Currie's Gratitude 30 November 2013

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.  [D. H. Lawrence]

I have wondered often, throughout this Year of the Giraffe, whether the giraffes have any clue what I have learned from them. If they even know they have been my most remarkable teachers, guides to a way of living Life I am immensely grateful for.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?  [Mary Oliver]

All that I am coming to understand, all that I thought I knew and DO NOT know at all, it is deLIGHT. I enJOY BEing someone who always asks and seeks understanding where she is perfuzzled or cornfused. I remain curious. Is curiosity NOT infinitely delicious?!

And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws. [Maurice Sendak] Where the Wild Things Are

Sometimes I have this long backward glance thing go on that brings an unusual perspective to my Life. I see things as less worrisome and troubling than I’d assumed them to BE. I find their edges NOT so sharp. I find the World a more generous place to simply BE.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 November 2013

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!  [Bob Marley]

It’s NOT so strange a thing to compare Now to Then around special occasions like the holidays. I noticed myself DOing this yesterday. I mean, I really DID try to stay in the moment, but it was like I couldn’t help myself from comparisons and rememberings. Other days, this is less accessible, but on a day like Thanksgiving it’s somewhat served up on a platter, if you know what I mean…

The upshot was a disappointment in myself, most of all BEcause I could NOT get myself to respond with patience and calm. Oh well, I seem to have been given another chance Today.

He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees. [Benjamin Franklin]

I am fairly certain that pertains as much to SHE as to HE…

Sometimes the only thing to DO is DO Nothing. Say Nothing. Just Live Your Life. Let Go of trying to explain or understand and especially DO NOT seek to BE rightly understood.

Just Live Your Life. I’ve got it!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 November 2013

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. [Meister Eckhart]

That is one of my favourite quotes of all-Time. I come from a family that seems to scorn prayer, or at least that is what I’ve noticed, so I am often looking for innocuous ways in, if that makes sense.

I also love his idea of prayer. I often find both Please & Thank You to BE prayers. And of course there is the glorious Enoughness of them that makes my little heart sing!!

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. [Gilbert K. Chesterton]

What a word-dance, eh?! Today BEing Thanksgiving, I feel an inner safety net. I know that many people, who don’t seem comfortable BEing Grateful Out Loud throw that aside on Thanksgiving. I think it will BE good to BE in the path of mass Gratitude!!

I'm thankful for serendipitous moments in my life, where things could've gone the other way. [Rick Springfield]

This is a wondrous thought this chilly morning. I have been deliberate about looking at my Life from a slight distance and remove. To see my Life through eyes at a different perspective.

And oftentimes I feel just this way.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 November 2013

Life is a song - sing it.

Life is a game - play it.

Life is a challenge - meet it.

Life is a dream - realize it.

Life is a sacrifice - offer it.

Life is love - enjoy it. 

[Sai Baba]

If I had received one piece of wisdom, one secret to Life, this would BE it. EnJOY Everything and Everything is to BE EnJOYed. This would save years and decades and half centuries of feeling less and NOT Enough. It would BEgin to reshape the shape of things I have come to accept and expect. Even the things that bother, upset, and make me flat out crazy could BE seen in the Light of enJOYment.

If I could pass along one great Life Lesson from my satchel it might BE this from Lao Tzu :

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.

It is increasingly apparent that most/all of the things I have fretted and stewed over were big fat wastes of my time, thoughtsandfeelings, and Life itself.  So I choose to BEgin Now to EnJOY Everything as it is and as it is NOT.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 November 2013

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. [Charles Dickens]

It’s kind of funny how Dickens says this. I often think about this same thing without having words for it. When I write. When I make art. When I am BEing of Service in the World in any way.

Never underestimate the capacity of another human being to have exactly the same shortcomings you have. [Leigh Steinberg]

This is a remarkable insight. At least I BElieve it to BE so. I so often catch myself imagining details of another’s Life or what have you, NEVER EVER ONCE considering that another human can BE so much like I am. This has been especially true as I reconstruct my Life here.

Today, my Notes From the Universe Perpetual Flip Calendar has this thought I am pondering:

Exactly where you’ve been has made possible exactly who you are…

I pretty much know this to BE true, but I don’t always live as if I know it. In fact, I am given to flights of fancy that pretty much rewrite Life in a script I find more palatable. Nicer. Simpler.

