labels & roles, patterns & habits

For most the holidays and year end are when matters come to a head - for better or worse. As we rush, rush, rush then crash headlong into our future.

Instead of waiting for a special occasion, would it not feel better to acknowledge the specialness of every moment - timely or not?

Rather than giving the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time - how to do the opposite with attention and effort?

Giving is a disciplined art that needs years of practice and observation to be done appropriately.

The poet David Whyte writes of Giving - "The full genius of gift giving is found when we give what a person does not fully feel they deserve, but that does not overstretch the point, it is the appropriate but surprising next step in their lives. It disarms and moves and empowers all at once while gratifying the one who gives beyond most everyday satisfactions."

Hopefully our state of attention and affairs allows us to be creative and contemplative enough to do so.

If we missed it this year then there is hope in the New Year!

legacy & eulogy

“It was as if he was born to teach the age a lesson in humility, in humour and above all else in patience. . . .Today, finally, he blinked.  And some of us cry, knowing our eyes were opened to so much because of him.” ~ Bono’s statement on Nelson Mandela’s legacy

What makes a legend? What myths are woven to create and sustain the reality or illusion?

When does mere mortal become memorialized icon? 

Why would a human being choose to be a hero? Is it heroism or mere heroics that go down in the annals of history?

No mortal is born perfect. For a hero to arise from the masses what odds are overcome? For the hero to remain forever so what sacrifices are made ‘for the good of all’?

For a tale to captivate folks, for the birth or rise of a star, for the populace to believe a story – what does it take?

Today - as millions of people around the world reflect on the life and achievements of an extraordinary human being - it is timely to ask all these. 

Our lives have accelerated and intensified - grown more complex and convoluted. Technological advances

have birthed marvels and mysteries. We hurry to step up, keep on, and stay relevant or lose our place, get confused and retreat. 

As heroes of our past are passing away - who is replacing them and how are they chosen?

Whose life and achievement stand out as extraordinary to me today?

Do I consider myself in these reflections? 

If so - why? Otherwise -  why not? 

thrive don’t strive

success vs. struggle – this is what it means to thrive instead of strive

Empire State Building dressed in colors of the Philippine Flag
-  in commemoration of those affected by Typhoon Haiyan

those driven by ambition believe that their effort and willpower will lead them to desired results and achievements

those with a longing are drawn and driven by demands beyond ourselves, something larger than us or any ambitious identity – a slave driving master and commander of unreasonable intent

in longing desires and demands vie constantly for attention – spinning us in a magnetic and gravitational vortex - for those who learn we are revitalized, recharged, rejuvenated – vibrant and vibrating with possibility and potential

ambition fueled by speed barely scratches the surface – it relies on results and recognition as advent to arrival or attainment

identity is shaped by longing and desire indistinct in inner and outer drives – it completes us seamlessly – longing drives all creative art, explorative work, evocative ideas

our life’s journey rather than paved in stepping stones is a turbulent gush on which we are meant to flow – self discovery and realization are manifested and magnified each moment as we thrive in the direction we are headed

the striving that comes with ambition clouds our clarity and leads to confusion

longing gives birth to growth, evolution, transmutation – and so we thrive

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to us all! 

to live and die in the Anthropocene

“This term, taken up by geologists, pondered by intellectuals and discussed in the pages of publications such as The Economist and the The New York Times, represents the idea that we have entered a new epoch in Earth’s geological history, one characterized by the arrival of the human species as a geological force." - Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene by ROY SCRANTON

There’s a word for this new era we live in - the Anthropocene. 

The first snow of the year fell here in New York City today. While half way around the world the Philippines was just flattened by what we are calling the worst storm known to man - two categories higher in intensity than Sandy and a hundred miles swifter.

Family and friends are safe and sound - not so with my hometown, Bacolod City. Though by no means the hardest hit neither was it spared. It has been declared a disaster area, with 5,000 homes wiped out all along the coast. 

Too many areas remain isolated - even choppers cannot make it to most of the hardest hit places. Too many villages wiped out. People there walk endlessly - in search of food and drinking water - intent to keep dry and bury their dead. 

Now the vigil begins. Challenging to send love and support from so far away and not cave with the rising death counts and horror stories of chaos and corruption. 

Because we live here and love the place we are the most invested.

The challenge the Anthropocene poses is a challenge not just to national security, food and energy markets - or even to our “way of life” - though these challenges are all real, profound, and inescapable.

The greatest challenge the Anthropocene poses may be to our own humanity and our own possible extinction. If homo sapiens (or some genetically modified variant) survives the next millennium/s - it will be survival in a world unrecognizably different from the one we inhabit now. 

