Morning Thoughts Over Coffee

It seems such a strange time but I suppose everything moves in cycles and circles and those said cycles and circles continue to spin time out of time.  I’ve seen so much in terms of present day experience from cosmic order, to conspiracy theories.  I can’t pretend to know which is the truth, so, to be completely honest, I don’t bother.  It’s not that I don’t care, it is that maybe I care a bit too much.  I can’t worry so much about who did what…cover up…or why because if I carry each thread to it’s nuanced conclusion, I’m still right back where I started and so are all of those that choose that particular path.  It is a path to nowhere and so…and those two little words are so powerful: “And So.”

Regardless of this theory or that disaster, so far, my family is being safe, cautious and just getting on with the days as much as we can.  My heart breaks every time I hear about my fellow human beings suffering and then I pray.  What else can I do that would be more helpful?  Social media is filled with ridiculous judgment and rather than get too upset, I understand what it truly is…fear, fear and, you guessed it, more fear.  There are times in our lives where the prevailing energy of the masses seems to be stemming from the energy of fear.  Try, if you can, not to get caught up in sticky negative fear.  It’s a big old human fly trap, a non-starter perspective that will have you spinning, spooled up and spat out no better than before you started.

The trick in these times is just to breathe,  stay here in the moment, focus on what is directly before you without reaching too far ahead in your thoughts or reaching behind you wishing things had been different.  If wishes made a difference, we’d all be in a different boat I suppose.  But we aren’t.  So, for now, right now, I’m sitting here breathing…grateful for a nice cup of half decaf in my favorite Doctor Who Coffee Mug.  The sun is up and the birds are singing.  I’ve got a delicious desert breeze gently blowing through the open screen door. My part of the world is gently stirring and I know that each human will do the best that they can this day and honestly in many ways, it’s like any other day and any other time in life. It isn't the end of the world.  The sun is up, the skies are there and the grass still sways in a breeze.

Starting a daunting task with fear isn’t the end of the world, it just means you let fear ride along a little bit until you decide to let it go.  And when it goes, you can find and grab hold of gratitude.  It is a saving grace, I assure you.  So many lives are lost day in and day out - some for understandable reasons and many not.  Is that new?  Is that something to be afraid of?  Is that something that would make you revert back to the stature of a cornered cat striking out at anything and everything that comes within reach hissing and claws out?  How does that help at the end of the day?  Who does that truly hurt, if you give it a cold hard look?  Truly it hurts only you and those who love you.  So, relax a bit as much as you can.  Take in a slow and intentional breath. 

Listen, you are precious.  Your every breath and step matters.  Life is hard sometimes but sometimes you have to just get on with it.  Eat a cookie! Paint a picture. Meditate under a tree.  Pray if you want to.  Smile at strangers instead of sitting in judgment of them while making a hundred thousand assumptions about why and how they are out to get you for this reason or that.  Do something helpful for yourself or better yet, others.  You have infinite power to make a difference in this world in the positive but you’ll never do it if fear has settled over your soul and you succumb to it.  We must be vigilant against letting fear settle in over our souls.  See it, acknowledge it – don’t try to change it – but realize what it is and know this – I mean really know this, you can still be the best you despite the fear and worry that this awful permeating energy can bring you.  

Every day, do something kind.  Instead of finding what is wrong with someone today, whoever crosses your path, I challenge you to consider what good you can find in them.  Shift your thinking from fearful judgment to helpful acceptance or aspirational compassion.  Be disciplined about it.  If your mind automatically goes towards negative judgment of others – okay fine – let your mind be but then, add in a complementary thought.  Strive to understand.  Understanding won’t fix what is wrong in the world but it sure does take the personal sting out of an illusory attack!  If you want to take a war-like stance, do it to minimize fear! Hold compassion as the highest ideal today if you want less of a bumpy ride today.  At the end of the day, we are one.  My prayers go out today to all who struggle with fear, anxiety, worry and dis-ease.  I pray the beauty in this world and in her inhabitants shines today brighter than the sun and in the most beautiful  of ways.  Be strong you beautiful souls.  You’ve got this.  You really do.  I’m rooting for you, everyone of you.  Blessings of peace, compassion, health and safety to one and all.

