Currie's Gratitude 31 December 2013

When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.   [Brene Brown]

The End is the BEginning. We all know this, but often forget. Or at least I forget. I’m working on NOT assuming things that are so for me are so for anyone else. This is something I KNOW is possible BEcause I have seen myself progress in so many other areas.

I’m growing in my understanding of what Brene Brown is talking about. I have always imagined I needed to DO something to BElong and/or BE loved. And I have always just assumed I wasn’t DOing it Enough [or at all] BEcause of how love has [NOT] worked in my Life.

Anything is possible in this world. I really believe that.  [Liza Minnelli]

What I love about New Year’s Eve is the very real possibility that what I dream of CAN BE and what CAN BE is BEyond my wildest dreams. I also love that I can take that long backward glance and truly appreciate all of what I see BEhind me.

This is my far and away favourite of all holidays. BEcause it inspires HOPE. And it encourages me to Let Go.

And BEcause ANYthing is POSSIBLE!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 30 December 2013

The first duty of love is to listen.  [Paul Tillich]

Seems like an oxymoron, duty of love, but I don’t think so. I think if there is one thing I know makes me feel truly loved it is when someone listens. NOT what they hear. NOT what they think. NOT what they agree or disagree with. Just THAT they listen. And especially when they DO so quietly.

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. [Karl A. Menninger]

The thing is that when I think of why I am drawn to someone or why I ease away from another person, it often comes down to how quietly I can listen to them. It might BE strange, but there it is. If I spend my listening time talking myself in off a ledge that listening to the person is forcing me out on, I would rather eat glass.

When people discuss religion, it is a pity that they often become excited and argue. We should merely listen, as one does on a dark night; we should merely gaze at the stars.  [Haniel Long]

Replace religion with anything… Listening quietly precludes all argument.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 December 2013

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.  [Ralph Waldo Emerson]

It seems this is an easy thing to DO. But really, it’s NOT. I mean, if it is what you DO, then it is as easy or hard as you make it. The thing is, I’m finding, that it’s NOT all that crystal clear. Am I going “my own” way in this World or am I following someone else’s footsteps?!

No memory is ever alone; it's at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations.  [Louis L'Amour]

At the year’s end, which coincidentally is dropped into the mix of the holidays, it is practically unavoidable to look backward as well imagining what’s ahead. This is a curious mix for me. I am most comfortable in Right Now. In fact Right Now is the one place I CAN BE at peace within myself.

Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the trail, but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.   [Alexander Graham Bell]

This is true of so many things. Even this practise of Gratitude.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 December 2013

I've always been really curious about things and slightly confused by the world, and I think someone who feels that way is in a good position to be the one asking questions.  [Terry Gross]

I was writing earlier about my word for 2014. I had already sort of decided it was going to BE Serve, Service, Serving… But then I realised that it was my brain that chose that and NOT that which chose ME.

The past 3 years, my words [Visible, Discipline, Enough] have turned my World inside out and upside down. In a great way. In great wayS, actually. NOT one of which I could have planned out.

So Now I am going to Keep Asking. What is the word for 2014 for me?! And I invite you to offer one for my consideration, too.

I'm always asking questions - not to find 'answers,' but to see where the questions lead. Dead ends sometimes? That's fine. New directions? Interesting. Great insights? Over-ambitious. A glimpse here and there? Perfect.  [Lesley Hazleton]

This is true for me, too. I am NOT always interested in the answers to my questions. I am interested in what happens when I send them out into the World. While answers are nice, they usually only prompt me to ask, Tell Me More, Please.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 December 2013

You can never plan the future by the past.  [Edmund Burke]

It is funny, really, how much I BElieve this to BE true and how little I live as though I knew it to BE true. Perhaps it’s time I recalibrate myself?!

