Embrace The Day...

Rest, Dear Heart, Rest...

Embrace the day with Rest,
with clarity, with ease of mind...

Feel the warm, fluid rhythm
of Life around you;
upholding you,

carrying you
through the day,
landing you safely
on evening's shore,
through the twilight
and into the night...
And out of the darkness
a shining light...

Rest, Dear Heart, Rest...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 29, 2018

~

Photo - Embracing the Day Mandala Art
Mystic Meandering

The Mandala Art was done as part of an "8 Day Challenge"
I did back in 2018
presented by
Donna Iona Drozda

She is currently doing an online series of video presentations called:
Exploring the Creative Energy Levels here.

Reminding me that creativity also brings harmony and balance to
body, mind and soul...

~

"Dance and Endure what comes to meet you on the path."

Donna Iona Drozda

~

"We must be willing to let go of the life we've planed, so as to
have the life that's waiting for us."

Joseph Campbell

 

Dancing with the Dark - a meandering

Darkness came to visit -
like a visitor in Rumi's guest house...

I danced with the dark;
afraid to speak the truth to it...

I danced with the dark, keeping silent,
because it was more effective than confronting it...

After months of resisting; trying to find a way out -
I gave up - and just danced;
trying to practice radical acceptance.

When I allowed the dark in,
it felt less intense - almost soothing...

How strange...

When I allowed myself to meet the darkness I felt,
instead of trying to escape from it, or push it away,
or control it - I relaxed and felt a slowing down inside
and discovered that the darkness I felt allowed me to be quiet
inside.  The darkness seemed comforting...
The darkness allowed me to feel what I needed to feel
and say what needed to be said...

I breathed deeply into the darkness -
and rested there...

Mystic Meandering
April 17, 2023

from my journal notes

The "darkness" can be anything;
sadness, grief, depression, anger;
any feeling or emotion that we have labeled
"wrong" or "dark"

Photo -
(not me :)

~~

OM - the song of Life - comes out of darkness
and creates everything that is -
creating from darkness; creating out of darkness.

What does this darkness need to teach me?  I asked...

Trust the darkness to take you where you need to go...

MM

Photo and Art - Mystic Meandering

~~

Everything is embraced/held by "The Mystery",
including what we experience as "darkness."

Nothing is excluded, even the "darkness" however
that manifests in our minds.

You have to be willing to dance with the darkness,
which only means that you are willing to meet it,
to be with it, and not try to push it away;
not resist it as something absent of Light,
but seeing that the darkness is not opposite
of Light.

Author Unknown

 

Embrace the Darkness - unknown

Everything is embraced/held by "The Mystery",
including what we experience as "darkness."

Nothing is excluded,
even the "darkness"

however that manifests
in our minds.

You have to be willing to dance
with the darkness,
which only means that
you are willing to meet it,
to be with it,
and not try to push it away;
not resist it as something
absent of Light,
but seeing that the 
darkness
is not the opposite
of Light.

Just dance with whatever
shows up...

The darkness is also
part of the dance.

Nothing is excluded.

Everything is embraced.

It is Love dancing with ItSelf...

Unknown author

~

Photo - Light and Dark Vortex Art
done with fingers
MM - 2011

 

Tea with "Z"...

Today I had tea with "Z" - a wonderful Fellow Traveler who helps
me to see the "Truth" beyond my life-experience.  He helps me 
unwind the mind when I get a little too wound up in the thought
function of trying to figure it all out, and in my over vigilance about
the words I'm using, trying not to sound "dualistic, or "non-dualistic."
I sometimes find it hard having tea with "Z" because he tends to
deconstruct all the conceptual fabrications that I have built around
myself.  He points out to me, in the most non-judgmental ways,
where I am still hiding behind the words - defending, explaining,
clarifying - in an attempt to be "spiritually correct" so as not to
offend, so as to be understood, and where I'm still caring about how
I'm being seen.  Sometimes in this allowing myself to be seen in
the places where I am still attached there is an incredible feeling of
vulnerability, and a wanting to contract, to not see or be seen.  But
today "Z" invited me to see in a way that helped me let go of all
that.  (And here I want to explain that "we" really don't "let go" of
anything.  It dissolves when it is truly seen.  So you see the kinds
of word games I get into here, wanting to be sure you know that
I'm not caught in some dualistic way of thinking and expressing...:)

