Chromatically Correct

We are like chameleons. We naturally reflect the changing colors around us, to the point that they manifest in our skin. Sometimes they persuade us to pleasing tints. Other times they prompt us to clash with our own sensibilities. We flash flirtatious come-ons and blare ominous warning signals. Our hues elicit reactions from others, initiating waves of shifting shades that cascade throughout humanity.

And, like a chameleon, we also have the capacity to stain our skin, as we choose - if we choose. Unfortunately, many have forgotten, or never even learned, that this is an option. It takes practice and real-time attentiveness to man the reigns and control our tones. We can un-muddy the mix and transform our chaos into harmony, making moving works of art out of ourselves. And, as our skill improves, we can come together as an intentionally orchestrated symphony of shimmering colorations.

In my fantasies, our collective collage is color coordinated with the earthen tones of the natural world.

All great changes begin with a dream. Care to join me in mine?

Assignment d'jour:

In the morning, think of three things in your life
that you're grateful for.

At bed time, be grateful for three things, still lingering with you, from that day.

(Note:
Most of these assignments are appropriate as daily activities, and are given to inspire such commitments, as only that will instigate the intended changes.)

Question(s) d'jour:

Where did the time go?

All in Good Time

The maple, oak, sycamore and beech are neck-n-neck in their sprint to the sun.
Boulders blur in their free-fall to the molten core
from which they came.
Mountains swell to greet the clouds, even as others are buffed down to their bases.
The globe dons and sheds species and ice sheets,
the way a teenage girl gets ready for a big date.
Planets are packed together from errant fragments falling through the void, like a teenage boy
forming perfect snowballs.
Stars that speckle the skies, disappear one by one,
as they're blown out like birthday candles or
blown up like fireworks.
Galaxies flair up, do-si-do, merge and fade, the way the tops of the maple, oak, sycamore and beech do,
each lap around the sun.

Assignment d'jour:

Go outside and commune with the wind.

Age

I don't keep current on my age. It always seems to keep changing; and at some point, it just got to be too much of a nuisance to pay attention to.

It really doesn't seem to matter.

As long as I can still figure it out, I figure I'm OK.

Question(s) d'jour:

Is our disconnection from the divine due to nature or nurture?

The Not-self

There has been much written over the millennia about the not-self, but for those unfamiliar with the term, here's a nut shell definition:

There's an awareness that isn't what we think of as our self. We can experience it. We feel connected to it. In fact, it's very familiar and homey, once we open up to it. But whatever it is, it can't be captured or defined.

As the thinker only deals in tangibles, many have attempted to interpret, identify and define it. But even someone with the best of intentions, can't explain physics to a fish.

To my mind, “not-self” implies it, without trying to say what it is, or what our relationship with it is.

Assignment d'jour:

Imagine, for a moment, that your life has no momentum. That you have no relationships, obligations, plans or goals.

Consider where you'd steer you life and how you'd like to influence what, if you were working from a clean slate.

Illogically Speaking ...

Logic is indispensable, but it can also be an impediment to our understanding.

Sometimes 1+1=1.
Yin + yang = yin/yang. Light + dark = contrast. Healthy + harmful = nutrition. Up + down = elevation. Good + evil = morality.

It doesn't always have to be this or that. It can also be this and that.
Good & bad. Strong & supple. Aggressive & tender. Energetic & calm. Self & not-self.

There are occasions when you really can't get there from here.
Expressions like, “flash of insight”, “stroke of genius” and “leap of understanding” exist for a reason. We frequently need to forgo the linear path, discard our preconceptions and open ourselves up to receiving gifts from beyond our reasoning.

Sound logical?

Relation Realization

People see the world through the filter of their own languaging. This was the point of the recent assignment to try referring to yourself in third person. As long as your words imply that you're the thinker, it's very hard to escape that delusion.

Similarly, worshiping necessarily implies an inaccurate dichotomy. In a relationship of worship, one agrees to a separation between the self and the not self. It requires a deity, or a collection there of, and a subservient individual/ego. So if I were to practice worship, I'd have to assume the role of ego, which I'm clearly not.

We can experience divine presence, but we can't comprehend it. This is a very frustrating scenario for the ego, which needs to have everything tied up in nice little packages in order to deal with them.

But some things are unknowable. If we can just get out of the “I am ego” trap, then we can learn to live harmoniously with the ambiguity and mystery that infuses all of life. We don't need to understand it in order to live and work with it. Few of us know how our cars or cell phones or computers work, yet we use them comfortably every day.

