a new year

A new year....

Winter is here.

 Nature gets ready to nestle into her cold bed as the blanket of snow packs down hard. All creatures know it is time to rest and hibernate. It is the last phase of an endless cycle of the 4 seasons. The surface is cold and unforgiving as is the moods of depression, beaten holiday spirits with stress and anxiety, and the heavy burdens of unresolved emotions pressured to be claimed before the year end. I furiously write out resolutions that will never see the light of day , the knowing of which secretly looms in the unseen of my  unconscious mind  with fear and destain. 

Beneath this tundra of fragile and frigid stillness is an aliveness. A beating pulse of genuine desire. An emotion birthing within the confines of a new born heart ready to take on the expansiveness of the universe. A hot glow of creativity, passion and zeal. 

Unconditional love.

Its  roar of freedom is thunderous and deafening yet muffled beneath the icy cold surface of despair. I summon the strength of the ages and with a cry of anguish coupled with joy, I surrender. 

I let go.

It is with this liberating act I find the Herculean stamina to  exit my inertia of what has felt like an eternal ice age and rise towards the gloom. I break free from the chains of the burrows of my mind. I emerge from the darkest depths of the ego branded with fear. I feel my warm hand pierce the white surface of pure cold snow. I poke my head out to breathe the crystalline air of freedom. I crawl  out of the prior year into a new year. Yet this is not about the new year it is about the new versions of You and Me. 

It is from the depths of our sadness, hopelessness, abandonment of ourselves that we are are resurrected with conviction of love for our Self and the divinity of others. It is the courage of this very conviction that will anchor us feet first into a new world, a new earth unfolding beneath our feet. With our awakened eyes we see the universe with compassion, understanding and the expansiveness of our own hearts in others. We connect in this new year to the blue lit sky, the far off  pinpoint  stars, the endless worlds of infinite universes and the boundless beings around our very person. Top to bottom and back again the pillar of our own light finds the solace that you and I so desperately seek in the name of Love. 

A new year arrives. Pomp and celebration to some. Fear and despair unto others. The calendrical feat does not cast judgement or prejudice. It is steam roller of time, " out with the old, in with the new" it proclaims with jolly laughter. The past is the past. And that is where our old stories should remain. Surrender is the release. It is the transmutation of our unchanging immortal  spirits as we dive into a changed temporary physical form from one year to the next. 

Love is the fire that burns bright and so immeasurably as it metabolizes the plagues of my past into a transformed future. I sit on top of the fallen snow amongst friends, family and mySelf in front of my sunny raging fire, sharing songs of the delightful future, and behind me lies the shattered hole from whence I rose, deep deep below the blackness of my former hate. 

Will you join me?

Hailing  you a Happy New You and New Year. 

Wishing you a healthy, prosperous and magical everything, with love. 

A black hole...

A black Hole

The black hole has been a mystery for eons for as long as we have looked up at the dark night sky and wondered beyond the stars. We are more accustomed to recognize it as a gapping powerful center of our galaxy from which nothing escapes. A swirling mass of darkness illuminated only by the borders of destroyed light and the edges of fragmented time. Our imagination is abound with illusions of fear and dread as the end all of what we call life. I see it differently. 

Transplant that image of the black hole into the deepest recesses of your heart. It is not a hole to be feared yet one that is to be used and revered daily. Churning and churning of all the wounds of our day. Tirelessly it absorbs  all of our unresolved hurts,  magnified disappointments and untold frustrations.    Destroying, dissolving, and disillusioning. The obscure laws of physics still apply as "what is created must be destroyed".. however additionally  only to be recreated once again. 

Yet this time with choice. The infinite possibilities will emerge from this black hole. The universally expanded and vast version of You in all its magnificence is waiting to take center stage on a grand scale. 

Do you choose to believe?

Do you choose to see yourSelf in the  best possible light with Love?

How you choose to re create yourSelf is entirely up to you. That is the beauty of the black hole of your heart. It aides in ripping  away all that is negatively manifest and leaves behind the spectacularly expansive form of You, your Love, Your Soul. Cosmically free to experience, enjoy and entertain all the amazing oneness of You is now transmuted. 

Your choice. 

No one or No thing can annihilate You.

 I see the brightness of your black hole everyday in You.

The stranger within

The stranger within

I am so quick to judge another and erupt when another speaks that at times I fail to identify the "I am" presence within. The lack of respect as it were for another begins with the lack of respect for oneself. 

Imagine if a little stranger comes to your front door. Outside it is raining and cold. Shivering and  afraid he or she asks of you in a gentle and quiet voice " Will you let me in?"  You or I would without reservation leap at the opportunity to help and welcome them in with open arms and embrace them with a  warm cosy blanket, a hot beverage and a scrumptiously satisfying meal and place of comfortable seating. Now imagine for an instant that the stranger is your love.  Not a person, but the very essence of love that is you, embodied in human form and adorned with the personna of "you."

We  live in a chaotic world of impulses. Bombarded every second by electronic darts or diverse stimuli that we leave precious time for ourselves or to love our selves. Too busy searching for love, or superficially giving love away or better yet, expecting love from everyone, when the one love we seek remains at our front door, knocking, knocking and knocking awaiting an answer. We are too afraid to open up ourselves to the point of no return that we choose not to open up. We never truly embrace that love of us. We never offer that seat of love in the comfortable place within our heart. That hot meal or beverage is never consumed as we never choose to meet the oneness of ourselves with the oneness of the universal love. Too many conditions are placed upon Love. Too many ego and mind driven ideas of the shape and form in which Love is to present itself before us are created and yet we miss the very nature and shape of it when Love does reveal itself to us in all its glory. 

We are afraid, so Love shows up in the same way, scared. We are cold to others, so Love shows up in the same way, shivering. We are starved for Love, and so it shows up in the same way, hungry. Yet offered and accepted as it is with out condition, judgement or preconceived,  Love is metabolized to a higher frequency in its true form. You. 

