Small paper boats

I feel at times that I’m taking a crash course in miracles.  Subscribing to the conspiracy of coincidence as orchestrated by an intelligent, organized universal spirit is becoming increasingly easier.  I’ve never been particularly religious, or spiritual for that matter.  I certainly am not one to fear a bearded man in the clouds, nor a hoofed red demon underground.  I am, however, very open to making objective and subjective analysis of what I’m experiencing and witnessing in my life every single day.  I indeed am agnostically cataloguing here a series of incredible events and realizations that can only be accurately described as miraculous.  Yesterday was this first full day of my list of desires being floated on this sea of universal intention, like small paper boats I’ve folded neatly and taken to the shore.  Letting go and letting God is very much the spirit of this exercise.  Finding your desires and simply trusting that by expressing them as intentions the universal intelligence will begin to organize itself around those intentions, should they align well with a greater plan.  If you are in touch with your spirit, then you are listening to your desires and they are all good because they are all from God.  If you are listening to your ego, then they are from your local self (body) and not likely to succeed. 

Bear with me here, but part of my nightly routine has been a short recapitulation of the events of the day.  This helps increase my overall sense of gratitude, but also serves well to put together a ‘highlight reel’ in which I am able to connect events and people in ways that reveal how they may fit into the greater scheme.  Now, before you go all “it’s the nature of man’s mind to attempt to find order in pure chaos”, remember that I’m working on faith here.  We’ll do another blog on Carl Jung’s sweet, awesome brain when I’m retired and have 2 years to kill.   This recap also prepares my mind for fine-tuned dreams of an almost lucid state and near guaranteed memory of them the next morning.  Herein I can relish in a 3^rd state of consciousness and view it in the morning as another facet of reality created and perceived only in a window of the mind, analogous to the past and future.  It’s there neatly, safely tucked away with no consequence or effect on what matters and I’m free to interpret and measure it how I see fit.   Isn’t that what our past and future really is?  But a dream open to interpretation?  (I know, I know…I’m of the deep end again…)  

My point here is that as I read through my list aloud at the end of the day I marveled at how many events aligned perfectly with constructing the means and path to attaining those goals.  (Day frinkin' one, dude) Was this the work of Him?  Was this my doing as a self-fulfilling prophecy?  Was it the culmination of my journey to the 7^th stage of consciousness and 10 more factors I’ve yet to see?  I don’t know.  That’s really the point.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I am very excited to see what the universe is cooking up for today. Also, I really need an editor.   

Little, yellow notpads

One character trait I surely inherited from my father is that I am a chronic list maker.  I have at least 6 or 7 little, yellow notepads about the house in various locations.  I journal everything from passing thoughts to up-to-date shopping lists.  This helps me organize and prioritize many areas of my life.  I’m a big proponent of David Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done) wherin one very functional component for me is to get your ideas, tasks, and priorities out of your head and into a trusted system.  This system for me is an intricate combination of iPhone app, Google Calendars, and my little, yellow notepads.  The reprieve from stress comes from not ‘carrying’ the burden of unfinished tasks with you in what should be your present moment.  You feel secure in knowing that they exist in another dimension, if you will, that is scheduled to be visited, deleted, or moved about the month as is needed and aligned with a flexibility required to extinguish any unexpected small fires.  This ties in well with my quest for spiritual awakening and higher awareness.  I’ve been bopping around listening to Sanskrit sutras trying to memorize them phonetically and incorporate into my mediation.  Using positive reinforcement and self-affirming mantras, I feel, is best approached by following the well-worn path taken by generations of enlightened beings over millennia rather than staring into a mirror a la Stuart Smalley or buying a $1000 kit from a giant man with big teeth and solutions.  Ergo, learn the original language of spirit, derived from mimicking the sounds of nature, to better communicate with that nonlocal plane.  The issue is I can’t write it!  It doesn’t go on my little, yellow notepad!   Having to write something, I woke up this morning and added a little task to my ‘frame’.  Self-actualizing people seem to put into practice an exercise that I quite enjoy.  I took my little, yellow notepad and wrote down every desire and intention in my life that could start with the words “I want…”  These had to fit into 3 categories: 1) What I want materialistically 2) What I want spiritually 3) What I want to contribute to the world.  I’ll not share the list here, but the first is scary and the last is a life-long journey.  I have conspicuously placed this list and will read it aloud every day for the next 21 before I meditate.  That, by the way, is also the number of days I’ve committed to quit drinking.  I look very forward to seeing how many, if any, I will be stroking off my little, yellow notepad.

