This Season ~ In Joy

Well, I haven’t written for a while.  Probably due to the season, maybe the dullness of the skies, perhaps crazy chemicals in the brain(although after seeing an interview that said there is no evidence or scientific tests measuring the chemicals in the brain to prove this, I am questioning) or just plain, old feeling down. I’ve been teaching my grand daughter, everything comes and goes.  That includes everything, weather, stuff, us and even emotions. I knew that this too would pass and I would again feel inspired to write a few words in this blog. 

It is a sunny day.  I am filled with gratitude.  Blessed to be alive, to be physically healthy and enough strength of mind to know that to practice with feelings and beliefs is a process. There is always something. At the same time there is no-thing. This is our saving grace. To truly realize that we are not things, that nothing is fixed and solid is a blessing. 

When we accept the concept of change as a constant (a bit of an oxymoron) we “know” that everything comes and goes.  That opens an invitation to find the blessing in this moment. So often, I have heard that running from what we fear is just running, it brings us no closer to the knowing. Sometimes the most difficult thing to do is to turn and face fear and to realize that the fear is something we have created in our minds. We have the amazing capacity to find calm in the most challenging storm. We need only to accept “I don’t know” and learn to embrace the mystery of this moment, of this precious yet fleeting life. 

No matter how you celebrate this holiday season, I wish you joy, light and love.

In joy 

Tommi 

To Meditate or Not

It’s true. Whether you meditate or not things still happen. Births, joy, depression, celebration, anxiety, happiness, misery, health, illness, accidents, dying, death, all manner of human experience and existence still occur. Meditation simply, although not simple, allows a front row view of human experience and with a turning inward a realization that we are that human experience. 

Seated meditation is a controlled experiment of the investigation of self. Sitting still unimpeded by tasks or duties, shoulds or shouldn’ts, we have the opportunity to become familiar with and make friends with the skeletons in our closets and discover our true nature. 

Meditation cannot guarantee happiness. There are absolutely no absolutes, no guarantees of anything except that birth is a death sentence. What happens in life, happens. How we view, experience and respond to what happens in life, well that is a matter of choice. The only truth of meditation is that the moment we stop, sit, look and listen with open minds and open hearts we experience that truth is right before our eyes. This is it.  The whole kit and caboodle; the meaning of life is life itself. 

Meditation changes our perception of the experience of living.  We cultivate an awareness that the comings and goings of this existence are what life is.  They are not separate. They are as inevitable as the seasons. 

With the acknowledgement of change as a constant we can accept the gift of equanimity and that we are life it self. All experiences, whether we call them good or bad, negative or positive will and do happen. “This too will pass.” simply says that nothing is permanent that all things in this vast universe are subject to change. When we embrace and face change we begin to respond to life with an open hearted acknowledgement of the preciousness of each moment. 

Meditation helps to settle this knowledge deep into the bones, tissues and muscles of our human experience. Indeed, only when we become present with what is do we stop making an enemy of this moment. When all is said and done this moment is where life happens all ways, always. 

Curious

Do you ever feel like the odd leaf out? Instead of believing it is embarrassing to be red, or simply different, perhaps cultivate a curiosity about this.

Relatively speaking. we are unique individuals in a unique body. Although in an absolute or  energetic sense  we are very much one. We are blessed with the unique opportunity to explore this lifetime, through these eyes, these senses, these experiences.

Herein lies the great and wonder-filled opportunity to honour our individuality while paradoxically at the same time know that there is no separation.  That which animates this person typing is the same as that which manifests you reading. 

Another paradox is that to understand there is no separation between out and in, we simply start from a quiet place to be with. This is meditation. Through meditation we cultivate a relationship with presence.

Exploring these glorious seemingly opposite qualities, one~as ~one and one~with~all, playing together synergistically in this moment is how we come to understand our unique oneness and our holy, wholly wholeness.

Compassion Addendum

Greetings my compassionate friends,

My up island friend Bonnie reminded of the great movement at: charterforcompassion.org


Please do check it out.

Remember, we are all in this together.

In joy.

Compassion

Angel Card today, Compassion.

The handy dandy New Oxford American Dictionary on this computer defines it as “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.” Interesting that sympathetic is coupled with pity. Alone pity, to me, suggests an almost demeaning quality.  It implies those that are pitied are less than. 

