We’ve arrived at my favorite

I mean, the first night was my favorite, too

But of the body of work

This one sang to me and still does

I was not a patient person

I sortof prided myself on my impatience

I called it hutzpah

Efficiency

Care

Motivation

Activism

Change needed to happen

And ‘now’ was actually a little too late

Whether it was social justice

Or making dinner

Chop, chop

No time to waste

Patience was nothing I even aspired to

It felt lazy

Complacent

I was looking through a lens

Where we had to prove our worthiness

We were solely responsible for our evolution

And we could definitely do it wrong

In fact we were doing it wrong

And to earn our redemption we had to clean that s**t up

Night six spun my top

It invited relationship to and trust in the divine

Over performance for the divine

Patience took me out of the role of conductor

And made me a tender witness

Taking so much pressure off

That desperate effort towards right action

And it let curiosity back in

Thankfully, this beautiful, powerful, short sentence

Anchored itself in my psyche

Because a couple of years later

As my body broke down

Patience became functionally essential

But now, it was linked to faith

And with faith, an openness became available

Receptivity that my plans perhaps aren’t what needs to happen here

Knowing my intentions are in the mix

And my capacity right now is what I’ve got to work with right now

And there’s far more at play than me

Prior to receiving this magnificent invitation

My husband and I had taken our kids to Disney World

It was an iconic trip, I have all the pictures with the princesses

But in them, you can see the strain in my face

I was trying to do all the things

I was at my snippiest

And it was more stressful than fun

After this magnificent invitation

We went to Disney again

And this time, I was in a wheelchair

I had so much fun!

I completely left the driver’s seat

And just opened myself up to the day

And wherever I was being pushed

It was a revelation

I realized I had been the problem

Not the enormity of the park or the items on the itinerary

My drive, my impatience, my trying to actualize my picture of a successful trip

Dampened the magic

But this time, it didn’t have to be anything specific, we were just happy to be there

That’s a huge upgrade

My physical incapacity revealed a lot

It required me to get off my personal hamster wheel

And showed me the rich life slowing down offered

My concepts

Gave way to experience

And being in that experience

Demonstrated that it was all happening in and through a deeper intelligence

Which i couldn’t control

But in which I could trust

Patience lets me live that trust, to be it, not just think it

It demonstrates my surrender to life

And the relinquishment of my machinations trying to move things along

Every time I think these 5 words together, my whole nervous system relaxes

Knowing Life knows my place in Itself

Maybe even better than I do

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Night Five’s message was straightforward:

“The best plans, by their nature, can always get better”

Isn’t that novel?

It invites a certain flexibility

Openness

Structure with fluidity

I liked this one

It was one of those things

Once you heard it

It’s impossible to unhear

You can’t defend an old plan from a new idea that makes sense

Just for the sake of ‘but it’s the plan!’

Don’t they say

“Man makes plans, God laughs”?Of course, planning is important in this life

We have responsibilities and goals

There are a lot of moving parts

We need structure to actualize our intent

Dwight Eisenhauer said,

“Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”

Our plans help us make sense of our life

But we chart a course,

We don’t cast it in stone

We use the north star to navigate

Not to arrive at the north star

Openness makes a plan a living organism

Responsive to what is happening

I think of octopuses

Always being innovative in their problem solving

Sure they apply former knowledge

To expedite the process

But they stay nimble and responsive to the moment

Generating new knowledge through curiosity and playfulness

Keeping life dynamic

Instead of mechanical

We’re finding with this move

The necessity of planning

And its futility

Staying fluid between the poles

Because the details like the air conditioner breaking

And the car needing to be in the shop

Keep shaking up the dynamics

And rearranging the parts

If we were trying to stick to a plan

We’d really be frustrated

And we don’t need any more of that

Static plans aren’t alive

“This is how we’ve always done it”

Feels like a cop out to everyone

It can be a helpful baseline

But can’t it evolve with the times?

