The Magic of Healing

Here in this amazing universe we all share there appears to be a broken ankle, and it is mine.

Sometimes there is pain present, and sometimes not. What is stunning to watch is how the human body mysteriously sends interior soldiers to heal itself; I can see their footsteps by way of a rainbow of vivid colors (blue, purple, ocher, yellow and plum.) They are painted across the skin around the fracture.

I am told there will be a period of weeks before the fracture has knitted itself together again. My assignment is to apply patience and commission myself to watch the sweet flower of order emerge bit by bit out of temporary chaos. I love watching order restore itself; it carries the scent of authority.

Another thing: I notice that people –both friends and strangers- are behaving with exceptional kindness towards me during this ankle adventure. God’s great Heart pops up everywhere.

Once again, I am carried by grace. Funny, isn’t it? Whatever the circumstance, whatever the event, whatever the experience: He is with me always. And you.

Are You Listening?

Fear talks hard
in a loud rushing voice,
sometimes a roar.

Peace only whispers,
but when you lean in to hear it,
fear grows suddenly
wordless.

Small Victories

It's the little knots we trip over; big ones are so large we stay aware of them and watch our step. But the small, iggly kind catch us unawares and we find ourselves thrown before we know what happened.

You're in a store shopping for new towels. It's a simple adventure; you look at the colors, the thicknesses, the prices and make a decision. No problem.You gather up your choice and head for the checkout line. which for some reason is abnormally long.

The woman manning the cash register is taking an incessant amount of time to total things up; she's new, perhaps. Or distracted. Whatever it is, she's moving like a sailboat on a windless lake. The people in front and behind you are beginning to get rattled; they are whispering to each other about the slowness. You are commenting, too, silently, to yourself. It's hard to believe it could take so much time to check out a few items, but it is, and you don't like it. You look at your watch, you shift the towels irritably in your arms; you worry about making it home in time to finish cleaning the kitchen.

More long moments pass, and the line is still moving in slow motion; now you are beginning to feel actual heat rising behind your eyes. Your mouth is tense; your teeth are clenched in a gritty protest at the unseemly waiting period. The conversational hum is getting nastier; patience is evaporating like dew under August heat.

Then you catch a quick glimpse of the cashier; you notice she is pale with uneasiness. Faint droplets of sweat glisten from her cheek; she knows she is performing below standards and is frightened. The more she becomes frightened, the more she fumbles. She looks up furtively at the customers, now hostile, and you can almost hear her heart beating fast.

With this one glimpse, you soften completely. She's afraid! you say to yourself, and your instinct now is to put her at ease. Although you're three people back in line, you call out some cheerful remark to her, something funny. She looks up gratefully, smiles, and returns to her labors.

And when it's your turn, you smile and say, "Must be crazy today, all these people." and she nods. You tell her you like her blouse. She smiles, bites her lip. She totals you up, you give her the money, and thank her for helping you. "You have a nice day," she says, and she is smiling.

Inside this rare moment the two of you are suddenly friends, and as you leave you notice the previous anger has disappeared as surely as the moon vanishes at dawn.

Choosing Awareness

Here it is dawn,
My eyes have just opened,
and the sun is watching me
with untroubled love, waiting.

What will I paint on this day?
It is a fresh canvas spread before
my brand new eyes.
Only the sun and the silence
are watching, waiting.

I have so many colors I can use:
vials of pale blue peace,
the almost pearl whiteness of love,
pure energy, green as grass.
Rust memories, opal tinted dreams,
Hard skills, all orange and cobalt.

But that’s not all.
I also have storm gray doubt,
Acid lemon judgment, bitter olive envy,
And blood red anger.

They are all here, unopened tubes,
Lined up in front of my hours.

What will I paint on this day?

PARADOX

It is one of life’s great paradoxes that becoming aware of our spiritual nature is as important as breath itself; yet there is nothing easy about a spiritual practice. In fact, it is possibly the most difficult discipline known to man. And why is that? Partly because, unlike piano lessons and weight-lifting, the results are often subtle and private rather than open and obvious. And, most importantly, because while worldly disciplines enhance our ego image, a spiritual inquiry leads -oh no!- to the ego’s gradual disappearance.