However, sympathetic pity conveys a sense of unity. It is an understand of what the other is going through. It is an empathetic sharing of feelings. Compassion is infused with a sense of love and oneness for self and others. It is the notion that we are all in this together. It is not easy to live in a place of compassion. Perhaps, if we could look through the belief of, as Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” we come closer to the value of compassion.  Linus Pauling adds a twist that comes even closer to the practice, “Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error."

Let us thank Albert Einstein for this take on the universal truth of compassion. 

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” 

Looking at all through the eyes of compassion brings us closer to waking up to who we truly are.  Together.

Befriending The Present Moment

We make an enemy out of the present moment as we gaze longingly to the future and as we cling desperately to the past. Yes, as Eckhart Tolle writes, “The present moment is sometimes unacceptable, unpleasant or awful. However, “It is as it is. Observe how the mind labels it and how this labeling process, this continuous sitting in judgment, creates pain and unhappiness.”  He further explains, “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.”

The question is why be present when the present is unpleasant. The answer is simple.  Everything happens and can only happen in the present. When the events we recollect of the past were lived, they were lived in the present moment. Now IS where the action happens. Do we really want to hurtle towards our death by wishing this moment away? Do we want, on our death bed, to regret all the precious moments we missed? 

Byron Katy so succinctly summed it up when she said, “The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want.” ... “I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.”

Put in these terms it just doesn’t make sense to make the present moment an enemy. If choosing to be unhappy makes you happy then choose it. Being here now, with the mind, is a practice. Lucky, we are equipped with a wonderful practice tool, breath. Paying attention to breath brings the attention back to the here now. When we remember. 

Just Say Know!!!

Just Say Know!!

What do I mean by this!  I mean know that you don’t have to be dependent on Big Oil.  Know that you can stand up and say No to Enbridge not just from the N.I.M.B.Y. prospective but say No with your actions. Imagine if we all took our foot off the gas and put on the brake to Big Oil.  Stop single occupant driving! Take a bus! Ride a bike! Carpool! Ride a horse! Walk, run, skip, hop! Seek the cheapest way to transport. Until we stop fueling the need for oil, we will continue to be at the mercy of Big Oil. By all means, get out, stomp your feet, shout your protests, unfurl your signs, wave your fist in the air... but then speak with your actions. 

Go home and do what you can do! 

Stop this insane need to consume! 

It only fuels Big Greed! 

A Few Thinks and A Couple of Firsts

Here's something. Ive been thinking about and practicing. For years I've worked on becoming more comfortable in my own skin, managing anxiety and mood swings and getting consciously higher with meditation and yoga. Even though I knew this on a gut level and even visited these beliefs in the past. I am now very aware that to make psychological and spiritual growth I need to prune the past of lingering core beliefs. 

This may sound like an endorsement for the work I've being doing with the leftkoe system on recreateyourlife.com and I guess it is. 

In a very logical and systematic way I am not only discovering core beliefs  but actually eliminating them.  How can I say this? My life is experentially different than it was before I started the program. The burdens of not being good enough, no longer resonate to my very core.  They are becoming like ghosts of life past, insubstantial and seen through. 

Those are the thinks. The firsts are:

~ First headstand with wall support

~ First blog post from iPhone which actually didn't work so I guess I would have to say the first try to blog.  Now I will have figure out why it didn't ~ troubleshooting is my middle name.   

in joy

T

And The Word Was...

My daily practice, among others, is to choose an Angel card or two or three.  Some may instantly respond that this is just another wooo wooo new age idea. 

Consider this. 

On each Angel card is one single word. A simple word that offers a universal truth or a personal truth. It is an invitation to experience that word simply as a pointer and turn inward. I cannot tell you the number of times I have chosen an Angel card only to be surprised that it exactly reflected my inner state in that moment.

Today’s first card was light. I don’t see this card that often. Honestly, I can say that in the last while my vision of self, higher purpose and comfort with who I am has been dimmed, if not darkened. Yet in the last week or so, I have felt this darkness lift, ever so subtly day by day. Now a reminder, Light.  

Light that emanates from all beings; just as the morning sunlight streams through the windowed doors, is refracted and reflected through hanging crystals sending beautiful rainbow fairies or angels dancing through the room. This is the dance of consciousness that many are waking up to. We are not beings alone and separate simply bumping up against others. 

Each of us as consciousness or light has the opportunity to refract and reflect on a, here to fore, different kind of living. One that reveres all, all beings, sentient or not, all forms that coexist on this beautiful, blue green planet. 

