How’s it going?

Recently Sally Schneider posted at Improvised Life  about not knowing. She asks the question,  “Can you hang with not knowing.”

I understand not knowing. Not knowing the MRI results, the outcome of an operation, whether an organization will turn around in time, whether our favorite oak tree will succumb to the Bacterial Leaf Drop…  the list goes on.

I wrote this poem a year ago. It is as true today as it was then. However, there is a difference.  I’m listening a little harder, trusting a little more,  and importantly, more at  peace with just “the next step.”

How’s It Going?-road-ahead-unclear-green-freeway-sign-representing-uncertainty-in-financial-business

“I don’t know”
Not a satisfying response
Most prefer a polite lie,
Definitely more certainty.

But the small voice
of wisdom won’t
be ordered about,
has its own timing.

So when the veils
haven’t yet parted,
how do you
walk through life?

The sun rises and sets
Baby birds hatch
Trees lose their leaves.
Life in its rhythm.IMG_0551

Surely you too are part
of life’s flow, as important
as the field mouse,
the fallen bird.

What’s left but
noticing what calls you.
Trusting you’re guided
Always the next step.

besliter

Joy – musings

JOY

Bubbles up
Unbidden,
Riding in the car,
Sun, blue skies.

When least expected,
hanging out,
watching people…
It comes

somewhere
deep inside my chest.
I turn to look,
to hold on.

It evaporates…

So, why do I want
such a shy
fickle friend?

Because when joy
Fills me,
~everything else~
Sparkles!

This year I found a window decoration that says “Joy.”   I had rejected the plastic renderings that said peace. Peace describes the absence of something…no conflict, no war…but for most folks,  it’s a wish, stopping short of painting a picture of what could be.

I rejected the Angels outlined in white lights. Angels watching over us, hovering nearby to aid when needed. No, while I suspect Angels are hovering nearby, they aren’t reduced to two dimensions in my front window this year.

I couldn’t find a candle I liked. I love the idea of light shining in the darkness with hope. But alas, the ones I found were puny.

No, it was the red and green lights saying “Joy” that captured my heart. That elusive feeling that brings me into the now. The feeling that, when present, shows everything as beautiful. The feeling that if I try to grab on, to understand, it goes away.

So, JOY shines in my window, reminding me each evening to pay attention and notice what arises unbidden, to not grab, to stop controlling and just be.

I wish you all a bubbling moment of JOY!

Shiva whispered in my ear

When Shiva, our sweet cat died, this poem came to me:

Love fiercely,
Let your heart breakDSC02937
It’s then that Life
knows its worth.*

I think Shiva whispered these words in my ear. She was letting me know how letting myself feel such love, even for a moment, is what life is all about. And yes, that means feeling the grief and pain when something or someone you love leaves you.

Photo 1Love fiercely! Again and again. Life demands it, and you’ll have no regrets.

Shiva via besliter 8/11/14

 

I want the flowers NOW!

I keep staring at them, willing them to shoot up their yellow flowers. I want the color but my garden is taking its own good time. It’s still May, too early for most of the perennial flowers, especially these Western Sunflowers, to bloom. I’m feeling impatient.photo-2

Spring has been here forever.  I want warmer weather and the richness of the harvest. Silly of course, and just a passing emotional storm  Yet I’m aware that in our world of instant messaging, it’s easy to lose touch with the natural rhythm of things.

Waiting is seen only as a delay. Defining goals suddenly slips into a dissatisfaction with what we have now. Being where you are seems not enough. You forget to appreciate and enjoy what is.

Fortunately I can laugh at my impatience. It too will pass.

I walk back into the house remembering that now is the only moment I have.  And, I smile.

I said, “It made me cry.”

As I watched, the tears came. It was a video a friend had sent me. When I told my friend I cried he got concerned, and said he wouldn’t send any more of those kinds of videos.

He thought my tears were a bad thing. But really, they were the kind that come when you ‘re caught unaware and, unbidden, your heart just opens. You deeply appreciate someone’s courage, their caring, their pain, their openhearttriumph…

This is very different from becoming distraught, worried  or distracted by another’s experience. This is about genuine caring: witnessing what is and not pushing it away, appreciating the human experience without getting lost in it.

Crying when your heart opens is like going through a doorway to a place where the “we vs. them” disappears. It’s true love and appreciation. 

An open heart, even with tears– it’s a good thing.

If you are the environment you live in…

I like Peter Diamandis’s comment “you are the environment in which you live. ”  Creating works best when we focus on what we want. Negative programing shifts our focus to what we don’t want, fostering fear, worry, and negative thinking. I thought Peter’s study of Times Magazine covers was telling as well.

Luck? Perserverance? Timing?

Cathy Thomas has written about her own creating process in getting her book published.

“For several years I have had the intention of writing a book. …..I can tell you that at the start, the idea of me actually writing a book seemed really crazy. …So what I did was just start… And then…my dream got stuck. I just could not get it to move forward.”

The creating process can be messy, with many opportunities to just give up. In Cathy’s case, there were no heroic bells and whistles…just a thread of desire for it to happen that kept it all moving. She listened to her own sense of when to move and when to let it rest. She was open to it not happening at the same time she still wanted it. Creating often requires holding polarities: seeing the end result complete but being OK with not having it;  being willing to put a hold on something but still be alert to possibilities…..

Read the rest of Cathy’s post here:   Making your Dream Become a Reality.

 

Lessons of a Creator: #5

I found a way to shift my attention away from my thinking mind, to ask questions and to listen for the answers: FOCUSING IN MY BODY. I shift my attention into my body (I focus on my heart), center with my breath and feel a moment of genuine care. As my thinking mind quiets,  I can get a felt sense of what is going on.  I can tune into an inner guidance that goes beyond my fears, worries and limitations.

My heart-focus filters out the noise my head is  broadcasting.

(Some of the science  behind this can be found at: www.heartmath.org)


Lessons of a Creator: #3

Most of us really don’t really believe what we want matters. But it’s the first step in learning we are creators. We start by wanting something, which leads us to learn about the creating process itself.  We begin to trust that we can have what we want. And, it’s only then, that  we can hear the invitation to go deeper: to listen to the silence, to step off the edge of what we thought was possible. In Alice of Wonderland’s terms, we fall down the rabbit hole– running into paradoxes, living  bigger questions, losing the world we thought we knew so well.


 

Waiting to be Heard

We need courage to do what we must do
To follow our heart’s true purpose
The small voice inside is saying
Now, now, now, whispering
It tries to catch our attention between loud
boisterous happenings we think of as life

besliter 4/12