Step Into This Stream…

 

Last June, three weeks from a full year now, I was laid off from my job.  Like a canary in a coal mine, the landscape company, for which I designed and sold installation projects, rolled itself closed like a roly-poly bug startled into a “defense is the best offense” posture.

Remember those little gray bugs from your childhood?  Like micro miniature armadillos, they tucked head between tail, pulled up their prodigious quantity of legs and rolled themselves into a “Closed-Gone Fishin” posture.

I had worked for the Landscape Company for a year, always in their top three sales producers.

But in the early part of 2008 my sales, (and the companies in general), began to drop like a thermometer at the South Pole.  Gone were the heady days of producing $120,000 in jobs each month, replaced with numbers so dismal the company shuttered the doors and turned us all out.

The economic tsunami that we all-are now so familiar with-was still three to four months off, and I assumed I would get another job easily and quickly.  But as the months went by, and more and more unemployed flooded the job market, my resumes went without comment or contact…and, I slowly began to see the enormity of the financial situation facing me.

Luck and preparations were on my side.  Early in my Spiritual development I came to understand that debt and voracious spending were primarily a Spiritual problem and subsequently, I had, many years ago retired a considerable debt load, and begun saving money like a rat hiding cheese.

So I hunkered down, did labor intensive, no or low-cost, projects around the house and garden, met and fell-head-smack-over-heels-for my neighbor’s three small children and cared for and tended to, my own small family of animals.  (Three little eight-to-fourteen-pound-mighty-dogs and a self assured cat.)

With the small stipend the Government provides in the form of unemployment insurance, (and my steadily declining bank account), I have stayed afloat and managed my lack of income in a truly frugal and impressive manner.  I don’t make any purchases of any substance that is not truly a need, that means I feed myself and my furry family, and I skip almost everything else.

In practice, it turns out to be a little bit like house arrest…

Gone are dinners out, movies, trips, to anywhere but the grocery store, and in; are long walks with my dogs, visiting with my little friends, and prolific reading.

It’s not a bad way to live, provided your sense of self is not derived from your job/income/position/business affiliations/acquain-tances/or any other form of association, that disappears when your money stream ends.

I am deeply fortunate to have opted out, the first time, in my 28^th year and spent that year saving my physical life, (for from that time forward-to this day spent talking with you), I have spent less and less time deriving my sense of self from what I Do, and more and more time seated in the bedrock of who I Am.

Oddly, I learned the most about that process while owning and operating a decidedly hands-on business.  Providing murals for high-end homeowners and retail customers…a business where what I produced, was the only way to provide a paycheck for myself.

I had painted on canvas for many years of my life, small snowy-white rectangles, of 8x10 or 16x20 inches.  And in the strangest set of circumstances imaginable, found myself thrust into the process of creating paintings on canvasses not measured-in-manageable-inches. But rather, in expansive spaces where I often needed ladders and scaffolding so tall, they could have been used to bring Rapunzel down from her tower, after she tried that new Dorothy Hamill haircut.

In this context, “What I Did-Slash-Produced” was how I made my way in the world.   A direct result of my actions and mine alone, paid my bills.  (Or didn’t-as the case may be-those first years were a roller coaster ride of chicken one month and feathers the next), but the bottom line was, I fed myself by my own hand.

A circumstance, I would highly recommend.  To work for yourself, to provide your own living from the inner reaches of connection to yourself and your own gifts, is to mature yourself, in ways to numberable and meaningful to describe.

Not the least of which, is learning to understand the difference between “Doing” and “Being.”

We humans, particularly we American humans, have very little sense of the difference between Being and Doing.  That is due, in large part, to our lack of understanding regarding the Inner and Outer worlds to which we are all attached, like fetuses to umbilical cords.

Our confusion is primarily funded by our senses.  We see that we must “DO” something to make seed grow into food, resumes into job interviews, lumber into houses fit for habitation.  (Which is where our collective addiction to goal setting stems from-something I did away with entirely in the years I spent painting Murals-I haven’t set a “goal” of any kind in more than 2 decades, and yup, I’m still breathing.)

That bias is so strong in fact, that there are few of us indeed, who give more than a passing-Sunday-morning-knees-bent-head-bowed-done-that-been-there-bought-the-Tshirt, kind of nod, to the notion of Being.  And even then, only in relation to the Great Being, with hardly any understanding at all, of the Being we share in common with the Great Unseen.

