Currie's Gratitude 31 July 2012

Accepting & Allowing Ó2012 Currie Silver

These are the paths

To the sort of peace

That is NOT a place

But a way of BEing.

Sometimes I amuse myself by stepping back, sitting on the “sidelines” of my Life, and watching ME in action. It’s usually quite funny, yet rather than laughing at my own expense, I have recently been watching more like ET, observing this strange and curious Life form that is Currie.

I’ve noticed an inner dialogue that I have been aware of since my mid-20’s. It’s changed over time, significantly, and yet it is still worn in and deeply grooved. It is how I REACT and where my thoughtsandfeelings default.

Oftentimes when I speak [or write] of “talking myself in off the ledge” it is this REACTION place that the “ledge” refers to. It is somewhere I go, but it is NOT [at least NOT anymore] where I live. I keep thinking that one of these days I won’t find myself there again, that I will have the good sense to keep my feet on terra firma…

This is where I see Accepting & Allowing at play in Me. I allow myself to go where I go and DO what I DO. I let myself LIVE. And I accept the “ledge” times, when I’m there.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 30 July 2012

Make A Difference Ó2012 Currie Silver

A simple intention

Easily done

Go into your day

And share yourself

That’s where your difference lives.

These past couple of days I’ve found myself diving a bit deeper than my “tank” is calibrated for. It’s been a push, simple things taking more effort, a bit of swimming up the waterfall. It’s definitely NOT somewhere I like spending oodles of time, yet I welcome the challenge.

I’m measuring progress, comparing what I have done against what I’d expected of myself this year. All that is clear is that I’ve fallen short, in many ways FAR short.

On the other hand…

Who’s to say that short of my expectations is worthless?! NOT really my call. Or NOT ONLY mine.

The things I’m noticing are similarities. Every Gratitude and blog post I read holds something for me to compare to my internal scaffolding. Though I’m NOT comparing to deem BETTER or WORSE, just to compare like a reality check, it’s confusing. I’m confused.

I’m clearly a product of the times in which I’ve mostly lived. I think there’s only so much room at the “top.” I still BElieve in “finders keepers losers weepers.” And, whenever I think about what I want to DO or BE, I just see my inadequacies. Where I fall short…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 July 2012

Balance Comes When… Ó2012 Currie Silver

Balance Comes When…

It comes

I choose

It chooses ME.

Balance is a thing, neither good nor bad, just a thing. Even if it is “achieved” it canNOT BE contained. It is a fleeting experience and an inner knowing, yet Life never slows down enough that Balance can BE pointed to or held onto.

And, while a “thing” and NOT a destination, Balance can BE had, felt, chosen, and, yes, even kept. [In its own way.]

The lines I’ve been using the past week or so are from something I wrote back in early 2011. It has a lot of good stuff, things I can work with, but it is very limited. Conditional. Dependent upon much that I no longer hold in the same way I did then.

That’s sort of how Balance is. When I feel “in balance” I have to “lose it” to really notice it, certainly to acknowledge it. I had been living my Life, well into last year, with a LOT of conditions. If…Then… When…Then I CAN… It is no wonder I was feeling so scattered to the winds and spinning out on a regular basis, for seemingly no “real” reason.

I am grateful to have known Balance. Briefly. Fleetingly even. Now, at least, I understand its edges.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 July 2012

Knowing All Is Well Ó2012 Currie Silver

Even if it all seems a HUGE MESS

And I am feeling swept away in its wake

I trust that All Is Well

Sometimes just “well enough”

And keep rolling on through…

I’ve heard it said and read it, too, enough to know that no matter how discombobulated and strange, Life is unfolding exactly as it is meant to. Lately I have been listening to and watching a lot of TEDTalks http://www.ted.com/ and it has had the effect of expanding my mind. Even my heart.

Sometimes, and I know this is true for me, and for many of my generation, it feels like things are “all out of hand”, that these “kids” running the World have got it all “wrong” and on it goes… But the funny thing is that “these kids” are OUR KIDS. We aren’t standing on some imaginary sidelines. We are actually RESPONSIBLE. We encouraged them, handed them the World as we had shaped and shifted it, and in greater or lesser degrees gave it to them for safekeeping.