We are all part of this dance of the experience of consciousness.  Eckart Tolle reminds us that the moment we realize we are not present, we are.  It is in this presence that we wake up to the consciousness that has always been present. There is no where to go, once we wake up to the experience of this moment the great opportunity to participate together in this dance of life becomes apparent and sacred. Dancing together we explore oneness, compassion, love, synchronicity and, yes, light. 

On this thanksgiving, I am so grateful to all of you for being you. I wish you all light, love and happiness.

In the heart opening book, “Meditation For The Love Of It”, Sally Kempton quotes T.S. Eliot;

The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light show in darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the centre of the silent Word. 

A Light & A Lifesaver

During these recent turbulent times of my own mind, I could not see the light.  I certainly could not see the gift of this suffering as neither was I present to the moment nor would I allow myself to feel the grace of presence. 

It is a practice to regularly draw an Angel Card or cards, cards with a single positive word or affirmation of a universal truth. It is always interesting that the card either directs my attention or reminds me of something that it is right before my eyes. In a simple, single word it is an invitation to this moment. Yesterday, after weeks of bi-polar, unpredictable omnipotent, on-top-of-the-world, up-up-up and then the occasionally very hard crash and the self-deprecating and shame that comes with the shadow side, I drew three cards, Joy, Grace & Gratitude.

Then I experienced such kindnesses that the word Gratitude does not come close to the heart opening feeling of being loved, cared for, valued and understood. The loyalty of my two dear friends Trish and Sherry was like two dolphins supporting me to shore after struggling to stay afloat, afraid and sure of death in a dark and stormy sea. Sometimes I believed that giving up would be the best for all. These two beacons of hope, simply and gently were with me in my tears and anguish. I beat myself up with the ego-mind that tried to convince me of my obvious failures in all relationships; not only as a parent and a friend but as a human being. I am so grateful, on the shore of their love I find the strength to love me and feel Gratitude for the gift of this life.

Even in the darkest hours, there was always a glimpse of Grace. As I watched myself gasping and struggling for understanding, deep inside Grace held firm, opening her beautiful, butterfly wings patiently waiting for me to notice that I am never alone.

Joy!!  To open the gift of the last deep dive into the dark and depressing abyss, I found Joy.  In the darkest hours of the night, tormented by skeletons and things that go bump in the night, a rational thought came.  There is a lesson to be learned here.  I just need to find it. Where else, in my e-mail! It was an interview with Shifra from a series of interviews on Quantum Healing.  I copy and paste here, from the e-mail, the synopsis of the offering. The call with Shelly Lefkoe, co-founder of the Lefkoe Method, an extremely powerful technique for eliminating long-standing limiting beliefs, was breathtaking in its depth and simplicity. Shelly, who began the call with the statement that her work is practical rather than spiritual, proceeded to show us in short order that erasing pervasive limiting beliefs is nothing less than a direct gateway to spirituality, consciousness and freedom.

And, Joy of Joys, it is.  Really simple. Really clear. It is the piece (peace) I have been missing all these years. I knew that to truly begin the deep, down process of healing childhood wounds, core beliefs would need to be examined and released. If you are interested in hearing the interview, I don’t know how long it will be there and free, here is the hyperlink 

http://www.quantumhealingandsoul.com/vip7/replay7.html

And here is a link for a fantastic free Belief Eliminating Program from Morty Lefkoe at ReCreateYourLife.com 

http://www.recreateyourlife.com/store/eliminate-belief-free.php  (you may have to copy and paste into your browser)

I tend to complicate things. Here, I was absolutely astounded and more then pleasantly pleased that this was so simple, obvious (once it was pointed out) and that it can be applied to any of our nasty beliefs that prevent us from being who we truly are.  

Today’s Angel Card.  Peace.  Exactly.  This.  Here. Now.  

Mary Was An Also

Mary Was An Also

R.B. was the man.

Who knows love’s courting days?

Or if Mary’s bliss was R.B.’s? 

Or what of the family ways? 

We know the year of birth’s first gasp.

And the year breath slipped away.

But the dash in between tells us nothing of their days.

Someone knew. Did that someone care? 

For when they buried Mary also

Did they think her life mattered less than 
R.B. who was the man?

Some Words & A Duck

A shifting of seasons.  A not so subtle shifting of temperature.  September began with some days, the sun lower in the horizon, golden and embracing, sensuous hot days becoming semi-sultry evenings and nights. How I savour this change! 

