imagine

Imagination, be it friend or foe is the firelight that beams into your soul.  It is the necessary tool to be able to expand on a raindrop of an idea.  It can also turn one teardrop into a puddle big enough to splash around in.

Our imagination carries us beyond the mind by inviting us to enter through passageways of possibilities.  It is the sweetening of wonder.  It is the booster juice of inspiration.  It is the fuel injection required to unblock and unleash the musings wandering aimlessly in the galaxy, motioning them to formulate creatively. 

Sometimes that curious imagination finds out things before you're even ready to go there.  It thrives on questions and various "what if" scenarios and turns them into wicked flights of fantasy where wishes upon wishes transform into a multi-sensory carnival of dreams just waiting for you to unleash your inhibitions, doubts and fears so you can replace them with passionate exploration.  If you allow your imagination to run freely you may find yourself on a ride you never knew existed, or you thought was beyond your reach.  But, if you can imagine it can you then transform it into something tangible and real?  Can an illusion ever be held in the palm of your hands?

Imagination dips itself into the well of mystery........... oh, how it LOVES a good mystery.   Feed it with pieces of life puzzles and it folds itself into a hideaway nook to savour ever single tasty morsel.  Be careful of the stings.  Be prepared for some surprising feelings.......for our imagination often has a unique way of rebuilding the puzzle.  It may not be how you want it to look, sound, feel like.  It may be dangerously painful.  It may distort the lines of reality all the while trying to convince you of its honesty.  Sometimes our self created imagery will carry us into a sinkhole of doubting dialogue and with one full swoop, send you far away from any comfort you have carefully tucked in all around you.

At times it seems almost impossible to rein in our expansive fabrications.  We start spiralling down into a tunnel, haunted by memories and prickly pain only to land with a thud inside a chamber of horrific thoughts?  Why do we allow ourselves to go there?  Do we need to experience the dark side reality of our imagery in order to eventually let go of it?  Is this where we kick and kick until we bleed daylight?

Maybe the travels we take down the side of the mountain where the sun doesn't shine forces us to wrestle the truth from the sticky goo of falsehoods.  Maybe its all a part of learning from our sorrows. Maybe it allows us to ask the question.... "IS this the truth?  Is what I'm thinking the truth?"

Most days, I embrace my imagination and allow it to lead me beyond the wild.  I love the fact that my mind is an endless babbling two way conversation with ideas rich with possibilities.  On days when it is my friend, I can float on optimism and hope.  I can plan productively, think clearly, sharpen my view of what could possibly be beyond the horizon.  Its those other days when the it feels more like a noose around my soul and all I can hear is the same dialogue.... the same song over and over again. It's an obsessive mantra full of failure and rejection, cascading over a waterfall of tears. 

My imagination can lead me to an open beach with life affirming salty breezes where I feel loved and at one with this glorious world all around me, but it can also steer me into a abandoned alley reeking in human waste.  No matter how hard I try to avoid those stinking alleyways, sometimes its just impossible. 

Yesterday, I made it to the beach.  Just in time.   The singing sands beach in Souris, Prince Edward Island.  I had it all to myself.  I made the sands sing as I walked along the shore.  These sands are famous for their singing.  And when I returned to the car to head back to Charlottetown, my toes were still humming........ my friendly imagination was returning.  The noose was loosening.  Though my sense of failure and rejection still rattles inside me.  The shock of hasn't worn off yet. My raw anger has not floated away.......yet. 

_______________________

ps..... so many good things have happened to me over the past two months, and a few very funny things too.  I havent had much time to write these days, and long to.  I hope I will be able to capture some of the lighter parts soon........... Just have to find the stillness in me to start, write and complete a piece all in one sitting.  Its seems impossible right now.  Stillness is a fleeting wave  .......

blue moons...........

Full moon over the Saint John River, Dec. 2009

taken from my driveway.

An ancient folklorist once said that a blue moon has a face on it that will speak to anyone whose light it shines on.  Tonight, under the second moon of the month, on the last night of the year we have an opportunity to converse with the moon.  Howl at it too if we want to.  Or maybe just lift our glass of cheer and toast its constant presence.  For no matter how sunny, cloudy, or thunderous the world around us becomes, we can rely that silly moon to be right up there in the sky.

So much of life is temporal..........a collection of fleeting moments strung together haphazardly.  How we respond to the events is basically the only thing we have any control over.  Personally, I abhor New Year's Eve and the celebration that happens at midnight.  I wish I had the capacity to program my brain to the light and fluffy dryer cycle in order to sail through the night in some sleepy bliss.  Wine helps.  But, you have to find that happy balance thing with wine.  Too little and it doesn't work.  Too much and you become a soppy mess of snot........ desperate to grab hold of the karoke microphone.  Ick.  Light and fluffy would be nice............ there are drugs for this state too I realize.  I just wish sometimes I could naturally fall into that blondish mindframe.