This is NOT my original thought. Which is why I point to TEDTalks. Sometimes it is exactly the right thing to stand in my own confusion and let Life find its way to move the fog from around me…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 July 2012

BEgin Where I AM.Ó2012 Currie Silver 

Mazes create panic and hurry

Labyrinths allow pause and gentleness

And Life can BE both

Sometimes.

I don’t know anything that I have more trouble remembering than BEginning Where I AM. I haven’t ever really grasped it straightaway. Yet…

MayBE someday.

However, I DO recall this Way, eventually. Sometimes sooner than later.

I had something just STOP working yesterday. I was sure I could make it start up again. I tried things that made sense and then dug out the booklet. I read about my problem. Oh, call Service Centre for help it said. So I flipped through the rest of the booklet but guess what?! No number or even information about any Service Centre. I couldn’t even find the manufacturer. This booklet clearly had been relegated to the sidelines at the outset, though it’s funny how I didn’t note anything on it.

Well, sort of.

MayBE this is an inside-out and upside-down version of BEgin Where I AM. When I set this thing up I thought I had it. Easy. Simple. Straightforward. No thoughts of needing “service.”

So, Now my task is to BEgin Where I AM. I have no choice. No one to contact. No idea HOW to fix this even though I think I know what is wrong…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 July 2012

Dream in Possibilities Ó2012 Currie Silver 

Who is to say?

Really?!

Dream Boldly!

Dream!!

Possibility must first BE dreamt.

I was sifting and sorting and actually tossing away a bunch of scraps and bits from the past couple of months’ paintings. A few that I especially loved [no explaining, I just DO] I set aside. Then I gave myself the time and space to just put them together, to “make a mess” and “see what happens.” The above is one such “what happened.”

As I’ve grown accustomed to DOing, I scanned the 4 collages I made. Then this one [and another its same size and thickness] went to the Land of the Punch. [the other two are too thick and could only BE cut, yet with Very Interesting Results] It was fun to take the circles and the “what’s leftover” circles and arrange them on some black cardstock strips, also leftover.

When I got up this morning, there they all were, my scraps turned into possibilities. Immediately I was drawn to move them about, to see what would happen if…

Perhaps this silly and seemingly small story only shows someone a bit too obsessed with nonsense. However, as the teller and the one who dreamt it all up in the first place, I am utterly and completely deLIGHTed!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 July 2012

Discover The Wonders Within You Ó2012 Currie Silver 

Discover

That is all you need DO

Turn things over

Gently poke about and explore

The Wonders are there. Yes. They ARE.

I often think that what I write can seem arrogant and superior. I seem to over-use words like Wonder and Amazing. I seem to BE a bit ultra-positive. Like Pollyanna on steroids.

On the other hand…

Having been very Eeyore-ish for a Very Too Long Time, I suppose this is just what happens when I turn toward Hope and make it my habit to look with Gratitude.

These are the thoughts that woke me about 2 this morning. Shook me wide awake from a deep sleep. I was pointing and jeering and calling myself names. I was NOT BEing kind. I was saying things to ME that I wouldn’t even THINK TO SAY to you. How is it that I let myself DO this unloving unkindness to ME when I know its capacity to DO damage?!

I am grateful for those who write and share their inner workings and wee hours of morning epiphanies. For their Courage to stand in the Light where I can SEE their un-wondrousness, or at least what they CALL whatever it is.

I am deeply grateful that Life isn’t just all about ME.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 July 2012

Make Each Morning An Adventure Ó2012 Currie Silver

Make it matter

Make it count

Make it clear

If only to yourself

That Life, YOUR LIFE

Is YOUR glorious Adventure.

When I wrote this, I was picking out one part of something I wrote over a year ago, at a time when I was trying to nail down the breeze that seemed to flow through my Life, leaving me standing taller and stronger. Sometimes that’s the only way I learn anything, live it in reverse and see where I got it “right.”

When I woke at 3:45 today, I went back to bed and visualised, something I’ve been making an effort to DO for a few minutes each day. It’s amazing how well it works for adjusting the bent of my thinking generally.

Once again, as happened just yesterday when I writing my weekly post for, A Year With Myself & Other Characters, I saw right in front of me, clear as anything, something I’d completely let fall through the cracks of memory and Life rolling onward.

