Sunday, February 25th, 2007

Yesterday I almost cried in Costco.

It wasn’t for the human condition on the whole, or because of the impact stores like that can have. What I nearly cried over was the incredible seduction of what we think we don’t have. We become enslaved by a lack that perpetuates itself.

I am not an anti-materialist. I would be one of the first to advocate pampering yourself in whatever fashion suits when it is a part of a healing force…and so often I see the way in which it can be. What I am talking about has actually nothing at all to do with things or money, and everything to do with what we think is missing and our obsession over it.

We focus on what is missing in our lives because we think it will bring it to us, but instead it blurs our vision of everything else…robbing us of the very opportunity we are waiting for. It is when we shift our focus to what is not missing that we begin to draw to us the energy of what is. All we can see is the hole in our hearts, and so we wake up every morning and look into the hole…we gaze into it, we fall in love with it, and we wait for the miracle to come from within it. And while we are looking at the hole, the rest of our heart, where all the answers lie…is ignored.

Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes we must fall in love with the hole to not let its pain consume us, but it is the intense strength and reserve we call on to shift our gaze that eventually frees us from the fixation with the empty space we hold for something to come and fill.

As creator beings, dripping with the sparkles of stars and emanating the glow of the moon and the sun, we do have other options and, as cool hand luke said once, “sometimes havin’ nothing is a cool hand to play.” Meaning, in this reference, that we have to go back to basics before we can break a cycle of lack. We have to start with feeling that just being able to breathe freely is a big gift, and that even five minutes of totally free time is an extension of a great power of being alive. We have to re-embrace the gifts we have neglected and lost touch with in favor of the great and seductive empty space of what is missing in our lives.

There have been times in my life where I was down to my last three dollars, and, mind you, I certainly “needed” a good deal more. But when I went out to spend those last three dollars on a double tall latte it was always one of the best coffees I ever had. This is because I may not have felt full of choice about the things I couldn’t do with my last three bucks, but I sure felt empowered about having them to spend on that sweet elixir that gave my mind the freedom to sit back, relax, and reflect on what to do next.

Yesterday I almost cried in Costco, but it wasn’t because there were too many things I wanted…it was because, since I don’t go often, there were literally thousands of things I could have used, and not one damn thing I needed. I literally had waiting for me at home every single thing I needed to have a perfectly joyful life…and yet things called out like sirens in the night wanting me to crash into some rocky shore…and I was free. Not because I didn’t buy anything, I did buy a few things, and it would be missing the point to think that was the reason why. I was free because I knew I had everything. Anything added on top of that was gravy, and maybe even gravy I really wanted, but gravy nonetheless. My treasury was so full, my heart so light…I knew, that just like after Tibet breathing oxygen would feel like more of a luxury than it ever had before, I would always have the love of god, the love of the goddess, my own god-given free will, every joy my soul had ever known, the promise of heaven, and though often much more, I would always have three dollars for coffee…and, as it is for all of us, even if we hit bottom there is only one way to go from there, and that is up. And we can always build castles, out of coffee grounds, compost, or sand. Sometimes nothing is a cool hand to play.

May you be blessed beyond even the greatest wish you could ever make…may you be given what you never even thought you could ask for, and may you be relieved ultimately by the graciousness of the universe at every turn. Love, Jennifer

Monday, February 19th, 2007

We only have one moment, and yet the bliss of that truth exists in the knowledge that there is nothing else. We only need this one, heart-pounding, achingly beautiful moment of birth. Anything can be born in this moment…stars, seeming far away to the touch, can fall effortlessly from your fingertips if you wish…

It begins with faith. And faith, unlike some forms of trust, cannot be established solely on past experiences. Faith is a flower that grows in the heart, from nothing. It does not grow from the soil of proof, or the rain of evidence. It does not grow from the sunlight of knowledge. It grows wild and without sustenance, it is born only from a unintelligible whisper on a wind of change. Its roots are fierce and wrap, like the tendrils of a mermaid’s hair, around that which can never be promised or foreseen. It wraps like a baby’s hand around a grown person’s finger…by nature…by instinct. It knows something our mind forgets: that we are always in good hands beyond anything we may have reason to believe.

This is what we access when we take a leap of faith. For those of us on the spiritual path, there have been thousands, but each new leap taken truly on faith is more fantastic, more freeing, perhaps more frightening, and more miraculous than any that came before. A leap of faith is a reflex that kicks in when we totally surrender, even for a moment, to a deeper rhythm that emerges only then, and carries us out to a new sea.

When you think that faith is the furthest thing from possible, take the opportunity to do something different. Break your routine…take a long break or a long walk…exercise, sauna, sweat…suddenly visit a friend or go see a movie or an art opening without planning it…go out dancing, sailing, try something new. Doing something spontaneous can immediately break up patterns and make space for what is new to enter your life…spontaneity builds courage and faith and asks you to let go of your safety plans and methods. It asks you to use skills you may not think you have, and then gives you reason to revel in them, and to celebrate again.

When you have nothing left to lose you are free…and you are forced to open your wings to the sun and fall through the hell of fear right into heaven. When you have nothing to lose you find the one final space of silence where any oppressive thought simply has no oxygen to exist. There is nothing in that high, silent moment but you and the voice of your own heart, and the slight rustle of feathers in the breeze.

Take a step in a direction that is bold…not because you are afraid and convincing yourself to be strong, but because you have found the strength in standing naked before your own heart. Believe that falling is what gives you a reason, to be caught, and that this is why we fall into love. Undress from any garments of shame, gather your cloak of faith around you, and leap…knowing that death of one thing is only the new life of something even more beautifully designed for you. Let the inner spring, begin.
Love, Jennifer