Anticipate Less

I get to practice this on the dance floor. The secret to ballroom dancing, for me, is not knowing the rules, the counts, the steps. It requires infinitely precise sensing and following. I don't have time to wonder what the lead is doing. I only have to be on high alert, present, in my body, and feel the direction of things. Of course, I get off on the footwork, but I'm not here to do it "right". I need practice not being in control, going with the flow, and following intuition and subtle clues. My goal is to know what he's thinking AS we take the step. How refreshing! No project manager here. No imagined scenarios and all their kinks and solutions for every branch on this imagined tree. Just this, now, to this beat, with this person. This is a chance to hear the music, feel the lead, and be present right now. I often find myself asking, "How does he hear the music?" This will clue me into his sense of things, but other than that you can't think yourself around the dance floor you've got to DANCE. What brings you into the now? What brings you into your body? What forces you into movement?

The constant beyond transformation: Don't tell the butterfly

We like the image of the butterfly because that's how life feels, harrowing, dark (in the cocoon) the unknown takes over and leaves us utterly changed. But I challenge you to acknowledge the parts that didn't change. For these might be the truest part of you, and far less changeable.

I moved home at age 35 and was looking through boxes of stuff from college, shelved and boxed 15 years earlier. Fresh from packing up my most recent chapter following 6 years in a distant city,I was Well Aware, of what I had chosen to pack, what I paid to store, and what was tossed. What I was Surprised to see (with a sly smile at myself) was that in the boxes packed 15 years before, I had saved the EXACT same stuff. I had birthday cards I'd received, collages I had made, pictures, ceramic mugs I loved, tea. Huh? I travel the world; I mature; I grow up; I make my way in the world, and I find I'm collecting the same exact stuff as when I was 18?! Maybe, I don't change as much as I think I do. Maybe no matter where you drop me, I will recreate the same life, with the same surroundings. Hmmmmm..... it's a comfort I guess to know in a world of constant change that there is a constant in me that doesn't change, but continues to express itself in the same way. Maybe the butterfly houses the same soul as the caterpillar, and this is what I am finding. Eventhough the circumstances have changed radically maybe in the important ways I have not changed at all.

Cheers, to the loving ways we stay the same. Cheers, to a slow realization that "all is not different", Everything does not change as the maxim professes in "change is constant". But rather there is a consistency that outlives change, somewhere deep in the center of us, that keeps creating what we love. I love you!!!!!!!!!! You consistently human, being!

Uncertainty is Circumstancial

What I mean is when you feel uncertain it is always based on a particular set of circumstances. You may feel uncertain in love, and feel very certain about your role as a wife, or on the job. There is one truth that "Life is uncertain". It is in a sense that it is always changing. However, it is also true that there is a still part of you in the core of you that is not blown by the wind of circumstance. In meditation they may call it "the observer" the one witnessing, but not swept up in the thoughts you are having. I think the importance is in remembering there is a still part of you not blown by the wind of circumstance. You could think of it as the god within your heart. You could think of it as how small you feel in a blowing rainstorm. There is a tiny part that knows how little difference we make, and yet we go on. We exist beyond the circumstance. You can take yourself out of the rain. Some part of you is experiencing both the rain and the warmth, and is OK in either situation. So, my love I remind you, you are beyond circumstance. And you can rest in the stillness of your heart when you need a break from the wind and the rain. This too will pass, as all circumstances do.