Hari Om

We must be willing not to turn away. Our belief that we are not enough is fueled by our unwillingness to sit with feelings of powerlessness. Being unable to enact the change we would like to see is a defeating position to take and is absolutely rooted in our tendencies toward monothoughtism. Monothoughtism is the overarching belief that the way I see myself in the world is the way the world is. It is most likely exactly the opposite of this, ironically. The way I see the world is the way I am.

Now, this can be a wonderful understanding that can bring a level of equanimity with our own thoughts. It could also be a direct route to spiritually bypass our responsibility to actively participate in and engage in the reduction of suffering in the world. That is going to depend upon how we engage with our own awareness. Are we going to find a way out or a way in? The way brings us fully into the level of awareness that lives in these bodies, in these houses (or not), these cars (or not), with this food (or not). We are material as well as ethereal. Engage appropriately.

Speak the Metta Meditation with goodness in your heart and in your mind. This is key to creating action of goodness. Goodness is not dependent upon the approval of our identity or aligned with our identifiers. Goodness brings love into any situation. It is not the opposite of badness, but the water that feeds the garden so that it may grow as it needs. It is a choice that is informed by a lack of choosing. Not choosing as a choice is a bold and challenging way forward.

Recently, I was espousing my self-righteous anti-capitalist stance on death and dying to a fellow death worker who has been doing this work for a long time as well. He is also a teacher and “Minister” of the holiness of dying. He reminded me to boldly not believe that I should choose who does and does not get to receive the teachings of what I have gained by my time sitting with death. It is for everyone, always. I needed that reminder, as speaking from my pain and fear wasn’t acting with goodness in my heart, mind, and mouth. Thanks, Bodhi Be.

All In Love,

Michael

Generate Generosity Here

Hari Om

It is often that experience a thread of thought and teachings in the world of “spirituality” that the abandonment of the flesh, the material world, is a cornerstone. I could not be further unimpressed by this idea. We are in bodies for some reason, and for some reason, these bodies have sensations. I find these sensations to be beautiful and sensual gestures of spirit, and embrace them as fully spiritual experiences. No apologies for loving what your body loves. Of course, beware the traps of becoming stuck, or of chasing down and grasping onto expectations of sensual pleasure, but why would this mean do not experience the rhapsody of material life knowing full well that this is temporary?

It is precisely the temporary nature of all life that we find our greatest joys and our greatest sorrows, and through our awareness that we learn they are the same.

To love something means to be brought into the place of love, the experience of love. This is equanimous in its essence. It is our judgments, read: fear, that removes equanimity from love. This is okay as well. It is when meeting my greatest fears that I have opened my most tender loves.

“The poet says, I sculpted my mirage out of language and brag. Yeah, that sounds, I can identify with that. Some of us sculpt our mirage out of fitness. Some of us sculpt our mirage out of financial success.Some of us sculpt our mirage out of silken scarves and spiritual necklaces. And some of us sculpt our mirage out of anger and resentment. And some of us sculpt our mirage out of each of these things in different times in our lives and in different ways, in different moments. But we're all just working with lumps of clay”

The inimitable bell hooks brings us home today with number 19 of her Appalachian Elegy.

Appalachian Elegy 19 bell hooks all fields of tobacco growing here gone now man has made time take them surrendered this harsh crop to other lands countries where the spirit guides go the way of lush green leaving behind the scent of memory tobacco leaves green yellow brown plant of sacred power shining beauty return to Appalachia make your face known

Thanks for breathing together today. Thanks for returning home.

All In Love,

Michael

Generate Generosity Here

Hari Om

Hello friends. If this practice is to invite wholeness, we must begin to question individualism. I think, with any level of serious scrutiny, the concept that we are individuals begins to fall apart. Not a single one of us was born of no one. Not a single one of us was fed by no one. Not one of us could live in this world without anyone. We are inextricably interdependent upon one another. I would go as far as to say that we are never not one. Oneness does not begin with our awareness of oneness. We always were and always are. This can be a statement of comfort, and also a statement that opens extreme discomfort. How would this understanding work with my current belief that I am solely responsible for my spiritual life? My practice? My healing?

We have an easy enough time believing that “others” are responsible for our pain, but tell us when we are in our pain that our pain requires “others” to see it for it to be opened to be healed, and we run for the hills. This is true for all of us sometimes.

How do we begin to take our collective healing seriously then? Do we follow the teaching of Christ and rid ourselves of our belongings, join the choir of voices singing Hosanna, and live in a commune or monastery for the rest of our incarnation? Well, I think there have been many movements to talk that talk, but few of us in the modern world can walk that walk. But, in short, the answer is yes, this is the way. Not necessarily to sleep twenty to a room and live on unseasoned lentils and rice. Mary Oliver tells us:

“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.”

Thankfully someone has given us permission, and a poet is the perfect voice to do so. Thank you Mary Oliver. Thank you permission to live more fully and more human.

The last part there is the real kicker. It is telling us that sharing our despair is precisely how we will begin to “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves”. There is no question to me that this is transcribing the message of the collective inviting us all back in. When I say that, what is mean to say is inviting our awareness into what is already happening. It is in our awareness that we discover the truth of our suffering, and in our awareness that we are able to find our way through that suffering. It is awareness that Ram Dass reminds us that is also our love. It is the same place.

Place is important to us, and for very good reason. It is from place that we are born to move into that place’s consciousness of the whole. We are the eyes of place, and the ears, the mouth, the body of feeling of place. Would it be here without us? Of course. But who then would tell the story of the cherry blossom exploding into a spring day? Who then would tell the story of the “little living creatures uprooted” if not for bell hooks.

Appalachian Elegy 18 bell hooks when trees die all small hearts break little living creatures happy and safe uprooted now in need of finding new places when home cracks and breaks and falls all life becomes danger how to find another place where all is not yet barren

We must find one another to find that place that “all is not yet barren”. That’s my story, and I am sticking to it.

All In Love,

Michael

Generate Generosity Here