Drifting

I’ve been drifting away from this blog for weeks. I started a new project which has taken up more time than I thought it would. Starting something new always takes more time. And before you know it, things that you thought were important have drifted to the background.


Now I didn’t forget about this blog, it is still important to me. I had written a few rough draft blog entries, but never got around to posting. It seemed like too much work on top of what I was already doing.

When our attention shifts we drift in the direction it’s pointed. Our energy is used for our new project and for moving to another kind of focus. The ease or difficulty of the shift depends on what kind of attention is needed for certain projects. Is it loose and open or intensely focused attention? Think of the energy needed to shift from writing a poem to accounting.

My attention is not only on something else, it is on something that is using a higher level of energy than I use for writing blogs, novels, or poetry. Energy usage is heavier and moving back and forth takes more energy. I’m doing journalism which is a type of writing that is detailed and research oriented. Now using this type of attention may be easy for some, but it’s not for me and it’s also new to me.

So think about what you want to accomplish. Then look at where you put your attention. Are you moving toward what you want in your life or are you seeing that shore you don’t want to land on loom ever larger? If you don’t like where you’re heading shift your attention. Use it to steer your life toward what it is you do want and you’ll find yourself getting ever closer to your goals.

Heart the key to the reality of your dreams

“It is frightening to think how many things are made and unmade with words; they are so far removed from us, trapped in their eternal imprecision, indifferent with regard to our most urgent needs; they recoil at the moment when we seize them; they have their life and we have ours.”

~Rainer Maria Rilke from “The Wisdom of Rilke”

Do we rely too heavily on words? Last week I talked about how we use words to create concepts that can become walls. This time I wonder about the words themselves and how they can’t really express exactly what is in our hearts.

This is where poetry and metaphor come in; they can get at the essence of our desires. Metaphor rises above mere words. But we are still using words and making concepts from them.

Creating our reality takes more than words. Feeling is the key. As we saw last week, forming concepts about what we want gets in the way of manifesting that desire. That’s because concepts are created by imprecise words as well as the fact that our focus goes to the concepts and not the true desire.

But we can feel, in this moment, the way we want to feel in the reality of our choosing. We can feel right now what it would be like. Words can be a guide. They can help us figure it out; know what it is that we don’t want so we can get to what it is we do want. But it is the feeling that actually takes us there.

Words, like Rilke says, “are so far removed from us.” Expecting words alone to create what is in our hearts is foolish. Don’t get me wrong, words are a very powerful tool, but they are just that, a tool, an imprecise one at that. That is why Rilke is frightened by the fact that so much is made and unmade by them. They don’t create or uncreate what’s in our hearts, only what is in our minds. The mind without the heart is willing to do anything.

What we need to do is to consciously put our hearts into the process, to marry heart and mind. When we express ourselves from the heart, wonderful, moving pieces of art can be brought forth. The life we had only dreamed of can be manifested as well and we can begin to live the reality of our dreams.

Words can become walls

“According to the Buddhist tradition, the spiritual path is the process of cutting through our confusion, of uncovering the awakened state of mind.” ~Chogyam Trungpa from The Essential Chogyam Trungpa

So how do we cut through our confusion? One of the things we can do is let go of the words. In the same book, Trungpa refers to an aspect of the ego, “The Lord of Speech refers to the use of concepts as filters to screen us from direct perception of what is.” Our words can get in the way of directly experiencing our life.

I’ve done a lot of writing about how we use words to create our reality. This is true, but sometimes our words can become walls. Perhaps we need to empty our mind and take a look without all that stuff blocking our view. All those ideas and concepts that fill our minds are just thoughts and sometimes we take them too seriously. We may start to believe our way is the best or even the only way.

The way to prevent closing ourselves off is to ask questions. Questions punch holes in our walls. But you must not grasp for answers to those questions. Live with the holes in your concepts and ideas. Holes in your walls let the air in so you can breathe and be inspired.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Ok, you have holes in your wall, now what? You need to wait, be open. For example, you may be looking for love and not having any luck. Instead of having an exact idea of what you want, try asking questions, but don’t try to answer, wait. While you’re living with your question you might have an idea or desire to learn French. Follow that desire. Perhaps that class will go to France where you meet the love of your life. Letting go of the reality you were trying to create can free you up for insights.

We think we know how to create our world and forget that we are co-creators, not sole creators. The Universe will conspire with us if we’re open to it.

How to Cast a Spell over Yourself

Speak words of power and the life you want will magically appear.

Is it as simple as that? Can we just use some power words and have all those circumstances we don’t like be replaced by ones we love? Well…

We can certainly become more aware of our self-talk which will enable us to replace those words that leave us feeling less than powerful, but this takes time. Our culture has us trained to want quick fixes. Getting the life of your dreams will not happen overnight.

So, now we’ve been speaking our words of power for a few weeks, but the spell doesn’t seem to be working. Now what? Are you listening? Have you replaced all those words that aren’t true? Words you direct toward yourself like, hate, stupid, can’t, tired, and so on? My guess is that you’re not catching all of those negative words and phrases. It takes time. But what takes the most time is believing that these new words apply to you and your life. You may ask, “Am I really smart, good enough, enthusiastic?” Are the words you’ve used to replace you’re old vocabulary true of you? Think about this. You need to find words that ring true for you. Then it’s just going to take time to convince yourself that they are true of you. The more you’ve been conditioned to believe negative, untrue things about yourself, the longer it’s going to take for the spell to work.

