Masking and UNmasking

Isn't it interesting how the masking and unmasking we do at costume parties mirrors what is going on in the world around us? The green leaves that sprouted in spring and came to fullness in summer now turn colors and fall to the ground, leaving only the skeletons of the trees contrasted against the sky. 

During the year people see us in different ways. One mask might be our professional status, the face which others see as we present ourselves as skilled individuals. Another face is our personal self where we engage in our relationships, hobbies, activities and other pursuits. Then we have our spiritual persona where we follow our spiritual path or our religious rituals. 

Yet, at the heart of it all, there is simply the person who embodies all of this. Where others may see only one of these aspects of us, few see all of them. 

Standing in our sacred space, reflecting on our place in the world, we choose which aspect of our persona we choose to present next. Consciously choosing what is next we may emphasize a different aspect of our professional practice, relationships, avocations and spiritual practices. 

So the metaphor of masks at parties reveals truth. The characters we choose to inhabit for an evening at a party is a playful way of trying on some other character or characteristics that we wish to experience. 

The masks we wear may be revealing the truth of the direction we desire. Yes, I know that one thought may be that this is only an evening's entertainment.

Now look again, for there is a root of truth that appeals to us when we choose to read the same kinds of books, the same kinds of movies and are fascinated by the same kinds of stories over and over again. There are common threads that appeal to our sense of who we are and what kind of world we want what kind of life we want, how we would like to see ourselves as a person. 

Masking is a way of looking at the world through different eyes for a while and letting others see us differently for a while. As we all have experienced, this can be very enlivening and enlightening. And that is why we look forward to doing it. 

Knowing this about ourselves is revealing of inner truths as we enjoy our revelry. Knowing this about Halloween is like appreciating the difference between soul cakes and trick or treat.

You see in the old days, at Halloween, visitors would come to visit and sing songs, say prayers or tell stories about those who had died this year and the hosts would offer them soul cakes and drinks in appreciation. The Celts called this day Samhain and it marked the beginning of winter. They would also set a place at the table for the person who had died, and this was called the dumb supper.

Ironically, in a far a way country which we now call Mexico, on that very same day of the year, the Celebration was called La Dia de Los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead. And on this day too, the dead were honored with their favorite food and people told stories to remember them and wish them well on their journey into the next world, and like the Celts, they also bake special breads just for this holiday.

In both cases, the honoring of the dead was also a celebration of life. The Day of the Dead prominently features skeletons dancing, affirming that life goes on on another level. 

So the sweetness of life and the recognition of the various levels of self that we consider on this holiday offers a great insight into what life means to us, how we see ourselves and the impact we have on others. Masks and treats of this holiday are other aspects of self hidden in plain sight. And the pleasure is that all of this can be enjoyed with a great deal of fun, illumination and imagination. It is delicious, isn't it? 

Summer Magic and Spiritual Refreshment

It is summer and the time when many of us break from our routines to enjoy entertainments that refresh our spirits. Summer vacations and activities are meant to lighten us up and let the joy of the season bring a lighthearted break from work. 

One of the most popular plays of all time is Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, which is about the characters slipping in and out of different versions of reality, traveling in alternate universes to the delight and amusement of audiences.  

 Do you think that is worth a few moments of consideration?

For example, we often ask ourselves questions about our life's purpose and why we have taken on some of the patterns we have in our work and our love life. Many of us have changed our religious and spiritual practices. Some of us have also included new activities in our lives, especially creative activities that we had put off and now decided to finally use to express ourselves and give ourselves a creative outlet. New joy and energy come into us when we finally decide to quit thinking about something and do it. When we dance, make music, art, start writing or just go for more walks, we suddenly feel the flow of joy and healing.

What are these other dimensions? They could be parallel worlds where things seem to operate differently.

Consider the distance or closeness you have in various aspects of your life. Do you feel sometimes that you are an observer here? That your point of view is fluid? This often happens when we are in a major transition, and has everything to do with our progress in adjusting, changing or verifying the path that we are on.