Anyway, what "Z" offered me in all my wrangling and entanglement
in thought and words today is this:  Who is having the thought that
you have to figure it out, that you have to know, that you have to be
vigilant about your words, about life?  What part of you says what
you know is not enough, that who you are is not enough, that the
way you express is not "right"?  In the moments of silence that
followed as I "checked in" internally (tea with "Z" is very
experiential:), I met the "internal monitor" - this hyper-vigilance
about languaging and expression, the "aspect" that tends to want to
monitor everything I do and say - and - I met the belief in 
inadequacy, in "not good enough."  And in that moment of meeting
them I saw that all there actually is, is Embrace.  There is only a
deep, compassionate Embrace for these "aspects" of the self. There
is just Embrace embracing, holding this vigilance, this
inadequacy, this not good enough belief.  In the seeing of this
all the contractions around the concepts relaxed - let go of me. 
In that moment of seeing I realized that what I had been struggling
with doesn't matter - the words, the vigilance, the inadequacy -
because it's all just being embraced - all the thinking and feeling
and expressing and doing.
There's only Embrace of all that is, as it is.  There is only
"The Mystery" revealing ItSelf in every expression.  It was what
I bring my attention to that fuels it into a fire of thought vigilance,
or thought frenzy that obscures the seeing of the Embrace.  I contract
into, become fixated on, and identified with those objects of attention,
unable to see beyond them; seemingly unable to experience the
Embrace of it all.

In this incredible opening of a doorway into seeing clearly there was
a sense of translucence, of everything being seen through - as it is -
just thought forms, or objects in Embrace, in Consciousness, in 

Awareness (sorry, the word thing again :) that are utterly translucent.
And with this also came the realization that I don't need to to explain or
clarify anything.  And then "Z"'s absolutely lovely words emerged into
clarity: "Don't focus on the words, on the thoughts, on the concepts, just
keep bringing your attention to the Embrace that holds it all."

In wordless wonder...

July 30, 2009

"Z" is Mitch Rosacker, now a professional, what I call a "perspective
changer" - or - "spiritual therapist" :) - although he may cringe at those
words.  He has his own practice called Self Discovery Studio - which
is lovingly known as the Ashram of Inverness. His apporach is
spiritually creative, sensitive to where you are, insightful, intuitive,
 encouraging and freeing.  He is also an artist by nature using art as a
way of opening to "The Mystery" within... 
I've sat with him many times over the years.

MM

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
enhanced with Luna Pic

 

Acceptance - Jeff Foster

 Freedom is found not through escaping the present experience,
but by diving fearlessly into its hidden depths.  You must be
open to exploring suffering - how and why it manifests in you,
where it originates.  You must be willing to look at your pain,
fears, sadness, longings.  They are part of the wholeness of
life.  You must be willing to face them head on and find deep
acceptance for the seemingly unacceptable aspects of yourself...
Beyond the personal story of my own suffering, I discover the
pains is not really my pain.  It's the world's pain.  It's humanity's
pain...

It's one thing to know who you really are [your Beingness]
when life is easy and things are going well for you.  It's
another thing to remember this in the heat of the moment, 
when things fall apart, when life gets messy.  We find another
way of looking at suffering, a radical new way of relating to
it.  We can see the messiness and the beauty of day-to-day
human existence as something to be avoided, or transcended,
or we can see it for what it really is: a secret and constant
invitation to wake up... It's about finding out who you
really are, beyond who you think you are, beyond who you've
been taught you are, beyond the story about who you are,
beyond all your concepts and images of who you are.

...we must face reality with open eyes.  We must move away
from denial, wishful thinking, and hoping and tell the truth
about life as it is.  Great freedom lies in admitting the truth
of this moment, however much it clashes with our dreams and
plans - and self image...  Acceptance is about seeing reality,

seeing things as they actually are, not as we wish them to be.
And from that place of alignment with what is, all creative,
loving and intelligent actions flow naturally.

Freedom is about embracing all that appears in the Ocean
of our present experience.  Maybe the true calling in life is to
accept present experience deeply - to let go of how this
moment should be - letting go of our false self-image.

Great freedom lies in fearlessly facing the darkness and finally
coming to see that the darkness is inseparable from light...
Life cannot be good or bad.  Life is simply life.  It's about
seeing the Mystery of Life that is already here.

Jeff Foster
Excerpts from - The Deepest Acceptance
published in 2012
Facebook

As many of you know Jeff has been dealing with a
severe debilitating illness for the past few years, 
having to come face to face with Acceptance...
He writes about his experience on his Facebook page...