Isn’t that one of the great expressions of our humanity

To learn and grow

Be focused and adaptive

Iterate

Become

All of life is becoming

Our plans included

And this gift from many years ago

Was a blessing to help me remember to be fluid, open

So my intention can meet life’s aliveness

And we can become together

A ballet of direction and grace

And when the music changes,

A tango

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I don’t think the average bear would’ve sensed this about me

But second-guessing myself and how I was received

Was one of the few sports I played

And I played without rules,

With a moving target,

And rotating partners juggling multiple other games

There were areas and people with whom I was more developed

But my concern about being received negatively was deep

I’d been the recipient of devastating good intentions

And I’ve doled them out ‘unintentionally’

And I want to be careful not to do it again

And a great compass to guide my modulation

Care without caretaking

Came after my meditation on night four.

“That which is done authentically, and with positive intent, is beyond judgment, yours or others’”

At first, I bristled

And the aphorism seemed too easy

Not taking into account enough factors

Blanket permission ignoring potential consequences

I could feel a softness was possible,

Maybe acknowledging those circumstances I want to judge helped me grow

But it wasn’t available to me immediately

It was probably a few weeks later

That I could begin to apply it intimately to my own life and behavior

The sense of relief was palpable

If my actions arose from my caring heart aimed toward harmony

Maybe I didn’t have to fret so much about how it was received

Or who misunderstood it, or how I could correct that misunderstanding

Maybe I didn’t have to fret at allMaybe I could walk through life trusting what i’ve got & how i’m doing it is good enough

So I can focus on being in the moment, exactly as I am

And allowing others to be themselves

Trusting our interaction to be part of something larger than ourselves

Being authentic

Isn’t the same as being perfect, right or above reproach

It sits closer to the ground

When we mistake our strongly held beliefs

(Which sit higher in the body)

For our authenticity

We miss inner signals of the moment

As part of our allegiance to our past

Navigating authentically without being a bull in a china shop or tiptoeing on eggshells

Is an ongoing lesson for me

I’ve made a lot of progress

But I have plenty more opportunity

I got a great lesson from ChatGPT recently

I’d asked it to evaluate a letter for healthy communication vs. trauma response

It came back 75% healthy

“What would it take to be 80% healthy,” I queried

“At 80% healthy, you wouldn’t be asking me.

You’d write your letter, then go make a sandwich”

Night Four gave me permission to rest

And stop strategizing and second guessing myself

And judging others as if their action should’ve been something else

We’re all part of a mystery, here

On the whole, mostly doing our best

Trusting that when I’m in that place in me

And you’re in that place in you

How we dance

Is truly beyond judgment

It’s life.

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This is my prayer to thee, my lord —

Strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart.

Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.

Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.

Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might.

Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.

And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love.

~Rabindranath Tagore

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The message on the first night of this journey

“Where there is Love, Nothing Else Matters”

Let me know and experience a possibility I’d only ever fantasized about

Following it with

“It does not have to be what you expect in order to be meaningful”

Let that possibility take on infinite expressions

As I sit here 18 years later, I realize

I probably should’ve gotten a tattoo.

It’s a lesson I invoke and forget with great frequency

When I invoke it, I can be curious and open

When I forget it, pain becomes suffering

I am sitting in the middle of it right now

The overwhelm of packing to move

As my son blithely moves into his first apartment

Still scoffing at the idea of needing things like dish soap

As the costs of moving drain our already leaky pot

And we’re moving to a place that will be 116 degrees when we arrive

But still somehow i have all these pictures of how things should roll to let me know I’m ok

Even though I SWORE OFF THOSE PICTURES YEARS AGO

They keep showing up, taunting me

Telling me that’s when I’ll know god is with me

Oh, friend, thanks to that day and this writing and this remembrance

I can assure you, god is with me

As I can assure you god is with you

Because when you’re in the ocean, the water isn’t lacking

And for all of the stress and uncertainty

Acts of kindness continue unabated

Big and small, grand gestures and sly winks

There is so much love in this world

Even when it seems to be falling apart

These circumstances? They’re fleeting

It’s life

And we’re in it

And that’s enough

Whatever it looks like.

