Jamie Gilroy
From Nothing
- June 26, 2009
I’ve been following the news like everyone. The King of Pop is dead. The Dream Angel for boys my age is gone too. The moonwalk is gone. The one piece bathing suit fantasy too. What is it when icons die? How do we cope? Where do we file that info? When a god dies, the demi-gods are filled with angst and fear. The common folk weep when their idol perishes; when great lights are blown out. It doesn’t matter if those lights were freaky, we still are drawn to them, mere moths to their brilliant celebrity…
So I’ve been watching Bodhi, my two year old. He is magnificently filled with so much life. He not only is growing fast, but absorbing everything and learning at an accelerated rate too. He is getting to be himself - a little bundle of personality. He is beginning to believe his dream. I love it. But sometimes I look at him and realize he came from nothing.
A sperm on its own is unable to create. An egg by itself cannot produce Life. Each depends on the other to merge and unify and begin the process of Creation. But really from nothing comes something. And how much does that something develop into a person, a personality? I see that with Bo - he is becoming a personality. It is beautiful to watch this process, but I also wonder at what point does the personality take on a life of its own? When does it just find its place in the world? Or does it need to continuously seek attention, constantly reinventing itself? When can talent or looks be enough? Or do we as mere mortals project our yearnings onto our “stars”, those “exceptional beings” and ask more of them to satisfy our own longings?
I mean all of us originally came from nothing. Are any of us greater or more talented or prettier or smarter than anyone else? Sure if you believe that. But that doesn’t change the fact that we all came forth from Life and eventually in death, return to Life.
And that my dear friend makes us all the same.
No?
Long live the King of Pop. Long live our favorite Angel. But please don’t forget where we all came from…
J
Romance: Part Two
- June 21, 2009
Editors note: please re-read Romance - Part One again.M: But some people would say that that doesn’t sound like real life.
J: Of course it doesn’t. What happens in real life? Someone gets cancer and dies. Someone rejects you because your thighs are too big, your nose is too short. It’s all these expectations and judgments. We’ve been conditioned to see that it’s the goal, it’s the end game. It’s what does it look like after the romance. How many people say, “Oh yeah, romance is great but now we are married? Oh, I am married with children. Driver carries no cash, his wife has it all.” You know there are all these little things that support the belief that the romance at some point ends. Everyone wants a fairy tale ending but doesn’t believe it. Or people say, “Oh, that’s just a Hollywood ending. That’s Hollywood. It’s make believe.” Well, guess what? Your whole life is make believe. Why wouldn’t you make believe it in that way? I am with my beloved. Each second that I am with her is like a pit full of honey, dripping over each of our bodies. Rose petals falling from the sky. Moonlit walks. Tenderness that is so unbelievably excruciating in its tenderness. Is that make believe? Some people may say so. For me, it’s my life. That’s how I live my life. And that’s how I plan to live my life to the very last moment. And that romance is not with something outside of me. It’s with Life itself. It’s not focused just on my wife or my sons or my dog or my friends who agree with me. It’s focused on the entire thing that’s called LIFE. That thing that is coursing through everyone of us, moving through every tree, every plant. Every animal on this planet is alive in that way and it’s romance. It is romance. So say whatever you want to say. Say it’s not possible. That it ends after you get married. It ends after you have children. It ends after you get divorced. It ends with the angry client, the estranged sibling, the disappointed boss, the shitty economy and your vanishing wealth, your family of origin, the other side of the tracks you grew up in, the color of your skin. No. It never ends. And I’m here to tell you that. Ever. Unless you say it does. Unless you no longer want to live a romantic life. Don’t you see we choose. No one does that for us. Sure we all have valid reasons for being miserable, for being so unhappy. The litany of reasons is both long and varied. But when do we say, “I want this now before I die.” What if we really understood how unbelievably short our time here is? Wouldn’t we spend every possible second seeking out the honey like a little bear cub? Some of you in the audience are most certainly wondering if this doesn’t sound like some ecstasy fueled fantasy. That I must certainly get angry, yell at the kids, wake up grumpy, have my bad days. Absolutely. But what I also do is remember what the ecstasy feels like and seek to go back there. What being out of Romance with Life feels like. Let me tell you this. It feels like crap. And the more I’m in that romantic place the better I get at getting myself back there when I fall of the horse. Sure it happens. So what? What are you going to judge me for taking myself out of the honey pit? Do you judge yourself? What if for once you didn’t? What would happen? Would the big ol’ Wizard of Oz be exposed? An old man pulling levers behind a façade? Nothing there substantial at all? The honey of Romance is what’s substantial my friends. I have no doubt whatsoever. Now where is your doubt? Where is your faith?
