Hours and Days and Weeks and Months and Years and Ringing in the New....

On the F train home to this afternoon, my timing was perfect to catch the last direct sun rays -- to these parts -- of 2017 through the west-facing windows, reflected in pale pinks by the clouds, bridges, and buildings of Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan. To the east the Supermoon was on the rise to take over the Sun’s duties, sending its reflected light to Earth this New Year’s Eve.

The next sunrise will be in 2018, and one year from now it will 2019. But a year is not an entity, it is a quantification based on one complete revolution of the Earth around the Sun, marked by the 4 seasons, which are generated by the geometry of tilt of the axis of this planet. This circuit takes almost exactly 365 sub-units of 24 hours -- a quantity based upon the duration of one full rotation of the Earth around the aforementioned axis. Somewhere in Time that is universal and connected to Space, our conceptualization of time developed and came to include the principle that these 24 hour periods, “Days” if you will, would have seven names that repeated 52 times during the almost exactly 365-day cycle now affectionately dubbed “Year.” And after the passage of 12 named (by similar sentimental and conceptualizing humans) “Months,” occurring in the span of the “Year,” the name of “Month” one would be the name of the “Month” after the 12th, and thus we would have a “New Year.” And apparently will, in this sense, within a few short hours…

But if a cycle around the sun is a “Year,” it can start at any moment, so the day that dawns on January 2, 2018 can be thought to have its very own “New Year,” In fact, any cycle starting at any point in our constructed frame of time can constitute the beginning of a “Year” that will end in almost exactly 365 days…

Your year is always really going to be what, where and when YOU make it…

Looking out the window, it’s dark out. Happy New Night!

The Other “Me Too”

Photo by Mark Wiener, 11/28/11

We can think of shame and scandal as forcing change, as may be happening among certain individuals whose sexual misbehavior is being exposed.

Yet, in recent months, I have also noticed a surge of old school politeness among men towards women - giving seats on the subways, holding doors, offering to carry bags, even walking aside to pass me on the street side of the sidewalk. I also see more people reaching out to beggars on the street and just plain being “nicer.” Perhaps it’s those little changes that make the bigger ones possible, not the other way around.

We are all a part of this. We all can take a breath and be a bit more kind, patient, giving, accepting, helpful, and loving in our daily lives. Your smile and a thank you will make YOUR day too, when you receive a courteous gesture. That’s how change really happens.

Want to make a better world? Me too…

On judgment...

Ever feel misjudged? Caught myself doing just that a couple of times recently, and for some reason the thought kept jabbing at me. Until I realized…

I had only been judged by myself.

Questions had been asked in a safe way by trusted people. Questions! To me, the fact that they were even asked felt like condemnations, and I came away certain my answers had not been believed. Why?

I was carrying judgments from my past without realizing it. Truth does nothing to dispel pervasive nightmares, they need to be dismissed by letting in the light. And part of that light is, when you deem someone judgmental and opposed to you, you have just judged, and likely misjudged, them… and the beat goes on.

Forgiveness breaks the cycle. It does not mean forgetting or permitting true transgressions, but holding onto feelings that no longer keep us safe actually tie us to the offense and the offender. And we get to forgive ourselves too, so…

When those thoughts of judgment come up, we can remind ourselves that we can’t change the past, forgive ourselves and move forward. Suddenly nobody else seems to be judging us either, or, in case they are, we can always forgive them.

IMAGE CREDIT: By Pamela Coleman Smith - a 1909 card scanned by Holly Voley (http://home.comcast.net/~vilex/) for the public domain, and retrieved from http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot (see note on that page regarding source of images)., PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17299683

Accepting Our Gifts

This morning’s meditation brought a sense of deep peace to my heart.

I accepted it with the intention to return to that consciousness throughout the day, and that this same peace be received by all of humanity, that we might know our true nature, our true home that we all share.