We are spirits having a human experience rather than humans having a spiritual experience. Have you given any thought to the ramifications of this concept? How do you view your life? 

If you would like to talk about this, give me a call. 

Dreams do come true and the experience of fluidly moving between dimensions can be as magical for us as it is for Shakespeare's characters.  

Feeling Your Vision

When you are visualizing what you want in life, do you also feel it?

It is one thing to visualize your success, your future, your desires, but is it only a picture in your mind? That is only the first step.

Desire is a powerfully important ingredient. When you think of your vision for your future, do you feel it intensely? Like a gut level feeling? Or do you just see a picture?

Try this experiment yourself. How much more power and energy is there behind your vision if you can actually feel it? Can you sense that time and place where it is real?

Isn't it true that we know something is real when we can feel it?

If we only think we can see it, it could be a hallucination. If we can actually feel ourselves experiencing that vision, living in that vision, then we know it is real.

Test this technique on yourself to see if you can verify what I am saying.

Picture yourself having what you want in life. Now see if you can feel it.

Your vision can be about whatever it is that you want. Prosperity, business success, career change, a new relationship, vibrant good health, new friends, a satisfying spiritual path, absolutely anything you want to include.

So picture it. Now feel it.

What happens? What's the difference?

How Else Can Tarot Heal?

In the same way that looking at beautiful art calms and soothes while at the same time getting the mind working, tarot can be used as a pocket sized gallery.

How is that healing? Just take it out and look at it for a little while every day. Maybe pull one card a day, or a few. Whatever you feel like. Looking at a picture intensely, meditating on the image and what it might mean, and next thing you know you have an uplifted spirit, or at least an inquiring mind. Either way, you are now entered into a heightened state of awareness.

How can it be healing to meditate on profound thoughts? How can it be healing to gaze on pictures of beauty and clever composition? Can shuffling through a deck and looking at the cards help put the world back in order? Does that calm the nerves and help lower the blood pressure?

When you have a busy schedule and you are feeling like you need to catch up, taking a deck out and looking at it can be like taking a mini-vacation to a great art museum or gallery. Nothing like fantastic art to help create a higher awareness of our present state, is there?

Body Magic

I am liking the energy of renewing my dedication to getting more exercise. I like the feel of the energy that the basketball players and volleyball players are stirring up as I do my workouts.

I look around and see other people who are also exerting the effort to strengthen their bodies by shedding the extra weight as I am, or rebuilding after various injuries that may make them limp as they gather the courage to keep moving around the track, swim or use the various machines. Yes, of course there are also those who are already fit, perhaps working on being superfit.

The energy of the whole place is kinetic and inspiring.

At first it takes an act of will to get up and go. And the more often we do it, the better we feel. Yes, sometimes I would rather stay in my comfortable chair and watch a movie or read a book, but I make myself get up and go anyway.

That act of will is our necessary way to break out of lethargy and make magic with our bodies.

Magic is defined as change according to will, and we are working magic on ourselves as we express our will. Then the more we do it, the more resistance to this change fades away.

Not everyone looks glamorous as they work their magic on their bodies, but all of them are showing a lot of heart. Gratitude for survival, the intention of health and healing, desire for creating a better life. All are visible.

Amazing things happen when we do magic with our bodies. Change according to will.

Creative Thoughts

Did you ever stop to think about how amazing certain aspects of evolution came to be? Have you thought about how or why it might matter to you right now?

Imagine the early days of history when the first people thought of making holes in a reed to make the first flutes. Or when the first people thought to make a drum. Imagine the progress, or process they went through making the first music with their inventions. From all indications, these instruments first had ritual uses, and making music just for fun came later. Who was the first person to make this transition? No one knows the answer to that, of course, but try and imagine what that process might have been like.

