An Engaging Tale

The most basic story we live is that of relationship. Without an assumption of initial separation, there is no plot, no play, no beginning or end. There is no leaving, staying, resolution or reunion; there is no vision-quest, no initiation into Elderhood, no welcome-back as a seasoned warrior of the soul.

All the richness, all the creativity we know springs from behind the premise of the falling-apart and coming-together of universes, planets, countries, societies, families, couples, individuals, atoms, philosophies, theories...and our relationship to these relationships. The story is infinitely complex--and quite simple, when boiled down to myself/life.

Even that basic duality is an "illusion", as any deep diver will tell you; life seamlessly and completely lives you, even as you live it. No exceptions, and nothing else to say. To arrive in such a union, confronted with the fact that no one ever actually went anywhere, is a marvelously ticklish feeling...and to rest there is what brings real stability in the midst of seeming chaos. Somehow, there is a center from which I can survey all my parts and personalities, including all things I call "other", knowing full well that I am this simultaneousness, all this sensory flow. Nothing to do, and nothing (still) to say. 

But express we must. Story, we do. There is nothing wrong with participation in the Great Play. It's our unconscious acting that tends to create such difficulty in our personal tales...an unconsciousness that seems to be as necessary as any element in a fully-functioning Being. Fortunately, an equal measure of awareness, of waking to ourselves, is present and alive--going out of its way, it seems, to grab our attention and expand our sense of self to a truer measure. 

All that is required is engagement. A long, much celebrated engagement--a face-to-face in all senses of the word, embracing both the promise of union and battle.

Alas, this is the part where we tend to "chicken out". This chapter is full of wild swings of bliss and loss, where our hero and/or heroine might be diagnosed as somehow schizophrenic (bipolar, at least!) by those whose opinions and approval seem to matter the most...and perhaps even dismissed as hopeless or dangerous! Think Romeo and Juliet, or David and Goliath, or Us and Them. Epic stuff. Hard work.

Never mind that. It's really just self and Self, doing this--you know, human and Divine. Futility and Meaning. 

A full engagement is simply a willingness to be open, suspending disbelief, allowing the lovers their space in the middle of the war...to stand AS that fine line between anything and anything else, undefended and central to absolutely everything. A full engagement is faith in action--a faith that might resemble utter foolishness to a stout ego, dumb persistence in peering through the walls of limitation until it is understood that The Unlimited is exactly where we're peering from. 

The truth, both personal and universal, blossoms here. The truth, by its deepest nature, doesn't just make a brief seasonal appearance in a divided mind, but sends roots and seeds and scent, broadcasting presence and signaling nourishment, beauty and potential meaning. 

What is True is the original relationship between bright light and dark humus--fresh air and composting forms, bursting forth as newly creative being. It's alright to be a flash-point, an incubator, a catalyst, a mysterious bio-psycho-emotive mystery in which many tales unfold. There is, in fact no other way than this!

Feel it. :)

Speaking Personally

Dear Friends, Family and Facebook connections (past, present and future),

(A couple of good friends over on Facebook created a group called "Art of a Beautiful Mind", in which some of my art and writing is being "exposed to the world" directly and through a link to this blog. I am honored that they did this, and quite flattered that so many people felt the urge, for whatever reason, to "belong" to this group.  I'm glad, because this is a personal note to anyone who cares to listen--at this point, the more people, the better. :)

The "Beautiful Mind" referred to belongs not to me, the "artist/writer", but to Us, all of us who read ourselves and paint our lives and so shape our Being. If you look at a piece of art or read a story and feel a response, it's because you are recognizing a part of yourself, growing and perfecting it by sensing and experiencing. It takes all the levels of our Universal Self to make beauty and meaning. It takes an infinite number of connections that we are scarcely aware of to make a personal "wow" moment. Each of us are artists in our own right.

I am aware of this, being a "contemplative" sort; I am also aware that all kinds of connections need to be created and honored in order to invite and expand a beautiful life. I talk about it often.

But talk, as they say, can be cheap. 

