Google It: The Poem

Godot comes up
followed by
love
morning
death
in that order.
Sighing,
I try "waiting to."
Exhale, Google says
and then
says it's an action word
(so I've heard).
Waiting for Godot.
Vladimir and Estragon
were waiting for
a guy who never came.
Again, I google
"waiting for."

Sacred Opposites

Sometimes spirituality is found in approaches to life that are the opposite of what you normally do.  It’s like planting an unknown seed or going to a meadow instead of to your garden.  It’s baking cherry pie instead of brownies.  It’s kneeling to pray instead of sitting in meditation. 

I’m thinking about my normal day.  I’m mobility challenged and so my day can seem quite limited.  I normally wake up before 6 and dial into a growth discussion group which meets everyday at 6 a.m.  I get up after that, brush teeth and wash face.  I go downstairs and start my Keurig coffee pot, let the dog out of her crate, play ball with her until one of us gets tired of it, feed her and let her outside.  While she’s outside, I toast some frozen waffles, coat them with fruit and yogurt and make my cup of coffee. I let the dog back in and I sit on the sofa sideways, say “Good morning, God,” and turn on the news, watching while I eat.  To summarize: I then do a gratitude journal, read something inspiring, and set my daily intention.  Then I try to accomplish my intention which usually includes some physical activity, at least one phone call or meeting to assure human interaction, and an activity that requires going somewhere—to the pharmacy, to the bank, to meet someone for coffee, or attendance at a support meeting.  

That’s a pretty standard day.  In that day I experience security and comfort, order, and some fulfillment.  I don’t experience much of what I would call spirituality.  Let’s turn that day upside down.  I wake up and don’t dial into an experience with others; instead, I get in touch with my own feelings which might mean awareness of loneliness and vulnerability (sigh).  Then I get up earlier than usual, have tea instead of coffee (I leave the dog’s schedule the same since it’s not her spiritual journey), go for a a savory egg sandwich instead of a sweet waffle and yogurt, and step outside with my tea and sandwich instead of turning on the news.  It’s really cold so stepping outside means putting on boots, coat and gloves.  Already  I’m seeing what could be spiritual opportunities.  Frost on my breath meeting steam from the tea.  That’s loaded with potential spiritual stuff for me.  I’m uncomfortably awake.  There are giant trees without leaves.  I notice that it’s winter.  There could be snow.  The dog will be excited that I’m outside with her.  Nature and animal.  That could be a god banquet.  

Note:  this doesn’t sound comfortable, safe, or even fun.  It sounds awful.  That’s why I don’t normally do it.  I wonder though if spirituality comes in discomfort more than comfort. What do you think?  Roxie

Sacred Offerings

“I’m spiritual, not religious” has become the mantra of baby boomers.  Did you ever wonder what that means?  It could mean they’ve embraced the quiet space of Buddhism or it could mean they like to sleep in on Sunday.  Whatever the specificity of each person’s definition of “spiritual,” it seem to have one commonality:  I’m doin’ my own thing when it comes to god stuff.

My spirituality seems to be a “road less taken,” but a road nevertheless.  While encouraging me to embrace my unique spiritual self, it also shows the ways unique spirituality criss crosses with other unique spiritualities, the kind of sacred offering that Teilhard de Jardin described as making up the evolution of the God who, in his belief, was not fully realized until all of creation had become realized. Complicated but it makes shocking sense.  What if the God is evolving based on how the universe and all of us collectively evolve!

In the spirit of de Jardin’s theology, then, our task is to live out our own natural spirituality.  What is that?  That’s your challenge--to become more aware of that very thing.  That unique spirituality might be rooted in ancient texts for some of you, in intellectual understandings for others, in the awe you experience watching the morning fog rise, or even in the teachings of your church. 

The best way I can describe it is:  Spirituality comes within those things that call to you.  Noticing what words, songs, sayings, memes or facebook postings, movies, podcasts, natural beauty, or life experiences stay with you, haunt you, keep coming back to you, speak to you—these are the yeast of your spiritual nature. Roxie

There is a Crack in Everything

I was listening to the "daily musing" of Manuel Astruc and I was struck by his way of simplifying complex issues.  Today's topic was "leadership" which he pared down to "helping others help others."

It's not that I don't like that idea.  Part of me wanted to say:  I surrender.  Go Manuel!  But, I couldn't because for me that doesn't quite fit.