Seems like we might need to reimagine how various aspects of our evolution happened. Why? For one, it is interesting to think that we did not evolve all that slowly from people who could just manage to kill a wild animal with a spear and roast it over a fire to being people who could create complex architecture and understood complex concepts, or at least approached them if they did not understand them.

Consider, for example that Newgrange in Ireland, which was build thousands of years before the pyramids, is made from stones fitted together, and the roof of the inner chamber, which is vaulted, and has no mortar, has never had a roof leak. Can any builder today claim such success? Another feature that was built in was an opening over the front entry that allows the inner chamber to be illuminated by the rising sun only and exactly on the Winter Solstice every year.

Or how about all the various ancient people, all the way back to caveman days, who somehow just knew that when a person dies that the invisible part of them that kept them alive has left the body that the person was going on to some other level of reality, and so they developed rituals to recognize the death and somehow through their symbolic acts help the person transition into whatever is next. Imagine the thought processes of the first people who began to grasp this.

If we can begin to grasp these concepts, among others, it may offer us other ways to see our own evolution. It is often the far out thoughts that can create results close to home.

Light, Shadows and Love Without Measure

When you see a face that looks familiar, what do you do? Do familiar faces make you feel like you are getting a "do-over" or a reminder of a past experience that provided a powerful lesson? So if this face belongs to someone else, it stirs feelings in you, but different feelings in them.

It is the play of shadow and light that illuminates our visions. When we see what is on the screen that plays in our mind, how many of these shadows form the movies that we watch?

It is all shadow and light, you know. Movies, they are all shadow and light. Memories. They are all shadow and light. Look at how we look when we think we see something and we are awakened to the possibilities.

Have you noticed that look that sometimes lights up another person's eyes when they think they have recognized you? You know that puzzled look like they are trying to remember where they saw you before?

Then after you speak and you know that you don't know this person, they still have this look in their eyes like they still are remembering who they are remembering even though you are not the one they were thinking of.

It is all shadow and light.

How much of the world we inhabit is shadows and light? Who is remembering what? It is all shadow and light.

Do you ever feel like you are walking through a forest and cannot find your way out? Do the trees look like the ones you passed coming in, yet the more you look, the more you cannot tell? Is there an in and an out?

What frequency is normal? What does it mean that we recognize but do not recognize? Is it that we are finally getting the lessons?

There are names that go with every face. There are faces we associate with all the phases of our life. There are times when we get an opportunity to do it over, and do it right this time.

There are faces of light and shadow, there are sorrows of great depth, and loves without measure. In our waking moments, our aliveness brings us to a new state of awareness, constantly. They speak to us of second chances.

The wheel turns, but not without giving us another look. Karma, coincidence, sorrow, joy, light and shadow. It is your movie. It is my movie. It is our movie.

Yes, there have been sorrows of great depth, and these shadows are the reminders that we are still alive and that there is also love without measure, and with these we can fashion new pictures, new images, new movies. It is all shadow and light. And love without measure is the only balm that lets us start over with a clean slate.

There are no ghosts in our shadow land that do not respond to love. Yes, it takes some of us longer than others to recognize the true faces of the shadows.

Progress

So today, I finally figured out how to do the newsletter. The guy at the help desk was helpful and we got the problem solved. So soon you should be seeing it in your email.

Just as I was wrestling with the curve ball from the mailing list, then came another one. The organizer of the the event I was going to read at this weekend fell and broke his neck, so the show is canceled. Hopefully Charlie will have a successful surgery and the event will be rescheduled.

In the meantime, I got my newsletter out and tonight I dance again.

There are always setbacks. The question is how to bounce back from them. As I book my events for this year, I am taking some off my calendar and replacing them with new ones. Got to keep trying new things. Booking more private parties now, more private sessions, more everything.

This year is already full of surprises and it is only two weeks old.

I have been laid off my day job for a month now, and I am pursuing new options. Perhaps I am done with that forever. This is not how I pictured my transition, but it is what it is.

