Still Small Voice of Peace

Our kids have pretty much grown out of singing the road trip blues-“Are we there yet? When are we going to get there? I’m hungry. I’m thirsty. I’m bored. I need to go to the bathroom.” Masters of catastrophe, kids are! One of the kids will say, “I’m starving.” I will reply, “Kids in Africa who haven’t eaten in days are starving. You on the other hand, had a sandwich fifteen minutes ago. You are not starving.” Or else, a kid will say, “I’m dying of thirst.” And I reply, “That is highly unlikely but don’t tempt me.” One of our kids, who shall remain nameless, hit the jackpot with the most woeful statement and had us all laughing. After several rounds of complaints, this one said, “I’m dying to death back here.” Dying to death! That could be the mantra for catastrophizing.

We’ve tried banning the expression “I’m starving.” A little mindfulness about the power of language can’t go astray. Of course it’s not just kids who excel at catastrophizing. I found a small lump on my body recently and within minutes I had imagined myself in months of chemo and radiation. I pictured myself bald. Then I day dreamed my death bed scene telling the kids how much I love them and kissing Meg for the last time, wondering if she will remarry. All of this anxiety was created over what turned out to be a boil. It seems it is easier to lance a boil than it is to dissect the workings of the human ego.

Catastrophizing does not serve you well. At best, it leaves you depressed and anxious. At worst it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If the worst never arrives, you worried for nothing. If it does happen, you endure it twice. Catastrophizing tells the stories that pessimism wants to hear to justify its perspective. Catastrophizing is sitting in traffic and imagining that the meeting you are missing is the beginning of the end of your career. Catastrophizing is looking at your child’s report card and imagining that he will never get a college degree. Catastrophizing creates stories with very little basis in reality, feeds the stories with evidence from unrelated situations, spirals in negativity and eventually becomes irrational and closed to all reasonable conversation.

We’re pretty good at it as a society as well. Every time I hear people talking about America sliding down the slippery slope to socialism, my mind goes back to the kids in the back seat telling me that “they’re starving.” Do you remember the hyped up drama about “death panels” a few years back? Some people seemed to think that President Obama would personally be visiting nursing homes with a pillow tucked under his arm. When public conversations become irrational like this, not much is achieved.

We’ve seen this many times before, on both sides of issues. The passage of the Civil Rights Bill in the 1960s had its own controversial path. Many people became convinced that whites would be enslaved in this new world order. Now, 40 years later, we take the Civil Rights Bill for granted and very few people are worried about a black takeover of the country. I can’t help wondering if in 10 or 40 years time, there will be a universal health care system in America and we will all look back and say “what was all the fuss about?” That’s often the way with catastrophizing. As the predicted dates for the end of the world come and go, and as all the anticipated anxiety fails to materialize, we look back and smile at our over active imaginations.

Catastrophizing is often built around pre existing conditions like fear of change or self doubt. It’s another cunning ploy from your ego to play small and hide behind fear.

There is a fascinating story told in the Bible about the Israelites floundering in the wilderness, and they are imagining the worst. They shout to Moses, “We’re dying to death out here.”

Here is the actual text-

They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Exodus 14:10-12

You can’t really blame them for thinking they are dying to death. They couldn’t flick ahead a few pages to see how it turned out like we can, or watch Charlton Heston save the day in the movie The Ten Commandments.

In the face of their catastrophizing, here is Moses answer to them.

Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:13-18

Now this is interesting. Was Moses being optimistic? Because we know the story, we know that it took 40 years, rather than one day, for the Israelites to find freedom. Maybe Moses was not talking about their physical deliverance, but an inner freedom that was theirs to claim that very day.

Moses offers three antidotes to catastrophizing, all based on negating fear.

1. See alternatives. Your imagination is powerful. So use it to conjure up multiple scenarios. Then remind yourself that any of them is possible. Even your most positive predictions may fall short of reality.

2. Stand firm. Be patient and allow the situation to unfold. Don’t be too quick to form conclusions about good and bad. Bad can very quickly seem better once worse happens. Good can easily be forgotten once better happens. There is always more to come. Sometimes good things change so that better things can emerge. Stay open because everything that happens makes you wiser and stronger.

3. Be still. In other words, stop swirling in fantasy about unknowns and dwell in this moment where everything is as it is.

For the most part, it’s a mind game and it’s a game you can win.Your mind functions like a committee. The committee is constantly bombarding you with different voices and opinions. One of the members of the committee is catastrophe, the pessimist who wants to remind you to expect the worst. Maybe the voice of catastrophe is simply echoing the voices of people who haunt your life with their negativity; a teacher, an ex or a business nemesis. They all have their perspective, and they all bring something worthwhile to the table. But none of them holds all the truth of your life.

There is a still small voice that stands firm in the midst of all the other voices. This is the voice of your true essence, your highest self that transcends and includes all other perspectives and roles. It’s a small voice, not because it lacks power. On the contrary, this is your most powerful voice. It’s small because it has no need to raise its voice in anger, or shout irrational obscenities in meetings. It’s small because it waits to hear the answers to its questions and keeps an open mind. It has no predetermined ideas as to how the future will play out; preferring to urge you to be all you can be in each moment, a work in progress.

It’s a still voice, not because it lacks conviction. On the contrary, this is your most powerful voice. It’s still because it doesn’t fight reality. It’s small because it has nothing to prove and compels you forward with gentle persuasion. It states its case calmly and respectfully, and genuinely looks for win/win solutions.

The intent of spiritual practices such as meditation, yoga, contemplation and so many other practices is awareness so that you know which committee member is ruling your life at a given moment. With this awareness, you can choose to appoint the still small voice as the chair of your mind’s committee. As chair, it can affirm and embrace each voice for what it is, but not be ruled by any one voice. Spiritual practice helps you to tune into the still small voice and live your life with contentment and skilful means.

In this moment, stand firm and be still, all is well and all will be well no matter what the circumstance.

Please visit Soulseeds for inner peace resources.

Harvesting Memories

Two very elderly ladies were enjoying the sunshine on a park bench. They had been meeting at that park every sunny day for over 12 years… chatting, and enjoying each other’s company.

One day, the younger of the two ladies, turns to the other and says, “Please don’t be angry with me, but I am embarrassed, after all these years, my memory is not what it used to be. . .What is your name? I just can’t remember.”

The older friend stares at her, looking very confused, says nothing for two full minutes, and finally says, “How soon do you need to know?”

I’m speaking about memory today. I’m sure there’s a good reason for that, but I can’t remember it right now. As Meg says I have a photographic selective memory. When it comes to household chores, I run out of film.

My topic is memory because it’s Memorial Day. What role does memory play in your life? My hope is that you can draw inspiration from the positive memories and find some healing and transformation in the difficult memories.

