I Notice You : Love is in the Noticing

Love is found in the noticing of things. Noticing the lines and colors of a spring flower, you can see the intricacies of one little life expression. You can see how a beautiful life has emerged through soil and dirt and in the company of worms -- the stuff of a flower before its blooming.

Notice a human being like this, and you will find love. In relationships, we get to know the shadow side --the soil through which every human beings grows -- and we get to know the blooming.

If you focus on the soil, you miss the blossom. Imagine going to a flower show, and only paying attention to the dirt.

Notice the lines on a friend's face. Notice the contours of a lover's shoulder. In the noticing, you see the complex and intricate ways that a human being gets expressed. Notice how a friend eats their salad. Notice how a family member chooses what to do with their hair.

We have all come up through the same soil. Notice everything with compassion.

Love is self-reflective. Forgive yourself of your own faults (the ground through which you grow) so that you can forgive another person of theirs. (Yes that is in the Lord's Prayer, but reversed).

Love is not narcissistic. The narcissist only sees himself and his own needs. Practice seeing yourself reflected all around you, in those you love. Know at the same time that you are also a reflection of those around you.

The truth of the matter is that inside these finite skins, we contain a vast, complex and colorful flower that is the flower of life itself.

If you focus on that, you will find how much you are capable of loving.

The Outside Within

The great naturalist John Muir, said that when he went out for a walk, he would stay out until sundown, because "going out was really going in." He saw in his relationship with nature, the relationship between all things. He is said to have loved nature like a devotee.

Love is a portal through which we find a quality of spaciousness that holds all of life. It may be love of trees, or love of a fellow human being. It may be love of work, or love of play, or love of music. When we fully devote ourselves to what or whom we love, this space opens in our hearts. Everyone has had a timeless moment-- a moment in which we have lost ourselves so completely that time passes without our knowing it. This happens to some people when they are shopping! In this kind of immersion, the mind drops its self-judgment, its lists, its worry about the future, and you can let go into a deeper quality of space and time.

John Muir said this about trees: "I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves..."

The tree is not discontent because it holds fast to what it loves -- the earth!

What do you love? What do you hold fast to? What anchors you to this world?

Here are some ideas:
1. Take two hours to completely immerse yourself in an activity you love but haven't done for a while.
2. If you are in a relationship with someone, sit down and write out all of the things that you love about that person, and have loved over time. Drop the "yes, but" stories, and go for the love. Write at least twenty things. As you write, drop your awareness to your heart so that you write from the heart and not the head.
3. Write down all of the things that you love about your life. This includes the structures around you, the nature, the people, the activities. Again, drop your awareness deeper into the heart, so that you are writing from there.
4. Contemplate love. What is it? How does it come into a person's life? Does it come from the outside, or does it come from the inside? Is there any difference?!

Pruning Brings Energy to What's Important

Yesterday, I went out to prune my hydrangeas of the dead blooms of last summer. Not being able to find my clipper, I broke one scissors and was much kinder on the second pair I brought out. There is one hydrangea outside my living room window that is my favorite. It creates big blue pop-pom like blooms in summer, and in later summer, the blooms turn a deep red wine color. I've read that you need to weed out some of the central stalks on a hydrangea, which I never do. Well, this hydrangea decided to do this itself. It had a lot of dead stalks that I had to pull out, which gave me a lot of time to muse on the concept of self-pruning.

How can we prune back the non-essentials in our lives, giving life and energy for the essentials? Many people say, if they knew they had only a few days left to live, that they would want to spend that time with friends and family and in their favorite spot on earth. There are a lot of activities that take us away from what we hold dear, and these are the things that we can prune. Here are some suggestions for how to prune the old while bringing more focus to who and what you love in your life:

1. Meditate -- a lot of mental energy is wasted on thinking and worrying about things that aren't real. Meditation is mental pruning.
2. Walk in the woods, ride a bike, swim, do any number of exercises with breath awareness, which creates a moving meditation for your mind.
3. Do: knitting, art, writing, music, and any number of creative pursuits, also moving meditations when done mindfully.
4. Watching some television can create a meditative state in the mind. However, it can also become an escape mechanism, so ask yourself which it is, and replace the extra shows with a meaningful activity (see: the rest of this list).
5. Create connection -- many if not most people in America deal with some form of loneliness. Call a friend, create a memory scrapbook, get on facebook and send random, kind messages to friends, email "thinking of you" notes to people. Get an old picture of a friend or family member, make a card out of it, and pop it in the mail. Contemplate the boomerang effect of love.
6. Serve. I watched "The Soloist" this past weekend, and it's a great meditation on how, when you help another human being, you help yourself even more. Love transforms in all directions.

I am One with It

What a hot day yesterday! Sleeping last night with the windows open, I woke this morning to thousands of birds singing their morning songs to each other. When I did my morning meditation, many of them were still singing. It was easy to feel peaceful, with this kind of accompaniment. Even though there were some things I was concerned about floating through in my mind, there was also this other part of me answering: yes, and listen to the world that you are one with!

When you go out in nature, there is not much that is not singing. The creek is singing a bubbling kind of song. The leaves in the trees are singing a dancing song that shifts and changes with the wind. Something is usually chirping or chattering this time of year -- birds or frogs or squirrels.

