Four Word Self Help

Patti Digh has taken an interesting idea and turned it into a delightfully rich little book.

The concept: compile self-help directives which are exactly four words long. How much insight can be delivered in so few words? When I first heard about her intention, I tried myself to concoct four-word sentences which carried valuable insights into living a life. It's not easy to do!

She has succeeded in not only delivering great, impactful statements of such brevity, she has also used those statements to invite a deeper level of reflection.

One of Patti's strengths is her ability to offer up new ways of considering our daily lives, to step back and feel the implications of the decisions we make each day and the cumulative effect not only on ourselves, but on those with whom we interact.

Her professional background in diversity training and consulting informs her more-personal work, what began as essays written for her daughters years ago, became a blog, then a book (Life is a Verb), and now is an ongoing and ever-enriching journey which she has offered to open to anyone wishing to walk along.

On a personal note, it was three years ago today that Patti and I began corresponding as a result of a comment I left on her blog, 37days. I had dived in for the first time a couple of days before and read many of the existing essays, works she was posting once a week. She responded to a comment I left, and we still are in contact to this day.

It was my great pleasure to be an attendee at the first Life is a Verb retreat in September of 2008 and to meet Patti in person and play with her Circle Project partner, David Robinson. I wrote about that experience here and here.

Four Word Self Help is a little book packed with a great deal of the Digh magic, a wonderful adjunct and a complementary eddy to the main flow which started with Life is a Verb and continues next month with Creative is a Verb. While it is a delight to read on its own merit, I do heartily recommend reading it as a companion to Patti's other books, as they set a philosophical framework within which this little book carries even more weight.

Besides, Life is a Verb contains within its pages the only published illustration I have ever created. That, alone, is reason enough to get a copy and become a fan of the work of Patti Digh!

Julia hits the big time

We are now almost two weeks into the life of Choosing Easy World, Julia's book which details her own journey into the magical realm where we are designed to thrive.

On the way to this, the 13th day since publication, we are having media adventures!

Early on the morning of the 11th, Julia was on TV.


Later that same day, Julia gave a talk and signed copies of Choosing Easy World at the venerable and much-loved independent book store, the Tattered Cover. It is the single-most-famous indie between Chicago and San Francisco. If you are an author and want to sign in the best book store in Denver, you seek to sign there.

Here's the exterior of this, the third edition of Tattered Cover, located south of town.

Julia, holding a copy of Choosing Easy World, awaiting the appointed hour at which she will give her talk.

And, the line forms for folks who want her to sign their pristine new copies of Choosing Easy World.

As you can imagine, since we were at the TV studio before 7 a.m. and did not leave Tattered Cover until close to 9 p.m., followed by a small celebration at Indulge Wine Bar, it was a day we enjoyed to the hilt and one we were ready to close so we could move on to a good night's sleep.

First, though, we had one more impromptu Easy World adventure to experience.

As we drove home on a route different than the one I intended--the freeway on-ramp was closed, so we chose to drive up a city street instead of looking for another place to get on the fast track home--Julia noticed that there was a patrolman partly hidden by foliage on the side of the road. I noticed I was going faster than the posted 35 mph limit. As we passed him, we saw his lights come on, so I immediately pulled over.

He was from the county sheriff's office and was very polite and patient as we searched in the dark for our insurance card in the glove compartment. I'm good at getting those important documents into the little place, but not so good at removing old ones. So, we kept pulling out more and more pieces of paper, all expired.

The officer finally said, "Let's just go with this one which expired last year." He went back to his patrol car and did whatever it was he did. In the six or eight minutes he was in his car, Julia and I sat. She was invoking Easy World, and I was simply resigned to whatever was to come. In a way, it is Easy World, too, just without any rainbow. Allowing is a huge part of moving into Easy World.

When he came back to my side of the van, he said, "I'm going to let you off with a warning. All you need to do is take your proof of insurance to the county office, and they will dismiss this citation for not having it available for me. There is no fine, and there will be no points once you prove you have insurance."

We drove home with big grins on our faces.

At some point in a couple of weeks--the deputy mentioned that it might take that long for the citation to be available on their computer system--I will need to drive ten miles to the office and get the ticket dismissed, but that's small potatoes compared to the impact my mistake of going too fast could have had. I'm happy to run the errand when the time comes!

Oh...and I have cleaned out the glove box. Only current documents are stored there now!

Helping by staying out of the way (My Sacred Life, Sunday)

It has been a long time since I have written a formally acknowledged Sacred Life Sunday post.

This morning, I reached a tipping point which inspired this.

The world is a big mess. All those folks on the other side of the political chasm are jerks and worse. We are ruining the planet with uncaring and irresponsible actions, best illustrated lately in the Gulf of Mexico. Needless killing continues all over the globe, and we in the United States are providing both cannon fire, and cannon fodder.

