Road Trips, Friendship & Freedom (Summertime in California)

"...you are all possibilities...

live as an appreciator of horizons

whether you reach them or not..."  

David Whyte

 

Freedom is deeply important to me. I have been trying (once again) to pretend otherwise. To think I could back myself into a corner of  'tiny freedom' where the chaos and otherness of existence can't find me. Problem is, my own stuff comes with me into this corner too.

Alive again, cruising along the open road in full sunshine, adventure calls! Above me: a canopy of infinite blue promise. Below me: sweet movement! (beneath my wheels, outside my vehicle, inside my soul.) My Camry glides through naked golden hills past occasional huddles of Live Oak. No shopping malls or suburbs--audacious freedom. The still point of the turning world becomes my sense of place and possibility. The volume switch for existence turns itself off. Life's noise goes quiet.

Hours later, I exit the highway to enter into a sepia tone, picture postcard: a bustling gold-rush town where modern families enjoy country life. The thrift shop is easy to find. It reminds me of an old General Store where townsfolk gather.  I follow my friend through nooks and crannies filled with unique objects of delight, while her husband helps a customer. Inside their office she shows me a giant piece of coral someone just donated: nature's sculpture-work, worthy of prominent display in its own glass cabinet! 

 

She takes off early, from work, and I follow her car along winding roads through a wonderland of Autumn leaves. The orange fireball starts melting into scarlet streaks. We reach her enchanted 'castle on a hill' just in time for a spectacular sunset, a glass of deep red wine and two enthusiastic doggies, eager to play.

I put my things in the 'guest' bedroom still decorated with girlish knick-knacks even though my friends daughter has grown and moved away (our kids played together 20-something years ago when we were all part of a large learning collective). Our evening together was delightful, falling into laughter over the antics of time shared and time elapsed, girlfriends again, as if no time has passed. 

In the morning, we squeeze in more kitchen talk and look at family photos before saying goodbye. My friend leaves for work. I'm alone with the dogs in a rambling fairytale world with secret staircases, arched doorways and window seats. I’m supposed to go explore the town but it's cloudy outside. All I want to do is curl up inside and simply BE. My room is cozy and the stillness invites me to luxuriate within this precious gift of empty space. Stuffed animals populate the daybed couch. My journal stares at me from the desk beneath soft lamplight. Hot tea steams from my cup. It is gray outside the window, with a light drizzle: a perfect excuse to stay indoors, read and write. Oh how I wish I had just one more day.

The very notion of 'choice' or 'freedom' can suggest ideas like impediment or advantage, acquisition or limitation. But do these polarized options actually represent the entire picture? When I experience a lack of freedom it seems to deprive me of the opportunity to just BE:

 I have this precious gift of time and now I'm conflicted. If I stay here and indulge my remaining time in capricious musings, I'll miss seeing the nearby towns, shops and scenery. If I go driving around, my time of inner exploration will be over. 

Why do I allow these demands of choice, and decision, to claim ownership of me? Neither option is available when they're pitted against each other. It becomes an endless tug-of-war. I would really, really like to stop doing this. I wonder how? Perhaps the real question is, What causes 'a lack of freedom'? 

Is it actually true that freedom is absent? Could I have it backwards? Maybe my sense of lost freedom arises from a misunderstanding: If it is our True Nature to 'just be' . . . and if we lose Awareness of this natural state . . . then, of course, we would no longer feel free.

Life loves to pull us in multiple directions at once. Right now, I stand here torn, like an over-stimulated child who has just stepped through the gate of her first world fair, multiple voices clamor: Go see that exhibit! Try this ride! Now!! But I just want to stand here, take in the chaos and let it wash over me. I just want to be fascinated by the blur of sound, movement, color and form. I don't want to move or think or decide. Just bask in the Everythingness. Most of all, I want the freedom to be moved by Life's intuitive rhythm. I want to register how IT nudges me; how IT invites my involvement. I wonder what prevents me from letting this happen?

