2009

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I practice thinking of my life as a ship in a river.  I am the ship and the river.  I am the physical —- the ship, and the nonphysical —- the river; I am the particle, the ship; the wave, the river.  This metaphor is very useful in my day-to-day life.  I can relate it to all sorts of perspectives about consciousness, spirituality, choice, thoughts and most importantly for determining why I am not happy in the moment. 

     Today, I felt as though my ship were disconnected from the river, run ashore on dry land. I was not happy.  I felt lost.  I could not focus on the present moment but only on a huge space of absence.  Rather than feeling the pleasure of anticipating pages not yet written, I focused on the fact that they weren’t yet written.  Rather than imagining the joy of creation, I judged its absence.

In such a predicament, my choices were to 1) judge myself for feeling stuck and out of the water; 2) keep doing something to shift my energy and create a little relief (mediation, visualization, various forms of energy alignment and release techniques.) 3) eat; 4) become frightened at my state of non-productivity by comparing myself with other, more productive people, such as Oprah; 5) worry about whether or not I am supposed to write the book at all; 6) call my homeopath, thinking if only I had a remedy; 7) do breath work;  call a friend; 9) rest; 10) trust the flow of my energy even though it felt like it wasn’t flowing at all. 

     After a few of the above, I found myself in the TV room scanning my DVD collection.  After many no’s, my arm reached for the video of my Uncle Arnet’s home movie from the 50’s and early 60’s.  Soon, I was transported into the world of my childhood -- snow storms in the Allegheny Mountains, birthday parties, Christmas dinners, my cousin and me at The Enchanted Forest, my Mother smiling just months before she died, Dad’s marriage to my first step-mother.  I looked at me at the age of five, six.  I watched as if I were a victim trying to identify my attacker, studying that child who was me.  My hair was cut very short and uneven like a mistake.  I knew exactly how I felt right then in that moment.  I could feel how not inside my body I was.  I could feel my sense of being different, odd, not like my cousin or my sister.  Did I judge myself for watching this?  No, I did not, even though I had been reading The Power of Now a bit earlier in the day, which could have fueled such judgment, for here I was, studying the child I was just months prior to my mother’s death.

     I trusted that I needed to witness that little girl who I used to be.  I did not know why the need presented itself, but simply trusted.  After watching, I took Horton to the dog park, first stopping at the Coop for Poland Springs Sparkling Water. As I drove, I asked myself, “So what have I been thinking or focusing on today that made me feel like that lost, abandoned little girl that I was?”  Answer:  I’d been focusing on absence: the absence of in-person friends; the absence of more written pages; the absence of new art on my walls.  I realized that I had been focusing, though quite unconsciously, on lack rather than Presence, even if the presence is imagined, for the subconscious mind does not know the difference.

     As Horton and I walked the dog park (which I have heard is the most lovely dog park in the whole United States) crisscrossing the various grassy fields, I began to consciously choose thoughts that felt much better to me, like, “I always learn from my days”, and “things always get better”, and “I needed to see how I am still creating the feelings of that child I was so that I don’t do that anymore!”  That one felt real good.  So I shifted my mind, thus my feelings, thus my entire vibration. 

     It wasn’t a mistake to watch the past.  The past has a purpose, which is to help us realize that we created the stories and self-concepts from those experiences.  The past is no longer needed, other than to remind us, when we slip into it, that we don’t have to think those thoughts anymore. 

I was flowing again, both ship and river within and without, body and spirit blended, rising to a feeling of peace.  My heart opened to the Universe once I realized that, without a doubt, I create my feelings, and without a doubt, I can trust the flow of my energy.  So I said, “Horton, let’s find a four-leaf clover.”  And I bent down, scanned the clover for no more than fifteen seconds.  (I had no doubt.)  There it was, staring back at me.  I picked it.  The little lost girl inside me wanted to cry at my manifestation, but I said, “No child!  Tears are not for this.  This is a moment of Joy!  We can be joyful right now and always.”  

     Horton walked over to see the clover.  In that moment, a Great Horned Owl called out from the woods beyond the park. 

     The God in the owl spoke to the God in me.

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excerpted from my book Memoir of an Ordinary Mystic, forthcoming in 2012.