The Stories We Carry...

I wish to pack my stories away,
to leave them in an attic or basement
and continue on with life - unencumbered.
But the stories haunt me,
and the mind won't let go;
imprisoning me in the stories,
which are also other people's stories,
who have helped to create mine...

Such torture, these stories that we
create together - of pain, and fear and
betrayal - trying to navigate the narrow
road that led us here - and unwind it;
trying to untangle from each other's stories,
that have become such a burden to carry,
and let the other free to travel their
story alone...

Dec. 2, 2021

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Treading The Gate - Cate Kerr

Approach the gate as a pilgrim, a seeker,
wear sturdy boots for the craggy trail beyond.
Go cloaked and hooded against the wind,
blackthorn staff and lantern in your hand,
an abundance of candles in your pack
for the dusky nightfall hours ahead.

Bring the gifts and votive offerings for those who
dwell beyond the ancient threshold, bundles of sage,
clear water, kindling, earth and seaborn salt.
Bring flasks of tea, incense and bread,
tales and laughter to share around the fire
with those you meet along the way.

Travel light and make your journey by the moon,
taking the owls, true kindred, as your fierce
and tender companions.  Feel their soft breath
along your own wings, share in their dark
and watchful wisdom as you go.

Let the songs you sing as you are questing
be your own sweet music, and the stories
you spin by the fire in the nights ahead be the
narratives of your own wild and shining life,
this journey into an unknown land.

Listen to the night and be content, for you are not alone -
around you is a vast and singing throng.
The very stars are singing with you as you go.

Catherine Kerr
Beyond the Fields We Know

With thanks to Cate for her photo as well!

 

Nighttime is for "The Beloved" - Ivan Granger

The stories we tell ourselves are the stories of the Soul,
the way the self understands itself.  In dreams and stories
we reformulate our perception of the world, deepen it.  And
in doing so the psyche becomes more dynamic and alive to
its own possibilities.

Nighttime is when we normally sleep and dream.  Most people
imagine life shuts down at night, but a lover [of The Beloved]
knows better.  When the rest of the world rests, the lover [of
The Beloved] finds those sweet illicit moments with The Beloved.
Even if it's just a glimpse, a smile through the window's lattice,
that is what the lover lives for.  We light up, we catch fire 
in the night.

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

Note: "The Beloved" also refers to The Divine, The Sacred,
God, The Mystery - or however one calls it for themselves.

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Precipice - Fred LaMotte

The bold become themselves.  There is a point in meditation,
if it is true meditation, when you fall off the precipice of practice
into groundlessness...  You can no longer resist the subtle sorrow
in your flesh, that which the Buddha called Dukkha...

You've been carrying it for years, for centuries, the stuff made of
stories about a suffering 'me.'  It is buried deep in the rind of your
body, but neatly packaged in the sterile cellophane called 'spirituality.'

Now the time has come to let the wrapping go.  Be vulnerable to
yourself.  Allow your every distant ache, the brittle anguish of a
 trillion nerves, the  secrets of grief, the worms of rage, the clogging
 undigested waste of blame, this whole discomfort you are, to erupt
 in one magnificent purple blossom of pain, fragrant with the gift
 of tears. Let it flower from the subtle into the gross, gushing
 without name, and without distinction between good and bad,
beautiful or ugly.

It is just Dark Energy, percolating wordlessly out of your molecules,
yet pulsing with photons of fire and swirling suns.  It is holy
destruction and healing, cosmic in scale yet intimate with every
cell of your body.  It is the chaos of possibility.  It is the cleansing
smile of...No Secret Me Any More...
It is pure love, the stuff of your bones.

Be bold.  Let your edges dissolve.  There is no one else in all
the universe for you to become.

Fred LaMotte

Uradiance

No Greater Temple - Matt Licata

At times the visitor of melancholy will appear,
arriving from the night world, from the moon,
[the feeling world], not to harm, but to reveal.
A tenderness, a disappointment, a raw achy
uncertainty.  The guide has appeared but wasn't
quite what we thought.  Such is the way of the
heart.  As we are made into dust, the fire is tended.

While it may be tempting to replace the burning
with bliss, the sadhana of disappointment demands
that we listen, to the stories and feelings and whispers,
and longings, and place the shattered pieces on the
altar in front of us.