While this revisitation to a time on BEyond terrifying in my Life seems to make NO SENSE, I am clear that it is clearing the fog that I have let envelope me over the past couple of decades.

A glorious Adventure indeed!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 July 2012

It’s Always Right Now Ó2012 Currie Silver

Easy to fool

Tending to forget

Sometimes…

That Now, Right Now is

All Anyone EVER REALLY Has

Including ME.

I don’t know this to BE true for anyone else, but I surely have spent a gigunda chunk of Life rewriting the past and scripting a future that has no basis in reality. I’m just saying…

I am grateful, though, that I really KNOW this to BE true. Right Now is ALWAYS “it” for Me. And even many Right Nows well-lived does NOT guarantee anything nor does it change what has been.

Sorry, sort of gloomy for a Monday morning…

So, moving on. Today is my 3-year anniversary of living in Florida. Sure am glad it is Right Now and NOT Back Then when I was so exhausted, felt so uprooted, and had so much Crazy living in BEtween my ears.

Today is also my second full week of Summer Holiday. When I medically retired I stopped allowing myself to really enJOY weekends, holidays, or seasons. Don’t know WHY I felt all I deserved was day-in and day-out same same same, but there you go. It’s Always Right Now works to dispel that backward glance.

I am thoroughly amazed at how this holiday is unfolding itself, how fascinating it is showing up!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 July 2012

Unfold Effortlessly Ó2012 Currie Silver

Let Life

Let this day

Let it all

Unfold Effortlessly

It’s fine

Really.

The concept of Effortless Unfolding is relatively new on my horizon. I have always thought I must have such an exact plan and that things need to happen in a certain way, with a certain order. How nice to discover yet another wrong-headed and inside out notion that can BE Let Go.

Effortless eliminates comparison. I KNOW this. I have proven it to myself again and again and yes, again… What I DO, what I BRING to whatever it is, it is MINE and MINE ALONE. I may BE inspired or influenced by other people or circumstances, but my “gift” is NOT the same as anyone else’s. So comparing and judging, these are unnecessary. [still, I DO it and I catch myself at it nearly every day]

Recently I’ve BEgun participating in wider circles, wider than those I have participated in BEfore. I’ve imagined that I needed to BE this much “more” or “better” BEfore I could “play” this way. I am so grateful I was wrong. Each time I “play” outside my carefully drawn lines I discover a little more of the magic in effortlessness.

I don’t need to BE something first, I just need to BE ME, Now…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 July 2012

Wake Up Ó2012 Currie Silver

Wake Up

Easily

Early

With deLIGHT

Enthusiasm

Notice the day’s BEginning

BE part of it.

I “ran out of” lines to poem on so I am returning to something I wrote back in April 2011. Back when Life was really the same and so much different that I could NEVER have imagined I was on my way to HERE, NOW. [or even to Then, There]

It started without me. I didn’t change my  mind. Or my ways. I didn’t have the intention to up-end my Life and how I lived it. I really wasn’t actively involved in the matter.

However…

1 November 2010… for some reason I woke up wide awake at 4AM. I came out and BEgan my day, which was a Monday, with an eagerness uncharacteristic of me. I got a whole lot of stuff done and when I looked up again it was 6. I had that feeling of having had a Very Good Day. Cool Beaners, I thought, very cool beaners indeed!!!

Over the past 21 months I have rebuilt my days and thus my entire Life, by keeping with one small change of Creating New Habits That ENCOURAGE Me. Sounds so simple, and actually, it is, or was and still is, one change at a time… Just ONE.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 July 2012

Stay Curious. Ó2012 Currie Silver

Keep your eyes open

Let yourself BE amazed

BElieve in surprise and the unexpected

Don’t make up your mind

Dance with it instead…

As I complete this 50-line prompt fest, I find myself feeling closer to ME and understanding who I am, deeper inside than day-to-day Life often lets me SEE. Or mayBE it is my willingness to LOOK and say what I SEE. BEcause, really, when I make myself get up and write first thing every morning, I am fairly well-assured that I will let it spill, without editing, without even thinking, what would … think?!

Staying Curious is probably the key to my improving mental health. In my prior ways of BEing I was either doom-and-gloomily Eeyore-ish or I was all sunshine and rainbows. Extremes, I think, were more comfortable for me. Less gray, more black-and-white.

