whitebirdmusings

Joy is the Standard

2012-01-17T12:02:00.000-08:00

My mother's husband made his transition this past Saturday, and my three sisters and I are working together to assist our mom in finding a new place to live, as it is apparent that she, being elderly, cannot live on her own any more.

So I was thinking about Joy, and how to access it in the midst of such challenging circumstances as grief and life transitions. The thoughts we each pay attention to do create our own life experience as well as our experience of life. So the question is: what am I thinking? To what thoughts am I paying attention?

We have longings and desires, we have hopes and dreams, yet many times we are at a loss as to why these longings are not present in our every day experience. We want these experiences, these circumstances, these material objects, these conditions we are longing for, because we believe they will bring us contentment and happiness. So it is the contentment and happiness we seek. It is the longing for freedom and joy at the heart of it all.

So, what thoughts are we paying attention to? What feelings do the thoughts we are thinking elicit? Are we paying attention to the thoughts of what we desire, or are we paying attention to the thoughts of worry or lack? Thoughts are things.

If we are dissatisfied with our life experience, what are we thinking - really. And if we don't know what we are thinking, what is happening in our life experience? I am looking around at the manifestation of my thoughts.

The true measure of our success in life experience could be the joy we feel in it. What are we paying attention to that brings the result of manifested Joy?

"Whatever you love, you are."
~ Rumi

2012: Awakening to the Spirit of Our Earth

2012-01-01T16:39:00.000-08:00

~ Montreal Garden, 2004 ~

"The grass grows in the fields, and the leaves on the trees, and every year they are, in great part, renewed. So that we might say that the earth has a spirit of growth; that it's flesh is the soil, its bones the arrangement and connection of the rocks of which the mountains are composed, its cartilage the tufa, and its blood the springs of water.

... its breathing, and the increase and decrease of the blood in the pulses, is represented in the earth by the flow and ebb of the sea; and the heat of the spirit of the world is the fire which pervades the earth, and the seat of the vegetative soul is in the fires ..."

~ Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T10:36:00.000-08:00

~ Sophie's Tree ~

"Truth is the Greatest Good
and
Love is the Highest Truth"

Wishing You and Yours a Joyful Christmas and Holiday Season!

Soul, Heart, and Body One Morning

2011-12-20T19:21:00.000-08:00

There is a morning
where presence comes over you,
and you sing
like a rooster in your earth-colored shape.

Your heart hears and,
no longer frantic,
begins to dance.

At that moment
soul reaches total emptiness.

~ Rumi

May the Light of this season unceasingly radiate through you and yours.

~ Love and Blessings ~

Birth of the Christ

2011-12-10T20:12:00.000-08:00

~ Detail: "Creativity" by Laura Basha

"Soul receives
Only from soul
Its secrets,

Not from
Any book

Or
Eloquence

Nothing else,

Nothing
You can ever hear

Or ever do.

~ Rumi

Our Eternal Connection to Source

2011-12-02T12:39:00.001-08:00

"You knew then, before your physical birth, that you were "Source Energy"
specifically focused in this physical body,
and you knew that the physical person you would become could never be separated from
that which you came from.
You understood then, your eternal connection to that Source Energy."

You said, 'I will love pouring myself into this physical body, into physical time-space-reality,
for that environment will cause me to focus the powerful Energy that is me
into something more specific.

And in the specifics of that focus, there will be powerful motion forward - and
joy.' "

~ Abraham

Quotes: The Language of Symbol

2011-11-17T16:49:00.000-08:00

"The language of symbol is of the felt senses of the body, of the numinous, of the spirit, and of the heart's yearning.

It transmits meaning in a way that touches us deeply, and leads us to wisdom.

When we are drawn to a particular symbol, it often signals a transition we are about to undergo, announcing its arrival and preparing us for it, and directing us toward the inner work that can help us change, deepen, grow."

~ Angeles Arrien, The Second Half of Life

Bummer of a Birthmark ...

2011-11-04T18:56:00.000-07:00

In a conversation I was having this week, I was struck by the thought of someone who is claiming themselves to be the source of something, the vision-holder of something, someone who is looking for the stops, the places that block progress. I know from my work as an organizational psychologist that when an organizational culture actually begins to shift towards actualizing the vision it says it is, that the blocks that have kept it from being that vision begin to get revealed.

A true change agent is an effective business consultant and more. A true change agent has to hold the vision of the organization in the midst of the organization's fight to preserve the status quo. The organization will attack the change agent hoping to label her as an outlier and thus expel her from the system.

This basically means you get fired.

The art of it though is to manage to stay in the system while holding the vision, with just enough rapport with the old game so as not to raise too much suspicion and so be able to stay in the system.

Cultivating anonymity is an artform. Withstanding the pressure the system exerts to maintain the status quo and get rid of you, requires some know how in not taking things personally.

This has a lot in common with being responsible for creating something. Being the responsible source of something also taunts one's defense system, provoking it with the possibility of authenticity, which is tantamount to giving one's ego the black spot for extermination. To ego, possibility is a gauntlet thrown.

Years ago I wrote a paper while in graduate school on Being a Change Agent. On the title page I put a copy of a Far Side comic. Two mooses are standing upright facing one another. One has a bull's eye painted on his chest. The other is speaking to him.
The caption is: "Bummer of a Birthmark, Hal".*

So as vision holders, it's true, we can all responsibly say: "I am the one".

Bummer.

* Gary Larson

On the Wisdom of Our Elders

2011-11-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

"The second half of life is the ultimate initiation. In it, we encounter those new, unexpected, unfamiliar, and unknowable moments that remind us that we are a sacred mystery made manifest. If we truly understand what is required of us at this stage, we are blessed with an enormous opportunity to develop and embody wisdom and character. We enjoy limitless possibilities to restore, renew, and heal ourselves. And because of our increased longevity, for the first time in history we also have the opportunity to create a map of spiritual maturity for future generations to use as they enter their own later years.

... The more challenging our world, the more we need our elders with us to share the lessons they have learned, to lend us their problem-solving skills, and to enhance our lives by imparting their unique gifts."

~ from The Second Half of Life, by Angeles Arrien

The Down Side of Looking Good ...

2011-10-26T15:31:00.000-07:00

"As long as I did newspaper work and had to go to different parts of Europe on assignment it was necessary to have one presentable suit, go to the barber, and have one pair of respectable shoes. These were a liability when I was trying to write because they made it possible to leave your own side of the river and go over to the right bank to see your friends there ,go to the races and do all the things that were fun and that you could not afford or that got you into trouble. I found out very quickly that the best way to avoid going over to the right bank and get involved in all the pleasant things that I could not afford and that left me with, at least, gastric remorse was not to get a haircut. You could not go over to the right bank with your hair cut like one of those wonderful looking Japanese noblemen painters who were friends of Ezra's. That would have been ideal and would have limited you to your own side of the river completely and kept you working. You were never free of assignments long enough for that sort of mane to grow but in two months you would look like something left over from the American Civil War and unacceptable. After three months you would have a good start on the sort of haircut Ezra's wonderful Japanese friends had and your right bank friends would think of you as damned. I never knew just what it was that you were supposed to be damned to but after four months or so you were considered damned to something worse. I enjoyed being considered damned and my wife and I enjoyed being considered damned together."

~ Ernest Hemingway, from A Moveable Feast

Vision

2011-10-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

"It is possible for people to see what has been obscured from their awareness.
It is possible to step from the invisible to the visible.

We are so afraid that we cannot be what we dream ourselves to be,
that we stay hidden inside of a persona that we ourselves created ...

... Bring the invisible to Light so that you can begin to see your own
Beauty and claim your wholeness and your true voice.

When what has been obscured is illuminated,
you remember who you truly are."

~ Laura Basha

Sacred Discipline

2011-10-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

Morning Moonset over the Golden Gate Bridge

"Discipline is remembering what you want."

~ the Reverend Kathryn Jarvis

I rose at 5:30am this morning, getting up early enough to take the breathtaking picture above, as well as to do my morning practices. Without those morning practices my day simply does not go as well.

While in Vienna this past summer, we visited one of the apartments in which Mozart and his family lived, a charming three floor residence in a beautiful old Viennese building in the heart of the city. There were several letters available to read, one in particular that caught my attention was a letter he had written to his sister Nannerl about his schedule while living in Paris.

He rose at 6am and attended to his morning routine. He then wrote music from 7am until 9am, at which time he saw students until 1pm. At 1pm he took his lunch, either with friends or clients, and spent the afternoon visiting or doing one thing and another as he found he couldn't write again until 5pm. He wrote from 5pm until 9pm, unless he was conducting or performing or traveling to do either. That, he said, was his routine every day.

