Our lives present us with many challenges. They can be arduous, painful, confounding, unjust and spirit testing. All help to make us wiser, stronger and more adaptable, in their aftermath. But there's one that we just can't shake – choosing.
Free will, which far too many neglect to utilize, is both a blessing and a curse. Frequently, our choosing comes from the default selection center, “Just like before please” or “I'll have what they're having”. We can't help but to rely on habits, to some extent. If we had to stop and consider every single thing we do, we'd get very little done. But when relying on habits, becomes a habit itself, we become little more than automatons.
We can make educated guesses, but we can't prognosticate. None of us one can. So, time and again, we're left with the option of following the rut or leaping into the abyss. If we stay to the well worn pathways, we can delude ourselves into thinking that our errors are the fault of those who came before. If we take a leap and land with a crash, we may feel foolish or be called even worse. So our grade school worries steer us to follow the pack, to believe the commercials, to trust twisted logic and to hand the rudder over to the tides.
It takes a wise man to play the fool. Life's not a contest, or any kind of test. It's an adventure into the unknown, a grand experiment in what if, a chance to leave the first footprints and an opportunity to laugh and learn from falling on our faces.
Me? I choose choice, whenever possible. Eyes wide open, the unknown eager to be embraced, traditions be damned, knowledge and understanding dangle like luscious fruits from life's over burdened tree, feet freed from firmament, my Tiffany ego plummets toward rocks or clouds, curious to see what happens next.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Do Be Do Be Do
Admittedly, not the most inspired or creatively phrased lines of scat, but perhaps old blue eyes was trying to convey a little wisdom, subliminally.
While conscious, we have two options – doing and being. “Doing” includes acting, communicating, and thinking. “Being” is remaining attentive and engaged, without doing.
Of the two, being is typically the most challenging for us; or at least, the less familiar. But it's while we're being that we're the most sensitive and receptive. There are cues and clues presenting themselves to us, all the time, which we aren't able to pick up on while we're engaged in doing.
But these smoke signals are pointless, if we only be. They're here to guide us in our doing. The vast majority are mired in their doing, but to become entrenched in either side of the equation is debilitating.
The trick is to consciously balance in the middle, and freely float back and forth between the two. Inspiration and acting. Connection and communicating. Insight and thinking. 'Tis best to let the partners dance together.
And here's their song now – Do be do be do, do do be do be, do be do be do, ...
While conscious, we have two options – doing and being. “Doing” includes acting, communicating, and thinking. “Being” is remaining attentive and engaged, without doing.
Of the two, being is typically the most challenging for us; or at least, the less familiar. But it's while we're being that we're the most sensitive and receptive. There are cues and clues presenting themselves to us, all the time, which we aren't able to pick up on while we're engaged in doing.
But these smoke signals are pointless, if we only be. They're here to guide us in our doing. The vast majority are mired in their doing, but to become entrenched in either side of the equation is debilitating.
The trick is to consciously balance in the middle, and freely float back and forth between the two. Inspiration and acting. Connection and communicating. Insight and thinking. 'Tis best to let the partners dance together.
And here's their song now – Do be do be do, do do be do be, do be do be do, ...
Friday, June 10, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
What it is?
It's a rare person who maintains an honestly scientific eye for the truth – even in scientific circles. Most seek to prove that existing theories or beliefs are correct. They feel obliged to defend the notions that they've learned, hatched or had handed down to them. They tend to see only those things that fit into their preconceptions; or, to forcibly interpret things that conflict with their notions until they mesh, acceptably. Although this may be more comfortable, it's not exactly realistic, practical or wise.
I was talking with a substantially overweight lady the other day who was explaining to me that she didn't consider herself fat; rather, called herself “healthy”. No doubt, it made her feel better. No doubt, it's about as contrary to the truth as possible. Being overly over weight stresses backs, hips, knees and ankles. It greatly increases the risks of diabetes, heart disease, breast cancer and organ failure. And it limits potential by making everything from breathing to climbing stairs more strenuous and taxing.
She's hardly alone in her delusion. I was a teen the first time I heard that particular substitution of terminology. Some might say that she's better off living with the illusion, so that she feels better about her self. I think that condoning any embrace of lying to oneself sets a horrible precedent. Once it's presumed an acceptable practice, the pattern will begin to pop up any and every where. It may be cute when tykes think that closing their eyes shrouds them in a shield of invisibility, but we hardly want our children to grow up planning their lives around such notions.
We learn and evolve much better, and direct our actions far more intelligently, when we see things as they are; and then, adjust our views and beliefs to accommodate any new evidence. It may sound like a no brainer, and I suspect that a large percentage of folks assume that they do just that, but reality would disagree with most.