Now, though I hardly have what I’d long been certain was a “perfect” Life, I am happier than the happiest I could have imagined. And when I am REALLY honest, with YOU, yes, but more with myself, I have to admit that my Life Now, Today, is really wonderFULL.

You see, it is NOT about stuff and relationships and things, it is All About the Dance. The capacity for Play. The Wonder and the DeLIGHT…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 July 2012

Play. Wonder. Ó2012 Currie Silver

Key ingredients for a BEautimous Life:

Play: Free, Directed, Purposeless, and PurposeFULL

Wonder: Stirred in gently

Bake at the Speed of Life for as long as you live.

I love my Life. This is NOT something you’d have even been able to force out of me in times NOT SO long ago. I always had a list of complaints and a multi-page PLAN for YOUR Improvement. [yes, I am embarrassed to admit this but if I keep it to myself, well, I could just mistake it and pull it out again, y’know?!]

Yet Now, when I wake in the morning, I am eager to BEgin the new day. Grateful BEyond expression for the gift of One More Day.

For a formerly-Eeyore type like ME, well, this is HUUUGE…

Today’s art is, would you BElieve, a used baby wipe?! Indeed. Back in April and early May I was cleaning out my art stash and I decided to take all the baby wipes I’ve used since BEginning to make my art and give them to the growing XXL-Ziploc at the museum for the kids. Then Daphne suggested I scan some of them [she thought they were amazing as-is] and I did. I selected just a few. And look, what fun I had playing and wondering…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 18 July 2012

Live Imperfectly Ó2012 Currie Silver

      

Step up and BE

Fall down and get up

Carry on

No one expects more

Only I’’m imagining

Perfection possible.

I’ve heard it so often Now that I almost toss it off casually, but Perfection really is delusional. However, and I suspect I am NOT the only one to still hold out hope, I keep aiming toward Perfect. I have no idea WHY, really, but there you go. More evidence that my left and right don’t have a clue about one another’s whereabouts and whys…

Here’s what I have learned, up until Now:

1.      Perfect is like soap bubbles, full of pretty colours and that magical sense of holding it all together, but one touch will cause it to disappear.

2.     Perfect is quiet, alone, and a place where no one ever comes to visit.

3.      Perfect is no more a sentence than it is a verb. Nothing in Perfect breathes, moves, or is able to just BE.

Living is messy and complicated and spontaneous. It is also filled with BEauty and Serendipity. As much as I live with Expectations, Life always has its own Plan and a Momentum that is nowhere within my reach.

I am grateful that I no longer dream of BEing Perfect. It has given me such delicious freedom.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 17 July 2012

Sing. Dance. Soar. Ó2012 Currie Silver

It’s easy…
Open your heart
Sing THAT song

Dance THAT dance

Soar as only YOU CAN!

Sometimes I dance without music. I bet you DO, too! Sometimes I even sing without a song. Yeah, I know, you, too?!!! This is BEcause at the heart of us ALL there is always song, dance, and the possibility for SOARING.

Summers, growing up, I spent near and ON the water. Among others. In places where everyone sang and danced and yes, soared. I have my sweetest and most treasured memories there. Sometimes the body of water was the ocean, others a lake, rivers, and the winding wondrous paths called portages that linked them to one another.

All I ever need DO, Now, is close my eyes and remember. These are memories that never seem to fade or BE forgotten. I am NOT the same Me I am Now, and yet I am. It’s curious. You know, the way you hear certain songs and immediately have a sensation explosion?!!  Yes. I thought so!! [I love that I make sense to you!!]

Now, at this stage of my Life, I live year-round by the sea. And this gentle body of water has given me a new song, another dance, and oh so VERY MANY opportunities to SOAR!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 July 2012

BE Patient. BE Quiet. BE Amazed.

                                                            

BE Patient

Practise Tolerance

Explore Serenity.

BE Quiet

Practise Calm

Explore Silence.

BE Amazed

Practise Astonishment

Explore Surprise.

I remember that time, BEfore I needed to TRY BEing Patient. The time when I could wait without feeling Less, Deprived, or Left Out. I remember when I simply accepted that things and especially people take time. When it wasn’t experienced as “taking time” only as How It Is.

