That Sweet Moon Language – poetry of Hafiz and our search for love

March 7th, 2010

One of my beloved evening practices, just before I fall asleep, includes the reading of some mystical poetry. I have fallen deeply in love with the poetry of Hafiz. I find Daniel Ladinsky’s translations beautiful. (See “The Gift,” or “The Subject Tonight is Love,” or “I Heard God Laughing.”) His ecstatic joy sings from every line and word.

A few weeks ago I was speaking with my good friend, Sarah McIntyre, over a bowl of pasta and some great Argentinean red wine I had brought back with me, and we were talking about my long term single status. My daughter is 19, so for 17 years I have spent the majority of my time single. (Other than several years with Joseph, which was mostly long distance.)

Rarely these days do I think too much about being single. I used to think something was wrong with me. While a part of me would love a partnership with someone to share adventures of mind, body and spirit, my life is rich already, with great friends and beloved teachers. And I am simply not that interested in having a relationship just for being in relationship.

In my many conversations with God, and my journaling, I have sat with the question of my singleness. It is as it is. The perfection is that I have had to learn not just to be a single parent, and a career focused woman, but also to remove dead rats, coach-roaches, and other vermin, and to be a model of a woman able to live a rich life without fitting the more traditional mode. And lets face it, traditional was never on my “to do” list. Hence the Positive Deviant! Fits me like  glove.

Along the way I have also learned to surrender, to ask for help, to be vulnerable, to be at peace (most days) with my life as it is. (The biggest struggle I have inside is not with my single status, but with my achiever status, still trying to really reconcile that my life is incredibly successful, even though it may not be “traditionally” successful. There…I shun traditional in so many ways, yet have held as my marker of life the traditional picture of success. And yes, most of the time now, I know that this traditional picture of success is just someone else’s idea that I brought lock stock and barrel. And most of the time these days I do feel very at peace with my version of success. But, human as I am, some days I am down in the basement, fighting the inner dragon.)

Back to the conversation with Sarah. In reading Hafiz, I am more in desire, want and love with the mystic union with God than some flesh and blood union with a mortal. I could well have been a Nun. Not in the religious way, but in the mystical way. Hafiz and Rumi and St. Teresa of Avila, all of these mystics and others write of this ecstatic union. The joy and love literally entangles me. Better than sex, maybe even better than chocolate. No wonder I have not found a flesh and blood male. I almost pity any male who might try to match this great love I seek.

And…you just never know what the Universe has up its sleeve. When my marriage ended, I made a vow to never say never to anything. To always remain open to the infinite possibilities. At the least I have learned that God is always laughing at our silly little beliefs and superstitions, so it is highly likely that some man will arrive from left field and disarm me completely.

The following poem spoke to me so strongly that I had to write about it, or more particularly, share it with you.

With That Moon Language

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them,

“Love me.”

Of course you do not do this out loud;

Otherwise,

Someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this,

This great pull in us to connect.

Why not become the one

Who lives with a full moon in each eye

That is always saying,

With that sweet moon

Language,

What every other eye in this world

Is dying to

Hear.

Hafiz (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

It has been my observation that Hafiz is speaking truth. That our deepest wish, so far down deep inside below the levels of most of our consciousness, is to be loved. By all the people we meet. Our politically correct way of saying this is to say we want to be liked.

We want to be loved. We want connection. Heart to heart. It really is that simple. Everything else, all of it, is just the act of not wanting to expose the core of our need and vulnerability. So we play our games, and develop, over lifetimes, strategies to keep our want and need to be loved a secret.

Imagine a world were people spoke this level of truth? Where we speak that sweet moon language all the time?


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Take Your Time – Challenging the way we see

March 4th, 2010

Beauty

On my last trip to Sydney I was given a gift of experience. One of my teachers often said that great gifts come in small brown paper packages. This was one of those small brown package gifts. Meeting up with the awesome Gavin Blake, Graphic Facilitator extraordinaire, he invited me to go to the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art , and the exhibition of the Olafur Eliasson. (Surely a Positive Deviant)
The world of contemporary art has never been my thing. I like certain art, but I have never grocked contemporary. Give me a Manet, or Renoir. I am a BIG fan of photography. But a huge picture of red paint with a small blue dot placed somewhere has escaped my Virgoan  sensibilities.

I am learning to say yes to more in life, and be open to seeing the world through the eyes of others, suspending my own view completely, if I am able. “If I am able” is the challenge. Can we jettison our own view and take the view of the other? This is what I ask the people I work with to do every day, so teacher, get to work and do the same. (As in, I better walk my talk!)

If I had of wandered, on the off chance, into this exhibition on my own, it would have taken me all of 5 minutes to view and I would have walked out in some form of disgust. Art! That is not art!.

Thank God for Gavin’s eyes, and his leadership and guidance.

As a die hard Buckyphil, I was delighted with some of the very impressive structures, but walking into a blank room bathed in yellow light and nothing else, well, I was feeling conned. Then Gavin so delightfully said, “Great art cause you to ask…what the F??”

Yep, he was reading my mind.

He kept talking me through each room, challenging my thinking, my reactions, my experience. Inadvertently, almost against my better judgement, my rigid Virgoan mind started to crack open, even just a bit.

Then I found myself asking a question that is quite a central question to my passion and curiosity. “What was the intention behind the artist? What was he hoping would happen to the viewer?” “What message, or story, or experience was he seeking to convey?” If any?

I became fascinated by his process. (You can’t take the Virgoan analysis out, even if you do crack open the mind.)

At some point I surrendered that, and just allowed myself to be with the experience. The last two rooms, like a great piece of music, reached a critical crescendo. The final room, entered through a dark brick lined corridor, was breathtaking. Titled ‘Beauty’ a blackened soundproof room with high ceilings had one single fine mist fountain falling from the ceiling with a spotlight directed through it. The rainbow mist changed in appearance with every different position taken in the room, and the sound of the water, very soft, almost inaudible, added to the beauty of the experience. It was Beauty.