Religious fundamentalists and scientists can be two peas in a pod here. Feel good fantasies become die hard beliefs that no amount of evidence can dislodge. And, if it's not proven by committee, repeatable and measurable, it's obviously not real. Both close ones eyes to possibilities and close ones mind to new ways of conceiving. Previous generations, whose understandings would be laughable today, were confident in their unquestionable grasp on things. The same will surely be said of us in the future. Truth, as a concept, has to expand and evolve to accommodate our ever clearer understandings, as we crawl toward seeing an ultimate truth.
Where ever the tendency comes from, how ever it manifests, and when ever it became engrained, it can be undone. But reprogramming takes a long time, a lot of work and powerful dedication. The desire to see and know the untainted truth, as it reveals itself, has to be systematically absorbed and integrated ever deeper and more holistically. You have to want to be bathed in, and filled with, welcoming silence more than you want to entertain whatever floats through your field of awareness. You must wish to know the truth more than you wish to feel that what you think, know or believe is accurate. The roots of these yearnings need to reach as deeply as your most primal motivations.
If you haven't been there, you can't conceive it. If you've only heard tales of it, your conception is a far poorer representation than the others abbreviated phrasings of their fractured memories of their partial viewing of it. You need to go there to begin to know it, and there are places that you can't know how to get to. Creativity, intuition, invention, revelation, insight, compassion, ... none of these can be born from a logical progression of thoughts.
There's a whole world and an infinite universe out there, and to be self limited to the boundaries of a particular neighborhood is silly. How can one ever expect to make new discoveries when unwilling to go beyond the familiar? How can people ever expect to know themselves when they're obscured by junkyard sculpture representations of who and/or what they are? How can anyone not want to know the truth, on its own terms? And, how can anyone imagine that they actually know just what it is?
I was talking with a substantially overweight lady the other day who was explaining to me that she didn't consider herself fat; rather, called herself “healthy”. No doubt, it made her feel better. No doubt, it's about as contrary to the truth as possible. Being overly over weight stresses backs, hips, knees and ankles. It greatly increases the risks of diabetes, heart disease, breast cancer and organ failure. And it limits potential by making everything from breathing to climbing stairs more strenuous and taxing.
She's hardly alone in her delusion. I was a teen the first time I heard that particular substitution of terminology. Some might say that she's better off living with the illusion, so that she feels better about her self. I think that condoning any embrace of lying to oneself sets a horrible precedent. Once it's presumed an acceptable practice, the pattern will begin to pop up any and every where. It may be cute when tykes think that closing their eyes shrouds them in a shield of invisibility, but we hardly want our children to grow up planning their lives around such notions.
We learn and evolve much better, and direct our actions far more intelligently, when we see things as they are; and then, adjust our views and beliefs to accommodate any new evidence. It may sound like a no brainer, and I suspect that a large percentage of folks assume that they do just that, but reality would disagree with most.
Religious fundamentalists and scientists can be two peas in a pod here. Feel good fantasies become die hard beliefs that no amount of evidence can dislodge. And, if it's not proven by committee, repeatable and measurable, it's obviously not real. Both close ones eyes to possibilities and close ones mind to new ways of conceiving. Previous generations, whose understandings would be laughable today, were confident in their unquestionable grasp on things. The same will surely be said of us in the future. Truth, as a concept, has to expand and evolve to accommodate our ever clearer understandings, as we crawl toward seeing an ultimate truth.
Where ever the tendency comes from, how ever it manifests, and when ever it became engrained, it can be undone. But reprogramming takes a long time, a lot of work and powerful dedication. The desire to see and know the untainted truth, as it reveals itself, has to be systematically absorbed and integrated ever deeper and more holistically. You have to want to be bathed in, and filled with, welcoming silence more than you want to entertain whatever floats through your field of awareness. You must wish to know the truth more than you wish to feel that what you think, know or believe is accurate. The roots of these yearnings need to reach as deeply as your most primal motivations.
If you haven't been there, you can't conceive it. If you've only heard tales of it, your conception is a far poorer representation than the others abbreviated phrasings of their fractured memories of their partial viewing of it. You need to go there to begin to know it, and there are places that you can't know how to get to. Creativity, intuition, invention, revelation, insight, compassion, ... none of these can be born from a logical progression of thoughts.
There's a whole world and an infinite universe out there, and to be self limited to the boundaries of a particular neighborhood is silly. How can one ever expect to make new discoveries when unwilling to go beyond the familiar? How can people ever expect to know themselves when they're obscured by junkyard sculpture representations of who and/or what they are? How can anyone not want to know the truth, on its own terms? And, how can anyone imagine that they actually know just what it is?
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Anticipation
Being present is really much more active than it sounds. It's not like we finally arrive at a lounge where comfort abounds, servants attend our every need, weather conforms to our moods and there's never any decisions to make. It's not a place or a state that we settle into, at all.
