I’m thinking about changing my blog to “A Noble Attempt at Finding Zen.” Or maybe “Finding Zen For a Fleeting Moment…woops, I’ve Lost It.” Or even better, “Has Anyone Found Zen?! If So, Please Call 867-5309.” I’m kidding. Don’t call that number.
Finding zen is no easy task. I wonder why it isn’t easier. Shouldn’t we want to be content? Joyful? Blissful? Shouldn’t we want to be at peace? Shouldn’t that be our default? Like a survival instinct? Because struggle can surely feel like demise. Heartbreak can surely feel like death. Fire is painful; we pull our hand from the flame. Struggle is painful; we are paralyzed. We sink into the hurt.
When it comes to matters of our non-physical selves, we are not very well-equipped with the means to heal. Emotional pain is sticky; it lingers. It can stay with us for a lifetime. It runs deeper than flesh and bone. Much deeper than the city of neurons and synapses that live beneath our skin. Mending our heart is a skill, not an instinct. It takes work to stitch up the nameless, bodiless, whatever-you-call-it that lives in the center of the center of our spirit. We can’t touch it, put a band aid on it, suture it up. We have to tap into it. We have to tune in. We have to connect with something that is much bigger than we are. And we have to love ourselves enough to want to make the effort.
It is in our nature to want a quick fix, easy and painless. I wish I had one for you. I wish I had one for me. I don’t. Not really. All I have is this: At the heart of all struggle, there is a peaceful and enduring center. It is the calm at the heart of the storm and it is the steady quiet pulse that carries on - undying. The storm can only be survived from the center. And so we must look to the center when we are struggling, suffering, lost. We must connect with the steady quiet pulse in that nameless, bodiless, whatever-you-call-it that lives in the center of the center of the center.
The storm of our experience can be endured when we come face-to-face with it, lean into it, walk through it. We spread our battered wings, become unstuck and the bleeding starts to stop. It takes time. It takes effort. It’s work. But in time, with effort, it becomes our default, our instinct. Feeling good becomes a habit. I know it’s not a cakewalk; it’s not easy, quick or painless. But for now it’s all I’ve got... If you find a better way, you’ve got my number.
Tuesday, May 11
Thursday, April 15
Elephant in the Room
I want answers to all of life’s questions. Like right now. I want to know everything about everything about everything, and I want to digest it and I want to eat sleep and breathe it with every molecule of my being, with every beat of my blood, with every breath that I take til death do us part. I want to fill each moment with the truest, purist, most honest, unfeigned answers to quiet all of the questions that feverishly lash my brain. I want to unveil the mystery, the secrets, the “what-the-hell-is-it-all-about” that is a noun, a thing, the elephant in the room of all of the rooms in all of the places in all of the world.
I want to get to the bottom of it. I know I’m not supposed to. I know I’m supposed to sit cross-legged and breathe deeply and live in the moment and find peace in the experience, not the analysis of the experience. I get it. But I’m obsessed with the why and what and how. I’m addicted. I want to know, want to know, want to know. I want to know how I ended up here. I want to know why I was blessed with two of the most amazing human being as my parents. I want to know when it all will end. What it feels like when it’s over. I want to know how everything just seems to fall into place, and even when I’m digging deep into the dark, a part of me grows toward the light.
Because tell me there isn’t a reason. Tell me it is all happen-chance dumb luck. Tell me deciding out of thin air to move to Boulder, Colorado where I served my future husband a Grande 7-pump Chai Latte was a fluke. Tell me the psychic who told him he would meet a “petite blonde-haired blue-eyed” woman who would be his wife was full of it. Tell me those magical moments when we plummeted into love were anything but magic. Tell me Angelo met the head of Oncology one month prior to finding a lump because he was lucky. And that the head of Oncology got him in for tests and diagnosed the next day because of good fortune. And that his cancer turned out to be aggressive and rare and God knows where he would be today because he was “in the right place at the right time.”
I think there is no right place at the right time. The right place at the right time is every single moment we live and breathe. It is here now and yesterday and tomorrow and it is twenty years after we are gone. No one holds the answers to our questions. And twenty years after we are gone, no one will hold the answers to our questions. Our children and their children and their children’s children will be left with the same unanswered questions and the weight of the mystery.