As we all know, Mozart's music is still transcendently moving. What struck me was this ordinary routine which he carried out with exceptional discipline, the result of which was a life artistically fulfilled that left a legacy of music which continues to uplift humanity centuries later.

What if I could cultivate an affinity to that kind of discipline? It seems to me that I often feel as though I am missing out on things if I don't attend to this or that or the other. Yet, I experience fulfillment when I practice the discipline of what is important to me.

"Discipline is remembering what you want."

So, what do I want?
And what disciplined practices are needed for me to manifest it?

Good thoughts to ponder ...

Fearlessly Free from the Inside Out

2011-10-03T11:14:00.000-07:00

~ "Priestess", detail from the dyptich "Transformation" by Laura Basha, 2007

In Buddhism, "taking refuge" means that "... we are willing to spend our life reconnecting with the quality of being continually awake.

Everytime we feel like 'taking refuge' in [the midst of] a habitual means of escape, we take off more armor, undoing all the stuff that covers over our wisdom and our gentleness and our awake quality. We're not trying to be something we aren't; rather, we're reconnecting with who we are. So when we say, 'I take refuge in the Buddha', that means I take refuge in the courage and the potential of fearlessness, of removing all the armor that covers this awakeness of mine. I am awake; I will spend my life taking this armor off. Nobody else can take it off because nobody else knows where all the little locks are, nobody else knows where it's sewed up tight, where it's going to take a lot of work to get that particular iron thread untied.

You have to do it alone.

The basic instruction is simple: Start taking off that armor. That's all anyone can tell you. No one can tell you how to do it because you're the only one who knows how you locked yourself in there to start with."

~ From Comfortable with Uncertainty, by Pema Chodron

Hemingway, Beethoven, and You

2011-09-25T19:02:00.000-07:00

~ Statue of Beethoven outside Vienna in the garden where he wrote the 9th Symphony ~

"Back at the hotel that night when we were dressing for dinner, Ernest said, 'I'm working out a new novel. Or it's working itself out, really, ...' His eyes were bright, and the enthusiasm in his voice was unmistakable. ... 'You have to write it.' 'Yes', he said, and although we left and had a long and delicious dinner with several bottles of wine between us, he was already with the book, inside of it. Over the coming days, his thinking grew deeper. He began to write in intense spurts, in the cafes early in the mornings, and in the hotel very late at night, when I could hear the aggressive scratching of his pencil ... he'd filled two thick notebooks, two hundred hand written pages in fewer than ten days, but he wasn't happy with the opening anymore."

~ From The Paris Wife: A Novel, by Paula McLain

I have often wondered what it was like for Beethoven to write the most exquisite music, deafness to the outer world shutting him off from much of human interaction and yet opening doors to a kind of silence that perhaps allowed him to hear the celestial soul that still illumines today, reminding us of our magnificence and allowing us to forget the countless attachments that keep our focus on the very noise that creates what we are trying to dissolve.

The creative process unfolds us and as we work, listening to its wisdom, the work molds and then allows us to become the vessel for its expression. "I'm working out a new novel. Or it's working itself out, really ..."

Perhaps we are much more related to the genius of Hemingway and Beethoven and Mozart and Tintoretto, Freud and Einstein, Gertrude Stein and Twyla Tharp and whomever your creative hero/ine is, than we think. Perhaps it's simply the willingness to withstand the pressure of the molding process that elevates us to the realm of creative genius, and it's just that we hold too narrow a vista which keeps us locked in our safe familiarity, finally unexpressed and unfulfilled.

Cultivating a capacity for gracefulness in the face of anxst: a pragmatic strategy. What could deafness allow for? And to what could we turn a deaf ear? Einstein flunked math. Tintoretto never had formal training yet became the one true Venetian painter.

The integrity of a clear vision has strong roots.
What strength can fear have when Grace shows up?

"Access to Magnificence"

2011-09-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

"A satisfied woman is a gift to her family, her friends, her co-workers and, frankly, to the world. A satisfied woman emits an energy field of love, play, power and well-being. Around her, other people have access to their own magnificence, their own genius, their own joy. Being committed to being satisfied is an act of courage and generosity."

~ Alison Armstrong

I have been waking up with feelings of overwhelm for some time. It seems to be a particularly familiar default setting when I feel overbooked. I really wanted to get to the bottom of this anxious feeling so I could let it go, because, honestly, I have a beautiful life of abundance in all areas.

So why did I feel like I didn't have what I wanted?

I was in a conversation this last weekend, and got some insight into the answer. So simple. I realized that I make these promises to myself, and then I don't keep them. Not exactly front page news, but, what occurred as an epiphany was the impact on me that not keeping my promises with myself had. What I saw was that when I make a promise: "I will begin the final edit on my book this Friday", and then I don't do it, very insidiously in the background a refrain of invalidating statements plays like a tape loop, and even though I may not be consciously aware of the noise of the tape, I am listening nonetheless, and the feeling is much more obvious to me: anxiety, frustration, dissatisfaction.

Of course I have often attributed this dissatisfaction to other issues in my life: family demands that could not be avoided, too tired, loneliness, etc. But what I saw was that there were no reasons for my dissatisfaction save the broken promises to keep my word with myself, which were always promises made in areas in which I really wanted to accomplish or participate. So simple ... Put it in my schedule and then actually do it! A great feeling of freedom and joy expands within even as I think of it.

So when I read Alison's quote this morning, I thought, the impact isn't simply on me, the impact is in and on my entire world. And I am committed to the ideal that all people are free from the past and generating lives of authentic self-expression and joy! Who knew the fulfillment of that seeming impossibility would be continually generated out of me eating well, sleeping enough, exercising and, oh yes - editing that book!

I am committed to being satisfied. How about you?
Onward!

A Visual Feast

2011-09-11T07:18:00.000-07:00

Don Orione Artigianelli ... a restored ancient monastery resonating in the heart of Venice.

Just returning from a three week stay in Europe, begun by a ten day artist's retreat in this most inspiring of settings for the arts, Venice, and staying those ten days at the above cultural centre, has left a myriad of impressions that will take the weeks ahead to assimilate fully.

Beauty everywhere, endless reminders of It's timelessness ... as my fellow creative colleague Hunter joyfully blurted after days of visiting masterpiece after masterpiece, and as we walked an early morning walk hoping to get lost and found again before breakfast, "... they painted whatever they wanted! ... there was no wondering about would someone like it ..."

It freed us to remember that the great leaders, the breakthrough contributors in any field never turn around to see if anyone is following ...

So good to travel. Important. Sorting through what others in other cultures hold dear, reflecting on what one finds dear one's self, what is truly authentic self-expression.

Leaving the familiar to travel ... it's a powerful way to find home.

For the Benefit of All Concerned

2011-08-19T18:22:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that the greatest gift we can give to one another is really listening for the best in each other, our perfection, our beauty, our differing perceptions, and through listening for the best in each other, eliciting the best from ourselves. We could call this being “Source” for each other. It is not for me to say what another's best might be, yet it seems to have very similar characteristics from one person to another, namely: joy, relatedness, confidence, love, self-expression, all in a uniquely expressed freedom of expression that catalyzes other's Joy. Seeing the best, looking for the best, catalyzes the best and all involved are uplifted and see possibility.

This is the type of “Sourcing the best”, if you will, or simply “Sourcing”, which one experiences when with extraordinary leaders, meaning to say, people who have done the work to allow Source to express through them. My own mentors have been such people, and their “teaching” from this awareness has been what has empowered me to, through my own continual growth process, transmute and distinguish my understanding of my own false personality, such that authenticity has a chance to emerge: powerful, happy, free. This transformation then hopefully allows me to resonate Source into my world, in other words, empowers me to have the best chance to make a difference, and then others are catalyzed and resonate into their world, etc.

I don't think "I" actually "Source" anyone or anything, rather reflecting on Source as a possibility allows It – Source, Absolute, God, whatever name we choose to call It - to make Itself known through me, use me as a conduit, and when I'm truly present, let it express through me to the extent that I have the capacity and understanding to align with It, surrender to It, catalyzing me and hopefully others toward what they have to contribute to the world.

“To give is to receive”. It has to come through us first to be expressed, so we experience the gift of It’s Peace before we can bring it to our worlds.

May we all continue to grow and learn and have compassion for ourselves and others, for the benefit of all concerned.

Stillness

2011-08-14T16:30:00.000-07:00

"No one can see their reflection in running water.
It is only in still water that we can see."

~ Taoist Proverb

A friend asked me this week, "How do you get to inner stillness?" I thought it was an interesting question, since stillness isn't actually a place to get to, but rather a whole eternal internal infinite dimension out of which our life experience and the third dimension arises.