None of us, at the start of our work, greet that fact with much joy. Think for a moment how you feel about waking up at dawn for a meeting at the office – and now you know how most of us sleeping angels feel about being prodded Awake.

And yet, sooner or later, many of us come to realize that the investigation into our spiritual nature is not only vital, but urgent. After all, the Truth is True: we ARE spirit, we ARE angels – and to point our minds in line with Truth is our only door to freedom. A grasshopper can pretend to be a daffodil for as long as it wants, but it cannot grow petals or live a happy life standing still in the grass. Equally, we can go about pretending we are small, weak, vulnerable creatures – but it will never become true. Because, in fact, we are something else, something much more: we are Spirit.

We are the fingers of God.

Moving Towards Peace

You’ve heard it before, many times. We see through a lens darkly.

None of us come to our spiritual search by accident. Most of us are pulled by pain, during those repellent, rock hard times when there is simply nowhere else to go but inside.

Impelling us forward is a question. We want to know is if there really is an abiding Friend hidden behind the appearances of lack, struggle, conflict and pain. Is Something there? Or am I deluded?

So we proceed, dragging our ego’s desire to be separate and special along with us. When, bit by bit, we discover that Oneness by definition cannot recognize a “separate and special” status, we balk. We balk, but still we must face the fact that we want both Peace and Separation simultaneously. To discover the two are eternally incompatible is a indisputably hard moment. Our path becomes jagged, and we find ourselves dragging our feet in one moment, surrendering to prayer in another. As many of you know, this juggling of our mind states can go on for what appears to be a very long time.

Then, to our great amazement, we suddenly make the deepest discovery of all: the fact that the Peace Within is larger and more luminous than all the world around us. It is at this point that our ego barriers start tumbling down, and we begin to dance with happiness.

And of course, since Peace has been within us forever, that dance can begin for us now. In this very moment. When else could it possibly happen?

INNER WONDERS

So many of the deepest treasures in this world are hidden.

The big, splashy, overt kind we already know about. Warm spring rain whispering across your face as you walk through the woods. The scrunch & rub of fresh grass under your toes. Rolling in the snow, safely protected by scarf bundlings and mittenery. Hearing Mozart. Hearing Sinatra. Hearing the voice of an old friend you've been missing for months. A great, taut, well-written movie. Good hot tea. Good hot coffee. Sitting with friends near a fireplace blazing with life. Reading a great book. A discreet taste of gourmet chocolate. A child laughing. You laughing. Anyone laughing.

These are our obvious treasures.

To get to the secret ones, you have to move very carefully and quietly, preferably with your shoes off. You must be looking without haste, without greed, without anxiety. You must have made at least a primitive alliance with meditation. Then, as the poets say, the world can unfold itself at your feet.

The tick of a clock on your shelf can start sounding like the heartbeat of God.

Washing a cup can become art: watching its stains slide away with the soap is as thrilling as a stab of lightning. Everything: floors, ceiling, windows, furniture, seem to shift gently into benign objects which are here to help.

Listening grows multi-dimensional. Someone brags, and you can hear the pleading underneath the boast; it moves you to enormous tenderness. Another giggles, and you can hear each note of laughter fly through the air like birds on holiday.

New hints, new clues appear in unexpected places. Exit signs on the subway read like messages about oneness. A pet, always your delight, is now even more: your teacher. You open the kitchen cupboard and withdraw a can of food; instantly you understand how the can and the peas within it are related. Small revelations, perhaps, but thunderous in their impact.

This network of insights occurs because you are in a state of extreme openness, one in which your eye can see far deeper into each object than it normally does, and your mind now floods you with new awareness about the nature of life. Some call it the voice of the Self.

It's an extraordinary discovery, really: finding the exquisite intelligence that lies within our own mind, waiting for permission to emerge. In the beginning, it's hard to fathom that magic can occur from withdrawing attention from the outside world, because we are so used to seeking outside ourselves for drama and movement and color. But hard to fathom or not, the fact is that the universe within us is far, far larger and richer than the universe without.

And becoming still is what opens the door.