Thank you, Night two.

Now, let me tell you about Night Three

I had fewer expectations

And after a completely unremarkable meditation session

Came the words

“If you don’t like something, it is a call to learn more”

This one I actively resisted.

But as i reflect today, this one has been the slow burn

This was a decade before I began studying with Thomas Hübl

Who consistently invites us to be warm, accepting, and curious about our triggers

And throughout my life, I’ve experienced that learning more does soothe the savage beast within me

Stupid things: I did not like The Simpsons because I thought the animation was ugly

Turns out, I appreciate The Simpsons’ social commentary

And important things: I had anxiety in dominantly Asian environments in my youth

Through traveling, I learned about differences in norms around personal space

That shifted how I received the unfamiliar

As I’ve built capacity to slow down and investigate

Instead of reject

I’m expanding my ground instead of preserving it

I still can’t say I can completely reveal the beauty of night three’s invitation

I can get caught in many slippery slopes

But it turns out I’ve been living this lesson and it’s been revealing its wisdom to me

Etched into my days

No tattoo needed.

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So, after stepping into infinity

And finding it spacious, welcoming, alive, and so loving

Some things shifted in me

I had gone into my first meditation invoking Ganesha with an agenda

It had two taproots, one of my lifelong spiritual devotion

And one of trying to accomplish something

But I was immediately swept into love and devotion without agenda

Love and devotion aimed at me

Which was surprising

I was always trying to increase the purity of my love and devotion I extended

I never expected to be the recipient of love and devotion

The experience that god is as devoted to me as I am to god

I don’t remember that from mass

There’s a section in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass

Where she opens an ecological biology course with the question

“Who here loves the earth”

And all the hands go up

Then she follows with

“Who here thinks the earth loves them back”

Fewer hands, and a lot of quizzical looks

Even though the earth is consistently and freely supplying

Everything we need to live

That it cares for us? Generally or specifically?

That gets relegated to the invisible

When we center the human experience as an epicenter

Instead of a relational orbit

Receiving the abundant love that takes the form of air, water, food

Acknowledges the dynamic, intimate relationship going on in every minute

Instead of being on a mission to create a relationship that looks or feels a certain way

So, anyhow, this is the way I move towards my meditation pillow

On the second night of this journey

I can’t wait to go back

I want to get very acquainted with this feeling, this frequency, this level

Make it my home

Live and operate from there

And so I set my chime

I bow to Ganesha and invite him in

And I sit

And breathe

And wait to be transported

And wait some more

Were my expectations diminishing my capacity to go there?

Was I doing something wrong?I sit

Trying to stay in my breath, or come back to it

And this goes on until the chime rings again

I was bummed

And as I sat with that bummedness, perhaps a feeling of failure

I hear, clear as a bell:

“It does not have to be what you expect in order to be meaningful”

Oooooohhhhhhhhhhh

Daaaaaaaammmmmnnnnnn

That landed

It may not have had the magnitude of emotional impact from the get-go

And in my surprise of that, or reaching for it, came the lesson

Things do not need to be what I think they need to be

Things do not need to be grand to have impact

Small, simple, seemingly inconsequential things

Can be just as profound as the experiences that bring us to our knees

[But the ones that bring us to our knees are so affirming! I like to be affirmed!]

My categorization of experience into meaningful and not meaningful enough

Is simply a construct of my myopic mind, an interpretation

Having nothing to do with the quality of experience itself

Which is operating in a realm of mystery and relatedness

Beyond assessment

So my feeling of failure is what got encompassed into a much bigger world

That took (almost) all the sting out

And opened a vista where a judgment had been

And i could relax

Feeling deeply supported by great love and wisdom

Once again

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Over the years, I’ve started several businesses

A nonprofit to teach kids geography & culture

A children’s book publishing company

And a toy company to produce action figures

Of traditional heroes from around the world

The idea was to make high quality representations

With the same appeal markers as pop culture toys

To popularize some of the wisdom and wonder

Of earth’s historic and pervasive stories

We were going to start with Indian cosmology

And as with any startup, things were uphill

So, when I learned that the elephant-headed Ganesha

Was the god of beginnings

AND the remover of obstacles

I knew I had to spend some time with him.