Still, it had to BE, all that has been…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 November 2013

To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete. [Epictetus]

This is a concept I have been working with for several years. I used to think I was only complete if… and so often it was the case that my “ifs” were NOT my “ises,” NOT by a long shot.

Just yesterday I was thrown into the mix of pointing the finger outward. It’s humbling yet exhilarating to realise the errors in my own way…

I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past. [Clara Barton]

While I don’t think for a moment the Past can BE changed, I DO strongly BElieve there is always the possibility for improvement and growth.

In my own mind I am often kept chained by BEliefs that limit me, hold me down, and make me less capable of BEing a possibilitarian. When I am willing to toss my chains off and step into the Possibility Place…

Amazing things those Possibilities!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 November 2013

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
[Antoine de Saint-Exupery]

It’s been awhile since I did things together with another person. I mean, DOing things with Gracie, that is old hat. Really BEing willing to DO stuff with another [or multiple others] is a dusty tool in my tool box.

The past two days have been rainy and cold. I haven’t ventured out of the Wee Casa save for walks with Gracie and even then, NOT too far afield. I’m noticing my thoughts more. I am hearing, I mean deeply listening and hearing myself. In a way this is marvelous. In another way, I am looking forward to spending my Sunday with Mum.

If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace. [Franklin D. Roosevelt]
 

Wow!! If that doesn’t say it all, eh?! This is what I often think [or ruminate, if I am BEing honest] about. How is it we are all so divisive and quick to argue?! Why does it seem that the majority of people would rather fight than BE at peace with one another?!

Kind of heady questions for a Sunday…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 November 2013

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams. [Henry David Thoreau]

What an exquisite definition of friends, of how friendship works. I could really stand to check this in myself. How JOYous it is to build someone up rather than focus on ME and MINE.

There is a saying in Tibetan, 'Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.' No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster. [Dalai Lama XIV]

There are times when I just crumble and pretty much quit playing. I feel this sense of defeat that is so enormous. However, when I look at this thoughty notion, when I BEcome willing to really flip my reaction to a response, I see that the hope I build in the face of whatever “tragedy” I am experiencing has the strongest foundation.

Curious stuff…

Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.   [Shel Silverstein]

This is one of the most important lessons in Life. To BElieve that anything is possible, no matter the loud and boisterous naysayers saying their nays wanting to diminish our hopes.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 November 2013

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.  [Henry David Thoreau]

A new morning and a new quote to ponder that seems, at first, to BE quite opposite the giraffe’s silliness. But that is how Life is so often. The bad opens my eyes to the possibilities for good. In the simplest terms…

I am Very Experienced at stuffing and holding back. I mightn’t always think so, but if I am honest I have to claim that to BE How I AM.

These past years have taught me the edges of stuffing and holding back. They have pushed me to the brink and then a little more. Still, I have stuffed and held on or back… And then, almost like a tiny miracle I never saw coming, I’ve Let Go. I’ve BEgun to Soar.

To me this is what Living It Up means. NOT DOing despite something but DOing BEcause I CAN. BEcause I don’t HAVE TO stuff or hold back. I can just let it all hang out and BE and NOT worry what anyone thinks.

The greatest wealth is to live content with little. [Plato]

This is the secret I never knew…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 November 2013

Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented. So to be bodacious enough to invent ourselves is wise. [Maya Angelou]

I love the word “bodacious” and even if it is an invented word, or considered made-up, I shall always cherish its feel in my head as well rolling off my tongue. It is even a fun word to write. One that always brings a smile.

I don’t know if I am so bodacious as I imagine, but I am bodacious enough. As with most things, enough is plenty for me.

Fortune favors the audacious. [Desiderius Erasmus]

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.  [William Shakespeare]

A word that combines AUDACIOUS with BOLD, Bodacious is one of those words that needed to BE in our vocabulary. [in my NOT so humble opinion ;~D]

I often wonder about words. How we just accept and use them with the supposition that they are right and understood.

I have long loved boldness. I think of it as sort of a carrot on a stick, a thing I keep reaching for and one that keeps moving me just close enough to catch it and then moves on.

Audacity has been good for me, too. In its right measure.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 November 2013

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.  [James A. Baldwin]

This might sound a little harsh. Or negative. Or simply wrong. However, if you take a little slip of time to ponder it, as Love has and does Today apply in your own Life and World, you, too, might let yourself open up to the Hope that is in Baldwin’s words.