The Great Unknowable called forth the creative process out of Beingness, (Nothingness), not the work of hands in soil or hammers on nails.  So too, must we call forth the life we were meant to live, not out of the actions we spend our days pursuing, but out of the connection to Beingness we find deposited asleep so deeply within ourselves.  Then and only then, does action take its rightful place in the Great Creative Pulse, that funds are capacity to fill our lungs, beat our hearts, and understand our place in the scheme of things.

That very understanding was what developed for me, those long and difficult days, spent standing on ladders.  Agony spreading itself across my shoulder blades from hands held, for to long, above my head.  Painitng images I couldn’t really even see, because I was to close to them to grasp the entire contents of their form and shape, spread as they were over 20 feet, rather than 20 inches.  (To know where I was in relation to where I needed to be, in order to continue to develop a piece, I would have to get down and walk backwards for 15 feet or so to see what was maturing under my hands…then back to the “canvas”, I would go, once again blurring the images to mere groups of color.)

A painter…essentially painting blind…

It called forth the development of a Trust so pure, so large, so intrinsic…it carried my broken heart the rest of the way across the great divide that had begun in my childhood, away from the pain and anguish, which characterized my early life, and into a life of connection and humility.

As my skill and reputation grew, clients would be drawn to me who needed to experience my particular brand of high wire act.  By this time, I had long since given up planning, sample boards, and artistic certainties, in favor of letting the canvas/rooms dictate their needs and outcomes.  Customers, who couldn’t conceive of giving someone a large check for a commission that had no accompanying evidence, save the work they had seen somewhere else, would shake their heads and look for someone other than me.

But for those who could handle the ambiguity, the artistic uncertainty, and the co-evolution, (their money-my time and talent).  The rewards were always well worth the anxiety, both theirs and mine.  (I say this not out of hubris, but out of the many, many clients who upon seeing their finished rooms, cried, or beamed, or pointed out the angels, they say, the saw beneath the surface or some combination thereof.  One woman said she loved it so much she wanted to “lick it”…whew…)

They would always remark in some fashion or other, how proud I must feel about producing such quality work, and in the early days I used to try to explain to them how it wasn’t about the outcome for me.  The results were what they paid for, and richly deserved, but those results were not what I worked for.  Don’t misunderstand, I needed the paycheck…but the paycheck was the ABSOLUTE least of the many blessings I was so freely given, in recompense for putting in such long and difficult days.

The very best gift I received in all those years, (I eventually shut down my business, because the artistic well ran dry, but more about that another day…), was the deep understanding that developed, in me, regarding relationship to Beingness.  And the recognition that the painting originated in the invisible realms, passing through me, depositing its gifts and graces and moving out into the world, not so much a product of my skills, as it was a product of my obedience.

Let me attempt to more fully explain, by telling you a small story of my all-time favorite Vocalist…Bobby McFerrin.

An aspiring singer auditioning for Bobby McFerrin’s choral group Voicestra, reported McFerrin started the audition in a very unique way.  When I walked in, she said, McFerrin drew a line with his foot on the floor and instructed.  "Step into this stream of music and sing what you hear."

(Bobby McFerrin is a national treasure and 10 time Grammy award winning jazz singer, go to www.bobbymcferrin.com and “click to launch radio”-to hear this magnificent voice).

Step into this preexisting stream and sing what you hear…what, huh, who…

Yup, that’s right, a stream of fluid sound that pre-exists the singer and deposits itself in the vessel that has conditioned herself/himself to receive the sound, and carry its vibration into the light of day.  That is the best definition of Beingness I have every heard.

That is exactly how I painted, I picked up a paint brush, held a palette knife, or a piece of charcoal and stepped into a preexisting stream of visual vibration and let it have its way with me. 

Just so you know, in the early going, giving up that measure of control, opening yourself unconditionally, that kind of total obedience…well darlin’… it scares the living daylights out of you.  Particularly when all those around you are waiting to see what the “Artist” is going to do.  When your livelihood hangs in the balance, when whether you eat or not is directly linked to someone else approving of something, you know, you have no control over.  I don’t know how I got through those early days…

It taught me humility on a scale I had never before understood, much less contemplated…it also, in time, fed my Soul like a sudden downpour in a drought plagued savannah.  Just like that savannah, Life leaped up from every quadrant, and inundated me with blessings and multitudes of blessings.