Recently, like most of us, I have been fielding some pretty harrowing changes in my life. More quickly than I would ever imagine, the new growth of understanding is springing out of the ashes of loss. Things burn down, sometimes, so you can see better. Hearts break to make room. A series of events has conspired to bring the last several years into high relief, and I am getting a very clear picture of my personal life--some shades of which are indescribably sad.

The sadness comes from the fact that I have not taken my own advice and courted the many faces of Joy--instead, I managed to wrap myself like a frayed rope around the axle of other people's difficult issues. I do this because I am a "caregiver", professionally and habitually; it would be almost fair to say that I was brought up that way, and it has become my primary mode of operation. Although I find this to be satisfying and even rewarding, I forget, most of the time, to care for myself...as if my perception could somehow be removed from the equation of reality--as if my life was somehow irrelevant to living.

I need to knock that off, some very kind souls have informed me, and have some fun! Oh, how right, how wise they are!

Like many "creative types", I enjoy time alone to think, dream and work things out; but there has been a huge imbalance, a lack of real contact and manifestation of heart-stuff into the physical. When I have the time, I paint or write my soul into view, perhaps throwing words and images out like confetti on an ocean. I sit and watch it float away...then I put on my serious business-body, in which a longing for friendship and connection sometimes runs around like an errant ragamuffin, and do errands, and take care of people...in other words, I need to dance more (not just with myself), and stop shushing my own singing (even though I can't really sing). 

I want to talk to people who feel a deep sense of health in the world, even through the apparent sickness running rampant like a designer virus targeting the Heart. If you can't feel it, the natural pulse, then beauty is fleeting and appreciation becomes a manipulative game. I am interested in seeing the genuine love that we are, somewhere, loosed in eyes, in hugs, in smiles, in compassionate holding of peace, in wild leaps and twirls...

I want to hang out, once in a while, with those who agree that working at the mini-mart selling moon pies, Red Bull and bottled (sheesh, it should be free!) water to the desperate or despondent public would be an absolutely irresponsible thing for Maria to do, since what I truly enjoy is a freely creative life--even if my back is up against a financial wall!

I want to hold the hand of someone who understands Us as lovely facets of a Big Love, which cradles our unique patterns in a tough/tender way, and nourishes us by allowing like-minded souls to flow together for a second or a century...

I want to be in the company of the Fearlessly Courageous, who have determined that Being really is worth waking up for, if only to see or do something new and different, or repeat something that genuinely works to add dimension and beauty to the day...

I want to find people who can laugh at their own cynicism, because they know the depth and eternal freshness of loving.

I know you all are out there; chances are good that you are reminding someone like me to stop being so cloistered, to stop pacing the confines of some closet, to lighten up on the tasking. You are extending an invitation to stand up and dance, to see the pain for exactly what it is, to flirt with Joy until she follows and waits at every possible stop. Bless you for caring, for challenging my comfort zones, for leading me with astonished mirth and the balance of a veteran co-creator, for stepping back and allowing me to find my footing...

May we continue to ask for help if we're lost, find and recognize each other!

Love and Blessings,

Maria

Rocky Mountain High

Last week, I took my great blank slate, my flood-plain heart and furrowed mind to higher ground in Colorado. I went to visit my brother, with no agenda and no idea what each day might bring. In such a perfect state of non-expectation, lessons abound and are painted in deep, rich tones...there is nothing pale or tentative about mountain love. 

It will pick you up and drop you if you can't find trust.

It's a long way to the bottom.

                                                                 Birth never ends.

Life always seems to be waiting, though, at the end of the crazy passages...

I'm looking at the view, thus it looks right back. No lack of eye contact here!

I marvel at the tenacious springing of tender things (like myself), hanging on in the most unlikely, seemingly hostile places. Everywhere, there seems to be a natural urge...

...to leap out of the earth (so curvaceous and craggy is She!)...

                                                             ...and DANCE!

The stretching, the reaching for who-knows-what, to get to the top of who-knows-where, only to find some other height before you, is natural and essential.

                                                    So are the resting places...

...and the sight, sound and feel of the rush.

                      (Alright, there may be dragons!)

