Currie's Gratitude 30 August 2014

If you don't have any loyalty to what you are doing, you ought not be doing it.  [Tom Harding]

A simple statement, you’d think, but for me it has been something I have thought and thought and thought about. Sometimes without even knowing I was DOing so.

I am questioning how important ARE the things I DO each day. Or intend to DO?! I suppose having pretty much 10 days without walks with one short one where I fell, it would make sense I’d reconsider the reasons I walk where I DO when I DO.

I’ve thought much on this daily, or nearly so practise. I think that the connection it lets me feel would BE no less real if I were just too tired to come and write here.

Lots of little changes are what Life is. BEing consistent sometimes misses the point altogether. Life CAN and WILL, sometimes, sweep us up and away. MayBE for a little time, or a longer one. Perhaps even forever.

I canNOT look at the times I have NOT had this practise without BEing a little bit scared of what NOT having it BE part of my days might look like. Feel like. BE.

So I am going to experiment and see how I feel as I try things.

Hang on!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 August 2014

You cannot grow in the integrative dance of action and contemplation without a strong tolerance for ambiguity, an ability to allow, forgive, and contain a certain degree of anxiety, and a willingness to not know—and not even need to know. This ever widens and deepens your perspective. This is how you allow and encounter Mystery and move into the contemplative zone.  [Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer]

I’m trying something new with my Chromebook today. I have lost the T key on my regular lappie and thought this might BE a good time to learn how to use Google docs. So far I am noticing some intuitive things from Word are making me feel awkward at best.

So far I have been at this for around an hour. I get learning curves, but I am NOT at all sure how to navigate things that I have done for so long without thinking about them.

I’m trying to keep some perspective. I’ve had a couple of really hard days, and yesterday I had a transfusion. I’m at least feeling somewhat more myself, but somehow or other that “thrill” is gone. People reassure me this is to BE expected. I am going to trust them on that!!

Life is quite a wild thing…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 August 2014

Taking it one step at a time means living in the present moment, letting life gradually reveal itself to us. Some people get nervous and want to know the final outcome. But how can we know an outcome that hasn't yet occurred? Trust in the process, and the perfect result will occur.   [from Today’s Gift from Hazelden]

Sometimes are really weird, eh?! So sure you are DOing the “right thing” only to find out NOPE!!! Then the whole scene goes dark. In those times I find out I CAN make it through discomfort, silence, and no response. I am only BElieving I that I am “meant to” change what is. To rearrange the deck chairs on my wee Titanic.

I no longer want to know the end of the story. I don’t want to have something so much that it would BE too much and deny or prevent someone else’s need from BEing met.

So often I have thought I am less BEcause I am only me. And all, or almost all the while knowing whatever I have or am or DO is precisely right. It sounds or reads better than I am at DOing it.

I think the key is to eliminate judgments. Using categories. Or pretty much anything that divides and segregates us from each other.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 August 2014

C. S. Lewis believed it was undemocratic to give too much power to the present generation or one’s own times. He called this “chronological snobbery,” as if your own age was the superior age and the final result of evolution. I would say the same about one’s present level of consciousness. Our narcissism always tends to think our own present stage of consciousness is the ultimate stage! People normally cannot understand anybody at higher stages (they look heretical or dangerous) and they look upon all in the earlier stages as superstitious, stupid, or naïve. We each think we are the proper reference point for all reality. G. K. Chesterton stated: “Tradition is democracy extended through time.” And I would say that enlightenment is the ability to include, honor, and make use of every level of consciousness—both in yourself and in others. To be honest, such humility and patience is rather rare, yet it is at the heart of the mystery of forgiveness, inclusivity, and compassion.   [Adapted from The Dean's Address, Living School Symposium, August 2013]

Some things I come across as I roam are so clearly just for me.

I’ve been grappling with some stuff that is far BEyond my present capacity to understand.