Here in this room I simply stop. Put my coat down. (The outside world--the mandate to explore--can wait.) Pause long enough to really open. Feel. Sense into the  S P A C E  that cushions thought, impulse, choice, decision. Meet this vast invisible 'something' which surrounds me (inside, behind, ahead, above, below). BECOME what's real. Notice how it's already alive. Let it flow through my cells. Acknowledge it:

Suddenly I realize: Nothing wants to hold on. Everything wants to move. Nothing (and no one) is so important that IT (or they) get to trump the precious, unique, and powerfully present, moment. The stillness IS the dance. I want to stand before such a moment (in each and every moment) with infinite reverence: even if it means giving away everything else but THAT instant to see what it actually holds for me. What might it be like to continually free myself into 'just this moment' and simply show up and pay attention to IT? And nothing more....I wonder?Instead of being given freedom FROM the demands upon 'my' time--I can find the freedom TO fully enter each moment of time, by actually inhabiting it! Can anyone actually 'have' freedom? Or does freedom have us? There is sweet freedom in embracing the fact that I can't have it all. Yet, when I release 'it all' then I can have THIS! As clinging dissolves, vast, clear, Awareness remains. The 'me' falls away for a few precious seconds. Spacious Presence (Beingness Itself) is what we are. The relief of possessing nothing becomes the emptiness of being everything.

 ~ Okay, what do you want to show me?  ~  

 

If not for friends who make such space available to us,

if not for an uncivilized expanse of land, 

and maintained highways, 

where our soul can roam unhampered,

if not for the evasive edge 

of all our horizons 

where dreams take us, 

how would we survive?

~ Update ~ 

My friend still lives in Grass Valley. She and her husband have a different business, now. You will find CLOCKTOWER RECORDS downtown (in the photo of town above!). If you see Debbie or Curt, at the store, tell them I said hello!

Bogeyman in the Closet

I was 22 when my boyfriend, Bob, got back from Marine boot camp. I was so thrilled to hear his voice. I couldn't wait to see him.

"I'm not going to come over." he said, "...I think you should just forget about me. I'll be gone for a long time. Things are different now." He would not budge on his position. He seemed oblivious to my heartbreak. I was stunned beyond belief.

My generation was born when the 'white picket fence' era was in full swing. We were here long enough to imbibe its false promise before naivety ended. I'm from the half of that population who fell into that gap (between past and future) the moment it yawned open. While Bob went off to become a fighter I was becoming a flower child. I left my job at L.A. Childrens hospital to work as a nurse at the West Hollywood Free Clinic. The psychologist we referred patients to for counseling had an opening and I started what would become 2 years of therapy. I thought I needed to talk about breaking up with my 'one true love'. Actually, it was the beginning of a journey to uncover rubble buried beneath the surface.

I remember 3 things from my 2 years of weekly sessions:

1. you pay if you miss an appointment ($35 was a fortune at that time!)
2. the word 'should' shouldn't exist in your vocabulary
3. My shrink had one favorite question: "If you were afraid that their might be a bogeyman hidden inside your closet, wouldn't you want to open the door and find out?"

The truth was NO, I'd actually prefer not to know. I remember how hard he tried to help me see the folly of such avoidance. I tried to convince us both that I had changed my mind. In general, my life is not based upon denial. I've been a delver--relentless about seeing through everything. But recently this dormant question resurfaced, so it surprised me to find that some of the bogeymen (I'd missed somehow) were still hiding in that closet. I stood face to face with the original question, once again.

What is so terrifying about opening that door?

For me, it was about the dangerous, evil bad guy I would find. As a catholic girl I'd learned that Dark power held hands with the devil. A power that only Light could triumph. Did my therapist fail to notice the rose-colored glasses I'd been given to wear? Why didn't he warn me about the price of leaving them on too long? Eventually LIFE removed them for me and I got to discover--the hard way--that Light/Dark is a package deal. They exist together in every single one of us. Bogeymen are everywhere. But every Bogeyman has a Guardian Angel. And no one should be locked inside a closet for too long.