                                                 
                                     Even a rough climb down is worth the risk!

 I survived the rib-cracking, granite-style bear hugs, the harsh lectures of staying up all night (what, at my age?!), and the evidence of ongoing birth and death on every path. This place is haunted with kills by cougar and weather and the brutal falls borne out of human arrogance and lack of common sense; the sun is so bright that I could see details of myself--flaws and intricacies both ugly and sublime--whether I wanted to, or not.

The last full day of my adventure, the medicine was sweet, and the mountains wore a bit of velvet, in a softer light. Sunshine condensed into flowers, bright souls dancing down the slopes, perching happily on all the edges. I pass them on, directly to you from my heart, scraped clean and still quite alive...

                                                                          Peace. :)

That's Not What I Meant

I remember telling my children, back in home-school days, that life is like a big bowl of Silly Putty--stretch it, bend it, shape it into whatever you want. My artist-self knows that life is a blank canvas or a clean page. My "scientific" self might conceive of life as a sterile growing medium. Introduce an idea, and watch it expand.

It is especially easy to see the original "blankness" and "meaninglessness" of life when a structure of personal significance collapses. The kind of structure I am speaking of is nothing more than a mental/emotional relationship to a person, place, thing or idea; there is some kind of cessation, and then a gap, a void, an emptiness. Depending upon the degree of attachment to the situation (there is always some, or there would be no meaning), reactions can range from mild surprise to intense grief. If identification is strong, it seems to take a fair amount of time and effort to find equilibrium again, to frame the string of events in memory as somehow beneficial in the long run...to investigate where and how the dynamics changed, and to apply any insight to the workings of our lives. We figure out how to move on, how to perhaps do things differently in the future. 

(A brother of mine used to cynically refer to the above process as a "YAFLE"--Yet Another F***ing Learning Experience.)

Having been around the block a time or two, I believe that I'm well-acquainted with various kinds of pain and suffering associated with structure-collapse. I am happy to report that, although pain is what it is and hurts by nature, the amount of suffering has greatly diminished, simply because I have learned not to beat Maria up for too long. The fact that I seem to be determined to live thoroughly and authentically in spite/because of it all probably has something to do with the fine art of pulling myself out of the muck, as well.

In all my emotional tripping, I have acquired another skill, hard to articulate, but as relevant to easier living (in my mind) as the "invention" of the wheel must have been to those folks sick and tired of dragging large burdens over rough territory. This ability involves taking the time to be very aware of the emotional storm surges as they arise, and to look through them, even while feeling the full impact of whatever they are (not necessarily negative). This ruthless honesty is akin to watching a very convincing movie playing out on a huge screen--a screen which must be empty in order to allow the technicolor images to exist--all the while knowing that, at the end of the show, reality again takes the form of a blank, white field; such a field is even now the hidden understanding of the energy pouring across my perception.

In other words, it is the very meaninglessness of life which grants me the supreme privilege of making meaning, for entertainment, for learning, for further understanding...maybe just because I love to.

Over time, I have grown to dread that void less and less, and make friends with its purity and selflessness more and more. I see myself within it (and vice-versa) as a meaning-making being by nature, learning by trial and error to be a life-artist, using the true extent of my own freedom. I don't rush to fill it with another play to prevent boredom, or to escape the brain-boggling fact that its massive spaciousness also fits into every form I encounter, including myself. It is very user-friendly, and much more stable than the temporal stories it becomes. It seems that its qualities as a medium expand along with the understanding and acceptance of its true neutrality.

I am aware that to label Being "meaningless" is itself a meaningless statement; I can only call it "neutral" by contrasting it with the positive and negative currents we tend to get so caught up in--the flows which are not truly separate from such absolute potential. However, I'm not interested in debating semantics or philosophy, here--I have nothing but this experience to use, to relate and to share, and its value seems to lie in how it feels. The feeling is not necessarily "problem" or anxiety-free, although there is always an element of bliss. What I feel while pressed up unabashedly to the naked universe is anything but neutral or meaningless.

