A life of opposites

A life of opposites

We run our lives with the definitions in a 2 dimensional fashion. Everything that we know is identified based on an understanding of its opposite. Up and down, front and back, good and bad, love and fear. Yet only one of these opposites is incorrect. Love. 

Our nervous system is attacked in every direction by some stimulus. We define it initially by what it is not. Then we react to it with equal vigor. And so stay and remain in the state of oppositional reactions. When fear comes rearing its ugly head we define it as being "not-love." I find myself reacting to it "not-love" with more "not love" as then bring upon my psyche more "not love." However this is where I have discovered my fallacy. Perhaps you have too. " Not love" or fear is not in fact the opposite to love. Simply because "Love" has no opposite. 

Love is complete.  Love is togetherness. Love is whole and surrounding. Love is pure energy of a higher vibrational frequency than anything else in the universe. It travels faster than the fastest thing that we believe. It travels faster than light. Love is eternal and has no beginning and no end. It is infinitesimal  and infinite all at the same time. There can be no opposite of something this non dimensional. 

It is when I allowed my heart to break and engage the magic of the moment I discovered this to be true. The shaking of fear is replaced by the embrace of love. Fear is dissipated  not because it can in some way be misconstrued to be an opposite of love, yet more because a blanket so large can always cover the entire bed without ever seemingly be a part of the bed at all. The opposite of fear is safety. Feeling secure. Just one of countless qualities that lies within the all encompassing myriad of the energy form called love. 

Love has no opposite. Allowing this word and its definition rekindle your cells into an old knowing is empowering in itself. Happiness for me began when I chose to no longer live under the out of date idea of living with definitions of opposites. 

Happiness began by enveloping love. I hope it does for you too.

...............

I love you

The gift of you

The Gift of You.

Exchanging gifts. A time honored tradition on special occasions. We are always excited to receive gifts and many a time even more enthusiastic to give a gift. Yet some gifts are eventually returned, some gifts are frowned upon, and then most  are accepted graciously. The gift is tangible. An object to be experienced. However what if the gift is an invitation of yourself. 

Wrapped in the moment of now lies a gift that is worthy to all without question. It is the presence of You or Me that is offered unconditionally. The connection of being is hastened by love just as the invitation of separateness is soon withdrawn. The aliveness of the spirit resonates infinitely when it is then offered to another. It is then in the holding of the space of the moment that the worlds disintegrate and time is dissolved into the sink hole of nothingness and what remains is the illumination of love. 

The desire to offer one self is a great initiator of transformation for both the giver and the receiver. As the essence of being identifies the other, just as an old friend  is found, it rekindles a long lost relationship that begins anew. The nervous system comes alive with love that emanates from another and the gap is filled with the void of joy. A recognition of a former life amongst the cosmos is immediately accepted when the gift is offered. 

Looking at your own pure heart is the powerful integration of this wrapped gift of love that is eternally awaiting to be opened and released. You are the greatest of all gifts that can be placed on the alter of gratitude, and in doing so you are unwrapped by the universe and scattered amongst all living hearts of consciousness. You are an unreturnable and an invaluable gift of Divine conception given and received to all you meet. 

Perhaps the best gift of all,  is that given to yourself as you honor the process of You and accept it  in its completeness and wholeness for that which you have always longed, is  the tangibility of your Cosmic Self. As the bows of fears of rejection are pulled apart, the perfection of the Light within is revealed, and you emerge from your embodied form into the true nature of You, ready to be given and received time and time again ad infinitum. 

What can be a better gift, than the gift of You. 

.................................

i love you

Setting fire to the rain

Setting fire to the rain

Anger, hatred, frustration are the invitations to a cacophony orchestra that play outs in my head regularly. The discordant chords harass my mind, heart and spill into my day that perpetuates into a self fulfilling prophecy of chaos. My thoughts lash out at the nearest person in my sight or the punishment to an object within my reach. Such is the nature of uncontrollable anger. It feels like a rain storm of emotions that bombard with torrent. With words I then go about attempting the fool hardy task of setting fire to the rain hoping in the recesses of my peaceful heart to make a change. 

Anger, hatred and frustration are all stones on the emotional catapult hurled at the unexpected castle of obstructions that are presented before me. Yet it is I who must pull the trigger or find the resolve to remove the trigger finger. It is the pause before the actual firing that is in fact a millisecond of eternity where in all realms of possibility exist. It is here where I make the choice. To succumb or to resist. That split second decision is shorter than a breath yet sometimes the entire breath is needed to arrive at an alternative decision that leads to an entirely different departure. It is in this breath where the moment of love exists. Love is the glue that may hold the moments together and enable an elastic change to take place. 

