Connected and Committed

creating worlds

sleeping

It's late, and I am not sleepy. Not by a long shot. This is an affliction I have lived with all my life, beginning back in the day when I smelled popcorn and joined my parents watching Johnny Carson on TV in my footy pajamas. In junior high I would channel really bad poetry in the middle of the night on a steno pad. Now I can surf the net. Perhaps there is something that demands expression. It's pounding on the door. Where is the knob?

fighting

This afternoon, I was walking back out to my car after being inside a store, when I noticed a pick-up truck come barreling through the parking lot and come to a screeching halt in the middle of the thoroughfare.  A man got out from the driver's side, slammed the door as hard as he could, and started walking away. There was a woman on the passenger side who just sat there as the man got further and further away on foot, truck still running.

Many scenarios ran through my head. I imagined that he was perhaps the sort of man who's anger managed him that way, and that this woman had seen many, many episodes such as these. She may have learned to stay in the truck, or it would be worse when they got home.

A dance is going on there that may never stop before it's too late and someone gets seriously physically hurt. The emotional hurt is already done, and goes deeper than any bruises might show.

I didn't stick around to see what happened. I just blessed the cosmos for not planting that sort of attraction in my being - something in me allowing that in someone like him to be a part of my life.

Please forgive this interruption

Please forgive this interruption.
I am forging a career,
a delicate enterprise
of eyes.  Yours included.
We will meet at the corner,
you with your sack lunch,
me with my guitar.
We will be wearing our famous street faces,
anonymous as trees.
Suddenly you will see me,
you will blink, hesitant,
then realize I have not looked away.
For one brave second
we will stare
openly
from borderless skins.
This is my salary.
There are no days off.

~Naomi Shihab Nye

Words to Live By

Find your true weakness and surrender to it. Therein lies the path to genius. Most people spend their lives using their strengths to overcome or cover up their weaknesses. Those few who use their strengths to incorporate their weaknesses, who don't divide themselves, those people are very rare. In any generation there are a few and they lead their generation.

- Moshe Feldenkrais

prescription medicine

It's a little strange seeing Valentine's Day merchandise on the shelves before Christmas is even over with. But it's the perfect image to go with this excerpt from an article that jumped out at me this morning:

"The world presents a constant fog of love to our senses, minds and hearts that keeps us trapped in a swirling confusion of superficial love emotions. To reach our highest love potential, we need to step outside this parade of love fantasy into the real world of love that is so much more fulfilling.

"...More than anything else, it is love that best describes who we are. Without love, we could not be accurately identified. This is how to open to your unlimited love potential, by identifying yourself as a love being. As a being of love, you carry the power to energize love into the moment. By seeing yourself as a love being, you can bring in all the love you want and express it to others at quantum levels.

"In this place of love awareness, you get more talented at creating heart connections with others...Instead of being timid, scared, awkward or pushy, let love flow through you and from you to those in your presence. Speak words of love in order to connect your love to others. As others experience you, they will simultaneously experience real love because that's what you are radiating. Take this power into your relationships and let it lead you and others into love's unbelievable and amazing realms. Let your imagination soar when it comes to love. Take a look at how much love you carry in your heart. Allow yourself to feel love in its enormous expansion. Watch it fill the space you're in...

"The fourth way of reaching our highest love potential is by living the exact love - its quantity and quality - you want to receive. It's so easy to think we need someone else to change, to love us better or differently, in order for our love lives to be satisfying. We may also think we need to more beautiful or handsome, richer or that we need to carry some level of importance in order to qualify for love. This just is not the case.

"Here's the secret. Reaching your high test potential of love is all about living the love you want to receive, regardless of circumstances or people. Rather than waiting for someone else to initiate the love, you yourself can become a love creator wherever you are. By relaxing into your purest nature as a love being, you find yourself being that nature. Those around you will sense your love. They will experience the natural expression of your love essence as caring, compassionate, empathetic, nurturing, generously giving and present.

It takes insight to look for love within, rather than somewhere outside of ourselves. Being the love you want to experience creates freedom to express the full dynamic range of love that is possible in your life. The sky's the limit. There's nothing to stop you. Allow yourself to feel a natural ecstasy as this occurs. Have the intention that it can occur every day and as a constant flow. This is the real you, the highest you, you at your highest love potential. Welcome to the heart of love." ~ Scott Peck

come play with me

Come play with me!

they're at it again

This subject line and sender name were sent by two different cyber marketers, but I think they go nicely together, don't you?

