Everything the universe brings to us is a gift, but we cannot accept this generosity if we are still holding on. When you do not see this moment as a gift, as a deeply generous offering from the source of all life to transform you into more love, more spaciousness, more joy, then you are holding on. And when you hold, you cannot flow. And if you cannot flow, you cannot accept the new gifts the universe is bringing your way.
When we judge something—some event, some emotion—we clutter our heart with detritus. We block that which is. By blocking that which is, we create a wall, we create conditions of what we deem acceptable and what we refuse. When we refuse, we block love.
You must make a single assumption to be happy: everything that comes to you comes from love and is love. Love cannot be stopped. It will flow everywhere and through everyone; it will change and transform, but it will never stop swirling. If you say no to what it brings you, you will suffer, and this only because you are denying your essence. You cannot negate that which is.
Refuse to see what happens as punishment, failure or suffering. Refuse to refuse.
Open your heart and see that everything is a gift.
We speak and think of abundance in the most ironic terms. Through our interpretation of the term as wealth and plenty, we circumscribe the nature of the universe–random and munificent–into one fenced in by the strangest limitations. We apply our intellectual polarities to that-which-has-no-pole.
It is common in New Age speak to hear about the benefits of positive thinking, about focusing on that which brings joy and love. We speak of locking in on the locus of abundance. Consequently, we imagine an abundant career, a free-flowing reserve of cash and life-experience, an easy cache of what we deem rich and enriching experiences. We think and feel abundant and then watch this “wealth” flourish beneath our careful sculpting.
But this picture of abundance falls as short of the true sense of the term as fool’s gold does in its attempt at precious metalry. This picture mocks the real meaning of abundance by accidentally qualifying and dictating from whence it must arise. Abundance must look like this.
And while we can actively enjoy our human lives by telling the universe what rich must be, we will not be able to plug into the true depth of this powerful munificence without first relinquishing our idea of what FLOW is.
Looking around us, we can easily expand our knowledge of abundance by plugging into the moment. This can be done by returning to the senses, those beautiful guardians at love’s portal. They will let you see how the evergreen hedge moves even in it’s stillness, how the light expands somethings with shadow and shrinks others beneath its sharp brilliance. Your ears can speak of thousands of birds, of shuffling footsteps on granite or sand or dry grass, on carpet, down a tiled hallway, through a pine-strewn forest, through tidal pools or atop grinding pebbles or tilting segments pulled in from the sea. Without our even beginning to understand or explore it, we know THIS to be the true abundance, the world that has no limits, that has no guarantees and that dances like a mirage before our eyes, ears, tongues and toes, tickling us with its ever-flowing heart.
Everything must go back, starting with the breath in your lungs at this very moment. Why cling then to these strange fetters? Your true nature is one of return, of exchange. When you see a cherry tree in blossom do you resent it for only flowering a short while, or do you revel in its brief beauty, in the delicate wonder it possesses, because you know it must soon depart? And when you see a child, do you hold clutchingly to his doe-eyed freshness, or do you allow him to go his way when the time has come? Doesn’t the knowledge of fleeting youth only galvanize a child’s perfect radiance?
Why should the moments, people, places and forms of your life, your creation, be any different than a swaying branch of cherry blossoms or a gleefully giggling toddler? You are meant to shine, to truly sparkle, in your fresh brevity. That short time is now–always now–and it is asking for you to play and dance. Paint my world, the God of love says, paint my perfect world and love it with me!
Remember that the blossoms give way to fruit and the child to manhood. Would the God of love reserve any less for you, his sacred child?
It’s a simple fact that we seem to have trouble remembering: We are here to create together, not to compete against one another. Too often we can find our gaze straying to what others are doing, to what others are achieving, and instead of congratulating them on their developments, instead of seeing our own advancement (the advancement of LIFE and LOVE!) in the joyous tinkering of others, we begin to develop feelings of insecurity. This destabilization arises through comparison. Why do you have what I do not? How come you have achieved what I cannot?
This is the world as seen through the ego, the whiner. The whiner in each of us does not see that we are already a part of an intricate tapestry of moments, events, scenes and songs, each one of us playing our own unique, inalienable and indispensable role. The last of these adjectives is perhaps the most important: You are an indispensable part of creation. Yes, YOU are an unforgettable part of the majesty of All That Is. You are important.
