As I was scanning the spewing of anxiety, anger and righteousness on public media today, I was struck (it is kind of an onslaught of ugly) with the thought that the practice of grounding could be so useful to the world today. We are not taught to release our thoughts and so we chase after every stick thrown in our vicinity like dogs retrieving some dark pointless broken limb. We are not taught to return to center so we chase our tails when we see a flicker of something that activates our adrenal glands.

Our culture of society; our culture of family; our culture of living in public media has left us quivering, wet, frustrated like a dog who has chased after something and ended up in deep water.

What is missing is a methodology for releasing the activation of anxiety. What is missing is a system for dismissing fight or flight energies.

For me, that happens in two practices. I sit meditation to find out what is going on within me. Sometimes when I think, “I am fine, ” I am surprised by the tears of grief. I cry and chant. I ask for wisdom, support, a steadying from the universe. And the entire meditation time is simply releasing anger, old anger, submerged anger. And something I feel calm. I go within to the center of my body where there is a courtyard of peace.

A buddhist nun once told me that my vision of the central garden of healing is exactly what meditation practice is about. She validated what I was experiencing. Inside there is stillness. Inside the breath there is wholeness. Inside the small tight self is an expanse of beauty. And it is always there.

I also experience the same quiet mind and expansiveness when I am gardening.

Yesterday, I was in the garden for hours and I used my hands, my body, my mind to create order and beauty. As I raked I thought, “I am raking now.” As I dug up weeds I thought, “I am making the rose bed beautiful now.” Over head I heard birds talking in their language and I wondered what they were saying. I thought, “I hear the birds.”

At the end of the day I felt substantial. I felt much more than just the story I have lived. I felt connected to the earth and the season and the plants. I felt as if I had been in a magnificent temple over arched by the sky and walled in by the dark blue mountains around me.

If every single person could find his or her own particular temple of peace; his or her own particular system of grounding there would be calm in the world. Children would be born into a harmonious world in which they would be safe, protected, loved for who they are.

As I watched social media ramping up the belief that it is other people we must fear, I wished for each person to find his or her distinctive method of grounding and feeling absolutely at peace with their own authentic way of being.

I return to the garden today. I can only weed my own patch of life.

I have been revisiting the ancient spiritual beliefs about multi-verses, quantum energy field and the erroneous concept of time being linear. Every once in a while the shoes I am walking in get run down at the heel. Every once in a while I find myself marching to exactly the same drum and in exactly the same prison ankle chain parade of the rest of my society.

And then I go back to the relearning. There is more than meets the eye. There is more than meets the pounding hypnotic narrative of what is real than meets the mind. What is? Staying loose by embracing the concept of simple curiosity allows for change.

I thought today about how bubbles float up into the air. When my granddaughter is in my backyard and we release bubbles each bubble is a distinctive and separate entity. The rainbow light shimmers on its sides and inside of it is something that looks like nothing.

We are like the bubbles. Each of us has our own encapsulated space of what we believe to be reality. We float separately until we bump against another bubble.

I see people reacting in the same manner that two distinctive worlds of bubbles do when they meet. Contact. One bubble reality smashes into another. Perhaps the two both evaporate or perhaps they gently collapse their exclusive walls and become one.

When someone comes upon another person and blip… there is contact. Our desire to validate our own enclosed space of conceptual reality is to challenge the other person.

What have you been doing? That is an interception question. The implication is that you are what you are doing. Your production and habits of activity are social currency. How do you fit into a consumer mind set? How do I relate you to my world? That is the question.

What if each of us mindfully, gracefully refused to let another’s bubble collapse our walls, or refused to let another’s bubble engulf us into one big bubble?

Those skills are not taught at all. We are each recording a differing narrative. It is a basic truth of perception and physics. What if we do not need to see the universe in the same way as another.

We are taught to meet hatred with hatred. We are taught to react by attack when our concept of reality differs from another’s. Our training is framed in a survive or die lexicon.

That methodology does not allow for a softer more confident manner of being oneself. I believe that when we know, each of us, our singular beautiful space the air that carries us will be compassion. When we are confident in what we believe and quietly take to the wind and ride it, others will learn how to do the same. Feeling light and complete in our own particular manifestation allows more room for love.

We are beautiful, radiant, rainbow reflecting bubbles of difference. I am so happy to see us all floating out there…. finding the wind and taking off.

As I was meditating this morning I thought about my thoughts about self. I am. I am what? I am this now? I hold a memory of who I was, of what I did then. Is that memory me?