And I accept that I will get to understanding it very much better.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 August 2014

In the world of the dreamer there was solitude: all the exaltations and joys came in the moment of preparation for living. They took place in solitude. But with action came anxiety, and the sense of insuperable effort made to match the dream, and with it came weariness, discouragement, and the flight into solitude again. And then in solitude, in the opium den of remembrance, the possibility of pleasure again.  [Anaïs Nin]

I suppose this is a little too deep for a Monday morning. I love Solitude yet I am having so much of it lately without really appreciating it. Both companionship and shared time BEcome unnerving. I canNOT explain myself better.

I feel awkward and tentative. Out of sorts. Like I have left something undone and canNOT figure out what that is.

Sometimes getting active is all that is necessary. Others, the ability to sit still and NOT draw conclusions or BElieve all that my brain is telling me.

Whatever happened to just following the bouncing ball?! Playing for the sheer JOY of the play itself?!

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.  [Mark Twain]

This is it!!! I am trying to use an out of focus imagination to overcome something I canNOT really SEE. It’s time to just let go.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 August 2014

If you make art, people will talk about it. Some of the things they say will be nice, some won’t. You’ll already have made that art, and when they’re talking about the last thing you did, you should already be making the next thing.
If bad reviews (of whatever kind) upset you, just don’t read them. It’s not like you’ve signed an agreement with the person buying the book to exchange your book for their opinion.
Do whatever you have to do to keep making art. I know people who love bad reviews, because it means they’ve made something happen and made people talk; I know people who have never read any of their reviews. It’s their call. You get on with making art.   [Neil Gaiman]

I wonder somedays what I DO what I DO for. I think I understand myself, but oftener than NOT I am clueless without benefit of perspective.

Falling Friday, on top of already feeling like feeling crappy will never stop, it’s NOT done wonders for my capacity to find the JOY in all this.

Nothing feels like it fits me. Nothing.

I feel like I have been transformed into someone I don’t know or mayBE just someone who is strange to me.

Might BE it will all pass in a blink.

I hope.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 August 2014

To reach out to another, if we have known frequent rejection, is to act courageously in spite of an uncertain outcome. To stand firm in a decision, if we have always given in and given up, is to back our faith in a most daring and courageous way.    [Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty]

Funny, I realised just Now that I would let you know how our walk went yesterday. It was such a “big deal” for me. I hadn’t remembered writing that yesterday.

It was lovely. Cool. Even a touch of morning briskness. I was HAPPY as I’m missing walking so very much.

And then I was hitting pavement. Don’t know that I tripped, I was just falling hard and fast. I’ve never had such a sore hand. And shoulder. Back. Knee.

I didn’t know what to DO but I knew that I did know, if that makes sense. I called the Nurse Line at my insurance and found a sensible nurse to run the plays for me. Went to urgent care, x-ray, bandaged finger, and home again.

A long and confusing day and night and day again. I used to fall. Used to need a wheelchair. Walker. Cane.

Now I feel unsure of myself. And I don’t like that.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 August 2014

For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to still be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.   [Alfred d'Souza]

I used to feel this way. Actually, I used to sort of “ride” on What Will BE When… Now, it holds zero appeal.

It’s NOT so different, really, staying Present. Actually, mayBE it is NOT so hard as I’d have guessed. Somehow I just seem to bounce along.

But yesterday I had a little whine. And it felt horrible to BE complaining, but I seemed incapable of just letting it go. That’s one well-heeled habit of mine. Feeling sorry for myself. Hard-done by. Waah-Waah…

So then I switched my attention to something else. It took awhile, but I seem to BE back to Me today. So far.

I am even going to take Gracie for a real “walk” and NOT just an out, potty, and back in. She has been utterly amazing this week. I canNOT BElieve we haven’t walked since LAST Friday morning!!!

Anyway, that’s the plan, so I’ll let you know…

BE Well.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 August 2014

Tell me, when you think of taking consistent action in the general direction of your dreams, Currie, do you imagine discipline, stamina, work, sacrifice, monotony, courage, and strategies, or are you thinking adventure, discovery, new friends, excitement at the crack of dawn, magic, surprises, fun, laughter, and, on occasion, the Macarena? 
Cool! Me too, "HEY!"     [The Universe]

Your chosen perspective, Currie, changes everything.

