Tag: awareness

Clear the Fear!

I’ve become increasingly aware of how fear rules the airwaves and the collective mindset these days. So many people are terrified of “others,” as well as all that they can’t control in their lives. The media (both programming and advertising) feeds on and amplifies those fears. The mainstream news focuses on war, shootings, political fighting, disasters. Crime-solving drama series, filled with violence and gun battles, proliferate. Drug companies advertise medications to treat various conditions (including anxiety and depression), at the same time listing dangerous potential drug side effects (stroke, suicidal thoughts…). Interspersed among all the rest are promos for films with horror or terror themes. The ads alone can give you nightmares! 

These frightening images and stories stick to our brains and fill us with fear and hopelessness. Isn’t it time to turn our backs on this noisy onslaught of negativity and look to our own hearts for a more positive way to live life? Turn off the TV and computer, put down your cell phone, and take a walk outside in a park or nature sanctuary. Find your inner balance among the trees and flowers. Listen to birdsong and the sweet silence that surrounds you. Look at the sky, morning, noon, or night, for inspiration and a deep sense of something greater guiding the universe. 

What if the cosmos unfolds independently of our longing for control? What if it’s on its own trajectory? A vast, constantly changing kaleidoscope of colors and light, an infinite matrix within which our souls live diverse human lives on Earth. What if everything we see and experience is part of a divinely orchestrated pattern that we have yet to fully perceive? Human life may be our entry point to wisdom and awareness as we pass through fear, recognizing it for the illusion it is, and step into the “peace beyond understanding” described by the great sages throughout time. Perhaps we are on exactly the right path to finally see the love and light that has always lived within all of us.

Granted these are intense times with many challenges, including public and private tragedies, but don’t let fear freeze you and make you incapable of standing up for the integrity of your own life and life itself. Remember that ancient wise teachers have foreseen this era of tumultuous transition and rebirth. We are not here to destroy ourselves or one another. We are here to recognize fully the blessing that each of us is—and the blessing that our Earth home is. Feel connection with your neighbors. Beneath the surface of all the turmoil and headlines that seem to crowd our daily lives, something else is occurring: the emergence of love instead of hate, cohesion instead of friction, open hands instead of closed fists. It won’t happen overnight, but it’s closer than you think.

This afternoon I turned away from my computer and walked outdoors just as the sun was slipping toward the horizon. I paused as a dragonfly landed on my foot and moved its wings silently, reflecting the light. In a tree nearby, a chickadee was calling “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” as it made its way through the branches. Bluejays flew from oak tree to oak tree, gathering acorns for the winter. Moments like these center my heart in the spacious stillness of all Being everywhere. Any lingering fears of the day fall away, and I am reminded once again that Life is bringing me, and every one of us, Home. Free and clear.

Infinite Intelligence

I like the term “Infinite Intelligence” as an alternative to “God,” which some people find too religious.* I appreciate the expansiveness of those two words, seeming to cover everything visible and invisible in the universe, and not associated with any one spiritual tradition. There is an overarching inclusiveness within them. To me, Infinite Intelligence can be used to describe everything: the stars and planets; humans and animals; bees and birds; stones and flowers. If we could see every living being and every so-called “inanimate object” as part of an intricate fabric of intelligence and light, maybe we would drop many of our preconceptions and assumptions.

About animals, for instance. Until recently, most humans did not give them credit for any intelligence. Their behavior was all based in “instinct.” Yet, if we look and listen closely, we will recognize great intelligence among these creatures who do not speak our language but very clearly communicate, with one another and with us. They live their lives with both intelligence and profound awareness, which is the basis of their relationship to the world. They move within it in a kind of intuitive flow, as if they are responding to highly developed directional cues that are invisible and inaudible to humans.

Throughout my life, I have experienced animal intelligence, love, playfulness, and humor. My dog Pepper was my constant childhood companion, and we invented countless imaginative games to play together outdoors. When I was an adult, my cats Edward and Lily repeatedly displayed their cleverness and sense of humor. Edward would remind me it was time for his breakfast by making chewing noises next to me as I slept. Lily would make me laugh if I was sad or upset by hiding behind the window shade and reaching around with her paw to ring the wind chimes. She often did yoga with my partner, Anne, and me, teaching us the best “cat poses”!