Memory and Gratitude

Memory is one of the basic ingredients of gratitude, which is in turn one of the basic ingredients of optimism. We’ve had two tender memorial services in the last week. Both included inspiring eulogies for the dear departed. As I listened to the eulogies on both cases, it struck me that it would be SO powerful to tell each other’s stories like this while we are still alive. Imagine the gratitude if we took every opportunity to share memories and each other’s positive attributes while we are around to hear it.

Having said that, there is something unique about memorial services. No matter what has happened in life, or what might be unresolved in a relationship, a eulogy focuses on gratitude.

There is a funny story about a minister who is leading a memorial service. He calls on people to come forward and say a few nice words about the deceased. No one comes forward. He urges them, “Surely someone present today can say something appreciative!” Eventually a man comes to the microphone and says, “His brother was worse.”

In most cases, this is not a problem. Once someone has gone, memories come to us of good times shared and admirable qualities. They comfort and inspire us. These memories often lead to forgiveness and healing. Even when it comes to wars that you may disagree with or feel conflicted about, it’s appropriate to remember the people who have lost their lives in war. They no doubt had their mixed motives, like all of us, but our lives are built on the imperfect but well intentioned platform of those who have gone before us.

Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor who created the amazing Mount Rushmore Memorial, was once asked if he considered his work perfect in detail. “Not yet,” he replied. “The nose of Washington is an inch too long. It’s better that way, though. It’ll erode to be approximately right in about 10,000 years.”

Memory tends to be like that. We erode the imperfections of the past into a coherent whole, integrate even the difficult memories, and move forward. In time, memories fall into place as they need to.

Memory and Change

We all have stories and a lineage. Our memories are built on these stories that are part fact and part fiction. It’s not so much that we retrieve memories. We reweave memories in a way that feels consistent. There is an old Jewish story that makes this point.

When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov felt anxious about the future for his people, it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. He would light the fire, say a special prayer, and sure enough his anxiety would subside. Sometimes, his people would even be miraculously protected after his forest ritual. Years later when he was gone, it fell to the next generation to deal with the same anxiety. The head Rabbi knew the story of his ancestor in the forest but didn’t know all the details. So he would go to the same place in the forest and say: “Creator of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer,” and sure enough his anxiety would subside and often a miracle would be accomplished. Another generation later, the same ritual would take place but with even less certainty around the detail. The Rabbi would go into the forest and say, “I do not know how to light the fire. I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient.” It was always sufficient. The years passed. Finally the next generation brought the head Rabbi to the same point. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he said: “I am unable to light the fire, and I do not know the prayer, and I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is tell the story, and this must be sufficient.” And it was always sufficient.

Ritual and memory are like that. When I was growing up, our family had a Christmas ritual that we inherited from an English custom. Christmas pudding, steamed and served with brandy butter and cream. The earlier custom was to include certain items in the pudding before cooking it; silver coins for wealth, tiny wishbones for good luck, a ring for marriage etc. Whoever found the items in their pudding on Christmas day would get what they chomped on. When I was young, my parents would put coins in the pudding that they had collected from their parents; shillings and sixpence and the like. They must have gone missing, because by the time I was about 10 the coins were current day coins. Then when people started losing teeth on their Christmas pudding and the hygiene of cooking metal in pudding was questioned, we stopped putting coins in the pudding altogether. But we still ate the pudding and brandy butter endures to this day. Just like the story of the Rabbis, eating the pudding and telling stories about the coins of Christmas past was always enough.

Tradition, ritual and memory are based on ever changing memory and culture. One of the dangers of religion is the expectation that tradition remains the same. It’s not possible. All traditions change, and there should be no guilt about allowing rituals to evolve. It’s all based on memory, and as Barbara Kingsolver wrote in Animal Dreams, “Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.”

Memories in Nature

Nature has always been the focus of significant memories both for individuals and cultures. The ancient story is told that while the Israelites were in exile, they were particularly desperate and anxious. The rainbow was their reminder that they were part of something larger than their circumstance. Before they understood how rainbows came about, they no doubt filled it with supernatural meaning. They put the meaning on the rainbow that their God (hope) was larger than any natural disaster like a flood and larger than their exile. In non theistic language, we could say that they were comforted by the evolving reality that all things are constantly moving and changing. Despair and grief may feel like the last word, but there is always a rainbow close by the rain. Rainbows are universally loved, even now that we do understand how they occur. The meaning we place on rainbows, however, might be different.

I remember taking a wedding on a beach a few years back. Clouds were looming and the bride was getting anxious. People were constantly looking up at the sky to check for rain. A few drops of rain began to fall, smudging the marriage license. Just when we were about to turn and run for cover, the rain stopped and a massive rainbow appeared right behind us. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. It was as if the rainbow was framing the happy couple like a gazebo. The rainbow was a reminder not to give up which was similar to the original intent of the covenant between the Israelites and their God.

There is always more to come. It’s such an important part of a covenant, whether it’s an agreement between two people or two nations or between humans and the earth. There is always more to learn, more to understand and more to come. We now know that there is nothing supernatural about a rainbow. It’s all about the refraction of light as it passes through water. There is nothing supernatural, but there is something magical about the rainbow. It’s AS IF they are coming from beyond. It’s the same with memories and ritual. There is nothing supernatural about miracles that appear to come from nowhere. They are formed in the brain. But there is something magical about the healing qualities of memory that can turn wounds into wisdom and pain into perspective.

Do you ever arrive somewhere for the first time and “feel” like you’ve been there before? Maybe it’s a smell or a sound that triggers your memory of another time or place. The memory could trigger a protective instinct or some kind of reassurance. For me, the smell of pine after rain in Duncan Woods triggers an incredible surge of optimism. A 20 minute walk in the woods takes me back to childhood hikes. The smell of the beach refuels me. There is a sign down at the beach at Grand Haven. It says, “No refueling on the beach.” I always smile at the sign because this is one of the places where I totally refuel. The beach takes me back to childhood vacations, hours lying on the sand before we knew about the dangers of sun exposure. In our blissful ignorance, we would spend hours refueling each summer.

Nature, in all its beauty, is a playground for the senses and a memory emporium. It’s a place to be inspired by happy memories and heal difficult memories.

Memory and Mystery

Memory remains one of the great mysteries of consciousness. How do birds travel thousands of miles every year and apparently stop at the same points each year on their trek? How do they know? How do new generations of birds know to continue the same route? Are they taking visual cues or following their nose? No one knows. Then there is the clownfish; remember, Nemo? After clownfish hatch from their eggs, they spend 10 to 12 days in the open sea, carried out by currents. But they often miraculously find their way back to the reefs where they were born. Apparently they sniff for leaves that fall into the sea from rainforests near their coral reef homes. Memory fills their senses and brings them home.

