Wandering with Intention

I wander along the pathway my thoughts have created.  I do not know or desire to, where they may lead me.  I'm content just to meander along them sifting through memories and thoughts once held important, dreams laid by the wayside and then there are the hopes.  Hopes and dreams can seem funny things sometimes.  We place much more emphasis on them than we likely should and often we do so from a seeming place of lack.  We aspire to be this or that not realizing we already are that and more.  The realization is funny even though it makes me wince a little.  The pain of this discovery always seems to feel a bit too fresh.  Years of searching, seeking understanding unknowingly and encountering one demolition after another of my poor tattered ego.  Just before I become too distraught with these memories and thoughts I realize what a beautiful thing the destruction of one's ego can be.  If off kilter in even the slightest degree one unknowingly wreaks havoc upon one's own life for reasons we have no conscious cognition of.  Decisions are often made to fend of spectres real or imagined that can truly confound all manner of happiness, logic and reason for a time.  Or, so it may seem.  What if nothing unintended ever really occurred in life? What if every single thing under the sun we encounter and experience was exactly what we intended to experience?

So many questions have I as I continue to wander through the days, years and moments of my life.  Expectations, I've learned have been an utterly ridiculous part of my experience and I laugh as I recall how I've created my own misery with them.  I decide to let go and continue to stay with this curious sway and weight the energy carries as the wandering through my own history continues.  I recall with a smile all scenes and actors even one's I cringed at finding in my play so long ago in my complete lack of understanding.  I realized some time ago that it was I that cast every actor in the scenes of the plays of  my life that I actually scripted, directed and produced.  Again, a tinge of that wincing feeling and soon I notice it's replaced by a permeating peaceful feeling.  All those anxious moments worried I was not living up to the expectations of another, all those times I judged myself by someone else's misplaced words and deeds or how I held those same thoughts towards others truly to no avail...It's so funny to me now.

Although the thoughts now seem to be traveling at lightning speed, behind the smoky anxiety looms a deeper peace and I know it's true source.  No matter what I have seen or experienced, no matter how many missteps that I have seemingly taken, no matter how much I never knew about love I find that am surrounded by it despite my best unconscious efforts to miss it in action.  Love is the very air we breathe and yet we search for it high and low in things, people and places.  We hold it within us, love surrounds us and when we get to the heart of the truth beneath all the layers of lack and loss, we find it waiting right exactly where we left it so very long ago.  A sigh leaves me as I smile at these thoughts and the frenetic manner in which they became a part of my consciousness.  No longer fearful I walk the path now in earnest.  No longer questioning now as I take each step.  No longer worried now I won't find my own light.  I realize it has guided me in every breath and step for the entirety of my life.  In a sense, in a very long and peaceful sense, I've come home.  Blessings of great love and wondrous mental meanderings on your journey dearest souls.  Be brave and courageous as you make your way through your lives.  Don't take too much too seriously and love yourselves and everyone and thing with every step and breath that you take.  You'll make your way and be so glad of it.  You can do it.  What are you waiting for?  Dream, live, laugh and love.  That's what you were born to do.

(c) 2013 Jaie Hart (photo from recruiterpoet.com)

General Gratitude

I left the windows open a bit too long.  Late winter days in California can be quite temperate but the moment the sun slips below the horizon, it’s very chilly.  I could get up and close the windows but for some reason, I like the chill in this moment.  Days on end of work, problem solving and then peace.  Life seems a bit, at the moment like the old shampoo commercials stuck on repeat – you know, rinse, wash and repeat.  It’s so quiet in my little neck of the world in this moment.  My sanctuary alive with evidence of happy children, sigh.  The birds are settling in for the night as my dishwasher hums and the washing machine spins.  I’m having quite a frenetically peaceful moment.  In fact, it feels as if I am about to burst out in laughter.  I recall a time earlier in life, sitting on the floor of my room in my dad’s house, staring out the window, begging for God to scroll the clock forward so summer would get here.  Unfortunately, some prayers are best not thought of.  I look back and see near 30 years have gone by since that moment.  I don’t have much of the things I think I wanted all of those years ago as a very young woman.  I can’t say I ever had them.  But I’ve got something else.  I have love and it does not come from anyone or anything.  I found it deep inside the core of me when all the rest of my cares were figuratively washed away.

 Now, for a fraction of a moment, my mind opens up to the pathways ahead of me.  I don’t know what the next part of life might bring me.  Will it be my dreams?  Will it be some more of the same?  Will it be more than I had ever hoped for?  I don’t know, I think as I sit here silently willing my fingers to keep tapping out these thoughts.  I do know that I will be content whether or not silly wishes and dreams have come true.  I can smile for all I’ve been permitted to accomplish – I say it that way because I know I’ve been helped along my path with every breath and step.  I own nothing of my own merits other than the love I have inside.  Hmmm, but even that was given to me before I arrived.  A precious gift, a spark of divine inspired love I shall carry with me until my time of departure, whenever that is.  Would I ever come back?  If given the choice, and knowing what I know now, I’m not sure.  Additional “knowing” may change my mind at some point in man’s time or even beyond it.  For now, I’m feeling so completely content.  Movement out of the corner of my eye catches my attention as I snap back to be present.  Peacefully, I’m gazing at soon to bloom Iris stems bending in a breeze as the last of the sun’s fiery rays etch them in flaming gold light.  I smile realizing what a beautiful place this is and for however long my stay shall be, I will remember this moment and all of those like it.  Those spacey distant feeling moments where nothing and everything seems thought of at once and no thought singled out can take hold in any feelings.  Well, other than general gratitude anyway.

I ramble tonight.  I do that sometimes.  ~Blessings for your journey.

(c) Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find)

Finding Your Light

Certainly in life, there will never be any shortage of voices telling you who you are and what you should do.  All must eventually pale in comparison to who you know you truly are and what you feel at the core of your soul that you must do for you.  Tread the path with a light heart that there is no shortage of fingers pointing in the wrong direction.  Rejoice in the abundance of those who would find and exploit your weakness for in overcoming them these souls have done you a great justice.   Such internal battles serve only to bring your focus to your own light within.  Never fear your own light nor the authentic ability to stand upright within it.  Your authentic actions serve as a beacon to light the path of those lost in darkness and who wish ultimately if even unconsciously to follow until they find their own light.

(c) 2012, Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find).