For just a moment

I drink a drink as my train accelerates.  A lifetime of training has taught me how to hold the drink so it pours slowly into my mouth, yet it is not pouring.  The train is applying a force to the liquid via acceleration.  We reach a cruising speed and the beverage begins to behave.  

Suddenly I am the entire Earth.  Moving constantly around the sun.  The weight of my soul pulling everything towards me.  Every person.  Every plant.  Every one of my beautiful curves and crevices.  Every ocean.  Every teardrop.  I hold them all as I spin and I run with such grace they feel only my strong and powerful arms.  I am the Earth, mother of awe.

Suddenly I am the wind.  My reach is all pervasive.  My delicate hands touch everywhere, everything that I am not expelled out of.  While I have the whole planet to explore, I am not allowed to leave.  One of my hands circles the globe, skimming the surface of the great, starry beyond.  Out here, I am so thin.  I try to reach out, yet I am pulled back from the edge of oblivion by a force I can only explain as beautiful.  The form whose changing figure I cannot stop caressing draws me back.  I am the wind and I am in love with the Earth.  

Suddenly I am again one small human on a packed train.  My physical reach is small and my power is minuscule, but my heart is so very big.  Yet unlike the Earth and the Wind, my reach and my power do not end at the tips of my fingers.  My mind extends the reach of my eyes through time and space to the ends of the universe.  My heart extends the reach of my hands-- to touch, to feel, to empathize, the whole universe is one and this one heart contains in it the whole universe.

But what now?  For suddenly I am one universe.  I am alone in lord knows what sense.  Maybe there are others.  I think I can see them but I am disconnected.  I feel something larger than myself, but I cannot put my finger on it.  Perhaps I am one cell in millions that make up a body of consciousness far greater than my own.

I forget about all these things and remember.  My life is simple.  All I need to do is remember that I can't not feel what I feel.  I can't not do what my spirit draws me to do.  So long as I do that... I think I will be ok.  No.  I know I will be.

Mistakes and life

This morning, I was speaking to a young girl about a supposed mistake she made.  I still don't know whether or not what she did was a mistake, but in the end, it does not matter.  I absentmindedly responded by saying, "good or bad, did you learn anything?  What we take away from what happens in life is all that matters."

I paused after pressing send.

My whole morning, the many interactions I had, the many people I spoke to, all of them were connected for a brief moment and in that instant I knew I had said something important.  So I set aside a note in my phone to write about it.  

Our mistakes, our failures, our pains-- all of them are like the fires of a blacksmith's forge.  The more real the mistake, the more powerful the fire that is put to us.  Some events are like an open candle flame, others a burning forge, and few as hot as the inner belly of a star.  It is a combination of how hot the flames our life puts us in and our skill as blacksmiths and artists of the self that determines whether this heat forges a katana, turns us into a diamond, immolates and illuminates our body and spirit, or simply destroys us.  

So next time you have a bad day or make a bad call, ask yourself: what did I learn?  How will this shape me?  Will it slump me over like a melting statue?  Will it fold my blade into a sharper form?  Will it give me a great story that will spur a laugh with a friend?  Will it light a candle so that I can find my way in the darkness? 

Remember the words of Rumi: 

Fear and hurt are lassoes pulling you through a door.  Lord, lord, you say, weeping.  And green herbs sprout from where those tears fall.

Dream moods

When I dream, my perspectives on the world change.  The same is true with experiences in my waking life, but in dreams, everything is so condensed.  I live whole worlds at a time at night.  Relative to the time we perceive as wakeful humans, I am changed very drastically over the course of a single night.  This same phenomenon happened to me last night.  The strange thing about this one was that I can hardly remember what caused these changes.  I only hold fragments of the portrait, yet the effect of the whole canvas weighs on me like a mountain.  

I remember 3 things from last night.  I remember being at a pool party with my family and taking off my clothes as an act of defiance.  I remember being on a castle cliff side with Sean Bean and him showing me the most beautiful and transforming sunrise I have ever seen.  And lastly I remember becoming lucid and flying out towards the sunset only to notice the tether leading back to my body-- only my body was not back on the cliff with Sean Bean, it was somewhere else.

After the dream, I suddenly feel compelled to take milk and egg out of my diet while eating more fish.  I am compelled to quit smoking.  I am also compelled to watch the sunrise every morning.  I have taken my sunset watching out of my daily routine and my body is missing it.  That is the thing with these changes.  They aren't things I want to change about myself, they are things that want to happen all on their own.  I will be the first to say that I am terrible at forcing changes in my habits but this-- this simply wants to be.  So I think it will if I put my energy in that direction.  

I can't really describe it.  I feel as if something important has happened to me.  Yet it has come in one of the silliest forms imaginable.  I can understand being transformed by one of my more in-depth, complete-world dreams, but this...  I ain't complainin'.  I feel the light of that sunrise bursting forth from my chest and that kind of joy is just too awesome to question.  