I thought of how my bedroom is a thing, a place, a space, a reality that I live within. But when the sunlight comes onto the walls suddenly a shape is cut out in the yellow light on yellow paint. If I did not see what I expected to see but instead connected with what I am seeing that elongated rectangle of sunlight washing the wall would read as a shape pushing out of the wall. The corner is no longer a corner but rather an extruding rectangle of hyper saturated reality. I do not see the ceiling unless the lowering sun washes across the flattened space where the attic sky parlour leans in to form a roof.

I see the Buddhas on my altar as dark and dusty in much of winter but when the sun comes they are clear, strong and seem to reform in great strength.

What if I am like that room? I hold in my mind what it “appears” to be. However, when circumstances change I need to pay attention. I need to see with beginners eyes the new moment of beginning. I need to hear with beginners ears the thoughts that show a new sound of realization. It is all about attention and intention for me.

I was this. I fear this. I can only be this. I have changed who I am steadily in my life as I seek a deeper more compassionate connection to myself. I have learned to not abuse myself with the mental slave whipping of negative thoughts. And as the sun washes onto the walls and changes what I perceive my “space” to be, I realize that gently allowing is where strength lies. Releasing a tense grasp on my form and manifestation, allows me to be calmer, safer and more patient. The sun will comes. The shapes and colors will change. Breathe into that which is that.

The self is just a mind habit. At least I think. Breathe and allow the lessons, the shadow times and notice the sweep of brilliant illumination that changes everything.

Plodding, clod hoppering winter had me down. I was on the heating pad warming my butt with the computer warming my lap and making feeble unsubstantial lists of what I could do perhaps when I am more something I don’t know yet.

One day the sun pulled up the snow’s skirt covering the lawn and showed the green muddied flesh below. The next few days all of the crystallized coating of the back deck has dissolved leaving only the winter dirt spray surfacing the boards.

I grew large and passive as the dark months passed. I would take an hour break from nothing really to work out with weights or walk until I hit ten thousand steps but there was no conviction in it. I was serving my time, the time, the winter curled inward time. I told myself I was resting. And maybe I was. I wrote blogs, read books, had dreams that faded in the slight light of morning.

It is hard to know what is happening because I have eyes at the front of my head. I only have eyes looking out of my upstairs window. What happens to others is their materiality not mine. Their vision does not align with mine. To be human is to have a limited understanding of what it is I think I see.

And then the pileated wood pecker hammered me alert. It began to peck on the outside of the air conditioner. A bug landed on my computer screen. The neighbour’s giant black cat came in closer to my house as he was hunting something. Everything changed.

I had a roommate in college who was a Christian from Wenatchee and she taped onto my bedroom door:
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

And I hated her for doing that. At 19 I knew what I was doing. I worked. I worked hard and stayed focus. In four years I earned three degrees. I was in control.

But now as I approach 75 I react to the times of turning inward, the times of reflection, the times of waiting “IT” out differently. It is a season.

And now nature is stretching out its green pointed fingers through the soil and the tree is setting tiny promises of leaves. I go out the door and I begin again. The garden calls me. My expanse of territorial concerns grows beyond my bedroom, my house as I look outward. It is a time to build up, to dance, to gather stones, to embrace, to speak and a time to love.

For everything, there is a season. Thank you for trying to teach me, Kay. I get it now.

The sun is showing me the winter dust layered on my windows. What was obstructed was not clear to me. What I could not see clearly was not shown to me, until the light came.

There is process in our hours. We learn a bit and think it is all. This is enough. I am correct. I am perfectly in control of how the universe presents itself. And with this smug knowing, we think we are infallible. The goal is to be fool proof. Why? What single person on the earth has survived the onslaughts of illness, and death by being right. Perfection is the armour. Knowing is the shield. And knowing more than others guarantees a higher status and greater strength.

When I feel immortal enough, I stop. I pause. I relax into what it is I think it is. I lay back on the plumped up pillows of smug and eat the jade green grapes filled with sugary delight.

Until the sun shines through it all and I see the smudged lense.

A few days ago, I went to a movie. And while I was wading waiting through the previews or tantalizing marketing onslaught, I looked at my phone. Later that night, I realized I no longer had my phone.

My story that I croon myself to sleep with and wake myself up to and dance through the day to is that I am not a joiner, herd animal who seeks to be in the company of others in an attempt to feel that I am somehow more substantial. As is the case with most contemplative introverts, I feel more solidly myself when I am alone in a quiet environment.

But I have no phone! I have lost my phone.

