Winning, Losing, and being Lost in the game

Children go out to play.  They think up elaborate rules and use rocks as currency, sticks as elaborate holy blades.  They travel to the ends of every universe and back to slay foul demons or rescue fair maidens, have wondrous families and petty squabbles.  At the end of their adventures, they are rich with joy and the spoils of imaginary wars.  Yet when the dinner bell rings, they drop their vast wealth and return home, dirty and with only the clothes on their back (or sometimes not).  

Life is much like this.  At the end of the day, we are called home.  All we have gathered is forfeit, yet our hearts are overflowing with experience and growth.  Those are our only true possessions.  

One thing that bothers me is that this is being forgotten.  Nowadays when children play, the stakes have changed.  Sports must be won, yet there is always a loser.  Every experience has a cost, yet there are not enough imaginary stones to buy to buy a full bucket list.  The result is children and adults alike who are losing the ability to get lost in the moment.  I know I did.  When playing sports, I would constantly say I was sorry when I made a mistake, knowing that I was imparting a tax on others and taking away their purpose in playing, victory.  Even when we won, I felt bad that another underdog team was defeated by the mighty and overpowered Fireballs.  What I needed to do was simply enjoy myself and realize that mistakes are only there to teach us.  In order to do so, I needed to unlearn that if I messed up, it was bad.  

Yet that is the inane truth we are all taught.  This world seems so set on that value-- on value itself.  When we err, whether it be in communication or in work or on the field or in our judgements, we must remember that we are all learners and mistakes are part of life.  Otherwise, we begin seeing the emergence of people who lock themselves up in impenetrable towers-- not acting at all out of fear of making mistakes.  I saw this all too much as a teacher: "I'm no good at math, I don't even want to try."  I see this daily: "I am no good with words, that's why I remain quiet."  I cry when I hear this one: "I am just going to get hurt, I don't want to fall in love."  Falling in love is the greatest joy of this world!  Be it with what we do or who we are with, love is the great dinner bell that calls us all home.  Surrender to that love!  Start your own practice!  Travel!  Create your big project!  It doesn't matter how optimally we live and gain or lose and suffer, it is how much we love that matters most as we return home, covered in dirt and laughing as we recount our adventures.

Fall, the season of giving

Last night, I had a dream of another culture, another world maybe.  

In this world, it was autumn.  A celebration unfolded.  On the first day of fall, we all chose a tree to idolize and embody.  We didn't need to have separate trees, but we all chose a tree that we felt a particular connection with.  As the tree gave its leaves and its flowers and its seeds to the Earth, so did we.  Everything excess that we had created in our bountiful spring and fiery summer we shed in time with the leaves on our tree.  We gave to or volunteered out time to charities, we helped finance new Earthen hobbit-like homes or schools, we had bountiful feasts with friends, and we simply recycled our possessions to others.  

Many of the wealthiest individuals chose the great oak in the valley near the graveyard.  Such a choice was an honor and held in great esteem due to the vast gifts it gave to the ground to compost.  A grand giving mimicked by those with the capacity to choose this tree to mimic.  I chose a tree in a neighbor's yard.  It was not big, yet its leaves turned the most miraculous reds and yellows as it shed to reveal its curvy, elegant form that looked like a dancer with arms outstretched.  To honor it, I started a school in a warehouse gifted to me by a wealthy woman.  This school was designed to teach "the old ways."  I can't remember the specifics of this culture, but I recall teaching things like sun meditation and herbalism and yoga.  By the time fall had ended, I had a successor worthy enough and I gave the school to her as my "last leaf."  

At the start of winter, she began charging for lessons and I began working and creating again, already planning-- full of wonder at what I would do next year.  

...

What would our world look like if we did that today?  I'll tell you, there ain't a tree large enough on the planet to embody the belongings of our wealthiest.  Even the fabled tree of mana might not even be comparable.  That aside, if we all adopted this mindset, I guarantee we would see a new world in less than a decade.  I am reminded of the words of my favorite telepathic gorilla again, "Take what you need.  Leave the rest."  If you have no idea who this gorilla is, pick up the book Ishmael immediately.  

Moar Rumi

"Drunkenly asleep, tenderly awake, clouded with grief, laughing like lightning, angry at war, quiet with gratitude, we are nothing; a single brush stroke down.  Why does spirit come into these muddy bodies?  The answer is contained inside.

The breathing of your speech is like the soul entering the body.  You feel the value of making meaningful sounds.  But poetry holds meaning lightly, like a rock in a sling.  We let it fly.  The rest is out of anyone's control.  A buried seed grain secretly becomes an ear of corn.  Bread dissolves in the stomach.  Candlewax turns to light.  A great joy breaks free of the self and joins the moving river of presence.  Read about prophetic states and let your soul grow restless in confinement."

Zeus, this is for you.  Not the Greek god, but a friend.  You know who you are.  I love you, dude.

Words are always a rock in a sling.  How I wish we could instead deliver our communication to each other directly from soul to soul.  Not thrown a vast distance unsure if it is to be caught or if it will inadvertently kill.  Rumi knew this.  His calling as a writer was always shadowed by the knowledge that words are imperfect.  Instead of trying to make perfection out of the imperfect, he named this shadow Shams and let her speak to fill the moment with the void where true communication lives.  

He knew we are but a single brush stroke down in a vast painting laid upon a canvas with the great beyond everywhere outside of our canvas.  "The great reed flute player," as he calls the creator, is just a starving artist in love with his craft as Rumi himself is.  Yet here he is with great music pouring from his heart-- a single brush stroke down in an impossibly complex piece of work hanging on the wall of an impossibly complex universe.  