The Love you seek in another is the love you seek of yourself in another. Finding that love of yourself is the first step to a more peaceful future. Looking  into your own reflection in the mirror through your weary, world trodden eyes, you may find something cosmically remarkable. Peeping back, a discovery like none other awaits. For in the curiosity of your heart, a long lost stranger of the " I am " presence now becomes a friend. Lost and found, this Love that is You is waiting to be discovered in others. And so the dance begins as we reflect our own Love in another and observe ourselves in another.

I will never be quick to judge when that stranger shadows my doorway, as it may just be the Love of You that is the Love of Me that I greet with open arms.

In the air

In the air

I love living in New england. Every season has something inspiring to offer. Every season sheds something into the air. 

In Spring it is the life giving pollen in infinite shapes and sizes and types. Throughout the lands the air is filled with pollen from all plants, bushes, trees, grasses, big or small as they spread themselves out to copy themselves. 

In summer the rains fill the  skies to the earth with the nourishing water of our cells. Puddles form to hop in are abundant, and dry up quickly  in the morning days sun. 

In Fall time brings the tremendous awe inspiring diversity of multicolored autumn leaves that cover every dimension of surface to reveal a magnificent painting that moves and transforms the land with magic. The air is abound with falling, flying, floating wonders of color

In winter time, every inch of the land is covered with soft white snow. Mattressed, layered and blanketing snow fills the ground and the air is saturated with snow fall. 

Yet what about all the other times ?  what fills the air? Love. It is the nature from within the heart space that is unfiltered and is ever present and around us. When it is manifest as "thought"  it is the same love filtered through the wandering untamed mind. Inhaled, exhaled, and flowing it is within us. We manifest our "love" as we start to move towards embodying this energy into thoughts, words, actions and so the reality of love is created. 

It is a choice to create. It is a choice to breathe it in, and then a choice to breathe it out. Magic is in the air. It always has been . It is the same magic of the pollen flying , the rains falling , the autumn leaves floating, the snow drifting in the air. It is the same magic that is manifest into energy and action by sheer force of will by the universe,  as it co created them all from a place of love. This is the same universe that created You. And yes right again, from a space of love and a pin point of intention of creating something so unbelievably amazing and unique that it could have only been made as perfection. From perfection, manifest into perfection, for a perfect purpose. You. 

You are in the air. You always have been. Grounded into the physical for thought, word, action. A lovely purpose.  You have been created from love, into love, for love. Ever present. Connected. 

You are love.  

HAPPY thanksgiving

Thanks Giving Day
A memorable day of thanks given for a historic day of kindness and extraordinary unity as a people of one nation welcomed the troubled citizens of another, with an act of peace. Helping a fellow being in unconditional service is as close to touching the divinity within, worth celebrating with pomp and solace as we share a meal on a holiday with family and friends. Homage paid to a single act centuries ago etched in unbroken memory on the pages of past records. 

Yet I simply stop and wonder about the gratitude I must also unconditionally offer to the love of my heart as it stares me in the mirror day after day with passionate kindness and never asking for anything  more, except the innate though forgotten rite to be accepted. My mind and body  having taken a life of their own in a world of fast paced oscillation of order and chaos, have ignored what  they have always been searching for to complete their trifecta. 

The heart space. 

The love of the heart that bares no ill will when enabled to shine its brightest when the chains of ignorance, fears and hatred have been broken. When allowed to be heard, the shroud of misery is tossed aside, and the roar is deafening. The love that connects each of us through our words, actions and deeds such as that historic moment, is lived every day of every second in the feeling behind the thought to assist. Yet one cannot provide assistance to anyone  if the acknowledgment of the Self has not been first made. 

A single feeling, a single thought, a single action ignites the reaction of   a thousand suns all sparked from a space of love. A big bang reaction if you will that originates from a singular point in time and space. 

You. 

It is You that makes that difference.

A gratitude spell that sparks the love of You waiting with bated breath holds the key to untold miracles and magic of epic proportion and soulful ascension. A giving of thanks is not just of an ancient event in history, but more humble gratitude   of the  heart space of the people who sparked such a com-memorable   event. It is that same heart space that has transcended all of human history. It is the same heart space that began human history. It is the same heart space that the future will call "You, Me, Us."

Take a look in the mirror today and take a long or brief moment for the love that is You......it has waited your whole life for this event. Afterwards, the mystery unfolds.

Happy Thanks Giving. 

In the stillness

ln the stillness

When I am invited into a story of a friend's difficulties or troubles, I immediately gravitate into the seemingly unavoidable feeling that there is something that is broken and I must be the one to fix them. All too instinctively I  find "what is wrong "according to my own mountaintop vantage point and then render an opinion. I perhaps will offer the advice that they are fine and everything else is the problem. Or perhaps the situation requires the stern suggestion that all the while the problem arises from them and that they are at "fault" with their own troubles and their environment and situations are all just fine.

Familiar?

As the story unfolds I may even be  quicker to judge their hopelessness as a hole that cannot be fixed despite every effort of my own. It is here when the feelings are molded and arise from within me and not within the story teller. Classic faux pas has been committed as I trigger an old emotion with in myself that is similar to the sparked emotion of my friend. I cannot handle my own delivery from bondage and fears of this risen snake head and so I do not own it, I make it about someone else. Blame, shame, name is the game we play. All too often I am afraid. So quickly so, that 1000s of such triggers lay deep under the surface awaiting to see the light of day and be released, yet they become my dark and cloudy night. 

 In a snug warm cosy bed I hide beneath the blanket of all my triggered fears peering out from the edges awaiting a resolve by someone else. The story now is mine and I will tell it to another. Perhaps they will do the same and identify mirrored states and hide. We as a society then remain wrapped within the safety of a calm voice, "it is not your fault..."

