Facing Change in Your Cave of Beliefs

Light cannot be seen without shadows. The brighter the sunlight the deeper is the shade. After the glow of the holidays and the effulgent hopes for a new year, Monday morning comes. Bright resolutions for a fresh start collide with the old patterns you wanted to leave behind. Yet, the path ahead is surrounded with the attitudes that structure your framework of perception. The new diet, exercise program, goal accomplishing routine or whatever transformational behavior you undertake passes through this cave of beliefs. Wishing it isn't so doesn't dissolve their limiting shadows. No amount of figuring it out or transcendent sidestepping will slip through their grip. Heeding the advice "the only way out is through" couldn't be more relevant.

The existing form of your life cannot be reformed until the solid images defining your world become transparent to the light of the consciousness that gives them substance. This can only be achieved by entering your cave of beliefs, engaging the play of shadows and seeing they are made of withheld light. This may seem spiritually romantic, but its scary as hell. Old limitations are more cherished then we admit. Otherwise, they would slip away like old skin sliding off a snake.

Facing them head on and shining your consciousness into hidden places takes courage beyond the everyday. Wanting to run is natural. Striding into the darkness sets your heart pounding, knees shaking, palms sweating. You know the rest. You've seen the movie heros confronting their demons, wielding their swords, slicing open the illusions of danger, revealing that the feared enemy is a reflection of oneself. Your task is to express those heroic powers on the yoga mat, facing the blank page, making the cold call, responding to soul's song while the mind is screaming its doubts. Then, gazing into your cave of beliefs, you may remember that attitudes are not cast in stone. They are merely forms of consciousness. They were shaped within you and can be reshaped there.

To Grow, Your Shell Must Break

This video leaves me in awe. Sensing the power within the fragile form pushing its way out of the shell is an encounter with mystery. All the wisdom schools and books of insight pale beside this living teaching of how life grows through itself. For the bird to become what it is, the tiny creature shatters the shell that originally nurtured its birth. This being has become too big for its existing framework. Despite all odds, the bird's soft body presses against the hard shell. Its spindly legs flex; its soon to be wings expand; its head and neck stretch. The life force is unstoppable. Pressing, pushing, twisting, doing whatever it takes to crack that damn shell to be free, to move toward flight.

Every one of the countless birds around the globe come into the world this way. Again and again, life bursts the safety of its shell to set out on a great adventure. Some birds fly thousands of miles on yearly migrations. They soar above mountains, across rivers and over cities. They stop in unknown fields, find food in unknown forests. Back and forth, high and low they move, weaving the global web of life again and again.

In this new year time, you have the opportunity of this little bird. You have the chance to shatter the shell that once nurtured you, find your legs again, stretch your wings and set out on a fresh journey of discovery. You can cooperate with the life force pressing from within you to burst the shell of your worn out beliefs, routines and structures of protection. You can reach beyond the limits of the old year and enter the unknown possibilities of the new. Enjoy your journey. I look forward to seeing you along the way.

Architecture of the Solstice

In darkness we stumble.

Confusion has no path,

unknowing, no arrival.

Then

a glow

in blackness

a point.

Murky

awareness

twisting

within

murky

awareness

spies a reflection

of its buried spark.

The hearth

of this ignition

is an alignment

of the eye

through

frame

to

distant

blaze.

Due to earth's miraculous tilt

wherever you stand

at the solstice dawn

the glow emerges

due east.

Since the first dawn

the eye

framed this dawn

with stone

with timber

Framed it

with the mind

as if guiding

strands

of heat

into the soul's

dark well.

As if

this elusive moment

could be grasped.

The architecture

of the solstice

is not

in the position

of the stars.

It's in

the alignment

of

the eye.

Turning Darkness to Light

We separate darkness from light. We avoid one and celebrate the other. Yet, year after year, nature carries us from radiant summer days through winter's dark nights. We fight the winter shadows by stringing lights on everything in sight. The glow is cheery, but it blinds us to the gifts darkness hides. If, however, we can rest within the shadows of winter for a while, we will be warmed there by secret fires.

Dividing darkness from light doesn't protect us through murky passages. It cuts us off from energies concealed by nature's mysteries. Only by entering darkness do we encounter the ever-renewing source of light. The secret we can discover there is the secret of creation—radiance is ignited by darkness moving within darkness. We are invited to participate in this hidden act of rebirth during these long winter nights. The inward turn of our minds and bodies reflects the circling of darkness upon itself. Darkness rubs against darkness, potential scrapes potential. What seems to be a cold abyss warms and bursts into light.