What can I possibly do about it all?

My own path to peace--a path so short I can traverse it even as I type, and the keyboard will never be out of reach--is my way of helping.

Becoming a beacon, a human Klieg light intensely lighting the way from where I am to where I am peace, is my own salvation from despair. It is far more than that, though.

By making that journey of a single breath and shining my light, I grant others implicit permission to do the same in their lives, lighting their own lamps.

The very lighting of the lamps provides just what is needed to heal the wounds we have inflicted on each other and on Mother Earth.

The level at which all of the perceived troubles of our existence will be solved is the level we reach when we pause, accept our divinity, and create ourselves as peace, as Love, as accepting beings who know all is well.

The beauty of it is that no knowledge of deep-water drilling or insurgent engagement or dietary requirements for the starving is required.

We help by getting out of the way. It is by allowing all that is, to be, that we come to the aid of our fellow beings. Stepping away from the anguish allows infinite compassion. Radiating Love allows endless capacity for healing.

Breathe.

Relax.

Allow.

Enjoy.

In gratefulness, I remain your good and faithful servant in the Great Game we call life. See you next time around the game board.

Our Baby!

Sometimes, a baby is born who simply demands that you get out of the way before said baby steps on some part of you and makes you cry.

Then, after the baby has tromped through the house and gone outside by making a baby-shaped hole in the wall, you cry.

Julia and I celebrated our baby's first walk outside, admiring the hole in the wall, at about 9:30 last night.

Here is our first baby picture.

Death, that's all you got?? I scoff at your cowl!

How do we deal with the tender horror, the awful truth of our approaching departure? We're all dying. It is the inevitable end to the achingly beautiful adventure we are born into.

There are a million tactics which folks choose. Some seek to deny that they are ever leaving. Some spend their entire lives in fear of that final day. Most find a middle ground between the extremes, doing the best they can even as, deep inside, they acknowledge the temporary nature of the experience. We're only visiting.

Randy Pausch, the Carnegie-Mellon professor who was diagnosed with terminal cancer shortly before he gave a lecture in a series which was supposed to be an imagined "Last Lecture", what the featured speaker opines as the most-important message to pass along to those in the audience, is an amazing resource when one considers this topic.

This morning, I was guided to watch a series of videos, some of interviews he did with Diane Sawyer--meeting her is on my personal bucket list--and some snippets from the Last Lecture itself, an event which became a Youtube video which has been viewed millions of times.

What sticks after all that video viewing is this: the man was insanely stubborn. His persistence in staying with a lifelong commitment to having fun teaches me that I'll be okay. I'm only half as stubborn as was Randy Pausch when it comes to having fun.

He said this:

"Don't tell people how to live their lives. Just tell them stories, and they'll figure out how the stories apply to them."

...and this, specific to his addiction, his marvelous addiction:

"I don't know how to not have fun. I'm dying and I'm having fun. I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left."

And, as powerful a message in a sentence as he ever gave, he said this:

"I've never known a situation which anger made better."

Randy Pausch died two years and three days ago, on July 25, 2008.

That's not the end, of course. I have to decide what to do with the inspiration which Mr Pausch delivered to me this morning, more than two years after he died.

Today, I will have fun. This is not an intention. This is a freakin' guarantee. I only used "freakin'" as a polite gesture. That's not the word I would use in adult conversation.

Today, I will work intensely and with full energy and a big-ass smile on my face to alert more and more people to the amazing opportunity they have just in front of them.

"Just in front" means right now, not a month or a year from now or "when I get the the promotion" or "once the kids are grown" or "when we can make time for it" or any other excuse we are using to postpone our joy.

See, that's the magic of knowing we are dying. It's the sweetness of life today balanced by the sadness of the end which is coming. It is that balance which works best for me. I need the slightest hint of salt to perfect the ideal chocolate taste. The knowing can impart a certain determination to move now, not when the circumstances line up exactly as our fearful little selves insist they must. We have all day, but we don't have forever.

Odds are very high that today is not my last dying day. I'm confident that I am not, today, already in the 37-day countdown which my buddy Patti Digh has used to frame her work in the world. But what if I were? Am I doing anything today which I would not do were I to learn that I will die in two weeks? In five days? Today?

Nope.

Today, I will spend every creative spark born in me to help people learn of my wife's mission in life. Why? In the small, human sense, in order to sell books. In the broader, what's-in-it-for-all-of-us sense, I do this work because it will help people. Lots of people. It will help people in ways that Julia and I have never considered. It already has, and it is not born, officially, until next week.

That's what I will do today. If I see tomorrow, that's what I will do then, as well. That's far enough to project for right now.