I have been noticing something I never saw about Love. I see it in flashes. I only glimpse it. And sometimes it comes wrapped inside one of those dreams that wakes me up wanting only to go back into sleep and find it again.

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost. [Gilbert K. Chesterton]

I seem to BE coming at things sideways or backwards this morning. It’s NOT so much a problem as it is a curiosity though. To me anyway…

I’ve always struggled with Love. And I imagine it might say the same about Me. Lately I am BEing shown things in a new Light. I’m understanding what I never could even wrap my head or heart round BEfore.

Love is NOT so splendored a thing. But it’s Very Good.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 November 2013

A friend is a gift you give yourself.  [Robert Louis Stevenson]

30 years ago, one of my dearest friends gave me a card with this quote on it. I kept it for a Very Long Time on a cork-board that moved with me over and over. I left it BEhind in 2009, like most everything when I moved East, so Now it is only a memory.

This is what I love about living a simpler Life. I can easily carry the sweet memory of the BEautimous card, my extraordinary friend, and all of the Life that we shared. All it asks is for me to give it space in my heart.

You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.  [E. O. Wilson]

Giving is a curious thing. Giving all of oneself is, too. Yet I think if I canNOT give all of myself to anything, why give any?!

MayBE I am naïve and a little too much a dreamer, but I always intend to keep things as simple as I CAN.

It seems the way for me. Really…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 18 November 2013

I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.  [Mahatma Gandhi]

It no longer amuses me to make plans. To try seeing round the next corner. To imagine what will happen next or to manage HOW something “turns out” in The End.

It used to. It used to consume me, focusing on all that. I thought it was as necessary as water.

I think this is how I learned to attend to what was expected of me. To plan everything in great detail. Set “s.m.a.r.t.” goals. And always to have lofty pursuits.

But I have come to see that there is nothing more important than This One Moment.

It hasn’t been easy. It’s been like learning to ride a bike. I have had some doozy falls and skinned my knees, elbows, and pride. Yet Here I AM. And Here is all I need BE concerning myself with anyway.

I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.  [Claude Monet]

This is an exquisite example of the right sort of following. It isn’t about following a trend or what everyone else is after. Instead it is following where one is led.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 17 November 2013

The novels I love, the ones I remember, the ones I re-read, have an empathetic human quality, or 'emotional truth'. This quality is difficult to fully define, but I always recognise it when I see it: it is different from honesty and more resilient than fact, something that exists not in the kind of fiction that explains but in the kind that shows.  [Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie]

This is something I try [and always fail] to explain to someone who asks me WHY I like some book or film or other something or other. To say I recognise it when I see it seems to NOT BE trying my best, but then, sometimes that’s the best I have.

I love the idea of resilience. I love how there is this built-in resilience BEing human. I love when I tap into it, too.

Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive. [Jamais Cascio]

Many things in Life have this sort of double-edgedness. Often I am NOT sure whether I see one thing, such as survival, in a better way than I see resilience.

But mostly I don’t differentiate that much. I just fly. Or go down trying.

I like to thrive. I really, REALLY like to thrive.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 November 2013

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was. [Abraham Lincoln]

DO you ever think thoughts like this one?! I DO. I think I am supposed to BE or DO or HAVE this, that, or the other simply BEcause someone BEfore me or the people round me have been, done, or had whatever.

But it is NOT the Truth. Really. It is assumed. It is taken very much for granted. It is accepted. BUT it is untrue.

There are so many things I have come to see in a new light or from another perspective. Sometimes I just want to let them tumble and fall and cover the ground so everyone else can benefit. But what is good or beneficial to ME might NOT BE for another… Humbling.

I have a confidence about my life that comes from standing tall on my own two feet. [Jane Fonda]

I’ve NOT been particularly confident in my Life. It’s hard to say that out loud. I would like people to think I AM a confident and purposeful BEing. I am, however, someone who stands on her own two feet. I like that. It makes me smile. And most days it is more than enough.

We DO live Life on our own. Even when we have companions.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 15 November 2013

Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.  [Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]

I love a good play with words. Carry on and carry-on. And all the same, I love how spot on Sozhenitsyn is here. To carry only what I CAN. The rest makes me tired. The lot of it is too much to ask of myself.