I have a primal belief that from our imperfection rises what "sacred offerings" there are.  Maybe what really troubles me about Manuel's definition is the elimination of the reality that each human lives within.  My definition of leadership goes more like this:

Ring the bell that still can ring
Forget the sacred offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.  --Leonard Cohen

Each of us rings the bell we have.  I'm 73, for example, and severely hampered by arthritis and plaque growth in my back.  Pain is my "crack in everything."  What's my bell?  I can bring myself to each arena available to me.  Hence, I play bridge online with my brother and son as a way to connect with them and love them.  I take an online class with my best friend and we speak weekly by phone about what we are learning.  I still teach at a local college.  I ring the bell that still can ring.

Manuel is making a "sacred offering" although he doesn't call it that.  As a person who has and does change my life constantly, a mentor-teacher whom I admire more than most, there's no doubt that he brings a concept of excellence that his many followers online and in person will strive for. Go Manuel!

The difference is that I don't really believe in excellence.  For me, Leonard Cohen has it right.  Ring the bell that still can ring . . . There is a crack in everything.  I'm so glad.  

Poetry in Motion

So, I write poetry.  I tend to scribble it in the margins of books and never share it with anyone.  I've decided that 2018 is to be a year of writing, including the poetry.

First, a disclaimer.  My poetry is grim. I just don't write on a day that I'm feeling in sync with creation or spirituality.  Poetry comes from my very physical presence on the planet and my view of life as it is unfolding and has unfolded.

POEM 1

Code Blue

Little girl in blue
excited to play with the big boys.

Then
like fire to a kitten
beaten
singed
heart-broken
crushed.

Code blue for all time
She. Is.
Jane Doe on a gurney in the ER.

Evening, Morning and the First Day

So, in order to get myself out of my head, out of the media, out of political crap, I call to mind creation myth.  In Genesis 1:3-5, the writer speaks of evening, morning and the first day.  It's the moment in that creation story when the big bang is happening and it all begins.

I always walk or sit outside in the evening at this time of year because I know that which I experience as God albeit nature, Universal Intelligence, the Big Due or Allah is present.  The weariness and worries, the sacred shit of the day pauses in that moment between day and night.  The light is golden through the trees, coming at me sideways.

"That moment brings me home to myself and whenever I'm home, the god is there.

 Speaking of god, I went to a new church last weekend and the minister sat with the children on the floor.  She said: God has many names.  What name do you want to call God today?"  A little girl said, "Rainbow."  The church members without hesitation began to pray:  "Our Rainbow who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . . ." I knew I was home in that church and God (aka Rainbow) was there.

These are desperate times in the world and that means desperation lives in human hearts as well. Sometimes we have to unpack all the trappings and go back to the center, to the first moment to find ourselves.  Wordsworth writes: "The world is too much with us."  If it was too much with Wordsworth who only had his feet and a few books to infiltrate his soul, imagine how much it is with  us who are plugged in to a never-ending tsunami of digital diversions.

In the evening and early morning, unplugged, I remember my place in creation.  I come home to the first day.  Roxie

Political Violation and the Night Sky

So, Muhammad Ali Jr. and his mother were detained by the TSA for an hour and 45 minutes when they tried to get back into the US after a vacation in Jamaica.  Both are US citizens with US passports.  Both, when asked their religion, stated they are Muslim.  And then the detention began.

Does anyone remember the separation of Church and State in the US Constitution?  Did anyone note that they should have the rights of citizens?  Did anyone care that they weren't even returning from one of the seven deadly middle eastern sins, oops, I mean countries on the "do not enter" list? I have watched with increasing horror the unconstitutional, uncivilized and uncouth behavior of Donald Trump and his lackeys.  I have taken in the unabashed bigotry shown in the treatment of Muslims, Latinos, and women.  I have seen the prejudice that not only is extended towards any group that's not white male but also in the intentional dismantling of the many accomplishments of the previous president who happens to be black and have a Muslim-sounding name.

Detaining Ali Jr. and his mom was the last straw for me.  It tells me that even if the courts ban Trump's actions, his rhetoric is so strong that it causes minimum wage workers way down the chain of command to carry out his rhetorical wishes as if they were laws. Like despots before him, yelling loud and often enough at the populace is a way that he might get that populace to do the dirty work of promoting one mad man at the expense of all groups that don't fit his profile or do his bidding (or who fit the profile and do his bidding but slip up and show that they don't really like him).

