Currie's Gratitude 7 January 2014

All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.  [J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan]

Much is said [as well much has been written] about Faith. What it is. Who is full of it. Who is NOT. Walking by it. Organising it. Having it. NOT having it.

And when it comes right on down to the place where I sit, I wonder if I have it “Right.” Is it Faith that keeps me DOing what I DO and BEing how I am?! Or is it any one point-to-able thing?!

I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you're going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.  [C. JoyBell C.]

For me, for Right Now, this is an extraordinarily simple definition of Faith. That knowing without knowing HOW or WHEN or WHAT.

This is where I’m walking by Faith.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 January 2104

In the space between yes and no, there's a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; it’s the legroom for the lies you'll tell yourself in the future.  [Jodi Picoult]

When I think of the space BEtween as Life, suddenly things make more sense. Come more simply. Seem more palatable.

I’m never really “IN” the spaces BEtween, I don’t think, until I suddenly, or mayBE NOT so suddenly, realise that I’ve been waiting for or looking back with longing.

Right Now is the only Time. Yesterday. Tomorrow. Last year. Next year. Those are all in my head. Fluff. No more than imaginings and of far less importance than I assume.

I am learning, I am leaning into this space, the space I imagine as “in BEtween” whatever came BEfore or may come After.

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.   [E. B. White]

This is so like I feel when I am having a day BEgin. I want to DO good things and serve Life yet I also just love BEing. Just living Life.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 January 2014

A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word. [Ralph Waldo Emerson]

There are a great many ways the word CHILL is used. I like that about words. I like their depth and juiciness. I know many people use CHILL as a verb, when they say Chill Out. Others think about it in terms of the weather, as in the Chill Factor.

Emerson, however, has brought more of a “quilted” definition to Light. For me anyway. I think of cynicism and sarcasm as knives. They cut quick and fast. They go deep. And the odd thing is, I have always had the sense that the cynical and sarcastic mean their words as wise and insightful twists of a phrase.

Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic. [William E. Gladstone]

This has often tripped me up. I feel things deeply. I have strong ideas, but if I find myself in a situation that calls for a debate, I’ll shut down.

I feel what I feel and think what I think yet it is all too intense. I know that my thoughtsandfeelings will BE cut to shreds.

And I care too deeply to let that BE their lot.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 4 January 2014

And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.   [Robert Frost]

Sometimes I think about my story. The story line, you might say. I was writing earlier about how seriously and personally I’ve taken Life. I write to understand myself. To see myself from a remove that I canNOT find staying closed-up and tightly-wound.

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.  [Henry David Thoreau]

I have often thought that I am simply NOT made for relationships. I mean, the sort where you travel in pairs. Or live, staying at home in one… I have enJOYed these relationships immensely, yet I find I’ve flourished flying solo.

In these past 7 years of living alone, I have made a great many changes. And several moves. Yet the thing that I never imagined could BE is. I prefer this. I choose this. I want this. Such a surprise…

The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.  [E. M. Forster]

Mmmmmmmm.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 3 January 2014

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.  [Martin Luther King, Jr.]

I have withheld my love and forgiveness, my kindness and compassion, and never has it improved my Life or any situation. Nor has it made the sort of difference I wish to make in this one precious Life I have been given.

Now I forgive quickly. Without all the mind-bending-brain-cramping of BEfore. Ahhhhhhh!!!

There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.  [Nelson Mandela]

Getting by is tempting, while living full-out holding nothing back is amazing!!! I won’t say I always bounce about like Tigger when opportunities present themselves, but I ALWAYS choose to give of myself and whatever I have fearlessly. Needing to “hold on” is simply erroneous.

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.  [Abraham Maslow]

I guarantee this is true. I’ve done studies.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 2 January 2014

I invent nothing, I rediscover.  [Auguste Rodin]

I’ve been thinking lately about two sides of the same whatever: Am I following someone else’s footprints or am I making my own way through the forest called My Life?! It seems to BE a question that only hangs in the air. Like a fog on the windshield.

I think of the Journey up until Now and I can see that both things are true of my rear view… So what Now?! DO I put an emphasis on my interpretation or DO I merely keep on as I am?!

I canNOT imagine an inventor thinks in such a fashion, but then, mayBE I don’t know, y’know?!

To invent an airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything. [Otto Lilienthal]

That’s quite a thing I BElieve. This is a lot what the creative process is, at least for me, and what I canNOT seem to put into words when someone reflects out loud on something I have created.

It is NOT an effort to “invent” my art or words. Making art and writing words both DO take some sort of something. But to Let Go of that little ball of energy or Light inside of me and send it out into the World, that is definitely EVERYthing!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 1 January 2014

I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers.  [Helen Keller]

It is like this for me, too. I suppose I have certain aspects of myself I call “limitations” or even “liabilities.” But the trick is to inhabit those things which make me unique. Unrepeatable. I don’t think there was really any flaw to my design. Just flaws in my thinking about it and then BEing it, of course.

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.  [Confucius]

Curious… I am aiming myself toward Forever and yet I have no amount of Time that I think Forever to BE. This is why I am thinking less and BEing more. It is so easy for me to BElieve that there is something fixed and immovable when really, if I’d think about it less I’d see that BEing Present is all there ever is that I CAN BE.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea. [Nelson Mandela]

There is nothing so true as this simple, lovely idea.

I love you, Currie