Both a melancholy and strangely at the same time, perhaps from the conditioning of school days and a new school year, a time of fresh beginnings. Odd, it being fall and harvest time. In this shift of seasons there is also a shift of senses. 

Lately, I am keenly aware of the ever present pulse of the universe, the ever present hum of birth and death and life in between. It throbs and thrums in my blood, in my veins and when I let it permeate my brain I can think to understand in words or concepts how trying to “know” could truly drive one insane. This knowing is not wordable. It’s not catchable. Neither can it be quantified or qualified. 

Learning to relax in the palm of this universe into the comfort of not knowing is a life’s journey. 

Yoga For Round Bodies

Yoga for Meditation

Fraser is 19!!

Well, what do you know!! 
Fraser is 19 today! 

From a curly haired cherub who told me that an alien rode around on his shoulder and was about three minutes tall to a zombie son, Fraser is the finest young man I know. 

I could gush over with pride and silly stories of his young days but words don’t come close to what we all love about him.   He’s genuine. He’s kind.
He’s loving.
And, bar none, he’s my favourite son. 

So on August 15, 2012, 19 years at 9:38 a.m., very close to the time I birthed him at my sister Shauna’s home in Surrey. There were about nineteen people to welcome him to the planet. The first we saw of him was his hand waving in the air as if to say, “I’m here.”  
We have the video!  

Happy, happy birthday my darling son!  You are a treasure that I will always hold close to my heart.  

Play safe!

The Buddha's Last Instruction by Mary Oliver

Friend,

I can not say how many times I have been absolutely gob-smacked, awe-struck with shivers down the spine and tingling present of this moment with the poems of Mary Oliver.  Yesterday, this poem floored me.  

The Buddha’s Last Instruction

“Make of yourself a light,”

said the Buddha,

before he died.

I think of this every morning

as the east begins

to tear off its many clouds

of darkness, to send up the first

signal – a white fan

streaked with pink and violet,

even green.

An old man, he lay down

between two sala trees,

and he might have said anything,

knowing it was his final hour.

The light burns upward,

it thickens and settles over the fields.

Around him, the villagers gathered

and stretched forward to listen.

Even before the sun itself

hangs, disattached, in the blue air,

I am touched everywhere

by its ocean of yellow waves.

No doubt he thought of everything

that had happened in his difficult life.

And then I feel the sun itself

as it blazes over the hills,

like a million flowers on fire –

clearly I’m not needed,

yet I feel myself turning

into something of inexplicable value.

Slowly, beneath the branches,

he raised his head.

He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(House of Light)

Coming & Going

On sunny mornings at a particular time, ever changing as the seasons do, sun streams through the French doors and the hanging crystal balls. 

Then magic happens as fairies fly from their crystal palace and pattern the colours of the rainbow in this space and place. They dance and frolic throughout the room. My heart soars with the joy and delight of a child. 

Yet as the sun moves on its solar journey across the blue and vast sky of this summer day so to the fairies return to their crystal palace. 

This coming and going never saddens, the leaving and returning is the game. 

“In coming and going we never leave home.” 

Still my heart dances.

The Pig Is Sitting

Woke early! Our days at Sesshin begin at 4 a.m. , so I've been practicing. Shortly, heading to Saturna Island for our 5-day Zen Meditation Retreat. Watching the sun turn the moisture on the shingles of the garage into steam. Earlier, a crescent moon, God's thumbnail, hung in a clear, dark sky. The wondrous roarings of heaven and earth rocked this world yesterday and the day before. The lightning bolts, a dazzling display of nature's art and the rumbling music of thunder.  And oh the rain, big, beautiful, lazily splashing raindrops sending forth that memorable fragrance. 


All the senses soak up this one amazing experience of life. Oh how blessed to be here now on earth in this body!

Survivors to Thrivers

Greetings Friends,

Here is an offering for a Free yoga program. If you or a friend are interested, see the poster below and contact me for complete details.

In-joy

Looking at quotes from the most amazing Joseph Campbell and was reminded of this one.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” 

Wow! Do we get this! This simple observation if taken to heart is profound. It is an invitation to “let go.”  Simply, stop expecting to control your life and those around you so that you/I can be safe. 

“The most important decision we make,” declared Albert Einstein, “is whether we believe we live in a friendly or a hostile universe.” 