It is in the stillness of my friend's conversational troubles that I may find the solution to both our problems. It is the same problem. I would entertain that there is no problem, as it is a state of unease as we both pause and experience the stillness together. The unfolding of happiness is layered love. Each pressured layer compressed by heavy catalysts of our timelines and transformed into fossils that we never knew existed deep and deeper still within our unconsciousness. Yet it is our conscious Spirit that is awaiting with it's mighty oil rigged drill of persistent patience to tap into the darkest of the dark and release it into the brilliance of the sun where nothing can survive. 

Transforming fear into love takes time. Just as our once  effulgent love was buried with fears. Eons, centuries, years, seconds are collapsed in the stillness. 

Hold.. hold.... hold.... listen ..be still....and we both are free...

The Election. It is over

The Election, it is over. 

With bated breath we have been waiting for a President. The last 16 months of churning of the news with raw feelings as the drama of the candidates unfolded into hypocrisy, mud slinging, lies and deceits and skeletons leaping out of closets on to the dance floor. Nothing was sacred. Financial  markets plunged and resurrected themselves. Friends and enemies created as people created camps of "one side or the other" without middle ground. This was not a test of the quality of the candidates, this was a test of our selves. Some passed the test with patience, understanding and lack of de-evolving into sub human behaviors. Others did  not pass the test. Many broke family and friend relationships over these elections. New shadows hidden were awakened as once people who thought themselves as peace loving, simply frayed. Becoming racist, feminist, anti religious, hateful, angry to name but a few, are not traits that come about overnight. They are nurtured sensations from seeds long ago. 

The shadow aspect of many were known. We waited for a President. A leader to navigate the tumultuous seas of economies, world affairs, domestic hostilities and an infinite number of issues that will arise. A leader that is always in the making, and never just standing there ready. A President takes time to make and honor and followed. Some will say " my candidate this or my candidate that...."  Indulge me the opportunity to remind you that "your candidate" does not have the foggiest idea that you even exist nor what your personal problems are  all about and especially  how those problems effect you.  A political candidate only knows themselves as is for themselves. Altruism in politics is still awaited. Been waiting since the first government. It is being human with power. Not necessarily a "powerful human" as that is where the ego changes the whole story. 

This saga that has  unfolded is about none other than You. What lies ahead is about you, me and us. What lies ahead is about choices. Not forced choices, but choices we have to make for ourselves to forge our own evolution and future. 

Whether this President can make the change that is needed is uncertain. As was the case of their opposite running counterpart. Hindsight is always 20/20. So the dust settles, and our social media rants and memes die down to once again return to the normalcy of our days, and our social media selfies, exchanging recipes, ideas and all the precious things that we hold dear to glue our hours of work, family and personal times together.

 I have heard that we will see what history has to say about our future with this President. I wholeheartedly disagree. History is not about one man or woman. History is the record of what we have all done together as a species, as a civilization, as a planet, as One. No singular individual has the ability to change the future for any one individual. We all have the ability to do the same for our selves and in doing so change the future of our world. No matter who you take in history that has done great or terrible things to their fellow man, whether bringing joy or war, life or death to others, it is only because they changed themselves in such a way that they could have the necessary intention and therefore the impact to change the world. Which means you have the same abilities.

It is about the pure intention from the space of your choice within you that will co create the reality that you and I seek. Change is coming. Believe it or not is entirely immaterial. Total change is coming. Presidents come and go. Your candidate will come and go, yet you are still there in the trenches of life. Don't wait to make a difference. The difference we all need is You. And it is now. Your problems, my mundaneness, our  past, your fears, our collective consciousness is on the brink of something so spectacular the likes of which can only be experienced. Gateways are open, and ready for you to run through without fear. Dropping our "mental garbage" is the first step. Seeing no boundaries within yourself is the next. Embracing your destiny in front of you is the next step. And that folks is how WE create history. 

The next 4 years is  not going to be an "OMG" doomsday scenario. It is a waking up period. The alarm clock is ringing.... Can you hear it?

Living with opposites

Living with opposites

The world is made up of opposites.

 Front and back. 

Left and right. 

Up and down. 

Good and Bad. 

Here and there. 

Happy and Sad. 

The list goes on. The duality of it all gives us an orientation but not only in a time and space dimension, yet also in our spiritual, emotional, mental and relationship dimensions.  In each aspect of our Selves there is a duality that is present. We can take one option or the other option but not both. It is in the "in between" that we really dare to live. The space where we choose to breathe and then manifest the choice. It is not the Here or the There, but the in between where we exist. It is not in the mind or the body, yet in the heart space where we feel the essence of creation before it is created. 

We are shifting. Of this there is no doubt. You have felt it. I have felt it. We have felt it. We as a collective of mass consciousness is feeling it. We may not know what to call it, yet we feel what it is. A shift. For the better. We are bombarded with a host of emotions too numerous to feel. Clouded by the fog of judgment we are led by the voices of others in what appears to be a chaotic world. Filled with empty promises we navigate the night blindly with fear. However the fog is the in between. This is where we open up our hearts and senses and make sense of the choices and evolve. We can choose to inhale the fog and breathe out a reality that is manifest with our heart felt thought constructs.

 No one said rebuilding a world is easy . Rebuilding our vocabulary is just as necessary. 

Frustration into tolerance

 Anger into understanding 

 Fear into  Love

Chaos into calm

Ridicule into patience

Things are shifting fast. We are moving from the old paradigms into new programming. We have to take our deep seeded emotions of fear from within and bring them  into the shallow waters to release them. The past gives way into the future but only through the present. There is no other way. We are the in between. Procrastination is transformed into the moment of Now as we convert the unseen into the seen. 

We become no longer the duality. We are renamed as the non duality. 

We are . 

I am. 

This moment.

 No other. 

We can become more than we are and become a trinity of the here, there and the in-between. It is in the embracing of a new identity that we can create from within the fog. It is the thundering of the awakened heart space that calls us in the night, guiding us with its gentle voice and leading us by the hand out into the light. All we have to do is pause and listen.

Do you feel your fog dissipating ?

sympathy and compassion

Sympathy and Compassion 

Sympathy is enabling.

