Mystery

Look for clues 

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Listen to your gut when making big decisions. Be on the lookout for clues along the way. Clues are markers confirming that you are on the right path, or sometimes the wrong path. Be aware of your senses. Listen, smell, look, touch and taste. Maybe it’s an email, a chance encounter, a tweet, a news event or a change in the weather. Making a decision starts a sequence of events that are easy to spot when you start looking.

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

–  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don’t delay gratification 

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Don’t live a miserable life because you think trade offs and sacrifices ensure that some time in the future you’ll be happy. It’s like eating so healthy that you hate food and dread meal times. It’s like saving so much money every month that you can’t justify turning the heat on when it’s cold outside or buying an extra jersey. It’s like staying fit at the expense of relationships and friends. Lie in once and a while. Enjoy yourself – make decisions and take actions that bring you joy now. 

Of course don’t be silly – look after yourself and be kind to people, but resist the urge to plan for safety all the time. Live a joyful life, and make decisions and take action that aligns you with that joy.  

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans” – John Lennon

Sunward I’ve climbed

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“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of …”

– John Gillespie Magee’s “High Flight”

Mountains of Energy

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Leaving the coast and spending timing in Colorado was jarring at first. The ocean is an energetic anchor for me. The different moods of the sea, the smell in the morning, the shape shifting and sounds. I love it, deeply respect it and also fear it. If I ever need a refresher then a surf at Ocean Beach in San Francisco or watching the water move around the Golden Gate Bridge during an outgoing full tide always does the trick.

Heading to a landlocked state felt like I’d cut the umbilical cord from my power source But after watching the mountains on the Eastern Slopes of Boulder change color in the morning and evening light, and feeling the mood shift as storms rolled in over the Rockies, I started to recognize the same oceanic energy resonating from the mountains. Awesome power, slow moving and shape shifting.

The energetic anchor was the same. Different exterior, same interior. I plugged back in.

Day Dreaming 

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In Praise of Dreams

In my dreams
I paint like Vermeer van Delft.

I speak fluent Greek
and not just with the living.

I drive a car
that does what I want it to.

I am gifted
and write mighty epics.

I hear voices
as clearly as any venerable saint.

My brilliance as a pianist
would stun you.

I fly the way we ought to,
i.e., on my own.

Falling from the roof,
I tumble gently to the grass.

I’ve got no problem
breathing under water.

I can’t complain:
I’ve been able to locate Atlantis.

It’s gratifying that I can always
wake up before dying.

As soon as war breaks out,
I roll over on my other side.

I’m a child of my age,
but I don’t have to be.

A few years ago
I saw two suns.

And the night before last a penguin,
clear as day.

Wislawa Szymborska, View with a Grain of Sand

There are no maps of the change

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“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.
Or you don’t.”

Stephen King, The Stand 

Uvivi

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Uvivi is a Zulu word which means the darkness before the dawn. It’s true. It’s more so in the bush, but I sometimes get the same experience in the city. 

My son woke me up this morning at 4am. After I had tucked him back into bed and coaxed him back to sleep, I paused for a second and looked out of the upstairs window. It was pitch black outside, the city was quiet…a rare moment in a busy and growing city like San Francisco. The moment felt like no mans land – a shift between midnight and dawn. 

There are gateway places out there with thin membranes. Places like Point Reyes, north of San Francisco and Big Sur, south of Monterey. Places with thin membranes, where it’s a lot easier to feel connected to something greater than yourself and ‘tap in’. I felt a similar connection at 4am this morning. The moment passed and the next thing I knew I was crawling back into bed as the first hints of sunlight started to appear. The moment had passed but the impression remained. 

Sometimes a connection to something bigger isn’t about being in a place it’s about being in a state of mind.