Spiritual Fitness

I am in the midst of a spring cleanup. It started with closets, led to my office where Buns generously shared her handyman skills assembling lacquer shelving while I crumpled paper into mounds of ink scarred snow. Honestly, that project is still in process as I confess to stuffing years of accumulated knowledge that hasn’t made it yet to my computer into piles, now hidden discreetly behind sleek shiny ruby red cupboards. As smooth as the skin of a bright red Ferrari, it gives me enormous pleasure every time I enter the space.

 The computer is still on my list. I need to clear it out, delete the redundant and complete the various projects filed under such headers as Creative and Business Plans. They all seem to carry a familiar thread of putting into form many spiritual concepts to be experienced in the body via workshops and my slow moving book with the working title of How To Turn Finding The One Into Finding Yourself.

And then my body. After our trip to Hawaii in January and Playa del Carmen in February I was in serious need of cleansing. The Mahi Mahi burgers, www.paiafishmarket.com/  are a must to try if ever in Maui.  
And Playa’s variety of designer Tequilla was too good to pass on, so now its bye bye caffeine, (mostly) bye carbs, (mostly) hello power walking, yoga and Isagenix shakes filled with natural nutrients that help release toxins. Amazing whole body cleansing system you have to check out!
www.christiemcphee1.isagenix.com

 I am being filled and nurtured with goodness and care and yet I am also feeling murky uncomfortable feelings often without content. It’s not that I couldn’t find content to explain them it’s that the desire to do so is gone.

So what is left to clear? Oh yes….opening to the next step of spiritual evolution. Perhaps the very reason that my feelings make no sense. I am integrating even more deeply the knowing that nothing ever happens to me but rather happens for me. I think this is always the truth it’s just sometimes more difficult to remember when our human hurts are activated. And those hurts will always be a factor as long as we are in a human body.

That’s why those claiming they are enlightened and never reactive hold very little interest for me. I am far more fascinated with how to translate the spiritual into the human, especially when activated, than I am in breathing past it. Ignoring it does not make it go away, it only increases the energy it takes to keep it at bay until the next external circumstance appears and cooperating with this unfinished human business, gives you a whack.
 So yes I am feeling wacked but I KNOW it’s not personal or content based. This is something that clearly invites me to grow into an even more authentic experience of my essence.

For the first time ever I said the words “I am opening to a teacher appearing in my life.”

 I understand that this request for a teacher is the first step to having one show up but truthfully I have not been drawn to this before. I have an aversion to following. I love learning and absorb and apply from many schools of knowledge but the idea of a human being leading me anywhere is not familiar. I do not resonate with it unless of course they lead me deeper into myself and my own answers.

For me to put this request out into the world I must let go of the form of this person. I open even to the possibility that it is not a person. Perhaps it’s a teacher plant, perhaps it’s a lover or a child or a dog…I don’t know, but the sense that it is time to work out and increase my spiritual fitness is in the air. Actually it’s in my body and it’s not a happy camper kind of feeling. It sucks. It’s a pain in my back…literally and it is as ineffable as the many profound experiences and concepts that seem so essentially incommunicable, like what is the soul, the meaning of life, birth and death.

Still, saying yes is my only option. I Google information on DMT which is called the spirit molecule. DMT is a psychedelic chemical naturally produced in the brain of every human being. It is also found in plants and has been used for centuries by shamans to journey for opening and teaching.


 “Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.” said Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency.

We can only try. We can only try.

Still branded by yes,

Authentically Yours,
Marty.

Presence is not a thing of the past.

Have you heard the one about...?

A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young woman asked if they could help her. The senior monk carried this woman on his shoulder, forded the river and let her down on the other bank. The junior monk was very upset, but said nothing. They both continued walking and the senior monk noticed his junior’s silence and asked, “Is something the matter? You seem very upset.” The junior monk replied, “As monks, we are not permitted a woman.  How could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?” The senior monk replied, “I left the woman a long time ago at the bank. However, you seem to be carrying her still.”