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"That should be offset by the larger adult crowd, including a high "borrow a kid"..." 

Growths J. Smudge

holiday wanderings

Thank you all for an absolutely gorgeous day.

Oh, and it was Lee Remick.

dux feminine

It's been three or four years since I read the book from which the excerpt came that I posted earlier today. It didn't mean much to me the first time I saw it, but now it resonates like chamber music reverberating in a 14th century English church at midnight. That, and I just got finished watching a brilliantly orchestrated Hollywood romantic comedy, so my powers of observation may be a bit skewed. But the paragraph that speaks to what it is that the feminine wants - "to be overwhelmed by the bliss of Love, unburdened by doubt or fear of loss" - put in the dagger and twist, Juliet. Who is this guy, that he knows so much about us? Granted, his pedigree would indicate that he should know what he's talking about.

And he does. So.

Since he does, I am going to pay attention to this surrendering thing, "as a practice." It's the next logical step, and with such a divine payoff for such hard work, how can I possibly resist. "Blooming to fullness."  Also time to investigate the goddess, the feminine, the crazy-making energy that makes the world go round that hasn't ever captivated me much. There has to be a twist on it somewhere by one who has gone before that makes perfect sense to me. And of course, I will stumble upon it, and soon.

Knowing that it will show up, and that it will satisfy me, and lead me to the next thing, is almost enough swooning in itself. Almost.   

revisiting the Feminine

"Months or years may go by, and now this woman finds herself doubly in despair. Not only is her Feminine core unsatisfied by the lack of love she receives from her man, she is also unsatisfied by the lack of love she receives from her own Masculine; she still wants a man with whom to share love. Her heart is not overflowing with the bliss of love. Rather, even though there are good times and bad times, her heart is still yearning for more love in her life.

Sometimes a man seems to love her, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes she can love herself, sometimes she can't. Her heart might feel okay, but it doesn't feel overwhelmed by love. Her body might feel okay, but it isn't exploding in the bliss of passionate love. Her mind might feel okay, but it isn't rested in the certain knowledge of love.

The love that would absolutely overwhelm her Feminine core, that would fulfill her deep yearning, is lacking. It always has been. And so the crisis between the second stage and third stage begins: "I can't get enough love from him. And I can't give myself enough love. I am still yearning for more love. It is hopeless."

This Feminine "black hole of need" is equivalent to the Masculine's "mid-life crisis" of emptiness and inauthenticity in His life.

Eventually, a second-stage woman with a Feminine sexual essence becomes absolutely frustrated with her desire for deep and overwhelming love. Sure, there are periods in her life when she might temporarily feel this kind of love, but these periods don't last. There is always the possibility of loss of love. Always there is the fear that maybe he doesn't really love me. Maybe he won't really love me tomorrow. Maybe he'll love someone else more. And maybe I won't be happy by myself, without an intimate partner in love. This doubt of love becomes magnified to the point of heart-yearning despair in the crisis that allows the Feminine to grow from the second to the third stage.

If she can allow herself to relax into her despair without protecting her yearning and wounded Feminine heart, the yearning itself will reveal her divine nature. If she can allow herself to be absolutely open, without trying to fill the "hole" in her heart with food or talk or intimate hopes, this dark hole will eventually widen to the size of the universe. This is not a metaphorical expression, but a literal description of the Feminine Divine nature: the heart widening to infinity, in which absolute love flows with no obstruction.

It is rare for a woman to allow herself this degree of heart vulnerability, just as it is rare for a man to allow himself the degree of self-death or ego-death necessary for the transition to a life purposed toward worship of consciousness and self-transcending service. Most women keep trying to find the right man, or keep hoping that their chosen man will give them more love, or keep attempting to love themselves to the point of happiness. But it never happens -- not to the point that the Feminine heart is overwhelmed by the bliss of love, unburdened by doubt or fear of loss.

This degree of heart-openness can only be experienced by a heart with no protection, an unguarded heart open in love with no expectations of being given love in return. Such a heart is frequently wounded by the blows of unlove dealt by people and the world, but it never closes in pain. The third-stage Feminine heart may be hurt by others since it is not protected, but it is never closed by the pain it feels. Love and openness are the nature of the third-stage feminine heart, even in the midst of hurt. By always being open in love, the Feminine heart is finally pervaded by the love it always wanted. By surrendering directly to the divine force of love in every present moment, breath by breath, rather than hoping to get love from a mortal man or her own mortal self, the Feminine blooms to fullness, neither dependent on a relationship nor independent from a relationship.