Compassion is empowering.

Let that just sit with you for a while. See how it transforms and starts to apply to all the past experiences you have had. I know I did and WOW what an alarming realization. 

When I am truly connecting with someone as the conversation unfolds, it is actually a compassionate manifestation and never a sympathetic hand hold that is transmitted. 

When I am being sympathetic I am basically saying " yes you have  a problem and poor you ! " By choosing this response I find that I am disabling the person by allowing them to remain wounded. I do not let them grow and evolve out of their unfortunate circumstances and continue to allow them to wallow. 

Sometimes they need to wallow. 

They may need to process their sorrowful feelings, grind out those emotions and come out stronger at the end. Who am I to judge how fast they should do this ? Yet by my sympathetic response to their situation, all I do is essentially hold their head under water for a little longer. 

We grow up and out with a helping hand and not with a hand that bears no grasp. A compassionate response holds space for them to be heard. For them to acknowledge that they are not alone in their plight and help is abound in the form of a listening partner. The out stretched hand will hold strong when it is ready to be grasped. Silence and being still when a story  of woe unfolds helps it to coil out faster.  Like a spring it pounces out of the story teller along with all the rawness of the gut wrenching and resistance that accompanies a person's troubles. 

But it needs space to pounce.

Many a  time I find I oscillate into a sympathetic ear instead of a compassionate one as I find the story similar to my own, or familiar in some fashion and I no longer choose to hold space for my own story as I choose not to heal. And so I dive into the sympathetic "poor you" which is in fact my own identified " poor ME !!" 

Sympathy and compassion are daughters of the mind and heart. Sisters to the same soul. Both are dancers to a unique conversation. Yet despite their origins, competitors  of a different creation.

It is a fine line that is crossed in every conversation when one imparts their open wound for all to bare witness. The process heals faster with compassion and less with sympathy. 

three little words that may be the game changer next time you or I are in a tense and emotionally charged conversation..... " I hear you..."

Senses deprived

Senses Deprived

I had the opportunity recently to go into a sensory deprivation tank. What an experience ! It is essentially a large tank filled with salt water so that one may be buoyant.  I immersed myself into the tank. Lights off, no noise and off I went into a world like none other. In the noiseless dark I desperately tried to use my sense of smell to figure out my environment. Yet there was nothing to smell. In the piercing blackness all around me my eyes remained useless, so I shut them. My ears once submerged under water could only "hear" the still ness of noiselessness. I dreaded to taste the salty water so I did not. I drifted, I floated. Nothing to touch, nothing to sense. All was still. My outward body inactive. My inside bodily organs functioning at a slower easier pace to sustain me. I was going to be fine I told myself. I could hear the laudable chatter of my mind. Shouting, screaming, yelling to be heard. Its voice carried no where. The body could not receive its continuous argumentative  barrages and respond. This infuriated my mind even more. The din was deafening within a vacuum. 

Unknown periods of time went by till the mind was summoned to be still. It took a lot of effort. Surprisingly even more than when I go into meditation. My mind was determined to put up a fight, and it did. Silenced, it rested for a bit. In the depths a new sensation arrived unexpectedly. My heart beat. It came out to say hello. I hear patients' hearts all day long but never my own. I never really pause to feel my own heart beat. Its rhythmic drumming. Its palpable echo of kind support without question for every moment I have been alive. I paid it attention for the first time. Its conversation became louder at first and then settled to a more even pace  at a lower tone. I could visually see with my eyes open in the thick blackness of the dark my heart's chambers moving in accordance with divine mandate. Then I felt it. Unassuming, simple. Me. That which was  there since I entered the safe womb of my mother and began my quest on this planet.

 I am not sure who was more surprised to meet whom. Me meeting me or vice versa. The life force, the energy behind this physical form, was at last made known. It had a name. Love. Formless, powerful, complete. We stayed in each others company for a timeless and seemingly endless moment of space. Held together with deep respect for each other by agreements made eons ago. No discussion. No arguments. Just the moment of being was abound. At some point the meeting was to conclude. It was mutual. I returned back into the form of the physical gently and my mind took over its immediate control of incessant planning of the next step. Thankfully, an awakened heart slowed down the process with grace. Less traumatic on the senses I would say. 

I accidentally touched my eye with my hand and the water burned my eyes. Ahhhh! My finger moved the drops of dripping salty water off my nose....Ahhhh again...we can smell salt water. My tongue darted to stop this nonsense from going any further... Ahhhh again the salt water taste. We are on fire all my senses screamed and the mind said " We are outta here" 

Lights on, noises of the crazy mind returned,and  gravity was restored as I stood up. I was back. Back  into the the body I came in with. What an experience. "I would do it again " my heart said. My mind snickered "Not if I have anything to do with it" 

The clarity of thought was pristine. Refreshed recharged, I bid a farewell to Me who I had the pleasure of greeting. Tucked away behind the veils of my insecurities, doubts and fears, I knew that I was still there. The experiencer. The driver. The magic. The forever unchanging. Till we meet again.....

It was surreal how disconnected I was from me all this time behind my senses.  

There is only one message to be delivered to me from this experience and that was...."I am "

Breaking the blocks

Breaking the blocks

Enlightenment. A New Age term to an age old idea sparked since the dawn of time. A path chosen by some. A path desired by all. I am asked by friends about this path, about my journey. Some hear it and believe it is as a long and arduous one. They would most definitely be right. In my opinion,  "Enlightenment " is  not about progressing forward and being all positive, smiley and patting one on the back for achievements far and wide. The pretense of being all positive all the time is really one that suppresses all the turmoil beneath the surface. A broad bandage to cover up a roaring storm of the ego that lies underneath. 