The Buddhist Christian in me takes comfort that when we die, we are not bound by the same physical laws of time and place anyway.  

bzzz, buzz, buzy bee

This business of the solar eclipse and the Scorpio new moon has wound me up and kept me in a buzz of productivity this past week. The energy is pretty intense and can hardly be contained - switching back and forth between excitement and irritation.

How have you been feeling?

As Daniel Quinn says, "We are all captives of a story." If you are like me - having an active and vivid imagination - this can prove a double edged sword.

Our imaginations can be a valuable tool to drive and direct us in deciding what we eventually believe in. But if we do not train and discipline it early on we fail to harness it to understand and integrate the lessons life offers us through our experiences.

What story do we tell our self?

Do we tell a tale of self reliance and empowerment? Or do we believe in lack and fear?

If we allow ourselves to use our imaginations to engage us in a deeper mystic story - it will show us how to meet challenges - and we can be guided to access one of the great gifts of the Creative Imagination.

Instead of getting lost in mere fantasy and losing touch with our collective reality - we can decipher the symbols and understand a new story - and be guided by our true nature to surpass our challenges and break through to create the necessary changes.

Become complete and live in wholeness.

making whoopee!

October 31 is Samhain or Halloween - also known as All Hallows Eve - the celebration of the end of the year and the beginning of the year's last season. Straddling the line between fall and winter, harvest and follow, life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition.

Pagan or Christian, ancient or modern, young or old - the world over, we all come together to share and celebrate on this special day. As the wind grows chill and the days shorten, we bundle up around our hearths and get warm and cozy.

Preparations for the holidays are picking up all around - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and the New Year.

Apart from the scares and treats set to happen this Halloween, astrologers are saying that everyone should be aware of the increased possibility of challenges and obstacles getting in our way between Oct 21 and Nov 10 - when Mercury goes retrograde for the third and final time in 2013.

Do what you can to minimize ill effects and increase good luck whenever possible. Stay alert and aware - focusing on you and what is going on for and around you.

Be well all!

Conquests and Conquerors

According to historian Edmund Morgan, Columbus was not a scholarly man. Yet he studied these books, made hundreds of marginal notations in them and came out with ideas about the world that were characteristically simple and strong and sometimes wrong, the kind of ideas that the self-educated person gains from independent reading and clings to in defiance of what anyone else tries to tell him. [Morgan, Edmund S. (2009). "Columbus's Confusion About the New World". Smithsonian Magazine.]



Today is Columbus Day – an occasion fraught with as much controversy as the historical icon himself. Columbus may have been a gifted navigator but he was a troubled and troublesome soul. His ambition knew no bounds and he was determined to wipe clean from humanity’s collective memories the fact that the Vikings led by Lief Ericson came three centuries before him.

In his search for wealth and recognition, Columbus’ avarice fueled the birth of torture, tyranny and genocide in all of the Americas - killing off most of the New World before it could even gain a foothold in history. Trade routes were key to success for European kingdoms and their emerging imperialism and expanding economies. Columbus preyed on this need to propel his own ambitions.

On inception Columbus was already soundly beaten by his fellow countryman, Bartholomew Diaz, the Portuguese nobleman and explorer who had rounded the Cape of Good Hope. After begging from court to court across Europe, his failed mission brought him to Portugal’s primary nemesis - Spain and the royal court of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille.

 

In the end Columbus never got what the Spanish crown promised. Columbus the unrelenting social climber and self-promoter stopped at nothing - not even exploitation, slavery, or twisting Biblical scripture to advance his ambitions - in denial until his death that what he had discovered was not Asia but the Americas.

 

Rightly or not history has chosen to remember and revere the man. 

inner peace . . . . one breath at a time . . . .

We meditate to get ourselves and our monkey minds out of the way otherwise our Universe is tainted by all our filters and our clarity is lost in the mire.

The Tao Te Ching says ~
When I let go of what I am,
I become what I might be.
When I let go of what I have,
I receive what I need.

It is the guiding principle in meditation.

I embrace all of me - who I believe I am or I am not. I witness all this. I watch it come and I watch it go. 

I sit at peace with myself - what stirs in me, what surrounds me. Watching and breathing my way along.

Soft, quiet and relaxed. As each breath deepens, the void expands and I sink deeper into it.

Beyond time and space I sit in my own company - my divine original being.

Welcome, Beloved of God.

mothers on my mind

"Mary is a girl gang leader in Heaven. She is fuerte - strong, fierce. We have been given this cleaned-up, Anglicized version of her. But the saints had calluses on their hands." ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

I used to believe my mommy issues were unique unto me. Once I heard others talk of theirs, I realized how myopic and self centered my perspective was.

September is ruled by Virgo - the Goddess of Life. As the month brings in the bounty of the harvest - we each give birth to our unique purpose. What have you given birth to this year? How have you changed since this time last year?