Taking our attention off of the cacophony of the external world, taking our attention off of the noise of the daily routine, taking our attention off of the drama of everyday life and the incessant inner monologue of the intellect, returns us to stillness.

So many of us love to be in nature. Being in nature elicits stillness from us, because nature reverberates Stillness, and, like a tuning fork, if we stop and listen to the quietness of nature, whether in our backyard or, taking in the beauty and quietness of a vista view like the one above, the reverberation of nature catalyzes that Stillness realm within through the tuning fork of its own Stillness. Stillness is not static, it is alive and pulsing with the music of beauty and joy.

Take time to be awed. Take in the perfection of beauty - it is everywhere - in the hummingbird hovering in front of you and then disappearing like a bullet of rainbow, or in the common daisy flower or in the countenance of your dear friend or in the timber of the voice of your beloved.

The great saint Muktananda was asked by a disciple, "Master, there are so many books that teach ways to meditate! Which way is the best?" Muktananda replied, "Close your eyes."

How about giving it a try?

Stop.
Sit down.
Close your eyes.
And listen for the Silence of Stillness.

The Power of Love Expressed as Listening

2011-08-08T12:23:00.000-07:00

Not-Knowing: The Power of Love Expressed as Listening

One of my ongoing questions is: "What am I not seeing?" Whenever I enter into a dialogue with a client, or put myself in a seminar series or a course for ongoing growth and development, I forget what I know in a sense, so that I can hear newly. I practice “getting amnesia” regarding my intellect and memory and then I do my best to listen from the place of “not-knowing”. From this vantage point I always get a fresh perspective, and I am then open to other’s points of view, am willing to be a neophyte, and so I always "see" a new way of considering a previously well-rooted and oftentimes well-grounded concept. With high intention to get an insight about one issue or another, I find that pretty much anywhere I look will do if I am listening for what I don't know.

One of the obvious conversations I have been exploring and reflecting on, is the commitment many of us have to positive global transformation. Global transformation inherently implies a need for listening to the logic of other cultures, a deep respect for the different points of view of others. Given the way each of us views life, given our varied pasts and what we have made them mean, given our years of education and whatever cultural exposures we each uniquely have had, each one of us is in effect, a different culture.

What would happen to communication if we actually listened to one another as if we were each a different culture, replete with our own values and ways of operating that were grounded in a logic perhaps distinct to ourselves, but nevertheless valid and understandable? Communication would have the possibility of effortlessly becoming dialogue: more listening than speaking.

... Now, what if we were to listen to our own intellect and acquired knowledge in the same way? What if we were to listen to the inner silence of what we don’t know, the inner wisdom of “not knowing”, with nothing on our minds but a complete curiosity for what we haven’t been hearing? It is as if we have been listening to the cacophony of our own thinking with such an enamored fascination that the flute music of inspiration has been essentially drowned out. Yet when we can turn our attention away from that educated inner monologue, what can emerge from the stillness is a distinct resonance of wisdom. Implicit in this resonance is an answer to the question that has been raised, an emergence of a solution to the problem, a new realm of possibility that is equally-everywhere-present but which has been obscured by our own attachment to what we know. …

In the early 1990’s I was a member of SIETAR, the Society for International Education, Training, and Research, created by the founders of the Peace Corps. The strategy utilized by the most effective interculturalists of the day was the strategy of entering into a culture with no expectations or assumptions, but rather with reverence and a listening for what the culture was speaking not just verbally, but non-verbally. In this way the most effective of the interculturalists were the most malleable, open to assimilating into the culture due to the capacity they had developed within themselves to suspend their own knowledge and ways of behaving. They aligned with the resonance of the new culture much as an instrument allows its own vibrational rate to be catalyzed by a tuning fork.

Being catalyzes Being.

So, listening for what we don’t know could be a universal strategy, a globally transformative strategy, because the very nature of not-knowing calls for one to be present in the moment with no attention paid to one’s personal thinking from the past: beginner’s mind. …

~ Laura Basha, Ph.D, (excerpted from the award-winning paper:

"The Creative Process: A Portal to ‘Not-Knowing’, the Non-Verbal Language of Transformation", published in the 2010 Journal of The Conference for Global Transformation)

Beauty & Grace

2011-07-31T09:55:00.000-07:00

"Take time to be awed."

~ The Reverend Kathryn Jarvis

Kathryn Jarvis was my spiritual teacher for over 15 years. She dropped her body and made her transition in the early 1990's. She embodied Enlightenment, Grace, Beauty, and a depth of understanding of Truth that awakened any who were seeking It. Such understanding allows for simple and brief phrases to speak tombs.

This past few weeks have been fairly stressful; all good, yet demanding. As I was thinking about them and the next few, which promise to be equally demanding, the above quote popped into my mind. Such a simple statement, yet as I came across the above photo of our youngest grand daughter, I was instantly reminded of the joy and freedom inherent in the exhilarating soaring of a ride on a swing, and the emptying of any other thought in one's head aside from the grace of being present.

My head cleared, and the demands of the week seem like the next things to do, things to be grateful for: mostly, they are nice problems to have!

I was sitting on my deck a couple of weeks ago, and a hummingbird came out of nowhere, as they are want to do, and hovered about 6 inches from my face for about one minute, then took off like the feathered flying roadrunner that it is.

When you have a minute, look up, find that beautiful and graceful thing that is close at hand, and take a minute to be awed. It could be awed by you, too.

The Fragrance of the Silence

2011-07-24T11:33:00.001-07:00

Listening within the Silence is like
standing in a quiet room that has
a simple bottle of perfume in it.

Lifting the glass stopper of the perfume flask and waiting,
eventually the entire room is
infused with the perfume's fragrance.

What if we were to listen to the inner silence of what we don't know, the inner wisdom of "not knowing", with nothing on our minds but a complete curiosity for what we haven't been hearing? It is as if we have been listening to the cacophony of our own thinking with such an enamored fascination that the flute music of inspiration has been essentially drowned out. Yet when we can turn our attention away from that educated inner monologue, what can emerge from the stillness is a distinct resonance of wisdom.

Implicit in this resonance is an answer to the question that has been raised, an emergence of a solution to the problem, a new realm of possibility that is equally-everywhere-present but which has been obscured by our own attachment to what we know.

This is the attentiveness of the creative mind. Practicing listening to the Silence begins to cultivate a familiarity with the beautiful and brilliant fragrance of our own wisdom.

"Is stillness just the absence
of noise and content?
No, it is intelligence itself,
the underlying consciousness
out of which every form is born.
And could that be separate
from who you are?
It is the essence of all galaxies
and blades of grass;
of all flowers, trees, birds,
and all other forms."

~ Eckhart Tolle

Growth Mindset

2011-07-19T19:09:00.000-07:00

“Be fascinated, seduced, terrified and compelled

by transformation, creativity, and authentic self expression.

Freedom for the human spirit and human psyche is

our collective aspiration

as well as our birthright,

and is inherent in the evolution of consciousness.”

~ Laura Basha, Ph.D.,

from “Artist’s Statement”, Gallery, www.whitebirdrising.com

A growth mindset is not something to get.

It is a vantage point to come from.

Growth is a realm. It is the realm of Power.

“Standing” in this realm is standing in the Source of Creativity and

listening for what you don’t know;

listening for what’s available from the Source of Infinite Intelligence.

There is nothing to do to get a growth mindset.

There is no where to go to get a growth mindset.

There is being willing to listen for what you don’t know

in the midst of the cacophony of what you think.

Growth is a realm.

It is the realm of Power.

There is no gauntlet being thrown down eliciting defensiveness.

There is only the cultivating of a listening for a challenge to your certainty

without feeling challenged.

To cultivate a growth mindset is to stand in the certainty

of what you are committed to,

grounded in your own integrity,

without being threatened by a different perspective.

The realm of Growth is the realm of Power and

it is the safest and most creative place to listen from

because it is not personal.

In the realm of Growth,

there is only awakening to what you are interested in,

and a willingness to experience insight,

resulting in the cultivation of a growth mindset.

All Is Chosen ...

2011-07-10T14:15:00.001-07:00

This thing we do...

This separation which we perceive...

This experience of life or lunacy which we create and which has no existence without our permission...

Or, closer to Truth - without our choice it could not be ...

Why choose it at all?

Why have to choose it?

We have to choose it if we wish to continue to forget who we are ...

And so we keep choosing the illusion as reality

Until it gets so loud - the illusion, that is - that we can’t stand the noise and so scream to ourselves:

“Turn that blasted thing OFF!!”

And then the intellect is quiet for a moment.

So we have a glimpse of Reality and It is so quiet, so infinitely No Thing, so peaceful, so full of Peace...

And we remember for a flash Who/What we are.