And here is when the light shines in. Playing in the background of my life lounge is the message, distant and soft sounding, that I need to choose a reaction. I am not reacting. Yet. I am simply sifting through the possible reactions.

I pick up worst case scenario. My phone is gone forever. I must buy out my contract and get a new phone. So I dress it up like I used to dress up my dolls. Oh the new phone will be better, more useful, fancier. So I put down that choice and let it go. I have worked through how that pathway will not lead to anxiety.

I mosey over to the next choice. It is simply stuck in the seat at the movie theatre. I will go and retrieve it. But I remove all of the adrenaline around that decision. I will do it later, calmly. When it suits me I will go look for it.

The young girl at the theatre lifts the chair I was in… (because the chair will not open as it should) and the phone is not under it. Then I learn about Find My Device on Google and it shows me it IS at the movie theatre.

Emotionally there is a journey. I want to indulge in a sense of loss. Why? Can I envision my life without an Iphone? When did I become so attached to it? Am I just another Iphone app? Me. My life. My thoughts. My habits just another download on the phone I carry?

The phone was at the counter and I got it back. I immediately felt like I had been given a gift of $687 which was the buy out on my contract. Yes. I am that enthralled. I immediately see it as a sudden unexpected financial gift instead of a lack of focus and concentration. And then I see myself seeing through a cloud. I observe myself reacting as if I just got a gift and it causes me to laugh out loud.

So I realize I need to do some work. I need to clear my windows to let the light shine through. Learning how dependent I am on a device so that it in fact owns me, has been important. I say this as I write on my computer. (Room for a laughter here as well.)

But I also see how my mindfulness practice has allowed me to choose my reactions. Not once did I take myself out to the centre of the “existence of self town” and pillory myself so I could throw rotten vegetables and the occasional rock at my head.

The entire two days of being bereft of my device, I was aware of what addiction looks like. It is what happens for me now because I have trained myself to ask, “What am I supposed to learn?”

As I look at the powdered sugar coating of winter dirt on everything, I know it is natural and normal to accumulate the blurring of perception. And cleaning my lense is a continual necessity. Meditation is the calm centre of my life and it gives me a place to retreat into so that I can reset my thinking. I am very grateful.

Oh, and I went to the mall and bought a sexy off the shoulder red blouse for “finding” so much money.

Something happens when I go out into the world. I trust myself. I trust the world. I trust the people I meet. And I reach out to them with words.

Today I went to the Gap to look at their store wide 40% off thin, fragile, baggy, up to the minute uniformity declaring “I am worth it” and “I so fit in you can’t even see me” clothing. I imagined the clinging ghosts of who we could be all around attached to this dress up of belonging place.

The clerk came to me and said, “Can I help you?”

And I replied in under two beats… “Are you available to take my call in the middle of the night?”

She immediately dropped her white clay mask and laughed. She told me a story about when she and friends were out at a bar and one of the women wandered off. They got a call from her saying, “Can you come and pick me up?” Then the lost lamb hung up.

She met my random with her random and there was an exchange of reality.

As I walked into Winners a thin, athletic 20 year old woman was running ahead of her darkly dressed, dark haired boy friend. She bolted ahead, through the doors and disappeared.

I walked next to him and smiled, “You can’t keep up?” I said.
We both laughed.
He replied, “Oh she is like this for about an hour and then she tires out and needs a nap.”

“So,” I responded, “you walk her twice a day and things are fine.”

He just gave me a giant smile and nodded.

People are just waiting. They are just waiting to be seen and oh so willing to share a moment if you dare.

Refuse to wear a mask… it gives others the permission to be playful.

When I do readings for people at the psychic fair, I often see metaphors. The person who is starting a new business, I see as someone sitting on an egg hatching it. The person who is transforming so quickly they can’t get a footing I see in a twisting wind like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. I have never met that person before and I know nothing about them. I ask them not to speak. But I know with absolute clarity what they need to understand.

The metaphors are clear images and hold the truth that the client needs to hear and so I use words to show them the vision. I trust the vision. Fifty years of being open and sharing what it is I see and hear has lead me to this place of utter confidence in the truth I am receiving.

At first, I refused to say they were “mine”. The language I used was that the channel brought them to me. That some universal knowing was filtered through me. But as I become more and more grounded in my own life, I no longer was afraid to say that I saw and heard and knew these things.

Years of semi-isolating myself, of watching my own thoughts and behaviors have made me less afraid of being judged. Years of meditation practice, of sitting silence, of chanting with Krishna Das, of chanting Buddhist prayers, of sitting Ho’onoponopono practice have resulted in a more solid connection to who I am.

