Changing Places

In spite of knowing,
Yet still believing.
Though no god above,
Yet god within.

There is no god in the sense of a cosmic father or mother who will provide all things to their children. Nor is there some heavenly bureaucracy to petition. These models are not descriptions of a divine order, but are projections from archetypal templates. If we believe in the divine as cosmic family, we relegate ourselves to perpetual adolescence. If we regard the divine as supreme government, we are forever victims of unfathomable officialdom.

Yet it does not work for us to totally abandon faith. It does not follow that we can forego all belief in higher beings. We need faith, not because there are beings who will punish us or reward us, but because gods are wonderful ways of describing things that happen to us. They embody the highest aspects of human aspiration. Gods on the altars are essential metaphors for the human spiritual experience.

Faith shouldn’t be shaken because bad things happen to us or because our loved ones are killed. Good and bad fortune are not in the hands of gods, so it is useless to blame them. Neither does faith need to be confirmed by some objective occurrence. Faith is self-affirming. If we maintain faith, then we have its reward. If we become better people, then our faith has results. It is we who create faith, and it is through our efforts that faith is validated.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

The point of faith is to become better people. Not to force your religion on others, but to better yourself. Not to strengthen your religion or return it to its traditions so you can glory in the past, but to allow yourself to face the world as it is now, and deal with life as it is now. Tao doesn’t encourage us to live in the past or long for some past glory days of Taoist rule, or go around converting everyone to Taoism, or to force our governments to meet some holy standards of justice. Tao tells us to live our own lives in harmony with natural forces. The “faith” of Tao is to know that if you follow its principles and move in harmony with the Tao, your life will naturally become better.

And it does. That’s the beauty of it. It works. Just as Christianity does if you truly follow its teachings, and don’t reinvent your own interpretations of it to suit your misogynistic tendencies. Just as Buddhism does, if you follow its logic. Just as Islam does, if you follow its true tenants and don’t use them as ways to control the women in your society, or enforce the power of the Mullahs over the people to their detriment. Just as any faith does, once you get past the “rules” you’re “supposed” to follow and understand the heart of what it is trying to tell you - to treat other people well, to better yourself before complaining about others, and to live your own life in accordance with what you believe, and not impose that on other people around you.

For the unified mind in accord with the tao all self-centered striving ceases. Doubts and irresolutions vanish and life in true faith is possible. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind’s power. Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination are of no value. In this world of suchness there is neither seer nor other-than-self.

To come directly into harmony with this reality just simply say when doubt arises, ‘Not two.’ In this ‘not two’ nothing is separate, nothing is excluded. No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth. And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space; in it a single thought is ten thousand years.

Emptiness here, Emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes. Infinitely large and infinitely small, no difference, for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen. So too with Being and non-Being. Don’t waste time in doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this.

One thing, all things: move among and intermingle, without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.

Words! The tao is beyond language, for in it there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today.

–Hsin Hsin Ming (Verses on the Faith Mind)
Attributed to Chien Chih Sengtsan, ca. 600 C.E.
Translated by Robert B. Clarke

I am beginning to understand that there is much of the trickster in my personality. I’ve always identified with Loki, and often use humor to try and defuse situations (not always successfully, like any trickster…)

I’m currently reading Lewis Hyde’s “The Gift” right now, but I think his “Trickster Makes This World” will be in the reading stack soon. (It’s been on my wish list for a few weeks now).

Lewis Hyde

“An important part of any sacred activity is marking a boundary between the sacred and non-sacred. It’s important to build a container so the action is conducted inside sacred space,” he noted. “So, when you get to a character like the Trickster, you now have somebody who is the critic of the boundary, whose position is that all boundaries can be become too rigid and too impermeable, causing the life to dry up inside the container. So you need, both … some way to make the container and some function that is smart about how and where to break it. The Trickster is the sacred boundary crosser. And it’s not just that he crosses boundaries, he does it as a needed sacred function. If all you have is sacred forces who are maintaining their fiefdoms then you can end up with a fragmented heaven. Trickster gets a commerce going among the various sacred powers.”

Speaking of “heaven” - Hyde related in his book the story of C.G.Jung when he was a twelve-year-old schoolboy in Basel, Switzerland, admiring the glorious cathedral in the town square.