And that is why we have to choose it.

Separation.

So we can finally consciously see who/what we aren’t, so that we can begin to consciously see Who/What we ARE.

Perfect beings.

Our perfection is our only stumbling block.

For we are perfect with or without our self’s permission, or awareness.

We are all Masters in our own universe.

We are either conscious of this Mastery or not, and this is the essential difference.

So it behooves us to become conscious of our Mastery so we can consciously choose the direction of the play instead of endlessly unconsciously scripting it and acting it out.

It isn’t a requirement to become conscious. There is free will.

But then ... there is Destiny.

It is simply a matter of being Home vibrantly Free or coming Home in the waking sleep.

What is it like, waking up?

Sometimes I have dreamed, and realized I was dreaming, and wanted to wake up,

And yet all my screams were silent, and all my attempts were futile as I wrestled with all my being to wake myself up from this falseness and re-align with my consciousness and body and then, suddenly

I would find myself back in this reality,

Confused but present.

And what had I been wrestling with anyway?

For from here, it looked like nothing,

An invisible kind of membrane from which I had to de-enmesh myself,

Like exhaustively wrestling with the angel and then to see there is no one there ...

Like Bert and Ernie in It’s a Wonderful Life wrestling with Clarence in the snow in the dark.

That’s what it’s like sometimes.

And sometimes, it’s like noticing the moth on the window.

Psychokinesis and All Possibility

2011-07-03T18:51:00.000-07:00

Well, this is a bit of a departure from my other blogs, and also shows you another side of me, but this is titled "Blogs/Musings", so I muse ...

In the 90's as part of my doctoral studies, I had the privilege of studying with some extraordinary professors in the fields of psychology: transpersonal, humanistic, cognitive, behavioral, spiritual, as well as parapsychology. My current interest concerns how we create our own experience of reality, what is conscious choice, and how to access realms of creativity, all possibility, and authentic self-expression, so, to at least be open to what's possible is essential to
one's capacity to effect positive change.

I came across this letter I wrote in 1998 to one of my professors, the brilliant and delightful Dr. Jon Klimo*, widely regarded as the world's leading authority on channeling, from whom I was taking a required course in parapsychology, part of which was the study of psychokinesis, or "PK". I include this in my musings because I thought you might enjoy it, because I found it enlightening as I re-read it, and also because in re-reading it I was reminded how myopic is our vision of our capacities as human beings, and how I, like others, feel it is essential that we continue to stretch our thinking to bring about a positive shift in human consciousness.

BTW, the above photo is of the very same item of mine that I mentioned in the following letter.
But heh, you'll have to take my word for it ...

Dear Jon,

Just a note:

I went to my first "PK" party a couple of weeks ago - actually, the night of our meeting at The Egg Shoppe. I didn't know it was a PK party, although I probably should've known, since it was at Virginia's house. Anyway, I met a friend of yours there, Randy, who does research on color. You told us about him and his kind of virtual-altered-state-light-gear in the parapsych class. We had a pretty interesting discussion. Anyway, Virginia comes out with a fistful of silverware and announces to everyone that we're going to "BEND SPOONS!!!".

"Oh, God", I thought, "I can't do this".

Here I am in front of all these alien-friendly, altered-state-doctoral-buff, I-eat-lucid-dreams-for-breakfast types, and I'm going to fail miserably. (Attached to my performance level much?) Not that bending silverware has ever been a goal or anything, and I will say that Randy was impressed that I had had a synethesia experience without the assistance of mind-altering drugs. In any case, even though I may have had a smattering of ASC experiences, in this group I considered myself pretty much of a parapsych priss.

Well, I was wrong. Much to my surprise, as I was chatting with another pk novice, but also focusing on softening the metal, the darn thing turned into putty and effortlessy twisted itself into a tight double coil under my slight pressure. The twisted part became so hot I couldn't touch it. I didn't yell, "BEND! BEND!BEND!" like the others did later. Just quietly massaged the neck of the spoon!

Well, I am now the proud owner of a bent spoon that curls nicely over the finger pull on my kitchen window. And for one brief shining moment my teenagers looked at me with absolute respect and awe. That, of course, was worth the whole evening. If you're looking for ways to have the field accept parapsych, think of integrating psychokenesis into parenting classes. I'm also thinking auto-body work could be next for me.

Take it slow,

- Laura

19 May, 1998

http://www.jonklimo.com/about.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Fxu-gniIA

How Clearly Do You See?

2011-06-26T18:48:00.000-07:00

Anything you do in the healing relationship is multi-dimensional.

The healing relationship is like a dream.

It's not about the content but the metaphysical significance of the content.

Whatever happens to the coach is what's happening to the client. Never sensor your feelings, but don't take them as real.

The coaching interaction at its best is truly a therapeutic interaction. To be able to see that whatever happens in that interaction is a metaphor for what's happening in the client's life and for how the client deals with life experience, allows us as coaches to become more sleuths than mentors.

Basically the client comes to us saying, "Look, I've lost my way. Here are the clues as to what has gone awry. Here are the knots, the tangles, the hurts, and the survival techniques I have used.

But they have taken over, and in my earnest attempt to maintain my natural health, I have become enamored of my survival techniques so much so that I can't remember who I truly am.
Do you have the clarity of vision to help me remember?"

This is the task and the gift of the self-actualized coach.

~ © Laura Basha, Ph.D., excerpted from Clinical Case paper, November, 1994

Loving An Old Warrior on Father's Day

2011-06-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

FOR BERT on FATHER’S DAY

Bert

1951- 2001

Father of my children, old warrior, mystic.

We love you still, and thank you for

Your brilliance,

Your music,

Your way with water and stars,

Your gift of humor.

Thinking of you always,

Thinking of you on

Father’s Day.

Paradise

by Bruce Springsteen

Where the river runs to black
I take the schoolbooks from your pack
Plastics, wire and your kiss
The breath of eternity on your lips

In the crowded marketplace
I drift from face to face
I hold my breath and close my eyes
I hold my breath and close my eyes
And I wait for paradise
And I wait for paradise

The Virginia hills have gone to brown
Another day, another sun goin' down
I visit you in another dream
I visit you in another dream

I reach and feel your hair
Your smell lingers in the air
I brush your cheek with my fingertips
I taste the void upon your lips
And I wait for paradise
And I wait for paradise

I search for you on the other side
Where the river runs clean and wide
Up to my heart the waters rise
Up to my heart the waters rise

I sink 'neath the river cool and clear
Drifting down I disappear
I see you on the other side
I search for the peace in your eyes
But they're as empty as paradise
They're as empty as paradise

I break above the waves
I feel the sun upon my face

_______________________

The Consciousness of the Healer

2011-06-12T18:53:00.000-07:00

"Help people express whatever their 'thing' is.
Give people the opportunity to [freely express].

Ninety-nine percent of the time, if they can express it,
it resolves itself - if you don't react."

~ Dr. Meji Singh

The consciousness of the healer is everything. We can only take people to the level of understanding we have integrated.

As the healer listens to the metaphors taking place in the moment of the healing relationship/session, the process of the healer seeing through the maze and re-ordering the maze into positive, understandable symbols for the client, symbols of health and well-being, demonstrates to the client the client's own creative protective mechanisms. Disarming the grip of fear that the illusion is real, the client feels the relief of returning to the resilience of Health - the true default program within all of us.

This can be explained verbally, but if the client is not cognitively aware or capable enough of understanding the verbal articulation of issues, no matter, for the work is always done through consciousness.

The degree of potential healing is directly proportional to the degree of clarity and thus presence of the healer.

Practice Forgetting

2011-06-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

As a former therapist and now a professional coach, the model of psychology that I have used since the early 90's is one which recognizes the innate Health of each and every person. One doesn't always see this health in expression, but to assume it is at the core allows for an expansion of healthy expression, one that is elicited from the client.

There is a need to have access to the past, but not a need to re-live it. It is a tremendous contribution to assist another is reviewing the past with a compassionate eye, looking for understanding in both self and other, and through understanding being freed into compassion.

As a healer, see Health in the other so that they can remember It for them self. As we radiate our own own well-being and security, it is contagious and hopeful for another. The natural wisdom in the other will then be released and will reveal the other's own answers and the direction out of the problem will be obvious. This reveals to both healer and other that everything we are looking for is within.

After understanding, let go the past, forget what you know, cultivate stillness and listen.

In its simplicity is its complexity.

Which Future to Live Into ...?

2011-06-04T11:52:00.000-07:00

Research on the top 5 regrets at the end of life were being discussed on my favorite morning radio station this past week.

I do not know the validity of the study, however the list provoked some reflection on my part as the items seemed obvious but caused me to look to see how much I was living these longings now, so as not to regret. The list seemed worth sharing ...

