here's some magic

What about pragmatism?  What about rational-analytical thinking and the glorification of science?  What about pushing our emotions under the rug, or believing our Western culture to be superior to or more evolved than indigenous cultures? These beliefs are all a reflection of the loss of the spiritual, the loss for an appreciation of the mystical, the wonderment of life.  When I was little Christmas was so full of glitter and magic and mystery.  My sister and I would even climb into the attic in the middle of the year to open up the Christmas boxes and look at the sparkly ornaments to try to recapture some of that magic (but it works better when it's cold outside, the candles are lit and it smells like cinnamon and cloves).

Life is so one-sided, so devoid of sparkle without this magic - so, well, pragmatic.   But the magic is there, it's right in front of your eyes.  Whether the sparkle of a Christmas ornament, the glistening of rain drops on a leaf, or the shiny beauty and perfection of these red peppers - it's really quite magical.  It pays to tune into the magic because it's everywhere around you!

an attitude of gratitude

How about thinking of life as a gift, as author Charles Eisenstein suggests?  What an extraordinary opportunity, what a biological coincidence, what a marvel that you find yourself incarnated in this body, in this place, during these times which Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has called the most peaceful on earth yet (despite what the media coverage might suggest). Think about this opportunity as a gift to experience life on this beautiful earth, a gift to express your spiritual self in this three dimensional realm through all the things you do, a gift to share your life with all the people you choose to have around you.  This perspective creates an attitude of a half full glass instead of a half empty glass, an attitude of gratitude, an attitude of joy, amazement and wonder.  Research suggests that people with a positive outlook on life, a good social network, and a can-do attitude have a longer life expectancy.  So from that perspective alone it's worth it.

What if life were really only about the actual experience and joy of being?

forget your watch

I did not take a watch on our recent camping trip.    It really did not matter what time I woke up and climbed out of the tent, what time I sipped tea and ate breakfast, what time I went biking or ate lunch.  You can actually tell pretty accurately by the sun's standing in the sky and the quality of the sunlight about what time it is  - not that it really matters when you're on vacation.  It is nice to just let yourself float through the day by your feelings of hunger or need for rest or activity. The accounting of time and its equation with money rob time of its magical qualities - and us of our connection with nature.  Charles Eisenstein wrote that John Zerzan thought "Clocks make time scarce and life short."  Remember when childhood summer afternoons stretched languorously and lazily into eternity?  I am sure it has happened to you that you had to get something specific done in a fairly short amount of time - and managed somehow magically to accomplish it within that tight timeframe.   Swedish children's book author Astrid Lindgren wrote in The Children of Noisy Village that it is those endless Christmas Eve afternoons that are responsible for our gray hair because those afternoons stretch on forever and ever and ever.  And you might have seen Salvador Dalí's famous painting of the stretchy clocks.

It's Labor Day  week-end.  Put your watch away and enjoy time without counting it.

amazing intent

Intent is the creative energy we use to put thoughts or ideas into action.  The stronger the intent the quicker we can make the idea happen (wavering slows the process down or even brings it to a halt).   One could say that intent solidifies thought. We are currently building a house.  For the longest time this house only existed as an idea.  But as we kept working at this idea we put processes in place to solidify it and make it appear in the physical realm.  We bought property, we imagined how we'd like to live, we sketched floor plans on paper, we thought about what we'd like the house to look like, we hired an architect, then a contractor, we got financing, and now this house we imagined for so long is actually emerging from the ground.  Our ideas are becoming reality. 

Thought creates matter is what they say.  In a way it's quite magical.  If you can think something up you can create it.  Imagine the possibilities!!!

making cat cupcakes

I am the first culprit when it comes to what I am going to say now, although I have worked my whole life towards what Confucius supposedly said: "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." In general we need to play more in order to enjoy more.  We are rusty at playing - at least I am.  Much of life seems to be a chore.  So when my daughter made cat cupcakes a few days ago - because she loves cats, and she loves to bake - it reminded me of how little I play.  I am just not silly enough (my excuse is that seriousness is in my astrological profile, something about Saturn I think  - but then the scientists have already proven that DNA is not static and that we can change our nature and our biology).

Martha Beck says in her Finding Your Way In A Wild New World: "...the way to cope with the increasing complexity of the wild new world is to play more."  When we are happily doing and forget about the thinking - whether we dance, sing, make art, make music, play with our children, write a poem, make cat cupcakes - that's play.  Now all we need to do is figure out how to make doing the laundry, or driving the kids all over town, or commuting, or any number of chore-like activities a playful thing.  Any thoughts?

wake-up time

I really get irritated when I walk into a store right behind another person, who does not notice me, does not look back, and does not hold the door for me, so that the door basically flies right in my face.  While it is necessary at times to turn inward to ground yourself, you miss what's going on around you when you walk around out of tune, or with music plucked into your ears - besides being an easy target for pickpockets. A few weeks ago I was awaiting the end of my daughter's dance lesson on the parking lot outside the studio and noticed a dad reading in his big car with the engine idling for the whole hour of the lesson - no awareness of the environmental implications.

We awake slowly, gradually, individually, to our own rhythm from this unconsciousness slumber. We all observe it in our own children when we see them growing up, first making the "I-am-connection," then becoming aware of their greater environment (my 12-year-old daughter asked the other day "Mom, what do we actually need Social Studies for when we grow up?  - so it takes some time), and then going out into the "real" world.  Walking through life awake, with open eyes and ears and mind, in tune with what's going on around, adds depth and complexity to your experience, but is also an indication of a deeper spiritual connection or awareness.

A few days ago I was giving my son one of his first driving lessons - in my very methodical and structured way - and then coached him along as he was slowly practicing.  Then he said something like "driving really requires concentration and all 'round awareness." 