Close your eyes for a moment and just imagine the exhilarating feeling of loving yourself and everything outside of you so much that your whole being is shimmering and light. What about it? What are we waiting for…?
M: (sigh)
END.
Enjoy the sweetness.
Love to you all,
J
Romance - Part One
- June 20, 2009
I have been in a bit of a funk recently. Blame the weather. Blame the dog, the toddler, the wife, the job, the economy. Whatever. I found this inspiration for my next blog in a folder on my computer desktop called Writings. Not remembering what it was I opened it. The following conversation was transcribed from a workshop Meg & I gave a few years ago and we were discussing what romance really meant. In reading it over the funk I’ve been in lifted like the fog on the harbor this morning - just burned off from the relentless shine of the sun. Sometimes I need to remind myself of what the hell I’m really doing here. I share part of this transcript with you now. Enjoy.
J: Do you see how romance is everywhere in life? Unless you are just are a hardened person, or a criminal, or someone who has been so abused by the dream of the planet that they are cynical. We aren’t looking for cynics. Ok, so they’re cynics. Go enjoy it, have fun with it. I am looking for the romantics of the world. Closet romantics. Those people who dream of their beloved coming to them and taking an orchid and stroking their entire body with that flower. Wearing a light cotton kimono, a Japanese robe on a hot summer night and feeling the thrill of their lover as they untie the knot that holds it together. And slowly that kimono falls and parts. And it’s like mystery. It’s like looking up at a starry night in the middle of summer and the mystery of life. Don’t you see that? And in the parting of that kimono and the touch of his hand on her hip. Romance. Right there. And anyone can have it! Large, small, white, black, fat, ugly, gorgeous. It doesn’t matter. Romance is not a physicality. Romance is an inner quality. And it’s how you look at it. Everything is romantic. Everything. The walk in the morning. The dog walk in the morning and the smell of the ocean and the caw of the seagull and the light breeze blowing your hair and you feel like life is making love to you. What could be more romantic than that?
M: But how do you teach that to someone?
J: You teach it by showing examples. How do you learn anything in this life? 2 + 2 = 4. How do you learn that? They show you. They give you an example. They write the number 2 and the plus sign and the next 2, the equal sign and the 4. There is great romance in this world. Shakespeare has written some of the most romantic sonnets. Things that will blow your mind. There are books - The Bridges of Madison County - people scoffed at it. Why? Because they are cynical. They don’t believe in romance. I cried. I bawled my eyes out like Richard Simmons when I read that book. Poetry. There is great poetry. Poetry that a book called These luminous Things and there are poems in there from around the country. Rumi. Have you ever read Rumi? I grow moist when I read Rumi.
M: You’re supposed to go hard.
J: I grow hard when I read Rumi. Listen there all these great movies. Don Juan Demarco. Watch that over. You teach people the basic thing that you are going to teach people has nothing to do with romance and has everything to do with them. Who’s going to give you the opportunity to be romantic? Am I going to wait for you to be romantic with me? No. I’m going to be romantic with every aspect of my life. Brushing my teeth, brushing my hair, when I look in the mirror I don’t judge what I see. I love what I see. That’s where the romance begins. So. You have to start with people and their beliefs about themselves. It does come back to that. But you don’t linger there. You don’t spend tons of time. You say, “Look it’s your choice.” You want to feel differently about yourself, then just try it. Humor me in the next two days during the workshop, I want you to just put it on like a mask if you have to and wear and believe in it. Don’t have any doubts and don’t worry about what happens when the seminar is over and you go back to your life. Just be right here, right now in this moment and take my hand and I will lead you on the most romantic journey of your life. Are you ready?
M: I’ll sign up!