I don't know why that was the last straw.  Maybe because it violated so many fundamental rights granted to US citizens that I can't even wrap my mind around it.  But there are so many other violations as well.  Violation of the freedom of the press.  Violation of scientific research. Violation of credibility in misrepresenting credentials from a prestigious university (lying, in other words). Violation of women's rights in words and actions.  My hope has been that the separation of the executive branch from the judicial and legislative ones would contain the vicious agenda of Trump. Watching security people carry out his wishes and ignore law and conscience tipped the scale for me.

We're a young country, barely an adolescent compared to the middle eastern countries we're targeting. Like many a young punk, we're carried away by our own importance and refusing to heed the advice of our elders (European allies, for example). Trump's brash hubris reminds me of Gwendolyn Brook's poem "We Real Cool."  It speaks of seven young men who think they're "real cool" and so they leave school and hang out drinking and doing whatever the heck they want.  The poem ends with "We die soon."  The US is has thought itself "real cool" in becoming a "player" at such a young age as nations go.  At some point, we had to hit a wall of stupidity brought on by our youth--that moment when youthful exuberance leaves behind the guidance of wisdom and embraces its own ignorance as if it were the holy grail. We're in that moment.

Deep breath.  I went out to look at the night sky. The stars and planets were in their places.  Orion's belt and the Big Dipper hold firm.  I felt the presence of a higher good.  I remembered how small we are in the big scheme of thing.

Praying for peace on earth and well being for all.  Praying.  Roxie

Eat The Damned Apple!

So, you know the story: Adam and Eve ate the apple and, viola, the entire human race was cursed by their odd act of disobedience.  Speaking of odd acts, though; it's an odd act for god to ban the eating of apples!  Why wouldn't he (for it WAS a he) ban facial hair or hand washing or swimming in the perfect, pure waters of Eden?  Maybe it was all a ploy to get humans to wear clothes.  You ate an apple!  Shame on you.  In a perfectly logical consequence, no nakedness for you!  Like taking your kids' cell phones when they eat some of the ice cream you were hoarding for yourself.

The key phrase is "shame on you."  The initial story of our coming of age as humans features a rigid, controlling male god who entraps two hapless humans with the result that he not only rages at them until they are ashamed, he curses their progeny for all time.  The story seems preposterous and very like something the old pagan gods or the writers of fairy-tales would concoct.

Here's why this story works though and possibly why it got written in the first place.  Children inherit the foibles of their pares one way or another.  Either we grow up to be just like them or mayhap we pledge to never be like them.  In either case and most scenarios in between, we find ourselves acting out our parents' drama.  Having very strict and controlling parents, for example, I vowed to always love my children and not punish them.  I was as rigid about leniency as my parents were about strictness.

In 12-Step programs, you are asked to create your family tree and note the various addictions that your ancestors had.  Then you look at yourself and your siblings along with your children.  Indeed, the shame and self-loathing that I experience can be seen in my parents and grandparents.  The beauty of the 12-Step philosophy is in an image it uses.  You are asked to see your grandparents handing the human condition to your parents and your parents handing it to you.  Each time the burden is passed, it gets smaller.  Hence, it's a hopeful spirituality.  It posits that if you are in sync with a higher power of your own understanding or with universal good, you evolve towards the lightness of being or enlightenment that is your birthright.

So, as far-fetched as the Adam and Eve story is, it has a nugget of truth in it.  No parents are perfect and children inevitably feel some shame just for being children.  From their point of view, if a parent punishes them or ignores them or is having a bad day, it must be (thinks the child) my fault.  Our parents, god-like to us, couldn't be wrong. We can't bear for them to be wrong; the consequences to us (think the children) are too grave.  We grow up with shame.  As much as I wanted to be the perfect mom, I passed on the burden of the human condition albeit unintentionally.  And so it goes. Eat the apple; don't eat the apple.  It's all the same.  Roxie

Numbing Out

So, how do we find the sacred in the ordinary?  How do we make sacred shit out of the stuff in this day?  That stuff can range from attending the funeral of a friend who over-dosed to cutting our toenails.  In my case, it's being snowbound for a couple of days and not knowing what to do with so much time on my hands.

Thich Nhat Hahn says enlightenment is being present while doing the dishes or gardening.  I'm not so good at that.  Yesterday was about shoveling. The snow was heaped high and pure white all around.  While I did have a passing thought about the power and magnificence of nature, I mostly was aware of being very wet and exhausted.  After the shoveling which was completely unsuccessful in extricating my car, I spent the rest of the day playing video games and binge watching taped episodes of "Bull."  I ate popcorn with cheese and numbed myself generally to my housebound state.

