Planting Maize

Decades ago I had an epiphany during an epiphany.  Stick with me; it'll make sense.

I was in a conversation with a young man.  The reason why and who he was are now erased by time, but the epiphany remains fresh.  He was telling me how the Navajos plant maize in the darnedest places.  "They till these rows; they plant these seeds...I mean, it's in the desert for crying out loud!  Nothing can grow in the desert.  So why the heck would anyone...." He stopped mid-sentence.  The light of an epiphany broke upon his face.  Then he said, "They don't plant the seeds to grow maize!  They plant the seeds to grow intention!  Who knows if maize will grow or not, but the act of planting is what counts.  They know that somewhere something will grow because they planted an intention."  And in the midst of his epiphany, I experienced it too.

 If God is in the details, then everything matters.  Acts, thoughts, a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil.  But I don't say this to make us paralyzed.  (Ohmigosh, an angry thought!  I just killed a squirrel in the Tuileries Gardens!)  If wishes were horses we'd all be wearing waders.  Rather, think of what our thoughts do to us.  Do they make us anxious?  Angry?  Grateful?  Lighthearted?  Think of the words that come out of our mouths in a conversation with a cashier, a spouse, a telemarketer.  That energy is what we put into the world. Does it not make sense that if MOST of what we put into the world is wholesome, something somewhere yields wholesomeness?


This is happening more and more.  If you read things like the Goodnews Network (www.goodnewsnetwork.org) or watch Karmatube (www.karmatube.org) you'll know that there is more to life than Fox News or the New York Times.  People are doing good things, holding beautiful intentions.  It goes on all the time.  Everywhere.  Higher consciousness, particularly in a group effort, can yield astounding results.  I call such efforts Spirit Farming.  We can all be Spirit Farmers.  As we sow, so shall we reap.


In those dark nights of the soul, when you struggle to find your peace or an answer, step outside.  Feel the maize growing between your toes.  Know that you get to be the beneficiary of some good intention sent to you by someone...somewhere.  And give thanks for their generosity.


Pax tecum.

 

Don't Curb Your Enthusiasm

I found a great book I wasn't supposed to be interested in.  Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice by Dennis Kimbro and Napoleon Hill.  Normally I would regard the title as boooooooogus, but years ago one of my favorite colleagues, himself Black and an ex-offender, told me how it inspired him.  Seeing it available for one mere dollar at Written Words Bookstore (www.writtenwordsbookstore.com.  Did you all catch the shout out?), I decided to buy it.  I've been reading a lot about money these days.  And I am thinking about it as part of our life force and how our history and psychology mingle with it.  How do we create abundance?  How do we create deprivation?  What stories do we tell ourselves regarding it? 


I'm not halfway through this very short and readable paperback and the main idea is hitting me like a piano falling on my head.  Be enthusiastic about your idea!  LOVE your idea.  Sleep, eat, and breathe your idea.  Hold it to your bosom like a newborn baby and keep nurturing it.  

The Black authors say they wrote this book for Black Americans who struggle with success.  But this middle-aged White chick struggles with it as well.  The stories we tell ourselves, they say, determine how hard we will work, whom we will attract to help us, and if we keep our eyes and ears open for opportunities.  The stories can keep us moving through the long, dark nights into the light of day or stuck at an entrance, trying to find the way in.  I have not been telling myself very good stories.  "Why would anyone want to pay for a course on silence?  That's just an absurd notion!"  "Why would anyone come to a working class neighborhood for a silent retreat?  God knows there are far more beautiful places for that."  More significant is "Why does my passion for this persist?  I must be crazy."  Enough!


Many of us now desire a different lifestyle.  Either 9 to 5 no longer appeals to us, or it no longer wants us.  We are now creating new forms of work that spring from our unique gifts, gifts that aren't always conventional.  It is tough, often lonely, confusing, and we make mistakes (Boy, do I hate that part).  We need buddies to help us through all of this.  Not just networking groups--buddies.  People we know and trust, who care about us, and remind us of why we're doing what we do.  We need to share better stories to get to success.  We need to keep each others' enthusiasm burning brightly.

