Taking my Funk out to lunch...

Most of us feel down at times. Sometimes this sluggish energy waits for us on waking and other times it just moves in for a little. A reader and I were talking about this recently. How emotions dip and one is left feeling like a squashed tomato.

She began telling me how she had handled her funk a while back. "I tried to move it for a couple of days, which is rare for me, but I couldn't get rid of it. So I took Funk to town and visited several art galleries I had wanted to see. We went to the Maud Lewis exhibition. And God, if anyone needed a funk it was her, yet she kept right on painting.

"After Maud, I decided to take Funk out to lunch at the restaurant across the street. The server asked if there was two of us. I said yes. She gave me a puzzled look and brought the extra fork, knife, and napkin. Funk and I actually had a delightful lunch. By the time I arrived home later that afternoon, Funk was nowhere to be seen."

I asked why she thinks to take her funk out for lunch worked? "Well, it was crying for heaven's sake. It was like a little being that needed attention, needed to be important. Besides, it didn't like Funk food.
"Good land, what's Funk food?"
"Oh, doing the same old, same old all the time. It needed something fresh and new that was different and something we both wanted to do. It needed to hold court, to be honored. Lunch out just seemed to fit. Besides, if I had asked Funk if it wanted another day of the same old, same old routine, it would have rolled its eyes and said, "Right!"

Later, I pondered the same question, why was taking Funk out effective? As she said, "For two days, I was fighting it but couldn't rid myself of it. I had to do something. So I put it outside of me and objectified it. Then I listened.  It was crying and wanted change. It didn't want to know what came next, and next, and endlessly next. It wanted to be acknowledged."
I quired, "That's it?"
"Well partly, Yet seeing the funk as other than me, I was freed from its identity which left my beautiful, natural, larger self in charge.

Looking satisfied, she added, "And next time Funk comes back, I am taking her to Winner's and buying her a new outfit."

Oh you rascal day, what music will you play?

Hello Day, you little rascal. What have you in mind for this small box called me? Will I feel your early freshness like an inner morning skin? Will I pause to see your skies and hear your laughter in the wind? What music will you play?

Three hours later, lunch. "Ohhh Day, not once did I come out to play, or see your sky, or hear your wind. Too much to do."  

Yet now that I have paused, a delightful discovery, I am breathing! Ears hear, and eyes begin to see. Five minutes ago, I didn't know I had a chest, hand or heart. In fact, except for coffee and chore, I and everything around me ceased to exist. Ah, there is the ping of mesquite needles dancing on the roof as this red geranium here on the deck is shocking desert sand. 

I slow my breath.  How differently I feel; a little more awareness, a little warmer chest. Now comes this breaking wave of sweetness, a place of sacred space -- with a giggle waiting there.

"But Day, some days aren't so fun where tear and pain await; where light and merry heart can share no hope. What sayest thou, then? How will I avoid the inner cactus needles and dodge the snakes on evening walk?  And oh, that I don't fall to sleep again where hand, cloud, and all go missing except for chore."

Ah, and Day responds. "I am your strength, your comfort, your balm of Gideon. I am love in spite of worry, I am in your tear but not your tear, and in your fear but not your fear. Cleave the rock, the pain, the loss, I am balm to be discovered and invited as I dress your wounds while reaching deep.

"So, come on -- come with me. I am your magic-mystery tour -- skies will open, spirit-winds do run wild, and laughter does pass over this earth.* We will live and play this day and in my music, you will climb your hills and dance your song.  For as you see, I am your rascal Day. I am your seeing heart.

* a suggestion of paraphrase from Tagore's Gitanjali's reflections...

Life’s a schoolroom for our human lessons…

Life is a schoolroom for our human lessons…

                                                 ~ The Cottage Woman

Many of the questions I asked the cottage woman (personally known as Metude) were for the people I was working with who were seeking spiritual and personal development. As I began to visit her, I recognized the wisdom she offered others could apply to me or anyone as it was generic in nature. During the five years of visits, she continued to emphasize that we are here to learn and that life and its situations are indeed a school room for our human lessons.  (Names, of course, are changed to protect privacy.) 