My last couple of weeks has given me a lot to carry and the opportunity to put some things down and let them go.

I took some time over Easter to visit family and friends back East.  It was glorious.  I needed a break and I got to indulge in some of my favourite pastimes – spend quality time with my parents, work for a whole day in my sister’s garden, help my brother build a split-cedar-rail fence, eat fabulous home-cooked meals, and perform at a local venue with my musical buddies.

I came back and hit the ground running (with jet lag), and immediately had to make some decisions about next steps for Presence (my beautiful little home away from home – my store in Horseshoe Bay).  My new lease had been drawn up for me to sign and there was a sense of urgency to get it done within a short period of time.  My new landlord is a long-time friend.  What she was asking for rent was more than I was able to commit to (even though I knew it was fair market value) and the prospect of having to close the business became a reality.  To say that I was devastated is an understatement.  And that it was at the hands of a close friend was deeply upsetting. I was in a perfect karmic storm. 

I found myself in the middle of an extremely uncomfortable situation (sleepless nights, a 3-day-long migraine, potential loss of a friendship, business, livelihood, and reputation in my ’hood).  In the depths of my initial despair, my worst-case scenario was that I would lose everything and have to re-create myself.  (insert “f-word” here).

I give my friend some credit here.  I know this has not been easy for her either. She has been able to stick with the process while I continue to describe my experience to her.  While she and I don’t see eye to eye on everything (particularly in the transparency arena), we are able to continue communicating with the intent of healing our relationship.  At the moment it is still in tatters, but as I told her, I am sturdy, resilient, and have the desire to be able to laugh about all of this in the future – for real – not as a way of avoiding the heart of the matter. I want to be able to let go and not carry this with me.  I have already learned from this experience that what my life looks like may change, yet I will still be intact.

At zero hour, another place became available nearby.  (It’s called “Horseshoe” Bay for a reason methinks!) It is affordable and the landlord is open to offers.  I let my friend know right away that she may need to find a new tenant should I choose to relocate.  Regardless of my location, I will still have Presence. And if I move, I know it will not be out of spite but rather from a clean and clear choice for the best course of action.

If I do move it will be over the next two weeks.  I am going to be busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. 

Branded by re-creation,

Buns

Circling For Meaning

Carl Jung first wrote about the concept of synchronicity back in 1912. Recently the concept landed for me in a new way, a way that pointed directly at my essential nature.

 Just by the definition of the word itself, “the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated, that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner” there is an invitation to step out of the bounds of cause and effect and into the realm of intuition. In fact it could only be the unconscious mind that would undertake the exploration of meaning in random occurrences.

The notion does not make causality wrong it simply maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by meaning. I believe we can make similar meaning of any grouping, including our internal experiences.


 At the moment I am percolating on how connected I am to making meaning out of randomness, in people, in events, in myself and in relationship. Birthed from a childhood with a lack of things making sense, I am now drawn to understanding, leaving no stone unturned in my calling to generate meaning. And while the concept of synchronicity commonly refers to events outside of oneself I feel called to include my internal world and everyone else’s, if truth be told.

 It’s this inclusive state that leads to coining the words, ‘world synchronicity.’ It’s not just what is occurring inside me that is relevant but also how it is being mirrored in the outside world and the inside world of other people. The plot thickens!


So what is ‘world synchronicity’ exactly? Well, here is what it feels like when I am in the flow of this vibration. I am connected to my core, and yet able to rise above my situation or another persons, for that matter…to de-personalize. Even as I stay connected to my feelings, each breath lifts me into a richer perspective, as the layers unfold and information floods in.  I circle like an eagle, soaring, increasing my visual sense of the inner landscape. I sense patterns, I connect the dots, I follow the threads, whether it’s a feeling or sensation or thought.