Don't try to understand this with your mind. It's logic doesn't reach into the unknowable. During these inward days, let your senses enjoy the magnificent displays of light. And, look beyond them into the shadows. There you can find the true magic of darkness moving within darkness, igniting the embers of the coming Spring.

How Something Becomes Holy

Something becomes holy

by offering it to wholeness.

You offer it to wholeness

by burning it

in the fire

that does not separate

sacred from profane.

Each time you toss

a cherished object or belief

into the flames of life

your gesture weaves

your separate mind

into the memory

of its unified source.

What you offer to life

already belongs to life.

The more you prize

the objects you offer

the stronger the reawakening

of oneness.

Your most cherished object

is the illusion

you are separate.

Burning this illusion

does not diminish you.

It merely removes

false coverings and divisions.

In the rising flames

limitations become spirit

ashes become gems

all things become holy.

Secret Gifts You Give

Look carefully at enough architecture around the globe and you will notice a pattern. There are patterns everywhere. Whether its this panel from a mosque in Paris, the curtain wall of a downtown skyscraper or your bathroom floor, architects and builders cover structures with geometric designs. It's as if a few thousand years ago someone started The Pattern Project and said, "Here's a circle, a square and a triangle. Go out there and see how many permutations you can make." It's as if countless artisans in all times and all places heeded the call and went mad with delight about what they could shape with only a compass and a straight edge. The results are magnificent and there's no end in sight. Without knowing it, each exploration of pattern added to the global treasury of knowledge and wonder. With each new permutation of design, every designer spontaneously enriched the world storehouse of wisdom.

These secret contributions aren't limited to geometric patterns. Whatever you do each day—cook, write, heal, inspire, facilitate, organize, or one of countless pursuits—you are participating in an ongoing project that is deepening and expanding human possibilities. What you discover as the years pass is forming and reforming the world in seen and unseen ways. It grows from knowledge unearthed by anonymous ancestors in the murky beginnings of time and extends through anonymous descendants in the unforeseeable future. Whatever you do, you are not alone in this. You are a member of a lineage that has been pursuing knowledge in your field for generations. No contribution you make, however small it seems, is lost. Every nuance of knowledge enhances the collective awareness of humanity making its way through the world.

As you go about your day, notice how the fruits of this global knowledge project pervade every place you go, every object you use and every person you meet. Notice the multitude of contributions of know how you have made and are making to your home, workplace and community. Notice how the world is made of the patterns interweaving with patterns and feel you connection to the unfolding creation.

Finding Treasure Through Loss

Life has a funny way of nourishing us. In response to our desire to be more, do more and have more, it often yanks the rug from beneath our feet and leaves us with what appears to be less. We scramble to our feet and rush forward only to find ourselves racing toward what appears to be nowhere. Like children deprived of their cookies, we whine and wonder how life can be so mean.

All the while, we miss the treasure being offered to us through loss. Caught in the belief that amassing stuff and attention benefits us, we overlook the wonders that more stuff and attention often hide. We resist the process of revealing gems by stripping away the outer covering.

Certainly loss exposes us to vulnerability and uncertainty. It can be terrifying and debilitating. Yet, if we can willingly enter the openings life brings and allow them to chip away at our preconceived ideas of what is gain, loss can make known a deeper wealth.

Living in Matter As Energy

The world

is not made

of isolated objects.

Pushing matter

into the right arrangement

will never make you happy,

healthy, wealthy and wise.

Adjusting your thoughts,

words, actions, relationships and surroundings

won't reveal the magic constellation

that solves all problems.

Analyze, strategize and implement

all you want.

There's always some flaw,

some unaccounted for defect,

some unexpected side effect.

Trying harder,

thinking smarter,

loving more,

never finds

that perfect pattern.

The world

is not a collection

of isolated objects.

It's a unified ocean

of energy waves

constantly moving.

Attempting to freeze

the roiling sea

is doomed to failure.

Instead,

see yourself

and the world

as a fluid energy.

Ride the already moving waves

of this situation

into the next

and the next.

Dance

with the shifting forces

flowing

through the one body

of life.

Swim in the never final

always fresh ocean

of ever unfolding wonder

of living

in matter

as energy.

Encounters at the Edge

After life has tossed you to the edge and raw openness saturates your bones, there comes a moment when you look up and see others inhabiting that sketchy borderland. You realize the aloneness of staring into the abyss is a solitude that is shared by anyone exposed to the unprocessed energies of living. Meeting other eyes saturated with the earth-shattering no-thing-ness of the void is to encounter the mystery meeting the mystery through the masks of "you" and "me."