As I learned a few months ago working with Remco the photographer on my new site photo’s, we can be looking at exactly the same view and seeing something completely different. I find that fascinating, don’t you? He was looking at a scene and seeing the light and colours through an experienced photographers eyes. I was looking at it through my  all too quick scan eyes. I mean, how perfect is life that no two people look at anything with the same eyes? Sure, it means we have to work harder on being clear with our communication and message delivery, but what an incredible world that we can sit for hours watching a panorama and challenging ourselves each moment to see it with new eyes.

I am not sure I will become a raving fan of contemporary art. However, I am up for the experience of it opening me to new ways of seeing. I am willing to take the plunge into this brave new world. I am certainly willing to challenge my own view, and to have it be challenged. Thanks Gavin.

By the way, the exhibition was titled, “Take Your Time”

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GRUNCH of Giants- reflections on Bucky, precession and economic hit men

February 24th, 2010

Of the many great things that age brings us, one of them is the ability to reflect on the path of our life.

When I was 17 years old I read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It was as if some new door had been opened. I was completely seduced. Remember this was back in the 70’s, when the goal of high achievers like me was simply to build empires, with little to zero regard to the cost to anything or anyone as a consequence.

To be moved from thinking Ayn Rand and her philosophy was the smartest gig in town, to being introduced to my main guy, Bucky, 10 years later. How brilliant is the Universe to be conspiring that? For many years I was caught in the trap of wanting to be an empire builder. Isn’t this how society measured your worth? How much money and stuff and status you had? Bucky challenged the world of Ayn Rand. He really pulled the rug out from under my diamond studded shoes. However, even today I still love Ayn’s independent confident women characters. (Yes, they may be ball breakers, and it has been a long while since I have read Ayn Rand, so I may still be under a spell of memory…but I do recall at the time I was inspired by these women who wrote their own rules and came out from behind the apron skirts. Those who know me well would not be surprised to hear this.)

I used to think Bucky’s writing about money, the economy, and his GRUNCH of Giants (Gross Universal Cash Heist) was a bit too conspiracy theory for me. “Bucky’s weakness” thought I.

After my many discussions with Dave Martin, and my life long quest to really understand at and embodied level the global financial system, and value, I returned to GRUNCH last week, for about the forth time. And having just read John Perkins, “Hoodwinked”, the message is the same. No, its not a conspiracy, but a system built on the insatiable desire for greed and power, at the cost of anything, by a small group of people.  The real cost, the poverty of most of the world. The loss of pristine environments. Endless debt. It is tragic.

Even more tragic is that highly educated people living in the Western world have no idea this has been going on. I am an example of exactly that tragedy. When I graduated from six years of University, and started working for myself, I did not even know that I was supposed to pay tax out of my earnings. My mother, the business woman, had to give me “the talk”. I was shocked, not because of my ignorance, but that in six years of attending University, no one even thought to mention this! Sure, I had subjects to learn about the science I was mastering in, but where was the practical class on how to manage a business and life and survive in the world? This little episode of uncovering ignorance was one of the keys that started my quest to know about how the system worked.

It is almost comic that the second key was my greed and hunger to build an empire. For it was through attending the “Money and You” program with Robert Kiyosaki back in 1986 that I was introduced to Bucky. The comedy is that I attended because I wanted to make more money. The precessional effect, (the Universe’s main effect) was that I was catapulted on a trajectory that insisted that part of my journey is to really ‘get’ what is going on with the system. While I am still in my student days, I am far less naive. (And by the way, I never did build an empire, or become insanely rich with dollars. But what I have become is ever more grateful for the most amazing life I have, and the richness I am surrounded with. And learning what is of true value. The things that matter most to me. My relationships, nature, beauty, music, life, dancing…the sun on my skin..priceless.)

In his usual inimitable way, Bucky said that the GRUNCH of giants and their very actions of raping and pillaging the worlds people and resources, has of course its own precessional effect. In other words, the side effect of their actions may be the very action that reveals all that is NOT true. This will be a good thing. Painful maybe, as people realise  that their presumed “wealth” is not really of any value.

For example some things that are not true.. there are no solids. There is no up and down in Universe. Your house price doesn’t rise. (The value of your dollar goes down.) There is no “there” that things can be thrown away to. The real cosmic costs are always decreasing. Price increases are simply a part of the game and have no relation to value…..

I am offering here the tame version of Bucky’s writing. If you really want to rock your world, get a copy of GRUNCH and take your time to read it. I am mindful that by sharing some of his more provocative thoughts without the necessary context, the field effect on you, the reader, may not be desirable. It has taken me 20 years to start to really get that he was writing truth. Am I a slow leaner? Maybe. More likely, it has taken 20 years for me to be willing to throw away all I have been told and start to look, see and check it out for myself.

What does this all mean in the long run? Well, back to precession. If the side effect of the economic hit men John Perkins writes about is that we come to our sense, finally, and wake up…this will be a good thing. I am not anti capitalism. I am anti a small few being able to get away with robbery, murder, environmental disaster, thoughtlessness, etc so they can have more power and more stuff. It is not right that I live in luxury while others starve to death. How can that ever be right?

What does this mean for me? That I keep on my quest. To learn the truth, to live the truth, to support others in their truth. And to do so with passion and integrity, and to keep doing it, every day.

It is a joyous, sometimes scary, fabulous adventure, and like that box of chocolates, I am never sure what I am going to get. Whatever that is, it is always significant. As someone wise observed, on more than one occasion, there are no small things.

