2010

A new year. A great time to remember to live on purpose. We are responsible for what happens in our lives. Our experiences are the direct result of our intentions either conscious or unconscious. It is sometimes more comfortable to believe that our lives include a large number of random events that we have nothing to do with. This is the current dominant perspective. This thought process allows us to stay in situations that we have outgrown. Our life events become excuses for the reasons we aren't doing the things we love, the things we really want to do- or the reasons we have no idea what we love or what we want or how we would really like to compose our lives.

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Ritualizing the beginning of a new year with resolutions or intentions is appropriate. Giving ourselves a hard time about our habits, our bodies or our life choices is usually the result however... I resolve to- fill in the blank- because I feel bad about where I'm at in my life if I really look at it closely enough. This type of new year's resolution is more often than not- not empowering enough to generate the excitement necessary to really reconnect- and reconnection is what we are looking for in creating resolutions or identifying conscious intentions. Reconnecting with our values. What do I really want? Why? How will that impact the day I have every day? How I feel every day? The real quality of my life... My future? My personal story? My family, the earth or other things I care about, etc., etc.

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A year passes quickly. Making time to clarify our values and recognizing that making choices to live in alignment with them will have an outcome can be really empowering. If we actually know what we care about and take steps to live in alignment with what is important to us, we will have a different life. a different life. a different life. There is an initial commitment necessary to get to a platform where the choices we are making (on purpose) become reinforcing. When we reach that point, it's easy. We have changed our habits. We have changed our life events. We have reached a goal and can continue to reach new goals. We do this anyway- especially if we are generally happy with our lives- but to really do it intentionally is immensely powerful.

***

We can expect results from making strong decisions to live with purpose, with a mission, with a clear objective- even if that objective is to slow down and take a step back from what can feel like an insanely driven culture. Driven towards what? First checking in- what do I care about? Then going for it. Then expecting things to really change- because they really will. It is inevitable. We are masters or our own lives and the sooner and more fully we realize this, the sooner and more fully we will begin to really live.

flatlining

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
- from Nelson Mandela's famous speech written by Marianne Williamson

***

We are, most of us, just comfortable enough, that we are not pushed beyond our boundaries to discover our true capabilities. When we are confronted with something significantly bigger than us, when life becomes desperate, we find that we are "powerful beyond measure". There is an inherent strength in all of us that emerges when we are truly tested- and we all want this- this chance to be, as Joseph Campbell would say, on the hero's journey. The stuff of movies. Real obstacles to overcome. A real battle. A real struggle. Something to make us feel alive. Something to get through. A way to triumph and become truly human... but we are instead just stuck in traffic. Getting through the day is our biggest adventure...

***

It is possible to reframe our lives so that the mundane tasks we find ourselves completing daily become less banal- and offer opportunities to really move beyond the apathy so many of us feel to something else entirely... What if the real struggle, the real battle, the real living is all about the "fight" to become fully human in all of this emptiness. We are flatlining. The adventure is the waking up.

***

Every step towards this aim is cumulative. Every doubt we have about our lives is a window into something real. Every mindful action. Any time we give our full attention to another person, to a task, to our own breathing, our beating heart... we are waking up. The adventure is the waking up.

...

Last night I dreamt that I was being asked if I believed in magic? What do you mean? I asked. Magic? It's everywhere. All around us. The whole world is magic. All of nature is magic. I couldn't comprehend the question... There is a rainbow around the moon tonight.

Big Sky Country

With so little light light in the winter, we need to sleep more I think, to really be in rhythm with the seasons. Happy to have some time for that here in Montana where there is time for long nights of sleep and naps during the day and lots of lounging around. Can't remember when I last felt so real. Time passes quickly now. days. months. years. a whole lifetime. composed of what? If I spent even half the time I spend in an office out on the wild earth, I would evolve, I think, into something more alive. more real. more sacred...

critters

magpies, hawks, eagles, bison, horses, yule deer, antelope, snow bunnies... I saw all of these animals today. If I were to see all of these animals every day I would be a different person. My life would, in some way, be informed by their presence. There lives would provide metaphor for my own. I would be able to truely see myself as part of a community of beings that I c0-exist with. As humans, we often only experience each other and our domestic pets. More and more we often only spend time with our peer groups instead of children and people significantly older or younger than us. People used to live more closely as families. They used to live closely with animals. They used to live closely with nature. These broader communities are essential for providing context and meaning in our lives.