Below is an excerpt from a dialogue in reference to a friend who felt weighted and stressed by her family's needs and demands. Many of the questions I asked the cottage woman were requested. Then, in the visit, I would initially describe the situation to her as I did below, even though she seemed to know their situation better than I. 

 "As you are aware Metude, Pam wants your comments on how she is doing. And I might add, if it were not for her husband exerting his unhappiness and needing to control her, her children never doing a chore, and her mother and sister calling with their complaints, life might be more livable. Yet, she can not seem to say 'no'." 

My old friend is quiet as she begins to rock, then replies, "The body (Pam) is weak, must protect itself from exhaustion. Your friend accepts too much responsibility. These family situations are given for her to work with, but not to own them. Much confusion over loving someone.  She suffers from stress and must get rest. She has not learned yet to set aside what is stressful and what is not to own.  And because she doesn't, it causes her a great deal of pain."

 "Yes, true."  And I feel bad for her. 

Looking to see if this ancient woman shares my feeling, her face is expressionless. She merely continues to explain, matter-of-factly, "It is her learning.  She must set stress aside and go for her strength.  It is inward.  She sees stressful situations as pain and pain only.  She has difficulty getting past the situations and that compounds the problems.  Must learn to pace herself and take time for herself.  She lacks discipline which is much needed in this area.  It is the next hurdle she will work on: learning patience with herself and mainly, learning there is more to life than giving.  She must take time for growth and her needs.  

Metude pauses, then reflects, "Yah, tis goot.* She is beginning to see this. Although hard on herself and not able to live up to her own demands, yet, she is quite goot at healing herself.  She must hear this." 

"But Metude, Pam is really stressed about Frank in particular. He blames her for his unhappiness."

"She is learning. As the stress increases, it is how the human lessons are fortified." Hmm, everything seems be a human lesson.

 "My land, I never thought of stress working for her."

 "Only when the pressure is on will she learn to deal with the situation. Both parties are learning. One (her husband) is learning to be independent and make decisions. The other is gaining freedom but freedom is not gained without pain. We will proceed." Imagine, stress and pain functioning to pressure her toward freedom!  Yet it makes sense, as when the pressure is on, I get more work done. Also apparently her increasing independence is helping Frank to be more independent. 
However, I must remember, my negative thoughts about Pam's troubles weigh her down.  It is definitely a lot harder to find positive thoughts when in pain or watching someone else's. 

Her words did remind me of an earlier visit about a young man I had been working with.

"I have another person I am concerned about Metude. He is under a great deal of stress. He is only young but he feels tired all the time and cannot sleep. Is he sick?"

 "It is as it must be. When you are concerned for him it weights him and adds to his weariness because you do not see it as positive but as sick, which adds to the negative force. You must help others to change their perspective. Sub-consciously, he knows you fear for his health."  Oh, the power of thought and my genuine concern weights him and adds to his weariness… And this is my human lesson. Imagine, can our thought be that powerful? This is a fascinating concept: my genuine concern can add an emotional weight and negativity to my young friend’s spirit. This, of course, applies to Pam, myself, and everyone else. If I look at the situation as negative she is telling me I add to another's weariness and burden.

And decades later, I have concluded as Buddha did 2500 years ago, 

We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts, we make the world.”   
                                                             ~  Buddha


*The cottage woman always pronounced good as "goot". 

We are not our bodies...

We are not our body.... We are that which possesses a body and that which stands outside the body.... (We) exist quite apart and independent of it.
                                                                   ~  N. Walsch

Thank goodness, we are not our bodies. The essence of who we are is larger than this earth plane, larger than my chest, stomach, or any other part of me -- larger than these bunch of particles called a body.  As I have written numerous times, the physicists tell us there is no matter, we are not a solid anything.  That I am concrete is definitely a case of mistaken identity or as modern science leaves it, an old fashion idea.

