Showing Up

Many things come our way in the course of a single day.

Today I've been thinking about what some of the Shamanic cultures call "Showing Up" or what Buddhists call "Being in the present". Being supple and flexible, bending without breaking like the willow tree. Moving with the currents of the River. Floating like a feather in the wind. Going with the proverbial flow.

All beautiful metaphors for Flexibility.

But what about all our plans? Schedules? Appointments?

Can we be present in the moment and in the flow while still showing up to our agreements?  Certainly. It's all in the way we look at things.  If, when opening our calendars to see what we have "on the books", we recoil when seeing that we have through our own choice packed our day full of activities, then we are constricting our natural energies, stopping the flow. If we instead notice that we have a very busy day ahead and greet our choices with ease, then we can move seemlessly between engagments. Yes, not all days flow so easily as clocks tick and people rush. We can however choose how we are going to respond to what the world grants us on a given day. We always get to choose.

Love

"To live, to work, to play are really One. 

If you ask me, the most Creative thing we can do is to Love people."

Vincent Van Gogh




photo of Starry Night

Friends

"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious 

as to have friends at a distance;

 they make the latitudes and the longitudes." 

Henry David Thoreau

And For No Reason.....

"And for no reason I started skipping like a child.

And for no reason I turn a leaf that is carried so high. 

I kiss the sun's mouth and dissolve

And for no reason a thousand birds choose my head for a conference table, 

Start passing their cups of wine and their wild songbooks all around.

And for every reason in existence I begint to eternally laugh and love!

When I turn into a leaf and start dancing!

I run to kiss our beautiful friend and I dissolve into the Truth That I Am".

Hafiz

Your Daily Tolle

" A stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it & let it be without imposing a word of mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you."   Eckhart Tolle


photo by Victoria Marina-Tompkins "Heart Line Bear Stone" Navarro River

Favorites from the Archives

Letting Go of our Stories

Thursday, October 15, 2009

I just heard of a story which I would like to share today.

In “A New Earth”, Eckhart Tolle describes a story entitled "The Duck With The Human Mind". He says that when two ducks get into a fight, it never lasts too long, because the ducks will separate and float off in opposite directions. “The duck will flap its wings vigorously a few times, thus releasing the surplus energy that built up during the fight. After they flap their wings, they float on peacefully, as if nothing had ever happened. If the duck had a human mind, it would keep the fight alive by thinking, by story-making. This would probably be the duck’s story: “I don’t believe what he just did. He came to within five inches of me. He thinks he owns this pond. He has no consideration for my private space. I’ll never trust him again. Next time he’ll try something else just to annoy me. I’m sure he’s plotting something already. But I’m not going to stand for this. I’ll teach him a lesson he won’t forget.”

Tolle summarizes, “But this is how most humans live all the time. No situation or event is ever really finished. ...We are a species that has lost its way. Everything natural, every flower or tree, and every animal have important lessons to teach us if we would only stop, look, and listen. Our duck’s lesson is this: Flap your wings - which translates as “let go of the story” - and return to the only place of power: the present moment.”

This story illustrates how our minds get caught up in making up stories about our experiences. We may in the moment find ourselves feeling deeply;

Our dog has just died and we feel intense grief. We reunite with a lover and feel intense joy. We fly into a rage when someone crosses our boundaries.

All of these feelings are valid. However, it is our thoughts that follow the emotions that lead to the tangles I wrote about in my blog "The Life Tapestry". And, it's what we do with these thoughts that make all the difference. In the moment that we notice our thoughts going down that all too familiar pathway of "story", we can stop, take a deep breath, and return to our center. If we are still feeling the intensity of the emotions, we can "flap our wings" and release the energy just as the duck did. It is then we can return to the present moment, to our "place of power". We can return to our Pond.


Duck Dance by ViaMoi

Your Daily Rumi

“Today, like every other day, 

we wake up empty and frightened. 

Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. 

Take down the dulcimer. 

Let the beauty we love be what we do. 

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” 

Rumi