What will you do today? Why will you do those things? Are they what you would be doing if you knew your remaining time was finite and the end was approaching?

I want, more than anything, to feel at the end that it has all been worth it. That's all. If the end is today, I'm good to go.

Easy? Not easy? Who chooses?

I was struck this morning by the delightful juxtaposition sent to me as a result of a Google thingy which tells me when the phrase "Easy World" is discovered on the internet.

Take a look.

As you can see, two different folks have quite different opinions. Jill says it isn't an easy world to live in. Greg, on the other hand, finds that it is an easy world to live in right now.

Who is right?

They both are.

Here's how it works.

Every single one of us has a choice to make, each moment, about what kind of experience we are going to have. If we choose to see things as hard, harsh, dangerous, and scary, that's what we will find as we live out our day.

If we choose to see the entire universe as our creative playground, a place we can make fun stuff and meet fun people and flow Love all day long, that's what we are going to see.

What do you choose, right this instant?

Michele Woodward: I Am Not Superwoman

Michele Woodward has compiled a powerful and intelligent look at life, at happiness, and how the two are actually quite compatible if given the chance to work together. Her book, "I Am Not Superwoman: Further Essays on Happier Living" is a collection of 40 essays written over the past couple of years which originally appeared on her blog, Life Frameworks.

Right from an early essay in this book ("Mama Ain't Happy"), Michele emphasizes the importance of being real with yourself in order to enjoy the fullness life has to offer. And, she got me right away by mentioning  "...my fabulous guy readers" who she enlists to help the women they love. I read lots of stuff written purportedly for women--the writers are often more willing to be vulnerable and advise from a place of cooperation rather than the Mount of High Advice Most Professional which many guys come from--and I appreciate it when the writer acknowledges the few who are reading who are not women.

Michele gets it. She understands that, while it is seldom spoken of, we all aspire to a greatness which hides our faults. She espouses a different greatness, one which exalts our strengths while acknowledging our weaknesses. Not Superwoman or Superman, just the happiest, most-fulfilled "us" we can be, and we get there by doing lots of what we love to do.

Here's the thing: Michele's version of great is sustainable. Any attainments built on a false impression are not. Michele's concepts are life-fulfilling and energizing. Coming from an invented persona is depleting and depressing. Pretty clear choice!

She includes essays on the Important, the Mundane, and the mundane things which turn out to be vitally important. What I love about this collection are the many ways of connection which are offered the reader. Different people will discover their own "Aha!" moment in different places within the covers of the book.

For me, the essays which address the topic of getting unstuck--and there are half a dozen which touch on this to a greater or lesser degree--proved to be the most helpful.

Still, the overarching message, and what I wish to close my little review by focusing on, is that fear is not where we must stop, but a road marker we can note as we fly right past it. Love is the destination, the fuel for the vehicle, and the connecting bond with all those close to us.

When we learn to become aware of how fear is controlling our decisions, we can face the fear which underlies the made-up nonsense we pretend is our justification, walk toward it to see its true, scaredy-cat nature, and become enamored with Love as fear's replacement in our lives. When we start in a place filled with Love, our choices are easier, less complicated, more powerful in moving us forward, and we can provision a happy life for ourselves and for those we come into contact with.

And, while this is not something Michele directly addresses, when I become happier and more fulfilled, I provide unspoken permission for anyone who sees or knows me to do the same. This is how things get better for all of us: one happy person at a time, influencing others to reach for that state by letting go of fear and becoming Love.

I heartily recommend Michele's new book, and if you are not already reading her blog, check it out. I read it regularly.

Presence? All it takes is a toe

My buddy Kelly of Kikipotamus the Hobo is a consistent blogger, making her quite different than I am. Yes, I am capable of it--heck, I wrote every day during the month of June because I had committed to doing so--but it's just not a passion of mine. Love to write, not so clear on writing on any set schedule.

I am, though, a consistent reader. Kelly writes in such an accessible style about matters of interest to me that I find her blog irresistible.

Just yesterday, she made the point that, by awakening earlier than is her norm, she was able to greatly influence the way her entire day went. Everything happened in more of a flow than it sometimes does, and she noticed that she felt more present, more in the life she was living all day long rather than running along side it.

My own technique, recently experienced, was not intentional, but it has worked very well.

A week ago today, I stubbed a toe which was still recovering from a vicious stubbing of some months back. I don't know how common it is to abuse one's fourth toe, but that's the one which has suffered repeatedly at my hands. Well, not 'at my hands' but you know what I mean...more like, 'at my furniture.'

It was not pretty (note to self: no photos!).

