Empty your mind of all thoughts.

Let your heart be at peace.

Watch the turmoil of beings,

but contemplate their return.

Herein we consider Lao Tzu’s observation that the only constant in this world is change.  Only through endings can the true nature of Tao be able to create and manifest beginnings.  Whenever a project fails, a relationship dissolves, or someone passes, it is terribly difficult to see these events unfolding as what they truly are.  Submitting my ego to this higher vibration that the universe moves by is convenient when I see a dead bird on the ground or watch a colleague rant on about some petty office politics.  In these moments I can easily rise to an awareness where patience and listening will bring peace to the situation and ultimately allow a sense of acceptance or a solution to unfold.  However, when it comes time to deal with the ‘big’ stuff, it becomes less convenient to admit that the intentions of another (or several people) have been allowed to manifest themselves.  More importantly, it is knowing that these events have been ordained by a higher power to come to pass can be perplexing when perceived through our everyday ego.  This is where the sensation that ‘life isn’t fair’ comes into play.  Our ego only imagines our own desires being fulfilled, ignoring that they need to be carefully tuned as an instrument in a grand orchestra with a universal pitch center, and then often temper tuned to those around us. What is needed here is an explicit trust in the conductor.  He knows where this composition is going and we must perform our best, one bar, one note, at a time.

Without these changes our lives would simply become a stagnant, endless routine.  No growth would be possible.  I doesn’t make things suck less.  My goal today is to spot change in both its micro and macro forms.  I will work towards seeing every ending as a beginning.  From the end of my sleep being the beginning of my waking state to the end of my marriage being the beginning of new opportunities only made possible by its collapse. I will become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king - knowing all of this has been rubber-stamped by whoever is working the front desk today.  

Seeking moderation has been my current path.  Not drinking has certainly revealed to me the nature of my addictions, the source of my cravings (in this regard at least), who my friends have been and who my drinking buddies are, and much more.  What’s really surprising me is how readily my friends and colleagues are getting on board with the notion of short-term deprivation for gaining a long-term moderation.  Additionally, I’m simply astounded by how much creativity and inspiration has been blossoming.  These may be separate events, but life has been teaching me that there is no such thing as ‘acausal’, unrelated happenstance.  Aside from all the folks I interact with who’ve taken similar vows, I’m seeing a surge in my friends and colleagues contributing content and creativity in droves.  People are blogging like mad, creating podcasts, tweeting and tooting, writing more poetry and music.  Something is either happening or I’m just finally taking note.  I do feel that I’ve had my head in my arse for years, but there are notable events of late that make me feel there is a growing surge.  I am myself feeling this creative drive and connection being amplified with each passing day.  Am I alone in sensing that something bigger is either going on or always has been and we’re only now taking note? 

My journey has taken me to a place wherein I still struggle to admit that everything created in the universe comes from a place of collective consciousness that we contribute to, and draw from, as both participants and observers in this reality.  Scientific breakthroughs are often made by several people at the same time, in different labs around the world.  Technological advances are usually reached by many R&D departments simultaneously, in competing companies.  Musical styles are created and evolve too rapidly to merely chalk them up as one artist heavily influencing the other.  It’s coming from somewhere else and the human experience as a whole only evolves to a point where we can tap into it.  Consider that 100 years ago one could not dream of taking a trip to see the Superbowl in Indiana.  1.  The Superbowl did not exist.  2.  Commercial air travel was not available.  3.  There was no such place as the stadium.  This means that the thought could not have arisen in the mind of a man as the information required did not yet exist.  It is only with time and evolutionary steps of creativity that we could dip our ladle into a collective consciousness and draw such a thought.  It is the rare and miraculous evolutionary leaps that take place that revolutionize our world and allow greater ideas and inspiration to transpire where they were only moments ago impossible.  Internet, cloud computing, instant communication – these are all accelerating the process.

I see great flaws in my insistence to create dependable patterns and habits in my life.  It is critical that I begin to break out of my need to for predictability and welcome unpredictable occurrences as opportunity for coincidence to be a greater guide.  I urge you to dance.  I implore you to write.  I invite you to create something, anything.  This is no cosmic roll of the dice.  This is a collaborative effort.  As we create and we tap into inspiration (inspire = in spirit) we contribute to a collective library of infinite possibilities.  We inch towards the thoughts that now seem impossible.  

I don’t want to consider myself antisocial, though I should.  I do have leanings towards spending more time alone than most.  Yesterday was a great example of the inner conflict I tend to feel when it’s time to interface with the real world.  To be clear, most of my friends are initially employees, coworkers, students, or clients.  I only have a handful of folks, outside of old school chums, that I genuinely met ‘on the outside’.  I’ve never been good in gatherings at being the regular guy who’s easy-going and fun to talk to.  Trust me. 

