Choosing the Story

Something hard happened to me recently. When I asked what I was to learn, my inner knowing answered:  What do you want this to be about?

You mean, I get to choose?  I get to write the story?

I decided I wanted it to be an end to choosing fear over love. And so I am in this practice of trusting in the good, trusting that the Universe is a loving place, trusting that my inner process is taking me where I need to be.  This, as opposed to trying to control things out of fear.

This sounds so simple, yet it is a profound shift. How do I contribute to my own well-being, rather than suffering?

Would love to hear how you choose your story.

Calling all Amateurs

If you can talk, you can sing. If you can walk, you can dance. - African saying

I love to move spontaneously to music. Someone asked me once if I was once a modern dancer by profession. I had to laugh. I have no innate sense of rhythm. I can't memorize steps. I'm quite clumsy, rather shy, and I don't have abs of steel. I am an amateur. What inspired her to ask must be the way I melt into the pure pleasure of sound and movement. I get transported.

Creative people know and seek numinosity, and we are all creative. Remember the last time you were so absorbed in what you were doing that you lost track of time? You became it -- the sound of your boots on the trail, the colors mixing on the canvas, the lullaby you sing to your child, the tales coming from your inky fingers, the chopping of the vegetables. Numinosity is total presence, being immersed in the moment, feeling fully alive and connected.

Amateurs get a bad rap in a culture that elevates experts above passive, disempowered consumers. But amateurs are lovers, those who follow their bliss, do things purely out of love of this numinosity. Amateurs risk being called nerds or geeks or wannabes, but a person who is passionate about something is a truly alive being.

When we are so absorbed, we soothe our nervous systems, regulate our heart rate and breathing, and get those endorphins flowing. We get happy. And that carries through to the end result.

Imagine a meal cooked by a harried, resentful, burnt out mom who's just rushed home from work. Hear the plates being plonked on the table. See the morose family sitting there. Taste the undigestible obligation. Now envision a potluck whipped together by friends who love to cook. They invent new dishes out of missing ingredients. They sing and dance to their favorite tunes. They are grateful. Totally different experience for those creating the meals and for those dining.

And finally, imagine a meal cooked by rote by a disconnected, bored professional chef. It may look all pretty, but there's no love, no soul. And substitute any profession for 'chef' and you see the negative impact of soulless production.

As an antidote to the endless craving-consuming cycle promoted by our culture, we are each called to be amateur, lovers of...something. Where can you experience the love of the thing you are doing? That's where you can extend happiness and connection in what you offer up. Be brave, be daring. It's amateur hour, in the best sense.

Call and Response

Always the world is calling to us with beauty, with love. Are you there? it asks. Are you alive? Do we take time to see, hear, taste, touch, smell what the world offers? If we are at least a little sentient and awake, how do we respond? We need to share our stories: Yes, I'm here. Yes, I'm alive.

My body is still resonant from a recent kirtan led by Jai Uttal and friends. We friends and strangers gather to sing and chant Hindu devotional songs. The meaning of all the songs is the same: I love Creation, Creation loves me; YAY Universe; thanks to the Gods/Goddesses. And because it is call and response, you just listen and receive this passionate music and respond with the purity of your heart. The room was alive with all kinds of voices. From afar the meditation hall must have pulsed like a giant heart.

Each round builds in energy, and the group entrains. The full-bodied ecstatic waves of energy are so wonderful to feel as air and sound travel throughout my cells. One cannot sit still. We are literally moved. The silence is full and delicious during meditation between songs. And the frogs outside harmonize with us throughout.

Yes, I'm here. Yes, I'm alive. Yes, I'm grateful. Yes, it's wonderful to be together. Out loud and in silence. Yes, this is my body. Yes, this is us.

Love over Fear

A common theme this week has been Love over Fear. How do we do the next right thing with love and trust, rather than panic and fear and desperation? How do we attract more of a good thing?

It's so easy to get caught in the fear and uncertainty as the economy as we've known it seems to be dissolving. What new form is coming? Is this too little too late to save our society? What can I do? You may be feeling triggered just reading these words. Stop. Exhale completely and let your breath naturally fill you up. Do it again. Again. Again.

Place your hands on your heart. Yes, right now, as you are supposed to be preparing for a business meeting. It only takes a minute. Connect to all the positive change that is happening right now in your body as it renews itself. Your heart pumping, slowing from anxious pitter patter to a deeper sure rhythm. Slowing down enough to remember the wholeness that underlies all discomforts.