Said Jung, “I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the sight, and thought: ‘The world is beautiful and the church is beautiful and God made all this and sits above it far away in the blue sky on a golden throne and … Here came a great hole in my thoughts, and a choking sensation. I felt numbed, and knew only: ‘Don’t go on thinking now! Something terrible is coming …’”

For several days Jung struggled with the thought of whether or not God, who controls all things, could allow him to think a thought he shouldn’t think. Finally, having worked himself around to believing that God wanted him to have the forbidden thought, he relented: “I gathered all my courage, as though I were about to leap forthwith into hell-fire, and let the thought come. I saw before me the cathedral, the blue sky. God sits on His golden throne, high above the world - and from under the throne an enormous turd falls upon the sparkling new roof, shatters it, and breaks the walls of the cathedral asunder … I felt an enormous, an indescribable relief. Instead of the expected damnation, grace had come upon me. I wept for happiness and gratitude.”

Hyde said he was indebted to C.G. Jung, particularly one of his students, Marie-Louise von Franz, and their work with the idea of Mercurius. To the medieval alchemists, Mercury was the metal symbolizing duality - metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery. Mercury was the metal uniting all the opposites. This Trickster energy was known to the Greeks by way of Hermes, the messenger god; in the Roman pantheon, Hermes becomes Mercury.

“C.G. Jung was a fabulously smart guide,” Hyde continued. “The Jungian insight is that the psyche is a community of forces and you need that whole community of forces working together. The pathology is when one member of the community begins to dominate in an individual, so some other part - your Warrior, say, or your sense of justice - gets muted. Or if we’re speaking of a group rather than one psyche, it’s when somebody begins to take over through display of one singular force. In a healthy community, every force will have a counter force. For example, Hermes steals the cattle from Apollo, but at the end of the story, Hermes and Apollo are friends. They find a way to relate. They need each other. You can’t have a boundary crosser unless you have someone who cares about the boundary. Hermes needs Apollo to be able to play with the rules and Apollo needs Hermes to keep things lively.”

To help people come back to a place where they’ve been trapped or lost requires them to become a ‘Hermeneut’ of their own life. They have to be helped to understand that there is an active learnable role to play in relating to the story you tell about your own life, the story you’ve inherited, the story you’re going to create as you live your life. Most Americans are passive recipients of the story that the media wants them to live by and only when you realize it is a story are you able to make different choices. You can interpret the story and be converted - from a passive object of commercial pitchmen into an actor living a life that you yourself create.”

Hyde said he believed a lot of Americans were “numb.” I liked the quote he used from child psychologist Donald Winnicott: “It is a joy to be hidden, but disaster not to be found.”

To explore within ourselves all the limiting behavior we’ve been taught takes a kind of “imaginative amorality,” the author said. It’s not an immorality, but an archetypal motivation in our own psyche to “play with the rules rather than observe them.”

Hubby is back from the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco - and I got presents! Yay! This dragon headed turtle is one of them, along with some yummy Teuscher’s chocolates and a nice hat and scarf from the Scottish store.

Dragon headed turtles are a Feng Shui charm:

The Dragon Headed Turtle brings with it the ancient secrets that can protect a home from negative energies.

The Dragon symbolizes luck, the turtle long life and the baby turtle is a symbol of new beginnings. The Dragon Headed Turtle (Tortoise, Terrapin,) is the symbol of longevity in your home, especially for the head of the house. The dragon headed turtle is also a powerful symbol of wealth, health, prosperity and protection.

Legend has it that the turtle has within his body the secret of heaven and earth and the design of his shell shows the magic square, which is the guide for life.

This beautiful dragon headed turtle can be used to improve relationships by placing a piece of red ribbon in his mouth, to attract wealth use golden ribbon.

If you are having Health problems place a piece of blue ribbon in his mouth.

To increase his strength place him in the North of your lounge or office or place him behind you when you are sitting at your desk to give you support.

To increase your success or improve your options place one inside your front door on a table, in the evening turn him round to face the interior.

Never place him in the kitchen or bathroom.

On a day when I am not at peace with myself or my surroundings, Ascender comes along and kicks my cage door wide open. I was going to write something about how I am feeling today, but I think I’ll just link to her good wishes instead. Please click on her link below to visit all the bloggers she lists; I don’t have the time to fix all the linky love at the moment here.