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.  [James M. Barrie]

I wonder… DO I let enough of my time slip by?! Am I really all happy skippy with the moments that are spent just BEing?! I think so. And yet, I often measure my happy by my BEing productive.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.   [Albert Einstein]

That is brilliant. Spot on!!! Imagine if Life were one big long stretch of Time. Hmmmmmmm… Isn’t it though?! Or is it really so ordered and kept in line as I imagine?! I don’t know. I only know that BEcause of time I can see the ebb and the flow. The up and the NOT up, what some call the down.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.  [Maya Angelou]

We forget this. And it is too important to forget.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 December 2013

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.  [May Sarton]

Sometimes I am in a big old hurry. Rushing the moment along. Itching to get “on with it” whatever “it” may BE in that moment. I see this about myself. I know it. And sometimes I need some sort of a speed bump to slow me down.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren't enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress. [Viggo Mortensen]

I have heard this myself. I have even seen it play out in my Life. This is how it is that I have come to live Life as I DO at Present. As I have been living it. I DO my days as a sort of dance. I move through my days with simple JOY at BEing and DOing what I AM and what I DO.

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.  [William Shakespeare]

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 December 2013

I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing.  [Katherine Mansfield]

I have always felt that in friendship there is room to BE imperfect. Incomplete. Unfinished. Even a mess. I am rich in such friendships, even though many whom I call Friend I’ve never met. Yet…

The closing of a door can bring blessed privacy and comfort - the opening, terror. Conversely, the closing of a door can be a sad and final thing - the opening a wonderfully joyous moment. [Andy Rooney]

I love the idea that good can seem NOT while JOY is often found in surprising places. Life is such a dance. Even without knowing the steps I can find great comfort in just moving with the music.

Comfort zones are most often expanded through discomfort.  [Peter McWilliams]

How hard it is for me to step in to discomfort deliberately. I prefer the shore to the rough current or high sea. But Life is NOT about sitting on the shore any more than it is all about bracing oneself for a rip tide. A gentler mix is preferable, but there are times, like Christmas Days, when I am glad I learned early in Life to BE a strong swimmer.

Comfort & JOY to all.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 December 2013

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.  [Baruch Spinoza]

There is much said about peace. In fact, oftentimes, if I will take the time, I have to search inside myself to understand what I mean by peace. By seeking it. I am discovering, little bit by slow bit, that indeed it IS NOT an absence of war or war-related attitudes and practises. It is a way of BEing in this World. It is something to ALWAYS BE seeking. The one thing where less is NOT more…

The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace. A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being that places harmony in one's life.  [Peace Pilgrim]

This is actually one of the deepest truths I know. That as I simplify and release my grip on things and stuff and times past and on the people, places, and things of Then and Now, my peace grows, much like the Grinch’s heart.

And, when I am unwilling to DO this, when I am steadfast in my “rights” to BE miserable or sad or cranky, I know no peace. I know sadness and regret. That is all.

Complete peace equally reigns between two mental waves. [Swami Sivanand]

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 December 2013

If you stand for something you will have people for you and people against you. But if you stand for nothing you will have nobody for you and nobody against you.  [Maurice Saatchi]

I notice that I seem to wander down similar side roads every year. At about this time of year it’s the slippery slope of wanting to BE understood. It is family stuff, and I think, finally, I am ready to stop wanting it from anyone and ready to give it to myself.

Since moving I have come to a deeper understanding of Who I AM and what I am about. What I stand for, you might say.

It is not easy to stand up against your constituents or your friends or colleagues or your community and take a tough stand for something you believe is right. Because you always want to keep working and live to fight another battle and it might cost you your career.   [Caroline Kennedy]

Replace any of those 4 with family and forget about fighting battles. When you stand somewhere that is in opposition to where your family members are comfortable, you realise that standing for what YOU stand for can cause a break.

I am still just sorting through this. I’m NOT carving it in stone. I am just saying…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 December 2013

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. [Steve Jobs]

It’s kind of a grim quote. Sorry, but it speaks to the point for me. I can spend hours, days, weeks, months, years, a lifetime worrying if I should or shouldn’t DO “x” and wonder forever what that will “mean” in the grand scheme…

It is exhausting. It is useless. It is without merit.

And it is human. Ahhhhhhh… yes!! I am human BEing human.

So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground.  [Oprah Winfrey]

What I know is true is that we ALL fall down. Sometimes. Oftentimes, even. And it is The Next Right Thing for us to get up again. But still, I like what Oprah is saying here. Things DO look different from where we are when we’ve fallen down. And sometimes the best thing is to look awhile from those downed places.

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.  [Ray Bradbury]

You’ve got to BE willing…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 December 2013

You have to listen to the people who have a negative opinion as well as those who have positive opinion. Just to make sure that you are blending all these opinions in your mind before a decision is made. [Carlos Ghosn]

I’m NOT a big fan of “have to” yet I DO understand that when the phrase is used it means it’s probably a pretty good idea.