Such run-ins happen whenever we forget to raise the facades that protect our carefully crafted images. For an instant we lay down the armor of false separateness and acknowledge we are all out at sea paddling the same human canoe; we don't have a clue as to who we truly are, why the hell we are here and where on earth we are going. We admit that loving more, thinking deeper and trying harder doesn't really illuminate or mange the wild energies of the unknown. It actually takes us deeper into the unknowable; and this where the aliveness we truly seek dwells.

Far from being dangerous intrusions, encountering others at the brink opens the way to healing the primal wound that tears self from other, mind from body, body from earth and any one thing from all other things. This is the natural medicine of honest expressions in art, music, food, healing arts, architecture and other endeavors that aim to reveal rather than hide our shared humanity. When you hear such a raw voice in a song lyric, a line of movie dialogue, or a sentence on the page, you know you are not alone. You remember that there is something to be gained by engaging the confusion, frustration and struggle of this journey rather than straining to avoid it.

For the most part, these electric, healing moments of human connection are fleeting. As quickly as they appear, you conceal them with the fear that expressing vulnerability exposes you to ridicule, rejection and worse. Yet, having the courage to avoid averting your gaze and, instead, continue to meet the mystery of true life in another, you find that the so-called emptiness of existence is its fullness. You discover that the rawness of encounters at the brink is the raw material of Being forming into the richness of Becoming. What society promotes as the good life is actually the escape from life. You find that truly living is truly dying into the openness and vitality of the edge.

Every encounter you have today is an encounter at the brink, whether you acknowledge it or not. Behind the forced smile and the gleaming windshield, the holiday storefront and the bored,disdainful expression, a person facing the mystery is questioning the same things you question, dreading similar things you dread. That person is awed by many of the same things sparking wonder in you and moved by what inspires you. If you look through your mask to see the true human behind their mask, you may discover Life looking back at you. You may have a marvelous encounter at the brink.

Truth at the Edge

In the collective mind, the edge has an aura of romance. It's characterized by adrenaline-spiking special effects and a heart pounding soundtrack. The hero at the edge is portrayed as icy calm amidst a firestorm of destruction; or a radiant mind glows in the birth of an earth-shattering breakthrough. At the pop-culture edge, the hero finds the golden light and the golden statue. Its described calmly in the media Q&A and lovingly embraced by the teary-eyed family. This romantic fantasy couldn't be further from the truth of the edge.

If you've found yourself at the edge, you know there's no glamour there. Actually being at the edge is clinging to the lip of the known and staring in the unknowable. It's realizing that the beliefs, love, possessions, physical stamina and whatever else stabilizes the center no long applies to emerging circumstances; new energies and insights must be accessed. The edge doesn't glorify the ego; that is the work of the center.

The edge is not a vacation choice or a thrilling distraction from the tedium of living. No rational person willingly ventures there. Uncontrollable forces sweep you to edge where everything cherished by the rational mind is challenged. It rips away illusions, yanks the rug from beneath your feet and dissolves apart the world you inhabit. The edge is not the glowing horizon between heaven and earth. It's the faint border crossing between the wasteland and the unknown land.

At the edge, there's no turning back. Behind is the corpse of a life that no longer breathes. Ahead is the fear of annihilation in the abyss. Yet, the opportunity of being at the edge is dying to the known to discover revitalizing energies in the unknowable. To ego, mind and body, the edge is a place of dark nothingness. To the soul, the edge rims the well of life. At the edge hovers the elusive elixir of life. It the time/space moment/place where you encounter the no-thing that cannot be described or explained while it powers the steps of your life journey. The edge is not a dividing line separating hope from fear. It's the mixture of hope and fear that ignites the strange sparks of new creation.

You may be thrown to the edge by divorce, disease or debt. You may find yourself there staring that the blank page or the blank canvas. You may not know how the hell you got there. At the edge, your heart may pound, your knees may shake, your throat may be parched, your eyes may be blinded by tears, you legs may feel unable to take the next step. At the edge you may feel alone and confused. Yet, if you are lucky enough to be opened this far by life, please remember: the edge is a moment of fierce grace; you are at a vital threshold on your life journey; as you passed through birth into this world, you are being birthed into important new dimensions of this world; though its seems like you are losing your life you are in the process of gaining; hang in there.

The truth of the edge is described in an old Zen story: A man, being chased by a tiger, ran to the edge of a cliff. As the tiger bore down on him, the man spotted a vine growing down the side of the precipice and climbed down it. At the bottom of the cliff, another tiger roared and licked his lips. Clinging to the vine, the man saw two mice, one black and one white, gnawing the vine at the point it sprung from the rock face. Two feet to his left grew a single strawberry. The man plucked the red fruit and popped it into his mouth, how sweet and fresh it tasted.