Here was a day when I could have read sacred books, meditated, journaled, and even prayed.  Or, I could have sat and pondered that magnificence of nature noted before.  It could have been my own private retreat, a spiritual time.  It wasn't, alas.  Behind the game playing and numbing out was a nagging worry about the stuck car and the loneliness.

And the more existential worries about life and the insignificance of my existence. This manifested in thoughts like:  "What if I have a heart attack?"  Followed by a quick return to video games.  Sometimes I forget that the universe, the creation, is a wave made up of just such minuscule, sometimes frightened, particles as myself.  With Robert Frost, sometimes I feel like "I am too absent-spirited to count."

Sometimes, as today, I know me.  My kind and all the millions of other kinds make up the great wave of creation.  Feeling the pull of dark matter, like Einstein we know there's a worm hole out of darkness into an alternate universe of light.  I know that today.  Yesterday, not so much.  Roxie

Bring It, St. Valentine!

So, Valentine's Day (VD) is coming up here in the USA.  VD celebrates being "in love" as opposed to loving.  According to the myth, the day is named after St. Valentine who was executed in the third century for marrying Christian couples against Roman orders.  Somehow, that ancient event has evolved into (a) couples flaunting their relationship status and (b) major business transactions involving flowers, cards, candy, and fine dining.  Talk about secularizing the sacred!  One dead guy, ooops, holy martyr who performed illegal marriages and, viola, a booming business day in the US.

I'm all for love and I love many people.  I also have been "in love" and that didn't seem so much like love as it did a pheromone induced upper.  I would like to send love notes to my children, my friends, my dog.  I love them.  I'm not "in love" with anyone nor do I want to be.

I'm thinking the Big Dude or Universal Good is amused or, yikes, not amused by these pointless human antics.  What happened to enlightenment?  What happened to love thy neighbor as thy self? What happened to humble awareness of our tiny role in the universe?  Instead of dining out, shouldn't we be feeding the hungry?  I get that VD is an escape.  It's a way to forget momentarily that our partner is cheating on us or to extract a more expensive present from the cheater.  It's a way to pretend that Eros lives in our relationship.  If you have no in-love relationship, it can be yet another reason to feel bad about yourself.

Or, you could use it as a reason to say "I love you" to those you truly love, as a day to manifest loving kindness to strangers, as a day to feel your deep connection to universal love.Instead of wearing a heart pendant that someone bought for us, shouldn't we be wearing our vulnerability on our sleeve?

I'm here, Life.  Bring it! Roxie

Politics and Dark Matter

So, the US has a new president.  I could call him every bad name I can think of (and I have done that) but I have a nagging understanding that he is a child of the universe passing through just as I am.  He seems to be dark matter (see previous post) and that's the rub, isn't it?

As spiritual beings in a physical world, we need to see him for what he is, another face of creation.  He may be a tsunami and I may prefer a quiet pond, but who am I to judge?  I have no idea what universal design has up its sleeve.

So, that's on the spiritual plane.  I'm living simultaneously, however, on the physical plane and from that place I want to kick and scream and call names:  narcissist! Hitler!  misogynist! pervert! abuser of women! Fuckin' asshole!  Aaaaarrrgghhh . . .

I can feel myself being called back to my spiritual nature.  Breathe.  He is my brother, our president. I'm sending white light his way.  It's sacred shit, this political reality of ours. Roxie 

Dark Matter

I don't know about you, but I always have thought that if I'm sad, my task is to get the feelings out and then cheer up.  If I'm depressed, I have to change that as if "dark matter" isn't welcome in my being and certainly doesn't hold up to the virtues of so-called "positive" feelings.

That's so untrue.  The universe is full of dark matter of all kinds.  The big bang theory itself posits that all of us particles are going to be sucked into a dark whole eventually.  The universe doesn't discriminate or make judgments between things that might make humans happy and things that might lead humans to despair.

The creation is a hodge-podge of tsunamis and vivid sunsets, of falling leaves and spring buds.  There is no judgment of these polarities or any of the situations between.  So it is with humans.  We are a combination of lightness of being and dark matter.  One is not better than the other.  Both and all the grey matter (LOL) between make up our essence in a wild, pagan dance of danger and ecstasy.

Wouldn't it be great if we just didn't judge.  Pema Chodron, a Buddhist monk, writes that life is in awareness, not in judgment--just noticing what is happening be it sadness or joy, beauty or beast.  Noticing and accepting whatever floats through existence.