I DO like the ideas of listening to “all” sides, of making myself aware of those who see things in ways different than I DO, and of sincerely leaning in to learn what they think and feel and run on.

Otherwise, I may as well stay in a closet. The World is full of interesting and different perspectives.

Sailing a boat calls for quick action, a blending of feeling with the wind and water as well as with the very heart and soul of the boat itself. Sailing teaches alertness and courage, and gives in return a joyousness and peace that but few sports afford. [George Matthew Adams]

When I was teaching sailing, when I tried to explain to campers how it is a sailboat works, I could never find the words. Instead I let them experience it. BEing able to feel it is far more effective than how it’s said.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 December 2013

No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone's eyes.  [Paulo Coelho]

Ahhhhhhh… there’s the trick. If we canNOT look into another’s eyes it is easy to hide, to want to BElieve the whole thing, true or NOT.

I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have a light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me.  [Henri Matisse]

Sometimes I wonder if I am really creating an idea of myself when I think I am BEing myself. I don’t know that there is any correct answer to this, but it is worthy of my consideration Now that I am seeing it and calling it on myself.

I vacillate BEtween BEing myself, out loud, and staying inside the lines of Life where I don’t rock any boats or cause undue concern to others. But sometimes this backs up on me and just runs me over like a truck. I am tired of apologising or needing to explain myself. Enough, I try to say… but then I go and DO it again.

There is a way to look at the past. Don't hide from it. It will not catch you if you don't repeat it.  [Pearl Bailey]

I get that. I DO.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 December 2013

Whoever knows it also knows that in love there is no More and no Less; but that he who loves can only love with the whole heart, and with the whole soul; with all his strength and with all his will. [Max Muller]

Somedays it feels like everything is hard. Uphill. Impossible. Unfathomable. But NOT every day. Somedays there is only love. Only peace. Only hope. And I choose more and more of the time to inhabit those days. Days that are Only Love Today are remarkably and extraordinarily exquisite.

Much of these past several weeks have been about the resettling into my new home. Getting those things transferred that need transferring from one state to another. I have very little control in that stuff. Often none. And even that bit I think I am controlling I am NOT, NOT really. I know that but I don’t, if you know what I mean…

At this point in my life I'd like to live as if only love mattered.  [Tracy Chapman]

Really, isn’t this ALL that matters?! And I am NOT talking here about romantic love [that’s BEyond my pay grade anyway!!!] or the adoration of millions. Just love. The simple and daily sort. The stuff that makes Life and all its lack of control one sweet little deLIGHT.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 18 December 2013

Instructions for living a life: 
Pay attention. 
Be astonished. 
Tell about it.  

[Mary Oliver]

Few instructions I’ve been given over my Life are this clear. This simple. This comprehensive. I think this is pretty much right up there with “chop wood carry water” for how I choose to live. I was writing earlier about writing practise. Why DO I DO it?! Or perhaps I mean Why I DO it.

Anyway, when I pay attention to myself. My thoughtsandfeelings about this or that, I am always glad of it. NOT always straightaway, but within a stretch of time at least. Often sooner.

We really teach ourselves. If you want to learn, you will always find someone to learn from, be they dead or alive, great or unknown. You learn from everything you see and hear around you - if you are willing to pay attention. [Alexander Volkov]

This makes such sense to me. I am a learner. I live to learn is what I sometimes think. Whenever I’m having a hard time BEing alive I especially think that I have always found JOY in learning. Sometimes I have learnt harder things and NOT felt so warm and fuzzy about it; yet I am mostly ALWAYS glad of the chance to stretch my mind and bend my silly little certainties.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 17 December 2013

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.  [Alan Watts]

It is fun sometimes to take apart a feeling I am having,  return it to the pieces that built it in the first place. It BEcomes quite the curious thing to see how I changed from one point to another all BEcause I dissolved into a thought and danced with it.

Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress. [Bruce Barton]

I don’t know that this is true for everyone… Somedays I‘ll just BE doo-dee-doo-ing along and suddenly it feels like a storm cloud has come over me. I’ve learned that instead of running about to find an umbrella, if I will just stand still and listen to a sound my heart makes when I am sort of scared or just overwhelmed, I can stand laughing, happy, in the rain.