What I feel allows me to recognize the difference between real intimacy and ego-stroking, between love and self-serving fear, between courage and defensive posturing. The curious Void is a meaning-before-meaning, an original quality that is most truly apparent in that which can be nothing but Itself. The scripts, roles, and costumes are shed; even the body is dropped like the concept it is, and all that's left is Nothing Most Full.

Perhaps the most profound effect of this willingness to admit such open, boundary-less Reality into thinking and feeling is the respect I have for my ability to choose my meanings, as well as the choices themselves. Yes, it's all on my head and heart, and I know it. Sometimes I feel like a hapless fool, an old blind woman talking to her deaf dog, a hopelessly clumsy little girl in school. But there is an innate love here that holds these characters in great affection, allows them their frustrations and mistakes, and always knows what strength lies yet within. My meanings carry increased responsibility and are far from what I used to think of as "perfect"...but oh, the colors, the songs, the texture! I fall down, my knee hurts, and I'm face-to-face with a whole new world to embrace--one which, in my more "balanced" state, I didn't see...

Hard Truth

A cherished relationship died last week, after a long period of illness. The actual cause of death remains unknown; I suspect, though, that it was just another casualty of the wars that soldiers often bring home with them if they finish a tour of duty.

It seems a cancer of the spirit exists in our human story, created or exacerbated by exposure to ruthless conflict and unyielding, heartless structure. Ignored or denied, it feeds on personal shadows and doubts until it occupies the soul of its host, where it strangles optimism, tenderness, respect and love. The natural flow of nourishment is cut off. Trust gives way to anger, fear and apathy. The illness affects everyone in the family as connections that were thriving and flexible become dry and brittle. Eventually, if left unchecked, it consumes the host--perhaps metaphorically, often physically. Premature death is the result.

All forms change and death is inevitable, I understand. Still, there are certain kinds of pain and brutality that I instinctively view as unnecessary and contrary to the natural order of things...an unclean and complex suffering that spreads like wildfire. The grief left in its wake is compounded by the utter senselessness of the disease. Wildfires, at least, make some logical sense.

Honestly, I can't claim to know what is necessary and what is not. Much as I long to blame something--anything--for this kind of event, I know that it does nothing to resolve the factual pain. It is something that must be embraced and felt through and through, so I don't pass on the crippling sickness of spirit which engendered it in the first place, and so that healing can occur. It is what It Is, and it is never, ever what I think it is.

***

I drive until I find myself at my favorite liminal place--the shoreline--where brine and freshness meet and merge in perfect accord. An eagle's nest overlooks the shifting, hidden depths of the sea. There is a minus tide, and the wet bones of the beach are exposed to the sunlight. I am drawn like a piece of steel to the magnetic mystery of the rock faces normally veiled in white, lacy foam...in this place, it is possible to be stricken with grief, deep in love and swimming in curiosity, all at the same time. Logic, thank God, doesn't live here. There is no pressure to explain anything, not even to myself. Tears fog up my glasses, so I take them off and let the sand and pebbles make good places for my slow steps.

At the very edge of the water, I almost stumble over the roots of an ancient tree, a marker for the forest that once existed on this spot before the land dropped into the sea during the last great quake, maybe three hundred years ago. I put my glasses back on and look at the pebbles cradled in the wooden hollows near my feet. The waves are small and wash gently over and around them; I see a golden, banded agate the size of a pigeon's egg nestled in the mix of colors and froth, and wait for the water to recede again before picking it up. I hold it to the light, and the sun bounces off the milky lines within.

Attention thus captured, a more boisterous wave sneaks up to splash my shoes; I jump back, along with an old man who has materialized to my left. "Whoa! That almost got us," he laughs, grinning at me. 

I smile back, and we have a short chat about the remains of the old tree sprawled before us. I ask him if he is collecting agates, and he shows me a pocket half-full of small ones--gold, orange, gray and almost white. Impulsively, I give him the banded one in my hand, and he exclaims at its beauty. "My wife will be so tickled," he says in thanks. 

My heart lurches and expands in love at the image of this man going home to his wife and presenting her with such treasure. There is some kind of blessing...

