Choosing Change

“In our instinctive attachments, our fear of change, and our wish for certainty and permanence, we may undercut the impermanence which is our greatest strength, our most fundamental identity. Without impermanence, there is not process. The nature of life is change. All hope is based on process”. Rachel Naomi Remen

I lived in a house wallpapered with permanence and furnished with false certainty, feeling safe–and fast asleep to my “process”. The hung pictures though pretty were pastime, and the growing cri du coeur calling me from the apathy of my attachments offered me two choices.

1. Hatch the egg of certainty and have the challenging duck of change.
2. Submit to the haunting hungry ghosts and become another sepia still-life on the wall.

A friend recently pointed out, the powerful paralyzing merry-go-round momentum of what already is seems practically irresistible to every ecosystem of existence, be it person, family or franchise. That it is so much easier to ride the wheel that already whirs round even if all it yields are illusions of living, and that usually change is chastised and chased away unless bottom is hit or the wheel breaks. And I’ve since pondered perhaps hitting bottom is a lucky break because change, bidden or not, changes that course forever, and often for the better.

Embedded in Rachel Remen’s words, I think, is the invitation to choose change. The life affirming change that beckons like a beacon from the centre of our being. The Truthful change tethered to “our greatest strength and fundamental identity”.

I am finding to live the “process” of impermanence requires a kind of radical faith, AND Rachel is right, I have now more hope than ever I hoped for by Choosing Change.

Four Ace Asalyn

Asalyn lived life holding Four Aces. She held them elegantly and played them eloquently.

Six months ago Asalyn folded her cards to Lou Gehrig’s disease. She played her last hand with incredible courage, gifting grace to all around her. And her spirit, in spite of a betraying body, shone brightly and more well than most suffering souls walking down the street.

Asalyn loved to sing and just days before her pilgrimage home I gave her my song—though it is I who gained the far greater gift. In our final visit, holding hands, smiling through the silence of her shining, Asalyn shared with me the secret to Four Ace living.

Live life with a light and full HEART
Spend love in SPADES
Dance desires without delay, today is the only DIAMOND
Welcome any and all to the CLUB

Clubs are also like clovers so lucky me to have loved and been loved by Asalyn. Thank you, wherever you are for showing me what is possible in the seemingly impossible, and inspiring me to mine mindfully everyday, every day dreams, Today, because it Matters.

Blooming and Becoming

“…and the time came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to Bloom.” Anais Nin

For me this quote captures eloquently the beautiful terrifying truth that lies at the heart of Blooming and Becoming. The precipice faced when standing between the worlds of was and want while wishing there were some secret way to crawl back to the quiet unconscious cocoon of the chrysalis state. But blooming, I am learning can be quite beastly, and won’t be bargained with.

I lived a long time the confusing alternative to authentically expressing the seed that is me. I planted myself in the wrong soil, prayed to the wrong sun and tried my darndest to smell of daffodil when really…well…I’m still figuring that out! It is quite a conundrum to realize the roots and shoots of life don’t match, and crazy making to know what to do about it.

Gardening can be scary and full of surprises, and as I attempt to re-root in the right soil while weeding away inconvenient truths that have tied and tethered me to the wrong tree, I often think of the quote below by Joseph Campbell. I made one small change for the context and hopefully from six feet under whatever garden he’s in, he won’t mind!

“You must give up the life you planted (planned) in order to have the life that is waiting for you”.

May we all brave the route from bud to Blooming.
And begin today, because Becoming matters!

Truths On Touch

Life is teaching me some painful truths about touch.

Truth #1
Although I celebrate daily the changes and challenges of my recent separation, I am surprised in my singledom at the size of suffering in the accompanying physical silence.

I miss meandering over morning coffee, and unconscious caresses in the car. I hunger for goodbyes that promise hearty heartfelt hellos, and hellos that heal however, whatever in the day. My limbs long to linger lazily, and WHERE are the fingers that faithfully find me exactly where I need to be found?

More, everyday, I mourn every mindful, mindless, giddy, glad and sad tingle that tastes of quiet shared cherishing on the never again taken for granted two-way highway that is touch.

Truth #2

I was a tactile child and my mother’s faithful shadow. Looking back I consider cuddling a major food group she fondly fed me that nurtured my fiercely affectionate nature.

In the wake of my own pounding pain I awoke recently to the heartbreaking realization since dad died no one really touches mom. Trained on this truth through the lens of my own grief I wept.

I’ve decided tea-time is now sit snug beside time; healing time to rub unspoken hellos on her back. Last week while I softly circled, mom peeked up and purred–how perrrrfect! Balm for us both.

Truth Has Taught Me:
To freely foster affection with lovers AND friends AND family.
To savour ALL the stripes and seasons of that sustenance.
To feast everyday…

…because today matters.

Today Matters

Today Matters
I read it on a t-shirt.
I know it to be true.
Today Really Matters.

AND

Today is possibility space.
Today is your ground.
Today is always on your side (even when you think it’s not).
Today is honest.
Today is Truth.
Today IS. All there really IS.

SO

Have IT
Hear IT
Touch IT
Smell IT
Stand on IT
Unwarp IT
Choose IT
Thank IT
Wear IT and wear IT out!

Irreverent, relentless and always reliable.
Today Matters. Full Stop.