Let's Play

I was listening to a flute CD that someone had sent me. It was an exuberant, openhearted expression of pure joy. To the discerning – might I say critical – mind it did not conform to the established standards of ‘good music’. But it’s limitations in that respect was more than compensated for by its enthusiasm. The Native American style flute is helping to liberate many of us from our habit of evaluating and criticizing everything. Especially as this behavior applies to self-criticism.

Why can’t we just relax and have fun? Why are we so hard on ourselves? The pervasive culture of correctness and perfection has taken the fun out of life. Playing the flute or expressing our selves in any way must be based on freedom from fear of criticism, especially self-criticism. Otherwise we’re perpetually caught in the spot light. It’s a spotlight where everyone is looking at us. And we feel that if we don’t do it right there will be a price to pay. Holding ourselves up to impossible standards or other people’s standards means that we are always setting ourselves up to fail. We live under a dark cloud of our own creation. Actually, we didn’t create it.

It started when we were children. Constant criticism of our performance. We were always doing it wrong. But who doesn’t? Life is a learning process in which we will inevitably make mistakes. We must have the freedom to make these mistakes without fear of criticism. Nobody gets if right all the time – or even most of the time. Practice, practice, practice - until we end up hating what we are doing. We may become good at it but we’re not having fun anymore. So what’s the point?

In tune? We can become so devoted to being in tune that we are dead to joy. Making a fetish out of playing it right is like wanting the sun to shine the same way every day. ‘That’s the way it should shine’ say the purists. Not too bright. Not too dull. Just this way and this way only. What if I like it a little brighter? What if I don’t care? Who dares set the standards for what is the right amount of sunlight for a sunny day?

When we whole-heartedly grant others the right to play any way they please and any way they are capable of we will be released from our own self-criticism. Life is a Circle of such diversity that there is room for every individual and every song. Let the breath of life go out through your flute into a loving, receptive world. You can change your own life and perhaps the whole world one song at a time.

In an Instant - Eternity

The expansion of consciousness. The expanding of awareness beyond the self-imposed limits of the socially conditioned mind. Expanding consciousness in order to see new things and experience new feelings. Expanding in order to come in contact with the living wisdom of God as it permeates every atom and every vibrating string of creation. To listen as every vibrating string is humming with love, the love that creates and sustains and guides this manifestation we call life. This manifestation we call earth; that we call heaven, Call it by any names you choose. The meaning is in all ways the same.

No words can never come close to describing life in a way that will bring expanded consciousness into being in a person’s life. They can only point the way. The choice to follow and find is up to the individual. Then the new discovery comes into being in a person’s life spontaneously. And then we, in turn, search for words to describe what we have experienced.

A search for words that will describe what cannot be described. Because words are always just words – sounds that point. In the full realization of this situation some lapse into silence and are, perhaps, never seen or heard from again. Others are fascinated by the different paths and the men and the women walking on those paths. They are fascinated by the challenge of finding words to describe the indescribable. They strive to walk the dharma path wherever it may lead. They strive to use that path as a learning tool. To walk the path of meditation and to live the life of activity and engagement as if they were a hand in a glove.

Experiencing the tantra of life at play. Dancing on the edge of the world, looking out into the stars. Into the stars and the breaking dawn. Realizing and being shaken by the transitory nature of it all. Here, in front of my mortal eyes, caught for an instant of time - Eternity.

Honey Is Gone

Our dear, sweet Honey is gone. She died last night while I was sleeping. Gone is that velvet muzzle that I loved to stoke gently as I watched the glow of appreciation in her eyes. Gone is the happy smile and the loyal company that brought so much peace and solace into my life. Gone too is the joyful companion that walked so many miles with me through the desert that we both loved so well. Gone forever from this world, never to be seen or touched again. The dull, aching pain rises in my heart and throat and I choke back a sob as I write these words – gone is my beloved friend, my Honey Dog.

She lived the wonder full, fulfilling life that only a dog that lives with children can know. The first big snowfall, going for walks together, chasing after balls. Always there as the constant companion, protector and friend of two growing children. Sharing all of our experiences, being part of the amazing fabric of life in a family. Honey was always there to be hugged and loved and talked to. An integral part of everything that took place in the lives we have shared together.

Now Honey is gone forever from my sight. Buried deep in a grave I dug on a little hill behind the house. Wrapped in a shroud of white cotton and laid to rest in the earth that will accept us all into its embrace without distinction – man and dog, side by side, sharing that ultimate commonality – death.

Eternity

I grew up in a different age than most of you who are listening to this. In an age of small stores, family-owned, neighborhood barber shops, shoemakers, a pharmacy, a little A&P grocery store staffed by a man in a white apron. I remember the A&P store had boxes of animal crackers selling for five cents a box. There was a long handled pair of grabbers that the clerk could use to reach the high up shelf to get something down for the person who needed it and could pay for it. A time when clerks went around and shopped for you in the grocery store, and put stuff, one by one, in a bag or a box for you to take home. Long, long ago, it seems. Small town America, as they call it now. A small town with a couple of gas stations where kids could go and, for free, fill up the tires of their bikes. I used to love to watch that pressure gauge.

“How many pounds you got, Jimmy?”

“Oh, I’m gonna do twenty-eight, Johnny.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna do twenty-eight, too.”

Friendly guys working in the garage and pumping gas, fixing cars, talking to people and cleaning their windshields, taking care of their cars, take it apart and put it back together. Simple machines, they knew every piece, all the pieces of the different brands were basically the same.

Different times. Gone now, forever. The last faint vestiges of that way of life disappearing before our eyes. Disappearing as Wal-Mart and the other multinational big box stores drive them out of existence. Watching as it all becomes corporate, and the people are all just employees - employees instead of owners and small businessmen. Employees in a rapacious economy whose sole concern is to maximize the amount of return that can be squeezed out of whatever game it is that they’re playing. People’s lives being the source of their profit.

The expanding of consciousness - of awareness. Consciousness expansion. Expanding beyond the self-imposed limits of the conditioned mind. Expanding to see new things and experience new feelings. Expanding to come in contact with the wisdom of God as it permeates every atom and every vibrating string of creation. Every vibrating string is humming with love, the love that creates and sustains and guides this manifestation we call life. This manifestation we call earth; that we call heaven. Call it by any names you choose. The name is not It.

The word can never come close to describing It in a way that will bring It into being in a person’s life. It/love/truth/joy comes into being in a person’s life spontaneously. And then we search for words to describe It. A fruitless, futile search for words to describe the indescribable. No such words exist. In the fullness of this situation some lapse into silence and are, perhaps, never seen or heard from again. Others are fascinated by the different paths and the men and women walking on those paths. Called by the possibilities of the dharma road as a learning tool - a road where meditation and the life of activity and engagement proceed hand in hand. One without the other doesn’t seem to work very well.

Experiencing the tantra of life at play. Standing on the edge of the world, looking out into the stars. The stars and the breaking dawn. Realizing and shaken by the transitory nature of it all. Here, in front of my mortal eyes, for but an instant of time - Eternity. 

I think I'll play my Native American style flute and dance to the dawn. Come join me.