ORIGINAL BLISS

The NOW Place

The latest wave of challenges has been a mighty one and though we have been trying our best to regain our equilibrium, we haven't managed to do this in the way we would like; with loving and polite manners.

Jeff and I, like most married couples I assume, rely heavily on each other for support. Neither of us have a large group of friends or even a close friend that we turn to with our troubles. Jeff is my best friend and I am his. This is a wonderful thing, until we are both floundering. It is the cautionary tale of trying to save a drowning person without getting drowned yourself.

I wish I could say that I behave like the Dalai Lama in times of trouble, all peaceful and compassionate-like.

Uh.... no.

But I am pretty sure the Dalai Lama has not gone through what I have gone through.

It would be a curious thing to witness the saints during times of trouble. Wouldn't it?

Did they weep?

Did they yell?

Did they rail against God?

Did crack open the red wine?

Or did they always behave like a saint?

Maybe they did, all pious and tranquil, but I am pretty sure there has never been a saint that was married with children and that is a game changer, right there.

So here is to all you wives and husbands, moms and dads, who do not always act perfect, but go on loving deeply and forgiving long. The saints ain't got nothing on us.

These challenging times put us all to the test. There is not a person I meet lately that is not going through some type of significant challenge; physical/medical, financial, relationships... The planet is a pressure cooker of drama.

I do not like it, but it does provide one thing that the good times do not - an opportunity to expand our understanding of who and what we are really made of.

When times are good, we all live fat, dumb and happy. Unconscious bliss is an intoxicating thing. In its vapors we do not grow or evolve. Tribulations call us to be something greater and stronger. We get real. We find our priorities. We cannot be an island unto ourselves and we create community. We decide that God might be something we'd like to have a relationship with.

I am on a fast track of learning how NOT to get carried away by the chaos. This is a lesson I have yet to master. I feel the quaking in my bones on the verge of erupting at all times. But I think I know the solution:

Stay in the NOW place!

Yeah.... I know... this isn't a new revelation. We have all heard about the NOW a million times. It has always sounded like a good theory to me, but is not practical in the real life of marriage, career and parenting 4 children.

Well, you know what? When life feels like it is circling the drain, NOW is all we got.

Very recently ~ like in the last couple of days ~ I have really been cacooning myself in the NOW. As soon as I turn my attention to the past or start worrying about the future, the spin and vertigo starts. As long as I chill in the NOW, I find a holy calm and actually feel some joy.

I am going to keep trying this NOW thing out and see if I can prove that it is more than just a good idea.

Namaste,

C H E Z

 

Are You Awake Now?

This little experience here on Earth, that we call life, is especially designed to teach you and to challenge you.

Each lesson, well, let's call them what they really are - TESTS... provides the perfect environment to stimulate the exact growth you need at this time.

When faced with a particularly difficult test, rather than ask "Why me?", question the lesson's objective.

Is it teaching you to love more or how to forgive?

How to be in the midst of chaos but have incredible peace?

Is it trying to WAKE YOU UP?

It appears that our trials and tribulations are increasing in size and magnitude. Every system - political, economic, religious, etc... trembles. Our planet and its people agitated and challenged to new limits.

I find that with each challenge, my learning curve to finding peace, love, and forgiveness shortens. A challenge 5 years ago took me two years make peace with. A bigger challenge 2 years ago, took 6 months. A latest, greatest challenge, two weeks.

Finding that space does not make the problem magically disappear. Unfortunately, time has to work out the problem. It does however shift our experience. So that even though the issue is still raging, your soul is not.

The goal, I suppose, is that the moment we are faced with trouble we move right into that zen space of acceptance and peace and letting go, rather than wrestle with it for weeks and months or years.

Or maybe the goal is zen in all times and spaces so that the challenge never causes us to flinch in the first place?

Namaste,

C H E Z

 

Let Me Be the Vessel for That Love

Where are the people who speak of their love for you?

Where are the people who know the true nature of your being and soul?

