Sunny side is up again

I love a sunny day, that's for sure. We talk about walking on the sunny side of the street, have sunny dispositions.  But now, California is in a drought. We had a half inch of rain this past week, and practically before the streets could dry,  the weather person was saying, "we're going to have fantastic weather today! Aren't we glad we're going to have sunshine and blow away all this humidity! We can get outside and enjoy the weekend!" What a relief! I mean, after those 5 minutes of rain while I was sleeping gave me cabin fever!

Can we handle the rain? Is looking at the other side of the sunny street beyond our capacity? Maybe we have become so used to the sun that we literally don't have the capacity to weather the storm. Do we anesthetize, numb out, avoid each other, and our selves?

Like I said, I love a sunny day. But I also love the rain. Without the rain what are we left with? Maybe too much of a "good thing" is too much. Maybe if we embraced more rain look to the cloudy side as equal or important or even relevant, we might have water. 

We get what we ask for, so if we want rain, we may need to accept clouds. 

Or we just keep cooking ourselves. 

Just saying.

Galaxies

Ever wonder what you are doing with that  unused part of your brain? In the human body, everything we have had a purpose. So what about that massive percentage of what we call dormant gray matter? Maybe we are in charge of galaxies somewhere in outer or inner space. There's a whole universe of possibilities. 

Brain- the next final frontier. 

Think about it

And wake up to who we really are and what's going on with the other 90% of our world. 

#knockingonheavensdoor

#brainfood

#innergalaxies

Colors

When a person shows their "true colors," what else could they do? Are there "false colors?"

We are particles of light, packed dense enough to hold the form of our thought constructs. But we are microscopic particles, eventually getting small enough to be light. And light contains all colors. All of our colors are our colors. There is no color that we don't contain. There is nothing that we are not.

Celebrate your rainbow!

#truecolors

#rainbow

#rainbowpeople

#nothingfalseinme

911

Emergency. Or today's date. Or both, depending on the day. 

Today's yoga class was right in line with what I've been sharing the last couple if weeks. 

In the yoga sutras of Patanjali, sutra 1:27 talks about the ever present sound, the pranava. The great commentator, Vyasa, refers to this sound as "aum." But regardless of what you hear, this ever present sound, this pranava, permeates all things. Is accessible to all things. 25/7. Even in a 911 situation.

Pranava means "that which softens" referring to that which softens the ego - our attachments, our expectations, our self proclaimed identity. We soften those hard lines in our mind, not to become more diffuse or vague, but to become clearer. Clearer because we open ourselves up to seeing a bigger picture. Clearer because we invite and welcome other points of view. 

So today on 911, we can use this day to heal (yoga sutra- sutra means "suture" that which heals) by softening the hard lines in ourselves. By welcoming other walks of life and points of view. By doing more than just "tolerating" differences. Instead of bracing and hardening ourselves, resisting the unfamiliar, we challenge ourselves to lean in and soften,  so we are not pretending to listen, but to soften our ears and actually hear. We hear the unstruck sound of the pranava and let it pierce our hearts, softening fear and pain, freeing ourselves to experience our own vast and infinite light. The light that propels us deeper into the softening of understanding and acceptance. 

911. Emerging. See? Emergency.

#911

#yogasutra1:27

#pranava

#om

#thesecretoftheyogasutra

Community Part 2

So continuing with the value of community. It's interesting how the whole thing works. Once something is out there, it's out there. Like yesterday's post. I logged in today to start writing about "honesty," maybe going into an Olivia Newton John thing, like "I honestly love you" and talk about self love, being honest with ourselves and how important that is in order to really See or Hear, but I guess that will have to wait. Because honestly, yesterday's post on community was supposed to be a draft, a work in progress, not to be seen by the public. When I logged on today, and I saw that what was supposed to be a Draft was in the Published area, I felt like I had been caught with my pants down. For a moment, I had that sinking feeling like - omg, what did I say? I hope it didn't suck/didn't hurt anyone/didn't count. It felt like I aired dirty laundry without the permission of others, others meaning my internal voice of truth, my editors inside who help me discern what it is I'm really going for and what it is I'm trying to express without my "stuff," my samskaras, my attachments to cloud the truth as I experience it.

And it's all perfect. Because now I get to blog about something else. I can't take it back. That's the theme. We can't take stuff back. Once it's out there, we can't take it back. Just like yesterday's incomplete, out of context, unrefined babble of a blog. And no, i'm not beating myself up or judging myself. I'm just calling it like it is. It was, and still is, a work in progress that I may or may not choose to finish someday, but because it's now "out there," it leaves an impression. And we can't take these impressions back. We were the Cause of an Effect. Consciously or unconsciously.

So what do we do when we are left with the proverbial egg on our face? We are wanting to take back something that we said or did, perhaps impulsively, reactively, unconsciously? We clean it up. We let it go. We trust that we were doing what we needed to do in the moment and we get honest with ourselves about what went down for us internally in the moment of our decision to act, speak, not act, not speak, whatever. And then we get to work. If our actions harmed others, we clean it up. We can apologize, not for our actions, because we were doing the best we could do at the time. We apologize by acknowledging that perhaps we hurt someone in the process, including our own Soul, and we created an obstacle to learn from. But even then, maybe apology is not the best way to put it, because "yay! another obstacle to learn from!" is what we are doing here on Earth.

