On Just Being

I think most of us understand that there is a health need in us to slow down and smell the roses. Or, we might say, to be less involved in continuous, harried thought and vigorous action. Some of us might call it spending less time in doing and more time in being, but can we imagine what it means to be? Suppose someone asks, “What are you doing?”, and we say, “I’m just being.” Sounds kind of gauzy and smarmy; but it is needed. When my kids were little, one of my sons would sit on the shoulders of a big, wing chair and silently look out our bay window for lengths of time. When I asked what he was doing he would simply say, “Nothing.” At that time I did not understand that he was just being. He was subtly disengaged from his personal locale and was quietly moving into his universality, enjoying his “leaky boundaries, discovering more of his non locality, maybe doing what Walt Whitman might have called, “inviting his soul.”


Coming back to themselves... 

When I listen to the comments of some of our esteemed military veterans with PTSD, I think that, at least for a while, they have lost the capacity to just be. Their open spaces are not open but filled with horrific dreams, memories and flashbacks. Among other things, they need help in coming back to themselves.

Welcome sanity indeed...

In lesser ways, so may some of us…need help allowing for space that is not filled with things to do, places to go and people to see. What is the inner child in us but that little kid who emerges to figuratively sit on the shoulders of a welcoming chair to look into beyond the beyond. Some may think we are crazy to spend time in such a way. I think it is not craziness but welcome sanity indeed.

On Soul Peace

Haven’t you had times when it seems that nothing could bother you, nothing could possibly erode a deep feeling of well being? Quietly, joy seemed to overtake all the acts of your day so that even the least important had a value all its own. I like to call this soul peace, almost an attitude that is dependent on no one and nothing to appear.

The greatest of our connections...

I think that soul peace is one of the greatest of all our connections. I have said many times that I am a believer, and I think those among us seem to know that the Infinite in us is always lurking around the corners of our lives, just waiting for the chance to spill over into our urbaneness. There is no rhyme or reason to soul peace, nothing we can do to hasten it along or inhibit its appearance. It is the holy part of us that supports us every chance it gets.

The connections that lay in readiness...

Viktor Frankl, 20th Century Viennese existential psychiatrist and survivor of the Holocaust, wrote of some of the people he knew in the concentration camps. There were those, he wrote, who endured great physical suffering and yet somehow rested on an inner calm…belief, perhaps… that gave meaning to their lives, even the anguish. It surfaced in them when others did not manifest it, although I do not believe it is a question that some possessed this inner place and some did not. I would call this soul peace, the connections to the larger part of themselves that lay in readiness for them.

We can make the invitation...

Although we can’t legislate its appearance, I think we can make the invitation for our peace to appear by risking an openness to good, no matter what is before us…and it comes, it comes…sometimes for a moment or two, sometimes longer…until the call of our mundane lives overtakes us.

On The Good Ship Lollipop

With the recent passing of former child star, Shirley Temple Black, we have been treated to an array of film clips showing us a dimpled, curly-haired little six year old who had an amazing capacity to dance, sing and learn lines. Many of us probably watched with interest and admiration but with no particular nostalgia. After all, this was a long time ago for most of us, some with no recollections at all of this remarkable little girl. However for those of us Americans who were little kids during the depression years and WWII, this sparkling child is a part of our living, early 20th Century history…and now she’s gone.

A niggling sense of loss...

Probably we won’t lose sleep at night over this or spend endless hours reminiscing…it was all a long time ago…but we may feel a niggling sense of loss that an iconic American character is no longer with us. Changes come very fast these days. Technology races ahead with something new practically every week or two, and relationships find new formats almost to the point of distraction. But quietly, over the years, Shirley Temple grew up to be a fine lady…a wife, mother and a political figure in her ambassadorships, so she certainly became much more than the charming child we grew to love.

Enjoy a simpler time...

Nevertheless her life reminded us of a part of ourselves that could find the good in people and enjoy a simpler time when a candy treat could bring on a smile…for old, Americans kids anyway.

I will miss that….