Do you ever find yourself somewhere and sense that you have been there before but don’t know how you know? Or do you have moments of déjà vu and wonder where in your memory the experience is coming from? Do you sometimes say something and wonder where your information came from? Memory is a mystery to be mined for meaning.

Part of the beauty of imagination is when we have memories of the future, and understand with confidence what needs to be said or done. As the White Queen says to Alice in Through the Looking Glass, “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” The Queen warns her that it can make you giddy at first.

Maybe the point where memories collide in both directions is dreams. Dreams appear to be the brain’s way of consolidating memories. Dreams are a complex and confusing combination of memories, maybe a clearing house, where you put unlikely people in the same situation and play out frightening and delightful scenarios.

Memories are personal, subjective and evolving. As Philip Roth wrote, “each of us remembers and forgets in a pattern whose labyrinthing windings are an identification mark no less distinctive than a fingerprint”

Dreams and memories connect you with hidden powers. Deep down you have a memory of who you are at your essence, an essence that the anxieties and traumas of life have partially robbed from your conscious mind. Explore your dreams, memories and surprising thoughts to recover some of the power of your full humanity. Once you recover some of this essence, you will feel liberated to live through floods and rainbows, love and loss without overly attaching to any of it. For there is always more to come. Namaste.

Each Life Has Its Place

With Memorial Day coming up in America next weekend, I was thinking about how much I appreciate people who blazed the trail that I now walk. Even if I never knew them, if I didn’t particularly like them, even if they died in wars that I disagreed with, they lived and loved the best they could and made a difference to the whole. As the Indigo Girls sing, “Each life has its place” and I am growing to believe that EVERYONE is my teacher. Sometimes death is the only thing that brings the significance of someone’s life into your consciousness.

Last weekend I spoke at a funeral for a woman who was a local artist. I knew her quite well, and loved her from the minute we met. She was easy to like and attracted positive people into her presence. But it was only in her death that I truly began to appreciate all she had taught me. What follows is something close to what I said at the funeral.

The Indian spiritual teacher, Krishnamurti, once said, “our souls all come from the same paper but what makes us unique is the creases formed in the paper from all the folding and unfolding of our life experience.” Today we honor the life of a uniquely beautiful and creative woman. Liz understood symmetry, appreciated colors, and resonated with fine form. When I think of Liz in the context of the Krishnamurti quote I think of Origami. In Origami, a flat piece of paper is transformed into an animal, a flower, a shape or some abstract design. The crane holds a special place of honor in the world of Origami. The incredible thing is that these forms were crafted just with folds and creases.

Liz’s life was like a piece of Origami. She went through ups and downs like all of us, and ultimately had to come to terms with her own death, the greatest challenge of all. Liz’s husband John told me that soon before her death, Liz told him that she had made peace with her death. It was a tender moment, and spoke volumes about John’s quiet reassurance. I can’t help wondering if it was partially Liz’s appreciation of form that gave her an insight into the beauty of imperfection that brought her peace with death.

Artists throughout the centuries have come to profound spiritual realizations, which often came about through disillusionment and the agony of their own creative brilliance. Rembrandt was an artist who lived his odyssey out loud through his paintings. He had a brief, 8 year, marriage to Saskia. In the early years of their marriage Rembrandt painted Saskia in the form of Flora, the goddess of Spring and fertility. He portrayed her as an exquisite beauty. When Saskia gave birth to their child, she became ill and never recovered. She lived her final years bid ridden. Rembrandt chose to portray her with stark honesty, lying in bed with sunken cheeks and a frail body. It was such a huge contrast to the early Saskia paintings. How did Rembrandt resolve his experience of the two Saskias in such a brief time?

The answer to this question may be found in one Rembrandt’s most famous works, The Three Trees. The focal point of the piece is the three large trees. Nature is active with swirling clouds hovering above and puddles of sunshine in the fields. There is a lot taking place under the shade of the trees; an artist sketching, a couple fishing and the faint impression of a couple in love. Rembrandt seems to be placing himself all over the etching, coming to terms with his own life. Nature is revealing its cycles through it all. The resolution is that life moves and changes and the only meaning is the meaning you place on experiences.

Rembrandt’s Three Trees etching seems to be an example of Wabi Sabi. Wabi Sabi is a Japanese phrase that indicates that beauty is often found in things that are old or worn or even uncomfortable. Wabi Sabi is the honest emotions and inner perspective that can see beauty in imperfection, meaning in chaos and life in death. Wabi Sabi is a single cherry blossom nestled in a pile of debris after an earthquake. Wabi Sabi is a family photo on the front lawn after a tornado. Wabi Sabi is a precious last kiss before death. Wabi Sabi, like nature, appreciates beauty without attaching to beauty because all things change and die. There is symmetry even in death.

Wabi Sabi honors the aging process. Lines and wrinkles aren’t signs of decay. They are the unique creases in the paper that map the unfolding of your life. The limps and slumped shoulders aren’t signs of weakness, but reminders of character and a lived life. The love handles in your middle are nothing but love given and received. Each body tells its own story.

The Wabi Sabi of Liz’s last days was the image of her in bed at home where she wanted to be, the curtains closed except for a thin stream of light casting shadows on her face. The bed clothes neatly made, with one of the corners folded like an envelope and one of her feet peeking out from under the sheets like an unread letter. Her face gaunt and her cheeks sunken. And a glint in her eye that spoke of peace and acceptance.

We gathered for Liz’s funeral on May 21 just hours before the prophesied end of the world. The prophecy seemed trivial in the context of an actual ending of life. Life is beginning and ending every day, and in every moment. There is too much to experience right now, in both the ups and downs of life, to be distracted by trivia. The only possible response to end times prophecies in the light of the death of a teacher is to live each day as IF it’s the last. Then get up the next day and do it again. The incredible symmetry of life is waiting to be noticed.

May you remember that without darkness nothing comes to birth, as without light nothing flowers.
May nature teach you patience as snow covered grass.
May the earth teach you courage as the tree which stands tall and strong.
May survivors inspire optimism as the seed which rises in the spring.

Ps, please visit Soulseeds for my regular blog, as well as Meg's blog and many other resources

Change Your Life, Change Your Mind

May your mind transcend limitations.
May your consciousness expand in every direction.
May you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.

These words are a translation from Patanjali, the compiler of the Yoga Sutras around 200BC.

This is the essence of the spiritual journey; transcending limitations, expanding your consciousness and becoming the person you are destined to be. Sometimes this requires stepping out of your comfort zone to remind yourself that you are alive and on an evolving adventure of growth and learning. This doesn’t have to happen through extreme experiences, like sky diving or moving to an Ashram. It can happen in everyday experiences. Take it from me, Mr Everyday.

