How do you want to be remembered?

I’ve been thinking alot about people. Please who came and went from my life over the years. People who stopped for a time to make a difference, good and bad, in my life’s path.   I went to a catholic grade school. Some of my friends in the neigborhood attended the public school. We rarely saw each other all winter , but as soon as school let out for the summer, we rediscovered each other…a little taller, a little smarter.  Bobby M. from grade school. Who sat we us on the front porch on long summer nights talking with the girls….all older than him but so kind, gentle and engaged. I’m sure he was the first gay person I ever met. I was in awe of his self-expression and interest in people. He was easy to be around and loved to sit around and talk and talk. I’m not sure if he turned out gay, but I had a deep intuition about it even tho I didn’t have the words for what that was and what that meant. I wonder what marvelous things he is up to now.

His older sister Cathy M. with her joyful laugh that always brought a smile to my face. She was the oldest of the M. clan and cared for all her sibs like they were her own.  I don’t remember her parents much—I don’t think they were around much, working. What I remember about Cathy, besides that infectious laugh, was the joy and love that exuded from her. She never took anything personally, able to laugh at herself in the moment. She was loving and energetically nurturing. Never asked for anything.  I can in a moment, go back to the stoop long ago and see her smiling face and hear her laughter…..and I’m smiling.

Take it down

Today I spent the day dealing with glass repair guys and rearranging the things I thought I would be doing today, a much anticipated day off for Christmas. Yesterday afternoon I went outside to discover one of our cars broken into and the other one gone. No tracks thanks to the fresh snow that had fallen all day. Just an empty void. My car sat glass strewn everywhere across the seats, it’s gaping hole pulling the falling snow in all day. It looked cold and violated. Emptied like some rental car in an airport lot.

Sometime between 1am and sunrise, some individuals took it upon themselves to make a deposit into their vibrational escrow….to chalk one up to their karma. Auto theft and robbery for 6 dollars in change–parking meter money. Parking meter quarters in my car and a car phone charger.

I stood dumbfounded for a moment….and deflated at the will of human nature to take from each other. Then I started to think about what I could take away from it. What is my vibration that had this show up on this snowy Sunday for me to look at?

The beauty of metaphysical science is you get to really live it. Where the rubber meets the road. Not some nice theory to think about, discuss over coffee or read about out there. We get to really live it. We get to live it everyday, not just when life seems to be going “well”….or what we deem “working”.

I opened the book “Government is Self-Government” by Margaret Laird tonight to a random page (page 51). I love doing this when anything I am at risk of getting attached to happens. Here’s what I read:

“Love is the knowledge that all of my living is self-living. Whether I life myself Mindfully, insightfully, as Life, or un-Mindfully, outsightfully as death, all of my living is mine (mine and Mind actually). I am the robbed that makes the robber, the sin that makes the sinner. I am the unacknowledged Love that makes the hate. I can do nothing about the robber, the sickness, sorrow, and hate. They have no existence outside apart from my own self-robbing. I can only do something for myself and as myself.

When I am able to live myself divinely, Mindfully, consciously being the Love that is Principal and the Reason for everything, I shall see that all of my living is Good-living, Right-living, Love-living.”

How perfect is that?! and…But What does it mean? I found myself today quickly passing through the events of Sunday am…amazing myself how much I did not take it personally…or even take it on after the first hour. I quickly thought about my being—-knowing that my external world shows up as a reflection of my internal world. Where am I breaking glass for quarters and pennies? Where in my life an I being the robber? Not as a victim—(as in I deserve this)—but unattached as a conscious being, knowing I am both the robbed and the robber. There can be no seperation. It is all one—we are all one. There is not “out there” but my world showing up each moment for me to look at.

All my living is self-living. Mind, infinately manifesting. We are never at the mercy of a force that lies outside of us. The way it looks is not the way it is.  I am certainly not happy with getting robbed, the violation and cost irks me. I work hard for the things I have. They have been earned.  I do not accept it but I don’t attach to it either. I do not know what lessons the thiefs are playing out in their world but I do trust in the universe. There are no mistakes in the roles we all play for one another for whatever reasons. Like my picture in the snowy field, I bend down to change the view. We look very small. I am on to other things.

Something about money

I hadn’t eaten all day. Thinking how I wanted something to eat I started going through a menu of possibilities in my head as I drove by resteraunts and shops on my way home. Nothing captured my attention. No…um no….no…..I thought…..I drove by a bagel shop, Barbette, and then approaches the last place on my way home, Lunds, (a local small grocery store). I decided to go home without stopping for anything, in fact, not eating. This made me think–hmmm. I was hungry but still I chose to not eat.

So….What’s interesting here to me? I’ve been in places in my life, not so long ago,  where I was totally broke. To the point when I didn’t have money to stop and get food whenever I felt hungry. I thought back on that time, desperately waiting for the scraps from a friends’ sandwich.

I thought about how having money and credit to buy what I wanted, actually gave me the freedom to not spending any of it! I remember that knawing desperate feeling, loud hungry, emptying into a pit in my stomach driving me crazy with desire.

I thought how having the money to buy what i wanted actually gave me the freedom to not want anything. When I was broke I wanted IT more—-so much so that it hurt. Knowing I had a choice really changed the experience. I felt so grateful, and at the same time, so scared to be in that place again. I have decided to purge–purge and lighten the load. Sell things, give things away, consume less, enjoy more experiences. See old friends, share with them the things they have taught me.