And as for us? When we are gone? When it’s over? We become the mystery. We become the answers. We become the truest, purist, most honest, unfeigned answers to all of the questions. And we whisper life’s secrets into the ears of the elephant that carries us in the room of all of the rooms in all of the places in all of the world.
I want to get to the bottom of it. I know I’m not supposed to. I know I’m supposed to sit cross-legged and breathe deeply and live in the moment and find peace in the experience, not the analysis of the experience. I get it. But I’m obsessed with the why and what and how. I’m addicted. I want to know, want to know, want to know. I want to know how I ended up here. I want to know why I was blessed with two of the most amazing human being as my parents. I want to know when it all will end. What it feels like when it’s over. I want to know how everything just seems to fall into place, and even when I’m digging deep into the dark, a part of me grows toward the light.
Because tell me there isn’t a reason. Tell me it is all happen-chance dumb luck. Tell me deciding out of thin air to move to Boulder, Colorado where I served my future husband a Grande 7-pump Chai Latte was a fluke. Tell me the psychic who told him he would meet a “petite blonde-haired blue-eyed” woman who would be his wife was full of it. Tell me those magical moments when we plummeted into love were anything but magic. Tell me Angelo met the head of Oncology one month prior to finding a lump because he was lucky. And that the head of Oncology got him in for tests and diagnosed the next day because of good fortune. And that his cancer turned out to be aggressive and rare and God knows where he would be today because he was “in the right place at the right time.”
I think there is no right place at the right time. The right place at the right time is every single moment we live and breathe. It is here now and yesterday and tomorrow and it is twenty years after we are gone. No one holds the answers to our questions. And twenty years after we are gone, no one will hold the answers to our questions. Our children and their children and their children’s children will be left with the same unanswered questions and the weight of the mystery.
And as for us? When we are gone? When it’s over? We become the mystery. We become the answers. We become the truest, purist, most honest, unfeigned answers to all of the questions. And we whisper life’s secrets into the ears of the elephant that carries us in the room of all of the rooms in all of the places in all of the world.
Friday, March 19
More Than Enough
A beautiful day, warm, breezy. I sit with nothing to beef at except the slick sick feeling that time moves much too quickly. I don’t have enough, and what I do have is squandered. I have continually the sense that this time is invaluable and the opposite sense that I am paralyzed to use it, or am using it wastefully. I find myself wishing, wishing, wishing to have a corner of my own. I want to open mines of life, permeate the matter of this world. And how else to do it but plunge out of this safe scheduled time-clock wage-check world and into my own voids and the shimmering plasma that is life.
The minor hiccup of a problem is that I have not a very clue where to land. At least not in a solid, matter-of-fact, I-know-exactly-where-I -belong kind of a way. I tend to look outside myself, to be itched and kindled to some great work, something burgeoning, fat with the texture and substance of living. Where oh where do I belong? Life shines, beckons, and I feel caught, revolving on a wheel, locked in the steel-toothed jaws of my schedule.
I’m complaining, I know. I can’t help it. It’s the human condition. We are constantly giving birth to desire. We are always wanting more, always reaching, always looking, always lacking. But there is enough. There is enough time. There is enough space. There is a corner for me and my shimmering life mines. It’s all here for all of us. And until I find it, I will keep moving, keep working, keep making dreams to run toward. Because until I find it, I am satisfied. Truly. I am happy, anchored to life by deadlines, laundry and lilacs, the daily bread and a man, the most wonderful man, the dark-eyed stranger, who eats my food and my love and goes around the world all day to come back and find solace in my arms. And that - now - is more than enough.
The minor hiccup of a problem is that I have not a very clue where to land. At least not in a solid, matter-of-fact, I-know-exactly-where-I -belong kind of a way. I tend to look outside myself, to be itched and kindled to some great work, something burgeoning, fat with the texture and substance of living. Where oh where do I belong? Life shines, beckons, and I feel caught, revolving on a wheel, locked in the steel-toothed jaws of my schedule.
