Walking The Path In Go Go Boots

Preferably thigh high black patent leather ones. Nancy Sinatra wore white ones in her classic video "These Boots Are Made For Walking", but as any fashionista will tell you, white shows dirt. And trust me, those boots are gonna get dirty.
Walking the path of enlightenment isn't for sissies, it requires body armor to deflect the arrows of hate, sloth, greed, temptation and desire. Sturdy boots to trudge through all the knee deep in manure chasms life dumps in our path. A brave, bright heart  to position you back on the path once you've lost your way in the darkness. Finally, a lifeline to pull you out of quicksand (unexpected tragedies) that swallows you at the blink of an eye, paralyzes you and knocks the breath out of your lungs.
Walking the path is the yoga of action. Our everyday actions or inactions determine our way, change our course. Our reaction to unexpected and/or unwanted events shape our future. My path was forever altered after Annie's death and slowly my new world is revealed, one layer at a time. Life's small inconveniences don't bump my ride anymore. I don't take my friends or loved ones for granted these days. On the odd side, my threshold for offensiveness is 100% higher (not that I was a delicate flower before). Not much could EVER offend me after Annie's tragic death, that was obscenely offensive. I also couldn't give a fig what anyone thinks of me, living life fully demands snugging on my go go boots, holding my head high with a sweet smile and doing my thing.
It's a long and winding road embarking on the right way, yet it is also the ONLY way. There are no shortcuts or bypasses, those all lead to unhappiness. The road to spiritual joy is at times rocky, its journey uncertain during turbulent storms, yet the path is always lit with the beacon of faith and trust. I choose to walk the path in style, 'cause those boots were made for walkin'!

When Earthquakes Strike

Ever been in an earthquake? It is a terrifying experience when the ground beneath you is not solid. Nothing to hold on to, at the mercy of outside forces. My heart goes out to the people of Japan, they have a long road to recovery.

When our foundation is shaken to its core, what do we hold on to? When the outside world is not safe, what centers us from within? A life-altering event can have the same effect as an earthquake. A death, divorce, financial crisis, marriage, a baby are all life changing events. Even though some are positive, they are still frightening and throw us off our axis. When tragedy struck my world last month, I felt I was shoved off a moving train. Bruised, screaming, shocked, amazed that such a powerful force didn't actually kill me, I'm in awe of the human spirit and how it can survive such a blow to the soul. What empowered me to get up after being thrown off a moving train, dust myself off and start walking? My answer was faith, trust in the unknown. Because I don't know what else to call it. It was not hope, I had none. Hope requires positive thinking about the future, as in "I hope for a better tomorrow" or "I hope we win the lottery". What is hope anchored to? Hope is light and airy, and needs to be weighted down for substance. I believe hope is anchored to faith. I had faith but not hope, so can we have hope without faith? I'm not sure. Faith and trust sustain us through the darkness, even when we don't understand how, even when we can't see. For some, faith means God and religion, to some of us it means trust in the all-knowing, that which is beyond mortal understanding.

I'm not telling you what you should believe, I am merely tossing a few thoughts out there for you to chew on. In Japanese, the word "shin" encompasses faith, belief and trust. In Sanskrit, that word is "shraddha". Beautiful aren't they?

I wish I could tell you a personal earthquake will never strike you, but that would be naive of me. All I wish is that when it does, you can find a little faith, hang on to it for dear life and wait for the quaking to stop.

My Begging Bowl

What to do when your bowl is filled with something you don't want? When I was little and my mother would feed me a food I disliked, it got secretly tossed behind the fridge next to my chair. That worked well until the cleaning lady moved the fridge one day and my secret was uncovered. My dinner chair got moved.
I was introduced to the concept of Buddhist begging bowls in a small but lovely book titled Everyday Sacred. The monks depended on the kindness of people to fill their empty bowls with either food or money, but some days they were never filled. Plus, no choice on what they were given. On a philosophical level, what are we supposed to do when our life bowl is forcibly ladled with foulness so vile you want to vomit? Not allowed to toss it out or exchange it for a better choice. When every cell in your body rejects what's been placed in your bowl, yet you are forced into accepting it. Such is the world I live in right now. I don't want to accept Annie's gone, yet I can't bring her back. I am wedged in this corner of rejecting something abhorrent and yet knowing it will stay in my life bowl forever. How do I make peace with this? Accepting yet despising every moment of it, swallowing the bad medicine, clutching onto my soul as it screams in pain from the gaping wound still raw, I will survive the suffering and eventually heal. Through meditation and yoga, acceptance will coat rejection with the nectar of higher goodness. My begging bowl still has room for sweetness, love and peace.
May your begging bowl always be filled with all that you need and is good in this world.           

Darkness Settles In For A Long Stay

Remember my past post from 5/2/09 about a dark, damp tunnel with bats? I'm in it. A few yards in from the entry of the tunnel, I am paralyzed with fear. I can't turn back, yet I am terrified of taking a step forward deeper into the darkness. Processing grief is an individual experience, and I know I must work through it not over it to move on in my life. For the first time, I'm afraid of the space I've been slammed into, a space I know nothing about. A space NOBODY should ever be in, who knew there were levels of death that were better than others? The last time I felt pain this raw was the suicide of a dear friend of mine from high school. It all flooded back with a vengeance after Annie's death. The darkness I must blindly tread through to reach the light on the other side is uncharted for me. No GPS to state the length of this tunnel, it's possible pitfalls or curves. A mind path I must endeavour alone, deep into the recesses of my soul and uncover whatever landmines I missed in the past. This time to reach the other side, there are no shortcuts and my soul will be stripped bare.
For now, I wake up every day, I meditate and give myself permission to be in whatever space I will be in that day. Not pushing for revealment, accepting the dark tunnel, the screaming bats that I can't see and taking comfort that I am loved by so many.