Enlightenment has nothing to do with trying to become happy or sad. It is about the balance of being. Yet the process begins with the much needed complete destruction of old programming. Breaking down the blocks that have held one in the place they are in today. It is about digesting all the remnants of anger, prejudice, fears and older ideas that no longer serve. It is about unravelling the tightly knit wool of ignorance, and yes it is the same wool that will one day be used to build a warm sweater of security in the future. De-atomize, Destroy and Demolish all the unusable fabrics of emotional inheritance. Generational ideologies that were once held together by fears of a few have become the dogma of the many. Century after century these ideas have become towers and beacons of rigid concepts in our minds that serve a single purpose, to keep us chained. We must of course honor the past for all that it is. I am certainly not suggesting that we blow our ancestral heritage to a sour wind. Moreover indulge in the honoring processing of the past as it once served to the present. And all that does not bear fruit for the future, let it go. 

Paradigms, fears, rigid frames of mind, all swiftly brought into the the rubble of a new era.Traditional obedience without understanding is a kin to just standing in quicksand. Enlightenment is the breaking out of the rubble. It is the discerning of the untrue and raging forward. It is the climbing out from under the deepest darkest pile of rocks that have held me for eons with their weight of hate, injustice, prejudicial blinders and old aged lies.

 I climb slowly. I climb fast. I fall back down. I do this repeatedly. I seek out in the dark the edges of my imprisoned chasm. I feel for the rugs on which to hold my footing. I pause. I alter my route many a time. Up, down, sideways. For the longest time sideways and down.  Till one day I make significant progress out of the sharp, razor rocks of my mind's fears and my ego's grasp. I breathe easier and stand at the entrance of my once long dark tunnel in which I had fallen oh so many years ago. I peer into the darkness with a new tool I have carved while stuck down there. It has taken years to create. The tool of love. 

I am not enlightened, yet. But I am aware. I am finally awake. 

Breaking down the blocks, it is your journey too. 

The other is you

The Other is You

Felt that loneliness? 

Felt that longing for something more?

I have experienced that " je ne sais qoi" moment where I could not quite put my finger on what was missing in my life on numerous occasions. The feeling  of emptiness that is in my grasp to fill, yet always alludes me. My personal assistant who is never quite there yet craves for my attention and satisfies all my whims and fancies yet leaving me always for more. I am sure you have felt it  too. It always leaves me with the sense of hollowness that I am more, that there is more, and that "this" cannot be all there is or can be. The feeling of the unknown is a powerful one, yet it may not be just the unknown or what is the "next step" that is the trigger. 

A little exercise that I have tried is simply standing and looking at myself in the mirror. Without judgement, without conversation, without anything. Just stand and observe. Soon the seemingly endless moments are strung together into barely any time. They are transformed into an amazing awareness of what I feel and of what I speak. They are transformed into Me. An embodiment of my heart that I see before me in human form . My personal assistant revealed behind the shadows of doubt, suppressed under layers of distractions. 

I have travelled many paths and many lifetimes to get to where I am at this very moment. Yet this version of me has always been accompanied by the very loyal and very present Me. It has longed for my attention. It has screamed for my acknowledgement by granting all that I have craved. It has manifested every insane hobby and every sensory desire of my mind, simply to get my attention. Once received, all it needed was a warm embrace and immediate justification is manifest, and the loneliness is gone. It is the bridge between the past moment and the future moment.

 It is now. It is me. It is Love. 

The very embodiment of you, the very nature of me , that is waiting so ever patiently to materialise and for our mind and ego to acknowledge is none other that the true you, known as Love. The desperate emptiness is filled. The unclear paradigm is resolved. It was never about the next moment "to do", it was always this moment "to be." The innate feelings of separation since we stepped onto this planet has come a full circle. The painful longing of completeness was never for any one or any thing, yet more for the moment of awakening to the Self. The separation was the void. 

The void has been filled with the knowing of You. 

The other that you seek as you hide away amongst the blanket of distractions is You, known as love

The other that I seek through the eyes of non judgement is Me, known as Love. 

All of my yesterdays

All of my yesterdays

I am. I am here in this moment. I did not get to my present stage of life by chance. I am the sum of all my past experiences. The culmination of the triggers of the past.They were neither good nor bad. They just were. It is only now that I realize where my path has been and where it has taken me. A long winding path of heartbreaks, disappointments, frustrations and disagreements. Thank fully an even longer detour of discovery of joy, happiness and love. 

Triggers of the now that were once long seeded in the past from childhood misadventures or fruitful endeavors. Fears of others slapped onto my sub conscious made into my own.  False tales of half truths disguised as teachings and outdated concepts thrust upon my being, coexisted with all of my own learnings for decades. No more. I have metabolized all that I was. I have put down the heavy bar bell of my jubilations and my equally weighted fears. Dropped down like a rock with a cry of relief at the end of a long arduous workout. 

All of my yesterdays have fortified me to change and move forward in every way of my life. Forgiveness, understanding, and compassion. The unveiling of my worst and best natures as one would open the curtains welcoming to a new dawn. All that I am and all that I am not. Known.  The good and the bad experiences have all funneled into  the present version of me. It has always been my choice of how that facsimile is to be  manifested. It is my choice to embrace all that I am for better and worse and then recreate myself, till one day in the long distance of the future, I can re-look  back at all of my yesterdays and gently reshape myself in that timeline. The process of evolution continues one day at a time. Re evaluate, Re examine, Re shape. 

It is now the silent and resolute bidding of farewell of all that has bound me in crippling fears. All that has kept in my "smallness. "  To unchain old karmic debts, and even older hurts. To smell the air of freedom with unconditional love. To keep my feet firmly in the earth's green thick grass and reach up with outstretched hands to touch the twinkling stars. To harness all that I am, and all of  my dreams and make the unseen into the seen. Unconscious into the conscious. The magic of it all is still jaw dropping as I humbly stammer out the words with flowing tears " this is my life". I own it, I feel it, and it is mine. 

All my yesterdays are here with me right now. Catalyzed and transformed. I let them go.  For now looking forward to all of my nows as they unfold into all of my futures. 

 In the end simply....I am. 