Namaste, to all.

Studio Lolo tagged me with this ‘peace and love’ meme; to spread the word to send loving energy and thoughts to the places and people that need it. Rather then tagging others I hope to pass on some urls of my virtual pals who could use some of your loving energy and thoughts. Please leave some virtual peace and love to some people who could really use it right now.

Red Moon at the loss of her daughter

The Daily Warrior successfully fighting ALS for 16 years

Studio Friday is closing down. Stop by and show her some love for her dedication all these years.

Check out these bloggers who address peace and love almost everyday: 3191, a poetic justice, another poster for peace, anti-war us, Art For A Change, Art of Mark Byran, Artists Helping Children, Blog Like You Give A Damn, Blood For Oil, bricalu, Buddha Project, Change Me, Changing Places, Crafty Green Poet, No Blood For War and Profit, Inhabitat, kamurawayan, Light a Candle, Military Families Speak Out, Miniature Gigantic, Paris Parfait, Peaceful Societies, Pinwheels for Peace, Poets Against the War, rambling taoist, smile, smile, Take it Personally, The Peace Train, Treehugger, Visual Resistance, We Are What We Do, Betmo, Bloggers For Peace

I was reading Sally’s latest article in Yoga Journal today, “Waking Life”, which is excellent, by the way, and decided to check out her web site. She has a number of other excellent articles posted there, including this one which appealed to the engineer in me. Surrender is probably one of the most difficult concepts on Yoga for me (or any spiritual practice).

Sally Kempton, meditation teacher, Swami Durgananda

My favorite surrender story was told to me by my old friend Ed. An engineer by profession, he was spending some time in India, at the ashram of his spiritual teacher. At one point, he was asked to help supervise a construction project, which he quickly found was being run incompetently and on the cheap. No diplomat, Ed rushed into action, arguing, amassing proofs, bad-mouthing his colleagues and staying up nights scheming about how to turn the tide. At every turn, he got resistance from the other contractors, who soon took to subverting everything he tried to do.

In the midst of this classic impasse, Ed’s teacher called them all to a meeting. Ed was asked to explain his position, and then the contractors started talking fast. The teacher kept nodding, seeming to agree. At that moment, Ed had a flash of realization. He saw that none of this mattered in the long run. He wasn’t there to win the argument, save the ashram money, or even make a great building. He was there to study yoga, to know the truth—and obviously, this situation had been designed by the cosmos as the perfect medicine for his efficient engineer’s ego.

At that moment, the teacher turned to him, “Ed, this man says you don’t understand local conditions, and I agree with him. So, shall we do it his way?”

Still swimming in the peace of his newfound humility, Ed folded his hands. “Whatever you think best,” he said.

He looked up to see the teacher staring at him with wide, fierce eyes. “Its not about what I think,” he said. “Its about what’s right. You fight for what’s right, do you hear me?”

Ed says that this incident taught him three things. First, that when you surrender your attachment to a particular outcome, things often turn out better than you could ever have imagined. (Eventually, he was able to persuade the contractors to make the necessary changes.) Second, that a true karma yogi is not someone who goes belly-up to higher authority, but a surrendered activist—a person who does his best to help create a better reality—all the while knowing that he’s not in charge of outcomes. Third, that the attitude of surrender is the best antidote to anger, anxiety, and fear.

I often tell this story to people who worry that surrender means giving up, or that letting go is a synonym for inaction, because it illustrates so beautifully the paradox behind “Thy will be done.” As the god Krishna told Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, surrender sometimes means being willing to get into a fight.

A truly surrendered person may look passive, especially when something appears to need doing, and everyone around is shouting, “Get a move on, get it done, this is urgent!” Seen in perspective, however, what looks like inaction is often simply a recognition that now is not the time to act. Masters of surrender tend to be masters of flow, knowing intuitively how to move with the energies at play in a situation. You advance when the doors are open, when a stuck situation can be turned, moving along the subtle energetic seams that let you avoid obstructions and unnecessary confrontations.

Such skill involves attunement to the energetic movement that is sometimes called universal or divine will, the Tao, flow, or in Sanskrit, shakti. Shakti is the subtle force—we could call it cosmic intention—behind the natural world in all its manifestations.

