Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Magical Times

I remember when I was young, people would say to me, "you shoulda been born in the sixties.."
(Usually people who had been born in the sixties.)
I'd say, "screw that, they failed."
I was more judgmental then.

They didn't fail. They just did stage one. I also always had natural and adventurous inclinations to have been born in other times, like everyone does, for an escape like heroine;

I wish 
that I was born a thousand years ago
I wish 
that I'd sailed the darkened seas
On a great big clipper ship
Going from this land here to that
On a sailor's suit and cap...

But the thought was never heroine to me, I always ultimately felt like: "I'm glad I'm here now, this is the time."
THIS IS THE TIME. This is it. We who are living have been born in magical times, and I am grateful to be able to take part in it all. 
I realize, as I write that sentence - that's all I ever wanted. All the strange moving around, getting outta relationships, going back to school, taking crazy risks - all I've ever wanted is to take part in what's really going on, in what I see as a turning point in human history, even if it's just one of many, that happens every day. But I think it's more than that. 
I think we live in magical times.

I think we have a chance to complete stage two of the Revolution, it's evolution. My astrologer friends say that some alignment that last happened in the early sixties is happening again, hmm...        I googled it, this is what I found:
".. based on this highly unusual event of Uranus square Pluto, 2012 itself seems to be a beginning rather than an ending -- a time when we will finally see something vaguely equivalent of power to the people."   Ok.
And although the universe is magnifying it's magic these days (the other day in the morning I said to myself, "gotta get some coconut oil," and that afternoon I walked into the health food store and a friend behind the counter lifted her backpack, pulled out some coconut oil, and said - "do you want this?"), we still have to make the effort.

I see these kind of things all the time, and I see it as like blackjack - if you can walk up to a table anytime with $25 and walk away with $75, why can't you do it with $25,000?
 
It's only you (or me) that's holding me (or you) back... 

March is the root of Spring, as I said, when Nature comes to life. This is the March of 2012 - we only get one. This is a magical time. Let's dream big, and ask for the stars, and then go out to work to make it so...

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Be natural, be yourself..

..follow your dreams.

Such a simple recipe. I've talked a lot lately about being good, in a pretty 'goody-two-shoes' kinda way. And while that's good, it's not the whole story.

I was at two talks with Dr. Daniel Pauley over the weekend, he's an internationally renowned fisheries scientist. And an awesome, brilliant guy. The talk was about global fisheries and climate change. As the climate warms - the ocean acidifies. We are over-fishing. We are not doing anything about climate change. = DOOM! But he also said we have the knowledge to fix everything, we have the reasons why, but we're still locked in debate over "whether or not.."

The lively discussion with the crowd eventually came to the point that we don't need more science, what we need is social and political action. People need to get active, to "raise hell," as he said.

I wonder if - if we just act natural - what we'll do. What we would do. A scientific approach would say we'd act as any self-interested animals in a social milieu would. That some people would act this way and some that. Hm.

At the first talk he also said, "we don't make change as consumers, we make change as citizens." At the second it was a panel and people hammered on 'making choices with your wallet.' I just don't buy it, no pun intended. We make the rules. Right now - we're letting the wrong people set the agenda, and then we're arguing about the points. Why let others make it so everything is shaped by the 'market'? There are so many other ways..

It's the Bhagwan's edict; to just be yourself, that meditation will bring you to that. And it will. But anything will.  We can just choose to be ourselves. I think what keeps most people from political and social activism is fear. Fear eats the soul, after all. Action in the world - is inherently spiritual. Can you think of anyone more spiritual in our age than Ghandi or Martin Luther King?

Take away fear, and any talk about a pipeline through northern BC is moot. Fear wants it, fear of lack, and fear is all that could possibly keep us from stopping it. But still, that's letting them set the agenda. Once we subtract fear, aren't we going to start setting the agenda? It's only natural...

I think the common perception is that people are active out of some 'good' urge - whether to be good or to be seen that way. Instead I think people do it because it's a natural expression of the life force. Being inactive in unnatural, a product of fear. I mean politically and socially. It's part of being alive.

Where could you be more alive? Where could I?

A friend said it to me years ago - "be yourself, just be natural, follow your dreams." I saw the other night, looking at the audience full of people who were angry, passionate, bright, alive - full of the flame of life, and yet they go out in the world and don't do it - because they're afraid, afraid of what their Mom will say, or their wife, or their boss, afraid of what people will think, afraid of being labelled, a troublemaker, a gadfly, "a radical."