I suppose this is what it means to BE the Change I want to SEE in the World.

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. [Maya Angelou]

Yes… Yes indeed!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 December 2013

I think I fall into a lot of cracks in terms of I'm too something. I'm too this, I'm too that. And my music has never really had a home. I've been this floating alternative. I'm too mainstream for alternative. I'm too alternative for mainstream. And I'm just kind of wandering.  [K. D. Lang]

It’s an odd thing I think how we tend to want to fit into some sort of a defined space; or mayBE it is that we want others to know where to place us in the grander scheme of things. Whole histories and possibilities are lost in this practise. NOT everything fits somewhere.

Some things are just wandering about and it is okay to wonder without having anything verified or certain.

Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far! [John Muir]

I am often forgetting that other people are likely as confused as I am about so much. I find myself assuming things and assigning meanings to things that might NEVER BE anywhere close to the truth. And then I operate as though my meandering mind wandering is WHAT IS SO.

Though really, Life is quite serendipitous…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 15 December 2013

An effort made for the happiness of others lifts above ourselves. [Lydia M. Child]

Sounds fishy at first, perhaps, but this is really true. Whenever I am feeling low and outcast, and when I am most sorry for myself, I am focused totally inward and stuck there. And yet just the simplest act in an effort to see BEyond myself into the World, however tiny a corner of it I might BE able to see, changes everything.

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.  [Helen Keller]

I have learned a LOT lately about my ability to tolerate the Stuff of Life. I’ve grown in this area, seemingly without trying, and yet I DO see a rather great effort on my part, over time, practised and practised and stretched BEyond what I thought possible.

Sometimes it is nothing more than a decision to BE tolerant or kind or simply Present that makes these things possible.

I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. [Elizabeth Edwards]

So simple. So true. Simply true.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 14 December 2013

Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy. [Mahatma Gandhi]

I am stopped in my tracks with these words from Gandhi. It seems clearer to me by the day that my word for 2014 will BE Serve. Service. Servant. Served. If I try to “figure it out” and make it one word, period, the end, I will BEcome a little crazy. And yet when I can see it used in so many ways within such a complete thought, I am reassured that it will come to me as it is intended to DO.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves. [Buddha]

I know this to BE true. I see it each and every day. New JOY tumbling laughing out of the dance of thoughts inside of me. And, sometimes too, NO JOY pushing and clawing its way out of the wrestling of thoughts inside of me. How lovely to realise I have a choice. Always.

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. [Mother Teresa]

I love how those words sing and dance.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 13 December 2013

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.  [Albert Schweitzer]

It’s been an up the waterfall swim lately in my little World. It’s silly stuff, really, but the stuff of Life in 2013. I know many would agree with me that these waterfall challenges are 1^st World Problems, yet this does NOT completely eradicate their effect.

Although, realising that DOES help a great deal.

I am grateful for learning that surrendering is a way of “winning.” I am also mighty glad that I have found my sense of humour. It is no pleasure to BE Currie BEing too serious.

As we become purer channels for God's light, we develop an appetite for the sweetness that is possible in this world. A miracle worker is not geared toward fighting the world that is, but toward creating the world that could be.  [Marianne Williamson]

I love that, “an appetite for the sweetness that is possible.” Sometimes there is nothing to add and this is one of those sometimes.

I think BEing someone who is creating is far preferable than BEing one who is tearing down.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 December 2013

The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins. [Bob Moawad]

Somedays I can start out with an idea for my art but no resonant idea for my quotes. It’s always a grand adventure that way. And oftentimes it can BE a bit maddening.

Yesterday I was thinking how nice it is to have someone to lean on. NOT in that clingy and hopeless way; in that gentle strength and mutually respectful way.

It is something I’ve missed, and like a person with a limp, over time it’s changing how I live my Life and WHO I’m BEcoming. Fundamentally.

I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few.  [Brene Brown]

Ideas coming in the back door sometimes make all the difference.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 11 December 2013

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.  [Octavia Butler]

Sometimes… it is an intriguing little prompt, eh?! This is where I started this morning. Sometimes… And oh what I learned that I hadn’t known BEcause sometimes I simply DO NOT see myself until I take a step aside and let the words dance.