There are no small things. No small actions. Its all a miracle. Amazing…this thing called life.

*photo by  Dnnya17

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A Perfect Sunday Morning on the Gold Coast

January 17th, 2010

Gold Coast beach from helicopterView North from Burleigh Heads

My regret today was I didn’t have a camera to capture some of the incredible beauty. I was running, so camera’s may be difficult to carry. I have to hold the perfection in my soul instead.

Given the high temperatures and humidity we have been having, my group of running friends and I have switched our Sunday run from the forest to beach side. Mostly so we can jump into the ocean when we are done.

Our Sunday runs are long…at least 2 hours…and have hills. So we have created a run around the hills of Burleigh Heads, on Queensland’s Gold Coast. Total of 556 meters elevation according to my trusty Garmin.

5 am, about 27 C (80.6 F) and humid. We are on top of the first hill when the sun comes over the Pacific Ocean just after 5. It is one of those days when the sky is mostly clear, (we don’t have evident pollution where I live…clear means cloud free) and at this time of day the light is so beautiful, with Burleigh Headland to the South, and the high rises of Surfers Paradise to the North. It was perfect.

At some point in the run we are on top of a hill at the back of Burleigh Heads with views across the ocean. Wow.

Running on Burleigh Headland hill, a national park, we could be in any subtropical forest in the world. Yet we are minutes to main stream beach community life. Wild turkeys get out of the way, very used to human pedestrian traffic. Back around the hill we look North to Surfers Paradise across the Pandanus Palms. (see the photo above, which is taken at Burleigh looking North.) Since today the ocean is fairly flat, one lone surfer is at the famous Burleigh break. It is one of my most favourite views in all the world and today it was worth stopping to enjoy.

Back to Miami Surf club, now just after 7 am, and a hive of activity, as is every surf club in Australia on a Sunday morning in summer (actually for all but four months of the year). The Aussie way of life is surf clubs, nippers (junior surf lifesavers, starting age 6) and all the things that go with beaches and oceans. Even with our incredible surf life saving culture, since New Year we have had four drownings. More than usual and tragic. People not swimming in the flagged area and having a very poor understanding of the power of the ocean. Mostly tourists. Never underestimate the ocean. Its power and unpredictability are to be taken with great seriousness.

We spent a good 20 minutes in the ocean. The water temperature was fresh enough to cool you down, not too cold to chill you. Just right. I bobbed out beyond the wave break enjoying the beauty, the sensation of salt water floating, the freshness of the water.

Followed by a beach shower, some stretching and then a wonderful healthy breakfast at the local beach side cafe.

This was as perfect a start to a morning as I could ever imagine. Great company, hard exercise, beautiful scenery, ocean swim, leisurely breakfast….

In all my world travels there are few places that have ever enticed me to move. Hawaii would do at a pinch. The lifestyle here is me to a T. Not city, not country. Close to cities and an easy flight to Sydney. Outdoor lifestyle…not many places you can swim in a public 50 meter pool outdoors 365 days of a year and not get cold. The fantastic Gold Coast Hinterland 20 minutes drive away, with incredible walking/running trails. Rare to drive anywhere in under 15-20 minutes, locally. Not many traffic issues, particularly with my lifestyle, which has never been 9-5.

I was speaking to a friend this week who is not happy with where in the world he lives and it occurred to me that the place I live, the latitude and longitude, plus the place I call home, is very critical to my state of mind. So critical in fact that it really is a non negotiable. My soul hums here. I can breath clean air, inside and out. The light and open spaces and sunshine make me feel vital and alive. I could not compromise any other way of being.

Winter is mild. Cold enough to wear boots and a jacket, heating not required often. A nice change, and only lasting 4 months. I swim in the ocean from September to late May.

Not only do I feel incredibly nourished by my environment, it energises me. Every day.

Which gets me to thinking…how many people who do have a choice live in a place that doesn’t nourish them? We see so many articles about people who are encouraged to do work that fulfills them, but rarely do we see articles about living in an environment that really nourishes every part of your being.

If we are working on how to show up every single day with the best of us shining, this is as critical as any factor. Finding a place to call home that makes your soul sing. It is not about how many square meters your home is…or all the goodies/stuff in your home…my home is a two bedroom condo, but it is in a very quiet area, very close to all the things I like, has high ceilings, nothing fancy (I don’t even own a flat screen TV..given that I don’t really watch TV can’t see the point), a little courtyard garden where I grow my herbs…but it is enough. And enough is perfect.

Are you were your soul sings?

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Simplicity on the other side of illusory complexity

January 1st, 2010

Want to loose weight?

Eat less food (preferably eat fresh local food)

Get more exercise.

Want to get out of debt?

Spend less money.

Pay off your debts first.

Want to be happy?

Stop thinking miserable thoughts.

Do more of what you love with people you love.

Want to make a difference?

Think about the short, medium and long term consequences of everything that you say and do.

Take actions that only have a positive consequence in the short medium and long term.

Want a better relationship?

Focus on the things you love about your partner, friends, family.

Act/speak from love, be grateful, open your heart…

Want better leadership?

Be a better leader first.

Speak up when people in leadership lie, cheat, manipulate, seduce…

Want to be a better person?

Speak, act, live, be in integrity always.

Practice gratitude.

Why do we want the easy solution? The magic formula? The quick fix? The silver bullet? The Blue pill?

Because the simple actions above are also the most hard. And so we make the solutions very complex, but in the act of doing so we continue to keep the truth at arms length. We get caught up in the noise and distraction of the complex to avoid the truth. And that truth is…  that we do not want to eat less, exercise more…we want to keep doing what we have been doing and have a magic formula that allows us to have our cake and eat it too. We like to have a story to complain about, we like to avoid, at all costs, the core truth.

For things to change, first I must change.