J: And this is how you do it. And it’s like a virus this romance, think about it. If it spreads, think about the romance that will be going on all around the world. People are having romance with their pets, with their parents, with their friends, with their co-workers. Every moment for each person is a romance and it’s not what you think it looks like. It’s not always someone coming and saving you, for women, or the knight on the white horse, chivalrous, and strong. It’s not going to look like how you think it’s going to look. But I guarantee you with the eyes of the romantic, everything is romantic in this world. Everything. Standing on the stoop with someone that you are so attracted too. You’ve just gone on a beautiful date and you’ve had an amazing meal, great conversation, had a bottle of wine, and you just feel like you are full. Full of love, full of romance. And you walk her to the door and you take her right to the front door and there is that beautiful moment where you are pausing, she’s pausing. And you’re not wondering, “Do I kiss her?” You’re thinking, “This is such a beautiful moment. I want this moment to last forever.” And suddenly you feel each of your bodies leaning towards one another. Your lips reaching for the other’s lips and you kiss and that first kiss is remarkable. It’s like fireworks are going off. That can happen over and over again. I’m here to tell you it happens over and over again. And that’s all. You say good night then. It doesn’t have to go any farther. You stood in the moonlight on a cold fall night saying goodnight to this person you spent 4-5 hours with. And you give the gentlest, the tenderest of kisses. And your lips touch and they melt together and then they come apart. And in that coming apart is like when you take a spoonful of honey and that last little strand of honey goes into your tea cup. Do you see? That’s enough. You don’t have to go upstairs. You don’t have to rip your clothes off. All you have to do is see the romance in that moment. And that carries the next time you talk to that person. The excitement. The giddiness. The childlike energy that you are feeling in your body is beautiful. That’s romance.
And I’ll tell you that we do diminish romance once we have obtained what we think our goal is. This is the key. We always think that the goal is to possess the other person, to have the other person, to have certainty that they want to be with us forever, that we want to be with them forever. They’re the one. We’re the one. Their in-laws are nice. My parents are nice. It’s ridiculous. That’s not the goal. The goal is to keep that moment, that kiss where you separate and the honey, the strands of honey between your two lips are pulling apart gently. That moment and I’m here to tell you this, that moment is pure romance, I’ve experienced it and I know it to be true. For me, it’s true. That moment can exist permanently between two people
M: But some people would say that that doesn’t sound like real life.
TO BE CONTINUED… Romance - Part Two
Love,
J
I Promise You’ll Be Enlightened in This Life
- June 17, 2009
My oldest brother emailed me an article this morning about finding a spiritual teacher. The author of the article studied with Kalu Rimpoche a Tibetan Buddhist lama who passed away in 1989 at the age of 84. He was a very famous guru with many followers. Reading this article that was sent to me kindled memories of my own journey on the Tibetan Buddhist path.
The title of this blog was actually said to me by my guru at the time, Sonam T. Kazi. Or “Mr. Kazi” as the majority of his students or Sangha called him. (Sangha: group of followers of a particular teacher and belief system). The exception was a handful of “senior” students who had been with him since his arrival in the United States in the late seventies. They called him Sonam. Anyhow, I had been studying with Mr. Kazi for quite some time. Being a good carpenter and a faithful student I would spend almost every weekend of the year working on his property in upstate New York. After one particularly extensive project was completed he took me aside and smiling said, “I promise you’ll be enlightened in this life”. I was stunned by this comment. Having all of my faith (ok, Faith) wrapped up in the Dzogchen practice of Tibetan Buddhism, and all of my time and energy and beliefs also invested in this path that comment certainly got my attention. Here was my guru (ok, Guru) who we all (the Sangha) believed was the Buddha himself telling me, a humble carpenter, that I was going to reach that penultimate goal in this very lifetime. Wow! My mind in those days was still a mess of superstition, drama, limiting beliefs, and fear. Sure, I had glimpses of clarity but I was about as close to reaching enlightenment as I was to playing a round of golf on the moon. (Ed. Note: I hate golf.)
I was also very familiar with the trials and tribulations of millions of worthy (certainly even worthier than myself) seekers willing to wait for the next life or if not then, ten lifetimes in the future before being fortunate enough to accrue enough good karma to reach their final attainment. How could it be that I was to be singled out for this wonderful attribute? And how could another human being even guarantee such a thing?
“You have to do everything your guru tells you only as it pertains to your spiritual practice.”
What I discovered was there was quite a bit of belief wrapped up in that little dumpling of a blessing I received that day. And more than a garnishing of self importance. (Ed. Note: I have noticed the amount of self importance in oneself is about equal to the amount of insecurity in oneself). I certainly was operating under the assumption that this person, my guru, knew what was best for me, and knew the most expeditious way to the top of the mountain. In giving away all of my faith to him (Faith) I was also giving away my discrimination. The argument here goes like this: if your teacher is the Buddha himself, then what place do I as a mere seeker have for discrimination? Isn’t that what got me in trouble (see: lifetimes of suffering) in the first place? So in giving up my ability to make choices based in “how does it feel” and relying on “what should I do in the name of Realization” I followed post haste on the instructions given me. Not all of those directions were just based on my spiritual practice. Some were clearly mundane, physical and from my point of view then however, they were all designed to release my attachments to how I thought things should be. In retrospect I’m not so sure. Looking back on it now I felt like a leaf in a swift river.