With that wish sent winging on its way, I remembered all the times in my life when I did not experience or value serenity. Especially in my 30’s...My burned out ego and left brain were in the driver’s seat for long stretches on my quest for a meaningful life, telling me I was not rich enough, talented enough, pretty enough, young enough (even in my 20’s!), and when it got to be too much I blocked the growing despair with action and stuff. Any impulse to experience joy, mindfulness, or self-fulfillment was met with severe abuse from some inner voices that, thanks to my upbringing, I was deeply afraid to ignore.  

Interruptions were insistent - an illness that forced me to decline a job, the urge to take a different route the night a tiny, injured cat found me and came home, and, most of all, the moments when, while I was in my most distracted state, the world as I knew it would drop away, taking my breath, and leave me in a cool, blank mist wondering how and if what I called life was even possible.

The ego dispatched inner critics to say something was wrong with me. I had known since infancy there was something “more.” I never spoke of it - if I had, who knows what would have been done to “fix” me? The ego is spawned to protect our life, and sometimes it works in mysterious ways. At others, it needs to be acknowledged and asked to step aside, because it has the unwitting power to destroy us.

We all have those voices inside, they were acquired by our egos on the learning curve of life. We can choose to let them go now that we know better. There are always people on the outside ready to echo them the second they see us growing. But it’s your job to remember that obedience does no good and a great deal of harm, it is better to get distance from a person than damage yourself and the rest of the world.

Speaking of the world, the one we find ourselves in at the moment is enough to trigger anybody’s defensive impulses. But, “God is in the details.” On the subway tonight I randomly recalled someone who made wonderful cookies I loved when I was a little girl, then others who had shared abundance and beauty during my lifetime. Soon it became impossible to feel anything but gratitude, hope and love -- try it!

Namaste.

Chapter ∞

[Chapter Infinity]

Good morning! ( I hope you say this to the Universe every day!)

It’s a new day, a fresh start.

Well, admittedly most of us have a few loose ends that kept us awake until they slipped from our grip. And often, after the first clear flush of arising in the light, we feel compelled to pick them up and proceed to try to tie them up again…

Are we really?

So much of the structure of human activity is based on “finishing.” Deadlines and goals can be important milestones when publishing a book, constructing a building, getting a degree, eradicating world hunger…

But so often we apply this same logic to life itself, and it’s often the opposite of the nature of who we are. We say, “Once I have something, do this, or am with a certain person, it will be done.” What will, your life? Do you want to die the day you buy your new house, win that award, or get married?

Of course not, but we tend to look at things that way and either spend our lives waiting for completion or wondering what to do next (how many people get married and then screw it up by making their partner their next “project?”)

On a spiritual path, practice leads us to a clearing of mental debris that opens myriad new pathways on a daily basis. They do not lead to completion or closure, only more paths to explore. Where is happiness? All along the way, or nowhere at all.

Why go forward? Because we know we were all brought here for a purpose, to feel whole and to do good in the world. When we lose our way, we feel detached and alone.

The quest for concrete attainment has another downside -- comparison. We judge ourselves against others according to milestones in time, material acquisition, and social standing. Does being a Partner at 30 make anybody really happy? Does a more desirable spouse make for a happier life? Or a bigger house? Admit it, we all know people with these assets, and more, who are miserable, but we still feel a little “less” for not having it all. And that is a waste of the immeasurable gifts we do have!

I have for decades referred to Bokononism, a religion that exists only inside the narrative of Vonnegut’s gem of a novel, “Cat’s Cradle,” as having real resonance with how we live. One aspect that is now catching on is the concept of the Karass vs the Granfalloon (I just noticed typing this that these 3 words are in the dictionary, woo-hoo!)

A Karass is basically the subset of humanity with whom you were born to interact, a natural fraternity of spirit and synchronicity. A college fraternity, any club, political party, professional group, etc. would be deemed a Granfalloon, an artificial classification without true significance. (Perhaps why there is so much drinking generally involved...)

The message here is that we can settle for synthetic happiness within the prescribed activities of our Granfalloons, or we can set out to find our soul family, our Karass, with whom lies oneness with our destiny and true bliss.