Here's the thing, though. For every minute I have been ambulatory this last week, I have carefully paid attention to what was going on around me. Admittedly, I was most attentive to anything on my right side which required negotiating my right foot around. Still, I have noticed, again and again, how present I have felt, and more deeply than is typical.

I find it a curious irony that my own Self, that larger-than-Earthsuit part of me which is not only my guiding light when I am smart enough to allow it to be, but my always-on connection to All That Is, is more available to me...because of a stubbed toe.

There's a lesson in here somewhere, and I'd welcome your opinion as to what it might be, exactly. All I know is, I am deathly afraid of even touching my offended toe in any sort of offhanded way to anything I have not already calculated to be softer than baby's breath--and I'm talkin' actual breath from babies, not something you embellish your rose bouquet with--and that fear has helped me be fully in the moment for most of the last week.

It has been a startlingly amazing week, too. Crazy, in-the-flow stuff has happened in both the mundane--traffic lights I have never made in ten years, I suddenly find green as I approach--and in the spiritual/ethereal. Serendipitous events are commonplace, and stuff just seems to line up if I allow it the leeway to do so. My efforts are more about allowing than they are about striving to complete tasks.

Yes, some of this is a consequence of simply paying more attention to what is happening right before my eyes. Like the day recently which opened with this, less than 30 minutes after sunrise----->

...followed by this, same day, about 13 hours later!
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My bottom line is not dependent upon cause, but upon outcome. We can each believe whatever suits us, and what we experience will likely reflect much of the energy of that belief system. I have learned what works for me--what actions and attitudes on my part result in the outcome I find preferable--and I have been experiencing more of it with my stubbed toe than without.

For next week, my goal is to learn the same kind of presence without having to abuse any part of my body. We'll see how it goes.

The few, the proud, the East Mexicans

I live on a street named East Mexico Avenue. Some years back, one of my neighbors had a great idea: what if we invited
everybody in the neighborhood to do a citizens parade on the 4th?

It took a couple of years to catch on, but as you can see in this video, our little part

of southeast Denver took to the streets. We took back our country by calmly answering all the naysayers with bagpipes and a screech now and then from our friendly Denver patrol car!


America: love it, or tell us what's wrong so we can get about fixing the broken parts.

It's not much of a slogan, but it's all I've got at 6 a.m. after being up late watching fireworks last night.


PS - Please allow me the goofball credits which run at the end of the video. My inner child insists on coming out to play every holiday weekend.

Reconciling NOW with Earth

As anyone who has stopped by here can testify, I'm a big believer in the experiential, in being fully present with whatever snippet of life happens to be transpiring right in front of your nose.

Taken to its extreme, it becomes problematic for those who also want to be proficient at getting along and getting what they want in this world.

Of course, my railings are about those at the other end of the spectrum, so focused on the "gimme gimme gimme" aspects of life-successes that they are flying by the real truths life offers in a small voice which is easily drowned out.

Balancing the BE HERE NOW mantra with the mega-successful, jet-owning, four-houses-in-prime-locations-around-the-globe aspiration that lots of people have is not a challenge...it is darned close to impossible.

Here's the thing: balance starts with the assumption that one wishes to find a place in one's life where conflicting motivations can coexist. Some of us have no such wish! Halellujah, good for you, please tip your waitress generously and the valet will fetch your car for you as soon as you exit to the right. Be the monk, be the Wall Street millionaire. Your choice. Bless you and safe journey.

Others of us seek a peaceful place where these motivations can lay down arms and be calmly accepted.

It's for this audience that I'm scribing today.

Beginning the balancing process is simple. Stop judging either presence-in-now or achievement-and-acquisition as good or bad.

This is important, because no one wants to balance good and evil. I like to think of it as healthy and not. It is healthy and life-enhancing to pause and relish a rainbow. Equally, it is enjoyable to do a job well and be rewarded for it. So, there are aspects to either which are fine, healthy, enjoyable.

Take either to the extreme, and you make living among the regular folk problematic.

The next step is to recognize that balance doesn't mean stasis. It means maintaining a flow which includes yin/yang, earth and sky, NOW and GIMME. Both present, sometimes one at the fore, sometimes the other, but both clearly part of your life. Think pendulum. It swings one direction and then back the other, but the average point at which it resides is the center. It doesn't stay there (unless one allows it to stop, and that would be death, so let's not focus there for now), but it passes through that spot with great regularity.

What happens with those of us who want to live a spiritually centered life and have less desire for things and acquisition of them is that we get anxious when the pendulum swings out of the area where we are comfortable.

Exactly the same reaction occurs when the Type-A person discovers a sudden urge to let down their guard and pause to enjoy the clouds passing overhead. The pendulum has swung into foreign territory and uncertainty reigns.

Here's the secret: patience. Just wait, it will all return to where you are more comfortable.