Seeds turn to corn as miraculously as candle wax turns not light.  Rumi also believed that once we become free of this mortal coil, we will join the world beyond the painting.  We will no longer be a single stroke on a canvas or a single pot carrying water, we will see the painting as a whole or find our pot carrying water has spilled to become one with the whole ocean.

"We sit in this world with our money bags of energy wondering what will give the most return.  We get engrossed with knowledge, accomplishments, business ventures, purposes, and then we move on.  Where we are is melting snow.  You have bits of bird-doubt that will not let you roam free on the sky, but this is how sweet and free of fear I find myself now.  You need not look anymore now.  You have laid down inside me.  You are already helplessly mine.  I could lift you out of time, but not yet.  Stay in exile a little while longer.  Let the eventual joy of coming home increase."

An echo

"I don't know what you did to me, but you changed me."  

Her words stopped me.  In that moment, I felt echoes of memories of my whole life repeating as clearly as if her words had struck a giant bell to bring them back to life.  The echoes of these moments flowed over me like a stormy sea and in their mix, I felt overtones leading back to infinite.  I opened my eyes.

I wanted to say something important to her.  I wanted to say, ...  ...  Bah.  It doesn't matter now.  Be it about pins and needles or eyes being opened or doubts calming.  It doesn't matter now.  The moment is gone.

I was at work and I missed it.  The moment is gone and all I can do is write it here.  I don't know if she will ever find this or even know it is about her, but in writing it I will always know that I did what the lion in my heart commanded.  

While we are on the topic though, as I have grown older this phenomenon has begun happening to me with increasing frequency.  This phenomenon is where words, actions, or moments literally phonate and echo and resonate.  I can feel my whole life and beyond rippling like a giant pool of water-- every new experience, a droplet of water mixing with my own.  If I listen closely enough, I can sense the whole body of water I call my experience and see that everything is connected and simultaneous and real as the single drop touching me in this singular moment.  If I close my eyes, that echolocation of memory can teach me of the earth and air that envelop me on all sides, the water up from where experience comes from, and beyond to the great fire that warms us all.  

To give this sensation a concrete example, I shall use the experience that caused me to write here.  When she said I had changed her and she didn't know how, her words hit me like a gong and I began to see my entire life as a whole.  The frequency of the resonance of her words highlighted single memories at each peak of vibratory pressure.  Memories extending back further than knew I could remember.  Overtones of this frequency highlighted memories I knew were not mine.  Yet all of them were related.  One was a single line from Lady in the Water.  Another a discussion with a lover about The Matrix.  Another from a babysitter I had.  Then came my friend's memories.  Then more of my own I could not recognize.  A frequency of 440 hz.  A tone that takes me from Spain to Hawaii, from California to a colony of settlers on the moon, from memories of rape to floods of emotion that bring strangers to their knees and drive robots to commit suicide.  

All of those moments happened in an instant as another droplet of experience percussed against what I believe is my own body of experience and I returned to reality to realize that no time had passed at all.  This monumentous echo that extended my life far beyond the limitations of "me" was just that-- an echo.  An echo that reminds me that the true nature of time is as finite and simultaneous as the world we place our feet down upon.  

To compare this simultaneity to something physical, I choose a song by Norwegian Recycling called Miracles.  There are no original sounds in the whole song.  It is all mash-ups of old songs.  Jackson, Spears, Savage Garden, Bruno Mars, R&B, Hip Hop, Country, the list goes on, all blending together to reveal a message and a unique song greater than the sum of its parts.  This is what I mean by echoing and creating overtones.  Each moment highlighted by this droplet of experience connects to tell me something far greater than simply what is and what was.  This bell rang to say to me, "all this has happened before and all of this will happen again."

Namaste, my dear readers.  I will see you on the other side.

Special timing

Last night, I was chilling with my preggers sister.  As we drifted off to sleep, she said, "it is SO weird that there is a little life in my belly right now."

I replied with banter, "it would be weird to be in your belly.  You didn't eat it or anything, did you?" I stopped the banter and continued: "No.  In all seriousness, I think the word you are looking for is 'special.'  It is special that you have a little life inside your belly."

Later, we had migrated to talking about her seeing one of her old friends all grown up and not a fuckup like he was in his youth.  Again, she used the word "weird" to describe it and I corrected her, "I think the word you are looking for is 'special.'  It is special when all those boys grow up into men and the cycle continues."

She caught my return to the word and my reiteration of the theme.  "What is with you and that word right now?"

That is my way of appreciating things.  Instead of simply noting these phenomenons of growth and rebirth cycling into history, I want to hold onto them-- to love them.  

A few minutes passed quietly and mom came out of the shower and hopped into bed.  She curled up near her babies, content as only a mother can be and she said, "thanks, you two.  Tonight has been a really special night."

"Yeah," I replied.  "Special is exactly the word I would use to describe it."

And then my sister punched me.

I don't know what drew me to the word "special" initially.  Why did I say that?  In retrospect I can only say that it was for that moment when my mom said it.  Was I planning it?  No.  Was it perfect for her to say?  Yes.  The thoughts I was trying to communicate to my sister were that much more effective thanks to my mother accidentally backing them up.  I guess what I want to say is that this is another "special" mystery of life.  It is magic.  It is coincidence.  It is providence.  It is living in the moment and letting that moment guide your actions-- and in turn being justified by that moment.  Knowing that once and for all, no matter what else, you have a purpose.

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.