So-called “wild” animals also have intelligence and playful humor. A squirrel and I once had a “disagreement” when he removed a plastic flower from the hummingbird feeder and carried it to the top of a tree. As I scolded him, he looked directly down at me, licked the sugar off the flower methodically, and then dropped it at my feet. I had to laugh at this mischievous response. One summer, a family of raccoons nightly took turns jumping into our neighbors’ hammock and swinging back and forth. It was clearly a shared game that they enjoyed. 

Robins can become daily backyard companions with their cheery singing presence. One used to sit on a tree branch above my garden each morning and call to me insistently if I hadn’t refilled the birdbath with water soon enough. As I watered my flowers, I would often see a bumblebee “sleeping” there, nestled in the petals. One day, I leaned over to say “good morning.” The bee raised its front leg as if in answer. When I repeated my greeting, it repeated its response. A bee-to-human conversation!

Among themselves, birds and animals constantly communicate, both audibly and visually. I’ve heard two crows carrying on a “conversation” as they flew side by side high overhead. In a nearby park, I watched two dogs excitedly run to greet each other like old friends and immediately begin to play and chase each other as if in an improvisational skit. I’ve also seen wild dolphins playing and swimming together in perfect synchronicity in the ocean, often including me and other nearby humans in their water dances. It was like being immersed  in an amazing nonverbal connection arising from eye contact and shared thought/feeling transmission.

Moments like these, in my own backyard or beyond, reinforce my belief in the intelligence of all beings in this world. If we are open to it, we will see it. Infinite Intelligence is everywhere, within each of us and within the farthest reaches of the multiverse. Ultimately there really is no inner and outer, just a vast miraculous infinity that includes us all, heart to heart.
———
*Thank you to Carol Bedrosian for our conversation about this.

Life as Drama…and Serenity

There are times when life feels like those famous drama masks that denote comedy and tragedy in theatrical productions. One mask is smiling, the other crying. On any given day, I can experience both laughter and tears, joy and sorrow. Sometimes both simultaneously. Each year brings new ways that life unfolds in all its dramatic diversity. Yet, underneath it all runs a balancing stream of serenity.

When I was growing up in the Midwest, I remember wondering, a bit fearfully, about the meaning of life as I looked up at the vast star-filled night sky. I wanted to be 9 years old forever, safely reading books in the branches of my favorite climbing tree. But I also wanted to travel the world. My life unfolded in ways that included both those ways of being, as well as extended spiritual exploration.

I continued to be an avid reader (and later a writer and editor) as well as a lover of Nature. I traveled extensively, swimming with wild dolphins in Costa Rica, whales in Hawaii; hiking Machu Picchu in Peru, the Alps in Switzerland. Vision quests in Montana and spiritual ceremonies with Maya elders at sacred sites in Guatemala. Over time, I came to realize that every bit of it was part of my soul’s journey for this lifetime, finding equilibrium among inner and outer experiences.

Growing older has brought unexpected challenges (e.g., breast cancer survivor), but ultimately these have taught me patience, acceptance, and resilience, day by day. Sadness about the passing of family members and friends, as well as apprehension about my own eventual death, are also part of aging. Still, simultaneously, my life is filled with so much joy and love: good friends, old and new, and my dear partner, Anne, with whom I’ve shared 43 years (!) of wonderful life adventures. Each morning we open the door to sunlight over the treetops and birds singing (robins, cardinals, song sparrows, goldfinches). Who could not feel grateful for blessings such as these?

I’ve learned that whether you are crying or laughing, 9 or 90, there is always some beauty to be found in the world (in spite of political conflict or personal pain)—in Nature and in the loving kindness of friends and strangers alike. At any time, I can set aside the tearful mask and pick up the smiling one; let go of worry and embrace trust. Each moment holds all of life. Sometimes we need to cry and release sorrow. But we also need to laugh and find the sweetness of life. And make our way to the inclusive space of neutrality and peace that lives within.

The soul is timeless, not attached to the human framework of hours/minutes; it is beyond circumstance and action/reaction. In our souls we are pure Presence, and we know we are infinite. The temporary form we inhabit while on Earth has experiences while the eternal soul observes everything. Eventually, it all blends together as One. Any separation is an illusion that we realize as we transition, or if we are fortunate, at moments of awakened awareness while we are still in physical form.

With each second that passes, with each precious breath we take, we can open our heart of hearts to a soul vision that will guide our lives to the serenity within the drama. We are here in our human lives to do just that. It is what is meant by Peace on Earth.