I know that my greatest shortcoming is my regular use of Too Many Words. Spending so much time in my own company, I noticed this almost straightaway. But I didn’t really realise it for several years. And Now BEing Quiet [quieter] is my major focus, which I surprisingly lose more often than I maintain it.

BEing Amazed is almost as easy as breathing. I notice things round about me, I see Life’s magic everywhere. Since the family moved into the front house I have had such fun BEing amazed by 4 and 5 year olds. I’ve been thinking [er, assuming?!] that teaching “older” kids was what I wanted most to DO, but in the past 6 weeks of little people in my World, literally, I know that was what I thought would “win approval.” I am especially glad for this realisation…

Life sure is funny…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 15 July 2012

BE First. BE Last. BE Enough. Ó2012 Currie Silver

Although it might seem contradictory

BEing First AND BEing Last

It isn’t [you knew that already]

BE Enough, though, much simpler.

Yes?!

Most of the conflict I experience in my Life is self-created and self-perpetuated. I suppose this is as it is meant to BE. MayBE this is why I stay in confusion sometimes, too. However, talking something through, BEing heard out, and listening to the thinkingandfeeling I’ve only “heard” inside my head is hugely and deliciously beneficial.

The Gratitude in this line, for me, today, is simple. No conflict. None at all. BEing first to reach out, to make each effort, and take the initiative, these are all part of what I have done the past 3 years since moving East. At the outset I was wary and my efforts were anything BUT graceful. Yet with time I have learned to hold my head up and DO what ONLY I CAN DO.

BEing last, putting someone else’s need to BE the way he is ahead of my wanting him to BE what I’ve wanted, this, too has been the course I’ve travelled. So BE it. At least I know this to BE true.

BE Enough. Let what is [and is NOT] BE Enough. Accept. Love. And. Let. Go.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 14 July 2012

BE Bold. BE Strong. BE Tender. Ó2012 Currie Silver

BE Bold

Intrepid, audacious.

BE Strong

Sturdy, tough.

BE Tender

Kindhearted, gentle.

BE You.

When I wrote the 50 lines that I have been poeming the past 44 days, I was brainstorming and literally throwing thoughts out to myself. I never had a clue that I would take them and work with them, line-by-line, for the better part of two months’ Gratitude. Nor did I think of how else they have been working their way into making my art.

I suppose that is indicative of the WHY of this line. BEing Bold, Strong, and Tender are each and all together Very Important to me, to how I live, or intend to. Yesterday asked me to BE far more of all 3 than I thought I could BE. In fact, a returned phone call from my father compelled me to harmonise these 3. In the moment. In the face of a wave of feeling anything BUT…

I am grateful for how I struggle to BE. For BEing someone who dances on the head of a pin on pretty much a daily basis when it comes to Love and Relationship. I am especially grateful for my capacity for tenderness with myself, for BEing the one person I can count on. Always…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 13 July 2012

 BE Kind. BE Gracious. BE Grateful. Ó2012 Currie Silver  

Why is it the simplest things

The things we all learned

[though, mayBE that is an assumption on my part?!]

Are the things so infrequently practised?!

BE Kind seems such a simple principle, premise, or even an intent. Why then are we in such a hurry and so oblivious to others that we simply are indifferent?! Kindness isn’t such a BIG deal. But it seems to have BEcome one thing too much for people, generally, to practise.

I realise this may BE me sharing TMI at the end of a week which has drained me, utterly, and on a morning after another waking at 2-ish A.M. and BEing wound too tight to fall back asleep until, well, I don’t know, but I know I then slept until well past 7.

BE Gracious. It’s another thing that doesn’t take much, yet it seems to take too much for so many that I wonder [oftener than I’d prefer anyone really know] where graciousness got lost in the shuffle.

BE Grateful. Well, this is NOT so lost in the weeds, I’ll admit, but that is often a part of one’s day or Life that is reserved for quiet and privacy. I get that, but I also think it can have its voice…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 July 2012

Make BEautiful Mistakes Ó2012 Currie Silver

Yes! Make Mistakes!

Make BEautiful Mistakes!

Make rip-roaring flat-out ugly ones, too.

Make mistakes every day.

Like brushing your teeth

And getting enough sleep

Mistakes are good and so valuable.

Yesterday I made a whopper. I was NOT prepared. I was NOT really considering the circumstances. I couldn’t EVEN think on my feet to “fix” this mistake. Only when my feet were walking me all the way home through the much milder rain did I even SEE that I’d MADE a mistake.