I find myself more and more delving into the pause. Embracing the pause. Nestling with in the pause. Discovering the unfolding love within the pause. Discovering a different choice, and so enjoying an alternate  destination. I am no longer drowning in the rain storm of my environment's infinite stimuli. I am no longer burned by the heat of the fire of my emotions. I simply collect the rain into my bucket of the pause and pour it on the fire. 

A pause is simple. So is love. Setting fire to the rain ? Nah , I have better things to do, for the fire of my mind  has died down and the rain of fears has departed. 

I may need a bigger bucket though  :)

..................

I Love You

valentine's day

Valentine's Day

Flowers bought in bunches, candy and chocolates fly off the grocery store shelves, elaborate cards saying three little words " I love you" are ferociously signed, and tasteful dinners  are planned. If we are lucky to have that special someone in our lives to share with our journey we offer them a token of our appreciation for their continued interest in our lives as if in some shameless hidden corner of our minds we say "Thank you for putting up with me." Perhaps the feelings that one offers their significant other is actually genuine. Yet one can only  feel genuine feelings when one is genuine within. 

This is the nature of the discovery that we all seek. The search for the crucible of intimacy of our ' other' that is in fact our Self. It is the kindling of this light that gives us the peace such that we may truly shout out " I love only You, and  I forsake all others." Our other half that mirrors qualities of our outward physical partner is in fact the essence of ourselves that longs to acknowledge that level of intimacy with us. It is not just one special day that we celebrate this unveiling path yet more of a daily occurrence. Every night we dissolve our selves and our Self into the myriad of dreams and return as one spirit and each day as we awaken into our conscious selves the separation and fear begin anew with the hope of finding our Self again, yet we reach out each day for that physical conscious person instead to substitute the apparent loss of our Self. 

The search for bliss and joy, happiness, resolution of all problems is part of the  unending dance with ourselves through the forests of anxiety, anger, insecurity and frustrations. It is in this plethora of movements that we encounter an invitation of Love.

Love appears as scared, confused, and uncertain of itself at times. 

Love is naive and non judgmental.

Love is curious and playful. 

Love learns quickly and adapts.

Love grows stronger, resilient yet malleable. 

Love is pure and remains just so in its steadfastness.

Love requires no expectations.

Remove the expectations you have of another and you remove the burden off yourself. The pressure to fulfill a role that is outward and not inward is always met with great distress. So on this commercially marked day of recognition of the Love for another,  spend a few valuable moments with gratitude for the one partner that has not nor will not ever let you down, or expect anything from you in return. Celebrate the intimacy of You and yourself, complete as one. 

Happy Valentine's Day...... happy Day of You.

................

I Love You

Falling apart

Falling apart

For decades have I created ever stronger shields that have encircled me from harm. Bigger, wider and stronger. Warm and snug I am ever further immersed into their protection. Shields created over time of constant falling apart and then putting back together. Every hurt, every pain, every wound triggered through life's experiences manifested by psychic bandages to keep me safe. Me? My heart. It is the vulnerability that we shy away from with every subsequent encounter with the same trigger. That same confrontation of that person, the same meeting of the experience, the same anger, the same hate, the same prejudices to a heart that understands only one language. The literacy of love. And so the fear of vulnerability hardens the once soft core into a shell of lies, deceit and untruths told to ourselves by our ego driven mind, till one day the eyes that look back at you in the mirror beckon your awakening.

Falling apart and  putting ourselves together is natural. Yet unnatural when in a state of our origin. The state of love. In the aliveness of the womb we are not satiated with such stimuli that will forge us into invincible beings. The innocence of "us" is what we search for in every encounter out of the womb. Its preservation is paramount. If unsuccessful we "fall apart" when the love of our world disappoints, or the hope of the reality we expect falters or the  ideal we hold dear dissolve from under us. We then "put ourselves back together" with psychic glue, emotional duct tape and verbal staples. But for how long? Days, weeks, months. Inconsequential quotients of time till the next trigger. Shields form, layer after layer, and hence decades role by and I find myself hardened to indifference, injustice, and blatant prejudice. 

However it is in this same vulnerability I have the chance to heal. Resolve the experience as it manifests. Learn from it. Allow the light of my heart to shine out and radiate and not be trapped in a box of fear. The tenderness of the heart to  truly feel and embrace the experience in its entirety without the sheltering.Then something amazing happens. I grow. I learn to adapt and become stronger out of the experience and not shy away from any similarity of repeat stimuli. The rawness of the wound finally heals completely. 

This is emotional conscious evolution. This is why I am here. To experience, to learn, to now know. 

It is in the aliveness of the fragility of the human heart that I acknowledge a fundamental element.

 Love. 

It is a torch light of hope that burns carefully in some, and carelessly in others. 

Love.

It is a beacon of our star lit heritage as we walk into an uncertain mortal future.

Love. 

Falling apart is falling from Grace. Yet falling can transform into flying. Only with love. 

Do you dare to believe in your own vulnerability? I do. 

