IN APPRECIATION

I have grown to deeply appreciate the life I am having.

That sense of appreciation took some growing into.

I appreciate the life I am already having. I do not wait for the life I wish I was having before I choose to give thanks.

I have kept a gratitude journal for years. It is the first thing I do each and every day. Some days it is effortless. Other days it requires a bit of pondering. I sit with my mug of java and my journal until I have written down five things for which I feel grateful.

It used to bother me if my list seemed to take a bit of effort. Now I know it is part of the dynamic of being an alive and awakening human. I have come to actually know myself as a living dynamic. I am an unfolding. Some days I rise with more energy and vitality than on other days. Some mornings things that I appreciate spring forward easily. If I am feeling a bit more tired, I may stare blankly at the page for a period of time. Resistance to that experience is not helpful. I appreciate the fact that I remain faithful to my practice regardless of the ease with which it may happen. I am thankful that I remain committed to doing it. My life is better because of it. And I can be grateful for that each and every day.

For the past couple of decades, I have not only listed and felt things that I am grateful for. I also feel a sense of appreciation with my relationship to even things I may not like or prefer. I feel grateful FOR and I feel grateful FROM. My thankfulness is contextual. It is subjective. I am grateful for so many things in my life. That is for certain. And over the years my consciousness itself has become what I think of as a “thank you dynamic.” I do not need a specific thing or things to focus my thankfulness on. Simply being alive is reason enough. Before I get out of bed in the morning, I thank life that I am still here upon the planet. I thank life that I have grown to a place in my living where giving thanks is a priority and a non-negotiable practice. I pray that this hard to articulate perspective is being received. While I embrace the myriad forms and content for which I am grateful I appreciate even more living in a contextual consciousness of appreciation and blessing.

Many refer to an “attitude of gratitude.” I think of as less of an attitude and much more of a practice. It is a choice. It is a lens prescription. I believe that essential Goodness is everywhere present as potential. Gratitude and appreciation call that essential Goodness into expression. It is the result of an invocation. Thank you is my personal “open sesame.” Appreciation opens the way, and augments that which is appreciated. What I am thankful for and from is multiplied. Amplified. Transformed into something even greater.

I have had a great life.

I have not had a pain or struggle free life.

I have experienced many losses. Many.

I have been loved, and I have had love push me away.

I have enjoyed youth and vitality, and I have known sickness and disability.

I have been affirmed and approved of, and I have been denigrated and maligned.

I have had little, and I have known plenty.

I appreciate this great adventure called my life.

I am thankful to be right where I am, though there are a few situations I surely wish were not happening. I do not have to like or prefer in order to appreciate. In order to give a whole-hearted thank you. I approach the situations of my life with a deep knowing that I can choose to learn from everything. That allows me to open to the lessons that make me more of what I am meant to be. I can always choose to lean into what I used to push against. My life has taught me that I do not know enough to not be grateful.

My life has taught me that I do not know enough to not be grateful.

That about sums it up.

Some of the most painful occurrences of my life have resulted in the greatest growth.

Some of the biggest blessings of my life have come out of what I most did not want to experience.

As soon as I could eek out a barely perceptible thank you good began to flourish. Every time.

I cannot say authentically that I have no regrets.

I cannot say honestly that I have no lingering resentments.

I would never claim to have no wounds upon my heart.

And I can say authentically, honestly, whole-heartedly that I live my days in appreciation. In thankfulness. In gratitude.

I needed to grow into that perspective.

And I so appreciate that I did.

GETTING MY WAY

I was not born to get my way.

I have never been clearer about that fact.

I have also never been more at peace with it.

I am blessed to have spent most of my life aware that I am here on Divine assignment. I know and feel that I have a curriculum to fulfill that is broader and deeper than the surface details of my incarnation. As clear as I am about my Divine assignment it in no way diminishes the human experience I am also here to embody. I spent much of my youth not wanting to be human. I thought my humanity was a problem to be solved. Though it took a lot of digging to uncover it I unconsciously wanted to float above this earth realm as an ethereal being that barely possessed a body. Now I see and embrace that I will always be Spirit-Essence. I will not, however, always be incarnated. I am grateful I did not deny my way through this delicious opportunity.