The objective is to incorporate the compassion and wisdom, that comes from experiencing something greater than the ego, into the ego's motivations and actions. And to maintain an ongoing connection with that “other worldly” understanding and insight, as a means of living.

When chained to the belief that we are our ego, we can only deal with things on its terms, which is fairly limiting. The smokers ego wishes that it could stop smoking. His unknowable essence knows that it wishes the body to be healthy and the ego persona to be a non-smoker. One leaves the little mind struggling against its self-fabricated demons. The other simply puts them down, because that's the obvious, appropriate and desirable thing to do.

Worship is commonly done to curry the favor of an imaginary super being, for the benefit of the imaginary self, in an imaginary afterlife. It allows people to remain firmly ensconced in a self centered materialistic existence while thinking that they're doing something spiritual. As long as we try to know the formless/timeless in the ego's language, we're destined to fail.

Yes, we want the ego to be subservient to the greater awareness. But this only truly happens when we shed our presumption that we are ego, and embrace the truth of our own extraordinary nature.

So I will love God, respect Allah, seek council from Brahma and surrender to the great mystery. But I will not worship, because that would be a lie. I am not ego, and the bounty of expansive awareness will never fit inside of words and concepts. So I will do my best to be as selfless and helpful as I can be, and my relationship with whatever consciousness is beyond my minds comprehension, will be friendly, joyful and intimate.

(En sha Allah ;)

Question(s) d'jour:

Where do your moral sensibilities come from?
(Not the rules you've been given,
but your own instinctive sense of right/wrong.)

Assignment d'jour:

Pay a compliment or say something buoying to as many people as you can today.

Question(s) d'jour:

When did you become the person that you are,
right now?

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Take a little time to think about who you are.

Now, take a minute to be with what's happening,
in the moment.

You can think about who you are. But when you look to find the you that you think you are - in the present - you discover that there's nothing of it to be found.

“Who am I?”, is a trick question. There is no definitive answer.

All there is of you, right now, is experiencing.

Assignment d'jour:

Spend the day (or some portion of it) thinking of yourself in third person.
(e.g. Thatcher's got a lot to do to day. He'd better get his ass off the computer and get on with it.)

Stewards of the Planet

We ignore our future generations like we ignore our own waist lines, as we devour doubled desserts.

The residents of Easter Island stripped their land bare, to the point that it became unsustainable. It had to be apparent in its coming, yet their momentum won out. They essentially went extinct. Any who survived had to flee and assimilate into new cultures, to do so.

We continue to strip our floating island of as much of its resources as we can, regardless of the damage done in the process. We spew toxins into the air and dump them into the water. We decimate species and entire ecosystems. We perpetuate unsustainable practices and life styles, in denial of the harm we are causing. We even do disservice to our own welfare - all because we have momentum, long ago ill-conceived and left to run amok.

I wonder, when our island is barren, where will we flee to?

Question(s) d'jour:

How may I (you) be of service?

Assignment d'jour:

Education is critical to setting priorities and making intelligent choices. Contribute to insure the continuance of the only non-biased source of news and information we have - public broadcasting.

Question(s) d'jour:

If you could make one rule for all of humanity to follow, what would it be?

The Story of Stuff

Thanks to Marni for providing this link. Hopefully, we all know most of the main points already, but it gives some new stats and a very clear overall picture of the irrationality and unsustainability of the way our society/economy/government is geared. And by all means, please share it freely with the youth.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Assignment d'jour:

Throw or give away at least one thing that you never use, yet have been holding on to for far too long.

Load Gravel

Most of us tend to accumulate so much crap that we don't have a clear inventory of what we do have. This is true in our outward collections of things and of our inner holdings of belief and self concept.

The clutter collection:

“It's useful” - It just hasn't been used (or thought of) for years.
“It's worth a lot” - Even though it wears more dust than the Gobi desert.
“It has sentimental value” - If only I could find it to remind me of the occasion.
“I can fix it or make something cool out of it” - Because no one has enough projects.
“It was a gift from ...” - And they're sure to appreciate seeing it in that box in your basement.
“You never know when you'll need another one” - So why not procure three of everything you own?