What are you committed to change in you in 2010?

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In Gratitude – Reflecting on 2009

December 18th, 2009

breakygirls

I love this time of year. I love that in my world it is HOT, that swimming in the ocean after a run is like drinking water from a well in the dessert, that people get together and celebrate more. Especially I like the quiet days after Christmas when I get to draw breath and review the year.

From September 2008  and through the early part of 2009 I went through my own very deep dark night, triggered by a very sudden loss in income (I had taken my eye off the ball). Even though at the time it was extremely difficult, a part of my awareness also realised that there was great beauty within the experience, and that I was being reborn, in some way, to a stronger me.

For many years now I have had one enduring prayer. “Please use me as you see fit.” Behind this prayer is the fervent wish to be used to the fullest of my capacity to support the highest good. Of course when you live on the edge of the world of service to the mystical unfolding, the tricky bit is that you really don’t know what being used to your fullest capacity is. Other than when you do what you do, your heart sings in tune and people really like what you do and it seems to help and certainly does no harm.

Having spent years really seeking for my vocation to finally get that it is not a destination but is forever unfolding – in other words my true work has been my true work every day, even back in the days at University when I waited tables – and that every step has been significant in bringing me here to who I am now and what I have to contribute, the prayer of  being used as you see fit has been in action every day. It is only the part of me that wants the action of the day to look and feel different than what it is that has been the issue. Each day I have learned to be present and grateful to the action of the day…in what ever form that is…rather than to want it to be different.

Yet at the same time, I can see a thread that runs through everything I have done.

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change.  But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

William Stafford ~


So we approach the end of 2009, and I look back at the last 12 months. Given that so much of my work is the inner work I do on self, each year I get to this place and gasp at how far I have come, and yet each year I reach this place and feel like I have reached a good place, where I “Know” so much. And there in lies the beauty. Life is a constant unfolding, and while I have travelled far, there is far to go. And I am always amazed at how far I have come. It is a joy, this journey of life…

2009, it started for me requiring to go deep inside to explore my questions of value…what is value?..who says this is valuable?…why?…what do I feel/think/believe is valuable?…what does money mean?…how to I daily stay connected to source?..Especially how do I stay connected to source when I have fear in my heart and my tendency is to contract and withdraw?

This has been my enquiry for 2009. As I wrote early in the year, in the article on building an emergency tool kit, one of the daily, moment to moment practices I have been focused on is ensuring I have an open heart, and that I resist the urge to contract and shut down when fear looms. Even now, when things on the “outside”, my bank account for example, are in better shape, I find myself contracting from the age old in-built genetically and psychically programmed scarcity principle. That there is not enough. That the flow has stopped.

So this work goes on…daily, opening my heart, feeling my light shine, sending my light out,  knowing that when I do I stay connected. And that when we are connected the flow is ever present. It is only when I contract, when my heart closes, that I become disconnected. The practice for me is giving, giving, giving, my light, my open heart, my energy, my love. Because I know without a shadow of doubt that when I do this, all will be well, in whatever form that is.

This has been my biggest lesson for 2009, and it continues to be learnt and applied…daily..for the pull of self contraction, and scarcity thinking are so strong, and so inbuilt into us that vigilance is necessary.

During 2009, as I allowed my heart to open more, inspiring and wonderful events occurred.  Always for me the precious gifts of life are our relationships and shared moments.

Incredible relationships were forged in 2009.

My relationship with Laurent Labourmene is pivotal to 2009. We have spent hours on skype, working with each other through the storms, moving from storms to seas of possibility, hanging out in Brazil, meeting in Melbourne to share pizza with his partner, co-creating with others “The Constellation”, and finally, working together on Indigenous Prosperity in Adelaide. I am in so much gratitude for all of our time and experiences together, and for the rich future that is unfolding as 1 plus 1 equals 10000. (or more). Laurent is a friend, a buddy, a co-contributer to my work and I am a better person for knowing him.

Precessionally, from my relationship with Laurent, has come the relationships with Richard David Hammes, Lindley Edwards, Dave Martin, Cynthia McEwan. While these friendships  are new, I feel I have known these people all of my life, and forever before that.

laurentcynthia1

I have loved the conversations with Dave covering the worlds money systems, to the mystical and otherwordly, to “all in consequence.” Each conversation stretches me, and simultaneously, leaves me rested in a complete and whole space.

The many conversation with the gentle and wise spirit Cynthia, and her partner John. I feel so much richer with each interaction.

In Brazil I met many others who work so generously and with so much love for the betterment of our world. Morel Forman, Peter Merry, Lawrence Bloom, the incredible elder women, Jean Houston and Nancy Roof. I stepped into the heart of Rio de Janeiro, into the slums, with the elegant Maria …and the exquisite beauty, Giselle.

This year I have continued to work with extraordinary people. People who show up each day and do work that they love. Someone asked me recently who I like to work with and I said I love working with anyone who wants to do the work. I don’t mind if they are CEO’s  or the people at the counter. I have worked with teams of people who have inspired me with their willingness to get off their bag of tricks and roll up their sleeves and do the work that needs to be done right before them. I find myself doing more group coaching, which I adore, and integral leadership development, with leaders who are up for the biggest loudest truth they know.

I lived for three months in a house with just myself and my dog for the first time in 18 years, as my daughter Natalie travelled Europe. My mobile phone was my sleeping partner, as I often got the text in the night, announcing a new adventure, another great experience, or the joys of sleeping on the streets, or in train stations. There was the occasional “Help” text.

I ran another Gold Coast marathon and half of my third “Kokoda Challenge.” I learned newly about my body, and what it does under stress.  I have stayed in great shape all year, with not one shadow of illness, not even a sniffle. I put this down to lots of good sleep, healthy food, fabulous friends, and refusing to let things get to me..to keep that heart open and trusting that all is well.