Even if we cannot love, accept, or transform what has
come, we can always bow.  What this bowing looks
like for each of us will never conform to other's
fantasies and ways; for the map is weaved deep into
our soul alone.

We can fall to the ground and bear empathic witness to
the broken wholeness, to the wisdom shining out of
the human heart, for there is no greater temple.

Matt Licata

Saying Hello to Life - Padraig O Tuama

Neither I nor the poets I love found the keys to the kingdom...
and we cannot force God to stumble over us where we sit.
But I know that it's a good idea to sit anyway.  So every morning I sit.
I kneel, waiting, making friends with the habit of listening, hoping
that I'm being listened to.  There, I greet God in my own disorder.
  I say hello to distraction and privilege, I greet the day and I greet
 my Beloved...I recognize and greet my burdens, my luck, my
 controlled and uncontrolled story.  I greet my untold stories,
 my unfolding story, my unloved body, my own love, my own body.
  I greet the things I think will happen and say hello to everything
 I do not know about the day.  I greet my own small world and
 I hope that I can meet the bigger world that day.  I greet my
 story and hope I can forget my story during the day,
 and hope I can hear some stories, and greet some
 surprising stories during the long day ahead.
I greet God, and I greet the God who is more God than
the God I greet. [The Mystery?]
Hello to you all, I say, as the sun rises above the chimneys
of North Belfast.

Hello...

Padraig O Tuama

is a poet and theologian
living in Northern Ireland

from an interview with
On Being

via: No Mind's Land

The Deepest Acceptance - Jeff Foster...

Excerpts from – The Deepest Acceptance:
 Radical Awakening in Ordinary Life
by Jeff Foster

"True freedom is found not through escaping the present experience, but by diving fearlessly into its hidden depths.  You must be willing to see *through* the idea of separation from life, in all its forms, in the midst of your present experience.  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 that pain 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 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 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 *now* - even if we believe we already woke up yesterday.  Life, in its infinite compassion. won’t let us rest on our laurels.  It’s about finding out who you *really* are, beyond who you *think* you are, beyond who you’ve been taught you are, beyond your story about who you are, beyond all your concepts and images of who you are.

 If we are to be truly free – 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 action flows naturally.

 True freedom has nothing to do with being a better wave in the Ocean, or perfecting our story of ourselves. Freedom is about waking up from the dream (illusion) that we are separate waves in the first place, and 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.”

~*~

Photo: I noticed the different patterns
in this sheer curtain from the play of light on it.
For me these patterns represent the
”fabric of life”, the weave of life,
in all its variations…

The Limitation of Thoughts and Stories...

This video came to me through the Non-Duality Highlights Newsletter.

This guy is good and funny!
 He humorously, through mime,
 demonstrates the nature of thoughts and stories
that limit our ability to live fully.
He's original and unique...

And sometimes hearing Truth
in a different way
helps one to see it more clearly...

Pardon the promotional at the end of the video.
It’s worth it! 

Tree Saga...

This week I am grieving the felling of an old Cottonwood tree, amongst other things. Let’s say, the felling of the tree allowed the grief that was already in my heart to spill out. Interesting how that happens. One thing, not related to other things, even though it’s all interconnected, can open the flood gates that have been in place for a long time.


I awoke Monday morning to the sound of chain saws buzzing. Upon arising and investigating it turned out that the tree men had come to cut down the neighbor’s huge, probably 80 foot high or more, Cottonwood tree some of whose branches overhung the corner of our property… The neighbor had mentioned cutting it down last year, but evidently it got a reprieve until now. I understand why he did it. Trees have an arc life, just like everything else. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end – just like humans, as well as moods and thoughts and the stories that we live by. But they also have a liability – trees and stories. :) And that’s what did this tree in; not because it was too old, or diseased, but because it had gotten so big in the corner of the property, that it was now a liability. Cottonwoods are known to prune themselves, with large, heavy branches falling off – killing whoever they fall on.

As one man climbed the tree and started cutting off the limbs, another man took turns standing on the top of our shed, crossing back and forth over the top of our 6 foot fence, and standing on the neighbor’s shed, to help in the process - some of the branches ending up in our yard; and a third man on the ground in the neighbor’s yard held the ropes to guide the large limbs down to the ground – as they swung like large pendulums. It was a dangerous endeavor, killing the tree. They had to call in the boss. Once the tree man was done dismantling as many limbs as he could, he cut the top 30 - 40 foot section off, like a mast off a ship, which when it landed, took up at least ½ of the neighbor’s backyard with its splayed branches. I could see everyone give a sigh of relief after it landed, whoosh, thud. It took up more space than they had anticipated – you could tell by the surprised look on their faces and the relief as they realized they had “lucked out” - not hitting anything or anyone on the way down.

