Windows

As I gracefully age I'm of the growing opinion that along with pensions and new body parts we all deserve a window with an achingly beautiful view.

I'm presently in my favorite chair looking out at mine. Beyond the planter box flowers valiantly holding on to early summer blooms, past the recently repaired and soon to be repainted wooden banister, past graceful Pohutakawa limbs is a view of the gentle Waitemata Harbor. No matter what unforeseen treasures or calamities a day brings into being, this view-- with it's sea green turquoise colors and it's beauty are always waiting for me. I never grow tired of the discovery, nor does it fail to put the days into perspective.
I count this panoramic gift as a wholly sublime reminder that my life transpires in a living picture postcard. Moment by seasonal moment hours measured in the movement of weather systems, sunsets, tidal ebbs and flows all swaying their songs in the constant winds that push my home against its crevice in the hillside.
The local architect who stood 40 years ago where the house now stands, was thinking of a shelter here a in homage to this vision. I'm certain of it.  Large important windows, including the ones in the kitchen, all draw the eye towards where the horizon meets the waters below. One's eye, and one's heart are swept beyond the height of wood beam ceilings, and the charm of terraced rooms spiraling upwards. Every first time visitor to our home forsakes the wonderful architecture of the house and makes a beeline for the veranda, often commenting on how we must never get tired of it all.

All one can do, from where I sit is to not forget to be part of paradise. Boats sail past, their white sails like skirt hems across a dance floor. Hot air balloons the colors of rainbows hover in the dawn air and birds maneuver thermals like kites on strings. Whether the view from these windows has calmed a restlessness in me, or a restlessness now subsiding allows me to love what I look at more each day, I cannot say.

I'm learning that for many of us, our eyesight changes for the better with time. The loss of physical acuity gives over to seeing from the heart. Whether we see the world with a jaundiced regard or deepening appreciation has little to do with focal length. Your daily windows and mine can teach us how sight might serve as a meditation on the love of things as they are. If the eyes are windows on the soul, then surely the soul with a window full of rapture to gaze upon, has a reason to look more deeply.

Stakes of the Game

What is it that opens the heart and illumines the mind?

Everything.

After 54 years on the planet and if you believe in it who knows how many lifetimes, this is my conclusion.
We don't have to go looking for the road to enlightenment. We're on it- we can't miss it.
We can however, ignore it.

Ignoring it looks like getting by, going numb, playing small. It looks like a perpetual game of blame, shame and regret.

Just to be clear, I've never met anyone enlightened or otherwise who doesn't have many examples of what was less than skillfully lived. We get scars. We grieve, we're angry and afraid sometimes and we hurt.

Great people go through heartaches and they botch things all the time.
They just don't stop there.

Best of all, really awake people stay committed to joy.

Sounds so cliche I know. But joy isn't pollyanna and it's not distraction or denial.

It is plunging deeply into now....cultivating a taste for what Byron Katie calls "becoming a lover of what it is".

The discovery that we can love all of it, even our suffering means you now hold the only keys
to personal transformation that ever existed.

What we love we transform. You get the same house, family members, body type and life situation you had before-
Only now you get it.


There are consequences.


Getting it can lead to:
 a cessation of moaning and complaining
 a perhaps new tendency to be a pleasure to be with
things delighting you that you didn't previously see or appreciate
meditation
taking better care of yourself and by extension others
opportunities born of a grateful mind

and a whole host of other things too terrible to contemplate when we've been convinced that suffering
was a necessity or a sign of intelligence.

So there. I've just saved you the price of doing est , psychotherapy, spiritual paths and colonics.

You're welcome.

Shamanic Healing...making friends in unseen worlds

Shamanism- one of the oldest forms of healing on the planet. Still romantic ideas about it can conjure up images of strange rituals performed by feathered half naked individuals murmuring incantations by fire light so as to invoke supernatural powers.

Still, having been blessed with many first hand experiences of giving and receiving spiritual healing, I listened with interest to a Sounds True podcast on the Way of the Shaman with Hank Wesselman and was intrigued. The connection with the natural world and the ability to journey to non-physical realms are skills that Shamanism is particularly suited to teach.