This is not the only way to bring a product into the marketplace, in point of fact, you can push and shove, goal plan and market, advertise and strategize, Do an Do some more…and get results, but beware…there is a high price for this perversion of the creative process.  We see it all around us, in our polluted land, rotting skies, and confused over-medicated children.

Doing-rooted solidly in and flowing freely from-Being, heals and transforms, feeds and provides, shelters and warms, gladdens and uplifts, soars and sings and touches all who draw near.

It is also balanced, harmonious, humble, does not take more than is necessary, and leaves a light, weightless, gentle and nimble footprint upon the earth, and all her creatures.

If you are sensitive to your Inner depths you can feel the difference between those creative types who come from Being and the ones who come from the desire for fame, riches, and accolades.  It’s subtle...but it’s always there.

For me, one day, the Creative Pulse took its leave of me.  Just like that…there one day-gone the next…which is how I ended up working for a Landscape company in the first place.  I grieved, and wandered around like a lost child for a very long, “dark night of the soul”.   At the time I couldn’t understand why, or how, it had departed.  I only knew that it was gone, the grief I felt for that Companionable Director, that hand upon my hand, was one of the worst times of my life.

So what did I do…I moved to a climate whose embrace nearly cooks my brain, and I waited and waited, and waited some more.  Childish and petulant, I demanded to know why I had been abandoned.  Not yet mature enough to understand, I was going back into the chrysalis stage.  That I had to be patient enough to await a new birth, I won’t lie…it was hard…

Slowly I began writing, which mostly came from Doing…but here lately, I can see the first green shoots of the growth of Being, here at the keyboard, in front of the computer and out into the Blogosphere.

Have I found my next canvas?  And with it the many gifts I received thru those years and years of ladders and paintbrushes, I cannot say and in Truth I cannot know… 

All I can do is have the discipline and obedience, to show up here every day.  That, I can do…I have the muscles for it, I put in the time, I Am Willing…

Until tomorrow…

R.

Photo courtesy of Clint Barnes whose work may be seen at www.flickr.com under the tag Senrab4

Step into this Stream essay by Ronni Miller copyright 2009 all rights reserved, reprinting available with author’s permission.

 

Somewhere on the Open Sea…

 

A few years ago, I was in an Antique shop, browsing among the colorful old books, looking for a book to set on an easel and decorate my plant ledge.

Having once made my living as an Interior Designer and decorative painter, I have very specific tastes and a home that reflects a commitment to beauty and order.

I found just the right book, colorful, fun, playful, with a young boy on the cover and with the necessary age and patina, in a shop in the downtown district of my City.  While purchasing it, I struck up a conversation with the woman who owned the shop; she too, was an antique.  At least 75, she was time worn, threadbare, bent, and growing hair where women are not meant to, (or at least don’t want to).

I can’t remember the context of our conversation, only its last sentiment.  We must have been talking about, “The Future”, or some derivation thereof…because her last line was…”I’m still waiting for my ship to come in”.

I remember the line, its delivery, and the poignancy with which she said it to this day…at least four years later.  The sadness of the sentiment oozed out all around me, even though she was not aware of my emotional response to her message.  It implied without doubt, that her 70 plus years of life had not brought with it, satisfaction, contentment, or prosperity.  Her ship.  It’s wealth, lost and rudderless, somewhere on the open sea.

I suppose it was the curtain about to draw closed on a life spent waiting for an illusion that struck me so, and made me sad for her and her Lost Ship’s worth of personal treasure.

I have a friend who is stuck in this exact same tide pool.  He talks of becoming a famous actor, though he has no acting skills and none of the requisite passion for the craft of acting.  He talks of getting rich, winning the Lottery, or in some other way stumbling across great fortune.  He imagines that “rich” people are somehow unique and special; somehow exempt from the trials and tribulations that he believes plague his, “head just above water”, minimum income lifestyle. 

Once I tried to peel back this illusory view of a life lived with the means necessary to purchase whatever one might fancy, as being free from troubles and sorrows…he got mad at me.