And I think the main advantage of the journey inward is to no longer fear how I appear. What I wear, which group accepts me, what is expected of me by others no longer has any tug on my heart. I have always been an oulier from very early on in my life.

But that created a struggle in me. They seek success. I seek to help others. I seek to teach. The difference in values between myself and others was excruciating when I was ten or sixteen or twenty.

Now I have settled down. I have settled into what I am. And the most wonderful aspect of going within to connect to a bigger life is that I no longer watch my words. I no longer edit what I say. The words find their way to create exactly what needs to be said. All of life is easier for me now that I take responsibility for how I move in the world.

I see visions which are metaphors. I speak the truth I see. I am finally leaving adolescent anxiety about not fitting into any congregations of individuals who form a collective band of belief. My job is to stay grounded, to stay out of fear and hiding and to submit to the gifts I have always had since earliest memories. I no longer hide.

What a joy it was to attend the UBC Connects speaker series last night. The 800 seats in the Kelowna Community Theatre were full. The audience was surprising. Usually when I attend a speaker’s series put on by UBC it is people in my cohort, the older, upper middle class alumni of the university that show up.

As I scanned the crowd I saw many men and surprisingly for Kelowna many darker skinned people.

Once when an architect came to a workshop I attended he said, “Are you people all related?”

He was remarking on the fact that Caucasian, well-heeled and beige wearing people were everywhere. But not last night. The University is bringing in diversity and making Kelowna more a reflection of a new social reality. I was surprised and impressed.

When the #metoo movement broke into its fevered, powerful presence and moved through the population, I was fascinated. Twelve million people posted in 24 hours their story of unwanted sexual advances. I spent two full days on #metoo twitter simply reading story after story. The scout master molested boys, the gymnastic coach was raping girls, the youth pastor was grooming and molesting both sexes. The trusted uncle continued the abuse for years. The brother who violently broke his sister’s back while raping her was reported to those on the site.

I sat and each time I saw a particularly moving post I reposted it and copied it. Immediately I put it up on Facebook. Finally, after 69 years of living with the secret of brutality and internalized shame, I saw others who were breaking out of their prisons. I sat for hours sharing, copying and posting. Tears were streaming down my face. And it was for joy. It was for the immense relief that finally, finally people were beginning to release the locked in shame. As person after person posted, I watched as they said to one another, “I saw you speak the truth and it gave me courage.”

What the #metoo movement did for me was to continue to fuel my desire to speak out. Tarana said something brilliant during her presentation. She said, “We have no language for this. We say, ‘ That is not what a sexual abuse survivor looks like.’ ” I felt my chest expand in excitement.

Yes. Yes That is it! As I sat crying at my desk in elementary school, not one authority figure, or teacher knew that this is what sexual abuse looks like. As I was sent to the principal’s office for pulling out a girl’s hair, the principal had no idea that this is what a sexual abuse prisoner looks like. As I made my way through high-school with good grades, earning the top Art Student award and moved on to three more university degrees, no one knew that this is what a sexual abuse survivor looks like.

They have no language for it because they have denied it. They have no way of recognizing it because they have kept their faces turned away. No one was there to protect me and I thought it was because I did not deserve protection. It was because I was somehow guilty. I learned to hide everything that was not required of the society in order to be powerful. My presentation was a guise, a mask.

And as I left the theatre last night I was talking to two students while we walked along the snow covered street. I said that the teacher in Kelowna that had been tried for sexual abuse was also watching child porn. I mentioned that we, as a society are ready to see sexual abuse in only a limited filtered way.

Why was his use of the child porn industry buried in the media? I asked the girls.

One answered, “Because we don’t want to sensationalize it.”

I walked ten blocks home in the snow storm and thought about how we are so terrified of the truth that we make a pact to ignore it. When I was a child, it was an agreement that children were possessions of their parents.

Today we are beginning to wake up to rape, and sexual abuse but we still refuse to look at the children. We cannot believe that children are purchased as objects to be filmed and then disposed of. It is a profitable business.

It is the time to see all of it. It is no longer an era where we turn our faces away if we don’t like the truth we are seeing. How else can we stop it if we don’t have language for it? How else can we stop allowing brutality if we are only interested in protecting our own version of reality?

We need to stop denying, and start believing people when they tell us their truth. It is when we are all willing to open our eyes that the legislation is authored; that the heartless are jailed; and the children are safe.

We are getting there. But we cannot be afraid to feel. It is where empathy begins.