Its not so much a question of whether or not to open the door--but rather, what to do with the angry pent-up energy of your escapee, whose been locked away. Even if he walked into that closet on purpose to begin with (and 'he' is you and me) there is a screaming need for compassion and understanding. Trust that Guardian Angel to handle this for you.

If my therapist had explained this to me, I would have realized that I wasn't opening the closet door to unleash the fury of hell upon myself, but in order to free myself from the tense burden of having to hold my breath while I resisted reality. Turns out there aren't two realities: a good one and a bad one. Nor are there villains and victims. There is only the scintillating impulse of Life's longing for itself. It surges through everyone, in whatever way it can.

Bob did what he thought was the most compassionate thing. And the forces I've been pretending not to notice are simply shadows looking for light behind closed doors. Their escape is my escape. Its one thing to take off the rose-colored glasses. Its another thing altogether to open the door without holding your breath. Maybe all any of us need is to breath more softly, more slowly and more deliciously. Actually, my therapist might have been onto something that I missed entirely, until just now: the healing power of silence. He would sit there without saying a word, until I spoke. Week after week, silence. If I didn't say anything the room remained still. Breath had space to take its time. Sometimes I wondered why I was paying him so much money. Now I suspect that the easy space between the words we spoke were his true gift to me.

Turning Inside Out: Earth to Us...

***

Reaching each other is instantaneous now. 

Visiting any spot on our globe is just 'a click away'.

When I was 2 years old people began to watch TV in their living rooms. 'The Outside World' entered our homes through a small window, inside of a wooden box. It was a black & white world (much like the one we actually lived in!) with a smattering of shows, aired over a couple of stations.

Now, with one click of a finger we can access unlimited possibility! The sky is no longer the limit! Instead of a dial to change channels; there's a keyboard we can tap. We may 'ask for' whatever we want. ANYTHING AT ALL!!!

Right now, (6 decades later) I am soaring over the surface of our magnificent planet at helicopter level! I can literally FEEL the whoosh of movement within my cells! Experiencing this, I'm blindsided by a stunning insight! With a shock, I realized all of a sudden: 

This is WHAT I am! 

Not merely what we are made of, but quite literally WHAT we are: 'Dirt & Water', that can get up and walk around!'

Without moving from my desk chair, I found my way to an internet site, belonging to a 21 year old man, whom I will never meet, nor come to know. He compiled a 'program' that took me on a tour, which I will never forget.

Instantly, amazing video footage brought the palpable sensation of water, stone, wind and fire, vibrantly alive inside of my own Being. I felt dizzy soaring over such vivid, looming, rapidly moving scenery. I 'became' each image that unfolded before my eyes. To view this series is to enter into what you already are! If you let yourself Fall Into these images, they will move through you; they will overpower the abstract realm of Mind.

His post was compiled of excerpts, taken from an 11-part series that truly presents "earth as you’ve never seen it before" ****. It took four years and 2000 days to make this series; filmed in 204 locations across 62 countries on our unique globe.  

I had originally included a link to this lovely video montage, but had to remove it, due to copyright violation. I do understand why such laws exist. And yet, I also feel sad that such an artfully arranged 'snippet view', which made it possible to taste the essence, of this vast production, cannot be shared any longer.

Each image drew me deep into the experience of sensing these amazing cosmic elements within--and AS--my very Being. The lovely music cradled me in the pulsing vibration of Lifeforce herself. How awesome to deeply experience our interconnectedness! 

Let me know when you're free and we'll have a party to take a tour of our lovely planet together, over popcorn! I do have the entire 6-disc DVD set now, so we can explore the whole sweepingly miraculous wonderland! We won't be able to have a 'FLYING overglimpse' that samples tidbits of everything--to preview all 7 hours. But we will take our time to explore it all bit by bit...

*** http://teacher.scholastic.com/commclub/earth_day_activity1/assets/images/photo_cvr_earth1_hr.jpg (credit for photo of planet earth)

**** http://www.bbcearth.com/programmes/planet-earth/

 

What Woke Me Up?

