The Struggle that I Took On

I wonder … if I hadn’t had the experiences life granted me, who would I be? If instead of adversity I had been given ease, abundance, and love, would I be this version of me? It doesn’t seem so. Looking at a friend’s pictures, a friend who hasn’t seen death, who still is surrounded by …

What Are Your Impossible Things?

We are, this is, the higher level and the seemingly mundane or lower level. Laughing. The ideas of levels is one the ways the human brain splits apart this that is not two in order to try to grok what’s happening here. No one really knows, no matter how smart or sure they sound. This …

Sitting on My Tombstone

If I could see everything that is going to happen in my life, would I try to change anything? It seems like I might want to leave the good stuff alone and put some effort into changing the not so good, doesn’t it? Of course, that assumes I have the ability to do something different …

Freeze Frame

When you experience another in the space prior to their closely held beliefs, when they abandon their identity if even for a moment and expose their vulnerability, you are blessed with delicious wonder, the taste of sweet humanity. That simple beauty pales in comparison to that which is the actuality of all beings. Normally we …

A Twist on Life’s Winding Road

Tensing, the body waits for the next shoe to drop. It doesn’t matter which shoe, whether it is a steel toed boot in the butt, or a six-inch heel draped in an unexpected twist on life’s winding road. We humans have no idea how tense we are, how many years of our lives we shuffle …

Is Life Really a Pretty Nifty Kaleidoscope?

Having written about life as a kaleidoscope before, I had merely seen it as a great metaphor, not the actuality. Last night, as I settled into meditation after reading a great novel, I noticed the depth and breadth of it. A kaleidoscope holds all the pieces within. The chamber is turned, shifting the pieces, determining …

Emphasis

Emphasis is divine, as is the entirety of this dance. Often, it seems like all mystics teachers gurus no-it-alls contradict themselves, or at least the ones we are currently paying attention to. It can drive one crazy. They point to the expressionless and leave the expression — you and me, the bloody squirming writhing human …

Life’s Masterpiece

I just had another heart event. And no, it wasn’t a blissful heart opening or spiritual breakthrough. My pacemaker-defibrillator came right up to the point of zapping me, but it seems the device was able to pace me out of v-tach without setting off its intense and deeply appreciated, but not at all enjoyed, companion. …

Fully Human

Being fully human is a lot trickier than riding the awakening train. Awakening, ascending as some call it, is the ticket out, the great escape, the demise of attachment and aversion, of judgment and craving. It’s the end of life as we know it, and in that way, when you are in pain, when your …

The Inner Maze

Sometimes it seems like we haven’t come far from the schoolyard days of calling each other names. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. If only that were true. Sure, we sucked it in, tried not to cry in front of everyone, and moved along, a little less whole, …

Only So Much Sand

I am going to die. If not today, next week, next month, in a few years. Time speeds by and I have no time to give to things that do not bring me joy anymore, nor time to give to things that don’t magnetically pull me into them. Life’s flow is good enough. I don’t …

The Becoming Plan

It’s not about becoming … anything. It’s not even about freedom, truth or peace. For me, anyway, it was always about giving up the fight, letting go of the need to be anything but what I am, even though I didn’t know it at the time. That’s the only thing that is ever wanted in …

Wonderland

I find it fascinating that not just every day folk, but those deemed to be wise, even those held to the standard of enlightenment, hold such diverse points of view on so many things — vaccines being just one example. (and no, this isn’t a vaccine post so don’t go there) The variety of views …

Dream a Little Dream

It’s all illusion, real but not in the way you think, perceived in a way diametrically opposed to what actually is. You might say life is real illusion. How fun is that! It feels real. It experiences as real. Even our dreams at night have a real feel to them. Sometimes you wake up and …

Trash Talk

I’m done trash talking this little body of mine. Love myself does include loving my body. Can’t get around it. I’ve left it behind, squirmed when I walked by the mirror naked, heck clothed for that matter, and totally ignored it when I could. No wonder it’s hurting. When I was a child my dad …