If they know you so well ~ why do they fall away in the times of your suffering,

leaving you trapped,

imprisoned with the voices of fear that knock on the walls of your skull?

Oh, but to feel surrounded and embraced by a love without limitation,

the only love necessary,

a love that is beyond our human capacity to give.

Let me be the vessel for that kind of love.

Even if my body breaks from trying to contain it.

Namaste,

C H E Z

A Simple Spark of Joy

A much needed spark of joy and inspiration awaited me on my kitchen counter when I arrived home from work at 4 a.m.

The new Somerset Studio's Art Journaling magazine has hit the stands! While my feature and article will not be published until January 2011, three of my pages and several of my hints and answers to questions are published in this issue.

Yay!

I was so happy to see one of my favorite journal artists from Flickr, Erin Kenepp, published in this issue! I also discovered an artist I had not run across before, Christine Mason Miller. Her spread "Where is God?" was my favorite in the whole magazine!

Namaste,

C H E Z

Dreaming on the Page - Reduced Price!

When the deepest part of yourself has something to tell you, how do you hear it?

Soul journals are a sacred space to throw your inner workings, your dreams, fears, laughter, tears, plans, reflections, obsessions, should ofs, could ofs, have-tos and to-dos.

It is a place to give yourself complete permission to make a mess and get it wrong.

This is a self-published zine/workshop booklet that includes 10 journal prompts with step by step instructions to create your own journal pages. It is 32 pages of full-color inspiration! Dreaming on the Page Journal Adventures include: Mixed Media Collage, Collage-a-Doodle, using ephemera, Journaling, the 10 minute collage slam, ghost facing, Caran d'Ache painting, Ink Jet Transfer and Pen & Oil Pastel Illustration. Also included is a "FUNdamentals of Play" chapter that explains tools and processes used in the booklet.

Are you ready for the adventure?

Available in PRINT or ELECTRONIC version at LuLu!

Namaste,

C H E Z

The Cosmic Mother

I have always been a Jesus freak. While I am not Christian in the dogmatic sense, in all my spiritual explorations, I always come back to Jesus' life, his actions and teachings, as a foundation that I ground in. 

But ever since my children were born, I have had a growing affinity for the Mother Mary. I don't pray to her, or deify her, but I often contemplate her. 

It has a lot to do with being a mother. When parenting is difficult or heartbreaking, I think of her and what she must have gone through witnessing the trials and tribulations of her son. I understand her pain and suffering. It must have felt even deeper than Christ's himself. After all, don't we feel our childrens' suffering at ten times the magnitude then they? Mary's suffering puts my maternal heartbreaks in perspective.

It has even more to do with me being a woman. I feel her on an intuitive space ~ in my attempts to live a soulful and compassionate life in a world overwrought with the constriction that masculine energies place on the feminine. When I imagine Mary in her story, I see a woman so strong and powerful, with no say or control with all the chaos that swirled around her. How or if she remained centered in the midst of that, I don't know. I struggle as I sit in the center of our current chaos, praying and holding love and compassion in my being, but feeling on the verge of despair sometimes.

Have we come a long way baby?

Indeed.

But only in the realms of the superficial, the financial, political, social and sexual arenas. But is that equalization due to the feminine being integrated into the world or has it been at the expense of the feminine? Have we forsaken the feminine, channeling more of the masculine in order to obtain that "equality".

Please understand, I am not talking about our male and female gender, male bashing, or putting forth a feminist, political agenda. Life on the 3rd Dimension requires the creation of physical polarity in order for procreation. But before we get these beautiful vessels, we are whole and complete spirits, a balance of yen and yang. Once in the body we don't often express this balance.

How did this happen?

The foundation of humanity and civilization rests on our spiritual/religious traditions. I don't care if you are atheist and personally don't believe in God, at the core of every civilization there is a spiritual, philosophical root, that affects how we go about our daily lives. Our laws, our ideals, our traditions, all spring forth from that root. In America, the foundation has a Christian overtone. In Saudia Arabia, it is Islamic. In India, Hindu.

At the roots of all our modern spiritual interests, the feminine is diminished and ignored.