This is how I am learning to live Now. Lightly. Without more than I can carry. Unencumbered.

And it isn’t an easy path, really. It asks for constantly letting things go, letting people go, and letting Life BE itself without my input or agreement. So I have learned to travel light, to know what I need and take even a little less than that.

Perhaps this is the WHY of my word for 2013, Enough. Discovering what is Enough has been absolutely amazing. Knowing that more is NOT better, it is just more, and often too much or even worse. So I carry on with what I have and right where I am. Simple. Simpler.

Someday I will succeed in my dream. Someday I will overcome my fears. As for me in this current moment though, I must just carry on. [Isabel Aanya Leigh]

Somedays someday is quite Enough.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 14 November 2013

You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.  [Walt Disney]

It’s a funny thing when I find a quote that so matches the mood of my heart. It is like something or someone is conspiring on my BEhalf to help me get BEyond my tiny perspective and see a bigger picture.

I have been discouraged and deflated, and yes, depressed. These past several days have got the better of me. I’ve succumbed to it, almost handing myself over. But then…

I remember that when I dare to dream I knowingly walk a slippery slope. The World is NOT so given to dreams these days. It is more a place where complaining passes for conversation. Where despair is the common denominator that brings people together.

I advise you to say your dream is possible and then overcome all inconveniences, ignore all the hassles and take a running leap through the hoop, even if it is in flames. [Les Brown]

I don’t know if a leap through flames is how I would describe what I am managing Right Now, but it sort of rings true. And mayBE sort of is Enough, for Now.

Sometimes Time is the part that is missing.

And other times…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 13 November 2013

The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them. [Ralph G. Nichols]

My day yesterday went from disappointed to disgusted. In myself and with myself, respectively. Though I don’t think respect was anywhere in the equation…

When I have a “meltdown” all I seem to hear is everyone telling me how I should feel and what I should DO [and worse yet, what I should have done] when really all I want is someone to NOT run away from my melting down self.

Had someone taken the time to really listen, as I am DOing through my writing this morning, that someone would have learned I know very well what I should have done and that I chose NOT to DO it BEcause it is just NOT in my nature anymore to BE a bitch-on-wheels.

Is it so much to BE a little kinder?! To ask how I am and then LISTEN when I tell you?!

In place of that I heard plenty about how I should allow for all sorts of things round so many corners that I canNOT possibly see no matter how closely I look.

It might BE elusive, but there is Gratitude in here. I promise you.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 November 2013

The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.  [Robert Kiyosaki]

It might seem an odd pairing, this Gratitude and Disappointment. Yet it’s really NOT so strange their BEing here, Present in me this morning.

I’ve run full tilt into a wall. This move, despite all that is and has been extraordinary about it, has me doubting myself, disappointed by others, and feeling that somewhere in this pile of poop there must BE a pony.

But I know I’ve looked for ponies BEfore. And NOT found one. It’s all of it wrapped inside expectations. Like fish in newspapers. Doesn’t smell so good…

The thing is, I know that I canNOT BE feeling this low about something unworthy of all the Hope I have for it. It’s just that I am stuck in something of a hallway. It’s things, money, and expectations. They always make for a strange brew.

If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment. [Henry David Thoreau]

I think this is likely true. I think sometimes we have to navigate through the disappointments. MayBE even reach out. Ask for help moving some of the biggest boulders off the path.

Yes, quite true…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 11 November 2013

Bless the ones that walk away from you, they're just making room for the ones that won't... [Ritu Ghatourey]

It’s a bit odd, this take on making room. I find it comforting though, and it inspires me when I might well BE feeling rather uncomfortable. Letting Go of people is about the hardest and worst thing I have to DO, and I have had to DO it far too often. At least in my opinion.

What is especially curious is that this notion implies there is a finite space that we call “room” and I don’t think that is the case at all. I think there is always enough and more than enough “room” for all sorts of people in a Life.

However, I think this is also a spot-on philosophy. I mean, the blessing of those who walk away. Even those who just turn away. What else CAN a person DO with that?!

Allow the world to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose. [Richard Bach]

If I can make room for all sorts of ways, those I understand and like as well those that confound and disturb me, I can live a Life that is rather extraordinary. At least this is what seems to BE so.