Being attuned with the flowing moment demands as much involvement as balancing on one foot does. With practice, it feels more natural and becomes more stable, but without dedicated attention, balance wanes. Even if it was possible to become perfectly still in absolute balance, the world happens. Water falls and flows, wind stops and blows, and the earth moves beneath our feet. Internally, our past calls out to us, fears and fantasies paint imaginary scenarios that we call our future, and every bit of fluff floating down the stream of thought beckons to be held.
Stillness coexists with chaos. This truth is undeniable. So, focus can't be on finding or maintaining an illusory ideal; rather, it has to hover in anticipation, reaching out with all senses and sensibilities to detect the very next thing, the instant it arises.
We learn to trust that the body is capable of balancing itself. In fact, our efforts to achieve and/or sustain balance with our minds is counter productive. So we willfully establish our intentions and consciously observe, but the balancing, itself, happens from elsewhere.
Similarly, we can't think our way into the silence that accompanies our being present; and, thoughts simply can't keep pace with the now. To be present, we have to set our intentions, (initially) place ourselves in an accommodating environment with some dedicated time, and allow the quietude to manifest within and around us, as we simply observe while steadily maintaining clear intent to see purely.
The thinking/reasoning mind has a rather high opinion of itself. And in truth, the guy's got game. But if/when it tries to intercede in the act of balancing, listing and swaying will surely follow. Our bodies know what to do and will skillfully tend to themselves, if we just get our dreams and doubts out of the way.
As consciousness is freed from the confines of the assumed and expected, a torrent of awareness, understanding and questions can begin to flow. The thinker then feels an urgent need to label, analyze, judge, decipher, categorize and prioritize these experiences, in an attempt to integrate them into the “known”. Assimilation is much more honest, complete and detailed when not slowed down by or filtered through thought, which, by its very nature, only deals with the past or future. Our beings know what to do and will skillfully tend to themselves, if we just get our dreams and doubts out of the way.
Do you feel it? The present has its knuckles curled and is swinging them toward your door, right now.
Being attuned with the flowing moment demands as much involvement as balancing on one foot does. With practice, it feels more natural and becomes more stable, but without dedicated attention, balance wanes. Even if it was possible to become perfectly still in absolute balance, the world happens. Water falls and flows, wind stops and blows, and the earth moves beneath our feet. Internally, our past calls out to us, fears and fantasies paint imaginary scenarios that we call our future, and every bit of fluff floating down the stream of thought beckons to be held.
Stillness coexists with chaos. This truth is undeniable. So, focus can't be on finding or maintaining an illusory ideal; rather, it has to hover in anticipation, reaching out with all senses and sensibilities to detect the very next thing, the instant it arises.
We learn to trust that the body is capable of balancing itself. In fact, our efforts to achieve and/or sustain balance with our minds is counter productive. So we willfully establish our intentions and consciously observe, but the balancing, itself, happens from elsewhere.
Similarly, we can't think our way into the silence that accompanies our being present; and, thoughts simply can't keep pace with the now. To be present, we have to set our intentions, (initially) place ourselves in an accommodating environment with some dedicated time, and allow the quietude to manifest within and around us, as we simply observe while steadily maintaining clear intent to see purely.
The thinking/reasoning mind has a rather high opinion of itself. And in truth, the guy's got game. But if/when it tries to intercede in the act of balancing, listing and swaying will surely follow. Our bodies know what to do and will skillfully tend to themselves, if we just get our dreams and doubts out of the way.
As consciousness is freed from the confines of the assumed and expected, a torrent of awareness, understanding and questions can begin to flow. The thinker then feels an urgent need to label, analyze, judge, decipher, categorize and prioritize these experiences, in an attempt to integrate them into the “known”. Assimilation is much more honest, complete and detailed when not slowed down by or filtered through thought, which, by its very nature, only deals with the past or future. Our beings know what to do and will skillfully tend to themselves, if we just get our dreams and doubts out of the way.
Do you feel it? The present has its knuckles curled and is swinging them toward your door, right now.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
What's Your Wake?
A wave crossing the ocean isn't a physical thing in motion. It's an energetic pulse in conveyance through the medium of water molecules. We are more complex than waves, but are as much manifestations of a greater unfolding than our immediate being suggests.
Our bodies rely on a constant inflow of energy. It may come delivered via molecules (which are made of atoms that are largely incorporeal) but in the big picture, it's energetic transference.
Our food comes from the energy of the sun. Previous generations have contributed their skins to enrich the soil that combines with molecules from the air and the rays of the sun to complete the energy that propels this generations plants that feed us, our livestock or the soil. The oxygen we inhale combines with nutrients, fats and sugars metabolizing as the energy that creates and sustains our material forms.
Our consciousness is energy that manifests in our physical minds, which resonates through our bodies and into the world. And it continues on and on through the matrix of existence, whether we're aware of it, or not.