Surrender starts with a recognition that this greater life force moves as you. One of my teachers, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, once said that to surrender is to become aware of God’s energy within oneself, to recognize that energy, and to accept it. It’s an egoless recognition—that is, it involves a shift in your sense of what “I” is—which is why the famous inquiry “Who am I?” or “What is the I?” is central to the process of surrender. (Depending on your tradition and your perspective at the time, you may recognize that the answer to this question is “Nothing” or “All that is”—in other words, consciousness, shakti, the Tao.)

Gung Hay Fat Choy! (Wishing you fortune)
Sun Tai Geen Hong! (Wishing you good health)
Man Si Yu Yi! (Wishing you a thousand wishes)
Sum Sung Si Cheng! (Wishing you your heart’s fulfillment)
Bo Bo Go Sing! (May every step be higher and higher)

The Lunar New Year, also celebrated by Koreans, Vietnamese, Mongolian, etc. for hundreds of years, is called Korean New Year, Vietnamese New Year, etc. by other peoples and known in Chinese as the Spring Festival .

2008’s socially adept Rat year brings us charisma, intelligence and the ability to charm the pants off of just about anybody – literally. Romantically, 2008’s repertory will be as eclectic and varied as this first sign of the Zodiac. High-strung, curious, and ever alert to sexual opportunity, during Rat years we will all feel the need to make an emotional connection with our love partner. It is after sunset that the Rat year comes alive with numerous acquaintances, lively discussion, and intensely romantic interludes. We will all value companionship and love more than anything else this year. Enjoy the concealed and stealthy midnight hours ruled by the Rat of romantic secrets and delicious debauchery. People fall in love easily during Rat years and we will all be prone to some memorable infatuations. In the last Earth Rat year (60 years ago) Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male stunned the country with revelations about infidelity, homosexuality and other issues.

Positively, in the previous Rat year of 1948, the Jews of Palestine declared independence and the State of Israel was born on May 14, 1948. Negatively, another major beginning occurred that year on May 26, 1948 when the government of South Africa embraced Apartheid bitterly dividing the country. Financially, socially and globally, for better or for worse, 2008 is pregnant with potential.

2008 will also be an intellectual one, as the Rat is the curious professor of the zodiac. Expect a renewed passion for knowledge, and interest in the sciences in 2008. Travel and a hunger for new experiences, will also beckon. The 200-inch telescope at Mount Palomar began operation in the previous Earth Rat year of 1948 and the “Big bang” theory of the universe’s origin was first postulated. In Aztec, New Mexico Three radar units tracked a falling UFO and a military search party was dispatched from Camp Hale in Colorado. The search team finds a crashed 30-foot disc, recovers remains which is stored in Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson AFB.

Words and language will become ever more important and poets, musicians and writers can easily produce their best work to date under the influence of the talented Rat. Exchanging and communicating are the priorities of a Rat year. A hyperactive and restless year of potential nervous disorders and neurosis of every type. A good year to explore relaxation methods such as meditation more thoroughly. You may find yourself more sensitive to illness, environmental insults and allergies this year as well, so be sure to get that flu shot and eat your vegetables!

Lewis Hyde - Home

Clever at deceit, tricksters are equally clever at seeing through deceit, and therefore at revealing things hidden beneath the surface. In Chinese legend, for example, only the trickster Monkey can see through the disguises of evil monsters who hope to eat him and his friends. With his “fiery eyes and diamond pupils,” Monkey is “the one who has perception.”

In many traditions this kind of deep sight belongs to the prophet, for prophets are those who can perceive the spiritual world beneath the veil of the mundane. Tricksters have similar powers, Lewis Hyde argues, and thus they too have a prophetic role to play, though theirs is prophecy with a difference: no traditional prophet lies and steals to deliver his message.

Traditional prophets disrupt the mundane to point toward eternal truths, but the prophetic trickster disrupts the “eternals” themselves, and in so doing points toward the plenitude of this world, the fullness it has when not obscured by all our ideas, structures, and rules for living. Traditional prophets point toward things that time cannot touch, but the prophetic trickster points toward time itself, toward the changing noise of this world, not the constant harmony of distant spheres.