Top of tree falling over...

I watched and took pictures from a second story window, from behind the shear curtains, trying not to be too obvious. Sleuth journalist that I am. My husband’s new name for me is snoop dog. :) I don’t miss a thing – well almost nothing. I missed the pictures at the beginning of the process because I was so worried about what might happen that I just stood in the kitchen window and watched for about an hour or so as limbs came down. The whole process made me nervous. And I didn’t like the fact that we had not been told by our neighbor that this would be taking place; that little tree fellers would be climbing over the fence, and onto our shed, and tree limbs falling down. Oh my… Run chicken little, run! My world was being invaded – or so the story went on Monday. They were just doing their job, I know – the tree men. But I like to know what to expect. As usual, life doesn’t work that way. :) Life isn’t given out in neatly wrapped packages with directions that say open this way and this will happen… There’s always something unexpected happening – But I’m not like Simba in the Lion King. I do not “laugh in the face of danger. Ha-Ha-Haaa….”

Once they got to where it was just the remaining trunk – about 30-40 feet high – which would have made a nice carved totem pole actually, they started cutting around the bottom of the tree, then cut a notch out of the base. I had stepped away from the window so I missed its actual fall, but when it hit there was a horrendous thud and the house and windows shook. It even left a big hole in the ground where one of the limb stumps must have hit. I went to the window and saw this:

And then they proceeded to cut the trunk up into circular pieces like this:

It was a 12 hour process… Needless to say I didn’t get a lot else done, being so preoccupied with what was going on next door. I am sad for the tree of course. It had no idea what was coming, or what hit it. Here and gone in less than 12 hours. And maybe it really didn’t matter to the tree. It was another form of living Consciousness, a collection of wave forms - being a tree. The form has been removed, but the Consciousness that inhabited that form lives on - endlessly. Maybe it’s only human beings with minds and feelings that create stories around these things, about whether a tree feels – I don’t know. That’s beyond my scope. But still I grieve. Now there’s just empty spaciousness where the tree and its branches used to be, as if there had never been anything there at all. I just happened to take a few pictures up through those branches on one of my twilight walks this winter. She’s the grey-brown one in the back.

Why it triggered a deluge of grief I don’t know. But it opened up a big hole in my heart that has been emptying out ever since. It seems it’s the “little things” that do that, that open us unexpectedly and allow us to feel our accumulated pain and the pain of other beings more acutely. Life is like that. We just never know when it’s going to hit… But feelings have an arc too – they wane and end, given enough time.

Good-bye Big Tree ~ ~ ~ ~ Thank you for your shade, and the leaves, that I no longer will have to rake up in the Fall. And thank you for being a perch to owls and birds; and a natural "jungle-gym" for squirrels; and the sound of the whispering wind through your leaves, making you talk. And thank you just for being here…

A "me" story Window

Once upon a time there was a “me”, and apparently there still is:) And this little “me” evidently still likes to run stories…

Sitting at the window the other night, the house next door was dark and quiet – thankfully. Eventually I saw lights come on, and one of the dogs was let out the back door, but not the other. I noticed that this was strange as they are usually let out together. The dog seemed anxious, turning and standing right back at the door, like he really didn’t want to be let out. He paced a little, never leaving the porch and kept returning to the door as if it would magically open. He seemed unsettled. I then became concerned because I thought that something might have happened to his companion. I sensed that the dog was afraid to be out alone – like separation anxiety… I know the feeling :)

I began to feel disturbed, unsettled and anxious myself *thinking* there must be something wrong at the house next door, because of this unusual activity – no lights all evening and now only one dog. I lingered a little longer at the window, to see if the dog would be let in, but all the lights went out and the dog was left on the porch. My heart sank. There are coyotes out there in the dark night! I know, because I hear them yipping and howling while window sitting. In fact this particular dog was bitten by one several years ago right in his backyard. My heart could not bear for him to be out all by himself, vulnerable and alone. Would someone please let me – ah, the dog – in!

