When I was in my twenties, I spent several summers as a guide on the Colorado River in southern Utah.  I’m still unpacking what I learned on the river and from the desert in those summers.  One perfectly obvious lesson came from packing and unpacking my boat.  I was responsible for my boat.  Of course, I could ask for help and it was there in a skinny minute.  But when it came time to get on the river, the oars were in MY hands.

It was up to me to make sure that the boat was balanced.  And we all know that a balanced boat makes for a smoother ride.  It was up to me to stay in the current and navigate the rapids.  How this translates today is that I can pack the boat of my life with all kinds of activities, people, and thoughts that take me out of the current of my life.  And, before I know it, I’m trying my darnedest to paddle my way out of some eddie or I’m rowing backwards through some rapid.

Or, I can get conscious about what I’m putting in the boat of my life — today.  I can make sure that my boat is balanced with the three essential keys to life balance and personal peace – centering practice, self reflection and body care.  I can anticipate any rapids that I might be approaching and make the necessary adjustments to navigate those life challenges with greater equipoise and greater peace.  This is made so much easier if I’m already rowing along with centering practice, self reflection and body care.

When I’m taking care of myself through regular centering practice, self reflection and body care – the boat of my life floats along life’s current with much greater ease.  If I neglect one of these, I’m sunk.    Though I’d really like to unpack this topic more completely, a blog post just doesn’t lend itself to this exploration.  That’s why I created the Reclaim Your Life 21 Day Challenge.  Stay tuned.  I’ll tell you more later.

In the meantime, what about you?  How’s the boat of your life packed today?  Are you making sure to pack your boat well?  What one thing can you do today that will help you feel more centered?

Here’s the good news, not all of life is suffering.  What this means in terms of being in life with more equipoise, with greater equanimity,  is that as you practice being in life with friendly detachment, the ups and downs of life’s storms – - – even the emotional storms have less power over you.

Rarely does an emotional storm just hit.  Imagine you are standing in your doorway looking out on a bright sunny day and then all of a sudden, I mean in an instant, you are swept out of your doorway into the broiling fury of a hurricane.

Storms don’t really work like that.  First you might notice a cool wind, then the clouds start to shift, then the sky gets dark, then it starts drizzling, then it starts raining.  Then the thunder and lightening, then maybe there’s hail and furious winds, by now, you should be taking cover, right?  Gradually, the storm dissipates.  The thunder and lightening rolls away, the rain lessons and then becomes a sprinkle and soon the sun is back out with it’s warmth and promise.

Emotionally, it’s much the same.  Notice the choice points every step of the way.  There are choice points where you can notice the thought (maybe it has something to do with attraction or aversion), you can right then practice being with the thought and the emotion while it’s a breeze before it becomes a wind.  As a physician friend said, you begin to activate Heisenberg’s Principle (I think that’s correct).  Watching changes what you are watching.  Wanna read that again?  Watching, changes what you are watching.  When you observe something, what you are observing changes.

I think of this as kind of naming the beast of whatever you are experiencing.  You name it.  Then just practice being with it — as the ocean is with it’s own waves.  It’s not upset that there’s a wave.  It’s just there.  It’s part of the ocean, but it’s not the whole ocean.  So it is with our own upsets.  So it is with the circumstances of our lives.

This is much much much easier to do if you have a formal meditation practice.  I know I tend to get on a soap box about this.  So I’ll not rant too long.  If you don’t meditate or engage in some centering practice.  Start.  You will be so happy you did.  I’ve got a couple of free recordings under free stuff to help you get started.  Soon, I’ll have more resources so stay tuned.

Then there’s all the times we just don’t want to do the work – there’s the play of aversion in having to work at being in our life with greater ease.  Again, EVERYONE on the planet has some thing in their life that they just don’t want to do.  We all get  tired of doing — there is aversion to one experience and attraction to another.  Be easy with yourself in these times.  Be a kind friend to yourself.

I don’t think that the attraction and aversion play is really the problem.  I think it’s our holding on to our attractions and aversions that create problems.  Just play with noticing the play of attraction and aversion in your life.  Notice how you are attracted to one experience and averse to another.  You needn’t try to change it.  It’s a natural part of human life.  And, these moments of being attracted to one experience and averse to another contribute to our feeling off — not quite centered.  Notice, and practice letting go.

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know I’m facilitating a women’s retreat very soon in France.  (Wanna come?  We have ONE opening!).  Anyway, last night, I was looking for airfare and noticed my shoulders beginning to hunch up, there was a tightness setting in around my mouth and eyes.  Then there were the barest of responses to my loving and patient husband.  My aversion to the high airfare was starting to get the best of me.

Can you see how it’s not only the big aversions that throw us off.  It’s the little aversions and attractions as well.