~

Photo - taken by my brother
at Plum Cove, Gloucester, MA

Embracing the Reality of Sorrow - Adyashanti

Sooner or later we will all experience the tragic quality of life.
Perhaps this quality of life is brought to us through illness, or
the death of a loved one, or losing a job, or an unexpected
accident, or having your heart broken.  But we will all
experience this tragic quality of life in both small and
overwhelmingly large ways over the span of our lives.
Whether we want to face it or not, life, with all of its beauty,
joy, and majesty, also has a tragic element to it.  This is
exactly what the Buddha saw, and it inspired his entire
spiritual search.

It seems that most people look for various ways to escape
from this tragic quality of life, but ultimately to no avail.
There is no escaping it.  And it must be faced sooner or
later.  The question is, when we are faced with this aspect
of life, how do we respond?  Surely, to avoid it only leads to
denial, fantasy, life-numbing withdrawal, cynicism, and fear.
It takes great courage to face the totality of life without
withdrawing from it or trying to protect ourselves from it.

Paradoxically, to face the totality of life we must face the

reality of death, sorrow, and loss as well.  We must face them
as unavoidable aspects of life.  The question is, can we face
them directly without getting lost in the stories that our mind
weaves about them?  Because if we can, we will find a
tremendous affirmation of life, an affirmation that is forged
in the fierce embrace of tragedy.

At the very heart and core of our being, there exists an
overwhelming 'yes' to existence.  This yes is discovered by
those who have the courage to open their hearts to the
totality of life. This yes is found only by
embracing the reality of sorrow and going beyond it. 

Adyashanti

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

When Dark Clouds - Jamie K. Reaser

When the dark clouds lay thick
before you and the wind has
lifted your hair and taken it
someplace wild, do nothing.
Be no one known.
What has happened is moving
on to new horizons.  What remains
are the desires withstood and
all the unfinishedness that will
see you through to the next day.

copyright/ Jamie K. Reaser
From "Truth and Beauty"

~

The hurt you embrace becomes joy...

Rumi

Embracing the Day

Rest, Dear Heart, Rest...

Embrace the day with Rest,
with clarity, with ease of mind...

Feel the warm, fluid rhythm
of Life around you;
upholding you,
carrying you
through the day,
landing you safely
on evening's shore,
through the twilight
and into the night...

And out of the darkness
a shining light...

Rest, Dear Heart, Rest...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 29, 2018

~

Photo - Embracing the Day Mandala Art

I recently did an "8 Day Challenge"
presented by Donna Iona Drozda on becoming aware
of our natural rhythms with life; how we orient ourselves
to the rhythm of each day.  The above mandala was done
as a part of the process, representing the rising wave of our
Inner Rhythm reaching outward to embrace the day.  The
poem came as a result of drawing the image.

Iona's next "8 Day Challenge" will be in January.
You can contact her through her website:
Donna Iona Drozda Life Cycle Art/Life Programs.
Be inspired to live in balance with life!

~

"The Natural Rhythm is ever current, ever
within its organic flow,
allowing us to give voice to our
own creative expression of our Core Being
in the Heart..."

Donna Iona Drozda

All We Are, We Are

I realized a few years back, and again while experiencing a
recent relapse of a chronic illness, that I was resisting;
resisting the condition, and its related symptoms, as well as
life itself.  The mind was fixating on the bodily symptoms and
resisting what was happening, forgetting its True Essence
and the simplicity of just Being - just living as life presents itself.
When I finally woke up to this, I felt bad that I had fallen into
resistance again...  After all, Life moves the way it moves - right?
But, even so, I resisted the resistance  :) - in subtle ways
resisting what is...

So - I asked to be shown what I needed to see here.

The "answer" came, not through meditation, or sitting in the Silence,
or practicing a "practice", but while at the grocery store...

Several years ago, while waiting in line at the check-out, I heard
the words of a song being played on the PA system.  The words
were: "All we are we are..." lyrically repeated over and over
again.  I couldn't make out the other words in the other verses,
only the chorus: "All we are we are..."  The rhythm of the words
drew me in:  "All we are we are..."

Of course!
How could we be anything else?  As I stood waiting in line,
 listening to the words, I looked around, in a relaxed state of
awareness, my eyes unexpectedly landing on a word over in
the far corner from where I was standing that was printed on the
side of the display shelf.  It said:

"Inclusive"

My mind just stopped - eyes glued to the word - in awe.
I realized - there it was: my "answer."
And it all came together...