I have few friends yet I am rich in friendship. I have always had people who made me smile just to think of them. For whatever reason, or none at all, I have lived a largely solitary Life. Even my closest relationships have great seas of time and space and quiet in them.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. [Agatha Christie]

Such a true thing, don’t you think so?! It is so devastating to BE alive sometimes. Sometimes there is simply too much Life to Life. But oh my… It is far better than the alternative.

This is what I’m thinking…

                            

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 December 2013

If only I may grow: firmer, simpler, quieter, warmer. [Dag Hammarskjold]

This describes pretty well what I want in this Life.

I want to BE less scattered and worried about what anyone else thinks of me. [and truly, to realise that NO ONE ELSE thinks about me that much!!!] I want to know who I AM and BE that, NOT In a way that puts anyone off or ill at ease. I just want to BE someone who is firm enough NOT to BE bent by the wind.

I want to BE uncomplicated and clear. I don’t need more shoes than I have feet. I don’t need to have or save something “just in case” I might NEED it sometime. I guess I want to live and fully inhabit Right Now.

I want, even when I am chided or ridiculed for it, to BE quiet. To talk only a tenth as much as I listen. I want to know the place where Solitude is more than quite enough.

And, though it seems a bit odd as I move from one warm place to another and then back, I want to BE warm. But I don’t mean in a warm climate. I mean BEing warm in my heart, in how I am with myself as well as with others.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 December 2013

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.  [Thomas A. Edison]

I woke up thinking about this today. I wasn’t really thinking about it in terms of one particular thing, just that it is awfully easy to give up when it might even BE easier to try something new. Or at least something new-to-me.

I have been trying to make the transition from FL to AZ complete, and somehow there seems always to BE one more hurdle to negotiate. And I seem more inclined to sit down than head out to hurdle it.

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!  [Dr. Seuss]

Sometimes I think my thinker is nothing more than strings and knots. I get stuck in a way of thinking that seems to spiral down and down into a pit. Other times I am utterly astonished at what I can think up. It seems a bit of a risky business much of the time, but I like getting my thinker on about something that challenges it. Something that lets the Light shine in.

By letting it go it all gets done. [Lao Tzu]

Or try a simpler idea…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 8 December 2013

What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.  [Jiddu Krishnamurti]

I never really thought about learning about my fears. I thought only to stop them. MayBE run and hide. Sometimes confront. But learning about them?! Ridunkulous!!!

And of course there is that whole idea that I am NOT to fear. That I am to get past fear… Well, let’s just say it is all BEing re-examined in the LIGHT of new ideas.

Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins.  [Charles Stanley]

This is how I know fear. How it’s nibbled away at my Life. I sit fretting and worrying and really waste Life away fearing whatever. I have been noticing a lot more indecisiveness and second-guessing going on in me since moving. I am distracted by wanting to get things “right.”

Fear makes us feel our humanity.  [Benjamin Disraeli]

This is one positive thing about fear. One thing that connects us to one another.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 December 2013

Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen... yourself, right now, right down here on Earth. [Bradley Whitford]

I am NOT sure this speaks to gentleness in waiting, but it absolutely fits me this morning. I have spent an inordinate amount of my one precious Life waiting. Without any gentleness whatsoever.

I am coming to see that waiting is NOT what I’d long thought it to BE. In fact, I think sometimes waiting is like holding my breath. Why wait when Right Now is Right Here?! Why NOT live and fully inhabit this one moment?!

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.  [Anne Lamott]

Every morning I wake up and I write. I am NOT writing anything special or even anything at all. I am writing. Chopping wood. Carrying water. Living my Life.

All I need DO is show up and DO it.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 December 2013

Dance for yourself. If someone understands, good. If not, no matter. Go right on doing what interests you, and do it until it stops interesting you.   [Louis Horst]

I have been thinking that much of what I DO Now I DO for myself. I don’t mean that I am just all about ME ME ME, though perhaps that does fit, I mean that I DO what I DO BEcause I CAN. BEcause it gives me pleasure, JOY, and a reason to BE.

I used to DO for others’ approval and acceptance. And I was never really able to get that right. Or hold onto it for more than a few brief moments. I think of this every morning during my writing practise. No one else ever reads that. Even I don’t reread it. But it has BEcome essential and necessary. To me.

Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music. [William Edgar Stafford]

I am utterly baffled by when I learned to BE so self-conscious. When I ate heaping spoons full of nonsense that demanded I have an explanation for why I DO what I DO. Even just all on my own sometimes I feel compelled to explain myself to me.

I want to BE BEcause Life’s been given me. No further explanations required.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 December 2013

It is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might somehow be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost. [Richard Bach]

I don’t know for certain that I have always been how I have been BEcause I was so important to myself. I suppose it is more correct to call myself selfish and self-centered rather than IMPORTANT to myself. But semantics aside, I DO know that Life is different and even better when there is a wider view than just ME ME ME.

What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.  [John Updike]

With all the moves and changes I’ve made in my Life, I am continually amazed that I haven’t BEcome better at Letting Go. I have held onto things from when I was a very little girl and am only Now, in the past few years, discovering that Letting Go makes so much more room for what is really important to me.

A spiritual Life. A simple Life. The Time and Space to breathe, wonder, and wander. JOY. Lovingkindness toward both Self and companions.

Making room is an art I am discovering requires little more than saying, gladly, YES!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 4 December 2013

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.  [John F. Kennedy]

BEing an explorer is one of the perks of BEing human. I mean, we are so amazing, our capacity to wonder and wander, even in the space BEtween our ears is such a gift. I like the idea of Together Exploration. I think we have BEcome too enamoured of our differences. It is always so nice to have another hand to hold.

I think experience will teach you a combination of liberalism and conservatism. We have to be progressive and at the same time we have to retain values. We have to hold onto the past as we explore the future.  [Oliver Stone]

So much of what divides us is our thinking. We get stuck and think if we are “X” we must agree with all the other “X” lot.

When we pick and choose from all the A to Z of Life’s banquet sometimes we’re considered flakey. Fickle. Unwilling to commit. To stand firm.

I think Life is much less certain and that labels are a little like chains.

It is NOT so bad to get lost whilst exploring.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 3 December 2013

A nice blend of prediction and surprise seem to be at the heart of the best art. [Wendy Carlos]

I wonder if I am too predictable. If I have sacrificed something by DOing the things I DO each day. They work for me, these habits, and yet there are moments when I wonder if I might try BEing a little less predictable.

I think every age lives in a blend of technology so there's always older ones mixed in with newer ones, and when the new technology goes down, the immediate fallback position is either that technology just before that or one several technologies back.  [Margaret Atwood]

Some mornings I think back to when I started this way of DOing writing practise. Making a piece of art to share. Writing my Gratitude. And BEfore that how I did write Gratitude most every day, but was pretty much all over the place.

It has a LOT to DO with technology. I noted this especially in October when I was without internet and thus could NOT DO what I DO Now that I have internet AND my regular old writing lappie.

It’s been all about blending, a little of this, a bit of that, an experiment, an adjustment, and an intention.

Finding the parts of BEing that make me whole.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 2 December 2013

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue. [Buddha]

I am discovering I still have a LOT of growing up to DO. I don’t know why I’ve assumed this would NOT BE so necessary, yet I am seeing that without making the effort Now, what could BE ahead on my path mightn’t BE too JOYous.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay - and rise! [Maya Angelou]

The place I call BEtween a rock and a hard place is Right Here. In the mornings. When I DO Writing Practise. When I show up and choose to see clearly, to bring Light to the moments of my Life. I could easily sleep in and NOT write. I did so for years. And years.

But here’s the thing, I have come to count on myself to show up, to write, to BE willing to see clearly. To shine my Light inside myself.

It is quite the adventure.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 1 December 2013

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.   [Joseph Addison]

It never ceases to amaze me how much I judge and assess without even KNOWING I am DOing so. I am DOing a little experiment with standing aside from myself and watching me, with an insider’s perspective. It  might sound a little goofy, but that’s just how I play somedays.

My imperfections are plentiful. In fact, I discover new ones daily. And the plural is intentional. My how I can keep my hands full with just myself!!!

Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.  [George Soros]

Sometimes I think mistakes are the greatest invention. The way of Life that is a constant practise. And yet it is all AS IS and Right Now. I DO think correcting mistakes has its place, but revering them is also a pretty good way to go.

I am also noticing that I lean more deeply into my imperfections, fearless of BEing swallowed up in them… whole. With no exit. Period. The End.

I know Now that BEing imperfect is BEing. Had I understood this BEfore, well…

I love you, Currie