Resolution

Resolution

This word haunts me like a my own shadow on many a non cloudy day. I make resolutions daily that are just as easily broken by nightfall. If I am brave enough the resolution will last till sunrise. What do I do? How do I make a resolution stick? Worry, fear, self doubt all coalesce into my shadow and make the resolution even less tangible.  However,   I am not alone in this pursuit of the holy grail of resolution building and creation. Most of us fall into this habit pattern. The beginning of the year is an auspicious time in our minds to forge a resolution yet in fact we make them daily. " I will become better at....." , " I will not do this or that.....", " I will strive to do and fulfill my goal of......". And so on and so forth. As many thoughts that traverse my fickle mind, there are an equal number of resolutions that are created to absolve them. 

Does this mean I am a weak individual ? Does this mean that I will always fail and never fulfill any goal or intention set by my heart? Perhaps the answer lies in the definition of the word resolution.

To resolve means to find a solution to a problem. Ponder on this for a while longer than it takes your mind to spin you like a top and let your heart have a voice. The answer is simple yet so immeasurably life giving. 

" You are not the problem" my heart replies when diligently asked. 

My mind snorts emphatically " Well of course you are the problem, what else could be wrong in a perfect world"

It is at this point my Higher Self interjects and chooses to be heard. 

" You are not the problem as the way you showed up in your current life is exactly meant to be the way you are. "

I am not the problem.

I was relieved. And so should you be.

We are not problems to be resolved. We are meant to experience everything exactly the way we choose the experience to be. Good or bad. It is an experience. To be. Just be. This is a VERY hard concept for the mind to wrap itself around as it stems from hosts of infinite experiences good and bad that must compute our odds of survival from one minute to the next, sometimes one second to the next. Yet it is outside the experiences looking in that we find the moment of the present. The moment of Now that unfolds into a universe of love, lack of doubt and understanding with compassion and joy to know that we are fine. 

You are not a problem to be resolved. No resolution required. Instead we are sparks of infinite magic patiently awaiting our time to shine like stars in the night sky. Yet without the darkness, a star can never shine. So too experiences of all kinds must come forth. The darker they are, the greater we shine as the day gives way to the night, so too the night returns with the offering of the dawn. Self love presents as the fire that burns bright within us that dissolves the "problem" that we are portrayed with as having. 

Time to shift my thinking. Better to create an intention, fueled with love, and manifest a sun that sustains, than to create resolutions fueled with perceived problems that fail. 

Re-solution? I think not. More like Re-freshed, Re-charged, Re-newed, Re-juvenated. 

Forgiveness

Forgiveness

In the rare quiet moments of myself I find myself forgiving. Forgiving others that have hurt me, forgiving situations that have affected me, forgiving the people closest to me that have either belittled me or taken me for granted. Deeper I go, the more raw the wounds. These have never really healed, instead they have been camouflaged with the proverbial bandage of dismissal. Most of us are well versed from a young age to grow shields around our wounded hearts and managed to "shoo" away the darkness that shadowed our lonely heart in a desperate effort of self preservation. Yet dismissing the insult is a akin to putting away a half read interesting book on the highest of shelves secretly hoping to have the time to read it later, but also acknowledging that the location of where it sits high on the book shelf, the odds are remoter still of accessing it. 

In the quietness of my heart these wounds call out for absolution. The ego calls it vengeance, my soul calls it forgiveness. A wound must be opened, debrided and given the opportunity to heal naturally. It is in this where I find that even the rarer moments of myself emerge. Not to forgive another, yet to forgive myself for ever being hurt. To feel the pain, mixed with the unbearable hot salt in to the wound suffers the agony yet also is the antiseptic that is needed to enable healing. I realize I cannot live my life without ever letting my heart from being wounded for that is how I will grow and evolve. However it is in these hurts I learn to forgive others AND myself and learn to not be hurt again. 

This lesson is not taught so that I may roam free with arrogance and hatred for others so that my shield is strong enough to never feel. Quite the contrary. The biography of the biology of forgiveness for myself begins with myself embracing compassion. Yet again this does not begin with the age old idiom of "compassion for others first" but more "compassion for myself first" . The "others" is mySelf. If I am not fully healed what hope do I ever have of healing others through my compassion and forgiveness when my very own cup is never full. A cup of love that runs over spills its contents over an infinite sized table. A full cup spills it infinitely over the entire table. 

Compassion and forgiveness have long held hands in their journey to love. Both must begin with the Self and for the Self before they reach out any where.  Different yet same. Compassion is the tool through which forgiveness is forged. Compassion understands where forgiveness accepts. The duality of the two are manifest in the face of Love. Each cheek surround this face. At times both are slapped to awaken the love within the heart space. 

Forgive others who insult you? Sure. 

Compassionately forgive yourself for ever being hurt.