On Living a Spiritual Life

   

When we speak of spirituality, we sometimes speak in mumbled, esoteric phrases, with our thoughts all floaty and mysterious. At times I think that, to many of us, being spiritual is to turn into some other person, someone we don’t even know. Or perhaps it means becoming a religeuse , a nun perhaps, or a monk. This may be fine, if these lifestyles take our minds and hearts. But I am inclined to think that living a spiritual life really means getting better at what we are already doing….living a spiritual life! I’m not playing with words; I believe that our natures are and have always been spiritual; we simply may not have realized it.

A little self correction...

Perhaps the questions we should now ask are: Could I be using my spiritual energies in a better way? Am I misusing my thoughts by not appreciating how powerful they are? Most of us could say yes, very probably, so a little self correction would be in order. How much of our precious energies do we waste getting upset over little things? Do we spend much time disliking groups of people we don’t even know? Can we really understand that we are all in this life together at many levels, not nearly as remotely as we may think?

It does not take a genius...

It does not take a genius to know that we will be happier and healthier if we bring our gifts to life rather than our negative energies. It does not matter what our belief systems are. The great and the wise have all said the same things. Replace hatred with love; do for others what you would want them to do for you; forgive and thus free yourself and others from the blows of real or imagined hurts. We can be way ahead of the game if we will realize what Wayne Dyer has said for a long while: We are spiritual beings living a human life.

On The Rain

       

Finally, it’s here…the rain…and I should be thrilled and glad that it is. Lord knows we need tons, gallons, mountain snows, filled river basins, and huge reservoirs of it! In our neck of the woods our lands are parched because we live in a drought-prone state and always need to conserve, even at the best of times. Pragmatically I’m glad the spigots of heaven are fully open, and I know they need to stay that way for a good spell. Existentially I’m a little depressed. Being a person who is physically not well insulated, I enjoy the warm weather. I suspect that if I ruled the cosmos, every day would range from 70-75 degrees, and if we must have rain, it would fall from 12- 4 a.m. in the morning, just like in Camelot.

I am not a pluviophile...

Fortunate it is that I am not the Weather Queen. I’d disrupt every industry with my preferred insistence on certain weather configurations. What about the grape growers in wine country? Or the ski lift operators in the Sierra? I admit it; I am not a pluviophile. I like being nice and dry, although I very much enjoy my daily shower, which makes no sense at all, but then, perhaps it is unwarranted to assume that we are truly rational beings.

Why do we resist what we need most?

I am not going to lose sleep over rainy days. Everyone on the west coast knows we need them, especially this year. But knowing and liking are two different things, which causes me to wonder…why is it that we so often resist what we need the most?

On Knowing Oneself

       

Have you ever noticed that people who have a good sense of themselves do not much care what others think of them? Oh, they can be briefly and vaguely annoyed when some may spread a bit of gossip, but they do not walk around scarred for life because of it. They are simply too alert to their own thoughts and what lies in front of them. If I were to try to define how to know oneself, I’m not sure I could do it. Knowing oneself is not a commodity that can be parceled out or a set of invisible characteristics that manifest on command. I think that knowing oneself is something we grow into…or not, if we do not choose the challenge. It is one of the better reasons for growing older, for some attainments just do not come overnight!

No one can do this for us...

I think one of the best gifts we can give ourselves is self knowledge, self awareness, and no one can do this for us. Not being a natural athlete, I have often laughed and said that, if I could, I would pay others to exercise for me! Not gonna happen, of course! If I want a flexible body, I must be the one who moves it around. In a way, I think the acquisition of self knowledge is similar. There are introspections we must make and self honesties we must pry into, no matter how painful this may sometimes be. There may be hard things we must hear, so I suspect that encroaching self awareness is another one of those accomplishments that is not for sissies! 

Would we want it to be otherwise?...            

But really, would we want it to be otherwise? Would we really want to live a life of total denial about parts of ourselves, always at risk that we may be missing something very valuable? No one can know us like we can, and therefore no one can live our lives to the fullest but ourselves. This sounds to me like reason enough to be open to our greatest good.