Spell:

• Find your words of power, your fire words (empowering words that speak of the life you want and the person you truly are). Remember, these are words you’re going to use to create your reality and not the reality your mother wants for you.

• Pay close attention to how you talk to yourself and what words you speak during your day. Anytime you catch yourself using a disempowering and untrue word replace it with one of your words of power.

• Do this for the rest of your life. (No one is perfect, but you will get better at it.)

• Watch as your life begins to resemble the one you envisioned.

There is Always Tomorrow…Right?

If you put your life and dreams on hold until some perfect time in the future, your life becomes a crapshoot. If something good or bad happens then you either feel like a lucky recipient of fate or a victim of her weaving. But remember, we are not victims under these circumstances. We have a choice, always, and are employing our ability to choose when we choose to do nothing.

Why do we procrastinate and put our lives on hold? Sometimes we sound like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, who is always saying, “I won’t think of it now. I’ll think of it tomorrow.” Maybe we don’t believe we can have the life of our dreams or maybe life has disappointed us one too many times. There may be a lot of reasons we keep putting life off until tomorrow, the tomorrow that we think will be the perfect time. But there is no guarantee that tomorrow will arrive. In fact, when tomorrow comes, it is today. Truly there is no tomorrow, so stop waiting for it.

There is something you can do now, right this minute, that will move your life in the direction of your dreams. Start small or you’ll overwhelm yourself. Break that step into even smaller steps if you have to; just do something today because that is the only time you really have to act. Scarlett’s last words in Gone With the Wind are: “After all, tomorrow is another day.” Don’t let those be your last words.

Writing Tip: Writers may be the worst procrastinators in the world. Some of that may be because we are opening ourselves up for all the world to see. Try not to think about that too much and just write. Allow it to flow freely and you’ll be amazed at how authentic it is when you don’t let yourself get in the way. Of course, there is room for editing after you’ve got it outside of yourself and on paper, but first, just let it go and know that you are a part of a creative Universe. Don’t hold back. People will be drawn to what is real.

The World’s a Stage Not a Drama

Does life have to be a struggle or is it only that way because we think it has to be?
I’ve begun to wonder why my life is so full of drama. Am I bored or just too afraid of attracting the good things into my life?
I think the drama began when I was thirteen and my father became ill. He died when I was fourteen. No, wait, it started earlier. I liked the attention I got when I was ill, so sometimes I milked it and sometimes the case of chicken pox or measles I had was the worst case the school nurse had ever seen.
Ever since then I’ve experienced points of major crisis. But what if I decide my excitement is going to come from joyous occasions and the fulfillment of my dreams instead drama? What if I decided life doesn’t have to be a struggle? Will more of the good things I want in life be what I experience? Though I may have some downs, I don’t have to see struggle as a way of making life more exciting. Besides, drama is ultimately no fun anyway.

You might want to take a look at what has gone on in your life. What patterns do you see? Why do you think you have those patterns? Look at the words you use to describe your situation. You might be surprised at what you find. And if you don’t like what you see, contemplate why you believe as you do then get quiet and listen. The insights will come and when they do, your view will change. With different perspectives and new understandings your life will change, too.

A Sense of Wonder

                       Photos by Charles Elliott

Wonder
This is not the moment for a long face or frown,
Throw your fears out of your mind and let the joy in –
It’s like finding a piece of jade in the middle of a dung heap:
The workman stands and wipes the dirt off it in wonder.

Kuan Yin Poem #16
~translated by Martin Palmer and Jay Ramsay
with Man-Ho Kwok

Last weekend I visited a sacred place in the desert. Just outside of the small town of Adelanto, California, in the middle of the high desert, stands a 60 ton, 25 foot tall white marble statue of the Chinese Goddess of compassion, Kuan Yin, The One Who Hears the Cries of the World. She stands at the end of a walkway of other white marble statues. How they are still white I don’t know. A rather large dust devil blew through and engulfed me briefly. I was coated in grit. Luckily I saw it coming; I turned away and covered my head until it passed.

This past year has felt like that, a year of being engulfed in windblown dirt spinning about me so that I could hardly breathe. All I could do was wait for it to pass. The cloud of dust came upon me when my husband came home from a doctor’s appointment. I knew the news wasn’t good when he said sit down before telling me. The C word was mentioned and from that moment on we were both caught up in the whirl wind.

The dust devil that was last year has now passed. My husband is doing well now, but I feel covered in grit like I was last weekend. It’s like I need to wash off all that fear and stress that built up over last year. But as the poem says, in the midst of dung the workman finds a piece of jade; such a wonder to find something so beautiful in a dung heap. It’s so surprising to find the jewel in our seemingly negative experiences, but if we look back we see that we’ve changed, usually in a good way. I know I’m stronger and I feel closer to my husband now.

  

Last weekend’s experience with the dust devil may have left me coated in dirt, but I also felt blessed by the wind and earth as I stood in front of Happy Buddha and watched the dust devil spin on into the distance. And I know Kuan Yin has heard my cries and has led me to find the beauty within my trials.