just be it

Facing uncertainty when you “think“ you’re alone feeds our fear and greed. When we can surrender the illusion of being alone, of not being supported, not being loved… we can open and allow grace. I have found it helpful to review all those times in my life when this body should’ve been ended had it not been for grace given. With awareness to the power and gift of grace I’m fortified to meet the moment with a whole heart, with diminished fear and a sense of satisfaction that feeds joy. With awareness to the direct experience of grace and the opportunity to participate in this precious birth, the quality of life improves and our natural tendency to complain and fuel dissatisfaction dissipates.

Given this precious birth, it’s our responsibility to show up, pay attention and take on the difficult task of being our best. We can get lost in our desire “to have“, we can fail to meet the situation at our best when we lack awareness to the harm we may cause. This is why it’s so important to balance “have“, “do“ and “be“. With awareness practice we can find our grounding and carry an upright posture, knowing we’re giving our whole attention to the moment as we stretch further and further into our best. We can be distracted by those who would put us to sleep to the core of our being. There are those who would justify inflicting violence on others so that they could achieve more wealth and power. It’s only when we recognize the truth that we are each other, that our work is that of stewardship and compassion, that we can touch that space of showing up with full attention, being our best. Finally, it’s important to hold self compassion as we often miss the mark. We have to rest our foolish pride, knowing we don’t control the results.

Cooked Enough 

I like to think of life as a cooking process. We’re all being baked, moving through experiences of suffering and healing. We experience pain and do the work of alleviating it. Some of us come out of the oven too soon, thinking we have all the answers. We attach to belief systems and actually do great harm by trying to force those belief systems on others. Wisdom would have us stay in the oven so that the experiences would give us insights infused deep in the heart and bones. When we are fully cooked we come out with deeper convictions to not cause harm, greater appreciation for the gift of our precious birth and a recognition that each moment is gift, Grace given. With this, being fully cooked, we walk more carefully, with deeper appreciation for the wake of our actions, thought and speech. We first look at the potential for collateral damage from how we behave and what we say. We listen more and speak less. We move with a sense of direction and stability rather than reactive anger and negative emotion.

Some people step out of the oven way too soon. They haven’t had the experiences, the nurturing, the education or the training to move into life with deep wisdom. They step out of the oven thinking they know, that their map is “the” map. They may still be trapped in their grasping or their fear . So much of our leadership today comes from lack of experience, lack of wisdom and the fallacy of happiness from excessive wealth or power. 

And then there are those who can’t step out of the oven. They are trapped in their situation, consumed by fear and complaint. With deep awareness practice we can witness how we are being run through the mill, how we can deepen our wisdom and move into elder stage  wisdom/compassion. 

There’s something about being open with awareness to when it’s time to step out of the oven. We have been cooked fully recognizing that suffering never stops. Van Morrison captures this when he sings his latest song, “I haven’t lost my sense of wonder. Even though things don’t seem to be working out. I haven’t lost my sense of wonder, even when in a world of doubt. I’ve been through the mill, I’ve had my fill.  Now peace be still.“

“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which you were born. The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives”. Albert Einstein

I recently made a Facebook post showing my golden retriever toning in harmony to my trumpet. There were a couple comments about possible pain this may cause to him. One response drew the conclusion that it was causing pain. In truth, this is a deep ritual practice that emanates from the heart. It’s a call to wake up to the illusion of being separate, to the poisons of fear and greed, and our need for healing rather than continued fighting.

Mojo and I have done this every day for more than four years, sometimes twice a day. Toning for healing has been a spiritual practice for me since 2003. There are times during trouble and deep wounding when it’s too early to introduce words. This became all the more clear to me when toning the horn at Virginia Tech after the mass shooting in 2007. Mojo was a gift of grace to me at the beginning of the pandemic. The grief in October 2020 was tremendous and Mojo spontaneously joined in the healing tone when only 10 months old. We both meet this ritual with tremendous vital energy each and every day. My experience and research shows no evidence that this is a painful experience for him. I’m sure there are those whose experience and research could draw another conclusion. This seems to be the problem we have today. There’s a lack of awareness to the field of epistemology, how we know what we “think“ we know. We debate, argue, fight under the illusion that somehow “we know and others don’t“. I can’t conclude that Mojo‘s howling is not painful at some point. I can only take my experience and research. Others have their experience and their research and they can only come to a temporary conclusion. In effect, this is the essence of wisdom from R D. Laing. He claims that I have my experience and you have your experience. I have my experience of your experience. You have your experience of my experience. And on and on this can go. We will never have each other‘s experience so all we can do is deeply listen to one another for better understanding. Can you imagine the world today as John Lennon did when writing the song “Imagine“? Can you imagine putting even a small percentage of our military budget toward the very sophisticated skills needed in listening to each other for understanding rather than dominance and ideology?

Over the years of doing this Mojo and I have come to listen to each other in deeper ways. His tone is entraining more and more to the tone of the trumpet just as I’m entraining to his howling tone. These tones go deep into my ancestry and the ancestry he has with the wolves. Our experience has shown a tremendous healing impact with these calls back to wholeness, healing and unity consciousness. It’s our simple way for making a wake up call to the gift of grace and the opportunity to move through another day with deepening resolve to not cause harm.