Top 5 Regrets at the End of Life

5) Not having chosen happiness more of the time.
(...the stance of choosing happiness, having that awareness at the end of life rather than throughout life.)

4) Not staying in touch with friends.
(Evidently there is an intense rush to locate old friends in the last 3 weeks of life ...).

3) Not having the courage to express one's true feelings.
(People noted in retrospect that there were negative repercussions to holding true feelings inside and not expressing them.)

2) Working too much.
(Enough said ...)

1) Not having the courage to express who one truly is throughout the life.
(The number one regret at the end of life.)

More Maslow on Enlightened Management

2011-06-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

“…the higher need satisfaction of belongingness, friendliness and affection, of respect given,

and of possibility of building self-respect …

These higher needs are precisely what enlightened management policy points itself toward.

That is to say, enlightened management policy may be defined as an attempt to

satisfy the higher needs in a work situation, …that is,

to have the work situation give intrinsically higher need satisfaction …”

~ Abraham Maslow, Maslow on Management, 1998, p. 239

Maslow on Enlightened Management

2011-05-31T15:13:00.000-07:00

“…any partner would take upon his own shoulders in emergencies any functions of the enterprise if he happened to be the one closest to the emergency. Any one of them, for instance, if he saw a fire breaking out would without taking votes about it or anything of the sort immediately go to put out the fire …

Now the point is this: All the experiments on enlightened management and humanistic supervision can be seen from this point of view, that in a brotherhood situation of this sort. every person is transformed into a partner rather than into an employee. He tends to think like a partner and act like a partner. He tends to take upon his own shoulders all the responsibilities of the whole enterprise. He tends voluntarily and automatically to assume responsibility for any of the various functions of an enterprise which an emergency might call for.

Partnership is the same as synergy, which is the same as recognizing that the interests of the other and one’s own interests merge and pool and unite instead of remaining separate or opposed or mutually exclusive."

~ Abraham Maslow, Maslow on Management, 1998, pp. 86-87

Enlightened Management

2011-05-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

"As important as education is, perhaps even more important is the work life of the individual since everybody works.
If the lessons of psychology, of individual psychotherapy, of social psychology, etc., can be applied to man's economic life, then my hope is that this too can be given an enlightened direction, thereby tending to influence in principle all human beings ...

[there is] the hope that the industrial situation may serve as the new laboratory for the study of psychodynamics, of high human development, of ideal ecology for the human being."

~ Abraham Maslow, Maslow on Management, 1998, p. 2

"In 1961, the renowned psychologist Abraham Maslow agreed to publish a group of his unedited journals which resulted in what was then titled, at his insistence, Eupsychian Management. The book quickly went out of print, probably because it presented ideas ahead of their time, but resurfaced in 1998 under the auspices of Warren Bennis, Professor of Business Administration, University of Southern California, entitled Maslow on Management. In this book, Maslow, like several others of his time, pointed tot he human side of enterprise. It has been said that his ideas were more for the 21st century than the 20th. This thinking lays the foundation for [perceptual paradigm shifts] to succeed in the business environment."*

It was while reading the above book by Maslow as part of the research for my dissertation that I truly heard the calling for my work, shifting it from a clinical focus to organizational psychology. The awareness of the possibility of organizations becoming self-actualized communities which could then model and be a catalyst for a self-actualized society resonated with me like a tuning fork. Corporations and organizations are people, coming together, being in relationship, for a common intent. What could be generated for humanity if organizations could, alongside of generating a consistently opulent ROI, awaken to the possibility of being and modelling that which all of us long to experience: belonging, friendship, respect.

"Fulfilling A New Reality: What Does It Take?"

2011-05-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

"Many people have compelling visions for life in a transformed world ...
But what does it take to realize those new realities?"

~ 2011 Conference for Global Transformation

This past weekend, May 20th - 22nd, was the 2011 Conference for Global Transformation, taking place in San Francisco, CA. (wisdomcgt.ning.com). Hundreds of people from around the world traveled to attend, people interested in transforming not the world of physical manifestation so much as re-inventing current global conversations that we take for granted which are creating our current realities. Generating new discourses designed to open up new realities of what is possible for humanity could then emerge in the language of all cultures, all people and all of our worlds.

I spoke at the conference on the topic of how to generate one's self to be self-actualized inside of a powerful context of purposeful living through extraordinary listening. It takes a continual listening to one's own resistance and outworn patterning, as well as the utilization of all the tools one has garnered and integrated along with a continual honing of them, to be an authentic expression for one's self and one's contribution to the world.

We truly are all one in the realm of consciousness. It's not just a "woo-woo" conversation, although that is what the identity would have us belief so that the ego could keep convincing us to make choices from it's perception.

It's all in the listening. Are we listening to the voice of the identity, or to the realm of essence and authenticity? Every breakthrough that is generated and every insight that is revealed through our own internal work, shifts what's available and therefore what's possible in that particular arena of consciousness in humanity. This is the impact of powerful listening.

~ ten thousand blessings to you ~

Aspiring Bodhisattvas

2011-05-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

"Tradition holds that the giving of alms is the first of the ten perfections required of a future Buddha. ... there was no limit to the number of existences in which Gautama Buddha became perfect in almsgiving, but the height of his perfection was reached during a lifetime in which he was a rabbit,
the Wise Hare".

~ Lewis Hyde, The Gift, pp. 75-76

I was not aware of this tradition or of the story at all at the time I painted the above painting, The Hare and the Moon, in 2008. In fact, the story of how the image for the painting came about is a very interesting one, the composition having come together under pressure within a period of a few hours. What I find interesting is, given my long pursuit of spiritual understanding, that these images of the hare and the moon, not to mention my title for the piece, arose not from study but from intuition and openness to what I could create when it seemed as though I had no ideas available to me.

To have come across this story just a few weeks ago, 3 years after painting the piece, in Hyde's brilliant masterpiece, The Gift, validates the assumption that when we are present to the Silence and listening for an inspired muse of an idea, we do truly tap into Infinite Intelligence, which generously articulates Itself through us in alignment with our own developed capacities.

We do not have to be cognitively aware, rather simply open to "hearing" or "seeing" something new. We are creating through our own unique perspective from that which is equally-everywhere-present. We are I think actually not "creating", but rather formulating from what is infinitely already created. We need not be scholars as there are whole worlds available to us that if we listen deeply enough we may catch snippets and thus find inspired expression connected to archetypes and tomes of wisdom.

"'Wise Hare,' said Sakka [ruler of the heaven of sensual pleasure disguised as a Brahman to test the rabbit's sincerity], 'let your virtue be proclaimed to the end of this world-cycle.' And taking a mountain in his hand, he squeezed it and, with the juice, drew the outline of a hare on the disc of the moon."

~ Lewis Hyde, The Gift, p.77

~ ten thousand blessings to you ~

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T14:40:00.000-07:00

"Our mothers and grandmothers,
some of them:
moving to music not yet written."

~ Alice Walker

Above is a photo of my children. As most every mother knows, in her decisions she thinks twice about everything - once for herself and once for her children. Our children's happiness brings not only joy but also peace of mind. That their life is fulfilling honors a mother's life, and validates a job well done.

I think there is a music to nurturing and caring for and mentoring. Unwritten music from which we take our cues for loving each other. We all have it as a capacity, maybe lying dormant, maybe fully expressed.

Celebrating the capacity of mothering within, wishing us all a
Happy Mothers Day!

~ ten thousand blessings to you ~

Power or Force?

2011-05-03T14:13:00.000-07:00

" Reclaiming the authentic self and developing character are essential tasks in the second half of life. Congruence within our nature fosters authenticity. Acting with integrity is the practice that brings us into alignment and congruence."

~ Angeles Arrien, The Second Half of Life

For so long I was afraid to really know my own power, afraid that expressing it or even showing it was dangerous, that something unsafe would happen to me or that I would lose those closest to me. But power is a realm. And we breathe it in all the time; it permeates the ethers. Yet when we are afraid of that which is equally everywhere present, we try to control it through some fabrication of our own thinking. When we do this with power, it becomes force.

Force can express as domination, but also as withdrawal or shyness or aquiescence - any form of manipulation. The force can be expressed externally or directed more internally, when we inhibit ourselves from true and authentic expression.

When we stand in the psychological vantage point of power, we stand in the clarity of our compassionate commitment to humanity, unthreatened by another's perspective. We radiate impersonal centeredness from this source of our own integrity. We become magnets for other's integrity, and power - through us - elicits clarity from others, where before confusion lived.

The realm of power is actually the safest place to stand.

Force is rigid, brittle, and therefore an expression of weakness.

True power is formidable in its gentleness and therefore irresistable, an expression of strength.