The Hindu god Krishna makes a good example. As soon as Krishna has grown up, he stops stealing butter and starts stealing love. On moonlit nights he plays his flute, letting its charming melody drift over the garden walls until the faithful women of the town abandon their marriage beds and come dance with him in the forest. Krishna is a thief of hearts, but not because hearts are scarce. Dancing in the woods, he multiplies himself a thousand times so as to appear fully to each of the women, and gratify each one’s desire to be his lover.

But if there is no scarcity, why be a thief in the first place? Because the abundance that Krishna wants (and symbolizes) is available only when ordinary moral structure has been removed. In the Hindu culture from which this story comes, marriage does not express private desire so much as the social setting of family alliances, property, land and inheritance. In some parts of India, in fact, they say that love should never be the basis of marriage, since to introduce desire into the realm of structure would confuse and weaken it.

But in the trickster myth, desire becomes prophetic precisely because it can reveal the fullness that lies beyond the walls of convention. Stolen love opens windows onto that larger world. Society needs its designs if it is to endure, but trickster’s mischief regularly shows that no design can encompass creation’s great abundance. Trickster is the prophet whose actions reveal the uncontainable plenitude of this world.

Why then, have to be human?
Oh not because happiness exists,
Not out of curiosity…
But because being here means so much;
because everything here,
vanishing so quickly, seems to need us,
and strangely keeps calling to us… To have been
here, once, completely, even if only once,
to have been at one with the earth –
this is beyond undoing.

– Rainer Maria Rilke

“It is only through letting our heart break that we discover something unexpected: The heart cannot actually break, it can only break open … To live with a broken-open heart is to experience life full strength … When the heart breaks open, it marks the beginning of a real love affair with this world. It is a broken-hearted love affair, rather than the conventional kind based on hope and expectation. Only in this fearless love that can respond to life’s pain as well as its beauty can we be of real help to ourselves or anyone else in this difficult age. The broken-hearted warrior is an essential archetype for our time.”

“We set out on a path that is continually surprising — learning to be ourselves, yet also more than ourselves. As Zen master Shunryu Suzuki points out, “When you are yourself, just yourself, through and through, you are the universe. You are not this conditioned person anymore.” Then, though we may dedicate ourselves to helping this world, our well-being will not depend on the outcome. For we are becoming one with that force in the universe that is forever creating itself anew.” — John Welwood, Love and Awakening

“The soul that rises within us,
our life’s star,
cometh from afar
and hath elsewhere its setting.”

– Wordsworth

“Dancing With My Mother”, Elizabeth Williams

I haven’t written or thought much lately about negativity. I dropped my sack of resentments a long time ago, or so I thought. But perhaps I merely traded that large heavy sack for a smaller and lighter one, since I do still feel those resentments popping up on occasion, although I don’t carry them around for very long. I’ve learned to use my inner mirror and my own resources to deal with a lot of the negativity in my life. Sometimes now I forget to do this, though, and on those days when I begin to find myself blaming others, I need to remember that I am resourceful and that any negativity I feel towards others is simply a mirror to something that I am disliking within myself and need to work towards resolving. And sometimes I know I just need to sit with the feelings in the stillness for a while, let them happen and acknowledge them and feel the compassion for myself in dealing with those feelings, so I can return to feeling joyful about my life again.

But now, I feel I am moving once again, to an even deeper part of myself, to the very center of myself. And not everything here is all joyful and happy; there are some deep, dark shadows. I have had dreams of killing the dark negativity, of being grabbed to be taken away by it and turning it around and grabbing it by the throat to choke it. But this is “negative negativity“, as Chogyam Trungpa would say. What I need to learn is to have compassion for these dark places and develop an understanding of why they exist. I need to learn to “be present with my raw edges” as John Welwood puts it. Perhaps if I stop trying to overcome this residual negativity, it will become worthwhile to sit with it and let these remaining storms pass through.

I first discovered this article in May of 2003. I did a search on my posts for the word “present”, and this is the second post that came up. The first is this one on a trip to Disneyland. This seems to be around the time when I actually began to wake up from my deep depression.

Perhaps what it is really all about is simply learning to be present, to be here now, as they say. It seems trite, but once you’ve really learned that, everything else becomes so much easier. Just to be present with yourself, with how you really actually feel in the moment, seems to be what makes us most alive.