Once we have declared this as our intention. Let it go. It will manifest through all you perceive in the analytical, linear left brain. Once the left brain feels safe and is busy with friendly, we have the opportunity to play from the right brain. Oh, how the universe loves to play!  Don’t believe me! Try this for yourself. 

In-joy.

tao te ching ~ 11

Today, don’t have much to say. Inviting self to stillness and a reminder of that which really matters is not matter or mind but our essential true nature, formless, presence, the space between words, the unborn.  Name it what you will, however, names are only symbols, pointers if you will. Lao-tzu through the heart of Stephen Mitchell points clearly to what is un-nameable. This chapter grabbed me many, many years ago perhaps in my teens, I have never forgotten it. 

tao te ching

amazing translation by 

Stephen Mitchell

         11

We join spokes together in a wheel,

but it is the centre hole

that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,

but it is the emptiness inside

that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,

but it is the inner space

that makes it livable.

We work with being

but non-being is what we use.

Only the Lonely

Loneliness seems to me to be a sad symptom of a society concerned with the futile search for happiness in a desperate chase to acquire and consume. This focus on out there causes us to feel we are separate from all there is. 

There is a distinction between being alone and loneliness. I value being alone. Truly, in this time, I can settle into the presence of simply being. Being at one with what is present where all senses sharpen and self merges with the beloved. 

Yet, I do feel lonely. I miss the companionship and coexistence of living with others. These last few years of living alone with self are refreshing, revitalizing and such a sharp contrast to life of many, many years. Here now, there is the unique chance to focus on the fundamental nature of self. 

This self-awareness is valuable, relationship with self naturally evolves in to relationship with other even though relationship implies separation. It is the contrast that gives the opportunity to explore how singularity manifests into diversity. It is the field where we play as embodied beings waking up to the divine in all. 

In times of loneliness, I will go for a walk and smile at all the many faces of self. I try to remember even the word loneliness cradles oneness. 

Silly Me!!!

I used to think I was a light hearted care free person because I could so easily make puns. What I’ve discovered is that being a good punster only means a certain skill with words, a rather extensive vocabulary and a quick wit. If anything, attaining master punster status requires a certain tenacity based on the need to know. Sometimes I pun when I want to take away the seriousness of a situation or distract myself from really experiencing what’s going on the moment. Certainly, there are times when it’s in jest.

Of note though, punning often happens when others provide the fodder for the pun. That’s not necessarily fun for the one being punned. It can be considered rude or disrespectful or demeaning. It can leave the punnee scratching their head, thinking, “I don’t get it.” Yet punning with the co-operative play and participation of others can reach a state of hilarity and silliness. 

Though what I’m really saying is that I need to take life and myself a little less seriously. Punning is goal oriented. Just to stop reaching for undefined perfection and allow mistakes their due, yes to learn by, but also sometimes to completely, wholeheartedly with unabandoned pleasure laugh at. 

What I would care to cultivate is silliness. True, genuine, belly laughing, giggling, chortling, chuckling hilarity. Really, a sense of playfulness, with no goal at all just to laugh joyously in this moment. Attending laughter yoga can coax out that silly inner child. Play, smiles and laughter with others is a remedy for what ails us and as the well aged show us even perhaps the elixir for a long, happy time in the body here on earth.

A little groaner of a joke, What did the Buddha say to the Hot Dog Vendor?  Make me one with everything.

A Passing Thought

Saturday morning, upon hearing a galloping sound, I glanced outside. A rather largish buck with big horns was moving fairly fast through a narrow path in the garden. Without a pause he leapt over the six foot fence narrowly missing Shelley's Volvo parked in the driveway. Stunned and awed, I continued to gaze outside. A juvenile racoon sauntered by while five feet above it a hummingbird flitted seeking the nectar from the feeder. Faithful Street certainly felt like an urban wilderness. I marvelled at how these creatures have managed to adapt to our encroachment. I wonder how we will adapt when the same happens to us.

Sometimes When I Sit Very Still

Sometimes when I sit very still 

I can hear the world breathing

A slow steady flow, a reliable heart beat

Which is likely my own intrinsically connected

To this universal breath

Yes, inhale. 

Yes, exhale. 

Yes, a pause, a turning of the breath 

Yes, a breath that is the energetic hum, 

the universal aum that not only penetrates 

and emanates from all this is but is this all

The essential hum that inhales all form 

Then with barely a pause exhales all, formless