Force is fear.
Power is Love.

~ ten thousand blessings to you ~

What Does the Naked Eye See?

2011-04-26T06:11:00.001-07:00

One thing I have learned is that any enlightenment I have attained is not so much the result of noble pursuit as it is waking up to the fact that my face has been in the dirt for a long time and maybe I don't really know what I'm doing and it's time to get up, brush myself off and have the wherewithal to listen for what I don't know.

Were we to suspend our personal perspective, or at least our attachment to our personal perspective, a good question to ask might be: "What does the naked eye see?" With this question we enter the world of symbolism. As we simply be with what is in our midst, from the stance of the naked eye, we would not bring evaluation or assessment, we would bring curiousity and simple interest, synonyms for "not-knowing". This would allow for seeing something new. The artist must develop a tolerance for the discomfort of not-knowing, because as she exhausts her known ways of creating and the piece is still not working, she must allow the muse of creativity to educate her as to the next step, the next brushstroke, the next note. She is basically listening for the next choice, the answer to: how to proceed?

Listening from this realm of not-knowing, with mental attention turned away from the noise of the stored data of the intellect, and turned toward listening simply through the silence of the "naked eye", insight emerges. New possibility is heard and brilliance radiates: "Life is always singing" (B. Regnier). Inspiration unfolds, taking the form necessary for the fulfillment of the creation: painting to be expressed, words to be written or spoken, parenting to be done, business plan to be developed, patient to be healed. New realities and new realms emerge from the Source of everything and no thing. Empty and meaningless morph into what is needed, according to the character of the thought of the need. We become the conduit through which the creative Source forms Itself. We allow transformation to express through us into our worlds.

~ ten thousand blessings to you ~

Chaos: Where Brilliant Dreams are Born

2011-04-17T19:42:00.000-07:00

"Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be Chaos.

Before a brilliant person begins something great, they must look foolish to the crowd."

~ Yunn Pann

Ah the Fool!

The fool dances between the realms of the conscious and the unconscious, getting ready to take a leap of faith into the unknown, leaving the world of chaos with all possible choice from that realm.

Trusting that out of the chaos will emerge a focused new form, new expression, new concept, the artist needs chaos to authentically and joyfully create. There has to be the confusion inherent in chaos to eliminate assumption. The true artist becomes facile in and with the morass of chaotic effluvium that is Creativity.

"Flaky" is sometimes substituted for "foolish". Do we look "foolish to the crowd"? Does our creation sometimes look foolish to the crowd? Of course, because in listening for Creativity's song we step outside the obvious, the familiar, the expected. In doing so we build on the familiar, expanding it to the unfamiliar, until what was unfamiliar becomes obvious and inculcated into the consciousness of humanity's acceptance.

Be brilliant. The true leader never turns around to see if anyone is following.

And if they laugh, you just might be onto something ...

~ ten thousand blessings to you ~

A Good Artist or a Great One?

2011-04-10T16:47:00.000-07:00

If any of you have ventured into the world of creating art, or creating anything for that matter, as it is the process of creating that is the issue, not the resulting form (please download from my website and read my free award-winning paper on "The Creative Process"), then I think you will relate to the brilliance of the great poet and Sufi Master Hafiz, as he writes on the distinction between the good artist and the great one.

As you read please also think on the process of regenerating yourself to be the human being you honorably choose yourself to be, or would empower others to be.
Such process is not much different than creating art.

Happy Enlightenment!

The Vintage Man

The
difference
Between a good artist
And a great one

Is:

The novice
Will often lay down his tool
Or brush

Then pick up an invisible club
On the mind's table

And helplessly smash the easels and the
Jade.

Whereas the vintage man
No longer hurts himself or anyone

And keeps on
Sculpting

Light.

~• ten thousand blessings to you •~

"What Do You Count on Me For?"

2011-04-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

I am in a year long course that meets on a weekend every other month. It is part of my own ongoing growth and development, which I feel is essential for the integrity of my professional capacity if I am going to put myself in the privileged position of being another person's coach. The title of this musing is the question I have been inspired to ask some of the people who are most dear to me in my life.

Of course when the moment comes to ask this question of my significant others, all sorts of invalidating conversations that have been lying happily dormant in the quiet recesses of my memory bank, suddenly clamor for my attention. I know you have inside of your verbally unexpressed thinking some version of these hecklers. We all do. It's part of the make-up of being a human being. But that's another musing ...

In any case, they vie for my attention and I listen to them for some time. But I'm actually more interested - thankfully - in the answer to the question, because I really do want the important people in my life to experience me as someone they can count on in ways that they want to. The risk of course, if I listen to that internal nonverbal invalidating commentary, the risk is that I will find out I have woefully failed the people I love, not measured up to their expectations, have them laugh in my face or maybe even sneer
(those internal critical hecklers pull out all the stops!).

Well, I asked. I asked them all.

What I found out, to the chagrin of my own personal booing crowd but to the joy of my authentic essence, is that the things I most want to bring to people, that I have worked very hard to make present in our lives together, actually was their experience of me! And for the most part, their comments exceeded my hopes. What a gift! Several of my appreciative peeps thanked me for the opportunity to be able to express to me how much I meant to them in their life, and so themselves got to be moved and real and honest about how much they cared and valued what we had together. We became more and more related as
I reciprocated and shared with each of them what I count on them for.
We gave each other the gift of gratitude and acknowledgement and appreciation.
In a word: Love.

I invite you to ask your precious community the question: "For what do you count on me?",
and bring what you're looking for.

~ ten thousand blessings to you ~

Happiness

2011-03-27T21:04:00.000-07:00

"Ever since happiness heard your name,

It has been running through the streets trying to find you."

~ Hafiz

What if happiness was a realm of thought, available whenever we turned our attention to it?

Not a mindset of denial, but rather a state of mind that is equally everywhere present,

waiting for our awareness.

What if in the midst of tragedy, travail, suffering, or struggle, we chose this realm of happiness

in spite of the conditions,

so that we would access our best thinking to address the situation?

What would life experience be like if we chose happiness, practiced happiness?

How much do we think about what we don't want, and how much do we think about what we want?

What we pay attention to gathers substance.

What if life experience was always singing in the deep Silence of Source,

and its music could permeate your tears.

~ ten thousand blessings to you ~

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

2011-03-19T07:37:00.000-07:00

"Two Pisceans"

We are always at square one if growth and development are important to us, if we are passionate and intentional about continuously stepping into not-knowing and listening for the song of the muse.

I will be sharing thoughts that I hope will bring fresh perspective and possibility and validation to you about this extraordinary expression called life experience.

Please join me and check back often and celebrate a day now long ago when this current journey began ...

FIRE

a woman can't survive

by her own breath

alone

she must know

the voices of mountains

she must recognize

the foreverness of blue sky

she must flow

with the elusive

bodies

of night winds

who will take her

into herself

look at me

i am not a separate woman

i am the continuance

of blue sky

i am the throat of the mountains

a night wind

who burns

with every breath

she takes

~ Joy Harjo

••• New Beginnings •••

2010-10-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

"Every thought pretends it matters so much."

~ Eckhart Tolle

I have been away from writing for almost 18 months. In the last year and a half I have been busy distinguishing my identity: all those thought patterns from the past - memory clamoring for survival and desperately wanting to enroll me in its necessity! I have so far awakened to quite a bit of the patterning that has gone into this particular personality, as distinguished from what I would call the essence of who I am.

Certainly not a finished process by any means, but enough of a jump start to be re-inspired to revitalize the White Bird Rising website and blog. Please stay tuned for a re-branding of the site to make it more interactive and consistent, including new musings and eventually new writings and artwork, with the intent to have it be more of a contribution and hopefully an inspiration for you!

Love and Blessings

~ Laura

"Here is a new spiritual practice: don't take your thoughts too seriously"

~ Eckhart Tolle

Everything Is A Metaphor ...

2009-05-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

••• EVERYTHING IS A METAPHOR •••

Have you ever noticed how when you clean out your closet, or straighten up your desk, or even wash your car, that you feel lighter, clearer, open to new ideas and ready to take action? Just like your desk is now occuring as an invitation to work on something new, and your car is a pleasurable invitation to drive, life experience occurs as freer and there is an invitation to become curious about what next inspires you.

"If you want to know what you're thinking, look at your life."

I completed painting the interior of our home this past holiday season. It took months to decide on which colors to put on which walls. I am an artist, so I figured it would be easy and fun! What I realized shortly into the project was that this was a whole different world of expression than creating paintings, and there was an inventory of house paints and colors about which I was basically ignorant. This was work! About six months after starting, the last wall was complete, and our two floors of Navaho White are now transformed into a enveloping realm of warmth and beauty.

