Me and My Shadow

While I was on my last full day in Ireland, we had a small Vision Quest, where we walked the grounds of the retreat center, being open to all it had to tell us. I had my phone with me, which functioned as my camera, and I wanted to capture a few pictures.

The sun was behind me, and on the trail my full shadow was cast before me. As I was at the beginning of my quest, it occurred to me that I was chasing my shadow – or, at the very least, allowing my shadow to lead the way as I moved into this.

Shadow is the part of us that we don't want to own – the needs and fears that keep us from being fully ourselves – and not because of themselves, but because of our denial that they exist. “That's not me” - and so they wind up having power over us because we don't want to admit they are there.

And yet, it is in opening to the shadows of ourselves that we are made whole. Each shadow is a lesson for us to learn, a pool for us to drink from, a teacher to sit at the feet of.

The real 12-step program should be for our need for perfection. It seems to me that is the root of all our apparent brokenness. The only reason I feel the need to self-medicate – be it liquor or drugs or food or shopping or sex or work or whatever – is because I don't “measure up” to a standard of perfection that I myself built up with input from parents, family members, teachers, other kids, spiritual leaders.

All of that input about right and wrong, pleasing and irritating, cool and uncool, good and bad, gave my mind a project to work on: “How to become perfect.” And, all of the bad, irritating and uncool things – even though they were some of the most authentic parts of myself – became relegated to Shadow and left to fend for themselves.

Someone once said our faults or flaws are only our good traits carried to an extreme – and they only go to an extreme out of a desire to be seen and heard – out of a need for love.

So the shadow carries within it all the natural and authentic parts of myself that someone else judged as wrong, and they grow there, calling me to attend to them, own them, love them, so that I might reaffirm my wholeness, reintegrate the Truth of me.

So, beginning m Vision Quest by following my shadow was truly the wisest thing I could have possibly done!

Musings on the Train

Skimming through the fog on the train, the green countryside rolling past me - Trees barren of leaves stretching naked fingers to the sky - and slivers of streams meandering under the trestles. If only there were no telephone wires, I could imagine myself in some bygone day that included trains but no information connectors - only streams and birds and silvery sky and the forlorn sound of the train keening its way across the land.
- - -
Euphemisms of modern times: We’ve made it against the law to be poor and without shelter - a Dickensian kind of world - behind the warehouse is a stencilled sign “No Camping” It makes it all sound so homey and sweet - as though people would be gathering together to make S’mores. “No Camping” When I am homeless and seeking shelter from the rain and cold I don’t think of it as camping. Neither do you, I think - It is just that the only way you can cope with the horror of that reality is to call it something it is not, so you can somehow justify living with the truth of it.
- - -
I am inexorably drawn to curb-less streets, where grass encroaches on the asphalt, and new asphalt has seared the grass and this dance has gone on for so many years that the boundaries are blurred - There is nothing to trip over - nothing to stop the flow in either direction. I think of children playing together and people mingling and walking and visiting and pure energy flowing. There is something good and honest and real about a street with no curbs. There is a clear understanding that while man seeks to tame nature, nature inevitably has the last say.
- - -
I look out the window and am inspired. I pick up the pen and the notebook, and I write... the sensuality of feeling the pen in my hand - the glide of the ink across the page, the touch of the paper under my fingers. I pick up the magazine and fold it in a way that is comfortable for me to hold, and as I read something I want to come back to, I fold the corner over, giving the page a ‘dog-ear.’  I love the touch of these things and out the corner of my eye, everyone else is tapping away on a plastic keyboard. I don’t want to make anyone wrong - it just seems more and more we are disconnected - playing with plastic instead of the page. It all works eventually and I am grateful to have access to both. The sun is out and I am glad.
- - -
Sitting in Wilfs. I always thought I’d like to try this place, but I am usually on my way to the airport from here. What a disparate group of road-weary Amtrak travelers - we are at the Amtrak Station, so I imagine the bulk of their day business consists of train travelers. Dark place with high ceilings, wainscoting and a large window at each end. It speaks of an elegance of days gone by, and is still a nice place. I am sipping a mimosa and waiting for my hamburger steak and salad, while nibbling on an amazing onion and walnut bread and listening to incredible jazz play. I am grateful.