The truth can really BE simple, eh?! Perspective. Free choice. MY choice. Sure, mayBE I am weird, but I’m having a whole lot more fun with feeling anything BUT good in so many ways. I don’t know about the Macarena, but there are all sorts of adventures, discoveries, new friends, and excitement any time, if I am looking the “right for me” way at all this.

I often lean away from strategies, but I am discovering that my “guides” on this Journey have met my sort BEfore. They make room for me to feel like I am finding my own way where they have left a cookie trail.

I have never dared to let myself go this far into surrender territory. It’s funny, though, there are markers and information kiosks, sort of. Who’d’ve thunk?!

When they take your smile away they might just as well shoot you.   [Violet Hensley]

NOT all smiles look exactly alike.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 August 2014

And I felt like my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that there could be no real joy again, that at best there might eventually be a little contentment. Everyone wanted me to get help and rejoin life, pick up the pieces and move on, and I tried to, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in the mud with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes closed, grieving, until I didn’t have to anymore.    [Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year]

I’m in a very strange-to-me place. I’m sure it’s the chemo, but after a time I sort of lost touch with the edges of me. I find day and night interchangeable and the only difference I can grasp is how bright the daylight seems…

I understand about side effects and the weird-ass way that they parade, but I am tired of feeling that even the thought of certain things is enough to make me need to lie down and hold onto something. It feels a little like my auto-pilot brain is navigating through a swampland.

And then, I realise that this may well BE my intended Experience.

So I try to keep holding on by just NOT letting go. No. Matter. What.

No one promised it would BE easy.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 August 2014

On your track to success, never forget that you are crossing many rivers. Yes you are! And each of those rivers contain crocodiles that may attempt to intimidate you. Never be afraid; sail on and you will get there. [Israelmore Ayivor]

Sometimes I will call something that happens something other than a success. A mess. A mistake. Altogether wacky bananas. But my labelling doesn’t really change anything. Except my attitude. Every success involves mess. Mistakes. And wacky bananas are good for far more than slip-sliding on…

Chemo is like crossing a river. There are crocodiles. There is an intimidation factor. And there is fear that some new weirdness will BEcome permanent. And still, when I embrace my feelings of fear and intimidation, I realise that I CAN and I CHOOSE TO carry on.

At this point I find myself thinking, it’s NOT so bad. Last time was worse and I got through that. But that stuff doesn’t matter so much as accepting that everything is what is and rewriting the scenes or altering the plot is only a way of passing the time.

Sailing on looks like showing up for whatever is up Right Now. Even though I am scared. Even though I don’t know HOW. Even if it feels entirely wrong-footed and definitely wrong-handed.

One then another…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 18 August 2014

I’ve wondered, if I knew that I knew I was trying to keep track, and NOT keeping track… what would I DO or change or would I DO or change anything?!   [Currie, August 2014]

It’s a bit odd to quote myself. But I wondered if I had ever really told you what one of my thoughtsandfeelings looks/ed like. To me.

I am BEginning to understand the vague phrase, Chemo-Brain. At least I think that is me trying to understand.

Seems to BE a preoccupation in me of late, my willingness, my preference toward playing fair. Toward accepting whatever is and whatever happens. Or does NOT happen.

Let the story live. MayBE tell bits of it. If living it through words feels like what I’ll choose to DO. Sometimes the words aren’t necessary or really even relevant. All of Life is what Life is. And is NOT.