Cut copy and paste

Cut Copy Paste

These days with the advent of smart features on the key board and touch screen we can simply" cut, copy, and paste" This unfortunately recently happened to a dear friend and author. She is internationally renowned and well respected in her field. She put up a poem that was written with deep heart felt space from her soul. Beautiful words inked out into the digital print for all to read. Well someone just "cut, copy, pasted" it to their own website and let it out for all that person's viewers to read. No acknowledgement of origins, no recognition of the author. Simply cut, copy and paste. I see this all too often as literally it is as easy as that. The maneuver is so easy that  it can be  done with a thumb on the smart phone !! How do I know this ? I have done it. And odds are you have done it too. Unconsciously click.. cut..copy..  paste or  even the cut..copy.... print. Well the wheels of the mind got turning as usually only odd situations do. 

I find my self so easily cutting.. copying and then pasting ideas into my subconscious and then adopting them as truth . Discussions about politics or religion or loose gossip   expediently transform into "real" facts and I will then share them later in idle conversations. No filtering of fact or fiction. Out they come. The scary part is that they are believed by others who I speak to without question, for the most part. Which then triggers in me the desperate need to clarify and make sure that I am always speaking my truth. 

If it is that easy to cut.. copy and paste useless falsehoods into my brain, then surely it should be that easy to supplant them with better ideologies and truths. Unfortunately my ego sometimes is too strong and it immediately replaces fonder memories with insignificant confusing minutia that bears no relevance on my day to day  existence. I am eagerly trying to break out of bad habit patterns and replacing them with more efficient patterns of consideration, love and compassion. Well, Work in  progress. Still trying to avoid the "cut copy and paste" function before I have to do the "Cntrl Alt Del" function !! 

Cut Copy Paste.....Do you know what you are cutting, copying and pasting??

Life is like a multiple choice test

Life is like a multiple choice test.

I have been told that when doing a multiple choice test  (MCQ) test that the answer is always B. The other day I was told by someone that the answer is always C. Yet another proclaimed " no way the answer is always A." Alright then, now I am very confused. If the answer is always one particular alphabet then do I just pick that answer and fill it in throughout the entire answer column? Is that not more hoping that I will be randomly lucky to get a few answers right with that one chosen alphabet versus potentially getting a lot of the questions wrong by focussing only on one answer. Is the choice of the alphabet specific to the person doing the test? Does this even work? Or perhaps the MCQ test answers are just a random array of choices. Well your guess is as good as mine. Get it? Guessing answers !! <silent chuckle>

Yet if this last statement is true and that anyone's guess is as good as anyone else's choice , then we all have an equal chance of getting the question correct. However I have  often thought that there are more than one correct answer for any given question. After all does it not depend on the perspective of the individual. Different points of view is what makes the world a more diverse place. It is our desire to live in a shade of beige believing that there is only one answer to everything that  stems from the fact that most people would rather be told what to do, what to think, and what the answer is. No effort is simple. Secretly deep down we ALL crave the freedom of choice, yet few truly believe that it is possible. Old memories, old programming, old fears. Overwritten, our inner hidden treasure of choice remains elusive. And so we pick the choice that has been handed to us and call it fate or destiny or we simply shrug our overburdened shoulders and call it "life." 

It takes a lot of effort to dig deep and embrace those fears and let them go. Even more effort to acknowledge that those fears were ever there and are real. Been there since birth, childhood, adolescence, adult hood till now.   Gnawing, festering, and decomposing our thoughts, these fears shackle us down and prevent us from making our own true independent choice for ourselves. Instead we choose, I choose from the choices given to me and I pick. Invariably wrongly. A or B or C or D. Yet what if the answer is F. It may not be on the pre manufactured answer column yet the answer may not be what is given. F for free, F for freedom, F for fabulous, F for First. It takes the ultimate effort to not only acknowledge the fears, dig them up, embrace them, but to let them go. How do I know this ? I have done it. 

Life is about choices.

 Life is about making the wrong choices and then figuring out the right ones. 

Life is about sticking to the choices that you make with conviction. 

Life is about making choices from a place of love and compassion. 

Life is about making choices from the heart space.

 Life is about making choices and surrendering them to the universe. 

Life is about the universe helping me and you make the correct choices. 

Life is about making multiple choices. But not for a test but for fun. 

Agree or disagree? Your choice :)

I Love You for your choices. 

Living with inertia

Living with inertia

I have lived with inertia for a long time. It is my friend. We are so close that we don't have to even say anything to each other and yet we understand each other so well. It has been with me through out all my major life's decisions. Prompting me not to move. Holding me back to stay where I am. Caught in the rift between 'do" or "do not" I exist. The one thing that has always propelled me forward as been an unexplainable driving force to explore, to be free, to become better. The one thing that has inexorably held me back has been the fear that I may fail, fear that I will not reach that what I so desire the most, the fear that I will fall short in the eyes or expectations of others. So my friend of inertia waits with me patiently and allows me safe passage to my comfort zone of do nothing. The world watches for me to make my next move with baited breath. Then the timed second rolls by and so does the world. 

I stand at the edge of a cliff looking down and out and across. I take stock of my surroundings.

 My heart says" take the plunge." 

My mind says" you are going to hurt yourself as you fall." 

My spirit says "get ready to fly." 

My body says we will stand by inertia where it is safe. 

Wrapped up in my comfort zone I long to leap, yet I am trapped by my own fears. It is not a case of 'should I jump'. It is a case of if 'I do jump,will I be able to able to fly and be alright'. We all stare at our own precipice  and desire to change.  This is the edge of the cliff of which I speak. A turning point, a milestone for growth or advancement. A crossroads of decision that must be firmly committed to. Left, right, straight on. Or Inertia. We all want to jump off since that is why and how we got therein the first place. The fear that clouds the judgement is the fear that I can actually fly, but I do not believe in  myself long enough to sustain flight. Ironically it is this same edge and the desire to learn from its tall height lessons that keep us coming back or remaining AT the edge in the first place.