I’m grateful to know this.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 November 2013

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.  [Chief Seattle]

I am oftentimes undone at realising my arrogance. At BElieving my own press. Truly. I am only just BEginning to see how upside down and inside out I have been all my Life.

Self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It require you to connect today's actions to tomorrow's results. There's a season for sowing a season for reaping. Self-discipline helps you know which is which. [Gary Ryan Blair]

It occurs to me that I have never really needed that imaginary Jiminy Cricket to alert me to my DOing the “wrong” things or things that are/were wrong. I know, and I have known, all along. Sometimes, though, I am able to pull the wool over my own eyes or simply look away.

Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists. [Eudora Welty]

I look for threads, for places to connect. Sometimes I find them. And sometimes… sometimes I don’t.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 November 2013

As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Other people and other people's ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.  [Amy Poehler]

This is so true. I am learning this each and every day in my New Life. I had grown so solitary in ways that often left me feeling I was flawed BEcause I could NOT DO everything myself.

I am NOT knocking Solitude or my previous Life. I am simply saying it makes a difference to BE among people. To BE challenged and inspired. And most of all to get the input of others.

I keep learning this by participating in this daily sharing. As long as I have had this practise I have been utterly changed by it and By YOU who share in it.

Collaboration is so important but so frequently misunderstood. At least by me. I am coming to see where I got off on the wrong foot [feet] initially. I am finding my way. Slowly. Steadily.

The best way to navigate through life is to give up all of our controls. [Gerald Jampolsky]

An important thing often overlooked, controlling is definitely NOT my friend.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 8 November 2013

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. [John Steinbeck]

It is odd to BE digging so deep this morning. I think I might have spent a far too long time thinkingandfeeling without writing what I was thinkingandfeeling.

So Now, well, so Now is this.

And I DO like the gist of Steinbeck’s insight. I like its bluntness. And while it is blunt it is also subtle. It kind of creeps up and opens my eyes.

I am grateful for the time I spent incommunicado in October. It sort of “changed the air” [as B and her Nana would say] in my head. It has given rise to some deeper writing in the mornings… It has let me know myself in ways I never imagined I’d want to.

Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world.  [Annie Lennox]

Seems a good Life Instruction to me. How about YOU?! Where is kindness taking YOU these days?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 November 2013

As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others.  [Marianne Williamson]

I’ve had a struggle with this concept for as long as I can remember. I feel certain only one light can shine at a time, and mostly, that needs to BE others’ lights. But mayBE Marianne is right. MayBE I have it upside down. Or inside out…

The most ordinary word, when put into place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine. [Robert Bresson]

I am often wary of “musts” and “shoulds.” And as much as I am a rule-respecter, I am NOT always a rule-follower. However, I completely understand what Bresson means here. I DO try, in my writing as well my art, to find the brilliance and let it shine forth. Sometimes it takes nothing more than intention and willingness. Other times, NOT so much.

If I could be granted a wish, I'd shine in your eye like a jewel. [Bette Midler]

This is a thoughty thought I absotively posolutely love. It is honest and real. It doesn’t take the long way round. I aspire to such simple straightforwardness.

I aspire, too, to shining. A girl can dream, eh?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 November 2013

Can miles truly separate you from friends... If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?  [Richard Bach]

I don’t think for a second that I am the ONLY ONE who ever catches herself wanting. Without a specific something that I can point to and say THAT IS WHAT I WANT!!

But I could BE wrong.

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, 'Oh yes - I already have everything that I really need.'  [Dalai Lama]

Since I moved into the Wee Casa [which is odd as it is hardly “wee” though I canNOT quite Let Go of the idea of wee, so, it’s relative] I have been amazed at how little I need.

On the other hand, I have been most amazed at my capacity to want. MORE. And then I come back to myself and I realise I have all I need and far more than I could possibly want.

I think wanting is a terrible habit I have developed after 60 years of having things, too many things. And during those years seeing things BEcome accessible faster and easier…

I’m working on Wanting NOT. On seeing the Enoughness round and within me.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 November 2013

Just imagine becoming the way you used to be as a very young child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind. The real you is loving, joyful, and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun. [Miguel Angel Ruiz]

Sometimes I CAN imagine me, BEfore I “knew what I stood for” in the World. If I lean in really close, I can even touch that ME. And oh, those moments are such sweet possibility.