In 1992 we lived in a funky, turn-of-the-century, downtown home. I worked night shifts at the hospital while our son was growing up. Daytime sleep could be disorienting but this was unlike anything I'd ever experienced, asleep or awake.

 [Warning: Read this strange story at your own risk.]

 Part One

From the midst of deep sleep, in the middle of the day (inside a quiet empty house), something woke up. But it wasn't me.

There was only infinite, dark nothingness and IT was awake. This dark nothingness was Aware. IT could sense. IT could register impressions. IT could see. There was nothing else. IT was enough.

This empty darkness was formless but IT could recognize shape, because . . . from out of nowhere, something else materialized: solidity, texture, color. No idea what it was or why it suddenly appeared. Then, confusion registered and a question floated, 

"What is this?" 

In its path was a tall thin strip of wood--the molding along the side of an open door frame. But IT had no concept for doorways or wooden frames. IT did not comprehend manifest reality. Yet IT was attentive.

"Does this have anything to do with me? Is there something I'm supposed to know, or do about this?" the question wondered.

This sense of curiosity turned to bafflement (from being face-to-face with an unfamiliar enigma). As IT pondered the 'strange thing' something else arose: a note of concern--almost panic--a thought surfaced,  "Something seems to be expected here and I don't know what it is..." The thought was believed. Feeling followed: "...please tell me that no response is necessary!" Division was emerging.

I remember--out of utter blankness--feeling the full weight of terror as resistance arose, with the insinuation that form might demand something in response. What was form, anyway? Why did I need to care? What if "I" was somehow involved with this alien thing? I did not want it to be so. Identification was solidifying.

A voice spoke clearly, saying, "Don't worry, it has nothing to do with you."

Part Two

This assurance brought great relief. I trusted it on a deep level and everything in me softened. I became slowly aware of sitting up on the edge of a bed. The heaviness of being body, and the weightiness of movement (propelled forth into space), felt utterly foreign. The doorway before me started coming into focus. A mighty tug of war ensued between the Great Empty Darkness in its innate state of deep potential, and a mounting sense of urgency to decipher the strange scene in its immediate path. Dread and resistance held hands with innate curiosity.

I stood up but was still in deep sleep--a hybrid state: half-dark void, and half-human being. With the herculean effort of taking a step toward the doorway, I began to register these bizarre surroundings as 'a room' and there was a hauntingly familiar sense of deja vu--as if I did know this place somehow, after all. Human identification was returning to consciousness.

Seized by a sense of betrayal, I felt waves of disorientation. Various impressions swirled and collided. It appeared that "I" was not the darkness (so empty and formless, and 'at home' as nothingness). It felt like the reassuring voice had misled me: These surroundings had everything to do with me. I began to realize that MUCH was expected of me. Far more than I was remotely capable of--as 'The Darkness' (which still laid claim to me). I had become fused into being that darkness. It felt so perfect and true--as if there were nothing else whatsoever, in existence. Ultimate freedom.

Seeing myself as a limited, separate being again, was traumatic. I was just beginning to feel 'at home' as a unified field of great empty Stillness. Now I was reorienting into a 'somebody' who had awakened from deep sleep. Keen disappointment arose with the thought that I was not the still dark void, after all. Insecurity arose along with this 'return' to conscious habitation of a 'limited reality'. I simply did not know how to do it. Contraction was taking hold of me, like it or not.

The room I entered as I stepped though the open doorway, was my son's bedroom. Each step I took across the floor was like walking through thick jello, taking me deeper and deeper into my waking life. An acute sense of being caught between two worlds stopped me in the middle of the room. I felt deeply let down by what I was 'losing' with each step I took into my known life. At the same time there was delicious reverence for the amazing privilege of inhabiting this life, which I now took to be "the real me".

Each step was a miracle. Every object in my son's room sparkled with Life-force and meaning. Through that lens of innocence--the vantage point of timeless dispassion--all perspective was devoid of impression or concept. IT allowed me to view my old life with new eyes. Kaleidoscopic  diversity unfolded. However, the impartial neutrality of all-consuming no-thing-ness rapidly receded and my 'known life' re-possessed me, bit by bit.