A friend told me about a 6 day workshop offered by Elisabeth Madarasz and the timing was good so off I went.

Turns out this was going to be work- some of it confronting but all of it very spiritually grounded and powerful.

We began with learning some useful shortcuts for instantaneous/ simultaneous grounding, alignment & centering of spirit/higher/ I am presences and after long invocations, blessings, and introductions we plunged into extractions.

Extractions are what you may know of as clearing blocks but in a very detailed way involving "soul aspect loss" and "intrusions" as well as the usual chakra and magnetic field clearing.

Elisabeth is a wise, thorough, patient teacher who gave us handouts and throughout the 6 days tirelessly monitored our progress. With each new process she gave us many specific instructions about what to look for, what not to assume, how to continually check for confirmation and when to use the presence of power animals and sacred tools when directed as helpers.

As this was a training for professionals, she cautioned us about appropriate sharing of information with clients. For example choosing how and whether to share about something we might be guided to extract that would shock the person afterwards-- such as telling them that a revolting snake had just been removed from some part of their body...

This made me smile til it was my turn to receive an extraction. What do I immediately see when I close my eyes? I see "Grandfather" clad in his white buckskins removing at least a 20 ft long nasty looking black snake from my solar plexus...I knew what it was energetically symbolic of. Immediately a brilliant colored dragon-fly the same size as the snake folded its wings and entered my energy body like a dart where the snake had been. Can't tell you how different my core energy now feels.

I won't try to describe the whole teachings or extent of the healings we performed as a group but some hilights included diagnostic journey work, lineage healing-including addressing the primary unresolved trauma in one's own life, ancestral line, country of origin, and power palm- essentially a basic technique for laying on of a single hand for channeling energy where needed.

Then we moved into Soul retrievals which include going beyond extractions and into the recovery and restoration of energetic parts that have been lost or damaged due to trauma. One practices "journeying" to the realms to get information and to serve as a bridge for the client's own healing process. It was emphasized that this work is never performed using the judgement of the Ego self. Much of the training involves developing and strengthening one's connection to the "I Am" presence within.

One of the most helpful for me was a simple exercise where we become aware of and take responsibility for anyone whose essence we've tried to use for our own needs, and or who has tried to give us a part of their essence--very tied to our Western programming around co-dependence and love. I was humbled to realize how many people I had unconsciously been siphoning off in order to handle emotional issues.

We ended with soul essence remembering work which was also simple and beautiful. Overall this work brought me home to myself, and I have a profound respect for its depth and potency. I was truly privileged to have been part of the work we did and to have experienced this wisdom through the vehicle of a master teacher such as Elisabeth.

Not your average week away from home, and well worth it.

Love,

Wende.

Manning up to Motherhood- Waitomo Caves

When your son is nearly 13 he needs to go on rite of passage adventures....Even if it is with his 53 yr old "pussy" of a Mom. So this time I was going to make sure I gave him something to remember. We have a lot of caves here in New Zealand- but one of the most famous is Ruakuri in Waitomo. I had gone black water rafting 15 years ago on my honeymoon in the warmth of summer. My memories were of a happy day spent splashing around in an inner tube in the dark-- nothing more confronting than one jump off a not too high water fall backwards-- in the dark.

The long winding 65 meter deep cave has running water in it all year round...cold 10 degree Celsius running water. Had I known how deep, fast running or cold the water would be this time-- how physically demanding just to stay upright or how scared for my physical safety I'd be- I might have found almost any excuse to back out. I might have known I was in potential trouble when I could scarcely breathe in my snuggly fitted wetsuit.

One's inner tube securely lodged over one's protruding bottom is meant to be a combination safety and floatation device....providing it's the right size. When it came time to do the first jump off the first water fall- my numb hands, legs and feet were seriously questioning my sanity. Getting through this cave when the water is at its usual depth takes 2 hours. On this day with the level due to heavy rains at only 7 inches from being too hazardous to venture into, it took 3 hours and some serious self talk....