Imagining is a curious and wonderful way to navigate Life. To find a way, My Way, really. It is something I think I DO but don’t think I am DOing. Does that make sense?!

Often lately I have thought how I imagined this move. I imagined BIG and way BEyond the lines. I took the risk to speak my imaginings aloud.

You know what?! It all happened [and continues happening] BEyond my wildest imagining.

I imagine that yes is the only living thing. [e. e. cummings]

Curious, eh?! If No is a complete sentence then Yes is as alive as You or I?! I like that notion. I like to think that way about things. It gives me Hope and makes me BE braver.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 4 November 2013

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. [Rainer Maria Rilke]

So often I find myself thinking of the negative connotations of protection. Only sometimes DO I really grasp the fuller meaning of what it means to protect, to BE protected, to really feel there is protection in this Life.

I think this is how I have grown, living alone for so long, and much of that time apart from anything or anyone who I felt could protect me. And then I realise that it was NOT I who wanted protecting, it was I who wished to BE protective.

In a good and healthy way, of course…

Your silence will not protect you.  [Audre Lorde]

This is another way of looking at the soup that is protection. I’ve often thought if I just don’t speak up or write about something, it canNOT hurt me or YOU or someone/something else. But this is so far off from Truth I canNOT BElieve I really subscribed to it for so long.

What I have learned, especially in the past few months, is to speak up and to say what I think or feel or want or need. Only saying so has brought understanding and from that understanding the sorts of protection that I have needed.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 3 November 2013

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. [Albert Einstein]

What I have discovered in the process of this transition is the deliciousness of a good PAUSE. I’m thinking I only gave it lip service BEfore, this notion of stopping forward motion, waiting for what I am NOT certain, and BEing just paused. I love how they DO this in films. Perhaps that is the example I am trying to follow.

I remember a morning, walking from the apartment where Gracie and I were staying, up and over to Mum’s apartment. I saw a hummingbird. It gave me pause. I just stood there, somewhat undone by the quiet fullness of the moment.

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

[Guillaume Apollinaire]

How often DO YOU DO that?! Just take a beat and BE in the Happy that is possible Right Now?! It’s almost something people will scorn you for, in my experience. People love to grumble and complain and we also love to commiserate, but how often DO we just PAUSE and BE Happy or BE silly, or even just BE aware and awake to the moment Right Now?!

It is a valuable skill, pausing…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 2 November 2013

I don't call myself a Buddhist. I'm a free spirit. I believe I'm here on earth to admire and enjoy it; that's my religion. [Alice Walker]

I am neither religious nor particularly devout. Sometimes I have said I am spiritual, but in a way, all these words can BE synonymous. It likely depends on context AND on who is in the conversation.

For a Very Long Time Now I have considered myself a Free Spirit. Someone who is more or less at home with BEing actively engaged and humbled by Life itself.

I enJOY many sorts of worship, but if you were seeing me “at worship” you might think I was just sitting still, or taking a walk, even writing or drawing.

You see, all these ways of BEing are ways that I worship my humanity. My gift of BEing in this World, imperfect and mightily flawed as it surely is.

This past month, since my move to Arizona, I have spent long stretches of Time BEing attuned to a voice I canNOT quite describe. I have sat for long stretches, perhaps DOing something, yet I’ve NOT “done” anything I can point to.

I have been listening.

Hearing something deeper than I ever listened and heard BEfore.

Perhaps I am just BEing.

Perhaps that is more than Enough.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 1 November 2013

You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.  [Paulo Coelho]

Although I have moved back to a place [as in state, city, but NOT abode] I no longer see it the same as I did Then. Any of those Thens. I might even say I canNOT see it the same BEcause I am NOT the same.

But that is all kind of deep for this morning of the hour…

How I see a thing, a place, a person, even a moment in Time is unique. Even when I am thinking it’s the same. It IS a miracle. And paying attention REALLY DOES make miracles. Out of sometimes what I’d call “nothing at all.”

Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are. [George Santayana]

I’ve been sharpening my skill with seeing What Is [and What Is NOT] during this Time of transition. I’ve  Let Go needing to order and manage things and embraced that thing called Letting Life BE Life. I’m NOT always comfortable, nor am I always happy with HOW I am or things are. But I’m NOT looking away or closing myself off.

It’s really all about discovering…

I love you, Currie