Living in the spaciousness of, well, space is a kind of enlightenment.  Planets and meteorites, suns and moons, all the matter and dark matter of the cosmos sail by us if we let them.  My problem is that sometimes I grab onto some piece of the heavens and hang on for dear life instead of letting it all play out to its various destinies.  I'd like to be able to watch the wild river of my life as it flows around my feet whether in a trickle or rough currents that pull me temporarily under.

I want to make space in me for dark matter and not fight it as if it's the enemy, letting it be.  Roxie

'Twas a Dark and Stormy Night

You know the times!  There are days (and nights) when we can't seem to connect with the higher good, when we're just putting one foot in front of the other, when surviving is all we can manage.  Where the hell is the Big Dude or higher power or universal intelligence or God or whatever?

What is it about the human condition that a sense of belonging or an awareness that we're connected comes and goes?  I guess if we were always connected, we'd have reached enlightenment which isn't entirely possible.  Even the Buddhists agree that the complete enlightenment of one can only exist with the enlightenment of all.  Some days that's comforting and other days, like today, it does nothing for me.

What's wrong with me today, I ask?  Maybe it's that I hate this computer which has Windows 10 and it just seems to have a mind of its own jumping around to pages I don't want and dumping things I do want.  It's like a metaphor for my life.  I set out to write something (have a good day) and the cursor has moved itself so that what I write is mushed into something else I was writing (my day takes an unexpected turn for the worse and another and another).  I end up in Adobe when I'm supposed to be in Word (end up tangled up in my mind when I want to be in my heart).  Maybe it's that I gently set a boundary for my housemate and, not being good at that, I now feel guilty and worried that I hurt her or that she's going to come home later to argue the point.  I hate confrontations!  Maybe it's that I've had a summer of catastrophes to my car, my budget, my body and so on; or, maybe it's that those things served to tweak the part of my mind that cries:  "What am I going to do--nobody has my back!"  That's the same part that yells:  "What am I going to do--my computer won't do what I want and I have no one to ask about it--Damn it!" Ultimately, that all means: "Where the heck is God?"

And so, I'd probably welcome an actual dark and stormy night. I'd worry about the power going out instead of whether I'm losing my mind.  I'd be looking for flashlights and batteries instead of looking for answers. I'm reminded suddenly of a Robert Frost poem. He wrote:

But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.

That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather. 

The "outer weather" is so much preferable to the dark and stormy "inner weather," isn't it?  Roxie

Me and My Neighbor

Did you ever wonder how the heck we're supposed to go about loving ourselves? I'm thinking abut Jesus' idea that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.  When I watch the news, I can't comprehend the horrific ways we treat our neighbors, but this morning I knew the answer:  We, humans, don't love ourselves.

The outside world mirrors the interior human condition; don't you think?  If I'm worried about the state of the world, perhaps I need to look at the state of Roxanne.  Have I treated myself well this day? Did I eat healthy food?  Did I exercise? Did I rest? Did I journal, meditate, and read for spiritual food?  Did I seek the love and companionship of friends?  The only question I can really ponder is not "Why is the world not at peace?"; it's "Am I at peace?"

I'm not.  I worry about my health.  I get totally frustrated in filling out insurance forms.  I cuss as the pen runs out of ink sending my dog cowering into her crate.  I grit my teeth when the toilet breaks down.  I suspect the worst when a friend doesn't call at the agreed upon time.  I yell at other drivers on my way to the grocery store where I roll my eyes when the person ahead of me has the dreaded coupons.  I'm almost never at peace.  Why should I expect it of the world?

Granted, I don't express my inner rage and fear with weapons of mass destruction and I rarely even use words to state anger at another person.  But, on a spiritual plane, this seems a difference in degree rather than kind.  My anger, however it is expressed, is THE ANGER,  My fear is THE FEAR.  Anger and fear fuel war and terrorism and domestic abuse.  The gun isn't in my hand; it's in my heart at times.