I forged new friendships in my local community, with my Saturday running girls. Toni and Fiona and Alicia and Donna (and Jess, now based in Sydney). It has been so great to have such lovely people in my life – the girlfriends who all stay very fit, and yet love to enjoy life… Many Saturday mornings have been spent at the coffee shop at the beach, laughing so much passers by have said we shouldn’t be having so much fun so early in the day.

I have built a web site, Positive Deviant, and learned a lot about the interior of the web. It is of course such a huge field, so my knowledge is still quite novice, but certainly I have loved the learning. Thank you to SBI. You are an extraordinary company who genuinely gives far far more than I pay for, and does so with such high integrity every single step of the way. I have loved the experience.

I have found the beautiful piano music of Michael Jones. I listen to him play most every day. He is playing now.

When my daughter returned from her travels we hung out together, our relationship more mature, and even more loving, and every night for months, we would read a chapter from the Twilight saga together. Treasured moments.

As the year comes to a close I feel so incredibly grateful for it all. The hard start took me deep inside to explore the core of my values, I had to also sharpen some of my practices around the management of money, learn to do without, to not spend anything, loving the lightness and freedom of this.

I feel very certain that the new year, and my 50th year, will be quite an exception. What I have been building for years, with love and commitment, and with some seriously skinned knees along the way, is about to transform to a bounty that will see me used so much more than I have felt to this point. It is all so very perfect, and I am very blessed and grateful.

Thank you to you, the readers of this blog. While I do not know many of you, I am grateful for you making precious time to spend with me in this way. I do love connecting with you and hearing if my writing is on track…so please drop me a note…

I wish you grace and blessings as we move into the new decade.

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Boy do we make things complex….

December 16th, 2009

Take climate change for example. Yep there is a lot of competing evidence one way of another, and sure, there are so many stakeholders with so many fingers in so many pies….but really guys, have we forgotten the basics?

The giant elephant in the room is that we, and I mean all of us, need to take responsibility for the field effects of our every action and thought. Its time. This is the game we play when we grow up. We throw away the childish ways of not knowing what happens afterwards, and we start to consider the all in consequence. No longer is it OK to blame, or to condone bad behaviour, by anyone. Our cavalier way of life, with no regard for the short and long term consequence, is what is in question here. And the effect of being more thoughtful and considerate, no matter if climate change is a myth or real, will be a win for all. Sure some big corporates may loose a bucket of money, but if they were smart, they can stop this from happening by being adaptive in their activity, and proactive in what they produce and how they do it.

We get so caught in the gory details, distracted from the real issue.  The real issue  doesn’t just rest with the government, or with big business, or with anyone else. It rests with our own level of CARE for all that we do, and our understanding that what I do, affects you, whether you are in the same room, or across the planet. And this is the issue. From which we can try to run, but we simply have no where to run away to, because there is no “there” that is away from us except in the very immediate short term. Eventually “there” will find us because to this point we all live on the same planet, and breath the same air.

In the early 80’s, Buckminster Fuller did the math. Humanities present rate of total energy consumption amounts to only one four-millionth of one percent of the rate of energy income. In other words, there is so much energy available to us every day, more than anyone could ever use, from the sun, wind, tides etc..all renewable. We do not have an energy crisis, we have a distribution crisis. And in this lies so many opportunities.

Bucky also said that using up our fossil fuel stores is like living off our savings account, when we have so much deposited into our cash account. We are going deeper into the red when we have a huge supply right at our fingertips. Waiting, waiting, for us to wise up. And human ingenuity…well of course we can find the solution to how to use renewable energy in a most efficient way…

As David Martin says so well in his great blog post, while all the distracting hoopla is going on about CO2, and cap and trade, and parts per million, few people are focused on the real conversations. For example, what if we found a better way to get energy, no matter what the source, from point A to the consumer. As its stands, the way it is distributed, close to 80% of the original energy is lost! What if this was reduced to 10%? That would be the single best action we could take. So obvious, yet no one seems to be focused on this.

It seems our focus and our energy is pointed in the wrong direction. And I say this literally and figuratively.

This seems to be our biggest dilemma. Our addiction to focusing on the drama and the noise. Instead of stepping back and getting perspective. See what is really going on. Taking time to consider the whole. Look from this place to the obvious..what is missing, where are the opportunities, what am I not seeing? This was one of Bucky’s main arguments, which is built around the principle of Synergy. That we simply must start with the whole first.

Instead we get caught in the swamp. All the noise and its endless attractions and distractions. Rather like we do in our own lives, where doing email, or going on facebook, or gossiping in the corridor, getting caught up in the noise of life, is easier than doing what we know in our hearts needs to be done, and often that means stepping away from the noise and getting some clear perspective, or cleaning up our own act, whether it is around our diet, our energy use, our carelessness…

Take the whole debate on obesity. Apparently there was story of a lady in Australia who lost 85 kgs (187 lbs) because she started doing moderate exercise and gave up junk food! No other fads or gimmicks. Well, of course she lost weight by doing this. It really is this simple. And yet we have an industry that make billions out of gimmicks. Why? Because we all want the easy path that doesn’t require that we modify our behaviour. Heaven forbid that we live a healthy lifestyle! I mean, that would mean I would have to take responsibility for my own health? I would have to learn about healthy food and cooking, get in touch with my body like I haven’t before, because I have been ignoring it for years, even though it has been screaming at me every time I go up a flight of stairs, or step on the scales, find ways to exercise that suit my size and temperament, and get educated on the dire side effects of medication instead of handing myself over to some guy/gal in a white coat. Oh no, changing my diet and getting out of bed in the morning to go for a walk is too hard. Getting educated is too hard… I’d rather pay for the drug, and then the surgery..forgetting of course that it is just not me who is paying..depending on which country you come from…that we all pay…..in so many ways…over and over again.