What was it that woke me up?

~ ~ ~

Gossip, Secrets, and The True Story about ...

Whatever people think of you is really about the image
they have of you, and that image
isn’t you. 

Don Miguel Ruiz

It is difficult to write about what's Real. Amazing individuals bring meaning and texture to my existence. Our life threads interlace. Stranded in my ''Draft" area are posts I'm writing about what matters most. They await revision to disguise and "protect" the identity of everyone who makes my life possible. Each post must be 'purged' of any identity fragments. Why do our identities need protection? It seems to me that they do a darn good job of protecting their own existence. I apologize for luring you here with that juicy blog title but it is on topic. Seriously!

I guess what is actually being 'protected' is the exposure of our identity. We want control over the 'rights' of how our image is promoted. No one wants to be the topic of gossip or have their secrets revealed by others without permission. But do we actually have such control? What would we be without an identity? What might it be like to crumble up this prickly appendage like a wad of paper (which actually has more substance than our so-called self-image, anyway!) and throw it into the nearest trash bin? Imagine--for just a few moments--that our unique personal story-package simply evaporated, what then? Who remains?

When my own identity did spontaneously disappear for an awesome--and all too brief--period of time, it was replaced by a freedom unlike anything I'd ever known. There was a sense of having nothing to protect anymore! Nothing to fear. There was no self-consciousness, so who was going to feel afraid? No one was there! What surprised me the most was that all other identities (with anyone I encountered) also became transparent at the same time--revealing the sparkling alive essence shared by all beings. It's not uncommon to have such glimpses into our Universal Wholeness. Most of us do notice this, from time to time. To live from this perspective all the time, however, is a different matter.

Now, purging my own identity fragments, resembles weeding--pull them out only to see them grow right back. I wish I could find the draft template for my role as NICU nurse, friend, mother, wife, etc. and simply press the "extract button". Then I'd watch each sticky 'virus-bit' dissolve from 'the cellular matrix'. Evaporate from 'the energetic aura'. Get deleted from 'the memory bank'. If only it were that easy.

What causes such vigilant attachment to a fabricated idea? Of course, I don't really want to totally obliterate my fictitious profile--as if I could anyway, since as Ruiz points out--it truly doesn't exist. If anything, its tenuous location is impossible to pinpoint. Everyone I know has their own image of me--different from all the others. I can only imagine what it might be. Any efforts on my part to influence it are but stabs in the dark. And if Ruiz is right, then I'm simply wasting my time trying to erase what I see in various mirrors.

Even my own image of myself is constantly changing. What is it then, that feels so fragile, and so powerful that we have to evoke our legal system to protect it? Beyond the realm of ideas it can't be found but it can most certainly be touched, right? And whether it's handled roughly, or tenderly, makes all the difference in the world--to its 'owner'.

If self-image is merely an idea in the mind, then what are we clinging to so fiercely? What is there to actually purge or protect? Well--there IS the thought that says "You are like this. I am like that." And then, there is that great wisdom, in the form a bumper sticker, which says:

DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK.

What if we took just one hour, out of one day and went on strike: No thoughts will be believed for just one hour! Can you do it? I keep trying to do it--but a whole hour?? I am totally capable of doing it, however, for a few moments. At any given instant, I can easily stare a single thought right back in its non-face and say "you aren't real. you are only a thought. I don't believe you." And I can mean it. Then I'm left with empty space. I like that so much better...its so nice to be free. Even if its only for a minute or so...

The more I question thoughts, and the more frequently I catch ideas red-handed in the act of arising, the less I find them worth believing. And the more I look into what I really, really want, it seems to lean toward Wholeness and away from Separation and Division. I think my hero in this matter is the old skin horse:

    "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

    "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

    "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

    "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

    "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" 

    "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."  

The Velveteen Rabbit  ~  Marjorie Williams