Shambhala Sun - Six Kinds of Loneliness

The experience of certain feelings can seem particularly pregnant with desire for resolution: loneliness, boredom, anxiety. Unless we can relax with these feelings, it’s very hard to stay in the middle when we experience them. We want victory or defeat, praise or blame. For example, if somebody abandons us, we don’t want to be with that raw discomfort. Instead, we conjure up a familiar identity of ourselves as a hapless victim. Or maybe we avoid the rawness by acting out and righteously telling the person how messed up he or she is. We automatically want to cover over the pain in one way or another, identifying with victory or victimhood.

Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy. Heartache is not something we choose to invite in. It’s restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we can rest in the middle, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a relaxing and cooling loneliness that completely turns our usual fearful patterns upside down.

There are six ways of describing this kind of cool loneliness. They are: less desire, contentment, avoiding unnecessary activity, complete discipline, not wandering in the world of desire, and not seeking security from one’s discursive thoughts.

Shambhala Training Glossary

DRALA: (Tibetan: “dra”, enemy or opponent; “la”, above): “beyond the enemy”. “Unconditioned wisdom and power of the world that are beyond any dualism, therefore Drala is above any enemy or conflict. It is wisdom beyond aggression. It is the self existing wisdom and power of the cosmic mirror that are reflected both in us and in our world of perception.” “One of the key points in discovering drala principle is realizing that your own wisdom as a human being is not separate from the power of things as they are… reflections of the unconditional wisdom of the cosmic mirror. … When you can experience those two things together…then you have access to tremendous vision and power in the world…connected to your own vision, your own being. We actually perceive reality. Any perception can connect us to reality properly and fully.”

Overcoming the need for an enemy provides access to a deeper source of energy and power in our lives. The Tibetans have a word for this larger energy — drala — which literally means “beyond the enemy”. Chogyam Trungpa describes drala as “the magical quality of existence” that arises out of “connecting the wisdom of your own being with the power of things as they are”. We can perceive the power inherent in things as they are — the radiance of fire, the solidity of earth, the expansiveness of joy, the tenderness of sorrow — only when we drop our struggle with ourselves and our experience — – John Welwood, “Love and Awakening”

A soul connection is a resonance between two people who respond to the essential beauty of each other’s individual natures, behind their facades, and who connect on this deeper level. This kind of mutual recognition provides the catalyst for a potent alchemy. It is a sacred alliance whose purpose is to help both partners discover and realize their deepest potentials. While a heart connection lets us appreciate those we love just as they are, a soul connection opens up a further dimension — seeing and loving them for who they could be, and for who we could become under their influence. This means recognizing that we both have an important part to play in helping each other become more fully who we are.

Someone who loves us can often see our soul potential more clearly than we can ourselves. When this happens, it has a catalytic effect; it invites and encourages dormant, undeveloped parts of us to come forth and find expression. Indeed, we are often most strongly attracted to those who we sense “will make us live — and die — more intensely… Sister souls recognize each other.”, as the French writer Suzanne Lilar points out. A soul connection not only inspires us to expand, but also forces us to confront whatever stands in the way of that expansion.

– John Welwood, “Love and Awakening”

I’ve known two men who I loved deeply who both told me that they did not have souls. Yet there I sat, watching their souls shining brightly within them while they denied their very presence. It mystified me, that they were unable to even see what shone so brilliantly and obviously before me. Both of these friendships ended badly, with neither one able to acknowledge that they loved me, or at least that they cared for me as anything more than a friend. But both have gone on to have deep loving relationships with others somehow after my experiences with them, after struggling to attain any intensity or intimacy in their lives for many years.

This is a fairly common theme in my life, enabling other people to find their own depths and be able to begin to pull them out and into loving relationships. I can only think of a few past boyfriends who didn’t go on in their very next relationship or one shortly after to find a deep love. It seems that even if someone can’t quite connect to my soul, I can often allow them to find their own. I used to think of myself as a sort of mirror, that acknowledges deeply what is within other people, and sometimes allows them to catch a glimpse of themselves. It is something I strive for now in relationships, often not caring what they might think of me as a person, but only caring that they are able to, or sometimes forced to, acknowledge what is within themselves.