I'm proud to say that other than over turning and getting swept away on the first jump- I basically survived with only a minor cut....and maybe a bruised ego at my son reminding me more than a few times that I had more earned the "biggest wimp" in the group award.

Some day he'll appreciate me right?

Life as quality of Self-Perception: Pouring paint on one's essential nature

When I was a child I loved watching Casper the Friendly Ghost. Casper was real- but no one could see him for what he was- unless paint was poured over him. Then he became easy to see and describe and know. He was literally walking around as an invisible being most of the time and in every story it created a lot of misunderstanding.

Turns out we're like that. We don't easily perceive ourselves with out help. Many of us work hard over the course of a lifetime-- enlisting the help of many tools and teachers in order to see ourselves clearly so we can work with what is instead of what isn't.

What often becomes the neurotic obsession with self -analysis persists because to live in a state of confusion about our essential nature is painful. It creates messes from choices we make based on who we're trying to be and or who we want others to be for us. We're all delusional to the extent that we prioritize our organization of basic awareness around avoiding feelings and being attached to outcomes.

How would our lives be different if our seeing was clear?

Seeing our own nature clearly requires knowing the difference between what renders things invisible to us, and what throws a can of paint over them.

Let's say I asked you to as simply and accurately as possible identify the physical characteristics of your immediate surroundings. The only rule would be to avoid using adjectives that contain value judgments. In my case, I'm in my bedroom. It has four walls, an a- frame ceiling made of wood, a wooden floor, a white leather sofa against one wall, etc.

That's not a difficult thing to do. I just look around and name objects.

What's important to know is that this room is what it is and doesn't ever wish it were otherwise. Spending time in nature I can make the same observation. At a given moment I can acknowledge the basic landscape for what it is. If I'm standing in a park with tall trees or no trees or a stream or no stream these are things that are simply the truth of the physical features of where I'm standing. I can notice that the grass was wet this morning and now its dry. Nature is comforting precisely because its free from being conflicted about itself- because we aren't conflicted about it. Animals and very young children feel effortless to be with as they too are in a pure state of being that's easier for us to notice.

It would never occur to most of us to look at a sunset and feel rejected if it didn't show up for us with clouds that were a particular shade of pink. Nor would most of us try to insist that someone change their gender or their skin colour to make us happy. Clearly then we have the capacity to observe and be with what is. Remove the strain of judgement about things being something different and seeing clearly suddenly becomes possible-- once detached from self-worth, judgement, reactivity, need, desire, projection.

Seeing in this way is close to freedom and to love.

Yet if I asked you to see into your own essential nature- the core that makes you you- what makes that any less simple? More problematic?

"Ah" says the mind, "unlike the tree in the park which can only become what it is, I have made myself what I am, I have a story." Oh really? What if your investment in your story and my investment in mine makes it nearly impossible to see ourselves and others as they are in the here and now?

Question: Can you be in your own or another's quality of being with the same innocence with which you stand in a park full of living trees?

If you were able to do so, how might your enjoyment/peace with what is be enhanced?

Walk into someone's life today as if you were walking into a park. See if you can experience their simple essence as an expression of ever evolving qualities rather than fixed good or bad attributes. Practice letting them be. Let yourself be.

Or if that's a struggle walk away. Come back later- don't come back at all.

Whatever happens, know that if you stand in a park wishing it were an ocean- believing that if only it cared it would be an ocean, that it told you once it was an ocean and you felt wet back then.....that you are not seeing things as they are. As A Course in Miracles asks us to consider in one of its' workbook exercises: I see only the past.

Without seeing in the moment there is no acceptance of what is, without acceptance of what is there is no love.

Without love there is no seeing so there is suffering.

Learning to see is why we're here. Think about it. Isn't spiritual enlightenment referred to as awakening ?

Sleeping through life is when your eyes are closed. A good indication that you're asleep is that you see problems- you identify with being unhappy. Or, ironically you're ecstatic because the world is conforming to your picture for it. Also a sign of sleeping.

Pouring the paint of loving vigilance around seeing with new eyes each moment gets easier with practice.

It wastes no energy.

Still, We can't be too kind with ourselves and others when we behave out of stubborn adherence to blindness over and over again.