What I wasn't prepared for was the deep and satisfying experience of being home that this new many-hued house suddenly elicited. Having grown up in a family where abandonment was the culture, I had always felt that I didn't have a home, and over the decades have experienced myself as always looking for home, feeling like I never belonged. I came to realize that I didn't have to keep looking for a place, because I was a place, and I learned to "bring home" with me. But this new expression of warmth radiating out of the bold palette reminiscent of pumpkin and aubergine and green pear, is like stepping into one of my paintings, and suddenly the "inside bringing" of home is reflected in the outside structure of the house. Finally, the completion of a long search born of much self-reflection, emanating through this lovely house. Everyone who visits loves stepping into this environment and feels its enveloping cheer.

"If you want to know what you're thinking, look at your life."

I took a wonderful class last year through the University of Berkeley's "Ollie" curriculum. It was a course on dreams and consciousness. We shared dreams as part of the coursework, and as we all sat in a circle, we took one voluntary decribed dream and we all interpreted it. The caveat was, however, that we had to interpret the dream as if it was our own - we could not analyze the dream as if we had the answer for someone else. Well, of course, each of us saw so much value in our own interpretation of another's dream, because the symbolic nature of the other's dream got interpreted through our own filters, born of each of our own unique past experiences. It didn't matter which of us had actually dreamed the dream! Very powerful.

As I reflected on this classwork over the weeks, something occurred to me. What if I were to describe an event that happened during my waking hours, an event that caused me some kind of dilemma, concern, or perplexity, and reviewed it myself as if it were a dream I had had, or even a dream that another had had? And what if my interpretation of this waking event as if it were a dream, resulted in a fruitful illumination of the issue?

Well, there followed many good harvests.

If you want to know the source of your life, consider what you are thinking!

Are we sure this life is the waking walk and the dream life is the sleeping walk? Is it worth considering that everything is a metaphor? With this perspective through which to peer, life experience takes on even richer hues, even clearer vision. The deeply wise essence of who I am is always trying to tell me something, but I have been limiting myself to listening only to the language my tongue can speak.

~•~•~ Ten Thousand Blessings to You ~•~•~

Loneliness and Longing: "Who Weeps for God?"

2009-05-09T09:37:00.000-07:00

"The singing and dancing over, the Master took his seat and all sat around him.

'Sir, how can one develop Divine Love?

Through restlessness - the restlessness a child feels for his mother. The child feels bewildered

when he is separated from his mother, and weeps longingly for her.

If a man can weep like that for God

he can even see him.'"

~ from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

Every now and then I would have to say that I suffer from a deep sense of loneliness. It used to haunt me but now it gives me pause to get quiet and reflective. I have a wonderful life with many friends and family, and I have very good work that is well suited for me which I have generated over many years of training and practice. So there is no real reason for me to experience such loneliness.

For many years I thought that the loneliness had to do with others and old experiences and resulting patterns of abandonment. I am not saying that such experiences and patterns don't have their impact. They do. But what I have been able to discern over time is that by paying attention to these old patterns I have actually cultivated them into an ongoing reality, re-creating them into having their own ongoing life, and re-creating relationships which prove the validity of being the victim of the perceived and actual losses.

In being willing to be curious about the loneliness, I developed a tolerance to actually be present with it, and I have come to see something. I can see that the loneliness is actually a longing for the freedom of authenticity, the grace of aligning with my own essence, a resonating call for self-acceptance and self-expression, such that I am bringing communion rather than looking for it.

There are some places where this is fulfilled, and I can speak from experience that the longing of mother for child and child for mother is certainly one place. Sometimes we are blessed to find it with another partner, and whole worlds of love unfold within and without.

But we can have that experience of whole worlds of love unfolding within and without, even if we are walking through life without a significant other. The fulfillment of such longing is actually a birthright, a realm which is equally everywhere present, permeating and penetrating and saturating all of the ethers. As we are willing to take a deeper dive into the source of the unrest, seeing the unrest as an aspect of longing, listening to it as a request that is preceding the fulfillment, we can resonate with the quietness and profundity and the peace of contentment. The longing is the promise of fulfillment.

"Let me tell you something. What will you gain by floating on the surface?

Dive a little under the water. The gems lie deep under the water; so what is the good

of throwing your arms and legs about on the surface?

A real gem is heavy. It doesn't float; it sinks to the bottom.

To get the real gem you must dive deep."

~ Sri Ramakrishna

~•~•~ !Ten Thousand Blessings to You! ~•~•~

Be What You are Looking For

2009-04-17T12:06:00.000-07:00

~~~ • Be What You Are Looking For • ~~~

Have you ever considered the possibility that there is no one out there? Meaning to say, there is only you, walking around in your life, experiencing life based upon how you perceive things? Have you considered that the people you interact with may or may not be the way you understand them to be, but rather only occur that way to you because you have a certain vantage point from which you view them, and then you make up that that must be the way they are?

What if that wasn't really the way that they are? What if you actually caused people to be the way they are with you by overlaying your vantage point of who you see them to be on top of them, like a veil, so they didn't actually have a chance to be anything other than the way you saw them? They would be caught in the script of your design, trapped into reacting a certain way because you set the stage for them to be the character you created.

Is this a stretch? Well, last fall I chose to create a way of being for myself that inspired me. I chose to stand in the psychological vantage point that I was a remarkable human being who would be a clearing, a space if you will, for other human beings to be remarkable. This inspired me.

I had just found out from my sister that my father was ill. Life with my father had been a terrifying experience for me as a child. I would say that I experienced my childhood as one of alienation and despair. When I heard he was ill at the age of 90, I thought long and hard about whether or not to go and see him. He had, after all, after the last time I spoke with him, requested that I never call him again. This, after a loving conversation!? But then, that was my father, and we had only spoken twice in the last 30-plus years. He wanted it that way. My sister and I hashed it out and we both decided to, finally at this age, decline seeing him and putting ourselves through what had become the "routine" of being rejected once again by our dad.

Then I remembered this possible way of being I had created for myself. What would the woman who was being a remarkable human being who was a space for other human beings to be remarkable, do? Well, she would not decline a last request for the fear - or righteous indignation - of not being accepted. She would not be LOOKING for acceptance, she would be BRINGING acceptance!

Big shift in vantage point.

I shared this with my sister and she agreed to give it a try. No matter what his response, we could at least BRING what we were looking for. So we called him! Unbelievably he was a different man. He couldn't believe we wanted to see him and said absolutely to please come. So off we flew to Portland, Oregon and then drove 2 hours to his house.

The looming image of my terrifying father evaporated, as a very old and frail man came to the door to greet us. My sister and I hugged and kissed the father we hadn't seen together in 40 years. There were a couple of moments when the old ugly personality that we knew as children reared its head, but she and I looked at each other with the resolve that we were going to continue to BRING the joy and love we wanted in the face of anything he could dish out. The comraderie between she and I was powerful! We both smiled as the daggers briefly flew our way, and then dissolved as our smiling and loving countenances met them halfway. They didn't have a chance!!

We visited for about 5 hours before we drove back to the airport. We were incredulous at our own results. My father was so grateful and loving, and, even though the childhood was what it was, we now have a memory to take with us to OUR graves, and we now know that anything is possible. I have an experience that I never had before: being loved by my father. I have spoken to him several times since, and though he cannot hear well on the phone, despite repetitive yelling on my part, he always hears the words "I love you, Dad".

We really can create an environment that we bring with us which establishes a field of resonance to which incoming energy vibrates. It's physics: the highest vibrational rate catalyzes other lower vibrational rates around it, and either raises them to the same frequency, or turns them away.

Don't take my word for it. Are you looking for something in relationship with someone else? Is there something missing that you want? Be the gift you want to get. This is why it is better to give than to receive - what you are giving has to come through you first before it can be given to another. If you want love, give love. Period. This is not about fairness - fairness is an illusion if you are looking for it outside of yourself. This is about being a leader and being empowering for yourself and others, and creating the world that you say you want.

GENERATE the way of being you are looking for.

And watch what happens!!

~~~ • Ten Thousand Blessings to You • ~~~

The Wisdom of Not Knowing

2009-04-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

"True freedom

is living as if you had completely chosen

whatever you feel or experience in this moment.

This inner alignment with the Now

is the end of suffering."

~ Eckhart Tolle

I have been teaching a class over the last years called "The Wisdom of Not Knowing", and I will be turning it into a webinar series for a corporate client this summer. I thought I would share a bit about the essence of "Not Knowing", as it may be of interest to many of you wanting to experience more freedom and ease in life experience.