McKenzie River Lessons in Gratitude

I find myself in profound gratitude today for the little gifts of life.
For the scent of autumn teasing my nose
For the breeze that carries pine needles like rain across the view in front of me
For the delight of waking in the middle of the night and, used to the light pollution and overcast skies of the city, being caught unawares by the brilliance of the night stars through the window
For the sight and sound of two amazing red-headed woodpeckers landing on broad trunk of the evergreen tree outside my deck and bedazzling me with their presence
For the warmth of the sun and the cool of the air on my skin at the same exact time
For the apparently limitless source of this river, that allows it to keep flowing, day and night, year after year, and what that tells me about Source Itself

For the ability to see and hear and touch and smell the beauty that is all around me 
- and, most especially
For taking the time to experience it.
 

Sandy Comes to the Guest House

As I looked at the photos and videos of the devastation caused by Hurricane/Storm Sandy, I was appalled at the destruction. Especially in Queens, where people thought they were preparing for a wet storm and found close to 100 homes in a firestorm that leveled blocks. It looked like something from a war zone, where a bomb had dropped and just wiped out everything.

As I contemplated the destruction, I could not help but recall the Rumi poem, The Guest House... 

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

I don't know if any of these families can look at their lost homes, lost possessions, and find a gift in the "crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture." Every moment of every day, we are asked to say "yes" to what shows up, even when we don't remember EVER inviting such a thing into our lives.

Years ago, Rev. Dr. Kennedy Shultz was doing a Master Series at the Annual Conference on the Asilomar Conference Grounds. Someone asked about becoming sufficiently "enlightened" or good enough at prayer so that bad things quit happening to them. He smiled and offered "Being a Religious Scientist does not mean that bad things stop happening. It simply means that when they do, you have developed the tools to cope with them."

I have carried that idea ever since. Studying this teaching just means I have developed the tools to cope. In fact, I actually do find a lot fewer "crises" as well, and when nature says it is moving, as it did this week, we move with it. 

Would I have the courage to simply be with what happened? To be with the loss? To be with the pain? Would I have the courage to step away from "Why? Why this? Why me?" Could I stand in the pain and open my arms to welcome it in?

I don't know. None of us do until the moment comes. I would like to think that, having studied this teaching for as many years as I have... Having taught it for as many years - that I would move with some form of grace through the shock. I would like to think that I could find solace in my faith. 

I know the people going through this now - the loss of loved ones, of health, of property - are the most courageous people. They are stronger than I can imagine, and I honor them. I know there is a Divine Space in each of them that knows they are bigger than the experience they are having now. I know that for them, even when they can't. And perhaps, in my knowing, they waken to the Truth. 

Until then, we throw open the doors and welcome life, in all its shapes and guises. And we hold one another up. And we love one another. It's what we do.

Free Beer Tomorrow

There is a story about a fellow who is new to the neighborhood and drops into the local tavern one evening for a drink. The place is clean, the people are friendly, the prices reasonable, so he thinks he may have found a good "hang-out" for himself, within walking distance of his home. 
He is really delighted when he notes a sign behind the bar that says "Free Beer Tomorrow." Boy, he thinks, this is my kind of place. So he has a couple drafts, tips the bartender, and heads for home, planning to return tomorrow for the free beer he read about.
As he worked during the day, his mind kept going to the free beer that would be his at the end of the day. When he finally got to the bar, he went in, sat down at a vacant stool and smiled at the bartender, saying "I'll have one of those free beers!"
The bartender smiled and pointed at the sign and said, "Ah, Mate... that's tomorrow!"
- - -
Okay, it IS a bit of a shaggy dog story, but it points out a truth of which we need to be aware. Our word is our power, and what we think - as well as what we say - becomes our experience. If I am forever 'futurizing' my good, it will always be tomorrow.
How many times in a day do I say "I'm going to" do something? How often do I say "It will be" a certain way. As long as "I am going to" do anything, I am not doing it... I am planning it, I am intending it, I am wishing it, but I am NOT doing it. And I am giving the Universe that message. This is not something that is mine... it is something that "will be" mine. Down the road. Around the bend. One of these days. When the time is right. 
In the philosophy I teach, we say our word is our power. What we believe creates our reality. We point out that what we focus on grows and what we resist persists. And all of these can be shown to be the case. The point I would make is, when we speak of an idea as happening in the future, then no matter how much we believe in its possibility, no matter how much we accept it as our good, no matter how positive we are, we are claiming it "tomorrow," like our friend and his "Free Beer."
So I make it a point, in the here and now, to know that good is right here for me. My day is going beautifully. Everything IS working out. Life is unfolding perfectly. Today. In this moment, everything I require is here and available..