She was there "In the beginning...",as Sophia, she was there in indigenous wisdom teachings, but as soon as humanity became "civilized"... well... where did she go?

God in most religions is a masculine creator, a sculptor, a builder who took inanimate pieces and fabricated them into something animate. He has become personified as a Man.

But isn't it funny, that in our Earthly experience, that is not what is demonstrated. The feminine builds animate life in her womb, pulling bits and pieces from the Earth and from itself, growing and nourishing life before birthing it into creation, just as every mother has birthed every being on our planet.

If you look at your own concept of God, is your first reaction male? For me it is. Even though I have an understanding that this is not the case, it is still my first reaction because of my cultural upbringing: God, the Father.

I am not suggesting we forsake or vilify the masculine... the competitive, assertive, dynamic, and logical... I am calling you to embrace the feminine in balance to the masculine; the compassionate, the open, the receptive part of yourself. I am not just speaking to my fellow "girls", but to my honorable men as well.

Our planet is reeling from the effects of masculine energy that has run amok and unchecked for too long. This is a calling to being WHOLE and balanced in ourselves so that our civilization can become whole and balanced.

Namaste,

C H E Z

Begin Within.

So lost. 

Soft clay pots on the wheel, we have lost our center.

We have deformed.

We are degenerating.

We are beginning to disintegrate and the shrapnel is flung hither and yon making an enormous mess of everything. Every day brings with it another one or two WTF? events brought on by, ours truly, humanity. 

How do you stop a single environmental disaster?

How do you stop global warming?

How do you stop people from harming and murdering others?

How do you stop war?

How do you stop hate, once seeded, from rooting, and growing, and reproducing.

How do you stop the greed?

Does any of it ever stop?

Does it even wane?

Are we supposed to just get used to it?

Will it only get worse?

It appears to me ~ the chaos will only deepen and spread. Like a breached oil well, its tar-black darkness will continue to invade and threaten the pure and crystalline waters of our peace, joy and happiness. We are trapped birds in a mire of situations that are beyond our control. Our wings are rendered useless.

But there is a way out.

The way out is within.

We are more than the mere clay vessels of our flesh and bones. Something fills us. Something beyond time and space. Something beyond limitation. Buried deep under impenetrable layers of distraction and delusions - something eternal and holy. 

We are given a choice. We can live our life denying the existence of our true essence, 

or 

we can recognize it. 

Once we recognize we are something more, we have yet another choice. 

We can ignore and neglect this aspect of ourselves - know that it is there but make it secondary to the distractions and delusions of our physical reality and ego, 

or 

we can cultivate it.

We must drop all the disguises; our character traits, job titles, income, gender, sexual preferences, political party, obligations, thoughts, and beliefs, and get real.

Set aside 5 measly minutes at the beginning of your day, to acknowledge, connect and center your being around that still, small point of Infinite Light. 

Put yourself into that space, that inner connection with God... the One... the Tao... the Universe... the Nameless Creator... and what follows is wisdom and right purpose in your actions and speech. Your shift into that space, creates permission for others to shift into that space.

Cultivating our infinite self tethers us to the Truth. Denying or ignoring it, leaves us floundering in the flotsum.

It is our first and last and only resort. It is the only thing that separates oil from water, the wheat from the chaff.

Namaste,

C H E Z

The Faint Fragrance

 "All day I think about it, 

then at night I say it.

Where did I come from, 

and what am I supposed to be doing?

My soul is from elsewhere,

I am sure of that,

and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.

When I get back to that place,

I'll be completely sober.

Meanwhile,

I am like a bird from another continent,

sitting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,

but who is it now in my ear,

who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes?

What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer, 

I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn't come here of my own accord,

and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here,

will have to take me home."

R U M I

This is how the divine speaks:

When I journal, I never have a plan. 

Usually, I am pent up and frustrated when I approach my journal. I have something to say ~ to myself and to the world ~ but words and ideas are knotted within me.