So, the surface details of this incarnation are both for the delight of being in embodied reality, and they are symbolically in service of my Soul’s highest unfolding. Each and every facet of my life has meaning and purpose in terms of my personal becoming. It all belongs. I am the one that is applying the meaning and purpose which is where things get really interesting.

I was not born to get my way.

Thirty-five plus years ago I was introduced to New Thought spirituality and metaphysics. While I would not have framed it this way at the time, I thought I had finally found a way to get my way. I thought that intention and Universal principle applied properly would allow me to manipulate my manifest reality. I thought that I had finally come upon the secret long before the movie. I was told that all it took was a vision board and positive thinking. I was promised that affirmations and persistent visioning would give me what I wanted.

Not.

Did I mention that I was not born to get my way?

Now, I readily acknowledge that I did not apply these magic-making techniques perfectly. Not nearly. I was also not taught of the alchemical dynamics that are an integral part of the creative process. I did not know at the time that every affirmative statement sets in motion a process whereby we are shown everything in our consciousness that is blocking the manifestation of that which we are affirming. Not knowing this I thought my personal magic wand was broken. I affirmed abundance and lost money. I vision-boarded success and lost jobs. I tried thinking positively only to get mired in negative commentary.

I was not getting my way.

Now this is where those of you with well-working magic wands want to correct my mistaken perceptions and tell me how the same tools helped you to get your way.

Kindly save that for your own blogs.

My point in sharing this is that my journey is via a different way forward. I have to think that there are others who are having a similar experience. While I know that Principle is Principle and works the same way for all I feel equally sure that sure-fired manifestation is not the curriculum for all beings. Living a life where you most frequently get your way does not equate to doing it right. I am fairly convinced that mastery starts right where the magic wand stops.

It is my particular path to learn, grow, mature by not getting my way. Now, I am not saying exclusively. And I am not framing myself as a victim to this. I was not born to be Job. I do, though, currently see more clearly than ever that it is my vocational path to learn mastery in the face of not getting my way. Life has most often not gone my way. I have done more than my share of rumbling with that. And my rumbling has led me to the humbling realization that central to my evolution is to wakefully relate and to come to peace with not getting my way. With not getting what I want. With not being able to control circumstances, situations, or other people. No matter now hard I tried I could not force life to do what I wanted, when I wanted.

And I am more because of it.

I have known great frustration in this lifetime. I have known depths of grief, and explosions of anger. I have placed demands upon life, and I have pounded my chest when I could not control. I pushed and pushed my preferences. And largely to no avail.

Then came the day when I knew I was not born to get my way.

I was born to be the way.

The way of the Tao is the way of the way. It refers to a way of relating. The relating is not controlling, manipulating, or demanding. The relating is accepting what is, as it is. It understands that the manifest realm is only in service of the unfolding Soul. It is the way of the open heart and spacious mind. It is an unconditional yes in a world so often screaming no. The Tao is not governed by the outer. The interior is primal and priority. Beingness is the way. Becoming is the way. Relating responsively is the way. These ways are consistent whether or not we get our way in the world.

I celebrate knowing that I was not born to get my way.

It is a great thing to know that as I most often have not.

My Soul curriculum is about mastering how I relate when I am once again not getting my way. Being clear about that has awakened my relationship to the circumstantial realm. It has largely freed me from situational governance. I am actually able to giggle when I see it happening again. Not always. But more often than not.

I was not born to get my way.

I was born to be the way.

And a wondrous adventure it has been.

AUTUMN-WINTER

I love the changing of the seasons.

Especially the ones in me.