All we are, we are...

Inclusive...

Nothing is excluded - no thought, no feeling, no emotion,
not even resistance.  We can't be anything other than we are.
We are who we are...  All of it - not just the parts we like,
but even our hidden parts, the "darker" parts; the depression,
the discouragement, the anger, the anxiety, the restlessness,
the doubts, the uncertainties,the insecurities, the resistance...

I could feel the tears welling up with this recognition - with
the acceptance that everything is included - life as it is -
me exactly as I am.  There is nothing "wrong" with any of it!
It's all embraced as an experience of Being.  It is all expressions
of the Essential Self, in all it's many forms - the waves of the
Ocean rising and falling back into ItSelf - over and over again.
It's inclusive of the hard times and the easy times, not separating
out the good and bad experiences, as I tend to do - still believing
 the distinction in my mind, "complexifying" (I love this word!)
my life.  Pure Beingness embraces everything inclusively as
ItSelf - expressing this "me" as ItSelf - all of me; not the
perfection of me.  Our Beingness embraces it all -
enfolds every part back to ItSelf - our pain, our circumstances,
our life - as we are, as it is - without hesitation - without resistance.
Everything is ALLOWED.

I know this and forget this.
Everything unfolds the way it does, including the "resistance."
And so I once again whisper softly in its ear, as if to a
frightened child:
"You're included, all is well..."

All we are, we are...

Inclusive...

~

Originally written 2010

The song "All We Are" is by Matt Nathanson

~

Photo - light through a blue glass

Guru Cat...

Peering over the computer screen,
with piercing eyes, Guru Cat said to me:

Today
start to de-clutter your life
of that which does not serve the Heart,
or nourish the soul;
whether people, or
situations, or
beliefs, or
your immediate environment
would be good...
Look at this mess!

Create space for
LIFE
to enter, to flow
through you.

Yes, Guru Cat - I said.
I cannot contort myself to
the forms that others have created
any longer...

Guru Cat said:

Today
start to pick up the lost pieces
of your tattered psyche,
let go of the frayed and loose ends
in the fabric of your current reality,
and open to
"The Mystery" of being.

Be at peace with life;
not afraid of what life will bring.

Yes, Guru Cat - I said.

Guru Cat said:

So - Today,
reclaim your Self,
the Eternal Being
that inhabits your form,
that allows you to move on,
past the scatteredness, through
the overwhelm, and the inertia,
moving into pure Aliveness...

Let go... Relax...
Play more!

Do you see what I'm saying...

Yes, Guru Cat - I said.
Got it...

Today
I will start
writing a new life;
as soon as my computer comes back on line...

Seeing life in a new way...
Opening to curiosity...
Accepting the uncertainty of living...
Exploring my inner Resource...
Embracing change...
Experiencing life as it is...
Content to just be...

_/\_

purrrrrrr

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 17, 2017

Kindness - Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
Like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters
and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crown of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye

from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

via: The Beauty We Love

The Play of Emotion - Rafael Stoneman

Here I am Here again
Not again
But only Now
Though it seems that moments are repeating
It is really One continuous moment.

What changes and what remains the same?
Somehow through the prism of the mind
many moods appear in consciousness
although there is only one Ultimate mood.
This is the miracle of color
The play of emotion.
On the negative end of the scale
we condemn the negative.
But we imagine that we are on the positive end
when we seek ways to remove the negative.
How positive would we feel if there was only
the positive end of the scale?
If we are willing to sacrifice the pain
are we willing to sacrifice the pleasure?
Equanimity is a dear friend.
One that holds the same embrace
for praise and for blame.
The same space for fortune and

for misfortune.
The same face for respect
and betrayal.

Rafael Stoneman

via my friend Michel
at No Mind's Land
where I get a lot of
wonderful posts to reblog :)
Thanks Michel!

~

Photo - original pic was a fire in the fireplace,
digitally zoom blurred and color altered - magic :)

World As Paradox - Fred LaMotte

I don't agree with the world,
and I don't disagree with the world.
The world is an ever-turning Kaleidoscope of paradox,
and paradox is neither agreeable or disagreeable.
Paradox is not there to protest, to reform, or to mold into
something that corresponds to our opinion.
Paradox is there for our liberation,
as we gradually learn to stop clinging to preferences,
and to embrace the ineluctably mystery of wholeness.
Then we see the awful beatific truth,
to which almost every religious and political endeavor
is a form of resistance;
things are simply as they are.
Finally, in embracing what IS,
we can love...