I read the following line somewhere and wrote it on my reminder board at home:  "I am my only project."  I'm thinking if we love ourselves, we love the world.  If we love ourselves, we make a deposit in the world love bank.  Which brings me back to the question of how I go about loving myself.  In a perfect world, I would have learned love from my family.  Many of us didn't learn it there.  My question to my readers is:  What do you do to love yourself?   Roxie

Hands Together: Don't Shoot

About once a week, I get a call from the Fraternal Order of Police asking for a donation. I used to donate regularly but no more.  I don't take their calls.  I am appalled by the number of black people who are verbally abused, beaten and killed by police officers.  It is absolutely, unequivocally not OK. We need a zero tolerance policy for murder and assault by police officers. Forget the "internal investigation" process wherein police judge whether their brothers are guilty. We need to call it what it is and put these perpetrators in the criminal justice system.

I'm triggered today by the announcement yesterday that the officer who killed an unarmed black man in Baltimore went scot free in a "mistrial."  It seems that his fellow officers mishandled the evidence. Wait, what?  It was all caught on video tape.  How do you mishandle that?

I don't know what to make of this spiritually.  If I'm seeking inner serenity and enlightenment, should I turn a blind eye to these crimes against my brothers and sisters?  Should I pray for victims and perpetrators alike? What would the good God do in these situations?  I think of the parable of the prodigal son and the lost sheep.  Would Jesus have gone to find the police officer who committed the murder or stood with the black man?

Well, I'm fairly sure Jesus would always stand with those who are marginalized and mistreated, but that's a guess.  I know what the Big Dude would do.  Without question or hesitation, he would stand with the powerless.  I know what I must say the next time the FOP calls for a donation:  "The first month that I do not see a single incident of police crime against black people, I will donate."

I try (not very hard), in the meantime, to put my hands together in prayer about this.  I try to give the whole thing over to some higher being.  I'm not there yet.  I remain horrified at the visible and regular crimes of the police made transparent by the existence of cameras everywhere.  I want to fight back, not look away or pray.  

Slowwwww Downnnnn

"Slow down; you're moving too fast.  Got to make the morning last."  Remember those lyrics in a Simon and Garfunkel song?  They came to me this morning as I was reading something inspiring in bed.  Go ahead and lose control, the reading said.  My entire body relaxed.  I realized then that when I'm all up in my head and holding tightly to old messages, there's no room for the sacred to enter.

After a glorious, inspirational day on Sunday, I crashed on Monday and old messages surfaced bringing me to state of exhaustion.  I slept and told myself I needed a "sick day" after so much effort expended.  "Don't get so excited.  You'll get sick," my mother used to say.  Well, I had gotten "too excited" and darned if I wasn't sick the next day.

After being pretty much stuck there all day, I finally set some simple tasks for myself to accomplish--little things that I had been putting off and that were dragging at the edges of my consciousness.  Never mind Sacred Economics or a quantum revolution of consciousness that I could be a part of.  I was back to survival mode.

Doing that one task did help.  It got me into my car and into a different space.  In recovery rooms, they say, "move a muscle, change a thought."  I moved a muscle and while my thoughts didn't exactly change, they were a little less overwhelming.  This morning, I decided to read something inspirational before I even got out of bed.  There it was.  The message I needed to hear:  "Don't hang on so tightly.  It's OK not to be in control."  Really?  Whew!

I got up with more enthusiasm and as I was walking down the stairs, the words "slow down" came to mind.  Immediately, I was in the moment, in my body, awake to possibilities within me.  Immediately, I was aware of the sacred.

It's such a simple thing.  Anyone can do it.  It's hard to remember it sometimes is all.  S.l.o.w. . . . D.o.w.n.  That's all.  Sweetly flows the sacred into the soul.  Roxie

The Aroused Heart

Last night, I attended a live taping of an interview with Dr. Michael Wayne (http://www.quantumrevolution.net/) who has been traveling around the world with a videographer interviewing thinkers and activists on the "leading edge" of transforming culture and consciousness.

An odd thing for me to attend since I spend so much time trying to sedate myself, calm myself, numb myself from the fears I experience when I look at the human condition.  Not so, Michael.  He calls the part of us having those fears our "reptilian brain" and invites us to work from an aroused heart instead.  I've been plodding away trying to find meaning in the slings and arrows of life and not doing very well at that.  I'm beginning to see that change is driven by that 1 percent of inspiration not just by the 99 percent of perspiration as Thomas Edison stated.