I said,”Every life has its limitations.  Every life is filled with challenges.  Every life has sadness, sorrows, disappointments, the wealthy are not immune to this…and in some ways they might actually have more than their share of burdens and disappointments. 

(They are not afforded the luxury of an illusion that allows them to believe,  “if I only had money life would work for me, I would be happy, life would be easy”, they know money won’t fix it.  They know better than to be waiting for that particular ship to dock, it would be a waste of time indeed.) 

Can they buy better fantasies?  Of course, they can.  Does that free them from pain or heartache?   Of course, it doesn’t.

Most people define freedom, financial or other, as the right to do what you please, as you please, when you please.  For me, that is the working definition of chaos and a life without merit.

Limitations are the shape of your Soul, brought to you specifically for the growth and aggregate gain of depth and breadth, which is necessary for you to become more truly yourself.

I point to Christopher Reeves, as a remarkable example of this process in action.  Early in his acting career, clad in blue tights and a red S, he looked every inch the Free-to-do-as-he-pleased-Hero.  A take-charge guy, with pearly whites, coal black hair and the requisite V shaped chest.  He got the girl, the respect, the applause, and the rewards…but of course, that was just the movies.

Contrast that image, with the man just prior to his death.

Helpless, (at least physically), immobile, wasting away, tied to a ventilator its unnatural pace, dictating his speech and making his rhythms artificial and stiff.   And yet, he was the very picture of grace and dignity.  His soul shone.   His wisdom was revealing itself.  All because of the limitations his Soul had chosen for him. 

Every life, and every form of life, is required to have limitations.  Or chaos would ensue and balance would be lost.  Just as prey have predators, Summer’s glory kneels to Winters demands, Life bows its head in supplication to Death, and Light must end with Darkness…all going out, must result in a coming back.

Most humans resent and resist this natural order.  We want all things to prosper indefinitely, to march upward without waver or penalty, to exceed our wildest imaging’s and allows us a berth on a glory train we don’t have any right to.

This is pure fantasy and the arena of the immature.

Over time, with help and a constant desire to mature myself, I have come to see the wisdom of the Soul bringing limitations to my doorstep.  More than that, I have come to see the wisdom of choosing my own limitations as well.

Gone are the days that I wished for unending fun, sun, friends and parties…to be replaced with Silence, Harmony, Rhythm and most prized of all, Understanding.

Understanding is the “Pearl of Great Price”, it manifests only for those who have paid her price-steep as it is, costly as it is, demanding as it is.

She favors restraint over bombast, humor over wit, kindness over sophistication, gentleness over dominance…she provides just enough of herself to keep you moving ever forward, just enough light to keep the path illuminated for only the length of your own shadow in front of you…never the whole way, or past the curve in the road ahead, so as to keep you mindful of her desire for limitations and the use they have in the development of the Self.

To aid and develop her companionship, I have begun to choose limitations and to commit myself to their use.

In the physical I choose to eat little or no processed foods and to exercise five times a week.  In the financial I purchase only needs and very infrequently wants.  In the professional, even in this time where I cannot find a job, I show up at this keyboard, as though I am making a living from it.  In my home, I have a place for everything; everything in its place and beauty prevails.

In the Spiritual, I remember that the only choice that has any relevance at all is the one that chooses Truth over Illusion.

You can easily make the mistake of thinking that choosing Truth means to force others to believe the same way you believe, or honor the same rituals and traditions you honor.  That form of “truth” is Truth lost.

Truth in its righteousness, in its right-use-ness, is a total dedication to the qualities of the moment that arises directly in front of you, exactly as you find it…without opinion or editing.   The line you are standing in that doesn’t seem to move, the car who just cut you off in traffic, the lost luggage, the upturned plans, the demands on your time, the lost job…or even, the accident that stole the use of your limbs.

To say Yes to these limitations, to honor the moment as it arrives…never searching for some other place in the path, some other road to travel this is the “right-use-ness” of Truth.  This acceptance of the moment forces you to reach inside to find the only location actual freedom exists.  The Inner World.