Are you confused with all the change that went on or have you moved through confusion to clarity? Do you belong to yourself? Are you true to yourself and your vision? If so, name yourself to know yourself.

Each sign poses us questions about life. Virgo’s most important question is ‘Do you know who you are?’ 

 

being penny wise but pound foolish

While social media is an inevitable part of most of our lives, many are ill equipped to even make educated distinctions between media formats and socializing. 

To be clear, social media is a way to convey or share information with a wide audience, while social networking is an act of engagement. Social media is the means to deliver a message. Social networking is the two-way communication that builds and develops relationships. 

"Social Media can be called a strategy and an outlet for broadcasting, while Social Networking is a tool and a utility for connecting with others." ~ Lon S. Cohen 

In failing to make these distinctions clear in a recent conversation, I lost a potential client. Having spent too much on a pretty but generically static website they had yet to realize that building one was just the tip of the iceberg.

"The question is not what to do but how to see," wrote Jeanne de Salzmann, the foremost student of Gurdjieff and herself a great leader and teacher. 

New York headquarters, in former C Ledyard Blair carriage house.

"Seeing is the most important thing - the act of seeing.  I need to realize that it is truly an act, an action that brings something entirely new, a new possibility of vision, certainty and knowledge. This possibility appears during the act itself and disappears as soon as the seeing stops. It is only in this act of seeing that I will find a certain freedom." 

Take care you do not commit this fatal mistake of personal investment. Weigh both the long and short term impacts of decisions you are about to make. 

happy to be working hard than hardly working

this week has been an education in how folks operate - their actions and attitudes and how they show up

a wise sage once said, how you do anything is how you do everything - so true and yet all too few are aware how much they are telling us about themselves by what they do or don't do or how much or little of themselves they put into their doing

Camp Rah-Rah is just too happy to assist, contribute and give quality service - collaborating and sharing time, effort, resources and expertise generously and with delight

Camp Stuck-Up on the other hand are no fun - heavy, disgruntled and dragging their sorry asses around - they can't even find it in themselves to step out of the way to allow those who are willing and able to

they don't just not get anything worthwhile done, they impede and complain about those that do - blah blah blah blah blah

ghosts from the past

It never ceases to amaze me who shows up to greet me for my birthday each year. Now that my birth month is done I can officially say my birthday acknowledgements are finally over.

There are my all time predictables - mostly family & long-time friends. Whether they greet me early, on time or belatedly - it's always a warm & fuzzy pleasure to hear from them.

There are the social media savvy - those close & dear sending greetings from casual to sappy - as well as passing acquaintances or former friends & colleagues grown distant - be it thru time or presence or convenience or the lack of either.

Every year though, some long lost one or two pop up to surprise me & spice things up. Memories stir, feelings are rekindled, conversations ignited. Whether we find ourselves back in the groove or orbiting in different spheres - reconnections are made however brief or long lasting.

Intangibles are made tangible as magic manifests once again. Travel the world & the seven seas. Everybody's looking for something. Sweet dreams are made of this.

post birthday update

As the dust of my birthday celebrations soar off like motes in bright light I wake up the day after to realize I'm a year younger than I thought I'd be all year long - ha ha ha. What a hoot!

Around this time last year I was in such a horrid place and space in my life that you'd have to be a special kind of horror for me to wish it upon you - yes, really. It is no wonder that it felt like I lost a whole year of my life coming through it.

Although I could most likely document a perfectly detailed blow by blow - it was not so much each piece but rather how each of the pieces fell into place and played out that led to and accumulated into the whole shebang.

After countless desperate and futile efforts of thrashing around a roller coastering sea of dead ends and disappointments - in all honesty I cannot tell you how it is I finally found which way would lead up and out.

Lucky me I did - out of the blue.  Between one week and the next - all is well in my world and I am well in my world.

Happy Birthday to me!

martyrs, mystics, monsters

"There is no way on the spiritual quest to avoid demonic forces. At the very least the seeker carries them within himself, in the form of his own passions and illusions. At various stages of the path, he must confront and deal with each of them in one way or another." - "Wrathful Deities" by Edwin Bernbaum, Parabola Magazine [Volume 6: Number 4]

The age old debate over fate and free will has wound from discussion to debacle between friend and foe. 

The overly righteous purport them self as idealist, believer or victim transforming mere mortal into maligned martyr.

The masses seek and elect their hero and assign mysterious mystical magic upon often too human a being.  

Such leaps of faith often disappoint at the least and at its worst lead to massive misfortune when monsters of their own creation break their molds.  

Rather must we each embrace our shadow self [the demon within] and acknowledge all of who we truly are.