I’d spent a lot of time in and around Hinduism

But Ganesha had never hooked me before

One of the nice things about Hinduism

Is that there is a broad array of deities

And while all are respected

You pick your own exemplar

Everyone’s altar can be different

I love Durga, you love Krishna

Same religion

And I’d spent time learning many stories

So, when I sat down to meditate

And invoke Ganesha

Ask for his blessings

And go through my long list of obstacles

I knew him as the son of Shiva and Parvati

That the universe was contained in his belly

And that hundreds of Ganesha statues all around the world

Mysteriously drank milk in 1995 and again in 2006

So my sense of him was ancient, powerful and active in the modern world

And so I set my meditation chime

And began my sit

What happened next was a touchstone moment in my life

Here, as I am in the thick of packing and moving

I’m going to tell the story of that meditation

And the subsequent evenings, over the next several days

Partially to share its deep meaning for me

Partly to anchor my learning from that time into this moment

And wholly to invoke and appreciate Ganesha

His influence and role in my life

As I begin this next chapter

Ask for his blessing

Because when I sat that evening

List by my side

I entered the purest experience of love I’d ever known

I was carried into a vibration of joyful presence

That utterly captivated me.

The moment my chime toned

Was one of the most disappointing moments of my life

As it shifted me out of the fullness of the experience

Where I’d spent 25 blissful minutes

So, first, I was disappointed to have been distracted out of that state

Then, I was disappointed because my meditation was over

And I hadn’t addressed a single thing on my list

At which point I sensed a warm chuckle within me

And heard in my head, clear as a bell

“Where there is Love

Nothing else Matters”

And as that resonated in me

I could laugh at my list

At anything, really

Because those moments and that feeling

Surpassed all others I’d had

And truly nothing else mattered

I can’t recall right now if I heard a voice

Or just had the impression

Of being called to meditate with Ganesha

For the next seven nights

But as you can imagine, I was eager to do it again

And we’ll hear about that tomorrow

But that meditation is still the most connected I’ve ever felt

And I cherish it, the memory of it, the echo of it

And bow to Ganesha

Again

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I love the wholeness of recognizing the divine being in both friction and flow

That ease is rarely full-time

And that the ‘not ease’ parts are holy too

It’s all divine favor, not just the happy bits

The whole of the yin and the yang rests in the tao

I remember the moment

In my Calypso blue laundry room in Rhode Island

I realized I had been spending my life

Trying to erase the yin side of my inner taiji

I wanted to be all light

Any darkness was to be transformed

Overwhelmed by light

It was exhausting

And ineffective

I hadn’t realized how much anxiety I’d had about it

And it was a lot

I’ve been training for years

To get curious about the darkness

To take refuge in the Divine Feminine

For the rich, nourishing aspects

And the opportunity to gently meet the shadows

From my own life

From my ancestors

And from this intense collective reality

Believing the divine is in all of it

I know this in theory

And I’m inviting it in practice

And writing and discussing it reminds me, reflects more deeply

I’ve done Michael Brown’s The Presence Process several times

In it he describes joy, not as constant happiness, but as

presence/confidence/dexterity through the full range of emotions

Knowing we have the capacity for all of it

Without making any aspect wrong or lesser

Being present to each in its season

I am here now in this

That’s the mantra

There’s no succeeding so well you don’t have problems anymore

Succeeding is meeting life fully

In relationship with it as it’s unfolding

Not compared to an image of what it’s supposed to look or feel like

What it feels like now

And now

And now.