Playing by the rules

Most people know me as a good person.  I border neutral to some eyes, but for the most part, seeing and attempting to embody all that is good in the world is one thing that makes me me.  That being said, I have no respect for the rules.  Rules are guidelines, yes, but few laws are absolute in my eye and some even beg to be broken.  In D&D terms, I am Neutral Good bordering Chaotic Good.  I personally think I am more NG since I don't just believe all law is bad.  I am simply neutral about law and thus NG.  

This does get me in a lot of trouble though.  If a law doesn't work, I break it cleanly with an open posture and an honest disposition.  I could spout out examples from my teaching, but today I will share a recent event that bordered the inane.  

I broke into the DeYoung museum.  

I just didn't even realize it was a bad thing to do!  I was going into the Museum cafe for a job interview at the cafe.  It was closed, but employees were skittering about getting coffee in the cafe so I figured I would try to find a way in.  The Japanese garden was closed, but a gate was unlocked, so I snuck in.  There was a little gate leading into the courtyard from the garden, so I snuck in.  There was a door leading into the museum, so I walked in.  About when I was in the cafe, a security guard stopped me and was like, "who the fuck are you?"

I spoke honestly and openly, "I am here for a job interview and was trying to find the person to talk to."

"Yeah, I don't know how the hell you got in here, but the security office is out front and you should go out whatever way you came in and get a badge like everyone else."

The museum is filled to the brim with gossipy ladies.  By the time the place opened and I gained legal entrance, the whole museum was piping about some mysterious kid breaking into the museum and my contact in the cafe knew it was me.  She was PISSED!  

Needless to say, I didn't get the job interview.  

I don't follow unjust rules.  This was not an unjust rule, but it was a rule to keep thiefs away-- I am no thief, so it should be fine.  I will follow chain of command, I will work for the greater good, I will follow rules that work, but if something is broken, I will try to fix it.  I know the rules still apply to me, I am not immune to consequences, but I feel that when someone sees my results and looks back to my actions to find them slightly unlawful in a non-threatening way, I feel that instead of being concerned, they will say instead, "huh..." and think about why they had not thought to do it that way instead.  I feel that the good shines through my unlawful actions and will at least appear harmless, if not actually helpful.

Of course, today was "harmless" as opposed to "helpful."  Helpful might be when I show that writing on desks has practical as well as socioemotional applications so long as you remain considerate to the owners if the desks.  That is a story for another day though.  As is the story of whether or not God will forgive me since I sinned today by breaking and entering.

But of course, maybe I am simply lost: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=g-like&v=5y_KJAg8bHI

"No other thing to be"

I read the most sickening article the other day.  The article's premise was basically "men have to act like heroes because there is no other option."

He went on to say that men have to find their role in something like "handyman" or "father" or "provider" or find something to do to make themselves feel worthwhile because otherwise they are not.  He claims that men cannot imagine simply being loved otherwise.  The worst part was that I was pretty much the only person up in arms about it.  All these people were like, "oh yeah, I totally can see that," or even, "I feel this every day, thank you for putting words to it."

Worth is something that comes from within.  It explodes out of your chest as spirits and rays of sunshine and other people think, "wow, that person is special and I cannot explain why."  No matter your race, gender, genus, or species, animate or inanimate, worth comes from within and needs not external justification.  

I won't say that gender roles and societal influences don't make us want to pull our hair out sometimes.  Eff, I am the last person who would ever say that.  Yet despite all that garbage, our worth and our love come from the self first.  Once we love ourselves and have worth in ourselves, the outside world follows in suit.  We will have mentors along the way to help us find that internal source, but one day we will have to shine forth on our own and be mentors to others as it was when we were first learning.

If we want to see a world without sexism, it starts from a place on the inside-- where we are all equal.  Namaste, my sisters and brothers.

Mother Teresa

She was a smart woman.  One of my favorite quotes from her is this one: "Do not worry about the numbers, help who you can.  Start with those closest to you."

I like this quote because of how it starts.  She, at one point, has struggled with wanting to help everyone and knew she couldn't.  Otherwise, she would not have said it!  So she reminds us, don't worry about the number of people you help or how big you can save the world-- just help people.  Anyone.  Everyone.  Help the person closest to you.  That's right, the one right next to you on the train as you write this.  Everyone.  Just make sure you don't worry.  You have but one life and a finite number of heartbeats-- you don't need to help everyone.  So don't.  Just help those you can.  And it is easiest to start close to your heart.

Tarot cards

Not to toot my own horn, but I am not awful at reading tarot.  In fact, I am a pretty darn good bruja.  However, I get asked by 90% of people, "do you believe in the cards?"

My answer is basically this: human experience is insanely vast.  The amount of information in our lives is so tremendous, that on a completely statistical level any spread of cards will very likely be applicable to your life somehow.  That being said, the terms "freaky" and "spot on" don't really do justice to just how heavy and personal tarot readings can be.  In the face of the unknown without science to explain, people turn to higher powers to explain these connections.  My real answer is that it doesn't matter whether the cards are telling the future, creating the future, randomly lining up with your life, or are simply broad enough to be applicable to any life.  What matters is that you are sitting down and thinking about the forces in your life.  You are thinking about where you are and where you may go-- who you are and who you might yet be.  That is where the power of the cards resides, regardless of how they connect to your life.  You are the powerful one.  Always you.