Is this confusing? Maybe so. But it’s like this: I handed the keys to another human being and said, “you drive my life”. That was my choice since no one held a gun to my head. But I also saw how dependent we all became to letting someone else direct our movie. Certainly at the time I did not recognize that much of my compliance was based in fear; the fear of going against the Dharma, disobeying the Guru, letting down the Sangha, but in retrospect it was. Could another person really bring us to that ultimate destination? And what was that place really?
I came to see as the years went by that there are many teachers, guides, angels, lamas, gurus, yogis, friends, pets, ex-wives, and children who have SO much to show and teach us. But they cannot manifest Happiness inside of us. Yes, they can point the way. They can describe the view. They can inspire us to climb even higher. They can mop our brow and dry our tears and wipe the snot from our nose. They can hold us like our mother did. They can motivate us like our father did. They can break our hearts when we glimpse their humanity. They can show us enlightenment is in fact still chopping wood and still carrying water. Still cleaning a shitty diaper. Still making poor choices. Still stumbling and yet still dusting our sorry selves off and climbing onward. And maybe we learn along the way to be able to let the mind go and merge with our own Heart, the Infinite.
I look back on the ten years I tried my best to be a good chela (student). I see my teacher in a whole new light now 20 years removed from his feet. I look back on it all as one looks at the progress of a child learning to walk - a mixture of gratitude and wonder that they did and a feeling of I’m glad that’s over with.
Now I know how to walk. Am I enlightened as promised?
Hey, can anyone hear that sound of one hand clapping I keep hearing?
What?
J
Kung Fu Dreams
- June 10, 2009
“Because a man can see, he does not look.” - Master Po.
I’m sure most of you read about the passing of David Carradine recently. The details and speculation around his death were more and more revealing as the case went on, starting with suicide, and ending up as an auto erotic act gone awry. If you type his name on Google you will learn everything you never wanted to know about the man.
For me I will always remember him as Kwai Chang Caine the humble yet capable Shaolin monk. He was a Buddhist monk who kills the emperor’s nephew (for killing his beloved master - I know that’s being a bad Buddhist) and flees to America and the wild, Wild West. For the three years that show aired (1972-75) I was glued to the TV. I was 14 years old and idolized this character. He was gentle and soft spoken, yet always sublimely aware of his surroundings. When pushed he could diffuse a situation with a minimum of violence, and typically with his bare hands. There was no gratuitous bloodshed and over blown firepower like ninety-nine percent of what’s on TV now. Watching the show you always knew he would run into some heavies and there was going to be a showdown. Yet the way in which he used his skills had no ego attached to it. He always helped those less capable, and usually the underprivileged. He was also very cool. He grew his hair long. He played the flute and carried very little in the way of possessions. He wandered the western landscape in bare feet. He practiced his art form daily.
In fact I was hooked by the portrayal of this solitary monk wandering from place to place sowing peace and harmony. For me the desire to study martial arts and eastern philosophy had its origins in this TV character. How cool would it be to disarm a bad guy and be the quiet hero? What freedom to be able to go wherever you are called to go with no attachments. To meditate, to do tai chi by a flowing river, to never stay long enough in one place to put down roots.
Six years later I found myself doing my best to live this dream. I applied to a school called the Blue Poppy Chi Kung Association who according to their brochure “was dedicated to training Knights without armor”. Sign me up! So my buddy Val & I left NYC and headed to Boulder for the summer of 1980. I was 22 years old.
For an entire summer I ate, slept, and breathed the Caine dream. I walked around Boulder in bare feet, I practiced Chi Kung daily, bathed in Boulder Creek, and spared with Val on the lawn of the public library. I carried a wooden samurai sword on my back wherever I went and Val carried a wooden staff. We went up to the mountains and tripped on mushrooms. We danced and drank until the bars closed and then went to the all night diner and ate breakfast. We barely slept. We studied Chinese medicine with the founder of the school. We practiced kung fu by a flowing river, the occasional homeless guy wandering through our class and no one flinching as he weaved through the group. We stood for an hour in horse stance with our master, no one moving a muscle even to swat at a pesky fly or the master would yell at us. I know I tried my hardest to integrate this dream that was born years earlier watching a TV character that I fully believed was real. The truth is I was human too.