Having recently returned from a trip to the north I am in a practical way reminded of how much I love the changing of the seasons. I have a particular fondness for autumn, and so I was thrilled to experience the array of vibrant colors as the leaves begin their inevitable descent. The air was at times chilly, and in the morning hours out and out cold. I could feel the transitioning of autumn into winter, and the blurring that was still teasing.

As I beheld the colors and embodied the chill I pondered if I myself have moved fully beyond the blur.

Do I have any internal autumn remaining, or am I fully ensconced in the winter of my living?

While to some readers that may seem an irrelevant question, I deeply appreciate the inquiry.

I have lived in the tropics for over twenty-five years. While there are seasonal changes in this part of the world, they are decidedly subtle. I have grown to notice them more readily over the years. Having been reared in the north there has always been something dystonic about this climate. It has always and continues to feel out of my natural rhythm. While I appreciate the subtle changes, I greatly prefer more dramatic shifts. Chilly and subtle leave me wanting. At least in terms of prolonged experience. I even love the extended period when the trees are bare and brittle with the cold. I can always feel an emergent animation beneath the barren appearances. I know that in a time the brittleness will give way to bud, and bud to flowering. It is a thrilling emergence.

I was born on an Easter Sunday. I am a spring baby. In my youth I could not wait to get out of the emerging spring and into the full out expression of summer. I wanted the summer to never end. Ease of action and expression for me seemed the epitome of life living itself full out as me. So fixated was I on youth, freedom, action, and adventure that I barely noticed the fall season that was beginning to settle in. Truth be told I did not notice my internal autumn until I was fully in it and it was fully in me.

In my noticing I began to appreciate that my seeming ever-greening leaves were being replaced by fiery, passionate, vivid colors. As much as I had identified with my summer ardor it was being replaced by an even greater splendor. Though having been born originally in the spring a rebirth was occurring during the autumnal season of my living. Something quite unexpected was happening. Though I had wanted to prolong my summer experience at any cost I was finding that it paled in comparison to the blaze of my fall.

Something else amazing was happening. Even as I relished the embracing of a latter season, I was not clinging to autumn the way I had to summer. I intuitively knew that this autumn of life would inevitably lead me to the winter of my experiencing. My vibrant colors would begin to fade. The leaves of my fullest glory would soon begin to literally fall. What was so amazing was that I was devoid of any fear or any notion that the final turning should somehow not occur. I had my spring. I seized my summer. I blazed as autumn. And soon I would be finalizing as winter.

Rereading that last paragraph, I question and smile at my own framing.

I feel with a serene certainty that I have already entered the winter of my incarnation. That does not mean that I have no vibrancy or passion left. I am not ready to go completely within. I am cooler, yet I am not frozen. I am slower, yet I am still moving. There is more subtlety and there is ample life remaining in my undeniable seniority. It is perhaps late in my incarnation, yet the lights are still on. I am at a place now where I have experienced and can now describe the spring, the summer, the autumn of my human adventure. And I have never been more awake to my seasonal nature. I have never been less resistant to being exactly where I am with no longing to be somewhere else.

I have known the curiosity and wonder of spring.

I have known the enthusiastic full out expression of summer.

I have relished the passion and vibrancy of autumn.

And I coming to know and to love the contemplative presence of winter. The lesser doing in order to more fully be. The cool that only comes from knowing that all things will indeed pass. Including youth.

So, while I remain living in the tropics I mostly dwell in the full spectrum of my seasonal nature. I am content to know that I arrived in spring. That I had my summer. That I harvested my autumn. “Been there, done that” as the saying goes. And now I am fully engaged in living my winter.

I have lived my entire life from a perspective that I did not want to miss anything. Yet for much of that lifetime I did not want to find myself in winter. I did not want to wake up one day and find that I was old. There is a subtle denial of life in that perspective. I have been young. I have been middle age. And now I get to try out the venture of being a senior citizen.

How cool is that?

As cool as winter, my friends. As cool as winter.

I love the changing of the seasons.

Especially the ones in me.