I have spent a lot of time at crossroads and at the edges of these figurative cliffs. Sometimes I have learned to skillfully climb down the precipice with caution  and  sometimes turned away. Most of the time I say within my state of inertia. Well that changes from now. The bubble breaks with my conscious decision to leap. The safe blanket of inertia is thrown off as my subconscious agrees and my heart and spirit unite to reinforce my wings.

I close my eyes. I feel my heart race and then slow down. I take a deep breath in filled with love. I hold that breath with divine mandate. I exhale it out with deep faith and I leap. I do not fall. I fly. 

Surprised? I am not. I was born to fly. So were you. Come join me. Flying together is so much more fun. Just let go of the inertia. I got you :)

I Love You.

Softening a world

Softening a World

I was having a conversation the other day with a friend who brought to my attention the numerous fears that she had about protecting her children from the world we live in today. The discussion ensued as we volleyed the ideas that we had to toughen up our children to face the cruel,cold and unbending world that we live in. Sure, our world is tough. Her fears are totally justified. The prior generation messed it up. Our current generation ( my generation of 40 somethings) plundered it with promises of lives of ease and luxury only to be handed a world of fast pace, never ending tasks and hopeful goals that are sometimes slightly beyond our hand held out reach. The future generation is going to inherit a waste land of broken dreams, foretold nightmares and doomsday like commitments. Or are they?

The thought that our children need to prepare for what  lies ahead is a valid one. Most of my generation has been under the same guise and idea that we all live in a tough harsh planet and in order to survive we have to have even tougher skin. Yet I would propose that most of these thoughts come from fears from our parents. They and their parents went through numerous world wars, depressed economies, baby booming periods and various global shifts in culture, tolerance and prejudice. Economies boomed, dictators came tumbling down only to rise again, with massive environmental changes. All bad? NO. Certainly not. Change is bound to happen. Energy is transformed. Cyclical economies, mindsets and paradigms all keep us going, much like the moon's cyclical influence on our tides and our moods.

 Emotional and generational inheritance of fears have unconsciously metamorphosed into realities. Worries that "you won't get a job if you don't go to college" still translate into true unemployment. Concerns that "you must stay away from different people as they might not be friendly" translates into isolation and ignorance. The list is endless, as is the list of human fears and excuses. We are able to metabolize our thoughts into time space realities. We breed a generation of lost, confused, unmotivated beings who will struggle to survive instead of living on purpose transformative conscious lives. 

I have a lot of faith in this new generation. They have the total  unadulterated strength to transform our world for the better. I am not thinking that we have to harden them against the world, in fact just the contrary, I think that we have to soften the world to handle them. These little tigers are being born with amazing gifts. Abilities of empathy. Abilities of connection. Abilities of love. Abilities that have been suppressed in us currently for the most part  by our riddled pasts. Our generational parenting has led us down the path of tried and true destruction with our own unbalanced and irrational fears of the unknown. 

Their gifts and talents will be able to enhance, better and reshape our planet so quickly that we may one day call this magic. Ridiculous ramblings of a delusional and dissolutioned hopeful? No, not really. More like predictions of a seer into the hearts and minds of a generation with more power than this earth has ever remembered. 

 If we can only break them free of the brain washing  of social media, television, and commercialization of every entertainer and movie sensation, we may be able to breathe life into our dreams for them. With every child glued to a digital module and plugged in with headphones and reward points for every stimulation that they experience we are certainly doomed. With every child that  looks up from the easily accessed electronic device, sees someone and connects to them without fear, our odds of prolonging our humanity goes up. With each sparkle of fearless steps forward, our children improve the chances of preserving a civilization. With each unconditional interaction a child has in a world with self imposed media directed  limitations, we have a glimmer of the limitless possibilities coming true. 

Do I fear for how my kids are going to handle  the world?   NO !

 I fear for how the world is going to handle them when I unleash them into it.

Click now, click later, just click it

Click now, click later, just click it

Did you know that there is a meteor heading towards us to imminently destroy us? 

Did you know that the ice age is almost here?

There is so much of newsfeed that comes across our eyes with such great rapidity that one does not have the time to delve in to the details. With  one  "click"  I can buy anything I want from my mobile device while walking down a  street and it is expedited and delivered to my doorstep with the wings of an eagle and arrives in the morning. With  one "click" I can message anyone on the planet instantly. With one "click" I can satisfy my curiosity about any topic, find out about anyone, or find anything my heart desires ( followed by another click that can purchase it !) .  With one "click" I can find out where I am on the planet. The possibilities of the smart one click system are limitless and are incorportated into my  daily life so seaminglessly that I am pretty much caught unaware of my actions till I am done.  

 Moreover with simply a click I can open up any possible random news feed that is glossed over my eyes. Well that is nothing new. That was one of the advantages of the world wide web, the indispensible mother of all connections,  the glorious internet, with its magnificent all powerful  guardians, the dreaded Search engines. One cannot pass the haloed gates into the digital universe without succumbing to the auscpicious "search box." Once my offering of curiosity has been made as I feverishly type away my impulsive question, the gates open to a flood of knowledge that has no checks and balances. No regulatory oversight for accuracy. In return these sneaky search engines grant my  wish instantly, only to rape me  of my identity, my location and my very hidden deepest secret desires such as my shopping habits, my preferences, pretty much tracking wherever MY  eyes go. They unapologetically  sell all this information  to the highest bidders who then will bombard me  with what "they" believe I should be buying, reading, or thinking about. Negative   perspectives? NO, simply accurate observations. On a lighter note the advantages however are exponential. Connection, understanding,and  knowledge shared with the  speed and agility of thought. Yet there is a price. 

The faster I read articles online, or links I am told that I will enjoy, I start to skim through them. Click click click..... I read, I click on to the next article, because let me just be very honest, I don't really have the time to spend learning about everything in my day. To paraphrase " Ain't nobody got time for that." And so the skimming turns to surfing and the articles are blended into a band of flashing white light as I click and read, click and read. However I start believing the articles without the chance for my brain to process the information and henceforth I imprint this knowledge into my DNA as a truth. Ah.... There in lies the rub. I will now believe anything, trust anything I read as I do not have the time for quality control or validiation or verification. 