Just as the third-stage Masculine realizes the inherent freedom of consciousness without needing to seek such freedom in relationship or away from relationship, so the third-stage Feminine opens in the inherent love of the Divine, in every present moment, as  a practice, either alone or in the midst of relationship."

little man

yin and yang

 

"In Intimate Communion, the Masculine is valued for His ability to bloom  any moment into love, even a difficult moment. The third-stage Masculine may use any means, from humor to anger to sensitive touching, but His communication is always the same: "Let's face this moment without turning away. Let's be fully present in direct relationship with one another. Let's allow the spacious love in our hearts to dissolve our resistance so that we may breathe fully and relax into our natural openness together.

...The Masculine looks to the Feminine for completion. Thus, the more strongly the Feminine shines, the more such a person will fulfill his or her Masculine partner's desire for completion, even without doing much else. A truly radiant person doesn't seem to have to do much to attract a partner, except radiate! And that radiance is very real, tangible and valuable."

~Intimate Communion: Awakening Your Sexual Essence by David Deida

let me just tell you

There is nothing that you're wanting to know that you do not have the capacity to understand fully. And there is nothing that you're wanting to know that the Universe does not already know that you want to know, and has already begun the process of answering. And so, go forth in excited anticipation that the new ideas will continue to bubble forth, and that the Universal Forces will continue to come forth in loving, benevolent, eternal answering to that which you are about.  --- Abraham

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Let me just tell you, this is sooooooooooo friggin' true.

Well, it is for me.

Y'all are free to pursue whatever gets you this jazzed, and I hope you find it.

But this is my blog and I get to yell from these mountain tops whatever I see fit.

Go find it.

Cuz you will.

fish

It's a tad disturbing to be at eye-level with a fish with this kind of countenance swimming beyond glass that is only an inch or so thick. Just a tad.

ruby slippers

We've had the power to go home all along.

Teach your children well so they remember earlier than we did.

Anticipation is a beautiful thing. An ache that when artfully crafted, can be savored indefinitely. Almost as good as being there.

happy parent

The most significant thing for a parent to contribute to anyone, is their own Connection and their own stability. An effective parent is a happy parent. An effective parent is a parent who laughs easily and often, and who doesn't take things so seriously --- Abraham

renunciation

When your heart grows sick of the violence and divisiveness in the world, starting over is the only choice. You stop looking at the reflections and turn instead to the source. The universe, like any mirror, is neutral. It reflects back whatever is in front of it, without judgment or distortion. If you can trust that, then you have taken the crucial step of renunciation. You've renounced the belief that the outer world has power over you. As with everything else on the path to unity, living this truth is what will make it true.

The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life - Deepak Chopra

no way no how

It isn't possible for the self to keep secrets from itself forever, no matter how thoroughly we've been trained to believe otherwise.

~Deepak Chopra

revelation

If it weren't for the enormous effort we put into denial, repression and doubt, each life would be a constant revelation.

~Deepak Chopra

tis the season

Mounds of sugary icing slathered on top of strategically arranged cupcakes in festive shapes - santa, a christmas tree, a wreath, a snow man. I can just feel the cortisol surging through my veins.

the latest

Gerrymandering H. Antipathies

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I'd open an email from this person, wouldn't you?

inauthentically

The great problem is bringing life back into the wasteland, where people live inauthentically. Bringing back the gift to integrate it into a rational life is very difficult. It is even more difficult than going down into the underworld. What you have to bring back is something that the world lacks - which is why you went to get it - and lacking it, the world does not know it needs it. And so, on the return, when you come with your boon for the world and these is no reception, what are you going to do?

...The third possibility is to try to find some aspect of the domain into which you have come that can receive a little portion of what you have to give. You try to find a means to deliver what you have found as the life boon in terms and in proportions that are proper to the world's ability to receive. It requires a good deal of compassion and patience. Look for cracks in the wall and give only to those who are ready for your jewel.

Joseph Campbell - Reflections on the Art of Living

they are doing it again

An internal report within the library is not enough.

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The sad thing is, they are right. It takes at least an external report to be enough.

From the acknowledgments in Dardedel: Rumi, Hafiz, and Love in New York:

"And thank you, Baba, for never minding my inquisitiveness, for never saying no to my imagination, for never reprimanding me for simply being myself. I wish every boy and girl in the world could have a father like you."

Amen.

stop it

Just when I think it can't get any better:

waiting list father-in-law

crystal