With these pages I started with some leftover pink, gift tissue. It was sitting there on the table. I was sick of looking at it, but didn't want to find a place to put it away. So I ripped it and pasted it to the page. 

Then I squirted some gesso on it and smeared it with my fingers.

After it dried, I felt an urge to write.

I was remembering a dream I had not very long ago, where I went off on a boat into the universe and spoke with a presence I have known from the beginning of time. I didn't want to leave, but the presence made me, telling me that the perfect connection and balance and love I was experiencing in that moment... I had to bring it back into the world with me. 

I wept.

The boat left again, without me, and I woke up.

I have wanted that experience back.

On the pages I wrote to that presence. 

"Where are you?"

"You told me to be that love in the world, but I don't know how."

"Once you were gone, I felt empty."

I wrote them in soft pink, so they couldn't really be read by anybody, lest they think me mad.

Then I was stuck and frustrated again. I didn't know what next to do with the page.

So I went for a walk.

It was just before sunset. The heat of the day had cooled. There was laughter and splashing water in the park. There was a breeze. There was the faint fragrance of that presence laced softly upon that breeze. I felt embraced. A country songbird fluttered along beside me. 

Yes! A bird! A bird goes on that page!

I walked home and finished the page.

I take my photos of the page, upload them to the computer, open up TypePad, and think, "What do I say about this? How do I convey this message?"

Again, I do not even know where to begin.

Something moved me to my book of Rumi. I opened the book right to the page with this poem on it.

And that was exactly what I was trying to say all along!

Namaste,

C H E Z

I Live to Let You Shine

 If you'll be my star,

I'll be your sky.

You can hide underneath me and come out at night.

When I turn jet black

and you show off your light,

I'll live to let you shine.

I'll live to let you shine.

But you can sky-rocket away from me.

And never come back if you find another galaxy,

far from here,

with more room to fly.

just leave me your stardust to remember you by.

If you'll be my boat,

I'll be your sea.

The depth of pure blue just to probe curiosity.

Ebbing and flowing,

and pushed by a breeze.

I live to make you free.

I live to make you free.

But you can set sail to the west if you want to.

And past the horizon 'til I can't even see you.

Far from here,

where the beaches are wide,

just leave me your wake to remember you by.

To the people I love with the deep infinity of my being.

Namaste,

C H E Z

Cover of "Boats & Birds" by Mattea Overstreet

Original by Gregory and the Hawk

For The Sake of What?

 

This was a question posed to me during this week of training with Smart Soul Academy.

I was asked to contemplate and share my "why". Why did I chose to be on this path?

"For the sake of.............what?"

I ponder.

I contemplate.

I sit in the blank.

I search.

I wait for my answer.

For the sake of happiness. For the sake of NOW. For the sake of the necessary. For the sake of YES! For the sake of purpose. For the sake of my soul.

Every answer a cliche, trite, not quite true or authentic.

Can this question be answered with just one choice? Can I change my choice tomorrow or in the next moment?

Or is it a multiple choice answer where the only truth can be ALL OF THE ABOVE?

Any journey I have ever embarked upon, always had an answer, an answer as to why I was heading a particular direction.

For the sake of my children. For the sake of my relationship. For the sake of a retirement and medical insurance. 

I always had a goal, a destination... but when I arrived I found that I never ended up where I had envisioned.

When I began participating in the Smart Soul Academy, my intuition opened wide and said "Yes!". When I began my Holistic Theology degree program, my soul opened even wider and rejoiced. This is a path I have always dreamed of walking, but every time I considered it my mind would not give me permission.

I followed the permission of my soul this time, finally stepping onto the path of my heart's desire. It was like jumping from an airplane without a parachute. I am in an exhilarating free fall. I don't really know where the landing zone is and my mind is screaming, "YOU ARE GOING TO SPLAT DOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!!!!!"

 

I may not know where this is leading. I only know, with loud clarity, that it was time to leave where I was and move in this direction. 

The parachute of my rational mind was never really necessary. It can stop screaming and shut up now, because it will not keep my soul from flying this time. 

Namaste,

C H E Z