I love thought-provoking chapter titles.  I enjoy the creative inner journeys they inspire - the invitation to wander and ponder.

       Here are some great chapter headings from Wayne Dyer's book:  Being in Balance.  As a new decade, a new year and new chapters begin, perhaps there's nourishment in pondering some of these:

An Infinity of Forests Lies Dormant
Within the Dreams of One Acorn

You Can't Kiss Your Own Ear

Your Addictions Tell You, "You'll Never
Get Enough of What You Don't Want

You Can't Discover Light by
Analyzing the Darkness

Fighting Any Adverse Condition Only
Increases Its Power Over You

Love is What's Left Over When
Falling in Love Fades Away

Earth's Crammed With Heaven

       Prone to habit, we attach to repetitive patterns of thought and action, holding them as if they are real.  They become our story, oft-repeated conclusions about ourselves and the world.  Forgetting the creative possibilities in each new moment, we hang on to the familiar - even when it no longer serves us.

       In Present Moment Wonderful Moment, Thich Nhat Hanh writes:  "We can practice beginning anew at any moment of our lives.  To be born is to begin anew.  When you are three years old you can begin anew, when you are sixty years old you can begin anew, and when you are about to die, you can still begin anew."

       Adventure's afoot.

Happy New Year.  Happy New Moment!

       As we celebrate, once again, a very special birth, we are inspired to ponder life's mystery and to replicate, in a spiritual way, that birth in our hearts.

       For me, Christmas is an invitation to Christ-consciousness, an invitation to remember what Jesus so completely realized:  We are one with God and one with each other - always have been, always will be.

       May this season bring you wonder and renewal, peace and softening, joy and loving connection.

       MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

       Perhaps you sensed it in last week's writing:  I've been saddened and discouraged lately by the polarization I see in our nation and in our world.  I see so much harm being done by humans - blinded by the illusion of separation - warring with each other, demonizing each other, denying food and health care to their fellows, injuring and neglecting this planet.

       And there before me, in the blink of an eye, humbling to witness, is my own polarization - a flood of primitive, warlike reactions, stories of gloom, stories about "them".  Here I am, railing, caught up in separation consciousness, contributing to what I rail against.  The irony is inescapable.

       So, I dust myself off and focus once again on softening to spaciousness - gently making room for what's young and wounded within me (without being captured by it), bathing myself in compassion and mercy, allowing that fullness within to generate an eyes-open compassion for all:  a connection, a presence, a healing stance from which constructive action naturally flows.

       "It all starts here," says the peaceful warrior, pointing to his heart as he walks the elusive path of serene doing.




      

       I awoke this morning with my inner jukebox playing Magic Carpet Ride, a Steppenwolf song from 1968.  The lyrics include lines like:  "Well, you don't know what we can find.  Why don't you come with me ... on a magic carpet ride ... Close your eyes, look inside ... come with me on a magic carpet ride."

       I'd just returned from a magic carpet ride, of sorts - two days of backpacking on the Superior Hiking Trail with lifelong friend, Kirk Lamb, a fellow traveler into the wilderness areas of mother nature and human nature.

       Birds were rare.  Deciduous trees were bare.  The action, the beauty, the story of the forest was on the ground - the gray-brown-taupe of fallen birch leaves, the muted oranges, browns and maroons of maples.  These leaves were not newly fallen.  They'd been on the ground for a while.  They'd been drenched, weathered, seasoned.

       My thoughts turned toward seasons.

       In the spring and summer, most of the action in the forest is above ground - buds, blossoms, birds, blue (and not-so-blue) skies.  Likewise, in the spring and summer seasons of human life, our attention is drawn upward and outward, toward activity and accomplishment.

       Autumn, for us humans, is a time of deepening, a time to journey downward and inward.  Like fall's forest floor, the colors and textures of this season might appear dull to a cursory glance, but a closer look reveals richness, subtlety, beauty - the magic carpet of mature autumn.

       Life's invitation is clear:  James, it's time to ride.