Anyway, back to yesterday.  I woke up and had a beautiful day of writing, mediation, running, reading, playing music, cooking – a perfect Sunday.  I was in a state of bliss and gratitude all day.  It then came time to head down to the bar and watch the Superbowl.  I was invited initially to cook.  This was perfect, as anyone who knows me will attest, I love to have something to do at a party rather than mingle.  Cooking, bartending, lifeguarding, chopping wood, no matter - just don’t make me stand there with a drink and be normal.  However, it turned out the food was ultimately ordered in and it would simply be the game.  As I’m not currently drinking, I really have zero interest in football, and all my friends were doing something else, this left me in a quandary to say the least.  Having committed to go, and always happy to see the owner as a fellow expat and good friend, I went.  I sat between two distinct personalities.  On my left was a beautiful Costa Rican girl who I’ve known for a few years now.  Perfect English, smart, funny, engaging.  On my right was a typical surfer dude.  He was tall, good looking, tanned, long hair, dumb as a sack of hammers.  The girl who hadn’t seen me in some time said, “You look great!  You’ve obviously been eating well and exercising”.  Being that she’s in university for nutrition and a runner, I took her words as sincere.  Then I ordered my drink.  “Give me anything nonalcoholic and sugar free, please”.  The dude to my right and his sidekick laughed.  I spoke at length with the girl about Canada, living in Costa Rica, the language school, typical stuff.  It was a very easy going and fluid conversation. I have no issue when talking to a girl who’s so clearly unavailable.  It reminds me of how I felt when I was married.  It didn’t matter if she or I were impressed with each other, so being genuine was easy.  When Madonna hit the stage for the half time show my face lit up like a Christmas tree.  She and I clapped and sang and talked about how we both love to run to Madonna’s music.  Great beats, positive messages, hummable melodies – the perfect running tool.  The dude to my right and his sidekick laughed. 

This is far from the first time that I’ve panned around a bar and felt old and out of place, been mocked by foreigners, or beat down by folks slotted as cool.  Even when I was young I felt that way.  I’ve had that dude laughing at me, in one form or another, my whole life.  It came time that I hit the eject button and retreated to my cave after losing a battle in which I didn’t even think I’d engaged.  With that, I thanked the girl to my left, ignored the dude to my right, slipped my earbuds in, and went home. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I know many of us feel weird, out of place, and alone.  I only wanted to put into words that this described pretty much every social outing I’ve ever had.  I’m very used to it and almost awkwardly comfortable with it.  If you think this tale is lame, you should see me on a date.  Next weekend I’m taking a girl to see Star Wars in 3D at Imax and there are going to be grown men in costumes.  Now who’s laughing, surfer dude?  Oh, wait.  Right.  Nevermind.  

In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu makes numerous references to water.  The nurturing yet passive qualities of water are astounding when you consider how all life is sustained by a substance paradoxically so simple and so complex.  The harder we try to hold it in our hand, the easier it escapes our grasp.  Cupping it gently it rests in still fashion awaiting our command.  It flows effortlessly across the landscape shaping it with an almost knowing sense of patience in the path which will be carved in precisely the time that is required, exacting the force needed - no more, no less.  It asks for nothing yet provides everything.  It seeks the lowest ground and follows a path of least resistance.  It strives for nothing yet is connected to everything.  Even my personal routine this morning involves water in 1000 ways on 1000 levels.  From starting my laundry, to boiling my water for coffee, to my shower, water is a ubiquitous force that not only surrounds me, but is the very foundation of my human composition.  Perhaps it’s that I’ve reread the 6^th verse this morning, or that I was without water for 4 days, but I will endeavor to appreciate water more today than usual.  My goal is to see it in its disparate forms and how it connects us to everyone and everything.  It is very much analogous to the Tao as it runs like a thread through, and touches, all things that exist in the physical realm.  Without it we would not be, moreover we take it for granted that it will always be there.  Today I will entreat to find the low ground, to listen and not speak, to cup my hand rather than make a fist, to carve the landscape slowly and knowingly, to nourish by simply being present, as water.

I am allergic to cats.  Have no doubt.  This doesn’t mean that I don’t live with two of them by choice.  They’ve become symbolic little hairshirts; forms of penance and constant reminders of how impatient I still can be and that I often don’t follow my own instincts.  One example would be my desire to wake up just before dawn.  I simply love this time of day to quietly reflect, go about small household chores, drink coffee, and lately – blog.  However, at times my job has me working and traveling late and not getting home until 8 or 9pm.  I’ve always been one to wind down after work with a nice dinner, maybe fart around on Facebook, and watch a TED talk or some t.v.  This means that by the time I’ve finished my nightly routine and hit the sack it’s 11pm or later.  This makes getting up at 5am tricky.  That said, my cats weren’t at Hewlett Packard last night.  They were sleeping on a chair, or eating a moth, or sleeping on a chair (or eating a moth).  They’ve mastered the art of creating a perfect environment in which they can live an ego-free, blissful life whereby their priorities are dictated by capricious whims or pure natural forces.  Furthermore, their intentions have manifested themselves so well that a giant upright being has unwittingly integrated their needs into his lifestyle.  A tall, not-as-hairy servant that walks through a door into some unknown realm of birds and strange voices every morning and occasionally returns at night with more food bags and poop dust seems a perfect butler to facilitate their simple, yet demanding lives.  Not only as I type this do I realize that they are smarter than I (their rent is never overdue, they don’t have email, and their relationship appears to be solid), but they wake me every morning by lightly clawing at my bottom lip at precisely 10mins before sunrise.  Exactly the moment I intend to start my day.  I didn’t ask for this.  They are not lifestyle entanglements or furry little nuisances.  They are here because they need to be, in this way, at this time.  They are on their own path on which I may have stumbled.  It is I who am the furry little nuisance.

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.   

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.

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.

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.