Having once been an Associate Minister for a New Age church, I spent plenty of time building a lecture or workshop series, around the idea of truth.  An Idea I did not have the right to propose, as I had not the requisite understanding, or right use of the very tool I was proposing to teach others to use.  Born out of my escape from the confines of a religious childhood that taught Hellfire and brimstone, I gravitated toward a religion that promised abundance, happiness, and ease.  It fit my, living in the future, personality.  As the years passed and my understanding matured, I again had to leave the confines of the “New Religion” I had attached myself to…in favor of the demands and disciplines of the moment by moment Truth.

Can I, Will I, Am I, capable of accepting this moment just as it arrives? No bargaining.  No complaining.  No protesting.  No turning away.  Here is where Life happens.  Now is when it happens.  If I find myself unwilling to accept this moment, always choosing the re-engineered past or the illusory future, then there is no hope for a reunion, in this life, with the Soul I came into this world from and to which I will return.

Ask yourself; can I learn to separate fantasies of the mind from the form this moment takes?   Can I live for today, instead of righting some imaginary wrong in the past, or fantasizing about the future?

Almost all, emotional pain is a derivative of resisting the current moment, and as such is a painful form of self-denial and a loss of connection to the Soul and her greatest handmaiden Understanding.

In this poem by David Wagoner, we find the solution to all our impatient wanderings and lack of fulfillment.  He reminds us we must be willing to Stand still…

“Lost

 Stand still.  The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost.  Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes.  Listen.  It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost.  Stand still.  The forest knows

Where you are.  You must let it find you.”

 David Wagoner

Until Tomorrow...

R.

 Photo courtesy of Clint Barnes whose work may be seen at www.flickr.com under the tag Senrab4, poem by David Wagoner

 Somewhere on the Open Sea essay by Ronni Miller copyright 2009 all rights reserved, reprinting available with author’s permission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DOG LOVE…

I go to the Dog Park twice a week, every Saturday and Sunday, as regular as the clock passing the number 12 twice a day.

I’m so regular a visitor; I have a portable Dog Park Chair, purchased just for the park and necessary to keep me from coming home with Waffle Butt tattooed to my rear for six hours afterward.

I love the Dog Park-all the fine friends-their romps, running, roving’s, and sometimes, rabid obsessions.   Witness my small, red, mutt guarding his ball and issuing, throaty threats of beheading.  If-you-even-think-of-trying-to-take-my-ball-I’m-going-to-open-up-a-can-of-whupass-on-you-you’ll-never-recover-from… (It’s sad really to see a 12 pound creature think he has cojones, and big ones too, when you know he left them in the medical waste pile, years and years ago.)

One young dog park friend never, ever, believes Java’s throaty growling.  (Yes I had a coffee fixation when I got him from rescue, and no, I don’t have any creativity or clarity when it comes to names.  Thank God I didn’t have any children…you gotta know, I would have branded them with some handle, that would have gotten stuff thrown at them all the way through post-graduate studies).

Dolly, this is our daring darling’s name, saunters into the park and goes right for Java’s balls-NOT metaphorically speaking-I’m talking the neon colored tennis ball he guards like his life depends on it.  Balls everywhere for as far as the eye can see, balls growing on trees, hanging from newel posts, stuffed in pockets, being pushed up out of the ground-every ball in creation and Dolly must have-I MEAN MUST HAVE, poor dim-witted Java’s ball.

Dolly is a young, brindle striped, beautiful tank.  A LARGE dog in a package that’s not 10 inches off the ground.  She is a French bulldog, emphasis on the BULL.  Her strength, commitment, zeal, focus, single-mindedness, genetics, and shear determination, leave Java so un-matched, it’s heartbreaking.   He comes home, after protecting his domain from her, so stove up, from the arthritis that has begun to weaken his joints, that he cries and walks with his side so tucked in, he resembles the letter C sidling down the hallway, whimpering as he goes.

I have tried to protect him from Dolly’s mindless and youthful determination, and his own stubbornness…but brains are not his long suit.

Love is.

Love…pure, generous, unbounded, unfettered, copious, and available to anyone and EVERYONE who will let him lean on them, anyone who will pet him, anyone who will even gaze absentmindly in his direction.  My other two dogs have Love, and give Love too…but not like Java.

Mocha, my first-born.  (Yeeeessss another coffee name and lest you think me utterly bereft of any imagination at all, I did manage NOT to name the cat Espresso.  Even though she is black with a hint of orange striping running underneath the black making her gorgeous and naming her Espresso, would have been a reasonable fit…but I refrained…have I made you proud?).

