The clearer I am about who I am, the more obvious this danged Great China Wall is.  How did it get here?  How many lifetimes did it take to build it?  And what are the ways to handle such a monstrosity?  How the heck did I get a fortress around my soul?

I guess figuratively, there are a few obvious ideas.  Chip at the mortar and remove the bricks one by one, build doors in it, scale it, use explosives to create gaps...

I've done most of them and am pretty much up to the last.  The issue is that dynamite is a dangerous game.  It belongs in some places and not in others.  If not carefully implemented,  there can be casualties. 

If I look for a silver lining, at least this is the last wall standing.  All of the little detours and fences and road blocks are handled.  No question that this last barrier will be a lifetime of amusement.  And when taking the dramatic, pyrotechnic route, a lot of clean up may be in order.  No boredom there. 

Where are your walls?  Where is your journey?  Have you found yourself (well of course no one totally has...not 100%)?  There's a mantra in my head:  Not my, but thy will be done...

Wow, you can't imagine how surprised I was when Ash Wednesday fell like Pacific Northwest rain!  I missed Fat Tuesday!  That was what I thought first... It's not that I drink or really am much of a party animal, but what would be better than Fat Tuesday and Dog Party Day in a merged glory all their own?  It was a transitional day for me, yes, definitely that... a transition to what, I don't know.

But Ash Wednesday fell, and my own memories of those 40 years as a Catholic do leave remnant energy.  Wow Debby, people do run around with the ashes on their foreheads.  What the heck?  How did I ever miss that?  I always washed them off!

And so, it is Lent... the season where alcohol and chocolate companies cringe.  It is a time where people supposedly sacrifice something in order to live the sacrifices of Jesus while on earth.  Can I say, especially thinking of conversations with RICH, how utterly ridiculous this practice is?!!!  Let me tell you about transformation, about Jesus, about those who have gone the route to be Consciousness to our world:  petty lenten limits equate something like the difference between a pin prick and open heart surgery!  Get Real!

One of my favorite priests of all times shifted the parish thinking to something that I had believed and perhaps lived most of my lifetime.  He asked us to stop "giving up stuff" and start "giving stuff".  Give time, give energy, give emotional commitment, give financial support, give of yourself as you have never given before.  Be the Christ on earth; live it as if there was nothing else to live for.  That is what Jesus did.  That is what we are all asked to recognize within ourselves.  Lent is a time to focus on BEing. 

Actually every moment is that.  Focus on BEing...  Give of yourself, remove yourself from the equation.  It is all there is to live for, to live into...  Happy Lent!

Once upon a time, Om (the tortoise.... long before he ascended and became a taxidermy fixture of my recroom) scuttled across the desert in the heat of the midday sun. 

There was a lot of angst in this circumstance.  He might dehydrate.  In fact, it was inevitable at the rate he was going.  Or perhaps one of those danged eagles (see Small Gods by Terry Pratchett) would pick him up for the sheer wonder of dropping him to his death.  Or, then, the humans... they had long forgotten he was god... the humans might scoop him up for Turtle Soup.

He was perplexed by this slow and deliberate tortoise body, the heavy shell, the hardened heart.  But step after step, his feet hit the sand as he drove himself onward.

Fears ebbed and flowed like the waves upon a sea he would gratefully greet for the cooling force, for the water that would quench his thirst.  He was a tortoise after all.  He could pull every aspect of himself to the interior... surrender to the fear... wallow in it's power.

Om marched on.  He was god.  There was nothing to fear but fear itself.  The battle was within, not without.   Every step he took glorified the Eternal.  Every experience stood as a valiant moment alone, without comparison.  His feet hit the heat for the souls of all living-kind!

~Face your day.  Embrace your power.  Love like this moment is the only one that counts.~

Blank page.  When there is nothing left wherever you turn, just nothing...

It isn't comfortable or easy or pleasant.  It isn't anything.  Empty is all.  Somewhere inside here is "me"... or "God"... or whatever the core is called.  Somewhere.

I don't know why it seems like this should be simple.  It certainly would make more sense if it was happy.  But it's neither.  Not by the "human" standard anyway.  The ego guarantees that.  Being human guarantees that.

The unfolding of the pure self is the unfolding of horror, the unfolding of bliss... one in the same, neither.  I would be thankful in many ways to be nieve.  I guess I was never aware how simple it was to live without knowing.  And yet, it will, in so many other ways, be simple to live in the Divine Intellect.

On a whim.  In the moment.  The range of possibilities dramatic and ludicrous, eventful yet boring.

Who am I?  Who are you?

Pure Imagination (lyrics)

Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination

We'll begin with a spin
Trav'ling in the world of my creation
What we'll see will defy
Explanation

{Refrain}
If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world, there's nothing to it

There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you'll be free
If you truly wish to be

There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you'll be free
If you truly wish to be

I think I want to move in with Willy Wonka (number one)... or Roald Dahl anyway...   "If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it.  Anything you want to, do it.  Want to change the world, there's nothing to it." 

There is no need to look beyond the computer screen or even outside your very own door. Paradise is here and now.

The beauty is within the imagination, within the recognition of pure and personal IMAGINATION, the utter connection with the Source of being.  "Living there you'll be free if you truly wish to be."