By slowing down my pace I discover that I can infact do just the opposite. Click, read, perhaps reread, process, digest,  understand and act accordingly. I can now process deeper, though slower and definitely not ALL that the internet has to offer, yet more meaningful use of my time and efforts. Connection at a deeper level is more than the superficial expediency through that which I live my life. Just as an adjunct, the meteor is coming but not for millions of years. And neither is the ice age ! Yet I have read plenty of articles that snagged me in by my subconscious fears of my own mortality, only to pollute my already quite cluttered screen view  now with the locations of websites where I might purchase an expensive coat, other books that I "should" read, or places I am financially unable to visit.  

With one click I can turn it all off and live my life. Lesson to be remembered. Hardest thing I have ever done though......Unplug

My search for imperfection

My Search for Imperfection.

Searching for imperfection? Has he gone mad ! Are we not all looking for perfection? Do we not hear perfection in the sounds of a well played musical piece by a practiced orchestra? Do we not see a perfect rainbow in nature and appreciate its supernatural perfection? Do we not taste a delicious mouth watering spice simmering delicacy at our favorite restaurant? Do we not touch exquisite finely imported Egyptian cotton and praise its perfection? And do we not most certainly smell the heavenly scents of a jasmine flower and proclaim " Ah this is perfection?"

NO !  None of these above examples are perfect. My senses are imperfect. My ears are full of wax, my eyes carry the burden of spectacles, my taste buds have been burnt with hot coffee, my once finely sense of touch has been worn by age and calluses on the finger tips, and my keen smell sense has become dulled and  obstructed with pollution and allergies. How can I possibly hope to attain perfection when I am limited with my highly underdeveloped 5 senses. So I hope to attain and be satisfied with one step less than perfection. Or perhaps a few more notches down, known as a state of imperfection. 

It is only the "feeling" behind my perception of perfection that I exercise that gives me the satisfaction of perfection attainment. So why am I bursting the balloon of the spirit of perfection?   I am not. I am inflating the ball that will one day be kicked so high up that it may in fact reach perfection itself. It is only when things are imperfect that I can appreciate the imperfection at the most subtle level and appreciate the feeling of perfection. I usually feel this way when it is something that I cannot achieve. I am searching for perfection inherently, yet what I am actually achieving is imperfection. The imperfection of the not perfectly crafted instrument, the imperfection in the grain  lines of the canvas or the brush strokes of the artist, the imperfect quantification of spice proportion in my meal, the imperfection due to the inadequate and uneven thread count of my quilted sheets, or the cross contaminated smells in the air as I sniff my jasmine flower.

 Sound, Sight,Taste, Touch, Smell. Imperfect in my imperfect  physical aging body. Yet my ego self seeks the perfection of my higher Self that is always perfect as it is not of this realm and in doing so sees the imperfection and wishes to make it perfect. That my friend is the nature of imperfection. Seeking more than one is. Seeking and searching and finding that which I am through imperfection  as a stepping stone to perfection. So I take myself off the mantle. I rest with the acceptance and knowledge of who I am. A totally imperfect being, with imperfect thoughts, words and actions. Phew ! and the pressure is off. No expectations for myself or for any body. 

I find my imperfections to be perfect. I find my "perfections" to be imperfect. Two sides of the same coin. I don't know. My suggestion to myself that has worked pretty well till now, " aim for the stars, you may not get them but you won't be left with handful of dirt either" 

So how imperfect are you? I love you exactly the way you are, you are perfect :)

What's under your hood?

What's under the hood?

My car looks good. It seems to drive well and functions well for the most part. I took it to the mechanic for a simple routine "servicing". Well needless to say that 12 days later when I got it back, accompanied by a terrifically steep bill I was surprised to learn of all the things that had to be checked, changed, and replaced. To my naked eye looking at the engine under the hood everything seemed to look just fine. I was wrong.

I have plenty of patients who look like as if they are healthy on the outside without any medical issues. Unfortunately when I take them for an invasive cardiac procedure I discover all sorts of high grade obstructions in their blood vessels. One patient could usually ride close to  100 miles on his bike, and came to see me as he could now only do 75 miles. He looked very fit and healthy on the outer surface. I was thinking "hmm that's 74 miles more than I can do !!" Well a quick blood vessel mapping out revealed pretty much total occlusions of his coronary anatomy, and off to bypass surgery he went. 

On social media I see all the wonderful things that celebrities experience and   do. Ah yes the wealth, the fame, the glory and I get thinking "I am sure that their lives are all just perfect." That thought process would be severely flawed. 

I have no idea what another individual is experiencing so I have no right to judge. I do not know whether someone who just looks happy on the outside, may actually have all sorts of troubles at home, or work or with their families or finances.  What may look stable on the cover may not be the case under the hood. Until I have walked in another person's shoes I really cannot say whether that person has a better life than me or not. Moreover it is not even a case of a better or  worse life since everyone is just in a state of "experiencing." It is the experience itself that I am in fact craving and searching for. When that experience goes well, I believe I have had a "good experience" When it does not, I believe that it was a bad experience and I look outside of myself unto others' experiences for comparison. 

This is human nature. Limited, experiential. Compared and judged, I grow from these experiences.Unlimited, and  non-judgmental and accepting unconditionally is divine nature. There is a fine line that exists between the two natures. Seeing a person and rendering judgement about their lives is a kin to looking at a book and thinking you know its contents. There is so much more on each page and each chapter that is written from beginning to end and everything in between that bears witness to a person's life, yet in the end it is their life and not mine. I can never live in another persons shoes. Why? It is too much. I can barely muster enough time and effort to facilitate my own litany of experiences. I try not to judge others, yet that is where is the fine line gets crossed back and forth. 

What's under your hood? I don't care. I love you for exactly who you are. That's all.