The Heart Valet

Shadows

Abandonment. This is a stark image. If photos could be taken of our inner landscape, this would be the most common picture seen.

Earlier in the week a client requested I meet him in his place of business. There'd been strange occurrences in the old building. Some sensitive people commented on uncomfortable feelings, unexplained things seen and felt in empty rooms.

The night before I connected to my client, getting a sense of what was showing itself in his life. The following day I explored every area, sat alone in the semi dark and felt more than saw. As always, the truth is always simple.

It was visible in the decor, seen in the stock. It was heard in every noise, the creak of the old floorboards, in the people that came and went and in the tone of their interactions. One corner held a potent and heavy pocket of it, it left me faint for a moment.

It was abandonment, a kind of fear. No energy can manifest, not in circumstance, in people or in things that does not have a match - like attracts like. Here in my client's world, his inner child feeling abandoned, unheard and utterly stifled in so many obfuscations; the child had found a voice, an expression. The energy was everywhere.

It echoed through his life but unlike an echo, grew in intensity in desperation to be heard. He'd been drawn to and then fed the stories of those sensitive people, not consciously made, but energy finding resonance in them also. Most of my time was spent with my client, shining the light of awareness on what he'd created, showing him the manifestation of his inner world.

I returned to the corner, the dense pocket and did all any of us can do - I opened and held that space, literally. With acceptance, compassion and love, light illuminated the dark. In one moment, just a single moment, the story changed.

Footprints in the Snow

Local weather has been having a laugh lately, our usual replaced with this inconvenient but beautiful blanket. The other morning my car got stuck. Buses and taxis were absent as I climbed the hill. Intrepid four wheel drive's with snow tires passed, 'the only other sound the sweep, of easy wind and downy flake...but I had promises to keep and miles to go' and that hill was steep.

As always I'm taking a meandering route to my point but here it is, the truth (and change) is always simple. The mind a bit like government, likes to keep itself in a job. It generates anxiety, self limiting thoughts and a framework based on myth that ensures it's busy.

I waved the next truck down, asked the driver for a lift. He dropped me where he could and I stuck out my thumb. I was transported to a younger time; travelling to work with only a thumb for a ticket. It was that simple.

The part of ourselves that is possessive of employment, the mind, when not fed by limitation will naturally open to possibility. This is creation. We can go one step further and in a breath, let go of the apparent 'what is;' the questions, need for answers, any framework at all. We can just let go.

We do not walk this life alone. We walk with another, deeper, more expansive than myth and beyond time. We walk with our eternal selves, that which is every possibility. We are more than footprints in the snow.

Many thanks to Robert Frost for words borrowed and to the two gentleman truckers, I am grateful.

All One

Alone: From 'all ana' (old English) meaning, in essence, 'all one.' This photo was taken several years ago in the Thar Desert, conveying a sense of peace in the solitary. Images like words can reveal but also obscure.

There in the magnificent Thar I was neither absent of company nor many illusions and needs, the crowd within me that beautiful day. In a state of joy - not alone in any perceived sense as I was looking into a mirror. My mirror wasn't alone either. Just the two of us and our crowds, far from 'one,' imagining the other had something much desired, the key to release.

I've been experiencing some timeless alone these interesting days. It's come to me that aloneness is often identified as what it isn't, rather than what it is. It's been understood as a time 'without.' Very often, it's perceived as either an escape (from others, ultimately ourselves) or the default, time when others aren't available. It's been measured by what it isn't...but I'm interested in what it is, what it offers us.

In these days of shifting sands, I've heard many say in consolatory terms, 'but we are never alone.' This may be a truth but it also easily obscures and becomes another kind of 'crowd.' We're longing for faraway places we aren't, for faces that quiet the clamouring crowd.

The desert being largely glass, is full of reflections. We are all one in innumerable mirrors, in each and every-'one' we see. We are also infinitely alone, with a blink of awareness we may see beyond the crowd.

How Sweet it Tastes

We’re living in interesting times. I heard that said yesterday, ruefully. A gentleman of deep thought had been discussing social media and the lack of connection between people. A retired teacher, he’d seen the writing on the chalkboard long ago. Our conversation was warm, authentic and…connecting.

In the reflective hours of later, his words and their implication opened, one thought expanding into another. There was a certain irony, sharing thoughts and moments of something real, we were connected. I’d said that to him, for as much as we are not (in our perception), there is so much more that we are. We’re connected, inextricably, inevitably, eternally to everyone and everything.

Considering the times though, authenticity is the revelation. The truth is being revealed everywhere you care to look. Many are focusing on limitation, what we are not and where that’s showing itself. Where we put our focus is also where we’re creative, literally creating our reality. It seems hard not to imagine times past like a warm bed, comforting. There is no comfort to be had from dwelling in the past though as it’s not real. That which lies ahead, where fear would take us if we let it, is similarly unreal.

Here in this moment, fully present to what’s on offer there is this - expansion. Each moment offers us the chance to transform, expand into new potential. We are the creators, connected to limitation or expansion as we wish. A strawberry is as sweet as we choose.

- S. Marian.

Buddha told a parable in a sutra:

A man travelling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

(Buddhist koan, belonging to all.)

Say Yes!

Today say yes! As we move into what feels like uncharted terrain, even the obstacles don't feel the same. Those that come up are fundamental, triggering pain. There's no beginning, no end on this journey of ascend. It's true we're ever becoming and already became, but the answer is just the same - say yes!

Say yes to what is, breathe deep into you, through that you'll become what you always knew. It's the opening of childbirth for the child long born, it's a stretching into resistance, letting go of all form. Say yes to what you hide, to the dark corners of you, say yes to your shame and your deepest fears too. Bare your heart, bare your soul, let the spear pierce the skin...for this is where the transformation begins.

It's a sigh of surrender, opening to the sea, it's in you, it's in me, it's what sets us free. You cannot get lost, it's not possible, just try, that which you fear was always a lie. It's not found in flowers, not in these words, nor gestures or poems, it's not felt in the mind but where the heart roams. So set yourself free, let one word be spoken, say yes to it all and your truth will be woken.