It is the simplest and best recipe for life, because it favours life itself → be yourself.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

falling stars

I'm re-starting this entry. I stopped writing because it became too unwieldy. I've re-entered because I like it too much to give up on.
It started:

"As I got on the ferry I thought, "I wonder if I'll see some dolphins, or maybe whales.." However, the sailing before ours was cancelled due to rough seas, and a half hour before I had said to myself - that's crazy, "what kind of sea mammal would be out in these open seas?"

I had already started drafting this entry in the cafe as I waited, but was unsure what it was about. I was literally in the middle of writing this sentence in my journal: the predictable repetition, when I was interrupted by the woman in front of me saying, "look - dolphins!" The end of the sentence was intended to be: of extraordinary events. And so I wrote, after the kerfuffle. Albiet with a little more reverence.

There were five or six of them. I wrote in Return of the Errand Knight (Travels in a luminous world) about how everything has it's own inner shining light. I will add in this entry - there is a hidden order to everything. Everything is miraculous.

" ...and there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly."

They were parallel to the ship and as soon as she said it they turned and came in straight towards us, then turned again and followed for a bit. The guy beside me said they were actually porpoises. They were very cute. The porpoise-spotting-woman and the guy started talking, and discovered they knew the same black guy in Malaysia, just for the Universe to show off a little more about weird connections. The guy and his girlfriend had just gotten back from Asia, and we started chatting too. We hit it off and ended up exchanging contact info.

I was looking for a word for this phenomenon; dejasynchronicity?

Not that creative...

On Sunday the 11th of March I saw a golden eagle fly over on the Sunshine Coast. I had kind of been wondering if the world would cough up an absolutely unlikely coincidence, but knew I'd be in an office in downtown Vancouver all day (I ramble on about this in my entry of last year at this time, March 13th: Finding a place to happen (http://errandknight.blogspot.com/2011/03/march-13th-finding-place-to-happen.html)). It was about seeing a golden eagle just south of Vancouver on March 13th, 2011, and that the first one I ever saw was on March 13, 2005, in Halifax. I couldn't help but wonder this year, "will I see one again, is it possible - to have an extraordinary event be regular, and repetitive, and predictable?"

The Universe has clearly answered, Yes, yes it is.

What is point of this experience and why am I bragging about all my crazy animal sightings? What is the shareable experience here? I was writing and thinking about it when the joyful porpoises in a storm showed up.

The full moon last week had a double rainbow around it. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen, beautiful, like rings of northern lights around the moon. A friend, who I thought was kind of conservative, said on fb, "well yeah, it's 2012." Hm. I'm just going to repeat my journal from that ferry ride:

Treat everyone, everything - with absolute love. I keep hearkening back to those words from Power vs. Force - as his instructions of what you can do today, in your life - to bring your consciousness up as quickly as possible.
And so I believe.
 to play without stopping or pause
                   without thinking
  or abandoning thought
Every moment that I manage to pull myself out of, "I'm running late," or "can I pay my rent this month," or "how do I solve problem x?" I lift my head and see that acting with love, gentleness, kindness, honesty - to all things - is the only way. And every time I lift my head, I seem to see some magical thing - a golden eagle, snowy owl, iridescent double-rainbow-moon, or surprise trampoline. The world is a world fundamentally composed of wonders, and we strive to only notice, set up our lives to only see - the mundane.


Knight on errand. That was a search term that brought someone here recently. We are all that. We are all alive, in a terribly dangerous, utterly hilarious reality of absolute seriousness. I've been having experiences of wonders lining up repeatedly to help me see that wonders are the norm; the birth of a child, death and where our life goes, green grass.. we should all walk around with our jaw agape every day, and be no more surprised when we see a dragon escort an immortal elf princess to the moon. One is not more extraordinary than the other.

We walk in magic, in wind from the Universe, pelted by falling gold, stars, and wonders from heaven. We just have to put our umbrella down and open our eyes.

Each mind fabricates itself.
We sense its limits, for we have made them.
And just when we would flee them, you come
and make of yourself an offering.

I don't want to think a place for you.
Speak to me from everywhere.
Your Gospel can be comprehended
without looking for its source.

When I go toward you
it is with my whole life.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

full moon riffles

It's not really a full moon yet, but close enough. Here on the beach you grab any night within four days that is clear, and call it 'full moon' - because you may not see it till it's waning.

I went out to see a little band at humanity tonight, they were small and awesome. Reminding me how uptight our culture is - that no-one felt like they could get up and dance, least of all me. And I have a low bar for such things. But it's changing. Dammit! Everything's changing.

