Day 7

(The brilliant artist Sean Higgins graciously allowed me to use this image, Intervention, 2008) for my book cover. It is beautiful and I have loved it since the day I met it.)

Day 7 – It feels so good to do something I was afraid of, moving through it to the other side. I think of the idea that there is no trying, just doing or not doing.

Where does procrastination or inaction come from? Maybe it comes from thinking you can’t or you’ll be judged or feel embarrassed or look stupid while going for it. Maybe you think you weren’t meant for big things or that you’re on some level unlovable or that you’re unworthy of anything more than unhappiness.

I had to meditate on fact that worthiness is not a mutable condition, but a natural expression that comes from and belongs to the timeless wisdom of the universe. What the hell does that mean? It means, my weird and fallible self is the same as a tree. You would never look at a flower and say, that flower is doing a shitty job of being a flower. You would never think that a tree has too many pine needles.

The first poem in my book, Elemental Perceptions: A Panorama, I think, was an effort to tell myself (and my readers) this. Here’s the poem:

This is How a Prism Works

The light enters the glass, bending and refracting it, breaking it up into its constituent colors. The tower separates the color from the light. She said, believe me that you’re a beautiful human being. Think of your insides like a grand spectrum, a forgivable animal, teasing and mortal. The big mirror splintered, then came the din, bearing the cosmos and urging you. You are a body, but try watching your mind think, listen to the maundering; it traces the pacific coast. You can mesmerize all that daunting blue. And when the light breaks, try to appreciate the view.

What else am I saying here besides you are a “forgivable animal”? I’m saying, observe your mind work, watch it think, without (for a moment) doing the thinking itself. I often wonder what the hell spiritual teachers mean when they say, “lead with your heart,” but I think it means let go of trying to control everything and let your controlling mind go. Give the figuring out a break.

One of my favorite reminders from Wayne Dyer: “Stop trying to control and let your life unfold.”

This doesn’t mean you should stop working or doing or reaching for your goals. You should put everything you have into them. But that means being present and putting everything you have in the moment into those actions and that energy.

I haven’t talked much about what happened when I started listening and paying attention to life, but doing so turned out to be the catalyst for my decision to move  abroad. When I stopped trying to control everything, I was overwhelmed with a flood of signs. Actually, a biblical-size deluge.

Here’s one example. I live next-door to a residential care facility. They have a new patient who moved in maybe 6 months ago. She is the bane of my existence. And I feel bad about it.She screams, with the pitch and urgency of someone being murdered, with a rancor so shrill and unbearable that I often want to murder her myself. She is severely disabled, so I feel like an asshole and remind myself to be compassionate. She’s most often heard screaming, “Get outta here” for hours on end. It sometimes starts at 5am, right when I happen to be meditating. It’s always the same. I hear her, I get frustrated and angry, then I tell myself that I’m jerk and that this is my daily lesson in patience.

When the idea that I wanted to move popped in my head, I was kind of frozen for two days, unable to decide if I was going to take this urge seriously. I spent many morning meditations trying to open myself up to the wisdom of the universe and shoot for a little distance from my thinking mind. I was trying to lead with my heart. Then, the lady next door starts screaming. It hits me what she is actually saying, she’s saying “get out of here” and suddenly I feel like she’s talking to me. I start smiling wildly because it’s like a riddle I just figured out. I need to get out of here! I need to move to Germany!

I want to leave you with an excellent quote from Kafka. It might seem contradictory because the first line is “You do not have to leave this room,” but the essence is that the world will offer itself to you if you are still enough to watch and listen to it.

“You do not have to leave the room. Remain standing at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait. Be quite still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked.It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”  -Franz Kafka