I left Boulder that summer to pursue a woman I had been living with in NYC who now was living with some older (28!) guy in Portland Oregon. There was some tension as word filtered back to my girlfriend that Val & I were hitchhiking to Portland for a showdown with her new boyfriend. In fact it was all hype. I think a bunch of pool furniture ended up in their swimming pool in a drunken act of defiance. I’m pretty sure Val had to fish it out by himself as I had driven off into the night to sleep off my hangover. Anyway.
My point is we are all human and the images of perfection don’t always synch up to what we live in the course of our daily life, or the choices we make in the moment.
David Carradine was not the TV character he played in 1972. In my mind he would have led a quiet contemplative life finally settling down and meeting a good companion. Maybe have a few kids. Teach them his art. Be the old wise man. Then fade away peacefully. Yet his last act was laid bare for the entire world to see.
Yes there is a tinge of sadness that a hero is exposed as real with real foibles. And yes there is another tinge of sadness that that young man that moved to Colorado with hopes of being the next Kwai Chang Caine put away his sword and put on shoes and found a job and pursued some kind of security.
There is no bad in that of course. I just wonder if the dream of who we might be and reality of who we are will ever merge. Is it possible? Can the fantastic and heroic image and the everyday ordinary image blend together so as to lose the distinctions? Can we live the way we know how in our heart of hearts and satisfy both divisions?
Is there a way to live nobly? And to die nobly?
Master Po: Close your eyes. What do you hear?
Young Caine: I hear the water, I hear the birds.
Po: Do you hear your own heartbeat?
Caine: No.
Po: Do you hear the grasshopper that is at your feet?
Caine: Old man, how is it that you hear these things?
Po: Young man, how is it that you do not?
See you out there on the road.
Peace.
J
Unconditional Love
- June 06, 2009
I heard this phrase while sitting at a table at an outdoor café in Portsmouth NH a couple of days ago. I was people watching and relaxing after a few hours on the Triumph, and not really focusing on what was being said around me. It was a warm sunny day and lots of people were gathered in the main square. Out of all the various garbled conversations that were going on I heard this phrase “unconditional love” loud and clear. I have no idea in what context it was being used but I heard it as if the person who said it was sitting at my table. And that’s all I heard.
This actually happens a lot to me. I will hear a word in a conversation nearby or in a song while driving and listening to the radio. The way I see it the Universe, aka LIFE is dropping a hint, or maybe a simple reminder.
So what do these two big words mean? For me they represent the gateway to Freedom. A door to Happiness. Not necessarily freedom without responsibility. Or not necessarily giddy happiness. But in essence real emancipation from our beliefs and stories that keep us small and limited. The happiness is contentment really; being fine with “what is” - no matter what it is. Unconditional. No conditions to our direct experience of Love.
Love. That one all inclusive word that can heal, inspire, make whole, and transcend the petty.
More often than not I forget that I once signed up to live my life in unconditional love. And yet even in forgetting I remember even more how much I love this life one hundred percent. The sweetness, the challenges, the yearning, and the acceptance. I may not like what shows up sometimes. I may actually go into resistance. But just under the surface of those experiences there is deeper place I can go to. A feeling that is so powerful. A way of living that is so expansive.
What if?
What if our hearts pumped nothing but Unconditional Love?
What would that be like? What world this world be like?
Pretty cool I bet. Even cooler than it already is…
Later gator-
J
Remembering As If They Are Gone
- May 21, 2009
I had a dream the other night. In the dream I was with some friends and someone asked me about my mom and I said she was no longer with us (don’t panic anyone - she is healthy as a horse and due to be around for at least another 80 years…). More than anything else though was the feeling of that emptiness knowing I could never just stop by her house and say “hey mom”, or ask her to come over and hang out with her grandson Bodhi and then have dinner with us. The enormity and finality of her being gone hit me like a sucker punch in that dream. I was shaken. And what I woke up to was how each moment I spend with her, each interaction is precious.
Really isn’t it that way with everyone? When was the last time you looked through the eyes of total adoration and appreciation for ALL the people in your life? The ones that stress you out, the ones that soothe you. Your beloved, your co-worker, your parents and siblings. The total stranger who just cut you off in traffic. And what about us. I mean you. Will you ever know how precious this gift called Life is? Do I? Yeah sometimes I do, other times I forget. But truthfully that awareness is always lingering just below my consciousness and doesn’t take too much effort to once again remember.