The wisdom of not knowing is very much related to being present in the "Now". Being able to identify one's intellect, or essentially, one's memory, such that you can turn your attention away from it to listen from nothing and be completely present with what is happening around you in the moment, or to be completely present to how another human being sees life, is at the heart of accessing wisdom. To be actually fascinated with how another human being sees life, having the humility of realizing that every human being is a unique culture of which we know nothing, creates inspiration and profound relatedness.

Listening deeply enriches all conversations and gives people an inroad to intimacy and compassion. For the practitioner or consultant who has the ears to diagnose, it reveals the clues to where the knots are, where there's a place that doesn't make sense. It expands organizational creativity as people begin to see that differences are what you're looking for in order to open up conversations for organizational evolution.

This approach is particularly effective when applied to listening to one's own thinking. Is it personal thought - our own memory and intellect - from which we are taking our cues? Or is it Impersonal Thought - Infinite Intelligence - Wisdom, which informs us of our understanding and choices?

Through listening deeply enough, the one you are listening to hears their own perceptions in such a way that there is a vacuum created into which rushes the solution which has been waiting to be heard! Every question is preceded by the answer wanting to come up to consciousness.

Deep listening with nothing on our mind is at the core of any true effectiveness we catalyze with others. My life's journey from here on out is to develop more and more gracefulness in Not Knowing.

Wanna play?!

• ~~~~~ • ~~~~~ • Ten Thousand Blessings to You • ~~~~~ • ~~~~~ •

CLUTTER: Somewhere, Right Now, Someone is Playing Music

2009-03-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

This past year I completed what has essentially been a four year project of managing the build of a new addition to our house, and then having the exterior and interior painted. That project in itself is cause for a separate musing...

In any case, as you walk into the house you are greeted now by earthy hues that sing with warmth and resonate with invitation. Coming down the curving staircase onto the first floor, what then awaits you in the middle of the dining room is a pile of neatly organized boxes, smack in the midst of this welcoming beauty. I decided to pull all of the boxes out of the closets and the office and basically, out of hiding. Rather than make believe I have it all together I now introduce the pile to our visitors as "And here's My Stuff. This is actually my life. I trip over it. Eventually I will organize it and let go of these old belongings and My Stuff will no longer be here in the dining room."

By the way, just behind this heap of valuables is a panoramic view of the San Francisco Bay Area. However, I no longer really notice that as there is so much other "stuff" to see which is blocking the music of this stunning vista.

I was reflecting on this state of affairs over the weekend, and what I began to see was that every time I walked through the house I really resented that I had to deal with this mess. It took my time, it got in my way, and I felt that I couldn't actually get to the things that I wanted to get to because I had so much stuff to sort through. I felt that I had to go through every piece of paper; turn over every stone, so to speak, in case I might miss something and that if I didn't save it I would be heart-broken, or worse, that something terrible might happen.

A feeling of overwhelm comes over me when confronted with this stack of stuff. Incidentally, this pile of boxes is just the first string. There's a whole storage unit under the garage full of the past, again - stuffed in boxes, and most of this doesn't belong to me - it belongs to our children. And oh yes, the garage ... well, that space just fits the cars plus all the valuables that aren't even in the organized boxes yet. And then there's my closet ...

So - I saw how overwhelmed and distracted I was with the clutter I had accumulated. I also know that Life Itself is always humming, always Joyful, and somewhere, at any given moment, someone is tapped into that Resonance that is Life and is listening, allowing, or playing music, either literally or figuratively.

Then it hit me! These boxes that I have dragged around from place to place, full of perfectly good stuff, by the way - not junk - are the perfect metaphor for how I have been living my life. I had a challenging and unhappy childhood. I learned to read the psychological undercurrents of every situation in order to be safe. No stone unturned!

Over time this developed skill has created in me a brilliant capacity to diagnose what is troubling in certain circumstances, situations, people's lives and personalities. This need to turn over every stone gave rise to an inner tenacity of perception that had me do quite well in getting my Ph.D. in psychology: driven to know the truth of the matter! Not a bad deal actually, and has been quite a contribution in many ways. However, what I saw this weekend is that I have been living my whole life with a need to ferret out every piece of information that might otherwise trip me up, all so that I could be happy and fulfilled. The arduous nature of going through the boxes is just a representation of the arduous way I have been living my life!

Now you wouldn't necessarily know this from looking at me or sitting down for a good session or even a chat. However, inside my head lurks the same never-ending monologue that goes on pretty much inside every human being's head that I've ever met, read, or heard of. Human beings are designed to think. Endlessly. Without ceasing. We are indeed thinking creatures!

SO - what if I just grabbed a latte and opened a box and perused it as if I was shopping? Took out of the past collection just what I wanted to keep and tossed the rest, without having to look through every item, check every detail.

And what if I started living my life in the present moment - singing, already happy, taking from the past only those items and memories that have contributed to the amazing and wonderful life that I am living today? Everything else has been grist for the mill, really, and thus the portal for my transformation.

Let go the rest.

WHOA! Clutter: The access to freedom, happiness, and full self-expression!!!

Not to sound preachy but heh! How about if I just let go in gratitude, and keep enough to remember that the blessing to still be in the journey is all earned, and that all that suffering is what allowed for compassion to bloom.

How about "Clutter: The Path to Enlightenment". Well, ok, that's a bit much, but maybe it's at least a way to whistle while you work.

I feel a Broadway musical coming on ...

Ten thousand blessings to you until next time.

Reflections ...

2009-01-10T17:56:00.000-08:00

THE RESONANCE OF BEAUTY

Beauty resonates through all manifestations, being an aspect of the One Substance out of which all things are formed. Beauty is intrinsic harmony expressed.

Beauty is Truth. If Truth is the unwavering perfection in the universe - the Divine Order which, through association, transmutes everything into its Divine Correspondent - then Beauty is an expression of the Divine Order inherent in all form, all conditions, all life experience. In order to see beauty in this way, we have to be open to seeing it in this way.

We are struck by the beauty of an object, a person, a scene, nature. What happens? The Divine Order within the structure speaks to that higher state of Divine Order within us, and, much like a tuning fork, catalyzes the state of Divine Order that is equally everywhere present. We look at each other through it. The experience of being touched by the beauty of anything is an aspect of Love. Harmony and the experience of Harmony is an aspect of Love, and Love is the highest Truth. So, Beauty is Truth. Beauty is Love emanating, catalyzing.

Listen for Beauty and notice how you are transmuted into the Divine Correspondent of Love, Gratitude and Compassion. These are some of the divine characteristics toward which we aspire to express through our humanity. These characteristics are available to us and through us, simply by focusing awareness toward them. We then awaken to Beauty in struggle, in suffering, as well as in comfort and ease. Listening is seeing.

Seeing Beauty does not condone injustice; it is a listening through which we can access the ability to make a beneficial difference in any circumstance or condition.

Seeing Beauty is seeing the Divine Order in all experience. Listening for Beauty is a stance to take to actualize positive change, and have access to possibility, genius, creativity, and joy.

We are Wondrous Made

2008-12-09T11:44:00.001-08:00

1989: Loma Prieta Earthquake
San Francisco Bay Bridge: Treasure Island

"... I do remember that it took a long while before we felt safe enough to return to our cars. Eventually – one by one or in small groups we braved the way back onto the bridge.

Once in the cars, people waited while each car turned around to make room for everyone to eventually get off the bridge. It took hours. All was going smoothly until one car without a driver just sat there, blocking the exit of a bus no less. At this point a guy in a red and black checked woodsman jacket started directing the exit process. Who knows who he was – everyone just deferred to him. To deal with the abandoned car that was blocking the safe turn-around of the bus, he seemed to signal effortlessly and 7 or 8 guys showed up out of nowhere. As if they had been choreographed, the men surrounded the car, bent down, lifted the car, moved it to the side of the bridge and directed the bus driver to make his turn.

Incredible.

My car was among the ones closest to the break in the bridge. So the closer I came to it, there were more people driving back in their cars and fewer people walking. It was dark by then with just the lights of the bridge illuminating the bay and the blacked-out city of San Francisco. That’s when I noticed an old Asian man in a khaki raincoat. He was by himself and walking slowly, bent forward with a couple of pieces of clothing on hangers from the cleaners over his back. I was a little concerned about him. We were both alone.

I came up alongside him and kept my gaze on him as I passed. He looked up at me slowly from under the brim of his hat. He smiled with this impish twinkle in his eye and then shrugged. I got the message – some days are better than others. I knew he was OK. He went on his way, casually happy in the midst of trauma. That little moment of intimacy has stayed with me all these years and, like a talisman, still reminds me of hope and resilience and the healing power of a joyful state of mind.

~ Laura Basha, Ph.D.
(Edited by Judith Blahnik, excerpt from soon to be published manuscript)