I enjoy playing with words and am especially fond of plays on words.  For me, puns speak to the multidimensional nature of things.  Spiritual puns, in particular, resonate deeply.  During a recent meditation on Lent, this pun arrived.  Later it grew into verse.

Traveling Light

We are light beams

light beings

traveling

unfolding

moving through

the kaleidoscope -

rainbow cornucopias of

particles waving -

hues

uniquely balanced

and blended.

As traveling light

we do best

to travel light -

releasing clutter

fear

resentments

unworthiness stories

ego attachment

the confining

boxes of thought

holding us back

weighing us down.

Traveling light

we touch lightly.

We savor

and release

each moment

embracing movement

in stillness -

lithe and

transparent to

the ever-unfolding

parade

of hello

and goodbye.

We can't grasp

the unfolding.

We can't dam(n)

the flow.

It only hurts

to try -

only makes us

denser

and darker.

We are

  traveling light.

Let's

travel light.

Merciful Flowering

       Most of the people I work with (including the guy I counsel in the mirror) are tormented at times by an inner judge whose stance is always critical – and often quite harsh.  Last Thursday in group, as part of an ongoing effort I make to invite mercy into our inner lives, I shared this passage from The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo.

       "We do ourselves a great disservice by judging where we are in comparison to some final destination.  This is one of the pains of aspiring to become something:  the stage of development we are in is always seen against the imagined landscape of what we are striving for.  So where we are – though closer all the time – is never quite enough.

       The simple rose, at each moment of its slow blossoming, is as open as it can be.  The same is true of our lives.  In each stage of our unfolding, we are as stretched as possible.  For the human heart is quite slow to blossom, and is only seen as lacking when compared to the imagined lover or father or mother we'd like to become.

       It helps to see ourselves as flowers.  If a flower were to push itself to open faster, which it can't, it would tear.  Yet we humans can and often do push ourselves.  Often we tear in places no one can see.  When we push ourselves to unfold faster or more deeply than is natural, we thwart ourselves.  For nature takes time, and most of our problems of will stem from impatience."  (p. 251)

       Be gentle with your petals.  Flower mercifully.

Growing Pains

       Awhile back, in a catalog from Shambhala Publications, I found a book by David Richo titled: The Five Things We Cannot Change…and the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them.

       The five things are:

1.      Everything changes and ends.

2.    Things do not always go according to plan.

3.    Life is not always fair.

4.    Pain is a part of life.

5.    People are not loving and loyal all the time.

       Right next door in the catalog is another book by Richo:  How to be an Adult in Relationship.  This one, apparently, focuses, not so much on finding the ideal mate, but on developing our own capacity to love and to be more realistic in relationship.

        As I sit here imagining what these books are like, I suspect that Richo's writing echoes life's persistent invitation to grow – and to grow up. 

       I feel an old resistance to growing up.  I remember old growing pains.  I wonder about a connection between the resistance and the pain.

Body of Truth

       Richard Moss makes an interesting distinction between feelings and emotions.  Feelings, he says, are spontaneous reactions to our experience of life, registered in the body.  Emotions are generated by the thoughts and stories we tell ourselves, as we react to life.

       As I sit with this distinction, it's clear to me:  Feelings rarely lie.  Emotions routinely do.

       If I want to know how I truly feel about something, I need to listen to my body, which for me is easier said than done, since I tend to navigate with words, and my body rarely speaks English.  

       There are many ways to listen to the body.  Psychologist Eugene Gendlin wrote about a technique for accessing our deep truth in a book he titled, Focusing.  Lately, I've been experimenting again with a version of the focusing technique, in which I picture a person or a situation and gently ask within:  "How do I feel about this?"  or "What do I want to do about this?"  Sometimes, I receive the felt sense of an answer. I name that felt sense and, if it resonates as truth with the body, I feel a shift inside, a relaxing, a sigh of yes, usually somewhere in the area around my solar plexus.