She, Mocha, my brown and beige beauty, gives her Love only when you have passed some mysterious and unknowable test.  She takes the measure of the man or woman, sizes up their worthiness and imparts her approval with a regalness and poetic purity that is lovely, (at least to me), to behold.  When she has decided…you are potentially worthy…she saunters over at a decidedly Mocha speed, sits down, gazes up, and awaits her just rewards.  

Pet me please.  I deserve it.

Then there is Abby, white, tiny, black eyes, and perky ears.  She has great Love to share as well, and like Java she shows no particular favorites, but boy-oh-boy, you better give it to her, on her terms.  Or as my dog park friend Maryn would say, “she’ll pull her scary face out, and blast you with it”.  I wish I had a camera, or knew how to use one even, for that “scary face” deserves to be seen.  (Please see pictures at the top of this post, provided by a dog park friend, Abby is the small white one getting smooched by the yellow lab pup. Mocha-brown and noble.  Java-with his forever ball.)

I will try to recreate it for you…

Her ears extend up to their maximum height, forming an upside down heart, standing as rigid as British soldiers outside Balmoral, when the Queen’s in residence.  Their interior is a soft-little-girl-pink, surrounded by standing-at attention-white hair.  Her eyes are focused; the colors of coffee grounds, and are shooting lasers at the intended victim, shearing them off at the kneecaps.  

Her lips pull back, and back, and back…revealing every tooth in her mouth…and if you look close, you might actually get a glimpse of her grand pappy’s teeth as well.  The fangs meant to capture your attention, and strike fear into your heart, are just about the length of your pinky finger nail bed and 1/3 the width.  (Really scary stuff, so far, right?)

Her limbs, such as they are, are rigid, locked and loaded.  And now, issuing from that soft white throat, a growl meant to be low and thrumming, which comes out tinny and tiny.  Just about this time, we, her human friends and family, are looking at her and giggling.  

If she knew, she would be mortified.  

She thinks her warning is severe, purposeful, loaded and magnificent…the beast in her, rising up to meet the challenge, her heritage, genetics, and highland born history on full display. 

(She doesn’t know…and I would appreciate if you didn’t tell her… after all what’s a little illusion and denial among friends, am I right?  I mean, you do what you must to get by…who am I to hold up a small-compact-hand-mirror and force her to see the sad, sad, truth?)

She uses this face to great and wondrous effect, just not the effect she wants, or imagines.  Most people simply ignore her, pick her up, giving her a quick squeeze despite her protest that she must be loved-on her terms and her terms-only.  (You must sign up, log in, have a ticket-in hand, lunch in a brown paper bag, and the necessary shots on board to get her approval…its exhausting, which is why everyone just ignores her and gets their Dog Love despite her…(and maybe even because of)… her “scary face”.

Patti, who is one half of Blue and Pixie’s persons, (two of the most beautiful Shelties you have ever seen) was commenting on Dog Love, this morning at the park.  About the value, purity, loveliness, and to my mind, Transcendence of the love of a dog.  A love so rich, and free from turmoil, that if you are one of those folks who report themselves to “not be dog people”…I worry that someone may have dropped you on your head, when you were just a wee one.

I know you’re out there; I’ve met a few of you.  But really, truly, you need to meet my Java, my witless, red, ball loving, pool of endless giving, middle child…look him deep in his lovely dark auburn eyes and see his willingness to give you all he has-even that blasted ball…and tell me they aren’t The Great One's ambassadors.

Flipping once thru the TV stations looking for something to watch, I stumbled across an Animal Planet Police show.  A young pit bull is dying, suffering from severe neglect, and starvation…the police are called and with them come the cameras…the young police officer bent down to stroke the dog’s head.  The dog, whose ribs are showing, whose spine is poking out of his body like stitching on a leather jacket, reaches his neck up as far as his emaciated body would allow, licks the officer’s hand in gratitude… lays his head back down on his makeshift bed, and dies.

LOVE… it harbors no resentments, no retribution, no intolerance, and no withholds.

It gives without respect to reciprocity, recompense, remuneration or consideration.  Love’s last breath-passes out and into the world-to touch, to share, to envelop.