On Friday night Meg gave me an early Father’s Day surprise. We drove about an hour north to Val Du Lakes to watch an Aussie band perform; Sick Puppies, probably best known for their song in the viral Free Hugs video. Meg had been saying for weeks that I would never guess what we were doing, and she was right. I wouldn’t have guessed it in a million years. We lead busy lives that follow a fairly predictable pattern. So you can imagine that finding ourselves in a part of Michigan we have never been to, listening to an Aussie rock band, was outside of our comfort zone. Even listening to a band was outside of our comfort zone.

Before you think that this is a story about how courageous and liberated we are, you need to picture the scene. Meg and I sitting in our fold up lawn chairs, well back from the stage, with a crocheted rug over our knees, one occasionally turning to the other to say, “It’s very loud isn’t it?” and “I can’t understand a word they’re singing.” The funny thing was that when we set our chairs up it was still light. We didn’t realize that we had set up camp right in the path of the flood lights. So when the photographer from the Muskegon Chronicle took our photo we shouldn’t have been surprised. He came over and asked for our names so he could include them with the photo. We looked at each other, laughed and declined. He seemed shocked. We should have said, “Just put the names down as Satan and Mrs Lucifer. That outa kick start the comments section for you. We had a good laugh about it all.

Do you ever do things that surprise yourself? It’s important to be able to surprise yourself. When life starts to feel too predictable or routine, you can easily fall into auto pilot and miss some of the adventure of being alive. Do something today to remind yourself that life still has more to offer you. There is more of you that is waiting to come out and play. You don’t have to sell all of your possessions and move to India. You can even do it from a folding chair. Mix it up a little. Do something that reminds you that you have more capacity, and greater genius than you will usually allow yourself to believe.

Internal Conflict

What stops you from truly manifesting your genius? Internal conflicts often prevent you from living as fully as you want to live. Sometimes the internal conflict is very obvious; for example I want to take up a new hobby, but I don’t want to make any time for it. I want to meet new people but I don’t want to take any risks. I want to lose weight but I don’t want to change my lifestyle. I want to feel healthier, but I don’t want to stop eating ice cream for breakfast.

In these cases, it’s a fairly straightforward scenario. You have different voices competing for your attention, and you make a choice. Sometimes you choose to play it safe. Sometimes you choose the most immediate benefits. There is a story about an old Cherokee chief who told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves. One is destructive–it is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

The other is life affirming. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee chief simply replied, “Whichever one you feed.”

The story presents a partial truth. Sometimes it’s about choosing between negativity and positivity. It’s certainly better to think positively than negatively. There is even something to be said for faking it till you make it. Lots of small but repeated changes in your actions make a big difference over time. Noticing your language, spending time with positive people, using will power, and removing temptation are all great things to do.

But it’s not always that straightforward. When you consider that the majority of your decisions and responses come from your unconscious mind, and your unconscious mind is neither positive nor negative, you could say that the wolf who wins is the unconscious wolf.

No amount of yelling or screaming can change the unconscious mind. You can’t change lifelong habits with will power alone. Your conscious mind holds something like 5 or 7 pieces of information at one time. For me it’s even less. That is no match for the millions of memories, reactions, instincts and environmental cues that your unconscious mind holds. Your unconscious mind is a machine running on a finely tuned program. You can edit it, but you can’t change the program…easily.

In fact, if you try to change your unconscious mind by overriding its programs, you could end up harming yourself. Do you remember the 1990s film Shine? It was the true story of Australian concert pianist David Helfgott. Helfgott’s father was a holocaust survivor and programmed into his son’s unconscious mind from an early age that he couldn’t succeed in life because that would make him vulnerable as he would stand out. In his conscious mind, Helfgott knows that he is a world class pianist. In his unconscious mind, he has decided that he can’t stand out. Helfgott tries to feed his conscious belief and chooses one of the most difficult piano compositions, a piece by Rachmaninoff, to play in a recital. During the recital, a battle takes place between his conscious belief and his unconscious doubt, between his will to succeed and his instinct to fail. After successfully playing the last note of the recital, he passes out and suffers a breakdown. His conscious will had won the battle, but lost the war. In the end, the unconscious mind always wins.

Changing Your Unconscious Beliefs

If you want true and lasting change in your life, you have to get to the unconscious beliefs and transform the ones that are not serving you. This is often not easy. There’s no point being logical. Logic can edit the unconscious script, such as when you rationalize a compromise. You decide to eat well half the week and not worry the other half, trying to convince yourself that this is a solution. You’re not dealing with a logical machine. The unconscious mind is more like a sensor that lights up when it resonates with a story, an emotion, an image or an intuition.

Thinking positively is an attempt to edit the script, but it won’t in itself change the script. Don’t you sometimes find yourself standing and staring inside an open refrigerator? Are you waiting to be seated, or for a waiter to take your order? It seems to be a universal habit. It’s as if we expect some blinding realization to leap out of the fridge into our minds. You’re standing there, not at all hungry, but scanning the contents as if your life depends on it. If you’re like me, you say to yourself, “I’m not hungry. I don’t need cheesecake. I won’t have that cheesecake. I won’t have the cheesecake…..give me that cheesecake NOW.”

Until you know what hunger you are truly feeding at an unconscious level, you won’t change your relationship with food. Until I understand that I am filling the hole in my life which is self doubt with cheesecake, I will keep running the fear script. If you feed your fears, they thrive. Once you feed your passion to live an integrated and healthy life, your fears will starve to death.

How do you know when you’ve made a change at the unconscious level? The sensor light of self awareness flashes in your mind like a fridge light in the middle of the night. You realize what you are doing, and it becomes a joy to change, a natural expression of who you are becoming.

Integrating the Unconscious Mind

When the sensor light of self awareness flashes in your mind, you are moving towards transformation. Your mind is transcending limitations. Your consciousness expands in every direction. You discover yourself to be a greater person BY FAR than you ever dreamed yourself to be. Replay that last sentence. You discover yourself to be a greater person by far than YOU ever dreamed YOURSELF to be. YOU surprise YOURSELF. That’s strange. Who is this you, and how is it different than yourself? Who is the YOU who makes the big discovery about YOURSELF?

If you want to communicate with your unconscious mind, bring together a united front and stop the struggle. Positive thinking, and making simple choices requires a lot of effort. It’s hard, maybe impossible, to overwrite the unconscious script. So stop trying. It’s like looking for your glasses. You can’t see them because you don’t have your glasses on. You can’t access your unconscious wisdom because it is the essence of peace and you are striving for something that can’t be found outside of you and you are looking without the benefit of the very thing that will get you there. The glasses are on your head. Just tilt your head to the sky and let them fall into place.