So we have a health crisis, where the cost of health care is skyrocketing. And the solution. Simple. Stop eating junk, get more exercise, quit smoking, get good sleep. Why is this not the only major conversation on this issue? Why don’t we talk about prevention?

Where do we focus? On everything else but the obvious. On who pays for what, and what the insurance companies can and can’t do, and how the system works, on and on endlessly. So the giant machine of noise can keep going, and once again, we are off the hook. It is someone else’s problem, and heaven forbid if I get my butt off the chair and go do something about it. Oh I can’t exercise, I have weak knee’s, I might say! A few weeks ago a guy “walked” the Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea, all 96 kilometers (59.6 miles) of extreme terrain, using his hands and dragging his legs, because he is a paraplegic. If he can do this, I can do exercise with weak knee’s. Take up swimming for heavens sake…but stop moaning and doing nothing!

Do I sound angry? Yes. This annoys the #@%$# out of me. We have lost touch with the very core of our human existence. Our connection to earth, nature, and our bodies. We don’t take the time to really listen to the truth that whispers to us constantly. Instead we drown it out with more…and more…noise, and stuff and complexity, and distraction.

There is an excellent article on our lost relationship with the earth, written by Ellen Gunter and published on Caroline Myss’s site, for those of you who want a more micro understanding of where humanity is at. This conversation excites and inspires me far more than the bickering going on about how much we need to reduce our carbon. The carbon issue to me is just a smoke screen (an interesting pun), on where the real focus would be better served.

And back to us, at the coal face of life (interesting metaphor). We circle back, as always, to truth. For things to change first I must change. Lets not forget that it is not just about the world out there…our energy choices out there, our care of others out there. We also have to look inside, do the work in there…care for self in there, educate ourselves in there….

Would love to hear your thoughts on this hot little topic….

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Living in the Mystery

November 20th, 2009

footprintsonsand

All my life I have been motivated by curiosity. If I do not understand a word, I look up the meaning straight away on Dictionary.com. Google is my best friend, as is Wikipedia. I love love love that we have the internet and that answers to my questions are at my finger tips.

Of course some answers are not so easy to find. Like “Why am I here?” “What is the meaning of life?” Specifically, what is the meaning of my life?” And..”What exactly, is the point, anyway?”

While I have never got sucked into the vortex of these questions and fallen, like Alice, down the rabbit hole, into a dark and twisted existential crisis, lost in the impossibility of the answers, I have held these questions as a kind of beacon, their light shining just ahead, pulling me forward to continue my own inner journey, and in the process finding answers that bring peace, if not certainty. Sure, there have been days where it has seemed pointless. But these days for me have been rare. Mostly, I am in love with the mystery of it all. And in awe.

I am not sure why I respond to life in this way. In love with the mystery. Maybe it is because I am an adventurer at heart, and the inner adventure is as much fun, for the most part, as the one in the outside world. My curiosity pulls me. “Why did I just agree to do that?” “Wow, that was an interesting response Christine. What’s going on with you girl?” I find myself observing myself with fascination. And my quick little mind is happy at work, analyzing, finding meaning, making sense of.

Of course there are some things that simply do not make sense at all. Like why, exactly, are we so attracted to THAT particular person? Or why this happened? Or that?

And here in lies the beauty of life. Are we able to stand living in the mystery? Can our rational mind be allowed to relinquish control about some things, and not have all the answers available, lined up in neat little rows? For many people, this mystery unravels them. Their need to have a rational explanation, to be in control of their world, is so great, that the burden of not knowing truly sucks them into a dark rabbit hole. The impossibility of finding a rational answer to the questions pecking at them becomes so unsustainable, yet like an addict, they keep asking, lost, lost in their need.

Living in the mystery allows for the adventure to continue. If we have been everywhere, and experienced everything, why have an adventure? If we know all the answers, and have no more questions, what happens then? Does life stop? I think not. I think that that is the point. First, that the beauty of the ever unfolding mystery of life is the main adventure, and our not knowing is the pull, like the eternal seeking for that one lover who really does complete you. And that when we reach a place of inner knowing, when our questions stop because we have found the source of truth, that doesn’t mean the adventure stops. It means that the adventure now is all about observing how this allows life to unfold around us. Rather like going to an fabulous movie and being swept up in the story. (As I haven’t reached that place I can only conjecture.)

The tragedy is when people loose their love of the mystery. For whatever reason, life wears them down, and their inner fatigue and exhaustion is so overwhelming that they loose all interest in living in the mystery. They become buried in resignation and hopelessness. Many times we have confused clinical depression with a spiritual crisis. A spiritual crisis demands that we go inside and do the work. A spiritual crisis is usually brought on by the loss of something that makes no sense. It could be the loss of a loved one, or a job, or something a little more subtle, like the loss of our sense of self. Whatever the trigger, the demand and requirement is for us to go inside and sit with some of the questions that define us, and to preferably do this inner work with the support of someone skilled in staying with you as you loose your rational mind to be reunited with the mysterious. An Amchara coach for example. Someone how knows the nuances of the terrain on the inside, the need for silence, the need to be in nature, then need to rediscover beauty. Who has the ability to ask the gentle and hard questions birthed in infinite compassion, all the while responding to the unfolding unraveling aware of the majesty of kairos time.

What I have learned in my own inner journey are the essentials to pack as we embark, or continue on our adventure.