Fred LaMotte
writer, philosophy teacher,
interfaith chaplain
Uradiance

(Fred's words, my format)

~

Love is the only reality.
It is not a mere sentiment.
It is the ultimate truth
that lies at the heart
of creation...

Rabindranath Tagore
East Indian Poet

Connection - Jennifer Welwood

Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I gain the embrace of the universe;
Surrendering to emptiness
I find fullness without end.

Each condition I flee from pursues me.
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so...

Jennifer Welwood
From: "Unconditional"

The Other Window - Mark Nepo

[.....]

At the edge of winter, open the window
of your heart, see your breath,
how what you bring up becomes
the air.

When you're ready or pushed,
close your eyes and the other window
will appear,
the one that faces all of time.
What flies there never lands,
but hovers, dropping the seeds of
infinity in the breaks we can't heal.
So open the window of your pain,
though the whispers tell you
to nail it shut, and let in everything
that's ever lived.

What flies and never lands
has been waiting.
Be brave.
Don't run.
Let the fire
around your window
burn until you become
the opening.

Mark Nepo
Excerpt from the poem: "Love Your Window"
From the book: Inside the Miracle

Adrift - Chuck Surface

All the words I have written...
May have given you the illusion that I
have my bearings, and an understanding
of all that is unfolding...
When I am simply adrift
Without a compass...

Rudderless

Here...

In this Great Mystery

Excerpted from "Adrift"
by Chuck Surface
In the Garden of the Beloved

~*~

I woke up recently with this realization:
It is only this sense of me that feels adrift, lost, floundering -
not the Eternal Being that I am...
And, it is all happening within
the vast Ocean of the Great Mystery...
Everything happens within the Great Mystery...

And so it is all really okay, this floundering...
I accept it... Embrace it... Trust it...
It is simply where "I" am in time...

When I meet and embrace the feeling with acceptance
the grip of fear and lostness inside me lets go...
I then am able to float in the soft embrace of The Great Mystery,
and wait for the Inner Movement of
The Ineffable again...

Photo - taken by my brother...

~*~

Roam aimlessly
and find
What-Is

Wu Hsin

Embrace the Darkness - Rod MacIver

In the middle of the night
on the edges of my dreamscape
Caribou race along the rim of distant hills
and disappear.
They offer no words
but somehow they say,
in vague, shifting images of gray and brown
moonlight and pounding hooves:

Stand still. Wait for once.
Don’t race over there
and stand in the middle.
Let chaos go its own way.
Confused, discordant.

Keep your internal center of balance,
a compass on the bridge of a storm-tossed ship.
What is the destination?
Where do we want to go?
I wish I knew.

In the darkness
just past the light of the campfire
in the wild, nocturnal mystery
Sounds
coming at you from the night,
Footsteps
Breathing
the sound of some big animal breathing.
Something is waiting for you there.

Go
You won’t create your new tomorrow
hanging around the fire, waiting,
waiting for tomorrow,

staring at the flames
that become embers
that become darkness.

Embrace your darkness now…

So a road opened up
and I took it.
Down some dark stairways into myself
in search of the sun.

What was supposed to happen, didn’t.
And wasn’t supposed to, did.
I don’t know what is going on,
I don’t know how things are
supposed to be…

Roderick MacIver
Nature Artist

The Way of Rest - Jeff Foster

"Oh, sweet little boy, beloved little girl,
 you are so overwhelmed by life,
 I know,
 by the enormity of it all,
 by the vastness of possibilities,
 by the myriad perspectives available to you.

 You feel so pressed down sometimes,
 by all the unresolved questions,
 by all the information
 you are supposed to process and hold,
 by the urgency of things.

 You are overcome by powerful emotions,
 trying to control,
 or at least influence,
 everything and everyone around you,
 trying to hold yourself together,
 trying to make it all ‘work out’ somehow,
 trying to get everything done ‘on time’,
 trying to resolve things so fast,
 even trying not to try at all.

You are exhausted, sweet one,
 exhausted from all the trying
 and the not trying,
 and you are struggling to trust life again.
 It’s all too much for the poor organism, isn’t it.
 You are exhausted, you long to rest.
 And that is not a failing of yours,
 nor a horrible mistake,
 but something wonderful to embrace!

 For the exhaustion is pure intelligence,
 and it says, let go, let go! Stop trying so hard!