When you shift your habitual way of thinking, stop judging things as positive and negative, and get out of the way of your inner wisdom, you come closer to communicating with the unconscious mind. Spiritual traditions have always found ways to point to this truth, whether its parables, proverbs, stories, myth, silence, koans, music or art. They speak the language of the unconscious mind, rather than battling with it. They offer ways to subtly shift your consciousness to include more possibilities, rather than trying to overwrite the unconscious.

One example is The Ten Ox herding Pictures, originating in the Sung Dynasty in China in 12th century. Each step comes with an image and a few words that convey the usual path that we follow in search of spiritual awakening. The ox symbolizes the mind and the herder symbolizes the seeker. You look outside of yourself for the ox, think you find it, try and tame it by riding it, and then eventually realize that it is within. You stop looking, and eureka there it is in the peace.

Practical Ways to Speak to Your Unconscious Mind

Some of the internal conflicts require therapy, and there are many good professional ways to access, heal and transform your unconscious script. There are also some things you can do yourself.

I’m a big fan of affirmations. I write them every day. When I write affirmations, I’m not just writing positive thoughts, although I hope they are positive thoughts. I use images, poetry and metaphor to bypass the conscious processes and speak to the unconscious mind. I don’t say “This will be a great day” or “I will lose weight this week” or “I will become super wealthy”. I use images that point back to the peaceful essence within that knows that it has the resourcefulness, the capacity, to thrive in any situation. I say, “I have everything that I need to thrive” and “I am becoming exactly what the future demands of me” and “I have an abundance of resourcefulness.” I wrote one last week that said, “Everything that happens makes me wiser and stronger.”

Affirmations aren’t desires for the future. They are affirmations of peace and capability that you already have. This is an affirmation I wrote recently.

Don’t compare yourself to any another person, or compare this time to any another time. You and this moment are a perfect match, engaged in a fateful love affair. You are the right person in the right place at the right time. Give thanks today for who and where you are. It is PERFECT for NOW.

Say to yourself: I am who I am, and all that I need to be.

I also try to reframe unconscious beliefs through affirmations. I heard an awesome example of reframing, which is to put your situation into a new context. I heard a guy say that the upside of having to live in his car is that he wakes up in whatever neighborhood he wants to. He has choice. We all have far more choice than we usually imagine. Your attitude is a choice. This is another affirmation I wrote about reframing anxiety.

Does anxiety sometimes get you down? Think of it as part of your growth. Questions, doubts — the very things that you thought were weighing you down — are part of your growing resourcefulness. You don’t need to pretend or put on a brave face. Growth happens in the midst of struggle.

Say to yourself: Even anxiety is making me stronger and wiser.

In other words, you aren’t denying your anxiety. Denying your anxiety would fly in the face of the unconscious message. You are simply redirecting your anxiety to a new end in your life.

The unconscious mind is your friend. It holds your capacity for genius, as well as some hidden fears and insecurities. Honor it all, work with it, and let your life change from the inside out. Namate.

The End is Nigh- Look Busy!

Our family sometimes fights over who has to use the drinking glass with a picture of Jesus on it and the caption, “Jesus is coming. Look busy!” Can you blame us? It’s scary, and only occasionally moves to the front of the cupboard when other glasses are dirty. Another wave of scary end time prophecy has moved to the front of the American media cupboard in the last month. You thought you had until 2012, but it turns out that our days are literally numbered….. to 4. According to a movement of Christians convinced by their reading of the Bible, the world will end on May 21, 2011. To spread the word, they're using billboards and bus stops, RVs and pamphleteers on street corners to strike the fear of hell into passersby. Apparently, there will be earthquakes starting at 6pm on May 21 in the Pacific Rim and moving through each of the time zones. Believers will be raptured, i.e. taken to heaven and non believers taken to hell. 153 days later the entire universe will be destroyed forever.

Are beliefs like this quaint but harmless? Is this a light hearted distraction from more pressing issues, or do they take our eyes off the prize of fearless living? I will never forget the story about a Little Rock woman who was killed after leaping through her moving car's sun roof. Her husband, who was driving, described it as a mistaken rapture. It led to a 20 car pileup and 13 other injuries, as a mass of cars tried to avoid the woman who was convinced that she had seen 12 people floating up into the air at the same time as seeing a man on the side of the road she believed to be Jesus. Her husband later told the story – “She believed it was the rapture,” he said, “She was screaming 'He's back! He's back!’ And she climbed onto the roof of the car. I was slowing down but she wouldn't stop.”
As it turns out the Jesus look-alike on the side of the road was on his way to a toga party. He had stopped his truck by the side of the road, when the tarp became loose and released 12 blowup sex dolls filled with helium which floated into the air. The man who had been told by several friends that he looked like Jesus pulled his car over and lifted his arms in the air in frustration. Seeing the Jesus lookalike standing by the road reaching his arms to heaven while dolls floated up into the sky was too much for the woman. The dead woman's husband gave his statement, and finished by saying- “My wife loved Jesus more than anything. She believed that was the end. She wouldn't miss out on being with Jesus in heaven for anything.”

There are people who truly believe these end time prophecies and lives are ruined when the dates come and go without incident. People give up their jobs, stop planning for the future, and become obnoxious in their evangelical zeal to save as many of us as possible. What do you make of this? How would it change your life if you knew the world was going to end at a specific time and date?
Here are some of my thoughts-

1. The World is Always Ending

The end timers have a partial truth. The urgency that comes with an expectation of a short lived future can be a healthy motivation for living fully in the present. Surely it’s a far healthier motivation to live with urgency because you don’t want to miss a moment of what life has to offer, and you want to be all that you can be in the world, than to live with urgency because you are afraid of eternal punishment.
The partial truth is that the world IS ending on May 21…and it will have ended on May 20….and it will end again on May 22….and you will get up on May 23 to a new world to do it all over again. The 1980s REM song said it well, "It's the End of the World As we Know It. And… I….. feel…. fine!" Every moment involves an ending and a beginning because the old has gone, the new has come and it’s okay. You are fine. You have changed with the moment. Your consciousness is evolving, transcending and including everything that brought you to this point. You are becoming a new creation along with each moment.

The world ends with the passing of every moment, however long that is. The past only exists as memory. It’s over. It often intrudes in your life like a thief in the night, robbing you of a full experience right now. As if the present moment is not enough on its own, we so often engage in mental time travel. We travel back in time, at least our mind’s best effort to reconstruct the past. We try to live through a rear view mirror. The problem with rear view living is that objects (and memories) appear larger than they really are. Situations that were challenging in the past might not be so challenging now that you have grown and evolved. Similar challenges may arise, but you are a new person, stronger, smarter and wiser. And this is a new moment. Just because things happened in a certain way in the past doesn’t mean they will repeat the pattern.