What a perfect time to invest more energy into making dreams come true.

Yang Energy for the New Year

Now that I have enjoyed some time resting and gathering energy in the yin space, I begin the new year with yang energy reaching out to accelerate the drive to build up my business, crank up the networking and getting the new year off to a start with a vigorous thrust of energy.

Although work has not fully reengaged yet, lots of dates are being put on the calendar and plans are taking shape.

I have culled through my book and music collections and traded in a fair number of things and renewed my focus my attention on what I want to grow this year.

As I was doing a deep cleaning of my living space, it struck me that this would be a good time to review the writings of Carlos Castaneda and Thich Nhat Hanh.

Listening to some of the dance albums I have not heard in a while also reinforced my decision to spend more time dancing every week as well as working out more.

Tarot trading has been fast and furious for me and I have a great new inventory to offer those who are looking for something special.

Exercises like this are always valuable to me, because no matter how many times I have done this, things slip by and I find that there are things laying around that I do not use any more, music I don't listen to or books that I will not get around to reading, and once I strip them away, then there are the ones that it will be good to use more.

Things can pile up and get out of hand when you let them. Clutter hides important things from view and delays decisive action. It takes a motivated effort to prepare for the next stage of action, clarifying thoughts and getting ready to spring into action with a burst of yang energy.

All in all, I am glad that I spent my new year's time this way. I am feeling ready for a new year.

Dance is the Desire, Expressed

Dancing, any kind of dancing, works to still the mind while you move the body. Once you get up and dance and start to work up a sweat, all the things that were stressful about work, school, or anything else, just seem to fade away.

In this way, it has a cathartic effect. Cleansing, deep down to the bones. By the time I come home from dancing and take a shower or a bath, I feel so clean, so peaceful, so happy, that a state of relaxation sets in, now that the body has stopped moving and the muscles are feeling that good kind of exhaustion from being taken to the limits, and sleep comes easily.

Dancing can be a moving meditation. Why do you think that since ancient times, rituals and ceremonies included dancing? It can alter your state of mind and make an event special.

The body takes on a mind of its own, as it becomes entrained to the music and develops movements that ride the waves of the music. As the body pursues that single focus, there is nothing other than the present, the dance.

You have this moment, this music, this movement, this joy, this peace, this energetic shift that has changed your consciousness. As the body does what the body does, the mind is quieted, and the joy of living comes to the surface, front and center. In this moment, where there is nothing but the dance, there is nothing else to desire, except to feel the dance. The dance is the desire, expressed.

Western Mandalas, Chakras and Mantras

In eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, practitioners often use art to meditate with, and they call that a mandala. Tarot cards can also serve that same purpose. You can lay them out and let your eyes focus on them while you let go into that quiet state. We can use our tarot decks to create a mandala.

Robert Place, author of The Tarot: History, Symbolism & Divination and creator of the Alchemical Tarot, Tarot of the Saints, Buddha Tarot and others, notes that the idea of three chakras goes back to Plato. The idea also had a parallel among druids and witches. The idea of the seven chakra system which is most familiar to everyone is simply a carryover from the popularity of Eastern practices in the west. Although these references now dominate metaphysical literature, the western traditions have deep roots. These offer us different ways to access and work with our energy systems.

It is interesting how ideas gain currency. For example, back in the 80s and 90s, composer Philip Glass became famous for his compositions for orchestras, movie soundtracks, performance artists and plays. He practices Buddhist ways.

Many reviewers noted that the power of his work came from catchy phrases that repeated many times. Few made the connection that this might be due to Glass' familiarity with another Buddhist meditative practice, chanting.

So consider these tools. You can do the same things that practitioners of eastern religions do, without taking on all the eastern trappings.

I ma not against these things. I just observe that sometimes people can enhance their spiritual practices and psychic abilities by using tools that are already familiar, like tarot. And we can create new mantras that we feel more comfortable pronouncing, in words that make more sense to us.

