Facing The Play

I am a light bearer...or so I have been told by a shaman.  The places I fear are the places of contrast, the darkness, -the dead of winter where all of my demons unfold and speak in loud whispers of the judgements and tormented inner machinations.  This cold unforgiving space craves to take hold and spread like ice forming over trees- a rigid blanket surrounding arms extended upward reaching towards the light and life.

The light I see now in contrast to how darkly I used to percieve this picture , is that this tree, this life, while being tested by that which it cannot control, has roots deeply laid, has a center encircled by the years lived, by winters survived, by storms weathered, and has grown strong by many a windy day strengthening its roots and by the grace of as many sunny days as there have been rainy.  The reality is that in order to grow, the tree must face the elements.  It must face the play of living and being with what is.

The parallel of this tree to life itself is that we are all trees.  The contrast is that we as individuals are soley accountable for our growth as well as for our deaths in all realms: mental, spiritual, emotional and physical.  

As part of the beginning of this new year I resolved to take a measured break from alcohol based initially upon the showing of solidarity and support for close friends that were trying to kick certain habits.  I realized that this was a very much needed wake up call for myself to realize that the darkness was only made darker by drawing the shade- that I was only running to the problem rather than running any farther away.   For as much as I am thankful for, there is no denying the bleakness of this time of year where everything slows down and yet the mind races.  In past years it was easy to cloud over my discomfort of this time with friends at a bar or to buy something or over indulge in anything to distract myself from everything, but with eyes, heart and mind uninhibited, the darkness now appears in reality just a deep shade of grey that fades as the days pass and the sun grows longer in the sky. 

I recently told my life guide that I felt new to this world, like I was born out of the ashes of the ending of a seven year relationship that was heading towards marriage and the death of my father who was both the greatest gift as well as the bearer of the deepest torments in my life. 

I never imagined living my life without either, I never imagined that I could hate at the same time I loved,  I never imagined letting myself live in anguish for so long, and on the flip side, the new world,  I never imagined letting myself unravel, letting myself open, letting people in,  letting myself be emotional and full of all different emotions and returning to the beginning again.  For as shocking as the initial reaction of facing the play of life is, - like the stripping away of all the old beliefs and coverings to reveal the true self, the nude form exposed and defenseless, - so life begins with facing the fear of seeing what is before you, and when you actually look to see what IS,  it is not so bad and is in fact better than bad, it is good.  

I tell my students when they get frustrated with progress that they need to remember where they started and see how far they have come.  In order to play a passage with true heart, they need to walk in the footsteps of life: joy, pain, victory, defeat, love, death, fear and ferocity in order to let their fingers run through the passages and let their hearts sing and be at peace with what they create.  In order to play, they must face the play as I aspire to do, as I hope that we all do.  We are all light bearers.  Shine brightly.

Don't Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

A good friend of mine and I have had many talks about relationship karma, - about past loves, broken hearts, the numbers, college, and the varying degrees of sanctionably good and bad ticks on the tally.  He was insighting that this spell, the proverbial 'dry spell', was karma coming back to tag him for the injustices of the past.  I though about this for a bit, thinking about how much he has changed and how much his outlook and desire for a real relationship has changed.  The easy way is not the way of this bodhisattva.  

As I thought more about his view on relationships, I thought about how it parallels life in general.  Everything starts out so pure.  We are all little miracles- unfettered by the predestined buildup of  own junk and the beliefs that are sanctioned by others, and then over the course of days and years these little earthquakes of our lives start to shift the tectonic placement of our own beliefs about who and what we are, that the geographic map shifts, but underneath it remains the place where we all began.

The beginning of each new year always fills me with hope.  Perhaps it is corny to think that things will change at the blink of an eye once the ball drops at midnight but I for as many naysayers of the whole tradition of making a resolution there are, believe that there is a part of all of us that wants to evolve and change and come back full circle to the way we started out: accepting of ourselves.

There was a time, a very long time ago, say when we were born, when each one of us was accepted for who we were, -a new entity on this planet.  All of the resolutions to me signify a reset button for the  hope of going back to where we didn't feel the pangs of being so out of synch with the good that was waiting patiently to be unearthed, brushed off and shown to the light of day .  Who can shun a person's goal to seek better health, to seek fufillment, to seek happiness, -these were the gifts we had in the very beginning that began to be chipped away, hourly, daily, annually to where we are all today.

So, return home, remember the wellspring from where all hopes and dreams bubble and move towards renewing what was lost in order to gain what can be found.