It is a good time to go out and take in the sounds and smells of the earth, reminding our animal bodies how we are connected to the earth, and how the earth supports and sustains us.
...
The singing birds, I am one with them,
and their celebration of the dawn.
The dancing leaves, I am one with these;
I am one with their dance and with their
play in shadow and new light.
The sprouting grasses-- I am one with the
sprouting and with their bold blades jutting
up toward the sky.
The dark soil beneath me, I am one with this,
too, and I bow to the worms, who remind me
how life steadily rises and falls through
the seasons. I bow to their blind search
for simple things like food and air, and
simple comforts like a cool night in spring,
when the birds are asleep and the people
are still, and the earth is wide and peaceful.

I bow to this. I am one with the searching,
I am one with the finding or the not finding.
I am one with seeing nothing and feeling only
the dark fertility of soil around me, like a womb
or like a grave, knowing it is both the womb
and the grave, all at once. I am one with this.
I am one with old self dying and the new self
being born. I am one with this. I bow to this.

I am one with the singing, the celebration
of the dawn. I am one with the robin, who
comes hopping into the yard with a worm
for her babies. I am one with all of it.

Watering Seeds of Thought

I planted my tulip bulbs a couple of days ago. They are hidden, now, deep in the ground, where is it dark and damp and hopefully food-rich enough for them to come up next spring.

I was reminded in planting them of how much like bulbs and seeds our thoughts and intentions are. We put them "out there" into the ground of our lives, we water them with our regular attention and focus, and eventually we get growth. Maybe even beautiful blooms.

For many years, now, I've experienced life as having an echo effect. I may have a conversation with a friend about, say, living a writer's life, and a client, or a television show, or some other source will appear discussing the same issue. Earlier this week, I was coming to an acceptance and love of how multi-faceted my interests are (music, writing, coaching, healing, etc.) rather than being a master of one. That same evening, I was with someone who told me how she was coming to love and embrace how multi-faceted her interests are, and how it is okay to not be the master of one. This echo effect has happened so consistently, that I no longer believe in separate lives, separate processes, separate thinking. We are all inter-related. It is a co-arising life that we lead.

Right now, our country and media is filled with negative thinking and deep feelings of loss and lack. It is important to honor these emotions. However, it is also important not to dwell there. Now it is more important than ever to nurture those bulbs and seeds of thinking that are positive and life-giving. When we do this, it is not only for ourselves. It is for the vast, interconnected web of life that we are held in.

Whose World are we Living In Anyway?

Over the holiday weekend, I went to my parents' house in Pennsylvania, and came home with a box of tulip bulbs, with little green shoots coming out the tops. They are sitting in my entry way, awaiting my attention. I will plant these to come up next year, as the season has passed for planting bulbs for this year's blooming.

Right now, my life is like this box of bulbs. What was no longer needed has been dug out. Certain ways I was used to being, and certain methods I have used in my healing work have been extracted by the Divine Gardener. What is yet to form has not yet bloomed. I feel like I am in this box, waiting. It's not a comfortable place to be. Rather disconcerting, in fact, to the aspect of the self that likes things to show up just like they always had before. I have not written here for some time, because I had nothing to write. What can you write, when you are sitting in a box, waiting for the new life to form?

Well, this morning, I got an email from my friend Dani Antman, with a poem that came to her as she was waking. Dani is a Kabbalistic healer, an artist, and a teacher of the Tree of Life. We have shared our spiritual path for many years. I was so relieved to get her poem. I asked her if I could share it with you. Here it is:

When "MY" and WORLD" disappear
Divine sparks ignite shells
Burning around the heart
What remains
Witnesses

This is like a koan, to be held in contemplation. What is "my world?" What makes me think that "my world" is a singular entity, separate from the intricate web of life that is all of our worlds housed in the Big House of Divine Love? I found this poem comforting. Letting go of how I want "my world" to show up ignites Divine sparks! Divine sparks are far more exciting than anything I could create on my own while waiting in this box.

The last line of the poem says that what remains are "witnesses." We are truly witnesses here, to our own unfolding, to the unfolding of each other, and to the life unfolding around us. We watch, and participate in, how the Divine uproots us and boxes and plants us where we are meant to be planted. Jai Ma! Hallelujah! I don't have to do it alone. Nobody does.

There are a lot of bulbs in my box. They smell of the earth, and of the yellow dancing flowers of next spring. How wonderful that they are willing to leave their old world behind and expand into a new, unknown garden. Oh, to be as gracious and willing as the daffodils!

Holy Breath Meditation

Call on Ya, the Holy Essence, with every fiber of your being.
Call on that which holds your heart in a vice grip, asking you to turn toward -- to breathe -- to be -- not only in the hour you feel this holiness but in every hour, in every minute, in every moment.

There is no time in your human encounter with earth in which your breath is not synchronized with the Holy Breath of life. There is no moment that is absent of holiness. Look around you, and see if you can find a hole in the fabric of Ya.

It is only a matter of turning toward -- breathing-- and resting all of your being in the awareness of how holy you have become. The grass is only green because the Beloved has made it so. You only breathe because the Beloved wills it so.
Every moment belongs to the Holy Essence. Call on Ya, and breathe the Holy Breath. Do not wait. Do not wait.

...
Breathing meditation:
Note: Ya is an ancient Hebraic name for God (Yahweh). You can replace with this name with what name/form you prefer to meditate on.

Breathing meditation: As you breathe in, say in your mind: Breathing in I breathe the Holy breath. As you breathe out, say in your mind: Breathing out, I am one with Ya. As you breathe in, say: Breathing in I breathe the Holy breath. As you breathe out, say: Breathing out, I am filled with peace.

Eventually you can drop the "Breathing in I ..." and just simply repeat, as you breathe:
I breathe the Holy breath
I am one with Ya
I breathe the Holy breath
I am filled with peace.