Copyright 2020, Jaie Hart (photo/words)

The Wisdom of the Elements

Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?  I have, some time ago.  Nothing could have prepared me for the absolute breath-taking view.  You don’t realize how very tiny you are until you stand beside it, feel the ancient energy of it and imagine its creation.  I don’t know exactly why, but I was remembering the Grand Canyon in a dream I had a few nights ago.  I didn’t recall it for its aesthetic beauty and grandeur.  I recalled it because of what my mind has been wrestling with forever, it seems.

The steadfast rock and Earth surrounds us, water flows within and around us.  Great rivers erode the rock slowly over time and yet in some place and at some times, the work of the water flowing etches gently and cuts deeply into the Earth.  If you think about it or truly realize it, as stunningly beautiful as the Grand Canyon is – remember, it was created by water flowing over rock and wind whipping through it over time. I think of us, mere mortals, our daily trials and tribulations and even the minor things we tend to get so upset about.  To me, it’s all like water flowing over rocks and wind whipping through.  We may be etched and cut into by the various elements of existence that flow around and through us in our experience but we are no less beautiful in the end than before our lives began.

We do so many things, we strive to achieve this or that, to acquire, to gather and hold things to us and that is a funny thing to me.  Nothing remains forever just as it is.  Life here is forever changing, merging, falling away - blowing away even. We fly, we crash, and we tumble and flow.  Just like the wind, the water, just like the rocks we live upon.  We can stand firm in the fullness of our being and let life flow within and around us.  It doesn’t matter what we do, what we achieve, what we learn or acquire, the part of us that witnesses all of our life-experience, remains the same – unharmed and ever transformed.  We live, we breathe and we die but there is that part of us that remains untouched like the day we were born, pure and pristine.  It doesn’t matter what we go through and grow through because in the end, that pure and pristine part of us lives on.

The point of this is not that you should not acquire, grow or learn as you live and breathe in this life but rather that you should understand what remains and what changes.  In a way, what remains and changes is the same.  That is confusing in a way.  Perhaps it is all about aspects and perspectives of what we choose, how we take in an experience or how it is we might use it?  We ARE.  No matter what we have or don’t, who supports us or won’t, how we live or die – no matter what, we still ARE.  We are made neither greater nor lesser by what we do really.  We still ARE.  If we dress Class Act, or bare cozy and comfy, we still just ARE.  I think that the more I live, the more I understand what nature is trying so hard to teach us.

These observations and thoughts didn’t come to me all at once.   These thoughts didn’t occur to or comfort me as I acquired and gathered, or while I surrendered and lost.  Whether I was climbing ladders, or admitting defeat, I still AM.  There is a part of me that remains pure and pristine no matter what it is I mire myself in.  It seems that what I do, is for my entertainment, because I feel moved to do this or that.  It feels good sometimes to do this and that.  It feels bad sometimes to do this or that.  But when the feelings of whatever it is I am or was engaged in fade, I remain just as whole as I was.  I still AM.

I go back to my memories of the Grand Canyon and take a slow and easy breath in and out. The water is not evil because it cut the walls of the canyon.  The colorful rocks that have withstood the years and seasons are not weak because they stood still.  No matter what the experience, they still ARE and yet they are beautifully transformed in a way by the experience but their essence and their power is not lost or made lesser by interaction with the elements.  When I see the rocks now, I feel gratitude and deep appreciation for their existence.  When I see the rain, water flowing – I feel grateful and a deep affinity for it’s existence.  When the wind blows it carries aspects of rock and water and I’m grateful as the air I breathe carries the pure power of transformation.  When I feel the heat of the sun, I am reminded of the gifts of transformation it too brings.  These things can harm and support me but I am made neither greater nor lesser for my experience of them.

You, in your lives, living day in and day out, working and achieving or learning and growing – you are made no greater or lesser as a result of your experience.  Even though you may be transformed willingly or unwillingly remember that there is an aspect of you that will remain pure and pristine as the day you were born.  Live, laugh, play and love.  Enjoy fully the richness of your experience here.  Appreciate your surroundings, check in now and then to see if you find value in what you are learning. Strive if you feel moved to – to understand all of your amazing and magical teachers in this life.  Everything matters. You too matter.  Never mind how life has shaped you, cut through you or changed you.  Your soul is still beautiful and filled with magic.  You still ARE.  Blessings of great love to you.

Copyright 2020, Jaie Hart (Photo NPS.org)