Inspirations: Transformation

March 9, 2010 #263 Rumi wrote, “Seek the path that demands your whole being, ” which is a perfect dictate at any time, but particularly timely this week as Mars turns direct. It is important to dream again, to regain faith, especially if efforts have felt on hold, and projects waylaid. Our desires, our will, and intentions are resuming forward motion, and while we may have no more control than we did before, by next week we will feel like we do. When faith and hope are stranded by low tides, it is particularly difficult to keep dreams aloft, never mind set sail on unknown seas. Creating ones life demands faith and hope to be front and center, not mired in needless drama, and wasted effort. To hoist sail toward the unknown, brings up fear. When fear is part of a process, then fear is part of the answer, and Rumi’s ‘whole being’ has little room for that. Fear stinks. We smell it and shrink, abandoning that large, whole, incandescent Self. Becoming a whole being is to become efficient in what we are deficient. 15 years ago I had no patience, little compassion, and lots of judgment, but I had a dream. This dream has yet to manifest. But I have grown bushels of patience and compassion, and greatly reduced my judgment in the pursuit of this vision. Perhaps those were my true quests? Perhaps the vision I had hoped for was only a by-product to get me here, free of stanky low tides, sailing across wide oceans of discovery? Who is to know these things? Sit with what brings you solace. Take faith as you may. Hold hope lightly. We are moving on, becoming and dreaming, dreaming and becoming. Asana: Ganda Bherundasana/Feet to Cheek Pose, otherwise known as terrible… Read more »

This year feels more difficult to leap into, no? Is it because it’s opening a whole new decade? Is it that last year we lost hope, there for fear stains new dreams? Most are more than pleased to leave ’09 behind, you’d think we’d be in a rush to move onward. We are, but tentative on how best to step out. We are coming to understand the old motivations and methods do not insure success, and we do not yet have compass for the new. We do not know if we are putting stock in the wrong desires. Perhaps we have the right blueprint, but a mis-guided architect? Mebbe we think we’ve boarded the good ship Lollipop for the South Seas, but begin hearing the bellow of drunken sea chanteys from the captain? If I were a true metaphysician, knowing that the only certainty in 2010 is more change, I would ask for my attitude to shift, not for the winds to take me safely into harbor. I would ask to sing along with my off-kilter, song- filled Captain, not abandon ship. I would not beg this year to deliver hoped-for-goods, or particularly sober leadership. I suspect that the true demands of this year are not to abandon Self. I will learn what I can, and forgive myself the errors. I will take what tiny steps I may, and not see them as insufficient. And I will hold my dreams sacred…no matter what. Asana: Dekasana. This is a new pose, but very like the old pose of Virabradrasana III. Move onto one leg, lifting the other up behind as you tilt forward, parallel to floor. In Dekasana you lift the torso up, arms back, as though in flight, instead of the flat back, open arms of Vira III. Health Notes:… Read more »

Out of difficulties, the extra-ordinary creates itself. In constricted cycles, expanded visions appear. In times of fear, courage increases. Being in the midst of yet another problematic, constricting cycle, it is difficult to stand outside mundane home-ground to behold sublime visitations and visions. It feels impossible to find time in a present so over-filled with to do’s that we can’t stop to perceive the miraculous erupting around us. In 1982 the most adorable alien we’d met to date told us to ‘phone home.’ Remember? That time was a cycle of financial tremblings like much like this present one, with high interest rates, job insecurity, and shaky economics. Like then, there are potent forces of creative potential to actualize next steps. With so much distraction, we need to be precise about objectives. It is important to get clear about not only who we are but the miracles we expect. Adorable aliens aside, it is a time when the mundane and the miraculous live side by side, and we need 3-D vision tuned in at all times. Part of our present difficulty may be that we have lost the faith we still held back then? Perhaps that, more than anything else is what we need to retrieve. Does if feel we have lost our way? Squandered all belief in the intrinsic goodness of our humanness? That the mad-dogs are winning? And that trashy gossip has overcome decent sensibilities? As cycles go, this one is a doozey, but it will end, as ALL cycles do. We will move from these contracted fears to greater possibility, just as we will move from being the world’s power base– to not. Nothing lasts, not even the good stuff. It feels it is time to phone home for hope, faith, courage, and Grace. If we are fortunate,… Read more »

In this fall of ’09 we are either change-agents or victims. We might be both, trading off as we struggle with growing consciousness, and instability. We are taking baby steps to embrace new discoveries, while relinquishing certainties, even when we are certain we are right …especially then. This certainty of rightness is a crystallized habit, where even the most accepting and open set-up resistance to alternative thinking. This change-territory calls for us to chip away at our known, formulated designs, so we begin to see the layered patterns underneath, those sheaths of will and stubbornness that hold us in static probity. We are far more fixed than we suspect. Do you drive to work on the same roads? Do you shower only in the morning? Do you choose the same coffee cup every day? Do you always put the right shoe on first? None of these are earth shattering, so start here. Start chipping away at the small crystallizations. Diversify and become conscious of every pattern that creates the texture of a day/week/year. Questions arise out of this process: If I surrender old boundaries, will I leave myself too vulnerable? If I do not follow the rhythm and ritual of the known, where is my comfort? If the small, sweet moments become chaotic. How do I feel safe? Better yet to ask: If I remain a predictable model of who and what I’ve been, how can I possibly survive the quantum leaps of this time? If I cannot accept the contrasts within and without, seeing them only as different sides of the same coin, can I hold my core? How do I grow to love the conflict inherent in my contradictions? How do I come to see this old vs. new negotiation as a gift in becoming a diplomat par… Read more »