So here's my challenge to you:  All of you, if you would, please--PLEASE--declare to the rest of us what you are enthusiastic about.  What do you want to achieve?  How can we help each other?  If you've already achieved a dream or two, what did you learn?  What got you scared?  What made you brave?  Would you like to be a mentor?  Come back to this post often and see who's responding to YOU.  Pass this blog post on to others who might be interested.  If you want to make a private connection, let me know; I can play go-between, providing email addresses or phone numbers.  Maybe there's some face to face opportunities in the offing.  Anything could happen.  I created this blog to create community.  Come join in! 


Wow!  I'm feeling really enthusiastic about this!!!


Pax tecum.

Multitasking Is NOT a Virtue

Recently one night, I was sitting in bed reading some nonfiction book while listening to classical music.  Nonfiction makes me think, and I love to think!  But in a momentary gap of attention, I heard the music.  It was beautiful!  Lou Harrison's Elegiac Symphony.  I put down the book and listened.  Then I wondered why I have music on if I'm not listening to it?  Why do I put food in my mouth if I'm not going to taste it.  Why do I take a walk if I'm not going to see what I'm walking through?  Just yesterday I was so excited about my new consulting assignment, thinking of all the great things I can do for the client, that I drove to the place only to realize I had left all my paperwork at home!  Focus, Jannie.  We need focus.

These are the simple examples of multitasking.  In truth we cannot go through our day without multiple things happening at once and shifting our attention from here to there.  We'd be hit by a skateboarder or burn the pancakes if we didn't.  But these occurences do speak to what we are ignorant of and what we choose to focus on.  I can choose to focus on the dust buffaloes in my living room and believe myself to be a poor housekeeper.  Or I can choose to focus on the beautiful paintings on my walls and remember I have a wonderful sense of esthetics.

Things gets worse when we focus on a cell phone, a conversation, and traffic at the same time.  Or rapid fire signals that require our attention.  Our frontal lobe is not designed to take in that much information so fast for a long period of time.  We create adrenaline in response, and over the long haul the result is adrenaline overload leading to adrenaline addiction.  When that happens we cannot concentrate for five seconds in a row.  Our brain is now wired to need more and more stimulation to keep up the adrenaline it is now addicted to.  And once this happens we are in a chronic state of stress.  We feel crazy.  We cannot remember things, write a clear sentence, see where we are going, hear what a child is saying to us.  We become horribly ineffective in anything we choose to do.  Would someone please tell me why we think multitasking is virtue?


Well here's one guess.  From our ego's standpoint, it makes us seem important.  We must be important if we have so much to do!  And so we parade our "have tos" like prizes in some contest.  Here in the southwest of the northeast, we play this game better than anyone.  The joke is it is no fun at all, and life is slipping through our fingers...but we convince ourselves that this stress IS our life...it's just that we don't like this life and desire a different one...but not really because then we'd lose points in the contest...and who signed me up for this anyway?!?!?!

This is why I advocate silence as frequently as possible.  Meditation is one option.  But just sitting on the stairs staring at nothing is another.  We need to rest our brain, get our adrenaline down to a normal level, and work--and live--more mindfully.  In doing so we are more effective in our jobs, our relationships, and in living.  It can be hard to do.  Our brains feel starved when we don't keep the stimulation coming.  But it really does calm down after a while.


One of my clients here for a silent weekend retreat made an entry in the guest book:  When I got here, I really resented having to give up my cell phone.  Two days later, I really resent having to take it back!  A saner life is available to all of us.  We just need to be aware that we and our brain chemistry are not one and the same thing.  We can make different choices about how we use that organ between our ears.   Practice doing one thing at a time throughout the day and see how much better you feel and work.  Now that's a virtue!


Pax tecum.

Expansion and Contraction

How many of you have attended a conference?  You come back feeling inspired with new ideas.  Then back into the workplace you go, only to feel the air slip out of your balloon.  Or perhaps you had a remarkable breakthrough in a therapy session.  An issue which had been dogging you for years has surfaced.  You see how it plays into your life.  You walk out of the office feeling you've conquered it once and for all...only to have your button pushed again by a random encounter.  Maybe it was a meditation in which you really transcended your particular suffering, full of love for humankind, only to awaken the next morning to your neighbor's blaring radio and a mind full of expletives.  Why does this happen?  Why can't we seem to get it right once and for all?