How much easier would it be to remember three power centers: head, heart and low belly, rather than learn Sanskrit names for seven?

Powerful ideas can migrate between cultures and the understandings will permeate. Tarot art can take you to the same place as a mandala. Three power centers can do all the same things as a greater number of them. And the sounds that you give voice to can work as well as something you learn in another language.

Try these ideas. See how they work for you.

Surrounded by Symbols

This season, more than the rest of the year, is more laden with evocative symbols than any other time.

How familiar are we with evergreen trees, holly wreaths, mistletoe? What about the New Year's symbols of the baby and the grim reaper? The witch at Halloween? The cornucopia at Thanksgiving?

We speak in this shorthand all the time. We know that a red diagonal line through anything means no. We know that thumbs up means yes. We know that a person who opens their arms is welcoming us and one who crosses their arms is not. We know that a colon and a half parenthesis is a smile. :)

Symbols have been part of our lives since before we had fully formed language. Primal ones that we have found, like the ancient cave paintings, are as emotive as many more finely drawn paintings, and carry a powerful amount of energy in a few spare lines.

There are systems to symbols, and some, like the runes or the I Ching hexagrams have an interesting way of fitting together and interlocking visually.

Others, like the system of tarot, have a way of interlocking conceptually, and although they are visual in themselves, they cannot be as compact as abstract forms like runes, or the hexagrams of the I Ching.

Some symbols are so emotionally charged that their mere appearance sends chills or rushes of joy, depending on the sign, without anyone saying anything or any accompanying literature.

Obviously, some symbols are references to ancient beliefs and feelings and some are purely modern inventions of convenience which may or may not last. With some symbols we have near universal agreement, but with others not.

We bring our own interpretations to symbols as well as recognizing traditional meanings. This is why two people can look at the same picture and have two very different experiences of it.

And this is also why this is such an emotional time of year for so many people. We are surrounded by symbols and they can convey a host of messages to us faster than we can digest them.

Dancing, Healing, Spirits

Some psychics smoke cigarettes to ground when they are taking a break. Some eat sweets. Me? I like a shot of scotch. And I dance. Let me note right here that I don't drink while I work. Not even when I am working parties or events where they are serving liquor. I have my scotch after work, when I get home. I am always sober when I am reading. I know there are people out there who might think that psychics should just do things like eat vegetarian and do yoga in between doing their psychic work, but that's not really how it works. Put a plate of BBQ ribs or meatballs in the break room at a psychic fair and watch them disappear.

This year, I felt the veil part about a month before Samhain, and I have been asked to do work I do not ordinarily get called on to do. The events I have been working have been very busy for me, and I have felt the energy open up new channels. It has been a profoundly heavy time this year.

Tonight, and a few nights recently, I have done something I have not done in a long time. I went to bars that feature blues or rock, and I drank and danced.

You may not think that is noteworthy, but here's why. Years ago, I used to dance every week. You could count on seeing me at contra dancing every Friday evening. Then I tried some other forms. One of my inspirations was a guy in Atlanta who told me that he took off a lot of weight and kept it off by dancing. He danced several nights a week. One night was contra, one night was Cajun, one night was Irish, one night was waltzing, one night was swing. He asked one question. "What's more fun? Going to a gym, lifting weights and walking on a treadmill, or dancing with women?"

I didn't have to think long. And I danced more. And I always felt good when I danced.

When I moved to Colorado, I started doing the Dances for Universal Peace as well as the contra dances.

Then I met a woman who did not care for the dances I took her to when we started dating, so I quit dancing to spend more time with her. She didn't take me up on my offer to go dancing in bars either. As a result, years went by without me dancing again. I missed it. But you do crazy things sometimes when you are in love.

So that relationship is over, and recently I felt the urge to start dancing again. I actually was kind of hesitant wondering to myself whether I would like it as much as I used to after a long layoff. A couple of people encouraged me, and I am so glad they did.