As for the inside stuff:

“It keeps me grounded” - Even if it's fictitious or ill conceived.
“It defines who I am” - Although we know we're only defined by how we're being, right now.
“Without it I wouldn't know what to do” - Because habitually is the only way to travel.
“It keeps me part of my community” - So they can tell you who/how you're supposed to be.
“Everyone does it” - Which reminds me, it's time to pay my dues to the Brittany Spears fan club.
“It's how I learned to be, how I've always been” - And I still love those little jars of pureed peas and squished squashes, too.

Let it go. Be free of clutter, inane responsibilities, personal expectations and familiar ruts. It's far more comfortable to think, listen, learn, travel, talk, work and dance when one's naked, than it is when carrying a truckload of silly superfluous souvenirs around. Lightening your load will uplift your mood, grant you clearer vision and allow you to move and groove with far greater ease and peace. I know that the moment of separation can be fraught with anxiety and angst; but once it's gone, friendly feelings, long forgotten, float to the foreground and ... ahhhh.

Question(s) d'jour:

What legacy would you wish to leave, in the end?
Why?
What legacy are you creating, now?

Assignment d'jour:

Go outside and have a heart felt talk with an old tree. Don't forget to listen. (Hugs are OK, too.)

Question(s) d'jour:

Why does it seem so important for people to hold onto their notions about who they are?
(Nationality, race and ethnicity, gender and age, likes and dislikes, friends and enemies, dreams and goals, ...)
Why is it so scary to consider letting it all evaporate?

Assignment d'jour:

If you're not, imagine that you're home alone.
Now, take a few seconds to pretend that you just heard a strange noise from elsewhere in your house.

Observe your natural reaction.

Notice what happens to your thoughts, when you strain to hear.

Shhhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting tid-bits.

There's a constant stream of knowing that flows to and through us. Some of the data comes through the body and is integrated as feelings. Some is extruded into thought forms or images. And some of it is very, very subtle, audible only as tantalizing tid-bits delivered via a faint whisper floating on the breeze.

People, too often, become enamored with the influx of thoughts and feelings, deafening themselves to the subtle signals of instinct, intuition, inspiration, insight and communion with the bigger mind.

Practice straining to hear the silent signals sent from the invisible and unknowable aether, beyond the habituated and reactionary mind. Otherwise, it's like denying yourself one of your senses – and then some.

Question(s) d'jour:

Why do you want what you want?

Assignment d'jour:

Pt. II: As a practice, try to feel and act as though EVERY living being you see (non-human) is your favorite pet or animal. (Yes, even spiders and mosquitoes and mice and any other trouble makers you normally find distasteful.)

Admit it. You're lost.

It's easy to see that children lack certain overviews and understandings, and so they make many mistakes. But since they don't know any better, we can easily forgive them. At some arbitrary point, they become “old enough to know better”. Then it becomes harder to let their short comings slide.

We, of course, see the world much more accurately than anyone else, and so we should always know better. Harder still to not judge faults harshly. “Why didn't I see that coming?” “What was I thinking?” “How could I have been so stupid?” These, and other sentiments like them, have become mottoes for many.

To most, it's apparent that this is a very counter productive habit to develop and/or sustain. First, it serves to sully our mood and lower our self esteem. Additionally, if we cast our focus on berating ourselves, we distract ourselves from learning the lessons that life is offering us, in that moment. (As a result of our display of imperfection.)

If we observe from outside of ourselves, we can see that we really aren't all that much better equipped to deal with the uncertainties of living, than our children are. So we should expect mistakes out of ourselves, the same as we do with them. (Although, we'd hope, much less frequently.) Additionally, we should be just as patient and understanding with ourselves, as we under go our own processes of learning to live life.

We're all fumbling in the dark. Nobody can foresee the future. There is no instruction manual. All we have is our best guess. So, cut yourself some slack.

Admitting that you're as a child doesn't have to be heard with a negative inflection. When watching a child, we see them as full of potential with worlds to conquer and miracles to discover. We are beings of vast potential and infinite possibilities. Making mistakes is just a natural part of our process of evolution.

Learn and live, and yourself, forgive.

Question(s) d'jour:

What is the most reprehensible thing you've ever done?
Have you forgiven yourself?

Assignment d'jour:

As a practice, try to feel and act as though every single person you see and/or interact with is your most beloved child.

Belief

I believe that belief is self delusion. Not belief in the laws of gravity or that the sun will rise. But belief in exactly what exists beyond this shared physical existence. And consequently, by extension, how that relates to us and visa-versa. (Although, the nature of physical existence is still very much open for debate among scientists and philosophers, alike.)