You see, we are all very good at making excuses and pointing the finger at people or situations that “made us” make our mis-takes. It’s something that starts so early it just seems like we’ve always “been this way.”

When I was teaching I encouraged the kids to remove the erasers from their pencils. Instead of erasing their mistakes, I wanted them to circle them. BE able to “see” where they went “wrong” in whichever way they DID so. It has always made more sense this way, to me.

After all, are NOT our mis-takes that fertile ground from which our most amazing and spectaculicious things have grown, blossomed, and bloomed?!

I hold mistakes in high esteem. I see and trust that they are indeed MOST Beautimously-Beautifull!!!

No excuses required…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 11 July 2012

Trust The Journey. Ó2012 Currie Silver        

Trust the Journey

Take Life as it flies by

Spread a blanket

Watch it all unfold

EnJOY this Time

Trust the Journey

I’ve NOT been really good at following my own counsel. I have, in fact, tried so many ways [and, I am still looking for MORE] to change the Past, reorganise the Present, and predict accurately the Future.

A long, looooooong way from trusting, eh?!

Somedays are like that, Mom. Thanks Timmy. I’d forgotten. Oh yes, the wisdom of babes speaks to me.

Trusting the Journey is living in Acceptance and having an openness that is BEyond just Willingness. It is a readiness to LET LIFE BE. Just BE Here. Right Now.

Long ago I was told to Let Go and I hadn’t the first clue HOW-TO DO that. [Envision releasing a balloon, I was advised.] How is it that I am still forgetting that holding onto what’s over, done, complete, and In The Past is a fool’s errand??!!

If I simply Trust, I’ve no investment in a way or an outcome. If I Trust, I Just Know that All is as it’s meant to BE. And clearly this SEEMS so much easier, kinder, and gentler. To ME. Why, then, so much resistance and negotiating??!! What has that EVER really accomplished??!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 July 2012

Evolve. Laugh. Wonder. Ó2012 Currie Silver

Evolve.

Allow Life to Happen.

Laugh.

Controlling Life is only illusion.

Wonder.

Reflect on what has been learned.

Repeat.

I am grateful for laughter. It is so helpful when I start in on myself, thinking I know HOW-TO change the Past. It even helps sleep to return, when my busy brain has woken me well on into the night, insisting I CAN change things if only I will look at them more closely.

I often forget that Life only goes forward. Actually, I am NOT entirely sure if I am moving toward it or it is moving on BEhind Me. I don’t suppose it matters. It’s just Life BEing Life and Me BEing Me.

There was LOTS of fun yesterday, with the campers, with making under the sea Worlds. I so enJOY teaching, but what I realised walking home was that I enJOY preparing even more. I did a LOT of prep for these two mornings. Far more than I am BEing paid for, but I am NOT complaining, just saying…

I wonder often if I will ever “arrive” and “grow up” and reach some sort of place of certainty, where I am sure of myself and things. I look at others who seem to happily inhabit someplace like that. I think…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 July 2012

Carry On. Grow. Look Within. Ó2012 Currie Silver

Carry On. Just DO the best you can.

Grow. Lean into the feeling.

Trust this process. No Matter What.

Really. You know it works. YES!

Look Within. Find your heart’s song.

I am laughing at the way I have come up with these 3’s whilst at the same time feeling good deep inside. I was clearly in a different space when I made this list, which may BE why I am laughing Now as I notice feelings that are what I call “good.”

Sometimes Life just gives a pop quiz. All at once all that has been learned and uncovered and realised is brought to the brink. It’s TIME. Time to show what has shifted. What IS Right Now in shift.

I’ve never liked pop quizzes or sprints, but when I am on the other side of them I know far more than I imagined. Life, for me, has been pop quizzing and sprinting a LOT through the past several years. I sit here, Now, 5, 3, 1 year, even 7 months later and I am, in many ways utterly stunned, mostly ALL in DeLIGHTful ways. Mostly…

Okay… Many?!

I haven’t loved every minute, and I’ve often felt I was in the wrong class, but still I love my Life.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 8 July 2012

Forgive. Pause. BEgin Again. Ó2012 Currie Silver

            

Forgive

Even if and especially when it seems most impossible

Pause

Always, ALWAYS, to give yourself the time to absorb and adjust

BEgin Again

BEcause Life is short and Love is ALWAYS possible.