The soul defines itself by expansion and inclusion—not by saying “no,” but by offering a kind of courageous, risky “yes”: “Yes, I am like everybody else, capable of the same good and the same bad…” 

When you allow the face of the other, the opinion of the other, the worldview of the other, to break through your barriers and boundaries, there is always a bit of fear…   [Richard Rohr]

A bit…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 August 2014

I don’t know why life isn’t constructed to be seamless and safe, why we make such glaring mistakes, things fall so short of our expectations, and our hearts get broken and our kids do scary things and our parents get old and don’t always remember to put pants on before they go out for a stroll. I don’t know why it’s not more like it is in the movies, why things don’t come out neatly and lessons can’t be learned when you’re in the mood for learning them, why love and grace often come in such motley packaging.  [Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith]

WOW. This time is quite different. Harder. Imposing. And yet easier too, I think.

It’s true, Life is messy and NOT given to considering my preferences.

Still, I can ride this. It might NOT feel like I can, but I can. Breathe in. Breathe out. Let Go.

I feel myself becoming the fearless person I have dreamt of being. Have I arrived? No. But I'm constantly evolving and challenging myself to be unafraid to make mistakes.  [Janelle Monae]

I don’t know that BEing fearless is all that. I think facing fear is how I have found strength I never imagined in myself.

I’m NOT DOing great, Right Now, but all is well.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 15 August 2014

… stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.  [Leo Tolstoy]

This is a rather different experience with chemo than last time, but mayBE I am just adapting and making room for cancer in my “Previously-Programmed” Plan BE.

I am writing all the time in my head and my heart, but I am limiting my daily writing to this email/post.

And sometimes I read other emails and respond with way more than too many words, sometimes losing my place in the split second I was just thinking or knowing it.

This is my brain Right Now. I’m making room for its challenges. I’ve known something was NOT right with my ability to “track” Life as it’s unfolding. It’s MORE largely THAT that made letting go of BEing a driver so simply “right-for-me Right Now.” And still…

Somehow I feel like there is this conversation I have been having with “you all here.” I’ve lost my way and found a new one many times over these years simply by having “you all here/there” to listen.

We honor the spirit in other people when we listen to them.  [unknown]

I have been having some healing conversations with myself, and there is a LOT of forgiveness seeping out of me. For myself, largely, which is good, but a bit perfuzzling.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 14 August 2014

The person who remembers they can always reach out and help others, never runs out of things to do, always has friends, and rarely needs advice.

“Give it away, give it away, give it away, give it away now,”

[The Universe Perpetual Calendar, 14 August]

They worry less, too.

I am learning so much about people on this Journey. And about myself. I think there is nothing so amazing as simple human kindness. A willingness to BE of Service and to see oneself as a servant to the World, large World or small World…

Sometimes all I can manage seems nowhere Enough. I often feel I fall short of my own intentions. And I can BE a real crabby appleton in a blink, startling myself quite unpleasantly.

I remember who I AM by coming here to write in the mornings. I had 2 projects I was working on and have taken August as my annual “holiday” from projects like that. Which has been a kindness to myself and has made this writing more meaningful to me.

Somehow with one thing and another, and mostly by just forgetting who I AM, I am harsher with myself than I would ever dream of BEing with another.

But I remember who I have found in my heart, and try BEing her.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 13 August 2014

Being alive is our invitation to act in fresh, inventive ways. All it takes is concentrating on our inner vision in combination with external reality. The components for accomplishing any task are at our fingertips, awaiting discovery.

Our burdens are lightened when we understand that all situations are resolvable — no mystery need leave us in the dark for long. Just as surely as we each exist, so exists every element we need to solve any problem or chart any new course. Our purpose in life is to select those elements that will satisfy the need. We each have been blessed with this capability for proper selection.   [The Promise of a New Day by Karen Casey & Martha Vanceburg. © 1983, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation]

WeatherUnderground says, “today will BE warmer/about the same/cooler than yesterday,” I’m simply curious to BE alive each morning. Curious to see what I will make of the day BEfore me.

I’ve long been an Eeyore-ish sort, NOT expecting much, staying guarded so as NOT to BE disappointed. It is hard for me to BE expectant Now, but it gets easier with each day.

I think what has changed is HOW I feel Now about Expectation. It is NOT a 4-letter word.

It’s a fresh perspective that thrives on Hope.