The path to our enlightenment involves moving past our demons to honor our own divinity.

of fathers, padres & daddy issues

We were once a conquered land, ruled by the church back in the time of the Inquisition. Many old families can trace their ancestry back to their parish priest. Unfortunately, long after we rebelled and won our independence, priests continued fathering illegitimate families.

Today being Father's Day, I wonder how they opt to celebrate the day with their families and in their communities. Overtly or covertly? Acknowledged or denied? Condemned or ignored?

Our great great great [to the nth degree] grandmother was the housekeeper of the old Spanish priest in our province. She bore him many children in his lifetime. And when he passed and was replaced by a new and younger priest, her housekeeping duties extended to bearing him his own set of even more children.

To this day our family back home populate a whole village which has since grown into a town and then expanded into a city. From the mayor to the janitor we can trace bloodlines and lineages to all our relations.

In our tiny agricultural island inter-marrying among cousins is not uncommon. Several families have generations of first cousins marrying first cousins. Originally intended to keep the land undivided
but who knows for what reasons long after.

Family issues tend to be complex to begin with. With relations and histories going on both sides - these are bound to be compounded even more. Today I wonder how many are truly celebrating a happy father's day?

travel tales, trails & travails

Rethinking Evolution: The Ten Precepts of Sacred Space Design - Life can be described as the outward spherical resonance of atomic energy contained by the inward gravitational pressure of cubic space, crystallizing according to a recursive orthogonal harmonic lattice of (I)-damping rings.

Atomic resonance as a framework of life is logical and sensible given that everything is energy and vibrates at a certain frequency. The geometry of life traces back to one universal pattern of harmonic convergence - the circle of life, the sphere of our existence, our cyclical pattern.

The physiology of our body and human system reveals this pattern in microcosm. In macrocosm the pattern is manifest in our planet and solar system. Consciousness is the filter by which awareness and perception focus and function harmonically.

Let us open our minds to an evolutionary theory guided by the physics of harmonics that is flexible enough to adjust to our changing environment.

the push & pull in growth & expansion

In our drive to produce and advance, priorities can grow conflicted. In development the priority is meeting challenges and expectations of growth and expansion. In production the priority is doing the right thing at the right time and doing both well. Implementation and management of development and production greatly influence outcome and advancement.

In essence, whatever "it" is - the goal of development is to get it done [to achieve] and the goal of production is to keep it running [to accomplish]. Often we are torn between future benefits and the current effort required to attain them which may cause us to balk or abandon “it”.

To succeed requires balancing many things. Some things are more obvious - organization, preparation and preparedness. Other elements may be less tangible - clarity, commitment and perseverance. More difficult even is maintaining the balance throughout the whole creative process as each and every one of these demand and assert themselves.

When action outweighs concern [or any issue], then we arrive at the right time to do it. It is a decision we take on our own and commit to in order to make it happen. Such is our life cycle – step by step.

intuition vs. intellect vs. intelligence vs. insight

Intuition is one's instinctive sensitivity and awareness.

Intellect is one's mental capability to understand.

Intelligence is one's ability to decipher, distinguish and differentiate.

Insight is what one comprehends from one's perceptions.

Given these distinctions, it would seem that intelligence and insight serve one more than the other two.

While intuition and intellect are valuable and even admirable attributes - intelligence and insight are how we express and apply what we experience, know and understand.

initiation of fire. . . .right of passage. . . .Happy Easter!

go forth and multiply. . . .rejoice. . . .prosper. . . .live in abundance. . . .

mish mash

being a Pinay, raised by German Benedictine nuns in our tiny provincial town, having moved halfway around the world & proud to be a global citizen - I sure can relate

"I’d like to yogalize my poses, buddhalize my prayers, jesusize my love and hindulize my smile."

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/12/slow-down-my-beaten-heart/

longing for. . . .advent. . . .easter. . . .spring

Let the thrill pass into and thru your DNA as fat rain drops are absorbed into newly turned earth to soak and fertilize it. Prepping for new life to push out into the world and embrace eternity. Lips parted in a smile of complete recognition as the palm of an upraised arm flattens forward, breaching the distance.

comparison and contrast

As I return from sunny tropics to winter wonderland, my reflections swing between the weirdly wired and wiped out state of the disjointed and discombobulated jet lagged body/mind.

When I am there I cannot help but miss what's here. Being here only makes me miss what was over there. Caught between worlds and the options and opportunities in either.

Shape your world through your light.

Illuminate your unique path. Don’t live in the

shadow of others’ judgments. They are not

yours - unless you let them be so.

 

— ASCENSION TESTS by Jim PathFinder Ewing

As the dust of Christmas Past settles and we settle into the New Year, hopefully clarity and balance are restored. With the learning that every thought, person and issue is here for the sake of our freedom, may we come to the true realization of limitless and boundless divine source.