Another feature of “Cat’s Cradle” is its unusual structure - 304 pages divided into 127 chapters. We tend to see our lives as a series of chapters, and perhaps we need to expand our possibilities in that area. We are infinite. The present moment contains the whole universe. Where will it take us, and where will we take it?

...Chapter ∞

The Big Un-Want

Davidji, meditation master extraordinaire and aka “the velvet voice of stillness,” often reminds us to release that which does not serve us. This is not simply a place to start a spiritual practice of forgiveness or moving from the past into the moment, it has become a constant ritual for me. Knowing when to open the barn door is a key life skill.

Why? Because we LOVE what does not serve us. What presses us to be set free today may be a memory we associate with our identity, a family tie from which you still want emotional or other support -- even though that drags you back into old patterns, an activity that is important on a larger scale but draining needed resources here and now…. It can also, if being needed makes you feel special, be anyone who wants to make these decisions for you because it serves their needs to have you behave a certain way.

They can also be our cosmic teachers. I just caught a pattern of negative thinking about my own potential, hammered into me as a child, leading me to explore some avenues to solve a problem. I was horrified but uncovered some real dirt on social issues dragging our community down. Now I have an article to write with some teeth, but what I need to do so is positivity, so...

“Hey Old Attitude! Thanks a million, this is awesome. I’ve got work to do. See ya!”

We can still love, but there are patterns, partners, and lessons that need to be loved in a different way, kind of like that beautiful forever soulmate we remember wistfully even though we are not with them because they were also the housemate from hell… They made you what you are, which, in this moment, is perfect. You can be grateful without them hanging around to undo the benefits of what they taught you. Undoing some of these knots can be between you and the Universe, others may call for separations on this plane and/or resolution on the spirit level.

Finally, DO resist the impulse to replace. When you get rid of the whip you were using on yourself, the next step is not searching for a cattle prod to continue to “improve” yourself. Breathe into the space and allow it to be filled with something new and uplifting. If you have had a pattern that kept you at home and/or alone, what a great time to get out and get social!

Namaste,
Linda
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For Real Stars Only...

Carol Scavotto - "Where Did You Put My Coat?"

We live in traumatic times. Using the metaphor of a movie, we can either watch in horror, or realize we are in the movie, see the problems, and behave heroically anyway. Social injustice and environmental destruction will not disappear overnight. But if we don't each heal ourselves where it has broken us, we cannot heal the world.

Prejudice is learned at an early age. We are offered a quick fix to feelings of fear, insecurity, inadequacy in the form of a name, an attitude, even an act of violence, towards someone -- physically, socially, spiritually, economically --  different from us. Under stress the temptation is stronger give in, but that is the time to look forward, not back. Grow the world you want by taking a breath and remembering that this separation is an illusion  - an outdated, toxic construct created by humans to control you. Break free!

Economic suffering is an entwined issue. Turn on a television, or even read about some of these programs, and it's stunning to realize how many people must buy into the celebrity cult in order to make this junk profitable. Ironically, the entire base of the "reality" business relies on real people giving up their time and money to participate in the staged lives of a few neurotic losers -- whom they are actually financing -- as their own lives a pass by unappreciated.

It is not humility to say one person deserves a better life than another, or even you. It's blasphemy, surrendering what the Universe has given you to fit into a system that does not function. Invest time and money in what expands YOU!

There is no ceiling on what we can do to make a better world placed upon us at birth or graduation. We are asked to build and maintain that barrier ourselves, with the consequences of not doing so being the withholding of acceptance, money, peace... No one who loves you and cares about how they leave the world would ask that of you, but we can’t expect those that do to change or go away so we can grow.

But we also can’t expect the world to change unless we do… It’s your move. TAKE IT!

Looking...

This morning, I finally looked…

It must have been before my eyes a thousand times, until in every instance I gently averted them.

Today I looked straight at One World Trade Center, standing tall in the space on the horizon over Seventh Avenue so long occupied by the Twin Towers. I always remembered to look for them there, a futuristic eminence brushing up against heaven as I emerged from the stifling grasp of the subway... Just down the street yet a world apart, now distant in time as well.