I came home and it was clear, so I walked on the beach. The moonlight was so bright I could see little patches of sea-foam at my feet, floating in inches of water, in sepia tones. They were as scared and yet determined to make good on.. finding joy in the moment and really spattering your blood against the wall - finding 'meaning in chaos,' as I am.

I've seen it a million times before, well.. 10 anyway, - little riffles, but never saw them in this particular light (it's a virgo full moon - my sign!). Water flowing up the beach, and water flowing down. With a ridge standing still in the middle. It looks like the water's standing still. My life's like that right now. There are tides flowing in, and tides flowing out. Today looks the same as tomorrow. It's similar to what the otters were saying in a dream I wrote about where your will, and acting on that, transforms you.

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.


"All things are in a state of silent rejoicing that their consciousness is an experience of Divinity."

The words that came to mind, under that moon, are; 'let it be.' My path is that riffle, where one stage of life is flowing out, and another in. It is unapparent. Like I said in the last entry - when all you do is pursue your goals - you can only get what you can imagine.

I'd rather walk under moonlight at night, and stare at the ocean's fingertips.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Addendum

the dream-song is loud and clear
it follows us everywhere,
I don't know where I'm going
My dreams are following me.

A friend, ok - my boss - said to me yesterday, "the whole world is trying to help you succeed, wants you to succeed."

I know.

Some dreams you have to work for, intention, others - hunt you. If all we had was "the Secret" - that you can make your dreams come true - there'd be no surprise trampolines. Sometimes, for our dreams to come true - we just have to stop resisting.

MLK said, "I have a dream." I'll add to that, "a dream has us."

Never thought of possession, when all this was mine.

March and the Human Spring


March: come sin like a lion, go out like a lamb. March is a month of action; behind the scenes.

March. I mumbled about it in the last entry. This entry is a continuation of the last. March, the time of the Phoenix. When the world is still cold and grey. Back east, where I come from, March is sort of the shittiest month, or starts that way. Still cold and wintery, but more slushy and icey than any other, more likely to have crap storms that freeze into ice on everything.

If you go out in the woods in March, and just stand there, quiet for while, listening, but not listening - you will hear it. Running under everything - water, life. Up the insides of trees, who look dead and frozen, from their roots deep down below. For those who see with their hearts, with that thing that tells geese which way is north, March is gorgeous.

March represents to me, and every March reminds me of - the magic of forces unseen, the ever-rising tide of life, the wonderful things that are coming towards us, even when we most doubt. It is when the world is about to deliver to us the most amazing wonders, our soon-to-be-realized shared dreams: flowers, new green leaves, love, thunderbirds, even surprise trampolines, both real and metaphorical ... (http://errandknight.blogspot.com/2011/08/surprise-trampolines-and-endless-stars.html). March is the dawn of the year.

I saw a Thunderbird, I've mentioned before (last March)-  a giant golden eagle, in Halifax, in March 2005. It's silence and presence screamed at me, "WAKE UP!" I started to change my life..

A friend asked me tonight what my blog was about, I keep it so quiet amongst people I know, particularly where I live. I said, "it started off as a travel blog, but it's pretty much about.. living an authentic life."

In March you can feel most strongly, I think, the beautiful force behind everything. Life is a journey. And we're all taking it together. This March is particularly special, because the tide is rising in us. Maybe humanity will wake up. Who knows what wonders the future holds...


Like the "Arab Spring" of 2011, I feel like this year is, or may be if we choose - the "Human Spring." It reminds me of a favorite Edgar Cayce quote, "For there is set before thee good and evil, life and death; choose thou." Choose.

A friend sent me an article about a Mayan elder, debunking the "end of the World". He says it's the beginning, but that it will take action to manifest:

"The greatest wisdom is in simplicity. Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It's not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It's encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you. ... Find your heart, and you will find your way."

"Here is no time for games. The spiritual ideal of this era is action. Meditation and spiritual practice are good, but also action. It's very important to be clear about who you are, and also about your relation to the Earth.


He says we need to put our selves aside and think of unity. He says also we must accept the light and the dark. Indeed. Fight back. We 'do-gooders' are afraid to sin. When a lion attacks - fight back. It's not a sin. When you leave the ring - go out like a lamb.

And I think he's right - like geese flying north - all we need to know is within. I think that's why I'm particularly excited this March, about life and the world - everything's changing. If we can put our egos and judgements aside and follow the Thunderbird migrating north, to the high mountain peaks, Shambhala... may be within our grasp.