When I watch the ubiquitous insanity that we call "the news," I see a world drowning in the 99 percent.  There are problems everywhere and sometimes people are trying to solve them.  I've been living in that 99. Working hard to survive, that's the 99.  Working hard and getting nowhere. Recently, I've been drawn to the one percent.  I attended a workshop called "Women's Voices, Women's Visions" which brought together 60-some writers and artists who want to use their creativity in what they called "art and activism"--in short, they want to change the world.  They are the one percent.  During four wonderful days, I felt drawn out of my perspiration into the energy of inspiration. (womensvoiceswomensvisions.com)

Last night, again, I was seeking out the inspiration side of life.   Dr. Wayne began the evening by comparing the shadow side of life (the shit) and the inspired side of life (the sacred--to reference the sacred shit in my blog title).  He spoke of the shooting in Charleston and then of the forgiveness that the families and communities of the Emmanuel AME Church offered to the shooter.  He pointed out that the news goes on and on about the shooting; the transformative or sacred side of the event is largely ignored.  He reminded us that living in the one percent never means forgetting the pain of humanity.  He invited each of us, however, to transform shitty or shadow events into the sacred by reframing them by seeing the potential for transformation in the event.  This is the work of the aroused heart.

Having lived all too much in the shit of the reptilian brain, I felt the power of his idea.  Every time you encounter a problem or see something horrifying on the news, it's a call to see the transformative response or potential arising in concert with the problem. I can't say that enough.

I thought of all this in terms of my blog.  I've been struggling to know where to go and mostly I've been working with that old reptilian brain component. I need to remember the sacred in the blog title and in my life. Work from an inspired heart not the terrified brain.  Become the bearer of the good news, the whole news which recognizes the sacred and the shit.

A song is running through my head:  "Good news--chariot's a coming."  Sung by people under the most horrific conditions of slavery. They saw the sacred, for sure, in the shit. So do the people of Charleston Emmanuel AME Church.  So, good new--chariot's a coming, folks.  Led by an aroused and inspired heart, we can evolve to the brilliance of divine consciousness.  

Sense and Sensitivity

Apprehending the good, the universal force, or the Big Dude as I call him, can be tricky.  Sometimes you can almost reason your way there through the domain of quantum physics, Einstein's wormhole, and such. Some people seem to "sense" the divine, noticing it where they live.  Some rare few go beyond reason and sense to "sensitivity."  Often, these folks are called "high strung" or "nice girl, but a bit woo-woo, if you know what I mean."

The quantum reasoning works pretty well if you're willing to read something besides the Bible or the Koran or whatever.  You might have to read Does God Play Dice, for example or Michael Wayne's new book Quantum Integral Medicine.  So, yes, this way of apprehending god uses reason but it requires educating your reason to a quantum level if you see what I mean.  Some people don't have the opportunity to do that, or don't want to, frankly.

Moving on to those who "sense" god.  They hear him/her in the whoosh of the wind in the trees or the steady heartbeat of ocean waves.  They touch him/her in the silk of a peony petal.  They smell him/her in lilacs, new mown grass, or baking bread.  For these folks, the divine is where they live, on this earth, in this moment.  I can be one of these people now and then and really be aware of a cosmic beauty coming to me through my senses.

Finally, we have the enlightened, enlightened-wannabe's, mystics, gurus, and maybe some yoga teachers.  These are the ones among us who can bypass senses and enter an altered state where god or the divine or the Big Dude abides.  I'm told anyone can get to this state through meditation (I almost wrote medication--that works as well, I'm thinking).  I do meditate and things happen but THIS THING, this divine presence, seldom happens.

Nope, I'm securely ensconced in reason and sense.  I read the quantum books and I hear, smell, and touch the divine.  I'm good with that.  Oh, I keep trying with the meditation stuff but I'm not sure I have what it takes--that sensitivity that quivers as the divine takes residence in the soul.  Roxie

You Can't Fake Divine Crap

There's no faking on a spiritual blog!  Well, I suppose many spiritual people do fake it because they're tired, just aren't feeling it, or maybe they're just scamming the rest of us to begin with.  Anyhow, there's no faking on this spiritual blog.

That's a curse and a blessing.  The curse is that you have to BE spiritual to write about it.  You have to think spiritual thoughts, feel spiritual feelings and be transported now and then.  Well, I've been away almost a year, so what does that say about me?  You could assume I've been a-spiritual, spiritually anorexic and I couldn't blame you.

The fallacy in that is that you don't HAVE to post every time you have such thoughts, feelings, and transports!  In fact, I don't see how a human, allegedly a spiritual being cloaked in a physical frame, can go even a short time like an hour, much less a year, without swarms of such experiences. I've been swarmed.