I recalled two things this afternoon before I dashed out of my cave (office) and met Meg & Bodhi at the beach. First, it has been almost 48 hours since my last blog (44 actually) and I promised to write each (and every) day. I know I lied. Get over it. The second thing I remembered is how 6 years ago I met a woman who took my world and gave it a good shake. I met my beloved. And I remembered today how much she means to me and how much I love her. The passage below is something I found while in a mild panic as I was searching old writings I could sneak past the blog nazi and insert as a recent post. I thought it was totally cool to dust this off and offer it up as a remembrance to live like one day we’ll be gone. Here it is. It’s for Meg, but really for us all.
I remember the day I moved from Encinitas to Escondido to join you on our path together. It was pouring rain. Normally I would be bummed about not only moving, but that it could possibly rain on moving day.
Remember when you’ve begun relationships in the past and there is a sign or a feeling that somehow this isn’t right, or meant to be, or won’t last - just a feeling so subtle as to be unrecognized? I always had this with other relationships at the beginning. I never saw it as it flew past. Eventually it would be the downfall of a relationship.
That rainy day in Escondido, unloading a large truck at the end of the driveway, while dashing an arm load of stuff to the garage, I remember a feeling that was strong, and new. It was a feeling that this was right - this moment, this experience, this choice of being with you, was just so perfect. I could see you through the big picture window, sitting on the couch in the living room, talking on the phone to a friend. You were watching me get wet. I was watching you stay dry, and in that moment I saw myself being so authentic, so full of life, and pleasure. I had no feeling that you should be helping, or a feeling of injustice at you staying dry while I worked. I loved that you were comfortable…
That was the moment I saw how completely different I felt with you, and how completely myself I felt. I knew our togetherness was right, was blessed, was in harmony…
I felt it then at the beginning, and I feel it even more now after almost 2 years (ed. Note - it’s six years pal). I am so completely in love with our life, our dream, our love, with me and with you.
Just like being soaked from the rain, each drop a blessing, each drop saturated with love.
I adore you Megzy, long time and right now.
What if you turn to someone right now after reading this and say “thank you’!!!
Thank you for being you and in my dream. I love you.
Sweet dreams to you.
J
The Reinvention of Me
- May 19, 2009
I promise to write each and every day.
I promise to write each and every day.
I promise to write each and every day.
I promise to write each and every day.
I promise to write each and every day.
I promise to write each and every day.
Etc. Etc. Etc. times 100. (that’s for you Syl!)
Am I a liar or what? How can I possibly write each and every day? Is it possible? I have no idea. But let’s find out. It has been over a month since my last blog and I think I must have lost the handful of faithful readers by now. Or maybe I lost them long ago anyway. But listen I really am writing for myself anyhow. I love the clicking plasticky sound of my keyboard as I hunt and peck my way through this form of expression. It is music to my ears…
Symbols take shape into words and those words have meaning (we can only hope) and maybe even create a feeling inside as they are read. This is my intent and my way of saying something meaningful out of all the words that escape my mouth and have little or no meaning during the course of my day. I talk a lot in my line of work. I also write a fair amount too all in the form of email. That’s informational writing and the tone is most often lost in that very simple form of communication. Here I attempt to allow the words to convey more than the business at hand. Here the feeling of the message is what is important.
So what’s up you ask? Well it’s funny cause I’ve been thinking about how we continually reinvent ourselves throughout the course of our lives. Or maybe not. Maybe some individuals remain pretty much the same after a while. No major shifts no big “aha’s”. I don’t know how that’s possible but it seems to be the case with so many. But there is another tribe out there that always seems to morph into something new, a better version of itself. Or at least that’s the challenge. That’s what I want to talk about tonight - the ones who have found a way to keep it fresh.
Today as I was walking our dog back home I saw a young man turn the corner ahead of me and walk down the street. Some kind of strange recognition jolted through me. I didn’t know who he was as I’d never seen him before. But he was my build and had very long blond hair tied loosely in a ponytail. As I watched him walk away I had this eerie feeling I was watching myself thirty years ago. That earlier version of Jamie (long hair and all). It was mind altering to watch my former self and feel or better yet, know, what that early Jamie was like. Twenty-one years old and not a bad guy but also not all that aware either. And as I watched I could feel what living those additional thirty more years had done to my inner world. There was still a ton of fire no doubt but it burns slower now and is less combustible if fire can be that way. The love I have now runs deeper and is much less conditional. The dreams I have are so much more fulfilling than the ones that moved me thirty years ago. However in the watching of a former version of me I had so much respect for that young man and his uncanny ability to turn a pile of horse shit into a pony. To keep getting up off the ground to find a way home through the blackness of doubt and uncertainty, through the pain of heartbreak and disappointment. In some ways it’s about being a survivor. And that made me respect that younger me all the more.