I’ve been one of those people who thought holding onto grudges and resentments was the “better” and even the “more mature” way. It’s no wonder, really, when I stop and look at where and how I learned that “way” of BEing in the World.

Still…

One of the things I never learned HOW-TO-DO was take a Pause, a purposeful Pause, BEtween the forgiving and BEgin Again parts. I just shoved myself on and somehow this was the really NOT smart part. It’s a practise that has left me permanently stuck in a kind of reverse gear.

When TIME is taken to truly Pause, to let the thoughtsandfeelings find their feet, their legs, again, there is always space for that BEginning, and a sort of vortex that comes and moves things along and into place.

I suppose some of this comes of swallowing so too much at a time in my Life when I felt most alone, a time which I felt was “my fault” and my DOing. Yet mayBE I am just slower than I’d like to BE…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 July 2012

Cherish. Notice. Remember. Ó2012 Currie Silver

Cherish with all your heart

Notice the tiny, seemingly insignificant

Everything

And Remember Love, Kindness

And the wonder of BEing

Cherished. Noticed. Remembered.

Cherishing. Noticing. Remembering.

It wasn’t all that long ago that I BEgan to “cherish” the word Cherish. To want to make it a word in my thinking, perhaps moreso than speaking or writing. Its synonyms are treasure, take pleasure in, appreciate, value, and relish. How amazing, really, when prior to thinking I wanted to make this word one of my own I’d only associated it with a song from a Very Long Time Ago.

It was by noticing what I experienced when I felt “cherished” that I came to the edge of all I thought I knew about Love. Well, about BEing loved, in particular and at first. Then I noticed more and more that there was a HUGE difference BEtween what and who and how I cherished and who, what, and how I was cherished. It was slippery and hard to get my footing there, and I responded to this in a clumsy and awkward way. I caused pain. To others. To myself. To possibilities for friendship.

I remember my awkward clumsiness. And I remind myself that I want to notice and remember what I learned about Cherish…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 July 2012

Accept The Rhythms Of Earth & Humanity

                                               Ó2012 Currie Silver

Accepting Life is always the way

Or so I have learned

Again and Again

By NOT DOing this.

I laugh at my thoughtiness some mornings, coming to this writing, to this primary effort at connecting the dots of my Life in some way that might possibly make sense. It’s good that I am NOT fully awake yet, that I am just going through the motions and DOing what I DO here every morning.

I suppose that I have learned the most by DOing what was counter to simple Acceptance. Sometimes I have fiddled, played with the colours and shapes, as in the piece above, but in Real Life there is NOT an Undo command, no Backspace, no Delete. When I act, speak, write, DO a thing there it is, DONE.

I COULD make some changes here, Now, BEfore I copy and paste this to send and then to publish. I could and sometimes DO make edits as I go or reread, but the thing I know is that when I trust what comes up first, without guile cutting in, I dance the best. I show up most truly as ME, whatever anyone at any time may think of that [including Me].

Starting from Acceptance is a good plan.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 July 2012

Discover New Ways To BE

Ó2012 Currie Silver

Try

BE Willing

Trust

Lean Into It

Leap

Discover Something New

BE Bold

It’s so funny how Life and we, ourselves, Change constantly, consistently, and yet there is still the illusion that we can hold it off, resist it entirely, or BE in control of it happening.

I’ve been choosing [or letting myself BE chosen BY] a word for the year since 2010. That year it was Simplify, and how chaotically did I both get simpler and find the simplified Life BEcoming mine. I was still thinking, then, I suppose, that I had some control over my “chosen” word. That I chose IT rather than IT choosing ME.

2011’s was Visible and did THAT ever choose ME!!! So no surprise when 2012 presented me with Discipline.

Some of Discipline’s synonyms are order, punishment, control, restraint, authority, but that’s NOT the sort of Discipline I’m learning about at all. MayBE, in some respects, I am, but mostly what I am seeing is that Discipline is that elusive “easier and softer way” to live a Life of which I am NOT ashamed. This sort of surprised me when I first caught onto it, my shame about how I live, how I have lived, yet with Discipline that is changing every single day.

I love you, Currie