We are in the fires of change. If you do not know it yet, you will. Make no mistake, this time of planetary metamorphosis will transform us all …unless you are a mushroom. Sometimes we can see changes creeping in on little fog-feet silently, softly approaching. More often, it’s a searing gust, a wild flame, burning ego and heart in equal measure. Zen uses the symbolic, ‘Setting our hair on fire,’ to ask that a Practice be one of waking up, of giving all to the flame, because all too fast it will be too late. In the primordial element of fire we are scarred from the burns. With fortune, those scars help purify. The difficult task is to not only love the scarring, but to use them to become a Phoenix, rising from old ashes. We are being asked, or yanked, to move from ego to heart, from a good ol’ boy’s CW, to spirit. Another request of this transformational time is to surrender outcome. How are we to know what our Phoenix is to look like? Will it have much relation to the old self? In the immolation of terror, loss, depression, and anguish, will we emerge stronger, wiser, more grateful? Will becoming a change-agent make us more conscious of a depth of being? Or will fear harden the heart, and build a higher wall of defense? We have been stuck in grooves, and ruts of what used to be. That world is disappearing. When the known landscape lies burned and barren, only the essential is left. Only seeds that can survive 300 degree heat will germinate. Only strongly rooted trees rise again. The essential Self that moves through this landscape walks in quiet power, grateful to be more alive, able to receive each moment, knowing that whatever… Read more »

If the kaleidoscopic palate of hungry colors consumes me, I cannot feed my core. If I allow the demonic din to cloud my sight, I lose my vision. If turning to reality denies my dreams, then I naysay the soul. If I am only my molecules and not my myth then I have no future. If I am only in reaction to the revolution and not the doors to it, then my past owns me. If I listen to the whispers, I may not have to run from the shouting. Following ‘the white rabbit’ down the hole into chaos and exaggeration brings many things, not the least of which is coming up for air to choose reality. But if this reality sucks the spirit from our bones, we’d best think again. Our divineness and our humanity are such a mad mix of every hue and sound that finding the right balance within each level, each spiraling cycle, consumes an inordinate amount of energy. Perhaps it has always been thus. But today’s demands feel urgent and life threatening if we cannot find center, grow from that essential self, and serve the world. How do we do that when much of the day feels like we are unwelcome visitor’s at the Queen’s tea party… “Off with their heads!” Indeed, “Off with their head’s!” For here the heart and gut need to lead, the head to follow. We cannot move forward, deeper into the chaos, if we are not choosing to forever change. And the hole we fell into when we followed the white rabbit is nothing less than diving down into Pluto’s territory of Hades, rabbit warren of decisions; hallowed home of choice, where we adjudicate our ‘being.’ Pluto, being Pluto, is about the depth of feeling, not depth of the intellect…. Read more »

My favorite person asked me this morning, “If we could turn red before we die, do you think we’d mind dying?” “Not so much. Red-imbued, I’d prepare with greater anticipation, more chutzpah, less cringing. It’s a glorious color for death.” We stood in the first rain-light of early morning, surrounded by denuded trees, skeletal in the ponderous sky. Last leaf survivors hung hard to small branches, shocking reds and oranges predominant. Indeed, the very colors to choose in going out with a bang, not a whimper. We need passionate tones for any crossing, for they fill us with courage, and drama, often the necessities missing when we shudder toward surrender. White, grey and black are CW answers to celebrating death. Remembering Dylan Thomas’ words, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” it seems he might have preferred a red-ending for his father, and himself, instead of the black sack cloth and Celtic call to drink. A red-palette exuberance carries us through unknown territory to the other side of what? It matters not as long as we feel stalwart, and true to our inner light, becoming the color that dazzles us. Time to fill ourselves in the last sizzle of fall’s glory as we release the year’s aspirations. We are spiraling toward a different time, one where we must internally cultivate our joy, and faith, for the world will not as willingly offer up its cheap thrills. Like the trees, we are stripping down, banking inner fires to survive. Rumi might ask, “What color are you in this moment? In red, we leap up with last huzzas. “One that neither change nor death make afraid.” Asana: Pasasana/Noose or cord Pose. Squat down, keeping heels down, or place a small pillow under them. Turning the trunk as far to the R… Read more »

We like grooves. The groove is known, dependable, and requires minimal upkeep. Woe unto us if we remain in the groove. But wait! Isn’t a groove all about warm, soft, honey-home contentment of the known: The shoes that fit our feet, the face that fits our persona, the habit that makes us likeable, the automatic smile surrendering our power? Making something ergonomically fit until we are ‘it’ makes us prey. You could name it the ‘me’ or ‘mine’ prey, when our helio-centric hero/heroine becomes the be-all of the only face you’ll ever see. Nothing wrong with that face unless it’s grown from a groove that it can’t leave. This is dangerous territory, because some lives are meant to be lived in a sweet groove. They are ‘resting lives’ when we recover and rest up for the next round. They are lives well earned and hard fought. All honor. Most lives here are not meant to be in resting poses. We win a lottery ticket to earth in order to learn. Fabulous, but not groovy. Groovy moments waiting for the next curve ball is the best most can hope for. There are many conundrums to these thoughts, like the human condition…confusing. One of these is that most of us work hard to bring our various ‘faces’ into a single alignment, the one for whom there is praise and gold. When we finally subdue our other recalcitrant faces, read ‘not-self faces,’ faces we consider non-cool personas, we hope they never return to un-balance our groovy apple cart. The problem with the fabulous, read applause, face is that it becomes drunk on power and takes over, thinking it is ‘the one.’ And absolute power corrupts absolutely. That face does not want the ugly, the weird, or fearful faces to…show their face. As the… Read more »