Many comfortable and/or convenient notions sat in the throne of belief, until being dispelled by science, revelation or cultural imposition. Personally, you may have believed in the tooth fairy or that you could never love anyone besides your first love or that you'd always be friends with someone whose now long estranged. A belief is just an idea, even if it's communally agreed upon. And as reassuring as it may feel to hold on to an idea; ultimately, ideas are transient and insubstantial.

Having some sort of belief structure to guide actions and priorities, and around which to form one's life, can be useful. So, this isn't to say that one needs to discard or alter any and/or all beliefs; but rather, that there should be a perpetual “scientific” openness, even seeking, to discover a larger perspective and more accurate truth, and to become wiser and gain ever clearer vision. If belief closes one's mind to the nature of what is or to the possibility of what could be, it becomes a load stone that hampers personal evolution.

The notion of belief is often presumed as being mandatorily inflexible, I believe it should be held as malleable.

We are in and of a process that is beyond anyone's comprehension. Words can't help but to fall short in their attempts to describe glimpses of what's beyond. We, therefore, need to accept that anyone's best attempt to explain the grand scheme is intrinsically language challenged, a partial truth, and at best, a rough facsimile of what it's trying to express.

If this is all sounding negative to you, it's really not. The mystery is what keeps the quest for greater understanding active and alive within us. It coaxes us into seeking something beyond our grasp. It drives art and science and philosophy. Embracing the unknowableness of it all, is our conduit to, at least a sense of, a timeless and enduring presence beyond our beliefs and roles and habits and experiences. So, it's good and healthy and truthful for us to embrace our unavoidable ignorance.

Believe what you will. It matters not. In the long run, the truth, whatever it may be, will always win.

Question(s) d'jour:

From whence did God cometh?

The Spark

Some may imagine that our most primal emotional impulse is our fear of death.

I would speculate that it's our pre-primal yearning to be alive.

Assignment d'jour:

Set an alarm on your watch, computer, smart phone, whatever to alert you every hour, ½ hr, 15-20 mins, whatever. Then, when it sings, take a brief moment to stop what you're doing, take a full breath, close your eyes and let it out - pause to feel the open space within.

Reconnecting with your quiet self on regular intervals should have a profound affect on how you feel and function throughout your days.

Eh? What's that? Speak up!

In the land of mind-readers … Oh, but wait, I live here.

As long as I can remember, I've heard people say things like, “Couldn't you tell?”, “How could you not know?”, “I would have said something, but I thought it was obvious”, et. al. It may have been a girl I really liked who also liked me, but I had no idea. Perhaps I was supposed to not say something, according to someone else's reasoning, and I missed the memo. Did that wink mean “You know what I mean” or “You know, of course, that's not really what I mean”?

It's so clear to us how we think and feel, and we may try to show it with a look or a touch or a gesture. The problem is, the other generally doesn't pick up on it or doesn't know quite how to interpret it. We may think of ourselves as very open people with all of our cards out on the table for everyone to see. But this isn't the case unless you vocalize.

Actions, of course, speak their own language, and I would encourage you to use that, as well. But, to most, I suggest that you use your words a little more freely when there's something that you truly want another to know.

Question(s) d'jour:

I understand that we all feel a calling to know our deepest nature. It's just that it's not the right time to get too heavily into all that, right now.

When will it be? What are you waiting for?

Assignment d'jour:

Take a bag or three into your local patch of nature
and fill it/them with trash.
If possible, take some friends and their bags, too.

Perpetual Balancing Act

“Teacher, you are contradicting yourself.”

“No. Instructions have to vary as students needs change. Imagine that you're walking down the road in the dark and can't see where you're going. And that I, wearing night vision goggles am directing you. If I see you drifting off toward the ditch on your right, I'll tell you to go left. If you're too far to the left ...”

I speak repeatedly of awakening to one's quiet presence. This isn't to imply that the conceptual/emotional mind is to be abandoned or disenfranchised. It's an important and integral part of who we are. It's just that most are stuck in that ditch, so I repeatedly coach to the other side. The goal being to walk the middle way, to find and sustain balance, to stand with one foot in each world.

Question(s) d'jour:

What did you lose when you “grew up”?
Where did it go?
Is there any of it you wish you still had?
Can you reclaim it?

Assignment d'jour:

Stand in front of a mirror. Don't look at your skin, hair, attire or features. Gaze as if you're meeting a stranger that you want to know, and peer behind those eyes and into the soul. Give it a little time, then reflect on what you witnessed.