The ”me” story was birthed. The me-mind took off, creating this incredible scenario that something had happened to his female companion. Maybe she got injured and was at the vets; maybe she was injured so badly that she had to be put to sleep; maybe she got into something and got sick… My mind went from story to story. There *must* be something “wrong” over there I conjectured. And on it went as I watched out the window. So much for sinking into the Stillness… The me-mind contracted around its story, believing it, which simultaneously led to a contraction in the body that followed the thoughts being generated. The opening of spacious Awareness contracted down - perspective and the wider view were lost as the “me” became preoccupied with the story…

I headed to bed, and expressed my concern to my husband, building my story, creating more contraction. This contraction of the “me” around its story became a visceral experience that led to unease and a sleepless night.

The next morning, when I got up, I still felt the contraction in my gut. I went to the window to see - and there she was! My story had been completely erroneous! I realized I had needlessly created a story based on my assumptions of what I *thought* was true… I had created a mind story out of my own beliefs and projections, from not seeing clearly. I clouded the window of Seeing with my own assumptions and interpretations…

And now for a little window washing…

~*~

Beneath Life's Stories...

My mother and I have had a difficult relationship over the years – two wounded hearts that could never really be open to each other. I keep an emotional distance. I have wished that it could be different. Is this the same as not accepting life as it is I wonder? I have wanted a loving, trusting relationship with my mother, while at the same time guarding myself from her - guarding my heart from further woundings - not wanting to reveal myself, or my Self for that matter. How easily the relationship between a mother and a daughter can contract into woundedness over and over again. And yet – I realize this is just a story.

In my story, I wonder if I have somehow misunderstood her; that somehow it was me that didn’t “get her” – rather than the other way around. I try to see what other people see in her – the kindness, the goodness, the self-sacrificing piety that people revere – even if I know it’s just a front for not feeling good about herself. What I continue to see, however, is the judgmental, critical, not good enough, bitter, nobody else can do it right kind of thinking, and the constant critical commenting about what she likes and doesn’t like about others. And of course people are never who she wants them to be – but these are my stories, my perceptions… It doesn’t hook me like it used to – and yet I remain cautious…

All these stories are bubbling up once again , spending so much time with my mother. I am caught on the story channel. And of course I *recognize* what is happening. I just can’t seem to see through it clearly...

I think to myself that I should be different with her, that I should be able to keep myself open to her, to see her differently, to see the Beingness that she is – to just rest in the Greater Context of Life *with* her, and let all these stories float through, unaffected by it all…

Friday I took my mother to the hairdresser for her weekly hair appointment. As my mother sat in the chair I could hear her gossiping – storytelling. While she was under the hairdryer a woman with her elderly mother came into the shop. The woman recognized my mother and in a *big show* of affection kissed my mother’s hand, as if she were the pope! As she gushed her southern drawl affection all over my mother, they engaged in small talk about the physical problems of their aging bodies. She then asked my mother: “How are you and your daughter getting along?” – not knowing that I was sitting right behind her! :) My mother and I looked at each other, and I laughed, as my mother smiled, pointed at me, and said: She’s right here… Oops –

The woman turned to me with a look of surprise on her face - and an oohhhh, hiiiii sheepish greeting. I just grinned and greeted her back. A few minutes later she got up and started to walk out. On the way by me, she said to me – “You take good care of this sweet woman” – like I was being told. Thank goodness she didn’t wag her finger at me as well. Gee, I thought that’s what I’ve been doing – despite whatever story you may have been told! Evidently my mother has told stories over the years that she’s not being taken care, at least not the way that *she* wants to be taken care of… I have not lived up to my mother’s expectations – but I knew that. I cannot live up to her stories of what she wants me to be. This makes relating difficult and awkward. And yet, that is just another story too. And maybe it’s been difficult for her not having the relationship she would like to have with her daughters.

Interestingly I was able to laugh off the little comment and never mention it to my mother. And even though I tell this story here, I did not feel the need to *engage* in the story, or create another story, or to feel hurt, or wounded by it. I notice that I am beginning to feel a sense of acceptance for the way things are with my mother. In fact I am now finding the stories of life amusing; how we create them and live by them, believing them. And how the mind loves to grab onto the stories, and keep telling them, getting lost again and again in “stories” that I continue to believe, knowing it’s all story!