It’s really about the people now, the lost, the hurt, the bereaved. And being me, I heard them too. They told me not to be afraid, or, more precisely, not to be afraid to look anymore. And there is still something I have been trying not to see. It’s why I have written so little of late.

It is the waking nightmare that is now. It is the state of our society since this last election (and before, but this has intensified the suffering and potential destruction worldwide), and the real dangers we all face at the whim of human human greed and aggression. It is the truth about what people are willing to do to one another. Even if it destroys them as well.

We need to look because we need to understand how to counteract this without resorting to the methods of the opposition, even though seeing what is happening could move even the most sentient soul to want to remove the problem by any means possible. We need to listen and say “NO”  until everyone starts saying it too. And in most cases, they will.

As difficult as it has become, we must remain fearless as we face the danger. Today the appointed Attorney General of the United States announced an initiative that could result in the government seizing all the property of basically anyone that displeases it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/17/jeff-sessions-wants-police-to-take-more-cash-from-american-citizens/?utm_term=.2f8b11c66bae

Happy belated Bastille Day -- we may be facing an economic Reign of Terror and yes, the Senate confirmed this individual knowing of such proclivities. Tonight I looked, really looked, at the people sleeping in Central Park, unbelieving that America can’t do better, yet wondering if they are not the lucky ones, because so little can be stolen from them. What will happen if trolls get their hands on people’s art?

We can move along the line of speculation, but the fact is we are here, in one moment in time, and we can see it all by looking. It is in the seeing that we will find the courage to lean into creating and nurturing the world as we know it should be.

Robert Plant said it well in these Led Zeppelin lyrics:

I don't know what to say about it,

When all you ears have turned away,

But now's the time to look and look again at what you see,

Is that the way it ought to stay?*

*Complete lyrics and song here

The Lesson of the Ragged Man

As one who preaches that we need to find peace and joy wherever we find ourselves, I still have to admit commuting by subway in NYC can be a huge challenge in that department. But once in a while, there is an amazing reward for my efforts.

The tail end of the evening rush hour is always a bit more rushed - 7 something means we’ve had a long day and can’t wait to alight someplace restful, or fun. Amidst the river of humans heading both up and down a staircase, a man with a cane was trying to make his way down the "up" lane. Wonderfully, without grumble or pause, we all shifted and cleared his way, which required a few “slow dance moves” between people moving in opposite directions.

Now, one of the bad habits I battle in public is the impulse to prejudge people by what I see in a second. Add this to the fact that I am particularly sensitive to smells, you an imagine my concern in the moment when I found myself, in that moment, in a fleeting pas-de-deux with someone who could only be described as -- echoing Amy Pond’s description of The Doctor --  “a raggedy man.” With no time to hold my breath and no inclination to be the buzzkill of this lovely interlude, I performed my part with grace and approached the top step expecting endure an olfactory assault.

And smell something I did, but nothing unpleasant. Scents are amazing at evoking time and place, and this one took me back to age 3. It’s a kind of herbal fragrance that permeated a special toy store I loved for its plush wildlife, and lingered in a couple of the stuffed animals I was lucky enough to have been given. It reconstituted a feeling that later evolved to become my deep affinity for animals, which is still a large part of my life.

I turned and caught a glimpse of this fellow before the descending passengers encircled him, his clothes were well worn, a clean and cozy mix of plaids and solids, his hair was a cloud of auburn curls. I wished I had seen his face…

Your world has been magic all along. The real miracle is seeing it differently.

All You Need Is...

photo by Mark Wiener

Seeing lots of inspirational messages for anyone “looking for love” today, so throwing my own into the mix…

Think of a movie, or any story, where the characters inspire you, and how it makes you feel. Then think about dating. Then get in touch with what is your idea right now of a “relationship.” Chances are they are not at all alike.

Take those ideas that are not magical and release them to the past, because Love IS the only Magic…

Then ask yourself:

Who will my heart tell me I am on my next great adventure with?

And fall in love with LOVE!

Happy Valentines Day,

Linda