It helps a bunch to keep this back-and-forth nature of the flow of life in mind when trying to understand and get along with folks of the other tribe. Even someone seemingly very different in their motivations and goals will, at times, be on the exact same page as you are.

Touch them then.

Life, explained (7)

Saturday, the day before yesterday, started out as many Saturdays do, with me preparing for my early-morning trips to the grocery stores.

We frequent several stores, and I usually shop at two each Saturday. It was three this time. It's all about which store has sales on items we need, and which stores we know have particular produce we are seeking.

As I came out of the first store, a new chain which just opened in Denver, I saw a sight not seen in Denver: a rainbow at 6:30 in the morning. Since the great majority of our rainfall comes from afternoon storms and we otherwise have so little cloudy weather, it's unusual for the conditions needed to birth a rainbow to happen early in the morning. In fact, I cannot recall seeing a morning rainbow so soon after sunrise.

Since I did not have my camera with me, I hustled home to get this photo before the rainbow was gone.

The day itself was fairly typical, other than the USA playing in a World Cup knockout round game--we don't usually get that far, and it showed. I watched some of the game, and I did what I usually do on the weekends, getting chores done and goofing off.

As early evening arrived, so did a storm. It was not violent, just a gentle rain which lasted half an hour, and then the sun broke through. I was sitting at the dining room table when I looked out the window to the east. Dark clouds. I could also see the sunshine lighting up the back yard from the west, and I knew! I grabbed the camera and got outside quickly to get this shot.

I didn't do a great job of panning the camera so as to create stitchable pieces for a panorama, but that's not what matters. If you get past the amateurish photography and dive into the scene, you can be where I was in that moment, enjoying it with a great big grin on my face. The rainbow was a stunner, with the main bow intensely colored and the second rainbow fully visible from one end to the other.

The bookends of my Saturday, these ethereal markers were.

Life is funny. It offers up such moments as these, and we can decide to pause and note them or to just glance up and move on. I considered enjoying the early-morning rainbow by standing in that grocery-store parking lot until it faded, but I'm glad I decided, instead, to leap into the car and hurry home so I could capture it. I'm relieved, in retrospect, that no traffic cop saw me in my mad dash. Can you imagine explaining my speeding to some grizzled veteran policeman?

"Yes, officer, I realize I was exceeding the speed limit. You see, I was hurrying home to get some pictures of that rainbow."

He could have told that story in the precinct house for weeks.

But it was not a day for funny stories or unusual human events. No, it was a day for Nature to show off silently and beautifully in the early-morning light, the evening sun, and in my mind's eye.

It was a mundane Saturday. I loved every minute, and I really loved the day's bookends.

Little joys, slight smiles, happy heart

There is a great deal which takes place for me out of the sight of others. In other words, I'm introverted enough that my life experience, much of it, is lived out in the space where my sense of self resides.

The way it works for me is to make forays out into the world to collect experiences and touch/be touched by the lives of the folks who I meet as I wander, and then to return to solitude to cogitate.

The thinking may or may not be directly about the experiences I just logged. Certainly, the processing I do is influenced by what I have learned.

It can be simple, small changes in perspective that I allow to flow through the semi-fixed foundational structures which support the story I am writing, the story which is me becoming.

At times, it gets convoluted and impossibly recursive. It is at those times that I am best served to remember that life isn't either. I have created a trap and then willingly stepped into its maw.

Oddly, we are least able to step back and gain the perspective of distance exactly when we are most in need of it.

My wife, Julia Rogers Hamrick, has developed tools which help to find the exit and step out of the self-created trap. It's a good way to handle it: build mechanisms while you are able to do so which help the troubled you find the way to the light when you have forgotten how to.

It is amazing how resistant our self-in-crisis can be to proffered assistance. I know that, for me, there are times when I almost get comfortable in that sense of helplessness and doom. Yes, I always come back to knowing who I am--who I am becoming--and I pour a little more energy into the support systems I have in place for myself each time.

It would seem that, for all of us in Earth suits, there is a requirement for delving into the animal, the physical, the dirt and mud and grass-stained direct experience. We don't have to be there all the time, though.

Are you willing to step out of the mundane, to touch the miracle barely below the surface? I’m not asking you to do anything, just to consider if you might be willing to.

Remembering, even as we know we will forget again

Yesterday, I spent some time watching videos which feature Burt Harding. He is a spiritual teacher of the lineage of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi.

I came upon his work via my typical path, meaning I am not sure how I found it. Were I one of the main characters in Hansel and Gretel, I fear I would not have found the witch's house after getting lost. Instead, I would have wandered until I stumbled upon a Holiday Inn.