*A curious mind.
*The willingness to not know and surrender to the not knowing.
*A exquisite love of beauty, be it art, or music, poetry or nature. These things transcend the rational. Art, music, poetry capture what we are not able to capture in words. Sitting in nature and really looking at its incredible complexity and infinite beauty takes us out from our small mind games.
*The support of an amchara or two, or a teacher or guide.
*A daily practice that keeps us grounded, earthed, embodied.
*An open heart.
*Courage
*A good sense of humor. Learn to laugh at yourself and the shear paradox of it all.

In 1995 I held my own weekend retreat, attended by myself and an extensive list of questions. At the end of that journey of inner contemplation, I wrote my personal mission statement, which I very slightly amended in 2002.

Here it is. It doesn’t speak of who I am as much as the place I hold for myself. Sometimes I do not get it right. No matter. I come back and start again. This is my inner guide. More than anything, this mission statement reminds me of the beauty of living in the mystery.

MISSION STATEMENT
CHRISTINE MCDOUGALL
3-1-95, amended Jan 2002
To live my truth at all times, allowing my spirit to shine forth graciously and inspire others to acknowledge their own magnificence.
To be humble and open, in surrender to God’s grace.
To trust in the Divine Energy.
To love comprehensively.
To respect and honour the physical Universe and my own physicality.
To be, joyously, all that I am.
To laugh often, and share my joy abundantly.
To be a willing and gracious disciple of life’s lessons.
To openly receive the abundance of the Universe, to give gratefully.
To be a wise steward to all the wealth that comes to me.
To be Bold.
To embrace life’s adventure.
To be a loving and present mother, an intimate and committed lover, a compassionate and available friend, an honourable and loving daughter, a courageous inspirational leader, a responsible citizen of our glorious Earth.
To acknowledge the source of my creative intelligence and my responsibility for all that exists in my Universe.
To embody the essence of integrity and inspire integrity in others.
To be my truth, my spirit, my love…..
Unbounded
Timeless
Eternal

I would love to hear from you about how you live in the mystery….

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Posted in Leadership Development, Personal Development, Positive Deviants, personal sustainability | 2 Comments »

The Divided Life

November 6th, 2009

nikon1981

We are scattered like a thousand pieces across our world. There is the part of us that appears like we “have it all together” in public. The part of us that is terrified of what people would think if they saw behind our mask of “perfect”. The part of us that constantly worries about what people will think if we do this or that. The part of us that yearns for something greater, like a purposeful purpose, or a determined and clear way forward. The part of us that believes we must do the right thing. Whatever that is! Stay in an unhappy marriage for the kids, or because of the money thing, or because isn’t that what you do? The part of us that has a different self outside of a marriage, playing the field, hoping to remain undiscovered.  The part of us that is trapped in work that has no movement and rhythm, that we experience as  the same track playing over and over again, day in, day out. The part of us that obeys someone else’s rules, and wonders, why? Maybe our parents said that this is how we are to live our life, and we bought it, no questions asked. The part of us that thinks we can get away with some of our little tricks and little atrocities, that falls under a spell of power, or seduction, or glamor. The part of us that misbehaves anyway, because we have not yet learned to stop throwing tantrums.

The pieces of us that are scattered in all these places have a deep yearning. Yet for what they are yearning is often not clear. Something is missing. But what? All of our small pieces are separated from the core, from our centre, yet unaware even that they are separate. And in their isolation and loneliness lies our pain and confusion. “Who am I?” “Where am I?” “Why does this feel so very hard?” “Where did I get lost?”

When we live this divided life people never really know which “us” they are speaking to. Are we the public person? Are we the person with the fears and insecurities…the one we try our very best to hide? Are we the happy go lucky larrikin or the man who cries at night into the pillow, the pain of his divided life swallowing him in despair? Which part of us is true, we cry to an empty room?

People don’t know us!  Even more tragic, we don’t know ourselves! How can we know who we are when we are scattered like dust motes in the wind? Where do we begin to look to find our all together self?

Our journey and our joy is to bring all the pieces back together. To be the one person, undivided. To show one face, the same face to all and sundry, aligned and in truth, and with courage and fortitude.

No easy task this. On this road we need to get passed our insecurities, challenge all the rules we have been living by, learn to like all the bad bits…the anger, our smallness, our apparent weaknesses, our addictions; find our song inside, bring our selves out from the dark place, say yes to what we know is our path, say no to all the distractions; distinguish between our voice of truth and the voice of ego, find our courage, rejoice in our vulnerability, stand up and sing!

Living the divided life has a high cost. The burden of carrying all of these pieces is enormous. To project an image in public of having “it all together” takes every ounce of our energy. Many people who carry this burden end up sick, their physical body so depleted of vital energy sources in other areas, for so long..that breakdown is inevitable. Or they suffer depression. The demons they work so hard to suppress from public view demand attention. After all, they are a part of us, denied. So they squeeze through the cracks of our soul, and find residence in our heart, where they play their drums in increasing intensity. These demons are not bad. They are the parts of us calling for attention. Our depression and illness is our siren song to find a way to bring all the pieces of ourselves home. To be united in one song, our unique song, the song we were born to sing.

So we go to work. This is the inner work of being human. Many people try to avoid this work. Its not something taught in schools, or discussed in most homes. Our world is focused on the world out there. It’s far easier to focus on the world out there. The world of bricks and mortar, stuff we can grow and move and do things with. Our society has divorced itself from the inner work, often confusing it with religion, or new ageism, or whoo whoo! It is none of those things, although it can be found within all of them. It is the work of getting to know our animating spirit, the real “who”, of who we are. The quiet, steady, always present part of our self, wise and all knowing. But first we must take the time to listen, or develop the courage to hear this wise all knowing part of self.

Our inner work involves bringing all of our broken and disparate pieces back together, back to our core. It doesn’t matter where we start. Starting is what matters. Getting to know all the parts of ourselves and finding acceptance. Or finally looking in the eye of our insecurities, our fears, our self hate, and questioning their dominance of us? Or learning to say NO to what is not on our song sheet, and YES to what is. Learning to know the difference between the two.