LOVE…it’s the action name for God. 

Until Tomorrow...

R.

2009 copyright Ronni Miller, may not use without permission of author.  Photo courtesy of Ken Van Waggoner, animal photographer extraordinaire 

The following is an Anonymous writers, "letter From Dog to God", I thought you might enjoy it:

 

TO GOD: FROM THE DOG

 Dear God: Why do humans smell the flowers, but seldom, if ever, smell one another?

 Dear God: When we get to heaven, can we sit on your couch? Or is it still the same old story?

 Dear God: Why are there cars named after the jaguar, the cougar, the mustang, the colt, the stingray, and the rabbit, but not ONE named for a dog? How often do you see a cougar riding around? We do love a nice ride! Would it be so hard to rename the "Chrysler Eagle" the " Chrysler Beagle"?

 Dear God: If a dog barks his head off in the forest and no human hears him, is he still a bad dog?

 Dear God: We dogs can understand human verbal instructions, hand signals, whistles, horns, clickers, beepers, scent ID's, electromagnetic energy fields, and Frisbee flight paths. What do you humans understand?

 Dear God: More meatballs, less spaghetti, please.

 Dear God: Are there mailmen in Heaven? If there are, will I have to apologize?

 Dear God: Let me give you a list of just some of the things I must remember to be a good dog.

 1. I will not eat the cats' food before they eat it or after they throw it up.

 2. I will not roll on dead seagulls, fish, crabs, etc., just because I like the way they smell.

 3. The Litter Box is not a cookie jar.

 4. The sofa is not a 'face towel'.

 5. The garbage collector is not stealing our stuff.

 6. I will not play tug-of-war with Dad's underwear when he's on the toilet.

 7. Sticking my nose into someone's crotch is an unacceptable way of saying "hello".

 8. I don't need to suddenly stand straight up when I'm under the coffee table.

 9. I must shake the rainwater out of my fur before entering the house - not after.

 10. I will not come in from outside and immediately drag my butt.

 11. I will not sit in the middle of the living room and lick my crotch.

 12. The cat is not a 'squeaky toy' so when I play with him and he makes that noise, it's usually not a good thing.

 P.S. Dear God: When I get to Heaven may I have my testicles back?

 

 

 

  

 If Not Now…When…

I have made a quiet resolve.

Not the kind of theatrical decision that involves, champagne toasting, ball dropping, Dick Clark, and Monday morning reversals…but rather, a decision born atop a howling wind-swept, rocky-pointed cathedral in the deepest reaches of my heart, and soul.

You may have missed the vision of Meryl Streep, as a 19^th century Irish maiden standing upon just such a rocky outcrop, in the movie The French Lieutenant’s Woman.  She is standing, looking out to sea, the wind whipping her long cloak, red hair, and billowing skirts, around her in a frenzy that might have lifted her from the ground, and threw her into the waiting embrace of the toiling ocean, had it not been for the profound sadness that weighted her soul.  Her clothes the colors of coal, the sea a brackish-turbulent confusion of gray and green, the sky, a cauldron of blue and leaden gray.  The only bright spot in the entire vision was of her wild red hair, glowing against all that gray, green, and steel blue.

I bring this image to your mind for the express purpose of trying to visualize for you the depth of my current decision, its weight, heft, feel, texture and colors. 

It is not dissimilar from a decision I made, 25 years ago.

I was 28 at the time, successful - (if you measure success by money and not debt load), attractive - (if you don’t notice the bouts of anorexia, binging, and self harm), relationship fruitful - (if you can’t see my secret promiscuity born of intense neediness and desperation to be loved), and really good at hiding the self loathing that characterized my every waking moment and populated my night terrors, with demons so fierce, they would have done Stephen King proud.

I am always mildly amused at people who describe their interior poor relationship to self as “poor self-esteem”…that sounds like a summer cold when I compare it to the wild self hatred that I tried to keep in check.  It was like a rabid animal, a RED ZONE case-Cesar Milan the Dog Whisperer might have called it-an all consuming energy that I could barely control, and sometimes couldn’t. 