It enJOYs itself. Me, too.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 August 2014

In the story of Moses and the burning bush… Yahweh says, “Take off your shoes. Come no nearer.” God is not calling Moses to enmeshment or loss of his own self. Yahweh is telling Moses, “I know who I am, and you are about to enter into an experience of the sacred with me, but stand your ground. Come no nearer.” God honors the other as distinct. So love is not absorption, love is not a martyr complex where you let other people use you. When you know your inherent divine identity, you are truly ready to participate in the sacred dance of intimacy.  [Richard Rohr, Adapted from Intimacy: The Divine Ambush]

My Life has been rich with deeper understandings of things. I enJOY the learning process. It’s as essential to me as breathing.

I’ve struggled with relationship all my Life. I’ve tried to fit and felt much too different to manage it.

On the other hand, perhaps I didn’t understand the value of standing my ground. Of acknowledging my differentnesses without labelling them good, bad, right, wrong, actually without calling them ANYTHING!!!

I’ve never known the clarity of moving from outside to inside. It’s always seemed as mercurial as it’s been elusive.

Yet Now I know what it means to “stand my ground.” To simply BE Currie.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 11 August 2014

To keep the mind space open, we need some form of contemplative or meditative practice. This has been the most neglected in recent centuries, substituting the mere reciting and “saying” of prayers, which is not the same as a contemplative mind and often merely confirms us in our superior or fear-based system. One could say that authentic spirituality is invariably a matter of emptying the mind and filling the heart at the same time.   [Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation 8.8.14]

I’m discovering things that are probably pretty much commonsense, just NOT to me. They float up and catch my gaze. It is like having magical glasses and I can see what things look like from other perspectives.

I still resist BEing too intentionally introspective. I think I DO this BEcause most of the people I’ve lived my Life round weren’t/aren’t “into” too much introspection.

I so dislike the feeling that I am a joke, less than, somehow, BEcause I contemplate things far BEyond my bellybutton!!! And share them out loud.

Probably I should BE grateful to cancer for the gentle but swift kick in the bum. I’ve BEgun to see things I never thought existed. My fears and tentativeness, others have them, too.

And people aren’t just “NOT into,”  intentional introspection.

They are just NOT living inside my skin.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 August 2014

We can learn something from any experience, even one that is painful. In fact, we often learn more from painful experiences than from pleasant ones. When we say or do something foolish or hurtful that causes us embarrassment or guilt, pain gives us a reason to learn and behave differently next time.

We can't change the experiences we have, but we can learn from them. Our life is a gift that comes wrapped in what we experience each moment. When we accept this gift and open it willingly, no matter what the wrapping looks like, we put ourselves in a position to discover unexpected treasures. We live life to the fullest, and we learn who we are as we grow. [Body, Mind, and Spirit © 1990 by Hazelden Foundation]

I feel a little more ready for chemo this week. It helps to have one “experience” in the mindandheart bank. My appetite has come back the past couple of days. Oh my!!!

My decision to make cancer an experience to enJOY was a good pony to climb up on and BEgin riding. I didn’t have to adjust, fix, explain, or defend this. Which are all things I used to BE sure were necessary.

So, clearly, I am learning from this “hand” I’m playing.

Forward motion.

And sometimes standing still.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 August 2014

To keep the heart space open, we almost all need some healing in regard to our carried hurts from the past. It also helps to be in right relationship with people, so that other people can love us and touch us at deeper levels, and so we can touch them. In addition, I think the heart space is opened by “right brain” activities such as music, art, dance, nature, fasting, poetry, games, life-affirming sexuality, and, of course, the art of relationship itself. And to be fully honest, I think your heart needs to be broken and broken open at least once to have a heart at all or to have a heart for others.  [Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation 8.8.14]

What is true is always so clear when my eyes are open. At least the “eyes” of my heart. I DO a lot of thinking these days, especially when Gracie and I are out walking in the BEautimous mornings.

I remember times and places. Sometimes I can stop things just enough to see me in those times and places. Little understandings are floating into view. Awarenesses, too.