So we clean it up by seeing a bigger picture. By using the unconscious moment to help wake ourselves up to what was unconscious inside of us. To see that all of our little unconscious decisions, maneuvers have far reaching Effects. Because we were the Cause. Cause and Effect. Karma.

So how do we clean it up? We stop judging ourselves. And we stop judging others. And if we find ourselves hanging out on the corner of, let's say, the intersection of Conjecture and Imagination, where Samskaras love to breed, then get out of the way of flying Karma.  Because if we make a value judgement, take a side, get emotionally charged about someone else's Cause, we end up becoming the Effect. We are affected. Positive or negative.

So back to my original idea about Honesty. Get Honest with your Self. Who are we hiding from anyway? What is there to fear? Dirty laundry, schmurty laundry. And you know from past blogs (see "Another Load," "Laundry Day Part 2" etc...), i love to do laundry! Let's get to washing those clothes!

And, btw, in case anyone is conjecturing and concerned, I'm cool with everyone seeing my unfinished blob of a blog yesterday. I'm not taking it personally and I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of.  I know who I Am. And if it took a me having a momentary freak out about an having a writer's babble bordering on blithering to get published instead of saved due to a combination of internet error signs and possible wrong button selection to get me to today's blog, then great. I'm even great-ful.

So community that I honestly love, thanks for being witness. I honestly love you. All of you. All of us.

#ihonestlyloveyou
#OliviaNewtonJohn
#gratitude
#karma
#ilovemycommunity
#fuckit-iloveallcommunities
#myclothesareclean

Community

Community. What does community even mean? According to the dictionary:

a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

And why do we value community? We value community for many reasons. We raise our children together - "it takes a village." We used to build our houses together. Teamwork. Everyone is important and plays a vital role. Even the Village Idiot, the Jester, the Scapegoat. We are all playing roles in this thing called community.

Each of our bodies is a community. We are comprised of parts of the whole. Each part plays a part.

Many of us sought community to find a group of like-minded others to support our growth. What happens when one person is singled out, for better or for worse? Do we ostracize them? Do we judge them? Do we punish them? Do we rarify them? Do we worship them? Hopefully none of the above. When a person asks for support of the community from a member of that same community, what do  when that fear button has been pushed?

We look inside and ask what we are really afraid of. Ask whether the fear is a present moment fear or warning, or if it is based on a past impression (samskara). It this fear causes us stress, then we need to lean into the stress to find out what the root of this stress is, and as a last resort, perform surgery. When do we perform surgery? Cut it off? That is an individual call. But what do we do when the cut has been made? Can we feel whole again?

When we say "that person is making me feel uncomfortable" or "i feel uncomfortable around that person" we can usually blow it off, tell a friend who will basically tell you that you are correct in thinking the way you do, or do whatever it takes to make sure that you never cross paths with that person. This is one answer, yes. But it could also be a missed opportunity for growth. What is the root of that uncomfortableness. Does it have to do with that person? Does it have to do with a past impression/samskara?

Two Sides to Every Story

As we all know, there are two sides to every story, and when we are neutral about the subject matter, or the people telling those stories, it is easier for us to see those 2 sides. But when we have a hard line, a judgement, a sense of righteous and wrong, a fault-finding, then we have hardened our brain and our emotional bodies into forgetting the "2 sides to every story" idea. We lock down into 1 story, 1 side, 1 reality, 1 is righteous, and the other wrong.

So when we feel righteous, and that "call to action" is coming from a place of "brotherhood!" "sisterhood!" "solidarity!" etc... pay attention. What side haven't we considered? What side isn't being heard? What aren't we hearing? And as a result, what are we missing? For that outcast side is also part of us. And don't we all want to be heard, and at the very least, considered?

Just sayin...

#2sides2everystory
#letshearitfortheman
#isrighteousright?

Loving the Life we Have

We can yearn for a life or a dharma (life's purpose) that is someone else's thinking that our lives would be happier, "poppier" if only we were someone else.  Notice how sad the flag in this picture is as it watches the glowing poppy, yearning to have its life. If Flag was thrilled with his own destiny, he might notice the other happy flags around him, just doing flag things, and might feel the power in his flapping flag in the wind.

Embody your dharma and learn to love it. Then you will be like the glowing poppy.

#aflagslife
#californiapoppies
#beahappyflag

Offering the Fruits of my Labor Day

The fruits of my Labor Day. Applesauce from our tree. Rhubarb sauce from our yard. Oranges from our tree. Discovered a secret sauce ingredient. All from God. I offer you the fruits since without my Creator I wouldn't be here to have fruits. Or Labor.

I labored and was left with this saucy smile. Enjoy!

 #winkyemoticon

#fruitsofmyLaborDay

#homemadeapplesauce

#homemaderhubarbsauce