Unfortunately on nights like New Years, my brain is my enemy.  I get stuck in a groove of reflections and the fear of how quickly time is passing.  EVERY single YEAR!  Even though I will thankfully be surrounded by friends who know this about me.......... it is still so difficult to put this one stupid night into perspective.  I like it over.  Tomorrow will be afresh.

However, tonight............. I have a blue moon to converse with.  You do too. Let its light shine down on me.  Let its light shine down on you. I don't know about you, but I've got a helluvalot to say to it concerning this past decade. 

Happy New Year.  May we all take a good step forward into the mystery tonight. Change is in the air. Bring.it.on!

becoming an adult....

Pip in action:
Growth does not reside in a place called comfortable....

Time keeps marching on and i try my hardest to keep up. But honestly, how in the heck did 49 years pass by so quickly? The best we can do is to pack in as much living as possible and savour it to the fullest. Not just the big whopping mind blowing moments, though those tend to stick their necks out most predominantly and become our personal milestones.... but the day to day morning glories too.

This week has been a blur of activity.....from meeting and greeting 200 new students to the College, to sitting down one on one with a few who needed some reassurance during their transition back into the classroom, to kicking off a night course I'm teaching on Crisis Counselling, to organizing my own family and home for the beginning of the school year. There have been trips to the store for school supplies, a meet the teacher night tonight (I'm not impressed let me tell you with the caliber of teachers my son has this year.....but will wait on the final call on that one....) to dealing with incompetent bureaucratic systems to crashing on the couch last night in what was probably the most rivetting and important speech Obama has made since his inauguration. You know you're a tired puppy when you fall asleep sitting up while that guy is speechifying! It has been such a great week!!!

My life is full and i'm very happy. It is frantic at times, but I work best when I'm juggling many things at once. It energizes me and my brain cells. Too much down time and I become a unfocused slug. In the middle of the beautiful melee of living right smack dab in the centre of many fronts, I realized just how content I am. The only word I can use to describe it is "integrated...." That's how I feel. And the only way I managed to get there.... to a place where I'm firing on all cylinders again .... admittedly the first time in years, had all to do with 4 days at a racecourse in Cheltenham when I immersed myself in the Greenbelt festival. The late evening/early morning talks back at the hotel played a huge role in it too.

I knew I needed to get there. I didn't know why. I just knew my "want" had turned into a "need." I knew it was an integral part of whatever journey I am on. There were key "happenings" which I hope to be able to capture in words soon that in all honesty altered my thinking, my feelings.......and placed me on a different axis. A few important decisions were finally made. My outlook now shines from a better angle..... it simply happened after carrying them around for far too long. Enlightening, inspiring, challenging, and fun. It was also difficult. It was in the place of difficult where I grew the most. Not surprising.

Greenbelt was a destination that I thought had a beginning and an end. I was so wrong. The lessons I learned, the reflections I fell into, the moments I stayed right in the long now are a part of who I am and how I am seeing my life and the blur around me. There is a calm.....there is more patience. There is enthusiasm and less fretting. There has been a disconnection from the rubbish I had to endure over the past couple of years.

Pip sometimes asks on his blog..............How old were you when you became an adult? I thought I had already crossed that threshhold. I thought I had passed through the passages while experiencing the big whopping mind blowing moments. It wasn't until I was sitting alone outside of the Performance Cafe on the Saturday night listening to the music inside the tent, that I realized I had become an adult that day. Something clicked when I started to think about where I was physically and spiritually, where I had been, and letting go of where I may end up.

Becoming an adult, I realized was learning to let go of life's control panel, and to find a different kind of comfort in the vulnerable side of difficult. The only way you find that comfort zone is to recognize that letting go..... surrendering ...... can take you to a place where acceptance greets you with a nod. I may have been sitting there all alone, sitting off in the margins thinking about a very special "Greenbelt moment" that I had experienced earlier in the day, watching the Greenbelt world go by...........in fact a group of teens disguised as minstrels strolled by, stopped and then spontaneously sang the most movingly upbeat version of Amazing Grace I had ever heard....... there was a feeling of infinite possibility in the night air.

Today........I turn 49. Today, I think I can confidently state that I'm finally an adult. Better late than never eh? Man, that was a long adolescence!

nostalgia

Nostalgia,

an alluring homeward journey for comfort seekers where a fallow hearted field of dreams awaits.

an escape hatch from a terrible toothache to tarted up memories lubricated with nonsense

an old song with different words

a rejected love without the thorns

an afternoon internal trip taken in an effort to fill an empty vessel which once spilled over in affirmation

a wistful wandering means to validate a story

a desirous attempt to change the story in hopes it will change destiny

a seductive whore dressed as a maiden selling a bouquet of fake flowers

pearls made of the teeth of an old hag

ah, but sometimes......just sometimes.....nostalgia is a warm heartboosting memory on a grey snowy day that lifts a burden or two.

