Love at First and Everlasting Sight

Love at first sight, romantic and as true as the moment a child looks into a mirror and realises it's looking at the image of itself. Everything, is in, everything. With presence (an openness in all ways of experiencing self) the lines of self and 'other' start to blur, the experience of self is everywhere.

I had a coffee date the other night, the gentleman brought family photos, stories and need, to go with a dark roast. As all is reflection I looked deep into that looking glass. We walked and I thought inwardly, again, of the nature of love and need, what we are seeking in another.

I stopped to speak to a man with a ferret, her name forgotten but rich the sensual weaving around my legs, her warmth and vitality, alive with curiosity. The sky blue topaz, magenta and purple of the hydrangeas in gardens we passed a reminder, we all react to where we're planted, all expressing needs met or unmet.

A small connection was made with a man unloading his car, his England t-shirt an opening to conversation. We spoke of football, culture and a favourite dish, irony. As with the dish, little was said but much understood. Everywhere the reflections, each reflecting the soil and what shall grow. Everything is in all things as are we. Love is everywhere and only the mind perceives separation. Presence, the soul deep yes, is love at first and everlasting sight.

When Enough Cannot Be Enough

There’s a point, a stage if you will, of awareness. To describe it, you have come to know yourself intimately, the construct you’ve been living within and identified as ‘you’ all your life. This awareness includes understanding the notions of self you’ve adopted from early life, adopted and created, added to over the years. You’ve built an intricate prison and that prison is also you. It’s made up of thoughts and feelings based on a fictional story. You understand it’s not you, at least intellectually.

You know it comes from your inner child’s reactions to family influences, circumstances and environment - the emotions and thoughts created from that. This is the loop tape that is your construct. It will have lead you to the realisation of a see-saw of reactions from you to this construct. You’ve ‘done’ much to delve deeply into those painful, limiting feelings best described as ‘I’m not enough’. You may even have sat in presence with (allowed yourself to fully feel), the pain that created it, all the reflections or echoes of it in your life. To name some, they include:

(*Note: For all of these points, it’s what at root motivates or informs our actions or inactions (the energy underlying:, our feelings, thoughts and responses that reveal whether we are on this see-saw or not.)

At one end, the so called negative reactions, what we think of as dysfunction*

• avoidance (of whatever has triggered feeling it)

• paralysis

• blame of self or others

• doubt and indecision

• feelings of and identifying with being a victim

• apathy

• self medicating (food, drugs/alcohol, exercise - potentially, literally any activity)

• escapism (too numerous to name all forms)

• seeking fixing or validation from others

• self hatred

• intense focus on self image, whether in the form of self consciousness/judgement or simply vanity

• aggression

• lying

• manipulation

• need/lack

• shame

  At the other end of the see-saw, the so called positive reactions (what psychology and society supports) which are considered functional behaviour/responses*.

• setting boundaries

• setting and achieving goals

• ambition

• self care

• confidence

• assertiveness

• excessive attentiveness to word and deed

• believing that anything outside of or inside this idea of you is going to make you better, happier or more in any way

• faith

• buying things to make a life or to make you feel like you

• self expression

• need (this one ends up on both ends of the see saw as society is constructed around a plethora of approved of needs)

• self help/self improvement

• affirmations

Everything that exists is created from energy, is energy. Our feelings and thoughts, our beliefs cannot exist without the energy that creates them. We’re all energy sensitive beings even if we don’t realise it. From childhood we experience adults telling us one thing at times but we feel/sense another. They do this to protect us it’s said but the energy reveals what underlies.

In the same way, the energy of ‘not good enough; is distinctive; the ways in which it shows itself in our lives is clear. It’s popular to counter this with many ways in which one might come to feel enough. The power of positive thinking, affirmations and behavioural modification are all part of counter measures. To feel enough seems to be so desirable, our glimpses of it confirm this. It’s often said that as long as we invest in/believe that anything outside of ourselves will fix us we shall remain unfixed. What is we’re not broken though? (We’re not.)

Read the list at the other end of the see saw of so called positive reactions again. Consider that they too are a reaction to feelings of ‘not enough.’ We’re driven to feel enough by not enough. It’s the energy that reveals and on this see saw, no matter where you sit, the energy is lack/abundance. It’s created by a desire to be more; happier, better and it’s created from need. Where there is need there is never enough. I frequently say, we are so much more than enough. We are.

I do not affirm but rather, share; I am not revealed by enough - I am.

~ Stephanie Marian

The Heart Valet

The Doorway

Don’t do anything. Those words came to me inbetween sleep during the night. They rang loud and clear and with a truth that silenced everything else. I saw a doorway, the door open and a scene revealed - the vision a metaphor for the potential and expression of everything.

We’re all of us fed, no, buried in the idea that we must be working on ourselves. It’s so persuasive, invasively taking over our thoughts and informing our actions. It’s the most devastatingly infectious dis-ease humans experience. We’re taught to be uneasy with ourselves almost from the moment we first draw breath. Soon after the shaping and person making begins, we toddle our way into fulfilling expectations, spoken and implied. If we’re not busy in our lives with the doings of self improvement, we’re escaping in a myriad of ways. We’re avoiding what we so wholeheartedly believe - that we’re not good enough, whole enough just as we are.

We’re raised into adulthood, having descended deeper into this project that’s our life, our notion of self. We’re now fully immersed in the illusion, defined by what we feel we’re not. Our minds are perpetually active with the business of measuring and improvement. We analyse and criticise; the fuel for the next new thing that we tell ourselves will make us feel enough. From this perspective, it’s a promise that will never be fulfilled. ‘This time, ‘ the mantra begins again, ‘it will be different.’

Broken promises lay on top of each other like a pile of bones inside our head. At times it’s just too much, we’re overwhelmed. We swing from the doings to the not doings, some of them masquerading as self care. The relaxation, holidays, time with friends or alone with the not enough self does nothing to address the lack we feel. In desperation we seek solace in religion, spirituality, beliefs and addictions - something, anything to fill what we perceive as the void within.

The truth is always simple though. When we give up the idea that anything outside ourselves will fill our need, the need and the desire to escape also disappears. Now we’re exactly who we always were - so much more than enough. Don’t do anything - the door is open.

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.

What We Can't Resist

There is a fire in me this morning, you might say it's a creative force. I'm listening to a Heart song called 'These Dreams,' and the line 'I need to hide away...there's something out there I can't resist' is playing on repeat in my head. What is it we can't resist?

I said recently, some are calling these times a tomb. This is a reaction to chaos - there is destruction wherever you care to look. Others would cover their eyes and ears, find what solace and release they can in their idea of love. Any idea borne of need is fear in sheep's clothing. The need to run is understandable and overwhelming.

The image depicted is strong, symbolic and expresses what we can't resist - truth. It's the face of the Hindu Goddess Kali; in essence truth and destruction manifest. Issac Newton's Third Law of Motion describes that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Kali (which you may see as an energetic force) rises as a reaction to meet circumstances much like our current ones. It is inevitable. She is the energetic force that equalises an imbalance.

Deep in the symbolism that is Kali lies another truth, she is that within us which is fearless. This is love. We cannot resist. There is tremendous relief, a soul sigh of release, within destruction. Destruction and creation, they are one. You see, nothing is ever lost or even found – it just is.

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.

When the Guru Falls

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.)