Expansion and contraction, my friends.  Both states are real in and of themselves.  But we do experience both of them temporarily throughout our hour, day, lifetime.  Since I'm a Reiki practitioner, I use "energyspeak."  We are energy.  Energy surrounds us, emanates from us, permeates us.  Indeed we are made of energy.   When we become inspired, we expand.  As outer and inner forces come to bear on us, either in the form of illness, weather or past memories, bad habits, our energy contracts.  It is to be expected, even if we do dread falling off the mountain yet again!

But here's the good news.  We never contract to our original size.  Each inspiration stretches us a little further; each set back contracts us a little less.  Perhaps without realizing it, we are growing.  We are changing.  And that in turn affects others.


I have worked in some pretty oppressive places.  Places where negativity abounds.  It is extremely difficult to break out of that gravity and rise above it.  I regularly dwelt in that tar pit myself!  It is even harder to overcome it alone.  So consider the plight of people living in a community like that.  An energetic black cloud holds everyone in thrall.  It may not be that individuals are not trying hard enough to get out of their situation.  What they really need is critical mass to fortify each others' energy in order to overcome together that which holds them captive.


For those of us fortunate enough to live in more buoyant places, there seems a greater awareness for self-improvement, an awareness of community, an awareness of a greater good, an awareness of what is good.  Let us accept expansion and contraction knowing it is part of the human experience, knowing it gives us compassion for others.  Let us also reach out to those who can fortify us like a band of brothers who also strive for inspiration.  In turn let us reach out to those who need fortifying, for how else can they grow in capacity?  Share your expansion.  But as the airline staff will tell you, be sure to put your oxygen mask on first!  Negativity is very slow energy, and it can easily pull you down and suck you dry.  It really does take more effort to maintain positive energy which vibrates very fast.  Help those in need when and where you can.  But always be sure to replenish yourself lest you become depleted.  It helps no one to hurt yourself in service to others.  Know when you need some expansion.  And reach out for it as often as you can.  We will all be better off for it!

Playing the Fool for God

God makes me do foolish things.  I live in the over-amped, over-worked southwest of the northeast, and I am constantly called out of a steady job to do things that are hard to define (like this blog).  In my time I've worked successfully as a librarian, a university administrator, an HR manager, and a few other things in between.  This itinerary is due partly to boredom or wicked stress.  But it's not that I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.  In every instance I feel this persistent inspiration to take a long step out into space to do something else, something more meaningful, spiritual, and useful to more people.  I feel called to live a different kind of life--a more authentic life.  I feel called to speak about it and help others pursue it.   So I chuck these jobs for a new venture: Reiki, life coaching, a semi-monastic life.  The effort seems to take longer than I think it should.  My finances get shaky. Then off I run to the safety of 9 to 5, trying once again to pass for normal in this society.

Since I have no spouse or children, it is easier for me to take risks than it may be for most people.  Still I often feel like a fool.  I have anxiety around my free-wheeling lifestyle.  There is no dependable income.  It is hard to talk about myself in introductory conversations where the question "So what do you do?" eventually comes up.  But recently I've begun to recast my life.  "I'm no pigeon," I said to myself in a moment of clarity.  "So I don't fit in a pigeon hole!"  

The epiphany expanded.  I realized that I am not failing--bailing, yes, but not failing!  The problem is that I am not trusting. I believe my spirituality needs to be scripted.  And when the script is rewritten, I either lose faith or I reexamine my faith--the best case scenario. I keep trying to make my life into something booked by a travel agent when, in fact, I'm drawing the map as I go.  I have a growing suspicion that if I just release the expectations of how I think things should work, I just might be able to fulfill my calling.  It is also my fast growing experience that there are others--you perhaps--who are searching for a more authentic life outside the pigeon hole.

So, Gentle Reader, please take note:  I am writing this in the present tense.  If you are looking for answers here you'll stumble upon them--as well as the blocks--in real time right along with me.  But I'm guessing if I avoid the pigeon holes in my own mind, this is going to be a far richer and more useful life.  Thank you for walking some of this path with me and sharing any maps you may have in your pocket with all of us.  Pax tecum.