And where does the journey of finding all of our broken pieces and bringing them back together take us? It brings us home. Only when all the pieces are together again can we really step into our own power and magnificence, and sing with the clearest of clear voices. When we find this place we speak with the forces of all of nature that are now together. There is an ease and freedom that is found in this place. Our energy is high as we are no longer juggling all of the pieces of a divided life. All of our energy is now available to do one thing, and that is to be us in full song. We are aligned, congruent, whole. We know who we are. And we accept our truth as it is.

And of course, the mystery and paradox is that now, from this place of wholeness, we can move to the end of the final separation. We can come home to home itself and find oneness with all.

As my favourite poet, Hafiz said…

At
Some point
Your relationship
With God
Will
Become like this:
Next time you meet him in the forest
Or on a crowded city street
There won’t be anymore
“Leaving:
That is
God will climb into
Your pocket
You will simply just take
Yourself
Along

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Radical Truth

October 29th, 2009

eggbreak

My life has been a story of radical truth. A new friend and amazing lady, Lindley Edwards, shared this poem with me last week.

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change.  But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

William Stafford ~

The thread in my life has been my inner search for my own truth. What is my truth, and how do I express that in the world. And how do I support other people to express their truth? This path, combined with truth’s twin, Integrity, has been my constant companion.

I was chatting via email with another new friend I met at the State of the World Forum in Brazil, Mounir Tabet, about the subject of Radical Truth..

“I am very intrigued by your concept of Radical Truth and it seems to me that to get to it one has to cross many barriers: first one has to recognize that he is not speaking or living truth; second one requires a great degree of courage to be in truth because at some level and until one is in full alignment with truth, the consequences of being in the truth are costly (as one starts to be in truth, one’s world starts to change. He may lose friends and jobs and acquaintances that he sustains in absence of truth-even though they drain him)-of course once one has made the transition to full and radical truth – he shall be set free as divine knowledge seem to intimate-but of course at that stage he is a completely transformed man; third one requires a great degree of self love to forgive himself for having sustained his life for so long in absence of truth. In many cases, most of us are not ready to tackle these (and perhaps other) barriers since at some level we know that the initial price is too high the ego has to die but our egos usually fight hard to stay alive.”

Mounir speaks of radical truth with the wisdom of someone who knows the journey.

Yes, we do need to identify what is truth for us. And what is not. For so many of us, this is very hard, as we have lived a life like a cork bobbing in a huge ocean, going with the tide, never really choosing with consciousness where we want our path to go. As if we were under a spell. And we may or may not wake up. Some people never do. As Mary Oliver says,

“Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?”

How do we know what our truth is? We know because our heart sings, and our body hums along with it, and people comment about the light in our eyes, and say thank you to us often for what we bring, no matter how small or large. Because we get out of bed and we are awake, and we want to go and do our work in the world. Who we are on every level is integrated, we only have one face that all the world sees. There is no face for certain events and occasions, and another face for other events and people. Radical truth requires no separation of self on any level, or in any aspect.

Sometimes the very thing that is stopping us from accessing our truth is the fear that says living our radical truth will cause so much pain to others, and to us. We would rather stay numb and comfortable, than step out into the light of truth, because it’s promise is so unknown. So we keep to the world we know, never really awake. This fear can be so huge that the only way we can become aware of it is to go into a very dark night, and often for a long time. The dark night is the incubator and birth place for our radical truth. It can also be the place where all of our separate selves are integrated into one whole.

The simplicity of who we really are is right before us, but so far from our grasping because we have not the eyes to see. In the wonderful movie, “Julie and Julia,” there was a fabulous scene where Julie, the young woman searching for the truthful expression of her life, was agonizing with her husband..what should she do?…as they were both feasting on this amazing food she had made. She was feasting on the very obvious truth of her life and expression. Often times the journey to this place is long and hard, simply because only when we have developed the eyes to see our radical truth, can we then allow it to blossom with the integrity it demands to thrive.

Courage is essential. Courage is a heartfelt commitment to stepping out to meet truth. We have to build the nerve, hold the nerve, and trust. There are no guarantee’s. None at all. Our stepping out may be a rocky road. So many people expect that their life of radical truth will guarantee the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow…well…I do believe it will…but do be very careful what you expect the pot of gold to contain…money, wealth, the relationship of your dreams, fame, the best seller….non of these items might be in your pot of gold. The Gold may be a quiet life in a little cottage in nowhere land. Simple, and yet deeply resonant because it is your truth. Our ego wants our truthful life to look a certain way. The paradox is that this is not the truth. It is our ego speaking.

Discerning between the truth and the ego is the work of the wise and experienced, those people willing to surrender to all.  How does your ego voice speak to you? Often ego is emotional, demanding, and has little space for service to others, or others at all. Your truthful self is quiet, calm, ever present, steady, holds a big big space for others, and celebrates the joy of all of life in all its shapes and sizes.

It is through self love that we allow our truth to speak. The ego self is the part of us that will be overly critical, get angry, throw tantrums, tell you you are an idiot, incapable, a fool…

Accessing our radical truth requires self love, self reflection, and a core willingness to surrender, relax and let go to what emerges. It is not a passive state, but it is relaxed and has less effort than the effort required to live a lie.

Achieving self love and a life of radical truth is a life’s work. We start with small steps. The fastest way I know to reach a place of aligned truth is to work with a teacher, guide, coach…

The people I admire most on earth, alive or dead, have all lived a life of uncompromising radical truth. The Bucky’s, Anita Roddicks, Richard Bransons…and so many other less famous people.

As Rumi said..

“there is some kiss

we want

with the whole

of our

lives.”

What is your radical truth?

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