Thursday, November 15, 2012

Contentment

Do you know how to sit with yourself, fully and completely, enjoying your own thoughts, your own company? 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from our first breath to our last, we are our own constant companions. There is great power and joy in being content with the self.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

What we Extol and What We Demonize

I am fascinated with how various faith traditions embrace or reject our very integral humanity and all the ways it manifests in both body and spirit. What we extol and what we demonize doesn't change the nature of reality, but it sure changes our relationship with reality. G*d is so patient, allowing us the illusion of our own understanding.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Raw

I'm feeling very raw at the moment.  Raw from getting in and messing around in the very protected world of my emotions.  I don't dive in here often, and it's mostly unfamiliar territory, a place where I'm not very comfortable, mostly unsure what to do with how I feel, or even how to navigate this space.  I seem to have few instincts here, mostly feeling out of my element and a bit lost.

And when I do come here, I inevitably end up confused and needing time and space to sort things through .  It's like a musty old attic, boxes of stuff stored up there for a long time, and the only way to find out what is in the boxes is to go through them, one by one, taking out the contents, looking at everything, trying to remember what it is and where it's from and why it's there.  Trying to piece together the story of me, but being pretty fuzzy on the details.

And then deciding what to keep and what to let go.  And before I realize it, hours have passed and I've only gone through a couple of those boxes, unearthed just a few things, but enough things to change my sense of my own past and what it means going forward.

I know I have hidden the past from myself in many ways, and resisted opening those old boxes.  And I know the toll it seems to take on me when I immerse myself in memory and recollection.  But I'm not sure how completely I can live in the present or live my way into the future with all that stuff sitting around, needing to be sorted, waiting for some kind of attention from me.

I feel like an amnesiac, mostly because I sort of am.  The fabric of memory is so thin, so flimsy and fragile around certain parts of my life that I feel like I don't know myself at all in some ways.  Like there's been some magic trick that hides so much of who I was and maybe who I am, but I want to be done with trickiness, especially the kind I've created for myself.  I don't want 'numb' to be my default position.

I don't know what to do about that, what I have to own of my past to own my present and future, but I'm pretty sure it's more than I have done so far.  I'm pretty sure more is required of me, so I'm paying attention as best I can to notice and understand, and not let the sleepy waves of amnesia obliterate one more memory or keep me from being fully engaged.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Recovery

I feel like I need a 12-step recovery program...for all the things that came before now and no longer work in my life, no longer fit any paradigm that I was expecting to live by, all the ways I thought my life would unfold but didn't.  I'm not sorry about that, or even a little unhappy.  Just a bit gobsmacked by what doesn't work anymore that I thought was permanent and eternal and unchangeable.

From my vantage point at this very moment, It seems SUCH an illusion to be certain that any circumstance has absolute permanence.  And I think that's fine.  Because nothing does stay the same.  Not the things you like and not the things you don't, and as the drama of life unfolds you just keep doing the best you can because there's not much else to do.

I'm not so sure how to put a framework around it all the way I used to.  I had everything wrapped up neatly in little bows, tied and tucked and neatly managed, whether I was happy with it or not.  And having it all ordered was pretty important.  I wanted certainty and clarity and no doubt troubling my spirit.

But the expense of the illusion of certainty comes at a high price.  It comes at the price of being open to the richness of real connection and all the beauty that offers, of appreciating and engaging on multiple levels, of the natural give and take that exists.

To be so certain of anything and everything means that there's no openness to the magic of life and of love.  That certainty means getting locked into one way of relating, one way of being, one way of understanding, and anything that goes just one-way isn't very open.  It doesn't allow for much flexibility or very many options.

And I have seen that.  When you have only the notion of service to others in mind, you effectively cut-off every other possibility of relating, truncate every other option that could exist between you and another person.  And you do it in the name of a great spiritual principle, but the reality is that it creates a kind of selfish insulation, and kind of self-protective bubble that keeps others away in the name of the highest good.

And maybe the highest good is also part of it.  But the part that is isolating and selfish and limiting is at least as true.

I cannot imagine that this is what G*d has designed us for.  I have never allowed myself fully to be the person that I am, and I have done that in the name of the highest good.  And there certainly has been some good.  But there hasn't been great.  And I know that's possible too.


The Illusion of Certainty

We live with constant uncertainty, and operate under the illusion of certainty - that we know what will be next and can control it. There is such grace and hopefulness in the very human pursuit of ordering the universe according to our own expectations.

Friday, November 2, 2012

The Impetus for Action

I have never been a person driven by ambition or goals. Instead, I've been coaxed along by dreams, inspired by insights, and moved by kavanah - intention. The impetus for action comes from a place that cannot be forced, coerced or manipulated. And in that, even in the midst of uncertainty and its attendant anxiousness, there is great serenity in knowing that everything happens as it must, in its own time, and in its right way. It is simply beyond my power to impose my will on the world, but I can always, always, always stay in a place of alignment and so be a force for restoring energetic alignment around me as well.