If you were to be impatient and judgmental toward another and share negative energy with them by speaking harshly, that would soak into your victim, who would infect others with it, and on.
If you were to be appreciative and loving toward another and share that positive energy through laughter, a smile or a soothing touch, your energy will become a cascade of upliftment and joy.
Not that physical action is required for our energy to spread beyond our conceived borders. Its effects can even be felt without shared physical presence.
The wave itself doesn't go on forever, but its influence changes the trajectory of everything that it touches. And it never stops. We're living on the surface of a pond being pelted by rain. And, we can't help but to transmute the energy as it passes through us. But, if we're conscious and strengthen our intentions, we can choose our energetic legacies.
The wakes we leave behind us sprout into living embodiments, from flowers and fruits, to poisonous briar patches.
So, what's your wake?
Our bodies rely on a constant inflow of energy. It may come delivered via molecules (which are made of atoms that are largely incorporeal) but in the big picture, it's energetic transference.
Our food comes from the energy of the sun. Previous generations have contributed their skins to enrich the soil that combines with molecules from the air and the rays of the sun to complete the energy that propels this generations plants that feed us, our livestock or the soil. The oxygen we inhale combines with nutrients, fats and sugars metabolizing as the energy that creates and sustains our material forms.
Our consciousness is energy that manifests in our physical minds, which resonates through our bodies and into the world. And it continues on and on through the matrix of existence, whether we're aware of it, or not.
If you were to be impatient and judgmental toward another and share negative energy with them by speaking harshly, that would soak into your victim, who would infect others with it, and on.
If you were to be appreciative and loving toward another and share that positive energy through laughter, a smile or a soothing touch, your energy will become a cascade of upliftment and joy.
Not that physical action is required for our energy to spread beyond our conceived borders. Its effects can even be felt without shared physical presence.
The wave itself doesn't go on forever, but its influence changes the trajectory of everything that it touches. And it never stops. We're living on the surface of a pond being pelted by rain. And, we can't help but to transmute the energy as it passes through us. But, if we're conscious and strengthen our intentions, we can choose our energetic legacies.
The wakes we leave behind us sprout into living embodiments, from flowers and fruits, to poisonous briar patches.
So, what's your wake?
Friday, May 27, 2011
The Problem with Pedestals
When people uncover anything that they think is of high importance, they want to remember it; and often, to share it with others. So memories are tweaked and tales embellished to insure that it rings of paramount relevance. Then, to insure that it's admired by all and remains up front in ones' mind, it's buffed up and propped up on a high pedestal for the whole world to see. At this point, the thing becomes a mere reminder – a representation of what was so noteworthy to begin with. Then, as others flock to the sight, they only have the totem to view; and so, build their feelings and ideas around the image, rather than the substance it represents. As the plaque says it's highly important, those pilgrims take two dimensional photos to share, or do their best to describe it verbally. This, of course, further dilutes the meaning. Then we add generations playing the phone game and it gets more distorted each time it's passed down the line. So we're left with a misrepresentation of a shadow of an echo of a remembrance of an image of something that was truly profound.
Now, people, being as they are, would much rather be told what's what, than to have to do the work of ascertaining it for themselves. So people who make grand claims and promise the undeliverable gain droves of fans; while those who guide others to make their own discoveries seem to go largely unheard.
I know that people are only able to absorb the next logical piece of the puzzle, but when the notion of what the puzzle is and how it relates to us is merely an image sitting upon a pedestal … well, it's no wonder that so many are trying to gain sustenance from a smeared sketch on a crumpled napkin.
In our quick fix society where people want reality to conform to their beliefs and lifestyles, and expect all cures to come in a bottle, it's not surprising that people expect knowledge and wisdom to be injected into their brains. But the universal laws of physics and metaphysics don't yield to desires. It doesn't matter who the teacher is or what tome is referenced, there's no substitute for first hand realization.
So the next time you unearth a gem, instead of hanging it from the sky, cover it back up and draw a treasure map to share.
Now, people, being as they are, would much rather be told what's what, than to have to do the work of ascertaining it for themselves. So people who make grand claims and promise the undeliverable gain droves of fans; while those who guide others to make their own discoveries seem to go largely unheard.
I know that people are only able to absorb the next logical piece of the puzzle, but when the notion of what the puzzle is and how it relates to us is merely an image sitting upon a pedestal … well, it's no wonder that so many are trying to gain sustenance from a smeared sketch on a crumpled napkin.
In our quick fix society where people want reality to conform to their beliefs and lifestyles, and expect all cures to come in a bottle, it's not surprising that people expect knowledge and wisdom to be injected into their brains. But the universal laws of physics and metaphysics don't yield to desires. It doesn't matter who the teacher is or what tome is referenced, there's no substitute for first hand realization.
So the next time you unearth a gem, instead of hanging it from the sky, cover it back up and draw a treasure map to share.
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