I’m complaining, I know. I can’t help it. It’s the human condition. We are constantly giving birth to desire. We are always wanting more, always reaching, always looking, always lacking. But there is enough. There is enough time. There is enough space. There is a corner for me and my shimmering life mines. It’s all here for all of us. And until I find it, I will keep moving, keep working, keep making dreams to run toward. Because until I find it, I am satisfied. Truly. I am happy, anchored to life by deadlines, laundry and lilacs, the daily bread and a man, the most wonderful man, the dark-eyed stranger, who eats my food and my love and goes around the world all day to come back and find solace in my arms. And that - now - is more than enough.
Friday, March 5
My Heart is Raining Butterflies From the Sky
I find lately that I am so filled with gratitude I feel I might burst right open. I feel my heart might just leap right out of my chest, sprout wings, fly up into the sky and start raining butterflies and fairy dust and daisies. I am beyond blessed. I am so well beyond blessed it is oozing out of me in bucketfuls, in boatloads; all I can do is dole it out here in verbal parcels so as not to completely drown in the stuff.
I don’t want to preach or boast or annoy, but I kind of feel like spinning around on the top of a hilltop belting “the hills are alive with the sound of music.” Okay, I won’t. But my god, have you looked around lately? The hills are alive with the sound of music! And so is the grass, and the trees, and the clouds, and even the perfectly dimpled orange sitting on my desk weighing sweetly against the post-it dispenser. It is all good. It is all God. It is all exactly as it should be.
It is all exactly as it should be.
I don’t believe in God, I believe in everything. I believe in love. I believe in love until the end of time. I believe in happiness. I believe in the bright side and silver linings and it will all work out. I believe in kindness and compassion. I believe in chocolate and wine and french fries. I believe in pure indulgence. I believe in good company and good books and laughing to tears. I believe there is no mountain too high. I believe there is always up. I believe time heals. I believe dreams come true. I believe we can do anything. I believe we are all stronger than we could possibly imagine.
I believe we cannot possibly wrap our heads around it all. There is more than this; there is so much more than all of this, and even for that I am grateful. I can’t fear what I don’t know; I will immerse myself in it; I will wrap myself up in it and make friends with it and cozy up to it and lean into it and have faith that I will not fall. There is no beyond. There is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present. It does matter. Every little tiny thing matters and must be found and picked up and redeemed. Every little tiny thing is an ingredient in this great big masterpiece, a note in the grand symphony, and if you listen closely you’ll hear it; if you listen very closely, and with much gratitude you will hear how the grass is growing beneath your feet and how my heart is raining butterflies from the sky and how the hills are indeed, alive with the sound of music.
I don’t want to preach or boast or annoy, but I kind of feel like spinning around on the top of a hilltop belting “the hills are alive with the sound of music.” Okay, I won’t. But my god, have you looked around lately? The hills are alive with the sound of music! And so is the grass, and the trees, and the clouds, and even the perfectly dimpled orange sitting on my desk weighing sweetly against the post-it dispenser. It is all good. It is all God. It is all exactly as it should be.
It is all exactly as it should be.
I don’t believe in God, I believe in everything. I believe in love. I believe in love until the end of time. I believe in happiness. I believe in the bright side and silver linings and it will all work out. I believe in kindness and compassion. I believe in chocolate and wine and french fries. I believe in pure indulgence. I believe in good company and good books and laughing to tears. I believe there is no mountain too high. I believe there is always up. I believe time heals. I believe dreams come true. I believe we can do anything. I believe we are all stronger than we could possibly imagine.
I believe we cannot possibly wrap our heads around it all. There is more than this; there is so much more than all of this, and even for that I am grateful. I can’t fear what I don’t know; I will immerse myself in it; I will wrap myself up in it and make friends with it and cozy up to it and lean into it and have faith that I will not fall. There is no beyond. There is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present. It does matter. Every little tiny thing matters and must be found and picked up and redeemed. Every little tiny thing is an ingredient in this great big masterpiece, a note in the grand symphony, and if you listen closely you’ll hear it; if you listen very closely, and with much gratitude you will hear how the grass is growing beneath your feet and how my heart is raining butterflies from the sky and how the hills are indeed, alive with the sound of music.
