Soulful Quotes for Inspiration #6

So this is surreal… after my post yesterday, this morning I did my little ritual of going to my Zen calendar that sits on the windowsill above the kitchen sink (that my mother-in-law gave to me!), tearing off the page of yesterday’s quote, and taking a moment to read the quote for the new day. Well, wouldn’t you know, here’s the one from today!

“Now today, moment by moment, realize that each person and event that happens is LIFE for you. Life is not somewhere else. See how fully you can accept the life that presents itself to you now.”
- Brenda Shoshanna

I LOVE IT! I think the Universe is telling me/us something!

NOT Now

I have dreams. Big dreams. Before kiddos, I dreamed of creating the Barefoot Barn.  I wanted to build a barn and retreat center in a beautiful spot surrounded by something vast in nature, create a community of like-hearted folks, and offer workshops and retreats to inspire, uplift, and connect us to our own sense of deep delight, each other, and the world. People would come for dance, dreaming, stillness, community, movement, and meditation. Some would live at the Barn and others would come for a visit. We all would be nourished – hearts, bodies, minds, and spirits..and feel encouraged to share it all with the world.

But then I had two tough pregnancies, two c-sections, walked around sleep deprived, traded in my little two-door Honda Civic for a Honda Odyssey, bought nursing bras, replaced our icecube trays with frozen bags of pumped milk, gained some extra “fluff” around my mid section, and now see going to the grocery store as “alone time.” We don’t live in the country. We don’t own a barn or run a retreat center.

And that Barefoot Barn community? Well, our ‘community’ today is not exactly as I had envisioned it! It’s now composed of playdates, quick calls to dear ones, a half-hour chat at a coffee shop with a friend in between seeing clients, online friends, connecting when I can to other healers and practitioners, a women’s group, and pooooosibly seeing my meditation teacher once a month.

A few times a week, Brian and I try to do a little meditation with our kiddos. The other morning it was just my daughter and I.  My son was at preschool and Brian was at work. I brought the meditation bowl to the floor and let C. explore it. She quickly reached for the mallet and began to softly tap the bowl. She looked up at me. Something in her eyes spoke right to the depths of me:

“Mom, I am your ‘now’ right now.”

Of course I’ve known that. The immediacy demanded by a newborn, sick child, an overflowing toilet with too much toilet paper in it from a very thorough bum-wiping toddler, hungry kiddos demanding dinner – keep me focused on the present, keep me IN the present.

But sometimes in the present my dreams can feel so far off. I read other women’s blogs and hear stories of others living their dreams NOW. I can get discouraged. I can feel torn. I can jump to thinking that being right here in the present moment with wiping dirty bums and working toward my dreams of building the Barn and publishing books are mutually exclusive.

But I KNOW that they are not. What I am doing every day – from plunging the toilet to calling clients with little C. on my hip babbling away while A. is in the background saying “Mom! Mom! Who’s on the phone? I wanna talk!” – somehow IS the path to my dreams. Though many days I don’t see the connection.

That’s when I have to trust that small, still voice rising up out of my discouragement: “Just keep breathing. Just keep doing the next right thing.”

This runs counter to what we moms often hear in this culture: “NOW! Make it happen now! Embrace your dreams! Life is too short! Have it all! Go for it! NOW is the time!”

No. NOT now.

It is not the time right now for us to build the Barn. My dreams right now are about more sleep, half an hour at night to write a poem or call a friend, nourishing our bodies with healthy meals, getting to the Y or walking with a friend. Sometimes that feels like I am giving up, like I’m not actively following my dreams. Sometimes this “being so present in the present” chews me up and spits me back out – exhausted with little energy to even consider dreaming bigger beyond my bed. And I am left wondering when the last time it was that I actually did my hair, had on a shirt that didn’t have baby snot on it, or talked to someone about my hopes, dreams and aspirations. I can feel scattered and unfocused…and waaaay off my path of creating THE Barefoot Barn.

But the other day when C.’s old-soul eyes spoke to me, I knew that somehow just being present in THIS “now” was a pebble on that path to whatever the future may hold – Barn or no Barn.

The “next right thing” in this moment – this now – is sooooooo about letting go of our culture’s way of planning, plotting, doing, reaching for. And more about embracing the mystical way dreams can land right on my doorstep when the time is right…while wiping those little bums, resting my bones, strengthening my body from my c-sections, and jotting down a line of poetry or two before drifting off to sleep.

One evening a few years ago when I was feeling pretty depressed about not working toward building an actual Barn, Brian said to me, “Lis, the Barefoot Barn is wherever WE are.” He’s right. It’s right here in our “now,” though it looks completely different than I had imagined a long time ago!

I wrote about how my 2011 was going to be about softening, strengthening and forgiving. I’m softening my grip on my “future” dreams, strengthening my ability to discover the essence of the Barefoot Barn in my everyday, and forgiving myself for not making it all happen right now.

Soulful Quotes for Inspiration #5

On my little daily Zen calendar…

“In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don’t try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.”
Tao Te Ching

Tips for Everyday Mindfulness #5: How fear dissolves

Last night I had this strange dream. Someone I am close to (not someone I know in my waking life) and I were in prison. Some other inmates were planning to gang up on us and things were about to get ugly. I’ll save you the details, but as things were heating up and I was getting scared, I thought “Lisa, just walk away.”