After a while, after spending a little too long in this play between my frustration because of being caught up in the attraction to easy low fare and the aversion to high fares, I took a deep breath and closed my lap top.  With practice,  maybe next time, I’ll just watch the attraction and aversion like waves in the ocean of my experience and book a flight.

I find silence to be nourishing to my soul.  It gives me a chance to hear the rumblings beneath the surface of my mind and uncover new insights, places in my life that are calling for my attention as well as helping me to become more present for my life.

This silence doesn’t always mean just an outer silence, but an inner silence — a willingness to be quiet for a while and listen —

In this most recent listening, I found some places in me that were hurting a bit and just needed a little time to be noticed.  I noticed the excitement I’m feeling about a couple of projects I’m working on (Provence Retreat for Women & an audio series, Reclaim Your Life).  And, I found myself delighting in the simple pleasures of life ~ my family, my dog, & my breath free of seasonal allergies

Huxley

If you gave yourself just a bit of inner and outer silence, I wonder might you discover.  What’s calling for attention in your life?  Consider practicing a bit of silence and see what you discover.

On this cold, wintry day, I’m reminded of a very different day.   After a long weekend of tiring work, a friend of mine and I took a day of rest on the beach.  After a long walk, we lay side by side gazing at the sky.  My body felt still and my mind quiet as I lay on the beach with the sun penetrating my skin and warming me to the center of my bones.

I remember breathing  deeply and taking in the great expanse above us.  After some time, I asked her if she could see thousands of tiny dots of light.  They seemed to dance before the eyes.  She saw them too.

Together, we gazed at the sky in wonder.  I felt myself as made of the same particles of light that danced before me.  I experienced a dissolving of the illusion that my friend and I were somehow different than the sand, the ocean, and the sky.  I was filled with a sense of quiet wonder and complete love, a kind of love that seemed to pour itself over me like warm honey.

This kind of gazing is in fact a centering technique drawn from an ancient Hindu text, The Vijnana Bhairava.

Many texts of ancient India have been translated in the last hundred years or so from Sanskrit to English, providing yet more doorways through which we can enter the Garden.  The Vijnana Bhairava is a collection of dharanas, centering techniques.

These techniques not only center a seeker, but open her to experiencing the wonder of the Divine Presence.  The English Translation of this text has a captivating title, “The Yoga of Delight, Wonder, and Astonishment.”

One of my favorite centering techniques from this text is the practice of gazing, without blinking as much as possible, at the sky.  “If one makes himself thoroughly immobile beholds the pure (cloudless) sky, at that very moment, O goddess, he will acquire the nature of Bhairava (Supreme Consciousness).” (The Yoga of Delight, Wonder and Astonishment, p. 78).

As each object of Nature carries the energy of God, the Presence of Divine Consciousness, it follows that each object of Nature can then carry the wisdom of the Divine.  However, to experience that recognition we must stop, but for a moment, to consider Nature to be a manifestation of God.

Even the path of the sun in the sky, lends itself to revealing the mysterious Presence of God in its very predictability.  Further contemplating the sun, I have experienced its generosity in the sensation of warmth on my skin, or in the taste of fruit in remembrance of the sun’s rays.

The ways in which we can contemplate Nature and find solace in it is endless.  In fact, images of Nature, simply gazing at Nature, can naturally return us to a state of peace.  Such images are abundant, infinite and easily accessible. Walking outside and gazing up at the sky, or simply sitting where you are and remembering the vastness of the sky can lure you to the experience of knowing you are in the Presence.

The Native American reverence for Nature is well known and continues to gain respect as many look to deepen their understanding and challenge previously held beliefs and assumptions.

Consider the wisdom in this statement from the Mohawk Nation, “We are shown that our life exists with the tree life, that our well being depends on the well-being of the vegetable life, that we are close relatives of the four-legged beings.  In our ways, spiritual consciousness is the highest form of politics . . . We believe that all living things are spiritual beings.  Spirits can be expressed as energy forms manifested in matter.  A blade of grass is an energy form manifested in matter – grass matter.  The spirit of the grass is that unseen force which produces the species of grass, and it is manifest to us in the form of real grass.”(15)

Any aspect of Nature, from a single acorn, to the changing seasons can teach us more of the Truth of who we are.  What if we were to listen, and let God be God in any and all manifestations before us?  Might then we glimpse the beauty and peace of the Eternal in the Present moment?

P.S.  If you are interested in learning and experience moments of Divinity in Nature, consider joining my Women’s Retreat in Provence, June 2010.  Only 3 spots left!

Here’s a little (less than 10 minute) relaxation recording I made for you, hope it helps you in your holiday decorating . . .

