Silence

To celebrate my 41st birthday, I attend a silent retreat. 

I go alone to be alone. It is a time for being with being. It is a time for deep listening, an invitation for the Divine to whisper me a word, an idea, an image, an emotion, a transformation. 

For two days, I live in a sacred and elegant space in the mountains. I greet trees with elephant trunk limbs. I meet the glorious round moon. I gaze at a lake in the folded legs of the Earth. I move and bend and breathe on yoga mats. I eat delicious, healthy meals. I sip lots of herbal tea. And I walk in the cold breeze on paths of flattened grass. 

I once wondered if I was made for a life of silence and stillness in a rustic mountaintop monastery.

In my monkish solitude, I relish my anonymousness. No one needs to know me and my story. I can sit and eat. I can journal without interruption. I can swing beneath a happy tree, watching black birds scatter and gather in the naked darkening sky. In my monkish solitude, I remember how to slow down. I remember how to be quiet. I remember how to smell and taste and feel.  I remember how to listen to me - to eat when I am hungry, sleep when I am sleepy, and wake when I am ready. 

On a walk, I ask, Was I made to be a monk? To live my life in isolation, contemplation, devotion, and prayer?

No no! My soul shakes with giggles. 

I am no monk. I seek moments of monkish solitude, stillness, silence, and devotion. I want to be in monkish contemplation and isolation. And I want to pray through play. I want to take my light and shine it with the light of others. 

In my silence, stillness, and solitude, I honor my soul, spirit, breath, - my being. And I honor my flesh, bones, blood, organs, - my body. In an extravagantly simple ceremony, I honor the world of my whole gorgeous self! 

LOVE March

Imagine a LOVE March. 

No dark blame.
No shadowy shame.
No finger-pointing.

Imagine a LOVE march. Signs of devotion, signs of faith, signs of truth, signs of vulnerability, and signs of LOVE. Imagine a LOVE March. We would stitch and write our hearts onto our signs. We would bring the light. We would be the light. 

Not to fight.
Not as a mob.

Not in protest. 

Not in resistance. 

Not for destruction.

Not to fall and hide and battle from the deep cold trenches of the ego - of fear and hate and violence,

but in acceptance of how much the universe needs the purity of human being beauty. Let us be in stillness and silence sometimes so that we remember our brilliant being. We can take it to the streets in a parade of LOVE, and/or we can move toward life in the light. We can journey from the wild human world to our gorgeous soul of wild being energy. We can be in that high frequency. We can be that free.  

Oh! Imagine a time when we all find our shine.   

Being over Fleeing

I am cultivating simplicity, relying less on entertainment, technology, and complexity. 

At this time, this post-election time, I am plunging my heart into my faith. Nurturing it. Encouraging it to believe in itself - faith in faith. I want deep faith. For I know now that the further I go, the more light I find. 

This is an earnest surrender to the mysterious. I am waiting for clarity, looking for clues to feed and please my curiosity, though the solving of every story comes when it is ready. Time reveals the truth piece by piece by peeling away the veils of falsity like a snakeskin. 

I am finding comfort within, in my quiet company, in my being. It is work at first to sit without noise or sound or screen. When I sink into temporary boredom, it is a freedom. Boredom is a moment of emptiness. A cup ready to be filled by the Infinite. A space for creativity to be birthed and raised. It is a silent space. It is a brave invitation, a homecoming of the self...even for a short moment, seconds of stillness. A candle. A notebook. A pen. It is why losing electricity once in a while is a blessing. A mid-stop. A pause from the pattern of fleeing into screens.

I don't want to disregard art. I want to stand on the island of reason and choose the boats I throw my imagination and time. A film. A television show. A gallery. A speech. A poetry reading. And rarely now do I feel pulled to watch the news or spend my evenings on the couch.   

41 years old today

When I close my eyes, the years lie around me like a windblown box of photographs - memories and images that are faded and drifting, blurs of dreamy color, familiar and yet forgotten.  

I am grateful for the blessings of life, time, and breath. 

I am grateful for silence and stillness. 

I am grateful for the simplicity of quiet. 

I am grateful for the power of prayer. 

I am grateful for love. 

I have learned how to let go and flow like the river. I have learned to live longer in the heart, listening. I have learned that the mind will monologue like an old ragged politician at the podium, a fleshy puppet for the ego. I have learned how to offer it a walk in the woods. I have learned that God is here with me, guiding me toward the clean light. I have learned that my body is an ally to my soul, offering me evidence of my mistreatment. I have learned to care for my body like I once cared for my delicate infants. 

I have learned that I cannot learn everything yet - that the mystery is necessary. 

I have learned that this life is a gift. 

The Eve of the Election

 I took this photo this past summer in California. It is a fallen tree burned in a wildfire with new growth sprouting and thriving in and around the dark depths of its death.

It is the eve of the election, and I am sitting in silence, vowing to practice the important act of accepting the reality of the moment—just accepting it as what the universe needs for its evolution. I have faith in the co-creation with the Divine. I have faith that this is what we need even if the outcome of the election is dark and bleak. There is light even in the darkest, most dense shadows. 

The Universe of Unknowns

I have entered and wandered through many books, seeking validation, wisdom, and relief from the discomfort of living in the universe of unknowns. 

Now, I see the fruits of my labors of looking. I am full and I have always been full. I am free and I have always been free. It is the clutter of culture I must organize and compartmentalize and primarily ignore. I see my love. I see my light. I see too the agitation of disappointment. For I thought the sun might burst inside my being and life would become bright and easy. Now, I see that it is the seeking. Now, I see that it is the surrendering, the acceptance of it all - the known and the unknown, the light and the shadow.  Now, I see that the Divine did burst inside my being, making life what it needs to be for me.

In our world of form and formless, I am learning how to live - and how to embrace simplicity and some naivety. And while the books are publicized as study guides, they are - quite simply - the stories of other seekers. They can hold within their bindings, wisdom. However, the pure curriculum of life is in the moment. I must build my own book, pen my joy, articulate my awe, and write of wonder—not necessarily for the sharing but for the time spent telling.