Stop pushing for answers right now.
 Allow everything to rest right now.
 Take a sacred pause.

 Allow questions to remain unanswered, for now.
 Allow space for yourself to breathe today.
 Allow everything to fall out of control today.
 Allow yourself to not be able to hold it all up today.
 Allow yourself to not know how, to not know at all.
 Allow the heart to break, if it needs to,
 and the body to ache, and the soul to wake.

 Everything is so okay, when you get down to it.

And know you are loved, little one.
 Know you have always been loved,
 long before you were named,
 long before you were even born,
long before overwhelm came to show you the way."

Jeff Foster

~ ~ ~

Photo: Dry leaves on paper and table
color inverted…

Make a Journey of Love...

Make your journey to be a journey of Love,

for all is Love…

Open daily to Love.
It is always there,
always available…

Make yourself available
to Love

Feel Love’s Presence
carrying you…

Each day step into
the channel
of Love’s call…

It is time to see things new -
through innocence and Love…
Despite the pains and frustrations,
wounds and traumas
that are emerging
through the physical body
and collective body.

Embrace it all in Innocence…

This is the lesson:

To see Love in everything.
It is the Divine Truth of all things…

The deep change you need comes through/from
the confluence of Love within you…
Pay attention to its flow,
its music,
its message:

There is nothing but Love.

It is your destiny to BE Love

from which you came
and which you are…

It is your Truth and your Substance…

Let the seeds of Love grow within you
to blossom and flower into its fullness.

It is already there in your Heart -
in the core of your Being.

~*~

This is the same Amaryllis plant from my previous post.
The light from the sun showing through the petals
gives it this yellow tinge and glow.  It also
actually had little sparkles on the petals
which I couldn’t capture with my camera…

The Amaryllis plant is a symbol for many things
one of which is opening to the infinite expansiveness of Love

giving the strength to dance intimately with Life
 and speak from the Heart
with clarity and compassion…

~*~

Verses under photos are from my
meditative writings
2004-2006

Transitions...

We are in the season of transition, both seasonally and personally.  My husband starts a new job on Monday, after 8 months of no work.  We are preparing for the adjustment to a new rhythm of life again, tentatively breathing a sigh of relief.  We’ve been through this several times in the last 10 years – these seemingly endless endings and beginnings, beginnings and endings - endless transitions, always “inbetween.”  We thought we’d be used to it by now, but each time it’s an adjustment after long periods of no work and the intensity of continuously trying to find work in a deteriorating economy – along with the antics of politics that take precedence over the “common wealth.” J But we won’t go there…

It was really sudden how it all unfolded – the job that is – not the decline of government. J  He received a phone call at 8pm on Thursday night from a recruiter for a company that had seen his resume and was interested in him - could he interview the next day...  There was literally no time to prepare!  He had a terrible head cold – but…   The interview was scheduled for Noon on Friday.  He was notified less than two hours later that he had gotten the job and would be starting on Monday! Wow!  Immediate transition!  We’re both still a little numb.

It is a 3 month contract-to-hire job.  We’re hoping for the “hire” part J…    This is how a lot of companies are employing their workers now - contract jobs through recruiters. That way they don’t have to provide healthcare or other benefits, or give a reason to let you go at the end of the contract period if it doesn’t work out for *them.*   Each time we go through this it is an adjustment – either beginning or ending – trying to find a new rhythm with life – and catching up financially…  There *is* no “retirement” on the horizon – only the continuous cycles of life being lived, season to season…  Cue Lion King music… J  Although this has been a “radical shift” in only a matter of days, B feels it will be a seamless flow ~ that we are always in the ongoing stream of new beginnings.  Just call him Rafiki – the wise monkey. J

And I too seamlessly transitioned this weekend into my 64^th season of life; the timeless, unborn Self moving through time.   The conceptual mind is relieved –  not that I'm 64 - about the job, yet still hoping it will go longer than 3 months.  The mind can get really preoccupied with uncertainty when in perceived “survival mode” J - challenging me to stay open to the larger Truth of Existence…  I told my husband several weeks ago, after so long without work, that the best birthday present would be for him to have a job by my birthday.  It was said off-handedly.  Talk about down to the wire!  I’m still gobsmacked that it all unfolded this way!   Maybe the Universe really does listen… J lol

So we press on into the unknown, cautiously embracing life that is turning once again, providing yet another new beginning and opportunities for expanded awareness of the Mystery of Being - knowing deep in our Being that all is infinitely well...

WooHoo! J