And I know the “remedy” for getting caught in the stories that bubble up from the depths is to continuously come back to that sense of inner Presence, the spaciousness of Awareness that lies behind them. That is what’s underneath all these stories – the field of Awareness that just IS. When I consciously drop beneath the stories of life, there is only a sense of calm, peace and stillness. Underneath the stories *about* what is happening there is only Life unfolding in this greater context of Awareness – evidently in a series of stories strung together and believed to be real. The challenge, it seems, is to *accept* the way life unfolds without creating a storyboard of scenarios, assumptions, conclusions, judgments and interpretations about what’s happening; without creating an *image* of life in my mind. And so I am beginning to peak through those story bubbles, *seeing* Life from underneath life’s stories.

~*~

The Remember Rock...

Rumi wrote a poem that says we should open the door to whatever “visitor” knocks, as it has been sent as messenger… Well, okay, drama keeps knocking at my door, so maybe I’m not getting the message here. I really feel like I *need* to shut the door on all this drama, to not get entangled in it, to not let it drag me down, to drain me – and it is terribly draining, emotionally and physically. And as I mentioned in a previous blog post about this, it is very addictive. The mind just loves it! And so I am guilty in this latest drama of indulging in the mind-loop of stories *about* this drama and the people in it, of telling myself all the different scenarios about what we can do about it, and what the reactions might be - drowning in the sweet, poisonous drivel of drama – intoxicating myself.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to step out into our backyard for a few minutes. It seems like it’s been ages since I’ve actually spent time there. I’ve been on the inside looking out. (Or is that on the outside looking in. :) There has been one drama crisis after another since February, so I have been a little preoccupied. But when I stepped out into the cool rainy morning with a thin layer of new fallen snow on the grass (Yes, northerners, we are still getting snow here in the “southwest” Yippie!) I was intoxicated by the experience. I automatically took in the peace with a deep breath. The smell of moisture in the crisp, cool Spring air with lilacs in bloom and little pale green leaves on the trees barely making their appearance, the grass greener than ever with this wet Spring, and a soft mantel of white on top of everything for accent tugged at my Heart to come play. Nature inhaled me. And I thought, boy, just look what I’ve been missing out here caught up in all these dramas: Missed moments being in the moment of each drama.

Life has been kind of like going to a restaurant everyday and ordering different dishes but no matter what meal is on the menu, there is the goopy syrup of drama layered over it. And maybe that’s just the way life is – dribbles of drama all over everything that I keep trying to push out of the way with my fork. It just doesn’t work. We don’t always get to pick and choose the storyline of the drama because the storylines are entangled and enmeshed with other storylines – in one big gooey mess.

I went out to the back yard to take a picture of this little lighthouse under the Spruce tree and Lilac bush. It has a small natural garden stone next to it that says: “Remember” - the Remember rock. We placed it there when our cat died last August. But today it had a broader meaning.

Drama has a way of entangling me *with* another in an emotional hook up. And I feel like I’m walking a path of entanglement on so many levels these days, with so many people! I’ve danced this dance so many times you’d think I would know better, would remember the music. But drama makes you forget the *inner* music, and each new drama brings a little different tune and I get carried away by the music. As I bent over to adjust the “Remember rock” I disturbed a bird that was nesting in the tree and heard it flutter its wings past my head, as if to warn me I was too close. I apologized for disturbing its nesting place as it winged its way by, stepped away and turned back toward the house. But with just that one flutter of a bird I felt just a tad bit closer to what is really real, to the essence of Life and living – the space where there is no drama. Such peace is tangible.

Being out under the Lilac bush I began to remember that there really is a space where there is no dramas, no stories, no entanglements. I’ve been missing that space, not experiencing it! And I want it back! I want to remember (for the umpteenth time) who I really am underneath all the drama and stories and entanglements – underneath the rock – the simplicity of untethered and unfettered Being dancing to the inner music. I do miss her. She disappears often and I have to go looking for her – under rocks.

After I went inside, I looked back out the window. And with that turn came the realization that Nature is just always there, of course, right there waiting in stillness - just living, breathing, growing, flying, being, untouched by all the dramas that swirl through it – inviting me to participate.

So I’m going to peak underneath the Remember rock more often and spend more time in Nature, reconnecting with the inner music, drinking in the Essence of Life. I cant’ get rid of the drama that unfolds in my life or others, as drama is just part of living. But I no longer wish to open the door every time. Maybe it can just whisper its message through the door.