BEing in “right relationship” with people isn’t always possible. NOT as I understand it.

But you know what?! That’s coming to matter less and less.

It’s simply a matter of BEing openhearted.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 8 August 2014

We must move forward with confidence, trusting that the strength we need will be given us, having faith in our visions to guide us. Problems need not daunt us. Rather, they can spur us on to more creative activity. They challenge our capabilities. They insist that we not stand still.

… our will to live is quickened through others' encouragement. All else dampens the will. 

We can serve one another best, never by commiserating with sadnesses, but by celebrating life's challenges. They offer the opportunities necessary to our continued growth.   [Karen Casey, Each Day A New Beginning]

I’m thinking that rather than fighting or trying to “beat” cancer, I’m celebrating it. And NO, I am NOT glad I have cancer, but it is Here, so I will celebrate it. I will meet it with my head up and my eyes open. I won’t hate it. I simply won’t.

So many little things have BEcome possible, things that BEfore I was excellent about talking myself out of. I am able to NOT simply ask for help, but to ACCEPT it.

This isn’t a skillset I have a lot of experience with. I have always BElieved, deep down, I should NOT need help.

My “will to live” is “quickened” by encouragement.

My attitude is encouraged by this spirit of celebration.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 August 2014

Poet David Whyte has written that “heartbreak is unpreventable, the natural outcome of caring for people and things over which we have no control, of holding in our affections those who inevitably move beyond our line of sight. Heartbreak is the beautifully helpless side of love and affection and has its own way of inhabiting time. Heartbreak is something we hope we can avoid; something to guard against, a chasm to be carefully looked for and then walked around. But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way…” [Patti Digh, 37Days, 4 May 2014]

I BElieve that we’re made to love and care and even think about and of each other. Sometimes we absolutely should Put Another First. Sometimes we must get our oxygen mask on and adjusted first. Then help another/others.

I also BElieve that there is no extent to which anyone can go that is “too much” or “too far” when it comes to loving and caring and thinking about another/others.

It is hard to lose someone we have loved. Who has loved us. Who we will miss every day.

This is NOT ancient wisdom.

In fact it’s BEcome common sense to me.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 August 2014

How do we begin having more fun? The first step is deciding to leave the past behind. No matter what our experiences were last year or in our childhood or even this morning, they don't have to determine what our experiences will be in this next hour. Having more fun is clearly a decision that is coupled with action. [from Today’s Gift 8.5.14]

Sometimes some people shake their heads in a sort disBElief at me when I say I am choosing living with cancer AND looking for all the JOY and fun I can in DOing so.

MayBE I DO sound a little annoying. I surely don’t mean to… I know for sure I was NOT here this entire last 4 months.

For all that fretting and fuming and fearing all I got was feeling horrible. And for sure that was pretty much all I was spreading round.

But then I remembered how HUGE it was for me to Let Go of all the stuff of my Life, although it had been in storage for more than a few years by that time. I was sure I would miss it. But I didn’t/don’t.

NOT. ONE. BIT.

I enJOY things simpler. Quieter. Less entangled in my connections.

I love Life with exactly what I have and what it is.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 August 2014

I call contemplation “full-access knowing”—not irrational, but pre-rational, rational, and trans-rational all at once. Contemplation refuses to be reductionistic. Contemplation is an exercise in keeping your heart and mind spaces open long enough for the mind to see other hidden material. It is content with the naked now and waits for futures given by God and grace. As such, a certain amount of love for an object and for myself must precede any full knowing of it. As the Dalai Lama says so insightfully, “A change of heart is always a change of mind.” You could say the reverse as well—a change of mind is also a change of heart. Eventually they both must change for us to see properly.  [Richard Rohr, The Naked Now]

This particular reading has been really clarifying for me.

Sometimes it feels like one long day since I learned I have cancer. Though I intend to live each one fully and with JOY.

Perhaps it is more a story unfolding. One Day At A Time.

More and more it’s feeling like one angel handing me off to another.