Perhaps I’ve always been someone who sees the soul and the inner life as just as important, or more important, than the outward appearance. And it is so natural to me that I am often dismayed by those who cannot see beyond the facade of our politicians and know what life would be like with them in office. In this last year of George Bush, I only hope that enough people can wake up and look within those running to see the souls (and not in the way Bush claims to have seen Putin’s soul, which would indeed have been a horrifying sight) of those who would choose to be our leaders.

The more we bring forth and manifest our deeper potentials, the richer our soul — our responsiveness to our own experience, to other people, and to life — becomes. And the more we can serve as a channel for expressing the larger life of the spirit. The evolving soul is like a jewel that is continually shedding its impurities and growing more lustrous as it becomes even more translucent to the sun.

Although a whole range of larger human capacities is potentially available to everyone, each of us has special access to certain qualities, as well as unique aptitudes for combining and expressing them. Every soul has its own individual, jewel-like character, its own “suchness”. And we each have our own unique path of soulwork — how we need to develop in order to manifest this deeper potential. Two lovers with a soul connection recognize that they can help each other move forward along this path.
– John Welwood, “Love and Awakening”

Via CharityFocus.

Which also gives us this valuable lesson for the day on giving time instead of money gifts:

More than the amount of time, the sincerity with which we spend our time is far more important. I remember a friend of mine giving me a gift of a story one time — driving up the freeway tollbooth, the driver behind him became very visibly upset thinking that he had cut him off. He could’ve yelled back, but when it was time to pay the toll, he instead paid toll for that car behind him! “That’s my contribution to peace,” he proudly remarked. Underneath that story was a subtle transformation of two lives, and that was much more valuable than a Macy’s gift card.

Giving time doesn’t necessarily take more “time”; rather it requires a shift in one’s mindset. The simplest thing everyone can give is the gift of a commitment to a value — practice meditation daily, work out three times a week, donate money to a charity every month, whatever it is.

It’s so cool when people get it…..

Be Alive Believe Be You : The Myth of Success and My Creative Process

no one has it figured out…we are all working on whatever it is we are working on. everyday. I think Dreams can be realized but never quite be completely fulfilled because the moment we are almost there we Dream a new Dream. That is the beauty of life! I think frustration and unhappiness is believing there is one true way and that eventually you figure it out, eventually you win the race, get the prize.

I believe happiness is reveling in the beauty of the truth that the journey really is the destination.

The Agonist | thoughtful, global, timely

In his Statement to Disorders Inquiry Committee January 5, 1920 (The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi vol. 19, p. 206), Ghandi describes satyagraha this way:

Its root meaning is holding on to truth, hence truth-force. I have also called it love-force or soul-force. In the application of satyagraha, I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one’s opponent but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on oneself.

The three characteristics of Satyagraha are:

1. Satyagraha is a weapon of the strong;
2. it admits of no violence under any circumstance whatever;
3. and it ever insists upon truth.

Kansas City Daily Photo:

Oct. 2, 2007, is the first International Day of Non-Violence, commemorating both the anniversary of Gandhi’s birthday, as well as satyagraha.*

I’m currently reading Gandhi’s autobiography, My Experiments with Truth. It really is an interesting look at the man behind the “image.” A friend of mine made the comment that it’s likely very hard being the little people who surround the genius. I think that’s right on, as Gandhi had very specific ways he wanted to accomplish things, and much of it was experimentation–and everyone who was a part of his life had to go along with it. I appreciate that he’s not painted as perfect, but as quite human and fallible.

The most remarkable element of his story, is his willingness to forgive. He sees that people hate, make laws that are unfair, and hurt each other because of a wrong understanding of some sort. He also determined when and where he would pick his battles, which to me, showed great humility and insight.

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*Satyagraha is the practice of non-violent resistance, which Gandhi used in his early days in South Africa and then later in India. The concept of satyagraha also greatly influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. in his efforts during the U.S. Civil Rights movement.

Gandhi made a clear distinction between passive resistance and satyagraha (which basically has no translation). Satyagraha is always based in truth, meaning that unjust methods can never be used … even to achieve justice, and the goal is not to “win” but to actually convert the opposition to recognize the just way.

May bodhichitta, precious and sublime,
Arise where it has not yet come to be;
And where it has arisen may it not decline,
But grow and flourish ever more and more.

– Nagarjuna