An acquaintance has just had her hands, feet and other parts of her body, removed. These body parts are not the alive woman I hear about, loving her young son, her husband. I also learned that fact one sunny day on the other side of the Tucson mountains. I regained consciousness on the road to see a twisted arm, supposedly mine, a wrist that was at a weird angle, also supposedly mine. Then I saw the smashed mirror and only the handlebars left of the motorcycle laying next to legs that looked like crooked stovepipes and both of them, supposedly mine.

Thank God, we are not our bodies. Our larger selves cannot get sick as they are not us.  My Ex is no more his Alzheimer's than I am a duck. His eyes and spirit tell me that all the time. In fact, my body hovered for quite awhile on the edge of living but I always felt very much alive and in some weird way, untouched. The accident didn't seem to happen to me, to my essence me-ness, to this that laughs, loves, cries and dances in spirit with rod-spiked legs. My essence didn't seem to be involved.

 Sometimes we just have to survive skin, bone, and organ but know we are not them.  I look down right now at a body, dissolving. Face wrinkled, hands wrinkled, and quite frankly there is not much that isn't. And before long dust or cinders await this physicality.

However, our wonderful bodies, while we have them, truly and merely are like the butterfly cocoon, a vehicle to expand our larger selves until we burst its skin. No, I am not my feet, hands, legs, heart, liver, brain -- which all begs the question, Who and what am I then?

Maybe, like Teilhard de Chardin, the great philosopher and paleontologist pointed out, "We are not human beings in search of a spiritual experience. We are spiritual  beings in search of a human experience."

Real happiness in an ordinary toe...

Real happiness lies in that which never comes nor goes but simply is...
                                                                                               ~ Ram Dass

For several years this thought that happiness must come in layers has pushed to be written. After many happiness parties and life situations, I still felt something was missing. However, what is tricky --  is to know when I am happy, am I happy, really? And is there more to happy than happy situations which seem to end or become the proverbial carrot for the next chase.

Surface happiness, things are going well and life feels great and fun. However, at times, these glad events are like watching a scene that is perfect yet, views like a phantom, tableaux vivant. And as happy and grateful as I am for this human, worldly, wonderfulness I still detected a surface happiness.

The real happiness I am discovering (after some years) is more than being ok with self and those around one. Real happiness feels larger, deeper, more home, more ultimate, more right down to hard rock. Even when things go all wrong, it holds and stays the winds of the ordinary and is balm for the wound. Here, happy cells heal. Here, one catches the light in the littlest detail*, the least breath, and the farthest star. Here, is a glow, an iridescence, different than wonderful worldliness -- now most real, most perfect.

The Secret is simple -- real happiness flourishes in my chest, in this Me in me, this Be in being that comes in velvet breath... And as Ram Dass has observed, real happiness lies in that which never comes nor goes but simply is...


* When writing "light in the littlest detail" above, I came across this journal entry written a few decades ago, and a day or two after a visit with the Cottage Woman...

"I love the earthiness of living. Right now the light is playing on my toe. Sounds funny, yet this exquisite moment is counterpoint to such an ordinary toe! I wonder if there is any ordinary in ordinariness because there is nothing more ordinary than this toe. Maybe if I could see like the Cottage Woman, it would all be diffused with light, even the kitchen pot there, sitting on the stove."

A new day and every raindrop has meaning...

Greetings to each,  a new start...

 After five years of writings, some of which are now published in the book Moments That  Blink Back, it is time again to start anew. Yet first, I want to thank you, the readers, for your encouraging and appreciative responses to the book.

Since my last writing was posted in April,  I have been working on my next book titled, The Cottage Woman. Several decades ago,  I met with a wise, old woman who visited me in a  small, rustic cottage located on the North Atlantic coast. We talked every couple of weeks for five years. Thus, I call her the Cottage Woman. 

Because of her, I discovered over time the five senses are fine except there is more: there is a beyond the five senses. I was learning that to listen to the unseen, the invisible; one develops another kind of listening and seeing.  