That's how it goes for me: I get lost, I fail to despair, and I find out I'm not as lost as I was. After some years of this kind of activity, one becomes rather familiar with "lost" and doesn't really experience stress about it as rookies do when lost.

So, in losing my way, I find me.

At some level, those last two paragraphs are my unintentional response to Burt. I'll continue on more intentionally.

Take a look at this short video so you have a better idea what this man is up to.


I really like his description of our condition. Human: seeking, desiring, yearning. Being: just that...being. It is such a powerful concept, that of "allowing." I came upon it as a way of describing surrender in terms which were less indicative to assertive, driven American folks of failure. Of course, that's not what "surrender" means in this context. But, rather than fight the battle of old connotation, I hit upon "allowing" years ago as the same concept, more acceptable word.

Burt uses "allowing" in this video with powerful result.

To relate it to what I was saying earlier, the entire experience of looking around for something, seeking an answer to an unasked question, is what Burt terms the human part of us. When we become lost and pause, we experience the being part of ourselves, as we are in that instant. Not actively in want, simply being.

If that "being" state lasts a millisecond and is followed by large amounts of angst and worry, we are lost. If, instead, we allow, we just be, we find that the lost sensation loses its power. We may or may not know where we are, but we are no longer lost.

Gotta have GAS

One of the more-intriguing aspects of life: the always-present issue of balance. If you think of any area of our lives, somewhere inside it is a need for, or a resistance against, balance.

My wife, the amazing Julia Rogers Hamrick, is big on the concept of allowing, of surrendering control to the aspect of ourselves which is always connected to the All That Is, or Great Mind. We usually refer to our connection as our Higher Self.

It struck me this morning that one of the balancing aspects to that idea of going with the flow and letting life be easy requires of us more than ease and relaxation. Of course, that's the nature of the yin/yang, give and take, push and pull. Life is all about the contrasts and contradictions.

When we are able, though, to allow the seemingly contradictory feelings to coexist, we can end up in a really cool place.

While allowing our daily lives to flow and move with a rhythm of their own, we also can be passionate about what happens and care a great deal about outcomes.

In fact, it is the very passion we feel welling up in us which helps the river decide its direction and speed. It is our GAS (Give A Shit) factor.

If you don't GAS, you don't enjoy the ride of the leaf on the water nearly as much.

We trip up when we care so much that we demand total control and take the wheel. It's a challenge being easy and free, yet caring a whole lot at the same time. When you are in that sweet spot, though, there is nothing finer.

Life, explained (5)

In this haltingly continuing story, we have discussed much and resolved little. I'm pretty sure that's exactly what this whole thing is about, though--discussing, interacting, flowing into and out of each other's stories--so I don't feel at all unhappy with where we have gotten to.

Rather than continue to link back to the previous episodes, I'm going to create a label, Life Explained, which all of the posts related to the tale will be assigned. By clicking on the Life Explained label in the list of labels to the right, you will be able to have the entire group open in a list of posts. Keep in mind that the oldest episodes are at the end of the list, not the top of it.

So, the storyteller has now reached the stage in his life when the looking back is really fun, and the looking forward is not requiring so much energy.

It's the point at which there can be an ongoing investigation of what really happened, or, in other words, how one wishes to tell the story as saga, rather than just scenes from it.

For me, the hero's journey works best. This is a story form which requires a beginning in a commonplace setting with a seemingly commonplace main character, said character unexpectly jerked into a hugely challenging set of events and adventures which proof and anneal, then returned to normal life where his time away gives new perspective which can yield great benefit to all who know him.

We all experience this. Our world, at first, is small and generally safe and quiet. Gradually, as we grow from infants to toddlers to school-age children, we learn more of what is scary in the world--and what exactly that is varies widely from one of us to another, even at a very young age--and decide where we will choose to be. Some choose to stay far from the scary parts, others are attracted to them.

Even when children, the adventures begin for us all.

Leap ahead half a century, and the sheer volume of the saga makes Rumi's Masnavi seem a short story. I introduce Rumi quite by accident, sort of, but then there aren't any of those when one is seeking to reveal and make transparent. Here is a tiny bit of Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks:

I have lived on the lip of insanity,
wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door.
It opens.
I have been knocking from the inside!

Here is where we arrive at late-middle, at the part of the journey where we know almost for sure that we are more than halfway to wherever the heck we are going. Slowly, the journey takes on a sense and life of its own, and we see paradox turned into something more magnificent.

It is now that one can be gentle with the ego, soften the rough edges enough to make the memories palatable, perhaps kick up a tiny bit the amount of courage exhibited by our hero.

If, at the same time, the core truth remains, the story--the saga--becomes compelling.

More? Count on it.

Life, explained (4)

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

Part 3 is here.