In other words I am both sensing into and circling around at the same time.  This way of knowing is still present time yet also includes the past and every road that is wired into our psyche, meandering and influencing the current situation. That means the map that leads back home to self (since that is always the point of the process) is revealed as feelings surface. Adding a bird’s eye view and the dynamics of relationship invites further opening and the opportunity for clarity.


When Jung looked at synchronicity he called it intellectual intuition, something more than an intellectual exercise that also has elements of a spiritual awakening or an ‘intervention of grace” He believed that these synchronistic interventions served a role similar to dreams with the purpose of shifting a person’s egocentric conscious thinking to greater wholeness. He saw egocentric thinking on a linear horizontal line and the experience of wholeness, an indestructible energy which I call spiritual essence, on an intersecting vertical line, out of the space/time continuum.

I see my way of intuiting, at the crossroad of these two which includes both feeling everything in the body and still being able to increase perception while looking for that perfect entry point, the landing, that takes you smack into the heart of the matter. This intersection is the centerpoint I call home and it is where illusion falls away and deeper meaning is revealed. This is where we are authentically with ourselves and everyone else.


 I am sure there are many ways home but this is my way. Nothing gives me more pleasure here than company. It’s like recognizing someone who speaks your language when you are in a foreign country. Oh. you speak intellectual intuitive? Let’s invite our feelings, make meaning of synchronistic internal reactions, trace the feelings into the past and relate it to the present to expand. Let’s join in breath, in our connection to source, so we can land into the greater Truth.

We can laugh together here, we can cry, we can be vulnerable and undefended. I call that sexy! Seriously.

Some say the truth is relative. I say our wholeness is absolute. We may forget this truth but that does not make our spiritual essence any less connected and perfect.  Shining a light on the patterns that contribute to the experience of disconnection is my calling. Flying high, diving deep is my nature and sharing the joy of our journey home to self, is what I crave.


The curriculum that I am engaged with is learning to do this with grace.


Branded by self acceptance,


Authentically Yours,
Marty

 

And now a message from Eric Clapton.

I’m trying to see if a pattern is emerging here – as I get ready to head to Ontario to visit my family over Easter, I find myself down to zero hour with tons to do before I go.  Is it that I’m using this deadline as a way to finish off those things that I’ve been putting on the back burner (like taxes, and, oh yes, did I mention taxes?) or do I just see this as such a complete and welcome change from my normally high-energy schedule that I just want to make a clean break with nothing left undone? Not sure, but what I do know is that this pre-trip time is often accompanied by very strange dreams.

Last night I had a visit from Eric Clapton.  He was wearing red nail polish (it was chipped) and playing his guitar while I sang a duet with him. At the end of our song, he whispered to me, “Here, hold my hand while people are clapping for us. You know how people love to see people in love.” Now granted, Freud could have a hay day with this one, but I just woke up with such a sense of knowing that love is around me.  And I believe it will appear not in a way I have imagined.

In the past when I have visualized who it was that I was about to fall in love with (you know, the future ex), I would picture the person in all his physical and mental glory.  I was more interested in what he would look and sound like so I could recognize him when he appeared. What he “felt” like wasn’t even in my lexicon.  Well, not only did I feel a tad superficial, but I also was limiting my options, wasn’t I? 

Well after last night’s little tryst with Slow Hand, I realized that I needed to tweak my envisioning process.  Now, instead of mocking up tall, dark, handsome, smart, honest, talented, strong, alpha, and young at heart, with a sense of adventure, I am imagining what I’ll feel like when “it” happens.  I’m going to get out of my own way and let things unfold as they will.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not holding my breath for Eric Clapton to show up, but the next guy who walks into my life and makes me feel like I did when Eric whispered in my ear, it will be game over.  And I won’t care if his nail polish is chipped.

Gotta run, got a gig, then, got a plane to catch.  Yep.  Busy right up ‘til the last second!

Branded by love-liness.

Buns xo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUSzL2leaFM