I’m finally learning to Let Go. Just. Let. Go. In a deeper way than I ever dared try.

There’s much to BE said about BEing contemplative. Me?! I’m enJOYing the quiet of it…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 4 August 2014

We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are. [Bill Watterson]

Well, sometimes we’re looking ahead. Me, sometimes I am staring in that rear view mirror. I am pretty much an expert at BEing anywhere BUT Right Here Right Now.

Which is where writing BEcomes such a gift. And BEing quiet. And walking. Even making art.

Practising Gratitude has taught me so much about myself and what I thinkandfeel about Life in the World. While my Gratitude does NOT look the same as others, that isn’t even the point.

It is the habit. The reflex. The built-in bent toward all that is Right Now and BEing unafraid to take it out and look at it.

With eyes of Gratitude. With compassion. Without judgments or opinions or labels like good or bad.

Some of my days lately have really pulled at me impatiently. This is why I am making it a point to write each day. Having abandoned two things I wanted to pull together has given me space to see where I was getting ahead of Right Now and where I was stuck thinking about the Past. That which canNOT BE changed.

Only my mind can change about that. Which is one of Gratitude’s greatest gifts.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 3 August 2014

More of the same gets more of the same. What we were given to practice, we practiced. What we practiced, we became. What we became, we are continuing to become - only more so - every day of our lives. We can do ourselves a favor by being aware of what we practice. Has the past taught us to withdraw? Think of how isolated we'll be twenty years from now! Have we practiced generalized distrust? Imagine how deep the roots of fear are growing.

But there's another side to that truth. If we practice finding beauty today, we'll find twice as much beauty tomorrow. If we work on forgiveness today, tomorrow we may be free of resentments. If we choose to relate rather than isolate, we can walk with friends through all the years that stretch before us. What will the future bring us? Whatever we have invested in it.  [Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty, Today’s Gift 8.2.14]

I’ve been noticing things I have “always done” and giving them a little Hmmmmmmm…

In little ways, sometimes, and often almost invisible ones, I have been changing. It might BE just as simple to say that I am, ALWAYS, changing.

BEcause I want to live happy. And with JOY.

As I am.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 2 August 2014

Practice this. Every action you take today, no matter how little … give it weight. Put some space around it. Start it intentionally, with the intention to be mindful, to inhabit that action fully, to notice with all your senses the entire moment. When the action is done, don’t just rush to the next one, but take half a second to appreciate what you just experienced. Then move to the next with equal weight and space.

If you don’t start treating this next action like it’s just as important as what’s coming later, you might never. [Leo Babauta]

This is a simple and great Practise. I have been a hurrier as well as a worrier. This way, BEing Right Here, Right Now, with What Is and What Is NOT, it’s so much happier a way.

I was getting a little squirrely about NOT eating, so I spent several hours this morning preparing food I CAN eat and WILL eat. I have expanded my repertoire a bit to accommodate a mouth that is how mine is at the moment.

This feels good. The DOing of it. The Having It Done. The ease it gives me.

Every moment and part of my Day is worthy: of cherishing; of pausing to notice; of loving; and of Letting Go with no regret.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 1 August 2014

It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth - and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, we will then BEgin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.  [Elisabeth Kubler-Ross]

Since it hurts to talk, or DO anything with my mouth, I have been embracing the quiet in my brain. I have been listening to the quiet, and it has had some wondrous things to tell me.

Sometimes it hurts to remember a time, a place, or a person. Yet just BEyond that sting I have found something sweet and gentle and kind.

Forgiveness?!

When I am out walking with Gracie in the wee hours of the summer mornings, I have been remembering things that I think SHOULD sting and perhaps they DO, a bit, but really, I am far more at peace inside Today than I could have imagined possible, at least for an Eeyore-ish sort like me!!!

I’m nowhere near clear if there is even a next step with these rememberings. So I shall wait. Or let them go as easily as they are coming.

I really love remembering one wee boy’s voice from long, long ago. And another’s from just last year. Imagine!!!

I love you, Currie