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“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.” - Chief Seattle

bliss

We are all leaders and all called to some type of personal leadership if we are paying enough attention. We influence each other tremendously, by either maintaining and reinforcing the pervasive ideas that create our collective worldview or by challenging them. It would be great if we could trust our world leaders to make decisions that are in alignment with a life sustaining value system, but sadly, we are clearly headed towards increasing economic and ecological crisis. Real hope does not lie in an election, but in our individual ability to check in with ourselves and ask what leadership really means to us. What does it mean to take personal responsibility for our lives?

***

Our outer world is a reflection of our inner state. Our outer world is in chaos. The incentive to create inner harmony is that our individual lives will become outwardly harmonious and we will be contributing to the world positively as a result. Personal leadership- doing what is right for us in our individual lives- will always result in an outwardly harmonious life and will always be a positive impact on the world.

***

How do we know what our personal truth is? In addition to taking inventory of our personal values, simply checking in on whether our decisions are empowering is always a good barometer. What areas of my life are disempowering vs confidence building? family. romantic relationships. work. physical health. my life's alignment with my future goals. When we are on the right path, we feel good. It's that simple. When we are off track, our negative emotions or experiences will serve to realign us.

***

When we become identified with an injustice in the world or our own negative emotions, we are allowing ourselves to become disempowered. There is corruption in our world leadership and there are a lot of unhappy people in the world. This is a fact. It is also a fact that there are people who are living fully in a "flow" state, a harmonious state that consistently offers positive reinforcement. These people invariably take on leadership roles in the world. The more we are living our lives fully, the more fun we will have and the more rewarding our lives will be.

***

Hard work is nothing if it is not creatively inspired. It is brutal and often meaningless for people who have adopted this "crack the whip mentality" to either get ahead or even to challenge the status quo. If it doesn't feel good, it's time to change directions. This does not mean we will not pass through fire when we are on our true paths. It only means the fire will be cleansing and necessary and we will know it at the time.

***

"Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls".

-Joseph Campbell

pa rum pa pum pum

vorte freude ist die beste freude

the waiting joy is the best joy

***

The collective anticipation of Christmas gains so much momentum each year that it has become a life force in itself. Imagine what we would be capable of if we were to direct that energy towards a common cause or if the people who were really celebrating the birth of Christ actually collectively engaged in a radical act of love. Jesus was a feminist, an activist, and a steward of the Earth, (environmentalist). His teachings remind us that our lives are temporal but that there is an eternal aspect of our being that will transform our human experience if we come to know it as our true nature.

***

Most of us are so completely identified with the world of form that we do not encounter the consciousness beyond what we think of as our everyday lives. We have been taught that enlightenment is for the Jesuses and the Buddhas and people who don't have to change diapers or go to the grocery store or file their taxes, but those are not the teachings of the saints and the monks. Their sutras point towards a simple awakening of presence. Paying attention. Experiencing god in everything.

***

We have confused spiritual messages as messages of morality, as if we might all be satisfied with a "to do" and "not to do" list that we can use to condemn ourselves and others. True spiritual advancement is about becoming aware of our god like nature or simply existing in a state of love or presence. Living in this sate of wisdom is possible and much needed in our world right now.

***

"I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you".