Early in my visits with her, I kept interpreting her lesson as physical listening and physical seeing. However, she had something else in mind and began to teach me a different kind of language and a deeper wisdom.

As a prologue to this book being published, I will begin threading some of her excerpts in between the new writings about the magic of everyday living. The timing of these writings and her wisdom will be more spontaneous than in the former postings.

Also when quoting the Cottage Woman, my immediate thought responses back then (as recorded in my journal) are put in italics.

These new writings will also be posted on my website. I do hope you enjoy...

My best, Augusta

The Cottage Woman often reminded me that I need to live a life of caring. Below is part of our conversation about a year after I met her. After trying to live her advice for decades and often missing her mark, I have concluded her wisdom can enrich anyone's daily life. 

Her encouragement is thus, "You are to remember you are in Presence.  Must feel it, lead into it, hold it.  Must have confidence in yourself and walk with assurance and love.  
You must also be very aware of being loving.  Walk in love. You do not do these things by yourself.”  How many times have you told me this, but it is different hearing about it each time. It is shocking to realize how much help the Other Side gives us humans and we are not even aware it exists for the most part!

She continues seemingly ignoring my thought, “Be alert. Every moment has meaning, every step, every breath. Be very sensitive to air, light; it engulfs and enfolds you, even the touch of air. Every rain drop has meaning.” I love what I am hearing. 

Then I ask about something which I often do to relax and center myself. "Has my walking awareness improved?"

My old friend pauses, tilts her head and repeats, "Making every step count.  Breathe.  Every moment has meaning.  One is very sensitive to air, to light that engulfs and enfolds one: even to the touch of the air.  Every touch of snowflake, every raindrop has meaning."                                                                                                              
                                                     The Cottage Woman

See beyond what your eyes can see...

Go outdoors and see beyond what you see, feel beyond what you feel, and love beyond what you love.
                                                                                                               ~ An ancient friend

A reader was telling me this morning she had what one could call an enlightenment.
In that, it dawned on her in a totally new way that she is here for a purpose. Yes, really a genuine purpose. As she was talking, I caught this new awareness was replacing what she thought and knew before.

If anyone asks me if I have a purpose, my quick answer is yes, of course. In checking it out I discover my answers are varied. Yes, I want to stay healthy, be happy, learn how to play ragtime piano, be a good Grandma and live here in Tucson in the winters.  Yet, as I ponder, I begin to understand those kinds of purposes are not what her enlightenment is shining on.

Thus, I ask myself what is that one purpose that is embedded in all the little and middle size purposes. What is that purpose that I will be so thankful I attended to when the sun goes down? What does love, what does Being itself want of me?

Which was a reminder of what my ancient friend once instructed me, "Go outdoors and look beyond what you see, feel beyond what you feel and love beyond what you love." At the time, although puzzled,  I thought I knew what she meant but, of course, I didn't.

Scientists tell us, the goal since Galileo is to see farther and deeper into the universe. The Hubble telescope also looks farther, deeper and, apparently, the more it sees, the more there is to see. So too, I am finding with Inner-spaciousness. Attention and  Presence is required. Then in some mysterious way, a larger dimension flows in and one is met. Breathing, seeing and feeling beyond is discovered in a deeper dance. Joy, contentment, and "lightly, child lightly" arrive in the moment.

Yet, to see beyond, to reveal wonder and mystery as the Hubble discovers, I find it necessary to change lenses, focus and push out this personally, limited story called me -- and discover a different story beyond this everydayness and these old perspectives. Then, in its essence, the tree is no more a tree than I am and neither is the bird. No form ends at its label and no form is limited to what our physical eyes see.

Am I sure this is what my ancient friend meant? No, but maybe.... However, the invitation, as my reader also suggested, might be this. When one goes out beyond something else, dance it. A wonderful joy awaits in getting to know another absolute self, its intelligence, hearing, and silence. Then, we can have the fun of dancing to this rhythm in the moment and seeing with its eye.