called for here and now is our only concern. "Here we are--now what?" is our response to the times all the time. How we answer that question, moment-by-moment, day-by-day, sets the tone and establishes the rhythm of our life, and shapes the future better than any assortment of beliefs and statements of faith ever could. Believe whatever you want, but do what needs to be done! Here and now and always and forever!
October 03, 2020
03
Our life forms itself around us, reflecting our choices and decisions exhibiting our preferences and inclinations, expressing our degree of creativity and courage... We are content seeking shape and form. Our life becomes us so. And we blame our circumstances. "If we had had more of this and less of that!" If this! If that! Well. Easy to say. Maybe. Maybe Not. What we know is that we are the one constant through all of the times and places, chances and opportunities, contexts and circumstances of our life, and here we are now. We are the content, and this is the shape and form. If we would prefer a different shape, a better form, we only have the content to work with. How different can we be in the time left for living? If you are serious about finding out, sit before a mirror and see who looks back at you. Consider the content of you, and what is revealed/concealed by your appearance, body language-- including posture and facial expression-- tone of voice physical shape and overall demeanor. Take up the practice of changing your content and seeing what shifts your shape and form take in response to the shifts made in content. It will be a game you play with yourself for the rest of your life.
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02
We could make a list-- and probably should-- of the people who know the truth when they see it, as a source of encouragement and motivation in our own work to see what we look at and know what's what. George Carlin Claudia Conway Dolly Parton Linda Ronstadt Eddie Murray Richard Pryor Jon Stewart Stephen Colbert Al Franken ... Who stands out for you? Let them be your soulmates, your guides, your gurus, your spiritual family, the people you turn to in time of trouble. Nobody can do it for long alone. Not even the people on your list! Live to be on somebody's list-- and keep going!
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01
The old adage gets to the heart of the matter: "It's all grist for the mill." What are we milling is the question. What are we working to get, acquire, amass, attain, achieve, have, do, be? What is it going to take for us to be at absolute peace with the life we are living? What are we milling? Producing? Manufacturing? Making? Constructing? Creating? Processing? Assembling? Putting together? What is guiding our boat on its path through the sea? How we discern a favorable wind from and ill wind? A good place to be from where we have no business being? What is our business? What are we about? What are we milling? Where are we going? How will we know when we arrive? Who are we trying to please? How do we know what is pleasing? Who says so? How did they become the voice of authority ruling over our life? What makes us think they know what is pleasing? Our life is based on what? What is guiding our boat on its path through the sea?
October 02, 2020
01
We hide ourselves and hide from ourselves. We speak in code about ourselves and to ourselves. Dismissing. Disregarding. Discounting. Denying. Ignoring. What is important in favor of what is trivial and essentially non-essential. We only have to look a our life to know it is so. Our life conceals and reveals us. Our choices disclose and obscure us. We don't like ourselves and it shows. Nothing is more apparent than our refusal to be who we are. We have what remains of the time left for living to turn the light around, and redeem what needs redeeming by serving the destiny we abandoned shortly after birth. We start by sitting down, being quiet, and meeting what meets us in the silence with nowhere to hide-- holding everything that comes up in our awareness, with compassion, without judgment or opinion, just seeing, just knowing, just looking, just listening, just being with what is being with us, waiting for the way to open before us, trusting ourselves to know when it does.
October 01, 2020
03
The Way doesn't get any clearer than this: Do your thing with nothing at stake in the outcome. In each situation as it arises. That is all there is to it. Or ever has been.
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02
We create the future by the way we respond to our present. Each present moment-- every here-and-now-- is a fulcrum, a pivot point, shifting how things are into how things will be. If things are to be different. We have to think differently. We have to live differently. We have to see differently. We have to interpret/evaluate/understand differently. We have to be different. We have to become different. Here/Now. We tend to think we are perfect as we are, and it is our surroundings, our circumstances, that have to change. If we want things to change in relation to us, we have to change in relation to things. It starts with us. We are holding things in place by the way we respond to things. Until that changes, nothing changes (No matter how much it appears to change). If things change without our attitude changing, nothing is different, regardless of how much it changes. The changes that make a difference take place behind our eyes, between our ears.
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01
Happiness is not a function of circumstance or occasion. Happiness is a function of perspective, of evaluation. Happiness is a way of seeing/being. Why not be happy? With things just as they are? Why not say YES! to life just as it is? Why not, as Joseph Campbell suggested, "participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world"? Campbell also said, "The warrior's approach is to say 'yes' to life: 'yea' to it all." And, "We are not there until we can say 'yea' to it all." And, "As you proceed through life, following you own path, birds will shit on you. Don't bother to brush it off." (Pay it no mind. Live to do what you are doing!) And, "Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance. Having a sense of humor saves you." And, "The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for. The damned thing in the cave that was so dreaded has become the center." And, The path requires "the love of your fate. Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, 'This is just what I need!' It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment-- not discouragement-- you will find the strength is there." And, "Nothing can happen to you that is not positive." And "When we are on our own path, what we need comes along just when we need it." And, "Have a theory that if you on your own path, things are going to come to you. Since it is your own path, and no one has ever been on it before, there is no precedent, so everything that happens is a surprise and is timely... Nothing is routine, nothing is taken for granted. Everything is standing out on its own, because everything is a possibility, everything is a clue, everything is talking to you." Happiness is a function of perspective, perception and evaluation. Happiness is a function of how we see what we look at, of what we tell ourselves about what we see. We are either on the adventure of being who we are, where we are, when we are, how we are, or not. "The future is up to us!" (Enola Holmes) "Anything can happen, if you let it!" (Mary Poppins) "Whose side are you on?" (Jim Dollar)
October 2020
This is Home to all pages written in October of 2020. Hovering your pointer over a month listed in the header will drop down the daily posts for the month. Thanks for visiting. Stay safe and be well!