Teenage Truths, Revisited

Friday is my birthday. I will be 63. That doesn’t seem remotely possible. 50 years ago, I was in 8th grade, and there are ways in which that seems like yesterday; the wonderful lessons I learned from teachers Kay Nietzsche and Sara Jane Moore, the ways my mind and heart opened to new ways of thinking - new possibilities.

I remember walking home one day with friends Karraine Ann and Karen and we were having such a deep discussion about communism and fascism (which we were studying in Mrs. Nietzsche’s class) that we could not end it. When we got to the point where our paths were to diverge, we sat down on a stranger’s lawn and continued our conversation at least another hour.

That girl, with her passion and her clear sense of right and wrong still lives inside me. Fifty years later, her sensibilities guide me. Perhaps on this 50th anniversary that is coming up, I need to resurrect her life force. I need to re-awaken to the deep Truths I knew unequivocally then.

That is the girl who, a year or so later, realized the Truth being spoken in the first few verses of the book of John. I want - no - I claim that curiosity, that energy, that passionate focus again in my life.

I had not given my birthday much focus as I moved through preparation for the Asilomar Conference I attend each year. This morning, I realize that this birthday is the 50th anniversary of my becoming a teenager.  My!

I can never underestimate the power of young people, because I still have such clear energy and memory around what it was to be one. I am ready to spend the next 30-40 years exploring what it is to be fully and completely alive.

It has been said that, as much as we profess to be afraid of dying, in truth, we appear to be afraid of living - of fully committing to the life that is ours right now. I choose to enter into this birthday and this week with the passion of a zealot. Life is awaiting my commitment. I shall not leave it wanting!

Finding My Way from Fear to Love

In my understanding of Life, there are two emotions, two motivating factors, two ways of living. One is Love - which I consider to be the creative power, the expanding energy, the nurturing source of all that I call comfortable and good. The other is fear, which is at the root of all lack, limitation and resistance - those emotions and activities which I consider to be negative in nature.

In Reality, there is actually only Love - for just as darkness is not a force of itself, but merely the absence of light and cold is simply the absence of heat, fear is what happens when I believe in the absence of Love. Fear, and all of its attendant emotions of anger, jealousy, mistrust, helplessness, hopelessness and the like, can only exist when one is disconnected from a sense that there is Love, wholeness, truth in the world.

We live in a world where fear and mistrust are everywhere around us. From commercials on television to articles on the internet, we are told there is something wrong with us, there is something wrong with everyone around us, and anyone unlike “us” is the enemy. Love seems to be the farthest thing from anyone’s mind, and it is the only thing that can bring us back to sanity.

What causes an individual to move so deeply into fear that they become a danger to people around them - and to themselves? “Why” is really a crazy-making question, because there is never one, easy, direct cause to any situation. Everything is complex in nature - and still we cannot look at fear and try to fix it with more fear, anymore than we can fight a fire by adding more fuel to it.

There is a Biblical quote that affirms “perfect Love casts out fear.” It does not say more fear or bigger fear casts out fear. It does not say punishment casts out fear. It does not say hatred casts out fear. Only love has the power to do that, and still we want to get the last word - to make sure that everyone gets justice - but what we mean by justice is often simply retribution.

The great teacher of 2000 years ago said “they will know you are my followers because you love one another.” I think we need to remember that injunction to love. Now, more than ever, Love is the answer. Even when it makes no sense. Especially when it makes no sense. So, slowly but surely, I am finding my way from fear, to Love - I am finding my way to wholeness as I survey the world around me and see past the experience to its essence, which has always been Love - though often cleverly disguised.