We'll open our eyes as we do- its all we have, all we are.

On the edge

I wanna know:

Who we are now.

If you share my thirst for being real and not habitual.

I wanna know if friendship, laughter and deep intimacy are still somewhere on the menu and the sex that goes along but doesn’t come without

Whether we still have sufficient guts, love, or compassion to tell the truths that came so easily once, but that now could send it all tumbling like a house of cards

Knowing that whether or not we survive the listening,

The only certainty is that wounds don’t heal in the silence we retreat to for safety.

I wanna know

What lives underneath the layers of “us”

what it might feel like to be celebrating what we now diplomatically ignore

about the different needs and desires where your heart protect its’ own secret reasons and so does mine.

I wanna know

what would make either of us ecstatically happy and whether we still share a vision for making that happen

I wanna know where in us individually lies the seed of self-redemption which if nurtured would grow us into joyful expressions of life renewed and to hell with partners and parents dutifully resigned.

I wanna know my heart’s desire- know your's- know if our marriage serves or hinders

yes or no or both.

Know if what gets us through the times when I’m sure its over can still be rightfully be called courage?

Or if we're hanging on how come?

I wanna know if we still love us

Not because we once said we always would-

But because we choose to do so now.

Mother of the Bride and other unlikely rites of passage

I've understood for a long time that that one hidden gift of being close to my children includes revisiting my own developmental stages as they and I live through theirs.

At the moment in preparing to share in the festivities of my daughter's imminent wedding, I was awakened by a question for myself this morning; "what am I wedded to in this life?".

I have ideals, values, beliefs, needs, habits. But this is about something deeper- something asking me to look at what I'm living for through examining how I'm living.

Rather than look at routines, relationships or possessions- an interesting variation is to look at one's life as being wedded in any given moment to qualities of being. I love this idea because it shows us in a much more dynamic, fluid state of flux- but can also allow for the recognition of qualities we may have embodied over years or perhaps even lifetimes.

Standing one rain and wind swept July afternoon on the isle of Iona, the deepest essential qualitative nature of my being came through like the peeled notes of the abbey bell tones across the silence of the road I was on. Without judgement, I observed that openness-receptivity-love-and a visceral experience of eternal oneness were all qualities I was being after 4 days alone on this island and in relative silence.

These qualities not surprisingly were exactly conducive to finding myself completely awake and present to the many gifts in the moment.

The peace I felt emotionally was like bathing in a warm ocean. Sweet, blissful joy.

Later that day however, I listened deeply again- and this time I could feel myself in resonance with the qualities of longing, need, and uncertainty with respect to a relationship I was pondering. Not surprisingly my experience was one of unease and preoccupation with wanting to fix something. Then came the useful question "what are the antidotes to these qualities which I'm allowing to rob my being of its natural peace?

Almost at once I could feel that acceptance, gratitude, and trust would bring me home again.

I want to be clear here that this wasn't an exercise in aiming to be virtuous or good. Virtues can connote a kind of moral high ground where one is attempting to emulate a desirable attitude. Qualities are accessed by a subtle tuning in process as in calling on the energy of a living attribute to take up residence within us as us. This simple process of asking permission for a qualitative shift requires only willingness. There is no external manipulation of outside elements. It works because it releases resistance by first allowing it and then asking for balance to be restored.

So, as it happens, for the last few days I've been wedded to the qualities of abandonment- woundedness, and despair, for reasons I won't go into.

Rather than spiritually berating myself for being "weak" or for letting my ego's small separate voice reign supreme, I sat in meditation and at first simply allowed myself to feel the fullness of each quality. I especially noticed how deeply invested my emotions were in keeping me there. Slowly, I started to breathe into what I heard would help-- the qualities self-love, forgiveness, and detachment-- calling on each one as you would a trusted friend.

The storm still rages outside, but inside my day is different now. Being wedded at my core to all things that bring healing and promote new growth means becoming symbolically engaged over and over to going with cycles of change. Where there's resistance there's pain. Where deliberate surrender is, is where the breath takes us- not to a place of passivity, but rather to where there is freedom.