I’d Rather be Liked

When I first began to study the Bhagavad Gita with my spiritual teacher, she advised the small number of students, “Be aware that when you study the sacred scriptures, Life will offer you the circumstances to understand the lessons.” That is certainly my experience and choosing to live from a higher understanding frees us ultimately from pain, fear and suffering – but (and here’s the catch) – not without experiencing it first. 

The Meaning of Courage

It is in walking through the fire of fear, betrayal, loss, suffering, grief that we see that this is the fire that strengthens the steel of our character and spiritual expression and burns away all that does not serve the Higher Self.

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“I AM the Resurrection and the Life”

John: 11 25-26

What if the resurrection never happened? I mean, what if there was no Judas, no pieces of silver, no Pilate – no Crucifixion? What if Jesus worked it all out with hugs and left everyone in his wake feeling warm and bubbly as he flashed the peace sign while he repeated ‘Love is all there is’.

My question is how can we despise Judas when he fulfilled the prophesy of a new age dawning and served the peaceful warrior up on silver? He had to betray the Lamb of God in order for us to pay attention. It’s not human nature to go looking to change the status quo. So we paid attention but in the convoluted journey from then to now, we have betrayed that gentle message of love and compassion and awakening over and over and over again. Read more…

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Willing the Peace and Being the Joy of the Season

From Christmas 2009

Reading time: 10 minutes + -

My Sweetheart came looking for me last Sunday morning to bring me  a cup of coffee.  He found me in the living room washing the floor on my hands and knees.  “Why are you doing that?” he asked.  Anyone who knows me knows that housekeeping is not my usual thing.  In fact anyone who comes to my house without warning is witness to that.

“I just wanted to clean in the corners and behind the tree.” (as if that made sense).  It wasn’t a moment before that I confided I was a little bit sad about Christmas.  It was Christmas Eve three years ago that my beloved husband, George, began his final decent to his death in early February.  Little wonder that my sons weren’t all fired up about the holiday.  Of course, the tears that threatened just eased the flow of the other woes that didn’t quite fit with the tree sparkling with lights in the corner.

Then I just dumped out the whole gunny sack of emotions:  It was five days until  Christmas and I didn’t have the money to shop.  A business venture was turning sour and a friend I trusted had abused that trust.  I had neglected what was most important to me to ‘do’ other things and I was left with the emptiness of time wasted.  My house had been for sale for a year and a half and I had no idea what the spring held.  I had dreams and wishes – but right then I had a floor to wash.

Christmas has a way of shining a Klieg light on life.  Where’s the promised joy?  Where is the peace?  We can blame commercialism.  We can blame religiosity.  We can blame the market, the kids, our job.  But it isn’t Christmas that is wrong.  It’s that we are looking in the wrong place for its meaning.  It is not in the words of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”.  It’s not in the lineup for Tiffany’s.  It’s not in a cup of eggnog – rum or no rum.  It is not in a Norman Rockwell painting.  It isn’t even at midnight mass.  Peace and joy start on the inside and work their way out.  Christmas symbols are the map to find those twin twinkling lights within. Read more…

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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…

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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.

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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…

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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…

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How to reclaim your heart.

Part 3 of 3

The dragon must die but to vanquish it, it must be lured from the cave into the light. All this drama of heroes, damsels, dragons, heart, and self, courage, and fear is the stuff our our daily life on Earth. Applying the archetypes only facilitates in understanding the active energy of these forces as they motivate or limit us from within, and as they attract external circumstances and relationships to perpetuate and feed the momentum of self deception – the dragon. Read more…

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Do you feel the hot breath of self doubt on your neck?

Part 2 of 3

I am as passionate about the nature of business as I am about the nature of the body and spirit. For me, a card carrying entrepreneur and risk taker, I devour books on business trends and strategies with equal pleasure as I do ancient spiritual teachings. I am as fascinated in how to develop a new market as I am how to reveal the inner spark of creativity. Actually its all the same to me. Read more…

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Can you name the dragon that feeds on your health and happiness?

Part 1 of 3

Today was a bad day. It didn’t start out that way but a series of events – innocuous, small, some positive, some negative, started tripping me up and the next thing I knew I was on a spiral of dark feelings. I didn’t want to be alone with myself and I didn’t want to be with anyone – especially the one who loved me. I thought of calling a friend to see if she’d like to go to a show last minute, but decided she just might and then I would either be pretending I wasn’t bleak or else I would be dumping out a load of useless whining about not being good enough! Read more…

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