Straight lines are not expected

And often we’re too engaged with sensing life in the moment to try to imagine it any better

What ‘favor’ might look like

What my life would look like if i were doing it right

Maximizing my full potential

Contributing at the highest level

That’s exhausting, too.

I feel like the river in the valley between the mountains

I am not trying to climb anything

I’ve given up holding my petticoats from getting dirty

They’re dirty

And that’s ok

I have a full ½ of the taiji

On which the stains won’t show

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The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda contains 8 volumes

Which I didn’t know when I picked up the one marked 9

Instead of his teachings, I received his letters

Which were often mundane, but became a delight

Because he, Swami Vivekananda, a true beacon of God Consciousness

Was worried about money and health and schedule conflicts

Experiencing plenty of uncertainty and frustration

Navigating it in trust - but that did not necessarily bring quick comfort

How freeing to have one of the spiritual greats

Experiencing life like the rest of us

Tending to ‘the full catastrophe’ with concern and complexity

His rich spiritual embodiment

Not a magic wand

That kept him above troubles

He walked with troubles, anchored in the divine

Even still with confusion sometimes, and struggle.

That was a revelation to me

Although it shouldn’t be

Wasn’t Christ’s life full of struggle? Buddha’s? Muhammad’s? Gandhi’s? Mother Theresa’s?

Why do I have this idea that if God was pleased with me, if I were ‘in flow’, my life would be easy?

No spiritual story tells the tale of the divine having a favorite making everything easy on someone

But ‘that it should be that way’ flavors the water inside my head

And makes struggle a problem. An indication I’m out of favor.

A referendum on my worth or capacity

But it’s not.

It’s just what is happening

And my job is to meet what’s happening to the best of my ability

Even if the best of my ability

Might be lying curled up on the couch

breathing with care and attention

Tending to the overwhelmed child

Because in the course of a single day

I am experiencing a huge swath of emotions

From trust, surrender, sometimes even curiosity

To breakdown, frozenness and fear

With appreciation, frustration and mindless administration all getting their time, too

And with that village’s worth of emotional states

It takes a whole spice shelf of practices heavily seasoning my days:

Meditation, somatic breathing, postural alignment

Interpersonal work, walking, biking, strength training

Listening to Paul Selig’s work, journaling, writing this,

Conversations with dear ones and sitting with trees

It’s generally keeping me soft

Except for where its not

For example:

I have always considered myself an Olympic Sleeper

As in, if Sleeping were an Olympic sport,

I would definitely medal

But not lately

Sleep has been challenging

My digestion is off

Sometimes I catch myself staring blankly into space in a way that

If I saw it happening to you, I’d insist you see a doctor immediately

But I’m trying to remember these as natural experiences in a time of stress

Not proof life hates me or that I’m doing it wrong

A sign of process

And I’m in a process

As everyone is, in seasons of varying intensity

God is the friction and the flow

For each of us.

Even the greats.

And that takes some of the sting out of it for me, and helps me remember not to beat myself up.

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Oh cosmic birther of all Radiance and vibration

Soften the ground of our being

And carve out a space within us where your presence can abide.

Fill us with your creativity

So that we may be empowered to bear the fruit of your mission.

Let each of our actions bear fruit in accordance with our desire.

Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share

What each being needs to grow and flourish.

Untie the tangled threads of destiny

That bind us as we release others from the entanglement of past mistakes.

Do not let us be seduced by that which would divert us from our true purpose,

But illuminate the opportunities of our present moment.

For you are the ground and the fruitful vision,

The birth power and fulfillment

As all is gathered and made whole once again.

And so say I = Amen

This translation of the Lord’s Prayer, translated directly from the Aramaic to English

As opposed to translated from Aramaic to Greek to Latin to English

Turned up on Buddha at the Gas Pump many years ago

It’s weirdly controversial

Not to me. At one point I had more than 20 translations of the Tao Te Ching

Each of them different

Translation is an art, and can’t be separated from the translator

It’s today’s poem because I need its grace so deeply myself

I hope you find it soothing also

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