The problem with the whiner is that it sees the light of others as something that is separate from itself. It does not seethat light, all light, is one. We are not swallowed up by the light of others. We actually become more light if we open our hearts to them by quelling our jealous impulses. We do not need to compare ourselves to anyone or anything. Our light is already unique, special, individual. Everywhere we look, every place we turn our perception or tilt our ears, we bring our luminous presence. To bring luminous presence is to create. And when our luminous presence stumbles upon the luminosity of another? What happens then?
Love! Magic! Expansion! Everything amazing!
So why stare at the luminosity of others and cast shadows? Sure, the guy next to you is building a music empire… Great! You should thank him. You should dance to his radiant offering. You should let yourself ENJOY (dare I say it: LOVE) what he has made.
So Justin Bieber became famous through some happy accidents… Should that stop you from putting on his record and belting out the lyrics to “Baby” or to “Overboard.” Is our happiness, our creative radiance, affected in any way by his?
And that girl over there? Yes, her body is a temple, her eyes a fiery presence, and her heart is as big and generous as a spring shower. Fantastic! She is moving through your world with light and love, spreading her magnificent radiance in all directions. Celebrate her dance with her.
And so on, right down the line. All the way to YOU!
What are you shining? What are you filling the world with?
Don’t worry. There is nothing to feel guilty about. There is nothing to fear. Jealousy and competition are incapable of destruction. All they do is temporarily hide your own feeling of worth and brilliance. All they do is waste a lot of energy to cover up something perfect and wonderful. But that energy is limitless. And there is plenty more where it came from. Indeed, it hasn’t gone anywhere. It is still burning bright and hot in your chest.
So let’s practice the art of our own abundance. In lieu of fearing the light of others, let’s realize that we, too, are shining brilliance all around us. Whether we know it or not, we are always creating. Everything around us is full of our loving brilliance. But this brilliance only becomes truly visible when we cease comparing it to that of others.
There is no comparison–only creation.
What would you compare life to? It has no opposite. One can only marvel as it changes forms. Let’s marvel together!
My Father wrote me a message and then left it in the Earth for me to remember. Before sending me out here into the world, he held my hand, peered into my eye and said: “My son, you are everything I imagined you would be. Go forth and sing the song I have put into your lungs. Go forth and be the earth upon which you walk, the sky to which you pray and the moon beneath which you sleep.”
“But, Father,” I said, afraid even before leaving. “How will I know what song you have put within me, upon which earth I shall tread, to what sky I might pray and below what moon I am to sleep?”
And my father only laughed, only held my hand with the most tender love: “Whatever song you choose, whatever sun you make your God, whatever sky you offer your heart to and whatever earth you must kiss with your feet–those are the places I have chosen for you. Those are the places I have named yours. Those are the places I have given to you for your kingdom. Go there, open your heart and remember me.”
Sometimes I watch an episode of Brothers and Sisters while I nibble at my lunch. In today’s episode, there was a scene in which the unemployed and debt-beleaguered Sarah—type-A to the hilt—gets frantically paged to her son’s bedroom by a terrified scream. When she arrives in the room, her son points at his dresser and says, “Look, mommy!”
On his dresser is a brilliant, green caterpillar.
Sarah smiles and asks if he wants her to remove it from the room. He admits that he does, but that he’d like to hold it first. Making him promise to go straight to bed afterwards, Sarah gently lifts the critter off the dresser and settles it into her son’s tiny hand.
“Will this transform into a butterfly?” the youngster asks knowingly.
“It sure will,” answers his mother.
Wide-eyed and excited, the boy wonders, “Can I stay up until it does?”
Sarah laughs. “You’d have to be awake a really long time in order to see that.”
Giggling, her son relents and allows her to take the caterpillar from his room.
This scene made me think about what Oscar Romero used to say while implementing his Liberation Theology in Latin America: Even if we will never see the world for which we struggle, and the peace we are working to birth, we must believe in it, must give ourselves to the present moment with an eye to that golden future, to that unfurling, delicate butterfly.
But can we stay up until the gorgeous creature emerges from beneath our delicate labours?
Perhaps not. Perhaps it might yet be a long time. Instead, we must continue wriggling with the worm of our humanity as it struggles to transform itself into the long-awaited winged dancer. And if sleep comes to us, we must release our fears, knowing that the creature will come. And when it does, someone, some excited, tender voice, will know it for what it is: the result of an eternity of love. Without a single ounce having been lost.
