A leap in the dark…

All growth is a leap in the dark,
a spontaneous unpremeditated act
without benefit of experience.

~ Henry Miller ~

She who reconciles…

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
Of her life, and weaves them gratefully
Into a single cloth –

It’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
And clears it for a different celebration.

~ Rilke ~

Worry is..

Worry is like praying for what you don’t want…

I am not sure who said that first – I’m just grateful to have this little mantra in my toolbox.

It’s so true, isn’t it?

What would happen if we all “worried” – expended that sort of energy – about what we DO want?

What would happen if we each took a little time, here and there, to paint the world with love, with joy, with light?

We could heal the world, in a heartbeat.

We could.

Let’s start today…

The heart breaks open…

God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open.
~ Hazrat Inayat Kahn ~

This has been a heart breaking, heart opening month or two.

Births, losses, deaths, shifts of all kinds.

I don’t really have words for it all.

I do, though, have images.

Here is what spoke to my breaking and opening heart,

as I traveled this spring.

To all those I’ve met along the way…

my profound thanks.

I carry you with me, wherever I go.

Abandon impatience…

When you plant seeds in the garden, you don’t dig them up every day to see if they have sprouted yet. You simply water them and clear away the weeds; you know that the seeds will grow in time.

Similarly, just do your daily practice and cultivate a kind heart.

Abandon impatience and instead be content creating the causes for goodness;

the results will come when they are ready.

~ Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron ~

Splitting. And opening…

When life has no purpose,

and is neither civil nor intelligent,

it begins

to rain.

It begins to smell like the bodies

of flowers.

At the back of the neck

the old skin splits.

The snake shivers

but does not hesitate.

He inches forward.

He begins to bleed through

like satin.

~ Mary Oliver~

from her poem, Rain

Yes. It’s like that. I am at a point where I am splitting open. And I so want to ooze like satin.

That’s the hard part. When things are in flux, and I find myself in the muddy muddy middle, I don’t feel so much like satin.

More like gritty, grimy mud.

And in the past, this is when my old friend, Anxiety, would come to sit on my right, or perhaps wrap herself around my throat. And then her favorite pal, Depression, would join us after a bit. And I would do more than hesitate. I would get stuck. Hard stuck. For who knows how long.

Now, it’s different. I still feel the mud, for sure. And I let myself sit in it, for as long as it takes. Sooner or later, it really does feel like I have to split open to allow the next phase to begin, to grow, to allow whatever is coming to come. And in that allowing, there is a moving forward – nearly imperceptible, at first, the inching is so slow. Gradually, the old makes room for the new, and the seeping through begins to happen.

Sooner or later, it does feel like satin. Like ease. Like flow.

In the time in between, though, I am grateful for sages like Mary Oliver, and for those who surround me with love.

And for wisteria, which opens so slowly and so exquisitely it can bring tears to my eyes.

All of it helps me to remember that I am here, as we all are, to grow.

We just have to allow it to happen.

It’s like that – the splitting open, the mud and the satin.

All of it.

All in good time…

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen all at once.

~ Albert Einstein ~

Here’s what’s been on my mind – time. Jet looks, in this frame, the way I feel when it seems that there is too little time, that I can’t possibly fit it all in, that I should just give up and watch reality TV with a pint of something good.
Either that, or make like Jet and just whirl in circles around the backyard.

The other day, I posted some photos of my newly finished studio and the first painting I started in that space on Facebook. One wise friend asked “How do you have time for this?!” And I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

For so long, time has been my challenge, my koan, my dragon that refuses to be slain. I don’t think I am alone on this front.

And so my answer to her was that I don’t know.

But I do.

I know that the more I believe there is not enough time, the less there seems to be. And the more I am present and trust that there is time for everything, just not all at once, things open up. In a big way.

It’s a choice – one that I make many times a day now. To breathe, be still, feel that I am here. Right here, right now.

And in that moment, everything settles, and somehow, magically, time expands.

Until the next moment when it all threatens to close in on me. And I repeat the process, opening up my internal lens to allow all the light in, to see the good.

Right here, right now. When I allow it, magic happens.

Every day.