I continue on, past the edge of the cove, on a shallow beach made safe by the subdued tide. There is a woman there, combing the rocky depressions, lost in her task. I almost pass her by, but decide to ask the same question I had asked the old man just a few minutes before. "Are you collecting agates?"

Immediately, she crosses the short distance between us and shows me a sack full of all kinds of stones--not just agates, but green, red, black and composite pebbles. "I have a rock tumbler at home," she says, as if relieved to speak her passion. "You would not believe how beautifully they come out!"

"Like jewels," I reply. "My grandfather was a rock collector, down in the Southern California desert. He used to cut, polish...he had a tumbler, when I was a very small child."

She lights up. "Ah! So you know...it takes a month, and the tumbler can only do around a pound at a time...but it's so worth the wait!" I nod, and she continues, "I decided to take a 'me' day and just come down here to look. I can't help it. It feels good and brings me peace...kind of like..."

"...Like a meditation?"

"Yes," she sighs, and her shoulders relax. "Exactly. My husband thinks I'm crazy..." and suddenly, she is looking down, as if slightly ashamed. I take a deep, slow breath.

"It's ok," I tell her, wishing I could reach out and hug her, instead. "He just doesn't understand."

"No, he doesn't." The woman shakes her head, and smiles with a distant sadness. I look at her beautiful face, and tell her that I am glad to have met her, and that perhaps I would see her around...and we move on in our own perfect understanding.

I walk to a big rock spill, where seagulls keep watch. I am now wide awake and alerted to strange beauty and synchronous things. I see pieces of the blue sky sunning themselves on stones.

The bare cliff faces loom over me, casting shadows and reflecting the sea where water seeps down to the coarse sand. I am lost in the strange folds and ridges of this cold, volcanic skin, of frozen ripples and eroded explosions. I touch it, lean against it, look up where grassy fringes grow. I am where the waves normally crash, where the water is over my head and roiling, looking at another truth...hard, uncompromising, happily beaten by the tides, slowly formed, polished and occasionally shown to soft, fragile animals like myself.

I am humbled, enjoyed, amazed.

Hugging the flows of silver, turquoise, jade and rust on my way back, words fail to form. Everywhere I turn with my camera, some stunning dreamscape looks directly into me. I read it silently like a love letter, like a missive full of tough wisdom and reassuring solidity and proof that, hard as being is, the variety of beauty is endless, is there underneath, is there with or without my attention.

The message, as usual, is signed:

By the time I return to my car, I am open and washed as the stones I spent the morning--and my mourning--with. I look up to find that someone has sent flowers...not to wilt upon the grave, but to dance alive, with me.

Thank You

Last night, I collapsed gently (so as not to slosh) into a bathtub full of hot water, where I sipped a glass of wine and released everything that hurt after a solid day of physical labor. I felt gratitude for the bathtub, warmth on demand and bubbles. I thought about how I would miss them if the currents of life washed me up (again) in a place where running water is nonexistent. Enjoy, relax, enjoy!

Gratitude is not a moral imperative or spiritual good manners. Life is not some stuffy, expectant relative or a parent trying to teach us how to be decent beings. It gives freely and abundantly at all times, even when we think that the Lord hath once again taken away whatever it is we believe we need so much! Gratitude is an immanent upwelling and outflowing of appreciation for whatever is noticed and attended openly in the moment; oddly enough, that sense of grateful love is multiplied endlessly when the realization dawns that it is We who are giving and taking away, arriving and leaving, teaching and learning, while "I am" stands alive and aware in the crossroads.

Or in the case of last evening, sits soaking in a scented bath.  

Just an hour or two before, I thought I was not much more than irritated slave labor, late in the garden and overwhelmed with the amount of work waiting for me this year--huge tasks that I must tackle all by myself. I felt emotionally homeless, wading in such a thin stream of imagination. I was shoveling, killing innocent grass, feeling some endless chasm between here and a reason to get up in the morning.

