Before we can find our Self.
There are early morning sounds in the street below me. I have just returned upstairs from the first day at my ‘nano’ office. It is a display window in the lane that runs between Cumberland and Yorkville in the trendy heart of Toronto. I used green painters’ tape to fix a piece of paper with the word INSPIRATION in orange lettering on the back wall. I also placed three smooth stones – two black and one white – on the floor and traced the word again in the dirt and footprints of the last ‘tenant’.
Why did I do that? I’m not entirely sure. Its the first gesture of a new beginning.
It’s my birthday today. And it seems as good a day as any to ask myself such questions. The window will emerge from this one word to eventually display vibrant and joyful works of art by painters I know, respect, love, and admire. They are friends of mine and over the next year we will make the world more beautiful through works of art and more inspired through labours of love. Right here in the middle of the city.
I have not only surprised myself, but I have dumbfounded most of my friends.
Here’s another question: “What the heck am I doing here?” I have not only surprised myself, but I have dumbfounded most of my friends who would have thought they knew me well. Being here, now, was beyond anyone’s expectation a few short months ago. This time last year I was likely sitting on my back deck with a creamy cup of coffee loving how the early morning sun glimpsed through the trees. Read more…
How dark is it inside a cow’s stomach?
When I was little we summered at the cottage – a log cabin on top of a granite rock. When we would come home late in the evening from some event we would feel our way up the sloping granite, one footfall at a time, following the bouncing beam of a flashlight.
The whip-poor-wills and crickets would be raucous and the stars sparkling overhead. I would cling to my dad’s hand and he would declare: “It’s as dark as the inside of a cow’s stomach!” I used to think that was a riot – but I don’t just now.
It’s a quarter to three in the morning. Son #2 is watching Chinatown – his dad’s all time favourite movie. Son #1 is making ginger and lemon tea to soothe his strep throat. Last night they auditioned for a record label and will soon fulfill their heart’s desire as musicians. They are on their way. In exactly one month from now we won’t be chatting in the kitchen in the middle of the night – we won’t be here at all. Where we will be has yet to be determined.
Read more…
THE LAW OF GARBAGE!
In the middle of the night when I am wont to wake, I sometimes surface with those trailing tendrils of prophetic dreams. Last night, the dream was about searching for a job of a certain description. I was using search terms similar to those I had used a year before and found that the jobs that came up were the same as the previous year. Not only that, they seemed to have a similar feeling of negativity. Curious. Read more…
And the Great Rubber Band Remedy!
Do you remember the I Love Lucy episode when she and Ethel get a job in the chocolate factory? At first they are keeping up with the conveyor belt and then as it gets faster, they miss a few, pocket a few and then end up shoving handfuls of chocolates into their mouths until they are sick.
Well, it might be okay at the outset to make a bit of lemonade when life hands you lemons, but in the long run all you end up with is a sticky mess that doesn’t quench your thirst. Another thing that happens is that as your boat floats off course on a sweet and yellow sea you are so busy with processing lemons that you take your eye off the horizon – your goal – while your charts blur. Read more…
Do you know the way back to peace, beauty, health, and happiness?
Today is Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday which is the day before Good Friday when Jesus made the symbolic gesture of washing the feet of his disciples. Tomorrow commemorates the day that He was arrested, tried and nailed to the cross. On Sunday – millions around the world will celebrate the ascension. When I ‘googled’ Maundy Thursday there was a litany (forgive the pun) on which Christian denomination named the day, what. Where the root derived through the cultural shifts of history and which nation said it first – and for goodness sake, what calendar you might be following. And here you go – getting distracted by the detail. Read more…
Holding on to stuff we should be letting go makes it tougher!
For those of us who have enjoyed the cumulative freedom of catharses (plural) will know that it is like going through a very tiny knothole into the meadow of an actualized life. Hmmm kinda like a birth. Nature is rich with metaphor if only we could grasp it while we are in labour giving birth to our whole Selves! First there is the messy work – oh gawd. And then there is the sweet smelling frilly part. Smiles. The integration. The ‘ah ha!’ moment. You kind of get it and then over the passing days and months you find yourself living life just a little differently. More centred. More trusting of yourself. Expressing more of yourself from a deeper part of your heart. What you ‘got’ at the emerging from the knothole was only the beginning. Read more…
Claim your bliss!
Part 3 0f 3
So what did I learn from that funhouse ride into the darkest part of my psyche? Well, it illustrated what I already knew, but often forget to remember. In fact – enlightenment – or I should say ‘practical enlightenment’ (the enlightenment that is lived where we are now and not in a monastery) is a ‘one step at a time’ personal journey.
Most of us start out living unconsciously. As babes and young children we get our take on the world starting with the family dynamic. No news there. But what we maybe don’t fully realize in this age of visualization and law of attraction is that we can read all the spiritual, self help, and psychology books we want. We can go to sleep listening to chants or meditations; we can pray ’till our knees hurt, but until we actually integrate the wisdom and live it from the inside out, we will continue to be on the single rail track of our inner script. Read more…
You bet. We call it irony!
Part 2 of 3
Remember the bad dream I mentioned in my last post? Well the next day I got to live it! Isn’t that ironic? I figured the car fire was, in a way, a good thing. I’d call the insurance company – they would write off the car as being too old to warrant repair and I’d get something more reliable. As it happened, the deductible was ‘way more than the repair and the repair was ‘way more than I could afford right now. So just when I thought I was catching a break – I was actually getting another smack upside the head. What was that about? Well, one thing – it wasn’t about the smack – it was about the punch to the solar plexus that was about to knock the wind out of me! Read more…
Do You Have Time To Be Happy?
Part 1 of 3
It was about 4 AM when I woke this morning. I laid in bed inviting sleep back and felt the nameless dreads lurking in the corner of my mind. What’ll I do about selling the house? What’ll I do about the car that caught fire today? Why am I clenching my teeth? I finally resorted to my trusted remedy – a few drops of lavender on my pillow and twirled my nano to a meditation and away I drifted.
However I ‘drifted’ right into a very nasty dream. Read more…
How do you measure success?
Yesterday I had tea with a friend who had recently had the occasion to chat with Kevin O’Leary of Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank. These are the advice bits he offered her: if you can’t articulate what your business is about in 90 seconds no one will invest in you; successful people have to be prepared to spend 18 hour days for some duration; spend your time not your money, and finally, know when to get out.
T queried me on the last point. How do you know when it’s time to call it a day; when you’ve spent enough money – when do you decide your great idea just isn’t going to fly? Of course, I had to confess that I was probably the wrong person to ask about that. Read more…