A great example of this danger is the story of the Swiss watch; the Swiss created it and then rejected it because it didn't fit their idea of what a watch should be, with internal moving dials. The Japanese ran with the new watch. Since they weren’t limited by preconceived notions about how a watch should work, they were able to develop this new technology. The Japanese have combined innovation, including kinetic watches that do not require batteries and have built-in cameras, with low cost and become a leader in the time industry.

Coming back to that other time industry, the religious end times industry. Sure, the world will end on May 21. Same as it does every day. This is good news. May 22 will arrive as a fresh start, with a new you ready to innovate and continue your evolving journey.

2. The Future Only Exists As Projection

Anyone who thinks they can predict the future is delusional. Do you remember the Y2K scare that computers would crash when clocks rolled over to 2000? It was amusing to be in Australia, one of the first time zones to see the New Year. January 1, 2000 arrived without incident and yet people in other parts of the world still fretted about what would happen to them. We love to worry, don’t we? As Charles Schulz (creator of Charlie Brown) said, “Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.”

The future is nothing but projection, often casting a shadow over life like storm clouds. You hold your breath, for fear of allowing yourself to fully embrace the moment. Just as we time travel to the past, we also travel forward in time, at least our mind’s best attempt to guess the future. It’s the same problem. You think about the future from the level of wisdom and courage you have now, forgetting that you will be different, wiser and stronger by the time the future arrives. Mental time travel leads to such a distorted sense of identity, and so much unnecessary suffering.

Take all predictions about the future, whether the end of the world or the expectation of some personal calamity, with a big pinch of salt. Cash in a reality check and bring yourself back to the present moment where life truly happens. You can bank on the present moment, but not the future.

3. The Future Is Open

Of course, it’s essential to do SOME mental time traveling. That’s how you learn from the past and anticipate the future. It’s right to reflect on the past and plan ahead. Just don’t dwell there or concretize your conclusions.

There is an alternative to reliving the past, obsessing about the future and reacting to the future in a passive way. On this point, I have been influenced by the ideas of management guru, Otto Scharmer. Basically he suggests that instead of only learning from the past we should also learn from the future. More specifically, we should learn from the emerging future. You don’t predict the future because the future is not yet decided. You pre-sense the future. You intuit your way forward and live the future by sensing it as it arises.

We’ve all had those spectacular moments when you sense the next move and don’t even know how you knew. You hold your child’s hand on the sidewalk just moments before a car speeds past. You sell stock on a whim that change is afoot. You preemptively heal a conflict before you really knew it was even flaring up. We have more intuitive wisdom that we give ourselves credit for.

It’s not that you make change happen singlehandedly. Its more that you sense what change is emerging and you help to co create it. In order to pre-sense the future, it’s helpful to suspend the many voices of judgment and fear that become small self fulfilling prophecies and respond in a new way, from your higher self that intuitively knows its connections with others. From this higher self, you can see through multiple pairs of eyes at the same time. It’s as if you’re playing both sides of a chess board, or coaching both teams on a sporting field. From this perspective, you inevitably sense the best interests of many parties. Once you have opposing perspectives working together at a higher level than competition, you are pre-sensing the patterns that hold it all together and allowing collective genius to manifest.

I put end times prophecies in the same category of small self fulfilling prophecies. They operate on a need to know basis. You need the prophecy to be true to justify a narrow interpretation of the Bible and to validate the theories of charismatic leaders. No one knows the future, but we all have intuition about the direction of the future. From an intuitive perspective, whenever the future arrives, you’re already there. Whatever the future demands, you’re already doing it. Wherever life needs you, you’re in position.
So how does this relate to May 21 prophecies? They have a partial truth. On the one hand, don’t fall for the delusion. Author Zadie Smith offers a beautiful turn of phrase when describing the passage of time in her novel White Teeth. She says; “don’t fall for ‘the myth, the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect’.”

Grammatically, the perfect tense has a neat relationship with the present tense. The perfect tense implies that everything that needs to be done is already done. It all collides in this moment; everything necessary for contentment comes together in this moment. The past is what it is, and what your memory makes of it. You make the future perfect by living fully in the present.

Don’t fall for the end times lie and rob yourself of a full and fulfilling present. Live your life in the perfect, present tense. You lack nothing in this moment. You need nothing in this moment. All is in perfect order right now.

At the same time, take on the partial truth of the end times. You don’t know the timing of future events. You don’t need to fear any particular day. But you can sense the future as it is emerging through you and others. This is the higher self fulfilling prophecy where the good of the widest number is included.

Ps Please visit Soulseeds where Meg and I do most of our blogging, and offer resources for all ages and stages of life.

Raising Consciousness

There is a fanciful story of a yogi who died and was taken to yogi’s hell because he had broken his vows. In yogi’s hell he was shown three rooms and given the last choice he would ever make of where he would like to spend eternity. The first room was full of yogis standing on their heads on a cement floor. He declined because he thought that sounded painful. In the second room there were yogis standing on their heads on a wooden floor. This seemed like a better option but still very painful. So he asked to see the third room. In the room the yogis were sitting in chairs at a table drinking coffee, but they were knee deep in filth, mud and excrement. This didn’t seem great but a lot better than the other two rooms. After all, it was only knee deep and he was able to drink coffee. So he chose the third room. No sooner had he sat at the table and poured himself a coffee than a devil walked into the room, blew a whistle and said, “Ok, coffee break’s over. Everyone back on your heads.”

Should have gone for the room with wood floor after all. It feels quite liberating to make light of a religious belief that has been used to spread so much fear and shame. The belief in heaven and hell is attractive to the small self because the ego longs to live forever and it loves to believe in absolute good and evil with appropriate rewards and punishments. Did you know that 63% of Americans believe in hell where people are punished eternally? But when the question becomes more pointed, “Do you think you will go to hell after death?” only 1% say they are going to hell. Nearly 2/3 of Americans believe in hell but virtually no one thinks they’re going there. French existential philosopher Jean Paul Sartre was right; “Hell is other people.”

It feels comforting to put other people in the box of evil, because it makes you feel righteous and safe. It’s been interesting to watch the response to the killing of Osama bin Laden this week. A few times I had to pause and wonder what it was we were celebrating. I don’t fully understand the psychology of celebrating the violent death of any person. I can understand celebrating a sense of relief like you might have at the end of a drawn out trauma, but it didn’t feel like that. It was too joyful, almost smug. The word “justice” was used too often, or in the case of Rudi Giliani the word “revenge”. Justice that is based in revenge just adds hate to hate, and revenge is an insatiable beast that in the words of Ghandi “makes the whole world blind.”