When we left off, we had just begun to gain some ground in bossing around all these really big people. Now comes some serious miscommunication: they actually think they are in charge.

After a couple of years of this going on, we finally give up and let them keep their delusion of control. It's just not worth it to continue trying to straighten them out, as they clearly are too far from Home to remember.

As we begin to grow and learn more about this crazy game we have joined here on Earth, we become more and more like the giants. Over some years, we even begin to look more like them, growing larger and larger ourselves.

For many of us, there comes a time in our lives when we decide it would be fun to be the giants in the room which belongs to a little tiny new one. So, we get together with another person and create the Earth suit which another Spirit comes to live within.

This is a miraculous time, both because we are reminded of when we were so little and because we now have a great responsibility and a constant source of amazement living in our own homes.

We spend all of our energy and most of our resources caring for our offspring, teaching them all about how life works, and loving our time watching them grow.

Just about the time that they are moving out and starting their own independent lives, we begin a new part of the game. In fact, it is the time when, if we choose, we can recall the game. Not completely, at least not for most of us, but enough to wonder what we were thinking all of those years between giving up trying to direct the actions of the giants and watching our own children leave the nest.

In learning that we came here from Home, that we are here to love and laugh and enjoy the company of others, our focus shifts. Now, we don't seek to win the game. We seek, instead, to love the game.

What we come to see is that the game offers a rich environment within which we can discover an infinite number of ways Love expresses itself. Our instinctive response is to want to know more about Love. Where does it come from? Where does it go when it has passed through us?

Now, rather than competing in the game, we are becoming smiling observers. Because no one is not a participant, we are still in the game, even as we are outside it enjoying how others are playing.

We feel a great urge to share our new-found perspective with others. In some cases, our sharing is accepted and folks come to grasp a bit of what it is like for us now. In other cases, our sharing is thought of as the ramblings of old people.

Both conclusions are right.

Stay tuned...there's more.

Life, explained (3)

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

While the explanation is kept to the simplest of terms and avoids many of the complications which we all live through, it is important to grasp the elements from which the complexity is created. Only by grokking the building blocks can you begin to comprehend the delightfully rich stuff which life brings our way.

Let's keep playing.

Games we learn as children, at least most of them, are games which are designed to have a definitive end and a winner of the game when it ends.

Life is not like that.

Sure, there are competitions we cook up in our lives which are exactly the same finite games of our childhood. I'm a big fan of some of them and participate in some. Here's a silly thing I have noticed: even when we all acknowledge that it is a game which is going on, there are still people who act as if it is a cause for seriousness.

The point is, there are people who will not get what I am talking about here. That's perfectly okay, don't get me wrong. I'm not seeking to convert anyone from taking everything about life with a concentrated look on their faces and an intensity in their eyes, to something more akin to how I now seek to live. That's their choice, and bless them on their path.

For anyone reading who has been made curious, what follows is a meandering description of the game which began before our births and will continue on for an undetermined period after our Earth suits have been discarded.

We start together, so "together" that there is only Me. Through some process I am not able to describe, we each, even as still being Me, plan a visit away from the collective energy which is Me. It is a means by which we can love even more than we do already.

Once the plan is complete, we leave Me and head to Earth. We arrive at some point before we are born and begin to breathe (I'll leave the exact details of when we arrive to the attorneys and folks who can tell you exactly how many angels can dance on the head of a pin). To make things even more interesting and to insure our own total involvement, we allow ourselves to forget where we were before we came to inhabit this little 20-inch-long Earth suit.

The giants in the room are in charge, that much is obvious. They don't feed us or remove our soiled garments unless we scream at them. It is very frustrating, these not-very-attentive giants. They either forget to change our clothes, or they are in our faces making funny noises while we are simply trying to sleep. It is clear they don't understand us.

Over time, we are able to communicate with the giants and, at least sometimes, get what we need from them. While they are still only partially cooperative, they are easier to direct once we can speak their language.

This is when things really get screwy.

See more of the tale in the next post. Tomorrow, maybe.

Life, explained (2)

(if you just stumbled upon this post and have not read the first half of the topic, please read it first--it was published on March 7th and is the post immediately preceding this one chronologically)

Because we have these big organs inside our heads which provide a high-bandwidth flow of information about where we are and what our surroundings indicate, we can choose. That's my motivation in writing today, to remind anyone stopping by that we can choose. For anyone stuck in a feedback loop which is saying to them, over and over, that they are no good and will never acquire the stuff which will make them happy, here is an alternative song to stick in your head in place of that one.

We are infinite beings experiencing life as organisms on a spinning ball of dirt and water. Nothing is beyond our reach, yet we have chosen deliberately to focus on the experiences on this little ball, wearing these silly flesh-and-blood suits which hide our real and glorious selves. So, that was choice number one, a choice we made early enough that most of us cannot recall it: we chose to limit ourselves to what we can do while wearing Earth suits.