Moon, Stars, Infinity

When astronauts landed on the moon in 1969, I was barely out of my teens and more interested in my life on Earth than what was happening in outer space. Everything seemed somehow different, however, when I looked at the photographs the Artemis II astronauts recently took of the moon’s surface, with distant Earth barely visible over the horizon. I was awe-struck by that visual: infinity perceptible to the human eye. Our home planet looked so tiny in the vast cosmos; our individual lives miniscule. Yet all of it was somehow of a piece; I could sense the oneness that connected everything. Perhaps an indication of how far I had lived since 1969.

I grew up frightened of infinity, all that stretched beyond my lifetime into eternal time/space. Late at night before sleep, thoughts of infinite nothingness caused a “brain freeze” in my child’s mind. As the years passed, I gradually learned to distract myself from those thoughts, although they never entirely disappeared. It was only when I began a spiritual journey in my 30s that I opened the door slightly to a different view of the universe.

Eventually, I was able to see infinity as Spirit, as Light, which lives within and all around us throughout eternity. What once seemed terrifyingly empty gradually became softer, almost comforting if I observed it through my soul’s eyes and not my mind. When I went through breast cancer treatment five years ago, my experience of all-inclusive Spirit became even deeper and more expansive. I could see my physical form as temporary and my soul, which was viewing it, as eternal, infinite.

Perhaps we all go through this evolution in our lifetimes, each in our own unique way. Every human life is a doorway to the infinite, and ultimately we realize how blessed we are to experience it. As I stared at the Artemis images of the moon, Earth, and stars, I could literally feel my heart open to infinity, to my own beingness within it and as it. We each come here to experience a version of continuous awakening to that awareness, perhaps not completely until the moment of our death. But actually it is always present.

Our humanity holds divinity within it, and we are multidimensional beings. The universe itself is multidimensional. It cannot be understood or explained by human mental effort, but rather only experienced through moments of profound opening, in Nature, in crisis, in love, in life/death circumstances. Suddenly, everything is everything, and we are One with it all.  An infinite kaleidoscopic tapestry of light and love. This is the view from space as well as from our own souls. We are the moon, the stars, and all of infinity, living one precious life on an extraordinarily beautiful blue planet, shining light in the darkness of the cosmos.

On My Way Through…

“Maybe all we really are is spirit, the spark that draws people to us, the trail we leave behind.”
—Steve Thomas, Spirits Passing Through

In the past couple of years, several friends of mine have passed to the other side, the inevitable destination we call death. In grieving their loss and in contemplating my own future transition, I’ve felt myself coming into a different awareness of living and dying: less specific, more undefined and free-flowing, without parameters. We know so little of what life and death actually are. We think of them as a beginning and an end, but that’s a mental construct. What if there is only Presence, which never begins or ends; it just is? What if humanity itself is one Spirit, made up of sparks that together constitute life on Earth?

I remember my deceased friends as the spirit they embodied in their human forms: dancer/poet, musician/painter, sculptor, political activist. Yet now, they feel greater than those particular creative expressions, more inclusive of all consciousness, within and beyond their individual lifetimes. The longer I live, on my way through the human experience, the more I too feel greater than my physical form and its expressions. I am a writer, but what I write comes through me not from me. And the love I feel for my friends and for my life has no beginning or end. There is an infinite Presence that permeates everything and everyone and stretches to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, and beyond.

I guess what I’m trying to describe is soul, which is at the core of all human beingness and makes itself known through the heart. When I love my life partner, a close friend, a beautiful poem, or a bird singing at dawn, my soul’s presence moves through me into the world. It becomes one with all I see and hear. Soul defies description, yet it fills the world with light endlessly. Our souls came to Earth to be embodied light, to individuate oneness for a lifespan and then flow back into the One.

Perhaps the longer we live, the more we touch on moments of awareness that stretch beyond habitual parameters and open us completely to the universe. Actually, we are the universe, all of it. The universe lives as our souls throughout life, death, and eternity. We know this fully when we die, but that wisdom is within us now. And our life experiences bring it forth. As my life unfolds, the door to infinity opens wider and becomes more welcoming, less frightening. I can see myself and every one of us as infinite spirits of Presence, on our way through, together….
—————
Note: Thank you to my good friend Steve Thomas for the wonderful quote from his CD Spirits Passing Through.