I thought of all the self images I adopted to make sense of the world. All the masks I put on that helped me to feel like I fit in. The incarnations of me that were really simple strategies to cope with this thing called living. Being alive. But where was the “real me”? The authentic one? The one who no longer believed the mask?
Well duh, that didn’t happen overnight of course. This lovely gift called day in and day out, the good fortune to stay alive and keep getting a chance to see the sun rise and the flowers bloom and the babies be born and the world get smaller and people get more compassionate and the hum of humanity get more soothing and all the questions get answered and all the love increases and all the masks fall away…
That’s what I saw in the flash of a similar looking human to myself. And in all the reinventing of me I saw a link between then and now. That somehow it all made sense when I saw the younger me and felt the twinge of admiration for the path he took that got me here today. Remarkable, truly remarkable when you ponder it. Isn’t it?
So if you are feeling stuck go find an old picture of yourself. Stare at it hard and see who was it there that got you here? And how many reinventions along the way did it take. And how much can you love what you see. And how much can you love what you are.
Right here. Right now.
Later gater-
J
el sueño de amor
- April 15, 2009
Last week we took a vacation to Sedona AZ. Not that we really could afford a vacation at this time. My business is extremely slow and I’ve temporarily laid off some of my employees. But we had booked the tickets months ago with frequent-flyer miles and were depleted from a VERY long hard winter, so we needed a break. Yeah, so that’s the story anyway.
You could say that our Dream was in flux. And you could also say that Megs and I were stressed from all the busy-ness in our lives. Writing a book, raising a toddler, running a construction business - all these things are pretty much normal, but we had some unforeseen situations that compounded the stress level and in general Meg & I were acting more like business partners than co-creators of our own expansive reality as husband and wife.
For me I know that I was more and more in resistance to what I was experiencing, and consequently more and more stressed out. The more I tensed up I got, the less awake I felt. The more work I lost to other contractors who were underpricing, the more bitter I felt. In short I had lost my capacity to Love.
Now before you dear readers feel like I “doth protest too much” what with millions of people in similar situations, I have to say that until recently I have been pretty cool with whatever Life threw my way. But now I have become just pissy and cranky. That is until I went on vacation.
Distance from the bubble of our own particular dream can often give us a new perspective on it. Sedona did that for me. It took a few days into our vacation before I began to let go, breathe, relax, and expand. I took a break from the intensity of life here and in doing so gained another point of view. Or should I say rediscovered what I’m here for. Why am I here?
To love. Love. Love it all. And with love comes Gratitude. No matter what shows up - Love it. Sure when things are humming, the economy is good, money is flowing and increasing, it’s easy to love. When there is no stress love is no problem. But when things get under pressure, the investments lose their worth, business goes bad, relationships get tested, love seems to slip away. Why? Isn’t that when we need it the most?
While in Sedona I had the good fortune to borrow a beautiful motorcycle from my brother and best friend Rick. The bike is a work of art (07 black Kawasaki Z1000 for you aficionados) and Rick and I had some unbelievable experiences on his two motorcycles that week. Whenever I ride I get into this amazing state of freedom and bliss - it truly lifts me in a way that is unique. Rick was so generous in allowing me to take the “Z” whenever I needed to. On this particular day I rode across town to get a massage. After a wonderful hour and half of bodywork I felt open and peaceful. I rode up to this Tibetan stupa and sat for awhile and let myself go. Really just dropping out of my head and back into my heart. I got back on the bike and rode to meet Meg and Bodhi at the supermarket to shop for dinner.
As I was riding to meet them I passed a building that was empty and caught my eye. It looked like it once been a retail store of some kind. On the big picture window in large four foot letters was written the word “LOVE”. That’s it. One word. And that one word by total chance got my attention as I passed by. Love. What was I fighting? Who was I resisting? Why? What if I simply surrendered to that word. What if I gave all of my faith and doubt, all of my anger and joy, all of my bitterness and hope to that one simple word.
LOVE.
Because long ago I had a Dream of Love. In my dream I could be in a state of love no matter what or who showed up at my door. Complete and utter love. Why not? What do I have to lose? What is there to resist?