Choice number two was to allow ourselves to become so engrossed in the game that we completely forgot who we are. It adds to the intensity of the game, having made this choice, but after awhile, it also adds to the frustration level and can breed dissatisfaction.

This brings us to choice number three. We can choose to remember that we chose to be here and chose our limitations. As with any choice, there are outcomes we would prefer and outcomes we would not. My own preference is to know that life is a game not so that I can opt out, but so that I can enjoy it more. My own simple melody which repeats in my head and which I can hear if I slow down and become quiet is one of Love.

The thing is, Love is all there really is. Why we are able to avoid knowing this all the time, first thought in the morning and last one before sleeping, is inexplicable and crazy. I don't try to explain how we can avoid Love. I embrace it and allow the mystery to remain.

We come from Love. We live in a universe created from Love and pulsing Love and accepting Love.

Okay. Time for one last review.

Life is a game. Happiness is an innate part of us and of the game, and yet we can turn from it. It is possible to spot this turning away, and choose to turn back toward who we really are and enjoy the game even more. Love is the name of the path that we walk as we play the game. Love is the name of the breath we take. Love is the source, the flow, and the destination.

Can you come out and play?

Life, explained (My Sacred Life, Sunday)

Life. It's a game, isn't it? Or, to be a bit more specific, it's a game which involves folks who know they are playing a game, and folks who don't.

This sets up all manner of difficulty. Those who take life with deadly seriousness are not easy to get along with if you are one who knows we are here to have fun.

It's even a bit more complicated than that because even if you are one who recognizes the fun which life is meant to entail, you will forget from time to time. Those difficulties I mentioned? They take roost inside you when you forget. You have internal struggles between what you know to be true and what you think once you forget what you know.

When you are having those internal struggles, you will draw to you more of those folks who find life a terrible fight which must be won, and won by defeating others or defeating crises or...well, life.

Interestingly, in those quieter moments when you are fully present with your knowing, when you realize who you are, at least in the sense of knowing you have a place where you fit in this universe, you will discover more people around you who are also aware and at peace.

It's a clue, and a consistently solid one: what we see is a reflection of what we are feeling. So, if you are particularly frustrated by coworkers or fellow drivers on your commute or the long lines at the store, you are likely to see that frustration in the eyes of those around you. You are going to see traffic moving in fits and starts and those lines move even more slowly than you thought possible.

Let's recap.

In this life, being happy is facilitated by knowing that this is the Happiness Game. We draw to us people who feel similar feelings to what we are feeling and experiences which reinforce how we are feeling.

For many, I have just introduced another potential miscommunication spot. Happiness as I speak of it has nothing at all to do with stuff or prestige. Sure, stuff can be fun and prestige may get one a table when the restaurant is seemingly full, but neither are at the core of this.

Happiness is more about contentment, having a predisposition toward smiling and laughing, acknowledging the beauty and miraculousness of all that is, just as it is.

Another key attribute of our game: we don't play to win. We play for the sheer enjoyment that playing offers. For an elegantly simple explanation, read Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse.

Let's pause here for a day. I'll post the remaining portion of this tomorrow morning.

Happy birthday, my love!

Today, my dear wife joins me at the next plateau. You see, I am 23 days older than she is, so after my birthday early in the month, she gets to enjoy more than three weeks of being younger than I am.

Of course, she is the same 23 days younger all the time, but most of the year, our age at first glance is the same since we both claim the same number of years on the planet. For this short time period, though, she is a year younger.

In a couple of days, she will have been here in Denver for 12 years. We left her hometown in a rented truck containing her possessions, towing her car, on her birthday. Two days of adventure later, we arrived here.

It is impossible to emphasize enough how dear this woman is to me. Her arrival in my life has brought so much joy and love. Her heart has opened mine, and I feel it every day.

We work together almost every day on growing the awareness in the world of our oneness with each other, with everyone on the planet, with all that lives and with all that we consider to be inanimate. Julia Rogers Hamrick is a teacher who loves to see the light in the eyes of those who understand what she teaches. Her new book, Choosing Easy World, will bring that light into many more eyes.

We work together these days in consuming healthier fare so that we can be around longer to work on our shared mission.

We work together to fill our house with love so our daughters know what a house filled with love, with two people whose lives crossed and joined, feels like.

We work together to have fun, laugh a lot, cry when we need to, and enjoy each other's company.

All of that "working together" stuff ends up being less about work, and more about living fully and enjoying it to the greatest extent we can manage.

Thank you, on this anniversary of your birth, my love, for coming into my life and into the lives of our daughters twelve years ago.