       At other times, perhaps more often, there will be a stillness inside with no sense of an answer.  I attend to the stillness and gently offer multiple choice options:  Naming a few feelings or possible courses of action – going slowly, careful not to rush the body.  When I name something that's really true for me or right for me, I experience the shift, that felt sense of "yes".  

       I'm still a bit rusty with this.  It doesn't work perfectly all the time.  Sometimes, I suspect, I'm not ready to trust this knowing or this way of knowing.  Sometimes, the mind and old habits insist on running the show. 

       So, I'm invited to persist – patient with myself and a deepening friendship with my body.  I'm invited to see the easy flow this quiet listening brings to the navigation of life.  I'm invited to relax and to remember:

       The body tells the truth.

Odd Moments

Noticing lately

how I fill

odd moments

rehearsing

rehashing

regretting

pondering

planning

preparing.

Chatter

fills the

spaces -

old habits

of forgetting

who I am.

Sometimes

I

remember

I am

connected

 in love -

unique light

in a

universe

where

all is

light

and

all is

love

and all

unfolds

just right.

Odd moments

can

heal

refresh

renew

re-orient.

Odd moments

can be

God moments.

       A friend and colleague recently shared a parable she uses in her psychotherapy practice.  I pass it on for your enjoyment.

The River and the Lion

       After the great rains, the lion was faced with crossing the river that encircled him.  Swimming was not in his nature, but it was either cross or die.  The lion roared and charged the river, almost drowning before he retreated.  Many times he attacked the water, and each time he failed to cross.

       Exhausted, the lion lay down.  In his quietness, he heard the river say, "Never fight what isn't here."

       Cautiously, the lion looked up and asked, "What isn't here?"

       "Your enemy isn't here," answered the river.  "Just as you are a lion, I am merely a river."

       Now the lion sat very still and studied the ways of the river.  He watched and listened.  After a while, he walked to where a certain current brushed against the shore.  Stepping in, he floated to the other side.

Author unknown.

Ego

Compares

Critiques

Controls

Battles

Belittles

Blusters

Anguished

Angry

Alone.

Awful

Or

Awesome

Gotta

Be

Special.

Youngster

Yearns

Yes -

Acceptance

Admiration

Affirmation

Belonging

Believing

Befriending

Comfort

Compassion

Companionship.

Embrace

Young

Ego.

Accept.

Befriend.

Companion.

Be nice.

Be with.

Be love.

Own and Choose

We grow

and

Resist growth.

We see deeply, wisely,

and

We cover our eyes.

We give generously

and

Withhold stingily.

We can be merciless in judgment

and

Mercifully forgiving.

Complex

and

Simple,

Goofy

and

Grand,

We can own it all

and

Choose what to feed.

A New Year's Thought

       Just tidying my office a few minutes ago, I opened Brian Browne Walker's translation of  Tao Te Ching, and this one caught my eye.  It seems appropriate for the season.  Enjoy!

Act by not acting,

        accomplish by not straining,

                understand by not knowing.

Regard the humble as exalted

        and the exalted as humble.

Remedy injury with tranquil repair.

Meet the difficult while it is still easy;

        cross the universe one step at a time.

Because the sage doesn't try anything too big,

        she's able to accomplish big things.

Those who commit lightly seldom come through.

Those who think everything is easy

        will find everything hard.

The sage understands that everything is difficult,

        and thus in the end has no difficulties.

2012

       Lot of buzz with this new year.   Big elections in November.  Mayan calendar ending in December.  Turmoil, it seems, everywhere.  Fear stories abounding – from all over, right and left. 

       I have a New Year's invitation for us – me and you.  Let's not pay much attention to the buzz out there.  Its vibration weakens us. 

       Let's focus on the quiet voice inside, the gentle wisdom of the inner master.  We need to breathe and soften to hear this voice.  And sometimes, we don't hear it all.  We just feel it.

       We feel the sigh of "yes", as inner connection happens.  The connection guides us.  It steers us with purpose.

       In 2012, let's listen to our own teaching.

       Happy New Year.  Happy listening.