The hopeless leap turned out to be a heartbeat wide, once I relaxed back into the territory of open appreciation, allowing--yes, allowing--the natural flow of gratitude, the easy discernment of something much larger than my individual story to fill up the aching, fearful places in my heart. "Myself" is suddenly timeless, gargantuan, made up of some fire disguised as flesh and blood, desires and dreams, stubborn clumps of turf and juvenile slugs, other people busy with their lives, strange weather patterns, secret poems, and one body, one existence that radiates through spacetime in all directions.

One tiny shift, even as small as a smile between a skin cell and Sister Water, and I remember how much I am loved. Relax, enjoy, relax. :)

Considering the Source

A long time ago, a wise man told me that "pain happens, but suffering is optional". 

I argued, of course, pointing out the suffering innocents in the world, all those who didn't ask for their hunger or disease or abuse...all the vivid stories and images, personal and collective, confirming the unfairness of life or the cruelty of God. I was young and felt deeply victimized.

He asked me exactly how I knew such agony was not "asked for"...I had to admit that, well--I didn't. But it all seems so pointless!

Now I'm less young and have dropped the conviction that I'm a victim of anything or anyone; I still occasionally set myself up, though, with my stories or expectations, and feel the pain of some exploding situation. When this happens, I carefully pull each piece of shrapnel from my heart and take a good long look at what I can learn, before releasing it back to nothingness. I no longer protect and defend my injured state as if it is more real than my healthy one.

As time and a whole series of dramas have unfolded for my education and exploration, I have come to understand the point of view my wise counselor shared with me. Suffering truly is optional, but only if one can quiet the panicked howling of a mind arguing passionately with Reality. This requires some patience and a willingness to admit that whatever the surface appearance of a situation, there are vast movements and dynamics underneath, deep currents that a divided mind can never see. And just like physical currents in the ocean or energetic currents in the body, some gift, nourishment or balancing element is coming along on its own perfectly timed schedule--synchronized harmoniously in a much larger, far more intelligent Self.

I seem to be learning, because fewer gifts are arriving in exploding packages. When things blow up, I am rather unsurprised, and can usually trace the cause to the detonator in my very own hand. Healing begins almost immediately when I don't waste energy on a futile search for some outside persecutor. Pain still happens, but suffering (the endless mental probing of the pain) is much reduced.

Less victimhood does, indeed, require a willingness to take total responsibility for feelings and behavior on the surface. But what is truly needed is a continued openness and honesty--more and more honesty with myself and others, more and more trust as the situation reveals itself to be what it actually is, rather than what I thought it might be. It could take seconds or years; without fail, what is Real is what wins. I can align with it or attempt to fight it. In other words, I can be in harmony or dissonance with myself. These days, I don't have the time or the inclination to insist on any particular version of a story for very long. Things do change.

This is not to say that I'll stand there passively while being attacked. If the situation warrants physical escape, defense or just holding my ground, that is Reality. What I am always responsible for is my interpretation of events and whether I use them to expand or contract--to live fully and flexibly or exist as a hardened cast of a being. Open awareness, flexibility and honesty are different words for the same condition, or maybe different aspects of what always turns out to be true and real, and in some essential, undivided way, good.

Having been a student of my own emotional life for so long, it was perhaps inevitable that I questioned the whole process itself. I understand physical pain, and even the similar, surface function of emotional pain (too hot, don't touch!). But why must we so often behave in ways that are destructive to ourselves and others? Why do we find ourselves in situations, relationships, addictions that are like recurring nightmares?

I can only conclude from my own experience (as well as the experiences of many, many people I've talked to), that we do these things to learn about forgiveness. Not the outer, socially-sanctioned kind, but a state of forgiving in which pain is nothing more than a call to attention, a pull to the center, a clear inquiry into what we, personally, are creating in this very moment.

From ground (zero) up, we learn deeper and deeper forgiving of ourselves, our relations with each other, and all our blindness, fragility and insane toughness. Over and over, we must view our private pain and suffering from all angles, until we finally see it for what it really is...until we understand what we really are...until there is nothing to forgive. Our perceived gifts, until then, will always be scaled-down, once-removed versions of what's possible.

May we trust enough to receive by simply cupping our hands, rather than using manipulation, fighting, repression or stealth to feel the natural love and power of being alive...