Just be careful what you wish for............

with enlightenment comes change

The breeze at dawn
Has secrets to tell you
Don't go back to sleep
You must ask
For what you really want
Don't go back to sleep
People are going back and forth
Across the doorsill
Where the two worlds touch
The door is round and open
Don't go back to sleep
Rumi

Our journeys hold meaning when one takes the steps with eyes and ears wide open. Meaning and truth can both enlighten and frighten......awareness is not for the faint of heart is it? When you think about it, enlightenment can be quite painful, especially when it strikes a the chord tied to a sense of losing your way. It doesn't come with a map you can hold in your hands. Rather, the map is found in the internal wintering of the soul where mysteries untangle at their own pace. Change disturbs. Change rattles. Change is life unfolding.

There's lots of time to sleep............later. Now, is the time to figure it out. Now is the time to tackle that nasty irritation........to push through the heartweep felt when heels are dug into resistance.

Today, is a new day, fresh with no mistakes. Don't go back to sleep. Chaos never lasts. Enlightenment comes after the storm.

_________________________________________

The word prompt this week at Sunday Scribblings is "change"......good old rollicking change......the kind of rattle felt south of the border this week. Yes YOU can.........change. For more coinage, click HERE.

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror

up to where you're bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you've been longing to see.
Your hand opens and closes, and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence
is in every small contraction and expansion,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as bird wings.


rumi

The approval addiction........

Why is it that we are always seeking approval? Is it an addiction with us? Are we so uncertain of our own decisions that we have to have validation all the time? Some will say that seeking approval is just a way of being respectful to others, as a way of including them in the decision you are trying to make, but it isn't. Because if you think about it, asking someone for approval is basically giving them the last say......THEY get to make the decision.

Can I?

May I?

Do you like?

Can you validate me?

Is my idea worthy of your approval?

When does the time come when you say to yourself........."I have decided to become"......... or "tomorrow, I plan to"........ or............This is my opinion. I've thought it through. I'm comfortable with this opinion and I'm not going to ask someone if they think its right or wrong."

We all have had mentors and parents in our lives who have guided us and have hopefully provided us with the skills and gifts to get along in this world. Though we will always be students, or always be a son or daughter.............we outgrow the need to check in for approval. And yet, our conditioning kicks in...........and off we seek it. This is exacerbated if one works in a hierarchical environment when one has to ask for permission all the time........where you're monitored and evaluated all the time just like school......just like when you were a kid.

It's hard to let go of this addiction................

Can I

May I

I want you to approve of me..................

I read recently that spirituality is a matter of becoming who you really are. We seem to live under the illusion that it's important to be loved, important, respected and well thought of. This sets us up to be on the constant look out for approval, affection and love. But here's the paradox. If we turn that around..............instead of always looking for approval and we put all of this energy and attention on thinking well of others....... we will fulfill the two true real urges we human beings have: to love and to be free.

If we are constantly seeking approval, we will never feel free. There will always be a sensation of feeling shackled.........waiting for the nod from someone.

If we reach out to others instead of trying to convince them to reach out to you through approval, then you are freely offering your love.

There are healthier ways to gain the respect of the important people in our lives. Seeking approval isn't one of them...........it simply gives the power of your life over to someone else. Isnt there enough out there that we have no control over??

When the time comes when we can break away from the approval cycle, is this when we can honestly say we are adults?

just wondering............

I carry..........

Girl Carrying a Basket

Winslow Homer , 1882

National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

How would I know what beautiful is if I don't carry it with me?
How would I know how compassion felt if I don't carry it with me?
How would I know about suffering if I didn't carry it with me?
How would I know what pain meant if I dropped it in a heap and didn't carry it with me?
How would I know what success tasted like if I didn't carry one with me?

How would I ever know how to deal with loss if I didn't carry the experience with me?

Where would I be without the bundle of love I carry with me?

How would I know how to be a friend if I didn't carry you with me?


When my cup is full, how do I carry it without spilling?
When my life is too chaotic, how do I learn to carry it without buckling under the pressure?
When I feel like I'm being pulled in too many directions, how do I continue to carry the map that will show me the path out of the woods?


Our minds, carry the cognitively accumulated experiences and life lessons which have taught us how to consider, to assess, to problem solve, to absorb, and to make decisions.

Our hearts, carry the interactive memories which have offered lessons in how to feel, express, empathize and sympathize.

And in our souls, we carry our true selves, made from the breath of God. It is from our souls that we learn to reach out to help carry the burdens of other human beings. It is where we harbour that bundle of love.



This week's Sunday Scribblings prompt is "I carry." Check out the others.