It is never any more difficult
than stepping into the day
and doing what needs to be done there.

We clutter things up
with plans
and agendas,
willing this,
wanting that,
wondering "When is it
going to be our turn?"--
waiting for something to happen
that will be like a gift
from some fairy godmother,
not listening,
not looking,
not hearing,
not seeing,
and hating the same old same old
all the way to tomorrow
through all the tomorrows
in our allotment.

The shift happens
when we open ourselves
to the present moment,
see what needs to be done
and do it,
in all of the here/now's in a day.

That's the magical formula
for turning things around,
personally and collectively,
and it is always right there
to see and to do,
transforming our life
and changing the world
for the low, low price
of seeing/doing.

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There is what we do to pay the bills,
and there is what we pay the bills to do.

What do you pay the bills to do?
What do you live to do?
Doing what is life itself for you?

Spending your money in the right ways
is important,
and spending your time in the right ways
is more important.

Spending money cannot off-set
time poorly spent.

If you are not spending enough time
in the service of what you love to do--
in doing the things
that make your little heart sing
and your little toes dance--
you are an enemy
of your own soul and spirit,
and it is time you repented
and redeemed yourself
by doing the things you were born to do
throughout the time left for living.

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Oscar Wilde said, 
“A bore is someone who 
deprives you of solitude 
without providing you with company.”

Who talks constantly
without saying anything.

Robert Burns could have
had them in mind 
with his,
“O, wad some Power the giftie gie us. 
To see oursels as ithers see us!"

Seeing ourselves clearly,
accurately,
just as we are,
would likely transform us
just as we are,
and enable us,
finally,
to simply be just as we are.

First, the seeing.

How do people who think they see,
come to see
they don't see at all?

That was Jesus' problem,
how to get people to see
who think they see.

He was reported 
to open the eyes of the blind,
but couldn't do anything
with eyes that see without seeing.

His advice was,
"If they don't receive 
what you have to say
in one town,
go on the the next."

Changing locations
changes audiences,
and people in one place
can see things 
that people in the last place
couldn't fathom.

Meaning, I take it,
that everything depends
on where we come from
and what we do with it
wherever we go.

How far can we go/grow
from where we have been?

How different can we be?

Let's live to see!

–0–

We have lost the "we-ness" 
that holds things together.

There is no generic "we"
that we can count on being there,
anywhere.

Who comprises the "we" we call we?
Who are we talking about
when we talk about "we"?

I'm talking about the fifteen, or so,
regular readers/responders 
who drop in to see what I have to say
during a week.

We ground one another,
center, encourage, focus
each other
for the work that is ours to do.

We--as in everybody, everywhere,--
need sources of balance and harmony
in out lives
on a regular basis.

Where do we--as in the fifteen or so of us--
find that beyond here?

Music and the arts are a classic source,
nature and conversation from the heart
about things that matter,
poetry and literature.

I read the old (as in 500 BCE to 1,000 CE)
Taoist masters,
who talk about the same things
that need to be talked about here/now
(The important stuff never changes).

Whatever works for you needs to be returned to
on a regular basis.

And if you can enlarge your "we," 
that will help, too!

–0–