-Luke 11:9

milky way

life is chopping wood

and hauling water

and cleaning last nights whiskey glasses

and finally discovering that the coffee is kept in the freezer

***

life is chopping wood

and hauling water

and peering out of windows

wondering if I should go out there

***

They say it takes about four days to really get away from your life. Four days of something completely different, as monty python would say. Four days of open spaces is best. Open skies. A landscape. Something your mind can fall out onto freely without having to navigate. Open spaces that don't need thoughts built up around them to get you through them. No maps, street signs, menus, debit card payments. No factoring tips in restaurants, no taking inventory of what to bring in your shoulder bag and what to leave behind. Just you, your body, and some simple stretch of earth and four days if you can manage it. We are only ever four days away from our truth.

street

A lack of understanding of gender or racial issues does not make a person sexist or racist, but it does increase opportunities for the presence of gender and racial bias. For this reason, there are diversity trainings in the workplace; and while racial and sexual discrimination certainly do exist, it is not socially or culturally acceptable in most public environments to be outwardly discriminatory. However, this is not the case with class issues. A lack of understanding of the causes and conditions surrounding homelessness, for example, does not make a person classist, but the fear and strong value judgements that people experience when encountering homeless people leans heavily towards being a class issue in the same way that fearing people of color is an expression of the very root of racism.

***

Sure, our socioeconomic backgrounds impact our world view; and participating in activities that are compatible with our income and interests makes sense. Differences in what we call class are a reality, however, we seem to draw a line when it comes to extreme poverty in the US. We live in a culture that criminalizes homelessness and drug addiction instead of providing adequate prevention and treatment programs for our country's growing number of people living in poverty. Additionally, health care options for people with mental illness are limited, causing people with schizophrenia and other debilitating disorders to live on the street instead of getting the help that they need. These human rights issues that should be of paramount importance to all of us, have become instead, glaring evidence of how we abuse and discriminate against people who live in poverty.

***

The obscene lack of care for homeless people from state and federal policy makers and local law enforcement agencies is simply unacceptable. Sit-lie ordinances in Portland and other cities that force people to wander through the city during the day and at night prevent them from sleeping so that the rest of us don't have to witness their demonstration of human suffering. These laws, passed under the pretense of protecting local businesses, are cruel and make being homeless a crime in addition to being a living hell for people who deserve to be treated with dignity simple because they are people. Forcing this problem from view is not a socially responsible approach to the issue, nor is it even close to offering a solution.

***

Acknowledging that homelessness is a social problem correlated with blaming and criminalizing people with limited resources is a step towards intentionally increasing our compassion for people we encounter who ask us for a few bucks or sleep on our public streets. Our policies, attitudes, and awareness of what contributes to economic inequality in the United States are what make a significant impact on the problem of homelessness. Our negative value judgements directed towards people living in poverty are fear based and will only serve to alienate us from our own humanity.

there is an order in the universe...

There is an order in the universe. A seed pushing through earth to its first sun. A star collapsing. The pull of gravity on our bodies. We are innately aligned with this order. It is coded in our DNA. We respond to patterns and rhythms and cycles of change. We recognize pain in humans and animals. We can see it, feel it, identify with it. We know suffering. The depths of despair... all of us... the reprieve... We understand it. A law. A simple truth. What it means to be a human animal. There is an order in the universe.

***

I keep two sets of rechargeable batteries charged for my camera. After charging for several hours, the one pair, a brand new set, would last only a few minutes in my camera while the other pair would last the expected amount of time. I recently discovered that the new batteries were not made for my charger. Of course I just assumed I had purchased some poorly made crap and didn't realize the error. The batteries fit perfectly into the slots and a little light indicated that they were getting juiced up.

***

When our lives are more informed by the external influence of our current cultural paradigm, we are like batteries in the wrong chargers. We still respond to the structures imposed on us. We receive feedback indicating that we are getting nourished. We learn through positive and negative reinforcement. We assume that we must be getting what we need. It's what everybody else is going for... however, we are so constantly and thoroughly conditioned by the messages of a limited collective worldview that we have become alienated from any real source of sustenance.

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It is time to reconnect. It is time to wake up. It is the only thing we must do.