The death of bin Laden could be celebrated but not because of his personal demise. Rather it could be celebrated as part of the demise of bin Ladenism and all that he represented. His death was one more step in a process of global transformation that has been taking place for some time, a raising of global consciousness being led by young, non violent protestors in the Middle East who neither looked to bin Laden for leadership nor served his violent agenda. We could celebrate the resilience of Americans who refused to give in to the cunning attempts by terrorists to engender fear and uncertainty into everyday life. If we now revoked the Patriot Act that was only ever supposed to be a temporary measure after 9/11, we could celebrate the raising of consciousness in this country because we choose not to live in mistrust and suspicion.

With our raised consciousness, we don’t need to imagine bin Laden in hell. We can make peace with him, knowing that his agenda failed because we wouldn’t let it infiltrate our psyches. To live in fear and paranoia is to be in a hell of our own making. We can make peace with bin Laden, knowing that like many misguided extremists before him, he had a partial truth about heavy handed American foreign policy that created far too many enemies. We now seem to be heeding the same message but we hear it so much clearer from non violent protestors in the Arab world that it’s time to let Middle Eastern countries create their own form of democracy.

With our raised consciousness, we don’t for a second condone the calculated violence of bin Laden, but we choose to respond from a higher perspective than what he operated with.

Cultural Consciousness

What is consciousness? There are many theories about this. The way I describe it is that we each have our own level of consciousness, the total package of our current awareness. Sometimes we include more people and perspectives in our awareness than other times, but we have a general level of consciousness. Our consciousness is not one static thing, and it may not be located in one particular place. It is the ever changing combination of nature and nurture, genes and scenes, thoughts and feelings, impulses and instincts that give you a unique perspective in any given moment. It’s not necessarily the way things are. It’s the way they taste to you at the time.

A few years back we were on vacation in Panama. We had our first experience of eating miracle fruit. The miracle fruit is an amazing berry. It doesn’t claim to be a weight loss marvel or to increase antioxidants like some other wonder fruits. It’s a miracle because for several hours after eating the miracle fruit, everything else you taste is sweet. So we ate lemons and limes and even they tasted sweet after eating the miracle fruit.

Consciousness is like that. You experience life exactly according to your current level of consciousness. With a grateful consciousness, everything becomes a reason for gratitude. With a fearful consciousness, everything becomes threatening. You imagine that you are a highly rational person and that you make well informed decisions and discernments. But in reality a good portion of your life is driven by unconscious forces; memories tucked away in your inner filing cabinet, intuitive understanding that seems to come from nowhere, sudden achievements that surprise even you.

Similarly, communities, nations and the globe as a whole have their current levels of consciousness. Sometimes we unconsciously follow the group response without much thought. I had this experience in 1994. I was downtown in Sydney one night when huge crowds began to gather in the streets. I had no idea what was going on. People were singing and dancing arm in arm. I found myself caught up in the festivities without a clue what I was celebrating. Finally I said to someone, “What is it we’re celebrating? Why are we so happy?” He said, “It’s just been announced that Sydney won the bid for the 2000 Olympic Games.” Ah, woo hoo, I said and the party continued.

Too often, religion is like this; group think, assumptions and prejudice justified by self serving beliefs that God takes sides and rewards loyalty. Some of the response to bin Laden’s death has also seemed a bit like this. Crowds of people going along with the group response. The President tells us it was justice. The government tells us we’re safer. The media conveys pictures of New Yorkers partying at Ground Zero and crowds gathering at the White House. Our consciousness is so often shaped by group think.

At a time of global transformation such as where we find ourselves now, it’s a great opportunity to check your assumptions, search for the hidden motivations and consider what level of consciousness you are operating from. Global consciousness is raised by individuals who raise their consciousness.

Consciousness Raising

There is a long tradition of leaders who were consciousness raisers. You might even call them hell raisers; people like Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed. More recently people like Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto among many others, have helped to raise the consciousness of the planet by raising the bar on personal responsibility and reinforcing the social contract to be mindful of others, especially the most vulnerable. It’s frightening to think about how many of the people I just listed were assassinated for their efforts. When you challenge the status quo, people get scared and tragic things happen.

Our calling is to be consciousness raisers. When terrible things happen in the world, our calling is to come from a higher perspective than the act or situation we are responding to. Albert Einstein said, “You can’t solve problems with the same level of consciousness that created them.” If someone is acting with hatred, you can’t beat them with more hatred. You will just create an endless spiral of hatred.

I’m not talking about being passive or allowing abuse to continue. I’m talking about being smart and coming from a broader perspective. Raised consciousness is able to hold more than one quality at a time, for example both forgiveness and personal rights. You can forgive someone and demand that the behavior changes at the same time. You can accept someone without fully trusting them. Let the trust grow in time.The amazing thing is that the behavior is more likely to change with this raised consciousness, and if it doesn’t change you are more able to deal with it internally.

Protestors in Egypt and now Syria are a great example of this very point. They are demanding change, but doing so in reasonable ways which makes their case more compelling.

Raising Consciousness

Being Mother’s Day, it’s a good time to remember that mothers have a special role in raising the consciousness of the next generation. The ancient story about John the Baptist jumping in Elizabeth’s belly when Mary came to visit is a story usually told at Christmas time. I always liked it, but when I considered it in the context of consciousness, it came alive for me. There is no reason to think of it as a story of supernatural intervention. Babies kick, and from one perspective this is just the story of a kicking baby. The miracle is in the circumstances and the experience of connection. The story is told through the eyes of two women which was revolutionary enough in a patriarchal world. Elizabeth, according to the story, was 80 years old and barren. The connection she experienced with her unborn baby was tender and significant. She was beginning a bonding process that is itself a natural miracle.

This is a parable about the incredible merging of consciousness that takes place between parents and children. Kids do not arrive in the world as blank slates. They come with a huge amount of genetic coding and unconscious impulses. Then their environment and parents help to shape them as people. It’s not that the whole pressure is on moms. But moms are powerful to impact the consciousness of kids from care during pregnancy to the way you talk and play with kids in their early months. The relationship between mother and child is a mirror into wonder. Until about 18 months old, the child thinks she is an extension of her mother and many later beliefs grow out of these early interactions. At the same, for a mom, your child is a mirror into the mystery of who you are as a spiritual adventurer on a human journey.

I’m not saying that Moms need to be perfect. On the contrary, moms can model a sense of adventure and forgiveness to their kids because you are willing to try new things, then acknowledge your limitations without dwelling on failure.

And I’m not just talking about Moms. You don’t have to have children to be a mother. We all have a parental instinct to nurture children, pets, communities, ideas and causes and when you are truly passionate you will give yourself to these children of yours unconditionally. When it comes to consciousness, you are always giving birth to something. As with the story of Elizabeth, the consciousness of one person can raise the consciousness of others by virtue of their interactions. Something incredible is being birthed in the world right now, as more and more people honor the feminine dimension of life, tap into their intuitive wisdom, and seek non violent transformation of oppressive systems.