The Big Dude has been hanging around on a regular basis, divine stalker that he is.  And sometimes I even notice he's there, recognize his droppings, notice his signature.  For example, I share my house sometimes and for the first time I have been sharing it with a male.  After turning down myriads of potential housemates, I finally stumbled over Rick, a truly fine human being and I took him on.

About a month later, I was rear-ended by a hit and run driver and entered the labyrinth of no-fault insurance claims, personal injury  or PIP as it's known in the business, and the part of the medical world fueled by non-health insurance companies.  Come to find out, Rick heads up the PIP division of a large insurance company and he's walked me through every piece of paper, every test and appointment, and even through the myriad phone calls from my insurance company.  What are the odds that the very first time I agree to house share with a male, he turns out to have the exact skills that I need to survive a very complicated personal injury, no-fault insurance system.  The odds
are zero to none, right?

I couldn't help but see the Big Dude behind that "coincidence."

So where's the curse in all that?  Clearly, that falls in the category of "blessing," yes?  Yes.  The curse is in failure to shape that blessing into the language of sacred shit so I could post it on my blog.  Better late than never, I say, and so I'm posting today.

Generally, I end my stories with a lesson of some kind, gleaned from that self-same story.  A little parable, if you will.  Maybe the lesson is this:  I'm coming to take the Dude for granted.  How great is that?  I don't have to write about him to make him come alive.  He's kind of taken up residency in my neighborhood, that in-dwelling thing that mystics write about.  That's a little fancy for me though.  I'm just a chick who's blessed with a stalker-god.  Not that I'm condoning stalkers, mind you; but if I've got to have one, then I'm glad it's the Big D.  Blessings, Roxie

The Big Dude Dwells Within!

We read about the God who lives inside of us.  I've always thought of that, intellectually, as some kind of co-creative spark that each creature uniquely possesses.  I'm coming to see that literally some kind of different spirit or being lives in my being--in lock down along with childhood feelings both of sorrow and glory.  Wordsworth wrote:  "those first affections,/Those shadowy recollections,/Which, be they what they may,/Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,/Are yet a master-light of all our seeing."

 He's saying that some higher being inhabited us more fully when we were children and as adults, we have a harder time grabbing on to that innate connection.  To my absolute amazement, every time I unlock a childhood feeling, bring it into the light of day, I am closer to
that indwelling Spirit or God or the Big Dude, call it what you will.

 We're on a journey as "spiritual beings in a physical world" says Teilhard de Chardin.  Before we were conditioned and shaped by our parents and our culture, we were instinctively drawn to whatever life presented--laughter, clouds, a loving touch, a butterfly.  We knew that life was amazing!  In my own case, I learned to NOT be amazed, to stifle my amazement and joy.  I learned, in fact, to be afraid.  I learned to be quiet and to try to please authority figures.  By age 5, I had very little wonder left in me.  Mine is not an unusual situation.  Many, many humans have far worse experiences in childhood to wipe out those "shadowy recollections" and even those "trailing clouds of glory" that Wordsworth speaks of.

 Many of us learned that the God of our families and even our schools or churches was a harsh, punishing God who would separate those sheep from those unacceptable goats, who would see our slightest sin, who might strike us dead if we doubted or questioned authority.  This was the God of my mother, for sure.  He was a weapon used to scare us into the behavior required of the moment. How do we recover from that false idol and begin to open ourselves to our own spiritual nature lost in the rules and judgments of family and culture?

 I'm learning that every time I free a feeling that has been on lock down for decades, I experience a bit more of my connection with the Divine.  I feel the fear of my 13-year-old self white knuckling it through church services as I'm sitting in church today.  I feel the horror of my 5-year-old self rejected and shamed for being injured on the playground as I'm dancing with friends.  Don't feel.  Don't be so excited.  Don't be happy.  Be afraid.  Be. Afraid.

 How do we know, much less love, a God that seems to have been a perpetrator of pain and fear or, at least, seemed to be at the command of such perpetrators.  I think of watching a priest beat a third grader with a switch in front of a room full of 8-year-olds.  I remember trying not to move a muscle, trying to be invisible, trying not to ever be noticed by God or any of his representatives.

 And so it was for many human children. It doesn't have to be once we're adults.  We can heal. That divine spark, all but extinguished, burns a little higher every time we remember a squashed feeling and let it live.  God lives, for me, in all those locked up places--in enthusiasm, spontaneity, joy.  In my unbridled 3-year-old self, arms outstretched, running and leaping into Uncle Phil's arms where he sat in a speedboat. That "running toward" is the diving spark that's coming back to me.