The Synergy of Community

I spend a lot of time alone – gardening, meditating and contemplating, reading and working.  I seem to alternate between great bursts of creativity and action and extended times of solitude and quiet.  Learning to enjoy solitude has been one of the greatest challenges of my life, and so I am really happy that I am able to savor each moment of alone time with my own being.

Then, sometimes I host larger gatherings – 40 or 50 folks with lots of overnight guests.  This weekend was quite special,  and the delight of joining together to sing and chant engenders an instant ecstasy.  The general vibrations of happiness that seem to move like waves through the room continued to amplify throughout the evening – as singers sang and dancers danced.  We each took our part in the cosmic “leela” as its called in Sanskrit.  The Divine Play, if you will, also known as our lives.  Each event is its own community, a microcosm of the greater group, which is spread across the planet, vibrating in harmonic resonance.

It’s mysterious, this ecstasy that arrives into a crowd of like minded open hearted people.  Palpable love flowing – energetic exchanges of the highest order, happening simultaneously around the room – like an electric charge – we dance together, we sing together we pray together.  We hold each other up.  This is what I live for – to ride the currents of love waves from shore to shore.  And to feel deeply the emotion as it resides in my emotional field – to master the art of recall.  To know that I am not a prisoner of emotion, but an experiencer of it – that makes it all easier.

I am ever grateful for the grace-filled life I am leading.  There is so much to give thanks for – to appreciate.  Today I watched an orange dragonfly flit around the little “pond” that was just revived.  Yesterday there were crows cawing continuously… today the hawks cry…and yet, I ask myself this question – most days – how can I better serve?  What gifts can I share out into this realm, knowing that there are sufferers and wanting to give a hand to them if possible.  My own suffering has diminished so much I am ready to give more to others.  What is the best way to help out, given my own constellation of gifts, skills and talents?

It no longer seems possible to spend time on things that are not calling strongly to me.  I have been reflecting on the ways that I have followed my inner call and have noticed that it is always easy to follow.  So, if there is no loud calling then it must be time to wait, to prepare and to be simple.  Are big changes coming, or I am in the middle of a process and cannot see it yet?  The kaleidoscope of possibilities keeps spinning, and just staying open to the beauty of it is the extent of what I can do right now.

I am interested in the big questions of life – navigating the challenges, understanding how to live in an open-minded, open hearted way, how to choose love.  There are so many tools (priests as one teacher put it) that can assist the powerful journey into the self. Acquainting myself with these tools, much like having a fully equipped woodshop, or mechanics garage – feels like the right path to be taking right now.

I’m open for conversation about the path of the heart – please send me an email if you’re interested in a discussion about where you are and where you’d like to go… if I can lend support, I would be most honored to do so.  My heart is full of love – love for you, love for the earth, love for the Divine One.  Let’s walk the sacred path together.  Community synergy will take us where we want to go…

 

Joining Heaven & Earth

Image

Joining Heaven and Earth,

Balancing the moving back and forth between togetherness and separateness,

inspiration and practicality

is rarely smooth and easy

All the rough edges we encounter in trying to bring together the opposites

freedom & commitment

Vision & groundedness

Letting go and taking hold

Romance and Reality

Individuality and Communion

are ways we forge our humanity and awaken our heart….

Flowers…

Flowers inspire us, attract us to them and it’s an obvious truth that our lives are happier when we have flowers near us.  The power of flower fragrances to lift our spirits and heal our hearts is returning to our consciousness, and many of us use them to improve the feeling of our surroundings.  We all notice a sweetly scented room, –  “mmm, it smells good in here” is an automatic response to a bouquet of  deliciously fragrant roses, narcissus or gardenia, jasmine or tuberose.

Flowers are the faces of plants, the poetry of the garden.  Through their myriad form and color they interact with other beings in order to fulfill their purpose of bearing fruit and making seeds so that their species will continue to flourish.

Flowers come in a seemingly infinite variety of shapes, sizes and colors.  Their designs are simple or intricate, delicate or strong, long lasting or ephemeral.  Each flower is perfect and complete, bringing its gifts to the natural system.  Imagine for a moment that the birds and the bees also appreciate beauty and respond to color and form in the way that we do.  That would mean then that flowers are uplifting all life forms to a state of happiness.  Just watch as bees roll around ecstatically in the nectar of a poppy flower and it easy to understand this possibility.  Hummingbirds sip the most delicious nectars first,  just casual observation will show that they clearly have preferences in the garden.

Flowers  heal our hearts.  We send flowers to honor the death of a friend or family member, and flowers are essential at both weddings,  funerals and everything in between.  When we cannot think of another gift to give, we give flowers.  Most of us take this for granted, and just take for granted the way that flowers uplift our spirit.  Guardians of the mysteries of life, plants are always there, always helping, guiding, supporting and sustaining us.

Clarissa the cat enjoying the view