That is the reason I went to Sedona. To reawaken to my desire. To let go of my resistance. To embrace LIFE. The Dream of Love is calling.
Can you hear it?
J
Embracing the Unknown
- March 19, 2009
For me St. Patrick’s Day came and went this year quietly and without a hangover. I know what that day means to so many and I support the celebration. To me that day has a different kind of celebration attached to it now. It is the anniversary of my marriage to Meghan. Well the first marriage. We did it three times actually over the next year. Anyone who truly knows me knows I love weddings so why not three with the one you love? So how did it happen? Listen, it’s a great tale.
I was living in California some years ago and studying with don Miguel Ruiz a Mexican shaman (who wrote a lovely little best selling book called The Four Agreements). He really helped me get to a place I had been yearning for my whole life. His assistance (and also from the unending love and guidance of my beloved teachers Rita and Barbara) got me to a place faster and deeper than all the roads and paths I wandered as a young man put together. It was magical, truly remarkable, and almost unbelievable the transformation in me that occurred in a relatively short amount of time. During this period I wasn’t really earning any income and after almost a year of intensive internal dismantling of my former self I was pretty much broke and in debt. That was ok though as I was pretty sure I could somehow work my way out of that hole. After all I created it so I suppose I could un-create it. I began packing my life up and prepared to head back East to my old home town to begin making money again. Best of all though I was beginning to feel really happy irrespective of my monetary state.
Well just around this time Meghan and I got together, fell pretty much in Love and figured it was a nice romance but short lived. She wasn’t planning on moving back east to cold winters and I had made my mind up there was no other way to extricate myself from my self created financial mess other than to move east. A bit of an impasse you could say. I was conflicted because of the wonderful connection I felt with Meg there in Encinitas and the plan I had created to start working again that meant leaving. Geez, what to do?
(Editors note: Ok some of you may be wondering, rightfully so, wasn’t there any work in California? Good question. If you live anywhere in North San Diego County no one works. Surf, drink Coronas, eat fantastic Mexican food and repeat as necessary.)
One of the most valuable lessons I learned after moving to California was the ability to embrace the unknown. I first practiced at embracing those parts of me that were buried inside and had no idea what they were but somehow seemed to control my life experiences. Then I worked on all those beliefs that made Jamie who Jamie was. I practiced letting go of who I thought I was. That was interesting. If I’m not who I thought I was then who am I? Talk about a deer in the headlights! It seemed like every step of the way I was being asked to leave behind what I thought was possible, or what I thought I knew, and enter into the unknown. Most definitely terrifying at first, but the more I did it the easier it became. And each time I released a belief, a plan, a scheme, or event I was holding on to - the outcome was so much sweeter than what I could have imagined. That said, I still could be a single minded stubborn ram (ass). And was.
Now it was the end of February. I was packed up and waiting for the moving van to move me east. I had asked Meg to marry me (having had a “vision” that we were being married by don Miguel and all the elders on top of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán Mexico) yet had no plan for how that could or would happen. I was convinced I had to leave and head home to New England. In a conversation with Meg about the situation I found myself in she asked me a simple question that derailed my strong (ok, obstinate) belief that I had to leave California. I said, “honey, there’s only one solution here. That’s to move east and do carpentry again until I work myself out of debt.” “Really?” She smiled. “Really, there’s only one solution? Hum, that’s interesting.” And all of that conviction dissolved right then and there. I found myself going to that place of “I don’t know” going into the unknown where so many answers await.
I see so many opportunities right now to step into that unknown place with regards to the state of our world. So many good souls trying to make sense of what happened, what is happening, and how to fix it. So many uncertainties in the world right about now. What if we could just step into that unknowing place without fear or doubt or hesitation. What if we got so good at it that each time we did so it alleviated our stress and anxiety about what could happen. What if we got good at letting go? Got good at stepping out of our own way. Got really good at not believing ourselves and the news we broadcast in our own mind about how bad things are. Just for a moment we took a grand step into the Unknown…
Well. I did. I lept again with no idea what the outcome would be. And two weeks later, on St. Patrick’s Day 2003 I was married to my beloved Meghan by don Miguel, his son don Jose, and all the elder Dreamers on top of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán Mexico. I will for as long as I live never forget that day and the sight of this collective group of beings who let go long ago their limitations about what is and what is not possible.
I will never again underestimate the power of embracing the Unknown.
Each time I do it’s like my wedding day all over again.
Thanks for reading.
J
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