Knock-knock – who’s there… Remember…

~*~

Steeping On Stories

Gather round ladies. It's story time... Waiter, could we get a Zen tea, an Advaita straight-up, and I think I'll have a Mystic Mocha shake... And if the guy over in the shadow box would like to join us that's fine too...

Today I spent the day with my mother... I will spare you the details of my relationship with my mother, only to say that our "story" together still hooks me. It is a challenging and often frustrating relationship. I think at least one of you out there can identify with that :) And the older my mother gets (she's 81) the more she seems to be steeped in her stories. Conversations with her now have become one story after another (and often repeated) of how she has been victimized, of how she thinks people are out to get her, how others are not doing things right - translated, not her way. The me vs them stories, and other assorted tales which always seem to be a criticism of others. My mother is not the reflective type, so there has not been much awareness around all this. And I find I am getting irritated with her stories and storytelling of victimization and martyrdom. And this takes me to where I really want to go, which is that *I* am still caught in my stories. And so I’ve been steeping on this lately.

Most of the spiritual teachers say that when we "wake up" to who we really are, the stories dissolve, and we no longer *participate* in the story. That has not been *exactly* my experience. I know who "I" am - the pure Knowing Awake Aware Spaciousness, some call Presence, Beingness, etc. There has been some dissolution of old stories, but there are still stories - which my husband does a real good job of pointing out to me, by the way. I guess that's what husbands are good at - story detectors - probably because they do such a good job of telling them too! :)

On August 1 I wrote in my journal:

"I realize that I am still creating stories! And I realize how I get caught up in other's stories too... It's still about a "me" when I *know* it is not about me... hmmm. A story is about a "me" needing, wanting, grasping after something and not getting it and telling a story about that. It's a "me" and an "other" who is preventing the "me" from getting what it *thinks* it deserves - whether it's material possessions, validation, approval, acceptance, gratification, a relationship, etc. It's still the "me" seeking for something as proof of its existence, even if the story is about me achieving enlightenment. There has to be a *belief* in a separate self, a me, in order for a story to be told, to be believed, in order to be impacted or effected *by* "others, or events or circumstances." oooo - now we're cooking.

It seems we connect through our stories. In my family it's complaining *about* others and life. We've done it as a way of connecting with each other for years.

"So what happens," I pondered in my journal, "when I don't engage in another's story - or my own? The story dissolves, loses its power, impact, becomes a non-issue. AND - there is the risk that the relationship will dissolve as well. That there won't be anything to talk about - no connection." And maybe that's why it's hard letting go of story, because we use story to connect to others, to get a sense of self in relationship. So what if, there were no stories - where would we meet? How would we relate? Can we meet without our stories...?

A new insight also emerged in this steeping... "It seems it's really all just a story, no matter which one we're *believing* or telling - mundane or 'spiritual.' Once the 'Storyteller' wakes up, you realize it's all just a story. And it appears that the dream story continues. The only difference, it seems, is that you *know* it is just a story arising *in* Awareness. From the space of Pure Seeing - one *sees* the story for what it is - Awareness experiencing Itself *as* the story..."

One of my favorite teachers, Scott Kiloby, says: "Stories are not independent of Awareness, but you no longer *identify* with the story. Awareness *appears as* story. We can entertain the story without identifying with it."

And a blog I read recently, called Just Rest, put it this way: "It is a myth to believe that stories will no longer coalesce. It is just that as it is seen that these stories have no existence independent of Awareness, there is less and less identification with any of them, and a greater experience of Spaciousness.... Practice resting in that which is aware of it all."

My experience is that when I am resting in that space of Aware Presence there are still stories, but they don't matter anymore. I'm not *invested* in them, reacting to them, believing in them. And when I find myself hooked *in* a story again, it's like being consciously unconscious. Sounds strange I know. It's like being *in* the story, but aware that I'm in a story. Very interesting experience by the way :)

And so I wonder, can I meet others in that space of Pure Awareness, the place of no-story, no me, just Awareness, just Life expressing Itself, purely and simply without the need for a story of "me"? Or does it matter? Does that also mean no reading the tea leaves, no cock-tales or messy mystic meanderings?!

Heart Smiles - MeANderi

www.ASerenitySanctuary.com