Even though putting my foot back in the dancing water began with having a drink and asking women to dance in a bar, my energy really perked up just from doing that. Next week I will start contra dancing again. Then we will see what comes next.

This I know. Dancing is the antidote to a lot of things that bring our spirits down. It must be the endorphins or whatever that kick into gear when we get up and dance.

Or maybe it is just the heart that enjoys the aerobic exercise. The heart also enjoys the touch and the eye contact with a dance partner. Dancing is very healing.

Closure

Sometimes there are chapters of our lives that cry out for the proper ending. We feel incomplete or out of sorts unless we can put things in perspective through some word or action that lets us feel that we have completed our work in that part of our life, or said what we really wanted to say in order to let go and move on.

For lack of this aspect of completion, a person could walk around feeling ill at ease in their own skin. Until they reconcile their feelings with what happened, they often may be out of sorts in their dealings with others who had nothing to do with the reason for their upset.

Of course, it is best if you can reach this closure with people in real life who were involved in the events or situation. That is often optimal.

However, sometimes, the person with whom you would like closure is dead, or lives far away, or for other reasons you choose not to contact them.

In that case, closure can be done ritually, through special ceremonies. In one case, I assisted a woman who needed to put to rest her grieving over a miscarriage that had happened a number of years earlier. After the ritual, she found peace with that issue for the first time in years.

In another case, a person needed to release a grievance over an injustice from years before. In another case, a person simply wanted a meaningful ritual to say farewell to a parent who died when they were not there.

I was also present one evening when a person performed a ritual act to signal closure to his old career.

When we do such things, we can experience a feeling of peace that we have acknowledged that a significant part of our life has ended and we say farewell to that as we prepare to begin our next chapter and set out on our next adventure.

Is there an area of your life that you feel needs closure? Have you ever thought about addressing that in a ritual context?

It is a powerful and life affirming act. It can also help us draw wisdom and compassion from those life lessons.

This is a powerful form of alchemy and an act of magic that we perform to transform sadness into a creative force, and bring peace from chaos, to bring understanding and compassion from confusion and hurt.

If you have a feeling that such an act of closure is needed, then the time is now. There is even love among the ruins of what once was, and that is always left to the gleaners who know how to find value and nourishment in the parts that have been left behind.

And it is always the survivors who are the beneficiaries, although the ghosts will often take the ritual as their cue, and take their leave, finally breaking their earthly bonds and moving on. Ghosts are not just spirits of the dead who have not crossed over. Relationships and careers have ghosts too, and sometimes these cast long shadows, until our fires cast enough heat and light to burn them away.

Priest and Priestess

In traditions where ceremonies and rituals are performed by a priest and priestess, there is a unique relationship that goes beyond the bounds of lovers or friends. The relationship begins as student and teacher, but then once the second person learns how to work together to perform their roles, the energies of the two people become very finely attuned at every level, to where they are able to tune into each other and read signals that are communicated psychically.

Although in older traditions, the two are often lovers, husband and wife, or a long term couple, the spiritual connection that is interwoven with it connects them in ways that even long time couples do not achieve, because these connections are formed through conscious effort and consistent practice.

Being part of such a practice opens doors of perception that allow us to appreciate life in subtle ways. Many of these are subtle and can only be known by those who practice.

Working together as priest and priestess, significant life passages are experienced through the container of ritual, allowing participants to process emotionally challenging situations with perspective, understanding and profound assimilation.

I am grateful for being part of such a priest and priestess tradition and for being blessed with incredible women as priestesses in my life, and know that this will always be part of my way, my path in life.

The Power of Making Love Visible

Healing often takes place in forms that we do not recognize, because our tendency is to think of healing as more obvious and physical.

When feelings need to be healed, there are many ways to go about it. Often it is the love, compassion, kindness and cooperation that help heal.

But healing can also come through flirting, gentleness and creativity. Healing that needs to be done is often the common kind, the residue of divorces, end of relationships. Death presents different kinds of losses to heal, as do losses of career or jobs.