In the dream, I realized that I didn’t have to engage the gang of inmates, try to muster up brute force, develop a quick plan to high-tail it out of there, or try to talk my way out of it. I could just walk away.

I took my loved one’s hand and said, “Let’s just go.”

Though I was trembling inside, there was a “sureness” deep in me: this is what we had to do…no matter the outcome. Not one of the inmates tried to stop us. Not one snarled at us, jumped at us, or tried to hurt us as we had feared earlier.

Instead, as we began to walk away, one by one each inmate turned into a stone-like structure and began to crumble, falling to pieces, turning into a heap of ash.

Now in that half-awake half-asleep state, the thought popped into my head, “What if this is how it is with anything that keeps us imprisoned? Any fear or habitual way of thinking loses its power and its grip on us once we just decide to stop feeding it…and walk away.”

Instead of mustering up brute strength, developing an intricate plan of attack (or way of trying to keep the fear at bay), or talking ad nausium about it…just get up and walk away. Stop trying to do anything about them and just walk away.

This is similar to what we do in meditation – observing our thoughts (along with sensations and emotions)…seeing them as passing clouds or like leaves floating down a river without engaging them, clinging to them, or trying to stop them. Our fears begin to have less of a grip on us. With no power, they just dissolve.

When I told Brian about this dream, he said this reminded him of a quote from the book, Dune, by Frank Herbert, “I will face my fear. I will allow it to pass over me and through me. And when it is gone I will turn the inner eye to see it’s path. And where it is gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Soulful Quotes for Inspiration #4

Here are two beautiful quotes that I hope resonate within your own hearts. At the beginning of this new year, I find myself moving more and more into the gentleness and passion and vulnerability and luminous wisdom of the heart. I hope you join in!

How can you ever hope to know the Beloved without becoming in every cell the Lover?
- Rumi

***************************

Awake awhile.
It does not have to be forever.
Right now. One step upon the Sky’s soft skirt would be enough.
Awake awhile.
Just one True moment of Love will last for days.
Rest all your elaborate plans and tactics for knowing Him,
For they are all just frozen spring buds
Far, so far from Summer’s Divine Gold.
Awake, my dear.
Be kind to your sleeping heart.
Take it out into the vast fields of Light
And let it breathe.
Say, “Love, give me back my wings.
Lift me, lift me nearer.”
Say to the sun and moon, say to our dear Friend,
I will take you up now, Beloved,
On that wonderful Dance You promised!”

- Hafiz

My three words for 2011: Soften, Strengthen, Forgive

Living with my husband over the years, I have come to see that the ultimate of power and strength comes from gentleness.

It sounds like an oxymoron.  In this culture, we often get messages that tell that “getting ahead” or “being successful” are a result of brute strength, ironclad resolve, major sweat, calculated and manipulative strategizing, and stepping on whoever you need to in order to be on top.  Just check out most reality shows – from the Bachelor to…what’s the one called when Donald Trump, with a crumpled up face, scowls, points his finger, and says “You are fired?”  The kind of power that results from such “work” is motivated by fear, running off the fumes of taunt, stressed out nerves.  Underneath the bravado (fame, fortune)…is still fear.  And anxiety.

Over the years of really getting to know my husband, watching how he works and loves, I have come to see the power of steadfast kindness and gentleness.  Being treated with tender gentleness is like sweet water for parched nerves.  It softens the nerves instead of frying them.  It calms the anxious mind.  Instead of hardening the heart, it breathes a sense of expansiveness it.  Being talked to, looked at, and held with sweet kindness is like having a soft blanket wrapped around you.  A warmth makes its way into your skin, toes, and heart.  It renews hope, fuels passion, and infuses the spirit with an airy lightness yet also a grounded, unshakable strength.  Now what else can do such things?!  THAT is true power!

This is how Brian loves…and lives.  This is what Brian’s love does to me.  In 2011, I’m letting myself soften more and more by the power of gentleness. I’m letting go of some of my Capricorn-got-to-be-in-charge-and-push-the-boulder-up-the-hill way of running our family and creating more room for Brian’s gentle way of loving and living to be the pervasive modus-aperendi of our fam.

My second “word for the year”…strengthen. Strengthen my body. Pregnancy takes a toll on me.  And it takes me pretty much the whole first year of having babe on this earth to really feel like we are in a sweet flowing groove.  So I’m looking forward to getting to the Y and doing some vigorous “moving my body!”  There are other types of “strengthening” that are calling me – something related to having laser-like focus related to what I put my energy into, my confidence in my writing and my work and my parenting…but I am tired tonight!  More to come.

Third word – forgive. I am feeling a movement within me to go through some focused forgiveness meditations.  Maybe this is a result of my meditation on death that I recently did.  I tend to think that I am a person who lets go and is about wanting to dissolve any “issue” that may be between me and another person.  But when I see how often I get triggered, I realize that I still hold on to past crap!  So, in 2011, I’m venturing into the dark corners of my heart and opening up the windows to bring in the light of forgiveness.

Soften, strengthen, and forgive.  And whatever gets set in motion even from just having these words on my heart for 2011 is enough.  Rather than “goals” these are new currents calling me to jump in.