Consciousness Cleanse

With all this talk about raising consciousness, how do you do it? Where does this new consciousness come from?

It comes from within. It’s all there to begin with. You just need to remove some of the protective layers to uncover your wisdom that is often unconscious. It’s partly about trusting your intuitive wisdom, and it’s partly about making manifest instincts and motivations that are unconscious; make them conscious and intentional. Either way it’s an inner challenge.

It’s like cleaning frost from the windows of your consciousness. You can scrub for hours on the outside and make only slow progress. The more effective way of wiping away the frost is to light a fire on the inside. Shine a warm light on the frost from the inside and the frost will vanish like nose prints on windows. Frost on consciousness is often hiding your awareness of what you value, why it’s important and where your true motivation lies. Revenge for example is often a suppressed self loathing. Light a fire of awareness on all the dark places, fears and habitual patterns and you will see beyond them to the perfect peace within. Then this peace will manifest in your actions.

At root, the situation we face in the world today is not a political crisis, and it’s not an ecological crisis. Nor is it a financial crisis. It is a crisis of consciousness. The old way of operating is no longer working. We can either rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic and slowly sink or we can radically change the way we approach the challenges and do it from the inside out. The solutions are there, awaiting our attention. It’s a cause for great optimism that there are signs that people are beginning to make this quantum leap in consciousness. That is something well worth celebrating.

Evolving consciousness in me greets the same in you. Namaste.

Mothers Day- The Source of Life

A pregnant woman boards a bus. After taking a seat, she notices a man smiling at her. She feels self-conscious and changes her seat, but he seems even more amused. She moves a third time, and he starts to giggle. On her fourth move, he bursts into hysterical laughter. They both get off the bus at the next stop. The pregnant woman is furious and demands an explanation. “What exactly is so funny?” ”I’m sorry, ma’am,” replies the giggling man. “But I couldn’t help noticing you’re pregnant, and when you first sat down, you sat under an advertisement which read ‘Coming Soon: Million Dollar Baby.’ Then you moved and sat under an ad that read ‘Sloan’s Liniments Remove Swelling.’ Then you moved under a deodorant advertisement which read ‘William’s Stick Did the Trick.’ And I just couldn’t hold it in any longer when you moved a fourth time and sat under a tire advertisement which read ‘Dunlop Rubber Would Have Prevented This Accident.’”

I’m going to risk a different sort of accident by writing about motherhood from a masculine perspective. This is probably unwise, as the general rule is “no uterus, no opinion.” My only right to an opinion is that I have had a front row seat watching an amazing Mom in action for 17 years now. It all began in 1994 with my frantic drive to the hospital. Then many hours later in the delivery room, it happened. Delivery doesn’t seem like an accurate word for what went down in that room. Delivery is what happens when your pizza arrives; within 30 minutes or no charge. This was altogether unlike welcoming a pizza boy at the door. Other words come to mind, but not delivery; words like intense, nerve-wracking, thrilling, and heart wrenching. There is screaming, laughter and tears all within the same breath, then the elation of a little human person in your arms.

I had the honor of cutting the chord. Now that was a heart stopping thing to do. It was hard for me to believe the nurse who said that it wouldn’t hurt either mother or child. I mean it was part of both of them. How could it not hurt? It made me a little squeamish. I asked if we could just leave them attached. It seemed safer. We wouldn’t lose him that way. Couldn’t we just raise him attached?

In all seriousness, being present for the birth of my three children is without doubt the greatest privilege and joy of my life. Words can’t accurately describe the elation of partnering the creation of new life. My heart danced with pride at the sight of Meg; blissfully exhausted. I can only imagine the feeling for a mother in that moment. It seems to me that mothers have an insight into some of the mysteries of life because of this experience, including a profound appreciation for the Source of Life…… by any name. These insights are universal truths that mothers may be able to help us all to understand.

Holding On and Letting Go
In the Susan Jeffer’s book End the Struggle and Dance with Life, an old woman is asked why she is always cheerful. Her answer is beautiful. “Well, I wear this world just as a loose garment.”

To wear the world as a loose garment means to embrace life with passion, but neither to smother it, nor be smothered by it. Wearing the world as a loose garment speaks of being at ease with what lies beneath, accepting life is it evolves, but not expecting it to stay the same. Wearing the world as a loose garment is a metaphor for holding the balance between embrace and detachment, intimacy and autonomy, the present moment and impermanence.

From the moment the cord is cut, mothers learn the delicate balance of holding on and letting go. It’s a profound spiritual truth that mirrors the mysterious relationship that we all have with the source of life, no matter what language or imagery we use to describe this mystery. The source of life and love is both tangible and concrete like a new born baby or an act of kindness, and it’s also mysterious and fluid like a new realization or a felt connection. Life is both something you can hold onto with passion, and also something that cannot be fully grasped or described. The lesson of motherhood that is a profound spiritual truth for all of us is to balance holding on to life, and also letting go so that you are free for new and evolving experience.

Birthing a New You
Marianne Williamson said- “When a woman gives birth, two are born; a baby from the womb of its mother and a woman from the womb of her former existence.”
Being a mother, in all its humanity, joy and frustration, is ultimately a celebration of a new you. You will never be the same after all this pain, all this loving, all this letting go. In each step on the path of motherhood, you are discovering the delight of awakening to the source of life that dances in and through you.

As a mother, you know what it is to feel such intense passion for your creation that you would stop at nothing to try and end your child’s suffering. As a mother, you know forgiveness like no other. As a mother, you celebrate the achievements of your child because you know better than others the struggle that often leads to success.

Most importantly, mothers know how changeable life is. You know what it is to shift your roles and relationships with your kids. This is such a profound lesson in impermanence. My grandmother died in 1994. At the time, Meg was full of the life of our first child. After the funeral for my grandma, my mother placed her hand on Meg’s pregnant stomach and said, “As one life passes, another begins.” I have never forgotten that moment as new life merged with transitioning life, four generations crossed paths for just a few precious moments.

Mother or not, you are birthing new life each and every day. Your new creations and achievements are dear to you like children. May you wear life like a loose garment, surrendering to the rhythm of the source of life. May you cut the cords that need to be cut, hold tight where appropriate and be wise to know the difference. May you let go, not palms down but palms up so that what you release can fly free. May you know, amidst all the disappointment and imperfection, that life has a unity even if you don’t always feel or understand that unity. All things are evolving as they need to, and you are learning what you need to learn. You are part of the mysterious unity that dances free and unrestrained in all things at all times. I honor all who give birth to life in every thought, word and action.