Life does in general. When we blindly follow all those thoughts that race through our minds we live in our heads not at the wheel, or holding a door for the next person, or minding the environment and shutting the idling engine.  Being awake in the moment is where living happens.

Also take a look at some previous blogposts on mindfulness.

death and wordlessness and the spiritual

Two days ago our dear sweet cat Snowball died and I explained to my daughter how much we look at death from our human perspective.  The regret and sadness and ensuing emotional heaviness in the chest all come from two things:  Our "word world," and a doubt that our existence could be more than just a once-and-never-again-opportunity to appear on earth, which of course causes a massive fear of death. Existing in a "word world" enables us to live with awareness of the past and projecting into the future, instead of living in the present, as animals do (and as we did pre-language).  We look back and remember, we compare it to the present loss, and translate it into future loss.  But the feeling of loss is one-sided because the transiting animal perceives the process totally differently.  Animals are different from us because of their present-oriented consciousness and inability to reflect (although meditation and mindfulness teach us to enjoy fleeting moments of being in the moment- also see previous post on "Now" and previous post on "wordlessness").

I recently read a very helpful description of an animal's death in Martha Beck's Finding Your Way In A Wild New World.  Beck reminds us that "...we suffer more from our thoughts about events than from the events themselves.  Detaching from our verbal thoughts eliminates almost all our psychological suffering."

Here is Beck's description of watching an antelope being killed by a leopard, how she connected with the animal and understood the death process on a different level:  "...The impala's always Wordless awareness is filled with shock and confusion, but absolutely none of the thought-based fears that make my own mortality so frightening to me.  I'm struck by the lack of resistant ideas, like 'This shouldn't be happening!' or 'I'm not ready to die!' or 'My loved ones will be devastated!'  There's just awareness of the strangeness of the situation and disorientation.  Then it feels for all the world as though the impala senses my compassion for it.  The animal seems very relieved to find someone caring about it, joining with it.  I project all the calm and peace I can.  Then I feel a gentle whoosh, and an incredibly sweet sensation of delicious, liberating expansion........Dropping back into language, I can clearly see that the leopard killed the impala.  Then I immediately find truth in the opposite statement: I could just as easily say the leopard 'lived' the impala, taking its stored physical energy into her own body.  Holding these opposites in my verbal mind, I feel language create a strange loop, pushing me beyond paradoxical belief structures and putting me smack-dab back into Wordlessness."

"Death is the stripping away of all that is not you.The secret of life is to 'die before you die' - and find that there is no death."

Eckhart Tolle

:) ;) :(

The emoticon, a newly created word for a new communication platform, is starting to show up in corporate email communications.  The NY Times wrote about it not too long ago.  The word is a contraction of "emotion" and "icon." So much of our communication now goes via email, no longer by telephone conversation or formal letter.  Email is a more casual way of communicating, and we are quick to type away and push the "send" button without pondering the consequences of "quick."

Although we cannot see a person's face during a telephone call, and therefore cannot read facial expression, we can still hear and interpret voice modulation, which tells a lot about a person's feelings or emotions.  A letter is a formally written document.  We take time to hone the wording carefully, and read it over a few times so it sounds just right before sealing the envelope and sticking the stamp on.

An email lacks both these qualities and with it the emotional content which contributes so much to our interpretation.  We don't spend enough time honing the wording of emails because it is a quick and casual communication.  Because emails lack emotion they can easily sound curt, abrasive, even unprofessional or demanding. That's where the emoticon comes in.  People are sensing emails' emotional lack and are adding it back in with the help of emoticons.  Emoticons emulate facial expressions such as a wink ;), a smile :), or an expression of dislike or disapproval :(.  They add the human element back into this form of  electronic communication.

 

compassionate communication

Most of the time we are quite unaware of how much we actually express in our verbal communications beyond the mere word content, through tone of expression, volume and voice timbre, facial expression, and body language.  Sometimes I notice that something I said came across all wrong (although it did express entirely how I felt about it).  Usually, we communicate from the I-am-the-center-of-the-universe perspective, and that often doesn’t come across as too pleasant.   When I say to my kids “I need the table set NOW, please!” I may have said “please,” but the emphasis on the “NOW” and the sharpness in my tone can come across as quite nasty, although it merely expresses my own need to get dinner on the table soon.  As a matter-of-fact, the sharp tone has nothing to do with how I feel about my kids, and all about how I feel internally at this moment – (self-imposed?) pressure to get dinner on the table.  But that goes unexpressed, and therein lies the problem. The art of compassionate communication entails expressing what we need to communicate without hurting each other, as well as listening with deep understanding of the other person’s perspective. NVC or nonviolent communication, as Marshall Rosenberg calls it, trains us to understand the role of emotions much better because we need to take into account our and others’ emotional needs in order to communicate respectfully.   Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish have also written some terrific books specifically on how to communicate more compassionately with children.  They influenced me deeply.

We all have basic needs such as food, shelter, safety, love, and respect; and more individual needs like order, beauty, creativity, acceptance, or perhaps challenge.  We reveal in our emotional reactions, expressed through the above indicators, how well, or not, those needs are being met.  That awareness should probably make us take a deep breath next time we are about to raise our voice.

symptoms of inner peace

I have had this piece of paper on the fridge for years.  As a matter-of-fact, it became so old and stained and ripped that I copied it anew.  I never knew anything further about it, just that I liked it, and that I was happy whenever I saw one or more of those symptoms cropping up in me.  For this blog post I had to investigate its provenance, though.  So let me finally credit its author, Saskia Davis, for gracing my kitchen for all these years and reminding me what it feels like when I am grounded and at peace.