Loss of feelings is something that is sometimes visible on a person's face and body language, but some people are good at hiding it, and you cannot tell that they are in the process of healing too.

So here is a suggestion. Whenever you are in a position to be helpful to someone else, just do it because you can, and because it circulates good energy in the world.

Reiki and other forms of energy healing certainly do help with emotional healing and usually once a person tries it they can feel it.

For those of you with a partner, try expanding that feeling of warmth, gentleness and softness to your lovemaking. Make time to include this and notice what happens. Feel how the sexual healing expands and nurtures.

For those of you currently without a partner, try making more eye contact with the people you meet. See their souls light in their eyes. Offer them heartfelt compliments, and encourage them in any way you can.

Let go of the limiting notion that there is one perfect person for you but they are hidden somewhere. There are many people in the world with whom you can share good feelings, good experiences, joy and love. Viewed in that light, the world is abundant.

If we keep viewing our lives as some kind of a challenge to meet and marry the perfect person, we may be doomed to a life of searching for needles in haystacks.

Healing hurt feelings is a function of people extending love, joy, compassion and cooperation to as many people they come into contact with as they can.

We do have the power of making love visible. How often do we use it?

Drinking in the Music with Your Body

Music is the world. All of the world around us is sound. All of it forms a music, although we may not hear it unless we tap into it. It is in the quiet rhythm of a rainstorm. It is in the wind that moves through the trees and rocks. It is in the crackling of a fire as it reaches through the wood and builds to a roar, then settles into the glow of embers. It is the water that runs in a stream. The relaxing, enchanting sound of these elements moving through a natural course, drawing our ears into the patterns, be they subtle, and soothing or loud and exciting.

That is why sometimes I can feel comfortable just listening with no sound system on. It is also why sometimes a recording that establishes gentle rhythms and sweet sounds creates an environment conducive to a peaceful evening or a graceful awakening, where another music might bring forth an edgy feeling, or a nervousness, an anxiousness, while others simply make you feel like dancing or singing.

There is a kind of music for every kind of feeling. As our tastes change over the years, we come to prefer one or another, even though in the past we may have chosen differently.

When we are doing something that establishes its own rhythm, a task we are doing, music can help create a harmonious groove that supports that work and makes everything feel efficient. Work becomes a dance with the right choice in music.

When preparing for something that requires concentration or enhances a mood, the choice in sound makes all the difference. It can help create a good mood or destroy it.

When you notice the rhythms of your body, can you hear the music you make? When you notice your choices in music, do you notice what that is reflecting back to you? If you make your own music, or if you play a drum, can you feel what is coming through besides the beats or notes?

Can you hear what you are creating? Every breath is orchestrated, every movement is synchronized with something. Are you aware of what that something is? When you choose to drink in a sound and savor it, are you aware of how it is affecting you?

Listen. There is magic in the air. Can you hear it?

The Joy of Living

The joy of living is not something you find. It is something you create.

Anybody can be happy when you are making buckets full of money and everything is going their way. It takes a person with a positive disposition to feel joy and find happiness when everything is not going easily.

Try this. When you feel like you are in a difficult situation, and you know that it is one you do not control, release your futile attempts at control. Notice how the burden lifts off your shoulders. Don't you feel lighter already? When things are out of your hands and they are ridiculously bad, just laugh. I just look at some of these things and say, OK, whatever. I keep on redefining my future instead of letting someone else define it for me. There is joy in that.

We all need to do whatever we can to move in the direction of our dreams. We can make wise choices about how we use our money. We can associate with people who love us, or at least like us, and will help us.

We can be optimistic about what comes next.

Now I have times when I feel the deep dark funk, the soul searching lows and down times as much as anyone else, but I realize that they are just part of the ebb and flow of life.

If you think that joy is something you have to search for to find, try this. Just decide to share a joke, sing a song, be optimistic about what is happening, and keep doing what you love, what moves you in the direction of your dreams, what makes your heart sing.