Compassionate self-touch is love your cells understand. While you're at it, think of someone you love, someone who loves you. Yes, even let that smile come to your face. Love over fear can happen in a few breaths. You get to choose. The fear may still be there, but it may not have you by the throat.

Place your hands on your belly. Let your breath drop below the diaphragm and calm you down immediately. The belly expands with fresh energy on the inhale, and releases unhelpful thoughts and fears and toxins from the body on the exhale.

Nothing new. Essential to remember. As we practice being in loving presence with ourselves and others, we make more space around the fear and infuse that space with a whole lot of love. And as we know, so much can happen in that more open-hearted space, where we are connected with ourselves and each other.

Being Love

LATE FRAGMENT

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

- Raymond Carver

Magic happens when we are busy being love. I don't mean being 'in' love, as if it were a substance we swim in. But being love, the walking talking ocean itself. Touching everyone and everything with our gentle wave, bringing love to everything we do.

A friend described her life of late: providing great service to people at work, realizing some visionary projects and handing some off to others, paying off debt and saving for the next big thing, tending the relationship in a new way with her life partner. She is happy, excited about life, and at peace.

Part of me is pure envy listening to all this wonderfulness. And still I am awake enough to recognize that she is Being Love. She's crossed into new territory. And she is making a difference. I am Present enough to be happy for her.

I try to remember moments of being love. Setting out for a hike, anticipating adventure. Making my husband laugh. That still, crackling point when a counseling session opens up and my client and I are deeply moved by discovery. Making art when I let it make me. Allowing myself to be all broken in front of other people. Letting their compassion mosaic me back together. Noticing that my cat has hypnotized me once again into giving him a belly rub.

How do I get back to this being love when it feels so far away? The envious part of me desperately needs to know. Does the self-care routine come first? My friend has fine-tuned her nutrition, rest, and yogic spiritual practice. She actively loves herself with the basics every day.

Or is it an internal action? A surrender to love, a YES to life, a declaration of I am here. It probably doesn't matter where it starts, as acts of self-love or reaffirming belief in love and the goodness of life. Just that it starts. In deep winter, with our much needed rains seeping into thirsty earth, seeds of being love are being fed.

New Year Magic

I did a wonder walk through the fog with my man on New Year's Day. What I want to say about that: it's good to start your year daring to be a fool for love. On Van Ness Avenue, near the serious opera hall and spiffed up city hall, we looked up and found a hawk soaring. Fairly low, it looked down at us while hunting for lame pigeons. We do what we always do with high fliers. We stuck our arms out and echoed their soaring, swaying back and forth with our long fingery wings.

I called to one, then two of the beautiful relatives, that we love them. It's thrilling, my heart leaps when I see the wild in the city. I tell them I love them and thank them. People around us are giving us the hairy eyeball. We point, "Look at the hawks!" But they just pass us by and don't look up.

I believe that the animals, our relatives, only let themselves be seen by those with eyes. I have eyes, my man has eyes, and certain of my friends have eyes to see the magic in the world. I am grateful they are here. Hawks are messengers to Spirit, so whenever you see one, send a message of thanks, love, and blessing. Use that acute vision to hone in on what will feed you well. And ask for what you want.

I wanted to feel myself alive in the city I love, exploring with my man, being a body in joyful motion. And so it was.

And, in the End...

...the love you take
Is equal to the love you make.

<sup>In these final hours of 2008, it's good to recall this bit of wisdom from the Beatles. Those with whom we share moments of love and understanding are our profound mirrors and teachers. Of course, they are our friends and family, the long-term reflections of our own human frailty that we find in our lives for some strange reason. Mirrors and teachers are also fleeting strangers, like the people on the train who laughed with me about some such urban craziness. (See my 2/21/08 post.)

Where did we extend our love, forgiveness, and understanding this year? To whom? In what circumstances? How did we stretch our hearts? And what were the rewards? Conversely, where did we withhold or step back from meeting another with compassion? What did that experience give us?

My late friend Randy was fond of saying hearts break, yes, but they break OPEN to get bigger. And as we enter a new year, we can be on the lookout for how best to tend our hearts, meeting ourselves with compassion and care. When we do that, we feel safe to keep ourselves open to life and other people. So along with your resolutions, consider what shape and size you want your heart in 2009. Mine is going to be shapeshifting, but mostly roundish, so that it can roll around and play with others.

Blessings for this passing year and all the riches it has brought.</sup>