What are the statistics that statistics class will be called off tomorrow?

We are in the midst of our March  blast of Minnesota ice and snow. So beautiful, intense and treturous and a crisp reminder that we are not yet to the awakening of spring. I enjoy the deep breaths of clean crisp air–grateful to be alive, employed and awakened….and take very little and careful steps secretly hoping stats class is called off tomorrow morning due to the weather.

Our Footprints: A metaphor about poop

Flat Stanley, poop and The Cherry & The Spoon

I stopped by the Walker Art Center’s sculpture garden yesterday, Sunday, on a beautifully perfect fall afternoon to take a picture for an Arizona friend’s daughter’s flat stanley project. What can be more Minneapolis than Oldenberg’s Cherry & the Spoon and the downtown backdrop? As I walked close to the sculpture, flat stanley in tow, I notice all the goose poop I was walking through. For those who haven’t the experience, it is the equivalent of walking through the extrament of a small dog, and it’s EVERYWHERE. I took my photo and turned to leave, head down, strategically placing my foot carefully to minimize the crap I’d have to wipe off before getting back in the car, on to the next photo op.

As I walked into my next stanley stop, my high-rise office building in downtown Minneapolis, and pushed the elevator button to the 28th floor I pondered my goose poop. How odd that in this building, far away from “The Cherry and the Spoon” here am I, transporting what I picked up on my shoe in the garden and placing it, I’m sure, on the hallways and offices of a place so removed from it. Even if undistinguishable, there it sits, a microbe of matter carried by a middle person, unwittingly, to it’s new environment, and set to rest….altering it’s surroundings, even if microscopicly (if that’s a word).

So I think how we all, with our footprints, pick up things through our travels and place them elsewhere on our stops without even being aware of it. Our music, our food, our favorite resteraunts, our learnings, our jokes, our perspectives, put knowledge and wisdom, our talents and failures, our friends and family, our technology, our vision, our stories……it is endless poop on our shoes we can’t help pick up in our journey and leave elsewhere along the way. And it is there long after we move on to another location, another pick up and stop. To forever alter the space, however invisible it seems to the human eye and perception.

Climb every mountain

Mount Tamalpais State Park

Just north of San Francisco and the Golden Gate, is Mount Tamalpais State Park. Amazing views and a wonderful breeze tickling my face. My heart sings.

Mount Tamalpais has redwood groves and oak woodlands with a spectacular view from the 2,571-foot peak. We walked up to the top of the peak and the view was absolutely spectacular. You could see the city from the top.

Buy nothing new: purging the noise

State Fair in Minnesota brings opportunities to spend money on the latest greatest slice it and dice it items in the merchandise building. I didn’t even set foot in the building. I passed on a Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings tee…admittedly due to the fact they were out of larges. By the time I regained my control, I realized I would have had remorse once I got home, had I bought it. (Then I got excited thinking of the possibility of it showing up in the downtown Salvation Army one day….and all was well). I did manage to buy her cd—-packaged in a paper cover rather than plastic. It is after all, supporting her art….and I am definately about that.

All I can think of these days is purging….getting rid of stuff. Simplifying. Lightening the load. There are times I look around the house and garage and can’t breathe…some of that I am sure is the overwhelm I feel thinking about having to go through it all. I feel out of control with my own life. How did that happen.?…10 years flew by like 5. I thought I had so much time to right things. The thought of purging feels freeing, but also feels like I am starting over……like my first job, apt, relationship. But it is not freeing at the same time it is. It feels like I’m letting go of what I know of myself..my history who I am. It feels strange. I’m in a go -cart at the starting line and the flag has dropped, and suddenly all the cars around me have gone and here I am pressing the gas all the way to the floor but not going anywhere.

In a gap between what I’ve know and trusted–of myself and people in my life– and the uncertainty, unknowing of what’s coming. Have I really made the wrong choices over and over and over? I sense it like a farmer senses weather coming in….seasons changing. Something’s brewing. I’m pushing the purging and seeing what happens out of the space opened up. Things shift out of simply doing. Let the shifting begin. Generously allow patience and space for the what’s next to appear. It’s like I’ve been swimming under water and come up and realize I’m miles away from where I thought I was. Rather than enjoying the view, the newness of the environment, and exploring it, I am panicing. Suddenly treading water with no map. Is this a Taurus thing? It is today in this racing brain, this heart, this soul. Woah sister. Enjoy the coffee and breathe. The go upstairs and work on that back room.

It’s the end of summer when it’s the state fair

”]”]Slow start to eating my way through the opening night at the Minnesota State Fair….the Great get together. Fortunately I will have a few more opportunities.

My sights were set on Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings who were to perform at the Leine Free Stage. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings did not disappoint. It only took a couple minutes for people to get off their benches and rush the stage. It was hard not to move. Soulful tunes outdoors on a cool late summer night is as good as it gets. She invited people up on stage throughout the show to dance with her, and dance she did. A 4 foot 11 powerhouse, this woman can move and sing. I’m still smiling.

Sharon Jones is playing again tonight at 8:30. The Leine Stage by the space needle free. What a must see show.

Sometimes ya just gotta dance

Big Big Hurry and today’s horoscope

Dear Kate,
Here is your horoscope for Thursday, July 24:

Almost everyone else in the world is in a big hurry — but not you! It might feel as if you’re getting left behind, but actually, you’re laying the groundwork for a future surge that pushes you far.

oh but i am in a hurry….