You will be surprised at how fast things will turn around. Joy is not something we find. It is not like we lost it while we were carrying in the groceries from the car or digging through old paperwork. Joy is something we intentionally create.

Soothing the Throat

This evening my throat was feeling a little raw, so I knew that I needed to do few things to address it. First was the old standby, gargling with warm salt water. Then there were cough drops, cough syrup and then a few mugs of hot tea.

A hot bath with Epsom salts, eucalyptus oil and hyssop oil really felt good as well. Then I felt like something a bit more gentle for the spirit would help as well, so I chose a biography of the author and Trappist monk Thomas Merton to watch, and kept getting these little surprises throughout when they featured comments by Buddhist monks he had dialogue with, Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama.

There was also a sequence that made me smile when Merton's publishers said that they were not sure that his books would sell, and they were amazed at how well they sold. That shows a difference in the way commercial publishing works these days. Then, if the publisher thought that the author had something worthwhile to say, they would publish it even if they were not sure it would be popular. Today, the trend in publishing is to try and only print what is popular. But that does not always prove to be a winner either, because the public's taste can be fickle and ephemeral.

It was also interesting that some people who knew Merton commented that people were not always happy with what he wrote when he spoke out about subjects like peace. He had the clarity of mind to point out that his church had no problem taking a hard line stance on abortion, because they see it as the death of a person, yet they took no stand against using nuclear weapons which could kill millions of people at a time.

There, of course, were also people who had to stretch themselves to understand how or why a Christian monk could find such common ground with Buddhist monks.

In some way, the peaceful spirit emanating from this story helped calm my throat as well. I finished off the evening with some classical music which was very soothing, and then it started to rain, which is always a healing sound for me.

There are a lot of ways to help soothe physical discomforts, using resources from within and without. Healing often works in mysterious ways.

It is important to do more treatments of this sort tomorrow as well, since I will be talking a lot Friday, Saturday and Sunday, doing readings and giving a talk. My voice is important in my work.

So this is a time of charging up the batteries for a large amount of activity, so that I am ready when I need to be.

Love Lessons

Why are some people in our lives? Why is it that there is a sense of destiny in some relationships? Karma? Maybe. Or maybe there is another word for it.

Because of the chemistry between individuals, some are uniquely suited to teach us lessons about love. Others may be uniquely suited to teach us lessons about wisdom.

To be a teacher of love takes a special strength because sometimes the lessons we may present our teacher would make another person run and hide. When that person mirrors back love to us, there is a resilience and determined open heartedness that shows us the true nature of love, forgiveness, and kindness that is always possible, but not always practiced.

Those lessons are really the lessons that all of us can use, but because sometimes we are stubborn or thick headed, we might only be able to accept those lessons from some people, not others.

In a perfect world, I guess everyone could be a teacher for everyone else, but realistically, we have to be open to receiving those lessons. And the chemistry between us and other people might not inspire us to be open.

Some teachers might go so far as to say that all lessons are lessons about love, even if the lesson is about wisdom, or craftsmanship, business or relationships, the lesson is always about love.

To some degree that is true. If you love your work enough to do it well, that is craftsmanship. If you love the people you do business with, you show them love. If you care enough to study a subject to learn it well, that is also a labor of love.

And relationships? There are some people who insist on showing us love even when we screw up, either deliberately or accidentally. That love is quite amazing to behold and to experience.

Are those people who can show love born with that ability or do they learn it? I would say both, although it is fair to say that we all at least need to be reminded once in a while, and pick up a lesson, whether it is the hard way or the easy way.

Babies are born simply as givers and receivers of love. What they learn along the way in life influences how fluently they continue to give and receive love. There seem to be millions of variations in how much people are able to give and receive love. Since we are not all uniform in any other way, I guess that is just natural.

This piece is to thank those people who showed me the way to know this.