Adam recently played this song for me. It’s called “It’s a Bitch to Grow Up”. The author? Alanis Morissette.
I can only assume that she is speaking about her personal evolution as she sings.
“It’s been 33 years of restraining, of trying to control this tumult…
But my nervous system has won out.
I feel done,
I feel raked over coals.
And all that remains
Is the case:
That it’s a bitch to grow up.”
Adam and I differ greatly in the way we approach music. I hunker down into the melody. He soars aloft to the words. Often, we play a little game called “What is this song about for you?”
Indefinitely, we arrive at the same conclusion, one of us following the route of lyrics, the other the path of tonalities. How many times have we played this game? A million. And the inevitable point of contact is always the same: a shared sense of meaning in the place where the envelopes of our respective worlds must briefly touch.
But who else’s envelope must we graze as we settle into the world of tune and rhythm? I feel a deep connection with Alanis on this one. I feel she captures the crystal casements of the pupating worm with deft melody. The tone is light and fragile, and yet radiant, reminiscent of the suffering and struggle that precede the coloured moth.
As we take wing, we bring beneath our fluttering limbs the sacred glass memories of all that has come before: the evolution of our species, the struggles of our forebears, the terrors of our animal brethren, the private battles of our own unexpected relationships with life. Perhaps we feel done. Or raked over coals. Perhaps we still don’t feel the perfection in our bones.
And all that remains?
The case. The case of our transformation. The case of our evolution. The case of our dignity, bravery and honour. The case of our unrelenting love. The case of our determination. The glass case of our innocent pride.
And maybe it is a bitch to grow up.
But grow up we must.
So, if you need to, have a big cry.
Let it all out.
Because when you’re done, you’ll still be here.
And we’ll be right there with you. Turning our hearts to the Earth, and our wings to the sky.
When it comes to your lips,
you might pretend it’s a foot
Or even a fist,
But what you call it will not take away
Its mercy.
Only one day you’ll see it
And gladly open your mouth
To eat of its offering.
Truth is your destiny.
And your destiny, my friend, is of
Caresses and kisses
Love and joy
We always think that the story we are writing is on the outside.
As a result, we try to control the characters, places, events and activities of our tale. We work here, play there, love this, detest that. We switch careers, move cities and swap friends. We change names, alter headings, take up new sports or adopt new challenges. We think this is the story, this picture we are painting in time and space.
But it isn’t.
The real story is actually being written inside of us. This story is called Love.
And whether we know it or not, this is actually the only story we are writing; it is a tale of self-acceptance and self-empowerment. It is the story of understanding the here and now. Who am I? That story can only be written from this place. If we stand in the present and make judgments about ourselves, our story is written in these judgments. But if we look at the present and choose to honour it, we begin to craft a tale of love. The story goes inward, not outward.
And as we work to write the inner story of love, written here, now, and with compassion, the outward structures, just like the cover of a book, must necessarily alter to describe what we are writing within.
So let’s focus first on the love, on honouring the essence of what is, so that the cover of our lives—the material world in which we all play—might be infused with the true beauty of a true tale.
Okay. I can’t resist anymore. Once again, Glee has made me gush in a swooning mass of New Age eros. Not eros in its subjugated and perverted form—that mad and desperate dashing of one incomplete human being toward another—but true eros, the desire to MERGE, to UNIFY, to BECOME ONE WITH.
Something amazing is happening in our midst. We are waking up to the illusion of our separateness. A good friend of mine used to speak like that to me, used to tell me that we were all a part of this incredible puzzle that felt separate and divided, but that deep down inside we were all one, all a part of a solid picture that was marvellous and peaceful and beautiful. I didn’t understand at the time, am only beginning to feel it now, but she was right, I think, right about everything.
And now the era has come when television, that historically divisive system, tool of egoic erotic love, slave of low impulse and escapism, has caught the bug of enlightenment, of true erotic thrust. We are becoming a world of lovers. We are becoming a people of joy.
The name is deeper than we ever imagined: Glee.
It’s what I feel after watching this week’s episode, what I feel seeping into the fabric of our world: love, joy, abandon. Glee!!!!!
Are you feeling your emotions all the way through? As if it were a flower, I let let my fear/love/jealousy/desire/anxiety unfold in my chest MattamCountry2012/03/11
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