Start right now actually. Breathe! Before you read any further!
Smile gently. Let your body soften, get heavy in your chair.
Let your eyes look away and relax for a moment. The words will wait here for you.
.
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Lovely. Feel a little more spacious? Please continue breathing and smiling as you read on.
This time of year seems to be extra crazy in our busy worshipping modern world.
Can you feel that underlying sense of GO GO GO?
That deep compulsion to do more, be more, know more, give more, be brighter, be better?
Take a moment to breathe into it and acknowledge that it is there, in you.
Maybe you can find some gratitude for it.
This urge for more, for growth and expansion, has brought humans in general and you in particular all the benefits of civilised, developed modern life as well as the global and personal challenges we now face.
And don’t we love a challenge, us humans?!!!!
Laughing now, because I was not expecting this post to go this way at all!!!!
Keep breathing, and smiling. Soft eyes, heavy in your chair.
You’ve lived with this genie, this demon, this god, this libido all your life. Perhaps you have tried to rule it. Or perhaps it has ruled you. Perhaps you’ve made some kind of deal with it. Probably you have tried all three in different areas of your life.
The question is not what to do about this primal urge for growth, but what to do WITH it.
In mutually beneficial collaboration.
The urge is the urge of life itself, seeking light, consciousness, manifestation, acceptance.
There’s no escaping that shit.
But we can learn to play with it. To take it lightly. Not to take it personally.
Mostly to stop thinking that things should be any other way than exactly how they are.
This place where you are now, God circled on a map for you
Hafiz
Whether you ultimately decide you want to change things or allow them to be as they are, the starting point is acknowledging the reality of your current situation as best you can.
Then you commit to playing for pleasure, starting right now.
Because in the game of life you are playing only with or against yourself. You cannot win. You cannot break even. You can’t get out of the game. (That’s thermodynamics)
You were in the game before you were born. You will still be in the game after you die. Even after the last time someone mentions your name, and beyond that when you drift out of living memory, your presence here has made a difference.
Just as butterfly wings might be the source of a storm half a world a way, so every moment of your life reverberates through time and space in ways incomprehensible to finite human intellects.
Breathe!
Wondering how to play at this level? The level of the universe?
It’s simpler than you think.
Essentially, do less. Do almost nothing, because on the scale of the universe, you are almost nothing. Trust more.
Oh, that would be meditation. Just breathe. And smile gently.
Confession – I’m not so great at classical meditation. At sitting still and simply being. It’s one of the things I don’t get around to doing.
I find my mind empties more easily when I am moving. That I am able to drop into my experience of the moment more deeply when I am actively interacting with my environment, without expectation of a particular outcome. Simply following one choice, one discovery, one action to the next.
Like creating earth circles.
Earth Circles. Breathe and smile and create with what is within my reach right now. Gently bring simple order to small objects I find around me. Effortlessly. Joyfully. Surprisingly.
Communicate wordlessly, celebrate joyfully, collaborate humbly with the universe, with nature, with life.
And when you’re done, when you’ve had enough. Simply stop. Go back to your personal life, which is absolutely real and needs your attention too.
After enlightenment, the dishes. – but that’s another post….
The greatest blessing of our human lives is that we can touch both, if we choose to. And ultimately learn to appreciate the difference, to know and love the particular joys of both unity and individuality. To distinguish between our divine nature and our human lives.
Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.
If you would like to play in a collective, I am facilitating a free online game for the next 12 days leading up to Christmas. #12XmasStars
Each day starting 11 December until Solstice on 22 December, you are invited to create a simple star shape using common household items.
Each day I will advise the item to play with as well as stories about my own creations and answers to questions. And perhaps most importantly a reminder to breathe and smile.
We’re making up our own rules for the game as we go. Rewards, scores, teams, we will find out what works as we play. What enables us to both support and challenge ourselves and others. Now there’s a challenge!
You are warmly invited join the dedicated private facebook group to share photos of your creations and tell their stories. To get rewards and other benefits / gold stars.
Because it’s definitely more fun with friends. Or at least with other people who are willing to risk this adventure with you.
If you have friends or family who you think would benefit from a bit more breathing and smiling, please pay it forward and pass this gift, this invitation on to them.
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