Being With Pain

Illness. Pain. The mind wants solutions… suggesting… trying… what if this, what if that…. it wants to escape the body pain… now! It’s so persistent in its quest to stop this actual ‘what is’ state. Jibber-jabbering away wanting to be helpful. I’m sitting here watching it do its thing… creating fear, scary thought, anxiety stories, all kinds and varieties of stories. I used to resist the mind and the body and the stories, but that just kept me tethered even more. So, I watch it do its thing. Jibber-jabber… when will it?… what if?… stop me in my tracks writhe, grimace involuntarily; disapprove of it as I’m sending it love and approval; call out to Uriel, Lester, god god god, a friend… what a cacophonous symphony. Not a distraction. Not to be denied, ignored, or by-passed. But to have the courage to dive into the apparent chaos where peace, pain, noise, silence, whatever-ness, and all of it resides. This is the challenge of illness… and life.
Courage to be with all of it, and to let it be all of what it is. Until it isn’t.
mu, 02/15/2016

Ojai, CA

Love Heroes

  

I had a bittersweet day. I was writing a chapter in a book I’ve been working on about a soulmate. When I’m writing it, I’m living it. That can be both beautiful and heart-wrenching.

Without him, my soul felt bruised. All of the clichés applied. He felt it too. He said, “You’ve ruined it for me… being with anyone else.” I felt the same. Ruined or not, sometimes Life has other ideas, and soul bruises don’t heal like regular bruises. They’re not supposed to. They stick around to remind us how fucked, I mean, how lucky we got. We actually had “it”, and we still have “it”, and how unbelievably amazing “it” is when “it’s” Real. 

Real doesn’t mean for as long as our bodies exist. It’s beyond time and space like We are. Real is right now, AND then, AND always without end Infinitely. How cool is that? And my god, that we actually go on to love again… and again, even with a bruised soul and an ever-so-slightly abridged version of our heart. That’s heroic. We are Love Heroes.

Today was a bruised and bittersweet day. How fucking amazing is that? 

– mu

July, 2015

Ojai, CA

The Petri Dish of Suffering

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”
~ Ben Okri

This life is full of tragedy and loss. Sometimes, it is challenging to wrap the mind around it, and painful to wrap the heart around it. What a trip… what a ride.

To ignore the sorrow or tragic aspects of the Whole, and attempt to “be” or see only the easy soft lovely ‘beautiful’ parts; to deny the juicy messy ‘ugly’ painful parts, is life only partially tasted, partially lived. It is unawakened or partially awakened believing it is fully awakened. When we transcend, even if only for a moment in time (literally) we then know it is all part of the deal. Not just some of it. ALL of it. It is then that the shadow, painful, tragic aspects, can also be seen as ‘beautiful’ if one chooses.

We are here right now in the midst of an earthly physical/mental firestorm day-to-day. How we think, act and react to whatever is, has been, or will be — including the tragedies, losses and suffering in our lives and the lives of our extended earthly family, is the material realm petri dish where TRUE heroes, TRUE sages, TRUE awakened and enlightened beings are born… again and again and again.

No human is excluded from this experiment, so let’s each, from wherever we are right now, consciously love one another in our individual and collective suffering. And let’s be courageous and embrace a little of the shadow aspects of our individual and collective humanity today — even if we weep until the sun rises tomorrow.

– mu

July 17, 2014

 

 

Sadhu: A Precious Gift

A subtle shift of focus… the precious gifts…

My missing Sadhu (our loyal 14 year old dog son) in the physical is overshadowed by the precious gifts. The gift of his presence in my life. The blessing of knowing he is free and infinitely part of All now. Unbounded. No longer apparently limited by the physical body. That gives me a profound sense of peace and bittersweet joy, just as it did in the moment of his leaving. Being fully present with each gut-wrenching second of all of it as I sang him to sleep for the last time. No regrets. No if-onlys. No what-ifs for me…or for him. It was all said. All shared. All known and felt. A good-bye gift.

The Love remains in hearts eternally connected. The gift that keeps on giving. Through all of our hellos and our goodbyes, that’s what this life is all about. – mu, June 6, 2014

 

The Sliver of Light

Somewhere…where troubles melt like lemon drops…

Amidst these and other challenging times, past, future, now, we can tune into the pulsing electric current of our own persistent, relentless beating heart that knows how to keep on. We can focus on the little glimmer, the tenacious glint within the shadow, the sliver of light that is always always there… somewhere.

Faith, Hope and Love. Let’s never forget, we are all in this together.

 

– mu

03/03/2014

 

*Inspired by this quote from Love It Forward by Jeff Brown

The little light that knows.  www.soulshaping.com/loveitforward