It pushed me with an all-consuming desire; to drive straight off a steep cliff in my monthly travels north to see my Doctor/customers.  It held a gun to my head, sometimes nightly.  It caused me to go weeks without eating, spend voraciously, sleep with plenty of the worst kind of wrong men, sometimes it would even make a Doctors scalpel-laying innocently on his tray-and in my line of sight-look like just the right way to end my internal struggle.  If I could have cut it out, given it cancer, strangled it until it’s eyes popped, or in some other way ended my daily fight to keep my head above water, I would have done it, I swear I would have…

But finally, one day, the rising tide captured me and I knew beyond doubt, that Death-At-My-Own-Hand, was no longer a fantastical version of escape, a conceit of perverted potential freedom, from emotional and psychological turmoil… but rather, a real, practical, and decisive way to end the pain and fear, that I could no longer bear. 

Just this morning on my Internet opening page, I find a story of a young British woman-28 she was-who had small parts in Spider Man 3, Serendipity, Frost, and was set to star in an upcoming Biopic, who took her own life, by hanging, in her Paris apartment.

 She too, was “successful, attractive, and desirable.”

 I wish I could say to her…”Hang on, don’t do it…!!!”   Help-so hard to see, so necessary, so seemingly unavailable, will come from every corner, from unimaginable sources, from the heavens-like manna-if you only make the decision to face the fear and live!!!   

But of course, no opportunity to say these things to her exists, so perhaps if I say it here it might reach some other 28 year old, who contemplates such a final solution to that consuming inner fire.

In my 28^th year, on the cusp of my 29^th…I put the gun down, stopped pressing the gas medal just as I crested the biggest hill, and a scalpel went back to just being a sharp medical blade.  I found the way out…or more accurately in.  I survived and eventually began to thrive.  My world no longer serves as a home for night terror demons, I can’t remember the last time I felt the gnawing anxiety that was the hallmark of my first 28 years, I live almost all my days in peace and harmony…and yet…

 This decision…that has come upon me…   A new order of Being…a new sheriff has come to town…a new vista.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, my favorite author of all time, wrote…”Our life is an apprenticeship to truth, that around every circle another can be drawn...under every deep, a lower deep opens.”

 That first deep, in my 28^th year was a leap into what I perceived then as the abyss, I was more afraid than I could begin to describe, and yet, the Universe seemed to use all its might-bent to the service of unlocking the hold terror had over my heart, opening my mind, saving my life…it took years for that first leap’s ripples to settle.  Years before I came to see the full measure of the gift I had been given, hidden under the fear that beat my heart into my rib cage…the beauty, magnificence, and wonder of my salvation will no doubt find its way onto these pages and into your hands should you have an interest.

But today, at 53, there is a new deep to explore, a new emptiness to excavate, a new soil to till.  I am not saving my physical life any longer, which has long since been securely wrapped in the tender hand of forgiveness.  I am not entirely certain what this new deep is meant for, except that at 53-I am, more and more, aware of the ticking clock whose constancy foretells that time is shortening, that the window is closing, for me to attempt to make a gift of my now bright thread into the great tapestry that is being woven by the hand unseen…

 To repay the debt I owe to the people who helped me save my physical life, and forge my Spiritual development.  Rev. Joyce, who made it possible for me to give up the lie that shielded me from a childhood of great pain, fear, and sorrow.  Rosa, whose counsel, commitment, care, and kindness, helped me find and integrate the missing pieces of myself. George, a Teacher in the lineage of Socrates, Aristotle, Gandhi, and the Buddha…a man of such unparalleled wisdom, as to be almost alien to this modern world of surfaces and conceits.  And Tom, who has stood as an almost-unbearably patient and enduring-sentry to support this new leap into the unknown, this new deep I am now willing to explore on these pages, with you, whoever you may be.

I will be here every day, as a spiritual discipline, even though I don’t really know where here is…

I will share my story, and its blessings, the only thing of value I possess.  I will make a concerted effort to bring to bear on the darkness all around us, whatever small light is mine to share, by virtue of the last 25 years of slow and constant sojourning.  I will tell you how I survived; I will share the shape of my Soul.  In the hope that you will follow the advice here defined by the Philosopher Ernest Becker…

“Joy and hope and trust are things one achieves after one has been through the forlornness.”

 Joy, hope, and trust…the other side…

 Until Tomorrow…

 R.

2009 Copyright, Ronni Miller-all rights reserved.