Thursday, February 18
Our Most Glorious Promise
I’m beginning to realize that I’ve had it all wrong. I know what you’re thinking. How could I be wrong about anything? But it’s true. I’ve spent a good amount of my life trying to “figure it out.” I’ve questioned God and religion and faith, studied psychology and philosophy, read poetry and history and books on spirituality, the evolution of consciousness and Darwinism; always seeking, seeking, seeking answers. I have found some. I’ve found pockets of peace and moments of understanding through speculation or insight, through trial and error, falling again and again and figuring out how to pick up the pieces.
But in all of this trying to figure out why why why and searching for life’s promise, I’ve missed the point entirely. The point is (I believe) quite simply: To Be Happy. The point is to do everything we can to make ourselves happy. The point is to know that we have the ability and the right to attain happiness forever and always and no matter what the current situation looks or feels like. It is possible. It is possible.
Here’s how it works: You are here, wherever you are (mad, sad, happy, disappointed, rich, poor, married, single, young, old, black, white, yellow), now. Start here. Now. Even if here and now is not where you want to be. Even if here and now seems like an impossible never-ending trek into the darkness or a bad song on repeat. Because guess what? You don’t have to trek into the darkness; the sun will come out again and you can take a leisurely stroll if you’d like. And you don’t have to suffer through even one Michael Bolten song; you can change the station. No, really!
You are the only one in control of you. You are the only one inside your head, swimming in your thoughts, wading in your emotions. It is your experience. It is your world, you rule, and you have the choice to find joy in each moment. It is there for you; this is a fact. Love and fulfillment and utter bliss are always at your fingertips if you choose to see it. And I’m not suggesting denial; things must be addressed. But they mustn’t be obsessed over. They mustn’t spin your thoughts into wildfire and singe your world to gray.
The truth is, we may never know why. We may never figure it out. We may seek and seek and grasp and flail and throw our arms up and cry and think ourselves mad. We may never get to the bottom of it, never, never. But we don’t have to. We don’t need answers; we need to grab our life by the reins and choose to see the light and love and wonder behind every moment. Never getting to the bottom of it is a minor detail, a detour on our path to bliss. Bliss, that utter happiness waiting beneath our thoughts right now, is what we must take for our hope and our shield and our most glorious promise.
But in all of this trying to figure out why why why and searching for life’s promise, I’ve missed the point entirely. The point is (I believe) quite simply: To Be Happy. The point is to do everything we can to make ourselves happy. The point is to know that we have the ability and the right to attain happiness forever and always and no matter what the current situation looks or feels like. It is possible. It is possible.
Here’s how it works: You are here, wherever you are (mad, sad, happy, disappointed, rich, poor, married, single, young, old, black, white, yellow), now. Start here. Now. Even if here and now is not where you want to be. Even if here and now seems like an impossible never-ending trek into the darkness or a bad song on repeat. Because guess what? You don’t have to trek into the darkness; the sun will come out again and you can take a leisurely stroll if you’d like. And you don’t have to suffer through even one Michael Bolten song; you can change the station. No, really!
You are the only one in control of you. You are the only one inside your head, swimming in your thoughts, wading in your emotions. It is your experience. It is your world, you rule, and you have the choice to find joy in each moment. It is there for you; this is a fact. Love and fulfillment and utter bliss are always at your fingertips if you choose to see it. And I’m not suggesting denial; things must be addressed. But they mustn’t be obsessed over. They mustn’t spin your thoughts into wildfire and singe your world to gray.
The truth is, we may never know why. We may never figure it out. We may seek and seek and grasp and flail and throw our arms up and cry and think ourselves mad. We may never get to the bottom of it, never, never. But we don’t have to. We don’t need answers; we need to grab our life by the reins and choose to see the light and love and wonder behind every moment. Never getting to the bottom of it is a minor detail, a detour on our path to bliss. Bliss, that utter happiness waiting beneath our thoughts right now, is what we must take for our hope and our shield and our most glorious promise.
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