There are times, even now, when the fact that I did my best wasn’t good enough. I know, deep down, that my life, and those it touched, couldn’t have been otherwise and yet, I ache with the recognition honed from years of new experiences fired in the kiln of inner work, that I hurt others, …
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Ease and Grace
It is only natural to want ease and grace, to desire the indisputable revelation of right purpose and true meaning in life. Most of us feel like something is missing, and if we can just find it all will be well. That’s a pretty big draw, a reason to stay in the saddle, to tilt …
Life Itself
It was a glorious walk this morning, earlier than normal. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, lighting the maple trees, the firs and cedars in a most spectacular display, mystically splashing their infinite shades of green against the backdrop of shadow and light. As I walked I found myself dipped in awe, in …
It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
Life’s basic building block is consciousness, or at the least, that is as much as this appearance in consciousness at present is able to grok. Consciousness, a word, not unlike every word, can only point to that which is inconceivable since it is as deep or shallow as its perceiver. What we perceive is a …
Nothing But Mud in the Middle
It’s a puzzle and all puzzles have edges, the outliers of the mass of contradiction within. Within the puzzle of aliveness lies every possible imagining, and those quite unimaginable to the opposing edges. It’s cool that puzzles, like life, have edges all around, edges of the polarities, left and right, up and down, all across, …
And Maybe That’s the Point
Many years ago when I volunteered at the prison I was talking to the men about the present moment. Even as the words came out of my mouth, I knew that something was off, something very important. For years, the present moment had been offered up as the golden talisman, a charm that once fully …
It Doesn’t Have to be That Way
What is, is what is. You can’t change it. It already is what is. Change, however, is always happening, so change, it will. We never know what will appear in the next breath, or if we’ll be given a next breath. It’s impossible to know. It hasn’t happened yet. There are too many variables, so …
The Promise
When Kenny was ill, we had a joke. He used to say, “Where would I go? There’s only here. There’s only now.” I’d look at him, and his precocious grin, and smile back.
Friendlies
Friendlies Watching Sophia today on our walk I wondered about inhibition and what stops humans from joining the fun like my little dog. She sees other dogs, other humans for that matter, and runs right up to them, wags her tail — hey, I’m friendly, are you? And the games begin. She is particularly fond …
You Already Know
I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear. You already know it, but many of you have yet to fully accept it. Life isn’t fair. It will never be all roses and no thorns. Some people will appear to win in spite of seeming unworthy of any good fortune. Others will appear …
Trained Seal Mind
Be. Here. Now. Experience. Awareness. Consciousness. Knowing. Presence. Love. Isness. This. Same, same … no difference. No thing and all there is. Nothing but experiencing — no one to experience — no thing to experience — simple knowing awareness doing it’s thing — slang expression — not a true thingy. Haha. Not tens of thousands …
Authority Figures
What do you suppose lies within us that grants authority to an other and consciously or not, bestows power, often power over us, someone whose words make us suspect trust fear they can see our future, someone who says something, perhaps innocently, and our mind is off to the races, but not before installing them …
Time Machine
To be present means more than I used to understand. I used to say, ‘I’m here, I live in the now’, but I had scarcely scratched the surface of what that meant. I had taken the first step, a step that graciously left time and space, me and others wholly intact. And boy, did I …
Rome is Burning
I’ve been feeling into this for a few days now. Well, actually this one’s been around a long time in different forms. I quit asking for answers to it in meditation because I heard the same answer time and time again. Can’t say I liked it. Many of you know I have written about this …
It’s Both
Life is a wondrous adventure, a daring escapade, the preciousness of a seemingly separate being, struggling for connectedness amid the vacillating yet compelling uncertainty of letting go in full surrender to our interdependency, our inherent and abundant symbioses. The separate self screams its denial, its holy terror, clutched in outrage, spewing out its abject rejection …
Amaya Gayle 