Relaxation Meditation

I know that the recording is not studio quality.  So, that’s covered.  We dont’ have to go there.

You can find the recording under my brand new page “free stuff.”

Enjoy.

3 Euro Tulips ~ Hannah Patterson

First, let me begin with a little side note.  I’m switching pronouns.  I’ve realized that what I am sharing is my experience of my spiritual path. So, there you go.  Me, rather than you, our, we, one, etc.

It is clear to me that when I look into what the various religious teachings and lovers of God have taught throughout the ages, we are all expressions of the heart, the Great Spirit, Allah, God.  The play of our lives is the play of God.

In divine ignorance, I identify with the experiences of my personality, the mutterings of my mind, and my oh so present ego, rather than with the Witness of these experiences.  More and more I am coming to recognize this ignorance, this false identification as also divine, as part of play of the Great Spirit.  I am in the play, watching the play and I am the forgetfulness that there’s a play going on.

I want to establish myself in remembrance.  To do that, I believe in the power of cultivating a steady state, a state of peace, joy and love, a state of well-being.  Because, I think that’s where I’ll meet the Truth.  Indeed, in that state is where I have met that Truth.

If I’m not in a state of joy, peace, love or some variation, I think it’s totally, 100% my responsibility to engage a little self-effort and restore my state to well-being.  Because, that’s where I meet God, Allah, Shiva, The Great Mystery.

My self-effort is in the thoughts, words and deeds that support me in rising up to meet the Grace of God.  For me, this means surfing in the confluence of spiritual practices and change techniques from the field of psychotherapy.  It means using every tool at my disposal to dis-identify from the experiences of my ego and identify with the essence of who I am, the Truth Playing in the Field of Consciousness, God.

Still with me?

Both common and more esoteric teachings of saints and sages across tradition teach that God is within, as near as the next breath, as near as our own heart.   And, they teach God is within reach.  I “only” have to do my part.  I only have to engage self-effort to experience the inherent Truth of their mystical encouragement, their view of Grace.

There are times that “only” feels like a thousand miles long and 14,000 lifetimes.  But, still no one else is going to confront and embrace that “only” but me.  No one can do this effort for me.  In embracing that “only” and engaging in self-effort, those are the moments that I seem to disappear in a meeting with Grace.

Mechtild of Magdeburg wrote with simplistic beauty on the nature of Grace.  As a young girl of twelve in the early thirteenth century, she had a revelation of the spirit when she saw “all things in God, and God in all things.”   Much later, with her life devoted to service and spiritual practice, she wrote “How God comes to the Soul.”

“I descend on my love

As dew on a flower.”

Mmmmmm.  As a dew on a flower.  There’s a quiet peace, a sweet love in that statement.  It reinforces my experience that it is in those quiet present moments of the peaceful, loving, joyous NOW that I meet God.

Swami Muktananda, a modern mystic and meditation teacher, repeatedly suggested that being on a spiritual path is like the flight of a bird.  He wrote, “Self -effort and grace are like the two wings of a bird: the bird needs both to fly to the goal.”  Just as a bird needs both wings to fly, as a would-be Knower of God, I lean into both Grace and self-effort.

How do you meet Grace?  Click on the comments above and share your experience.

Being in this part of the world again caught me by suprise.  The first couple of days I was PRICKLY!  My dear daughter only had to look at me sideways and I would start crying.  It was an odd combination of events that came together in a roaring confluence.

Making it all the more challenging was that I did not have a clue what was going on with me.  After much contemplation (yayyyy for self-reflection!), I realized I missed my mom, I missed my daughters knowing my mom and I missed my daughter even though she was now only a few feet away from me.

Here’s the deal, grief snuck up on me and gave me a good thump in my heart.  My mom passed in 1996 and Hannah, my youngest, has been living in France since January.  Compound that with being around ruins.  RUINS.  That’s what thumped my heart and opened this contorted grief storm.  We never really know what’s going to set off grief.

For me, this time, ruins.  When we lived in Turkey, my family would spend weekends finding ruins, playing in Ephesus, and generally having great adventures.  Ruins were my playground and it was magical.  Ruins reminded me of that time and of my mom.  And, I missed her.  A LOT.

Once I figured out wth was going on with me, it was much easier to just allow the tears.  I’m a big advocate of self-reflection.  Know Thyself.  What better place to engage in contemplation and self-reflection than Delphi?  Though the columns that support that ancient guidance have long ago collapsed, the wisdom lives on.

This morning as I sat for meditation, I noticed that my mind was oh so busy planning an upcoming meditation course I’m offering.  Amusing, yes?  So, I told my mind, “You go ahead and plan that if you like.  I’m going to meditate now.”  Then I slipped into the most delicious meditative state.

Click on “Comments” above and tell me about your experiences with meditation.