The bags you bought and the bags you brought

I just wrapped up another shop at Pali.  For those not familiar with the cash-n-carry chain in Costa Rica, the end of your shopping experience is a long table where you get to spread out your purchases and pack them in either the bags you bought or the bags you brought.  As I consider myself an expert packer with an almost OCD quality in not allowing others to pack for me, this experience is always a treat.  While I was packing my goods I thought back to my first trips to Pali lo those many years ago.  We often went in gaggles of 4 and worked ever-so-hard to balance the weight of each bag such that no one would be stuck carrying an unfair load on our often four kilometer hike home.  Remembering that time, and currently having to incorporate my business, I oddly enough found myself taking pause to remember the mantra any small business owner will tell you; it’s now what you make, it’s when you make it.  Cash flow is why the lines at Pali are so long on the 15^th and 30^th.  That’s when everyone gets paid.  I’ve been a renter, paycheck to paycheck, “it’ll work itself out somehow”, non-saver for as long I remember.  Not the best trait for a 36-year-old English teacher monetizing a small business.  But as I start invoicing clients, sitting in conference calls with sales teams and advertisers, launching affiliate programs, and calculating payroll, I start to really take stock of how valuable my first year in Costa Rica was.  I learned how to live lean and balance my bags.  I did not, however, learn to save for rainy days (we get a lot here, literally).  Nor did I learn the value and danger of credit.  The parallel I like to draw (‘cause I’m just that way if you haven’t noticed) is that after 5+ years of living and working in Central America, I’m right back where I started; packing my own groceries in Pali.  This time, I brought my own bags and my walk isn’t as long.

Until other factors align, and God agrees

I willfully struggle every day trying to connect little coincidences as hints whispered into my ear, find a confluence of events and persons that flow in and out of my path, and strike a balance between what I intend into my life and what the universe will allow at this time.  A headful to be sure, these concepts and more are thrusting me into a place where I’m both excited, afraid, and frankly a little tired of myself.  With my kettle boiling, I look out my kitchen window and contemplate that there is more visible life in that 2x4 frame than exists in the known universe.  The bird flying past may have only been able to do so as its ancient ancestors intended flight into reality by simply finding the precise moment when the will of an enlightened, ego-free being and the allowing of the universe on its own timeframe met.  I’m starting to believe more and more in miracles.  Not in the traditional sense.  Rather the notion that why some say God’s answer is “Yes, but not now” is connected to some notion of a universe whose field of intentions and manifestations requires a synchronicity in concert with the collective intentions of others.  Forgive me, but I’m circling into a point here (I hope).  As a personal example and part of my daily prayers, there is still lingering pain and residual anxiety in my heart over my failed relationship.  Though my partner moved on long ago, I do still feel strong emotions every day.  I only once asked for help to cleanse my soul of this pain.  I can almost see it when I meditate like little kites waving in the breeze whose anchors are tiny hooks lodged in my heart, dragging me through life not by sheer force but by the direction the aching, tugging sensation points.  It is indeed I who needs to unhook these kites so they can drift away and out of sight.  However, when I tried to manifest this intention the answer was clear and not particularly welcome.   My understanding and interpretation was that I need to first forgive, and wish only wellness upon those who I wish to forget before any detachment and deeper healing will begin.  Ugh, Buddha.  To not create or wish suffering upon another sure ain’t easy.   I think the point here is that I will not be able to force that wellness into reality until other factors align, and God agrees. 

I’m not a wisher, but I wish something else came out of my hands from time to time when I sit down to blog.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll force out something about non-localized behavior of white cells despite physical separation from the host organism.  It’s actually pretty cool shit.  Ya, that.

I am starting to see things for what they're not.

I’ve been focusing a lot on connectedness, illusion, and recapitulation.  I had the pleasure of spending a Friday evening in East San Jose at a quaint little restaurant.  The exposed brick, low hanging lights, semi-sophisticated clientele, Belgian beer selection, et al set a tone that was a great bookend to a week of thoughtful observations.  As I waited for my date to arrive, I was seated at a small table in the middle of the room facing the entrance.  From there I could see all the little cafes and restaurants on the block and the train tracks that ran right outside the door and relish in the sights and sounds of couples, friends, family enjoying their food, drinks and much deserved nights out.  Every 20 minutes or so the rumble of the train coming shook the ground gently as the metal behemoth lurched past.  It reminded me of a disjunctive illusion that occasionally appears when I’ve finished a long daytime run.  When I’m jogging up my mountain road there are times when the mountains in the background shift slightly, but rapidly as if someone wiggled them back and forth but once.  I know this is just the adrenaline pumping through me, perhaps the sweat stinging my eyes and blurring my vision, or simply my eyeballs going back into their rightful place.  But a brief yet intense sensation does come across me that though I’m connected to my surroundings, none of it is real.  I had the same feeling each time the train passed the doorway of the restaurant.  Like I was in a movie and the CG wasn’t quite perfect.  Things were almost idyllic, synchronistic, and staged.  By no stretch of the imagination have I drifted into an “it’s all an illusion, man”, matrix-esque, hippy trip.  But as I further take laymen’s study of quantum mechanics and try to wrap my feeble mind around the Heisenberg uncertainty principle as a platform for observation, I’m beginning to appreciate that all that we are is indeed an infinite soul in a finite reality.  The possibilities to manipulate our surroundings may start with appreciating them not for what they are, but for what they’re not.