Here's what comes up:  When you are absent from others for a length of time, there is no one to face but yourself.  It sounds okay from the perspective of the written word, but trust me, it's some seriously frightening ordeal.  Face yourself.  Who is but the worst enemy we each have?  The only real enemy any of us has is within.

I guess I would say that I was doin' a bit more "ego burning".  Eric doesn't like that term much, ‘cause he assures me that I have tons of ego (as if I have never been successful  at  ridding a bit of it).  Hmm.  So what is it to face oneself, to do battle, to surrender somewhat to the higher self?  What is a good term for that?  I will, unfortunate or fortunate being the judgment of whomever wishes to judge, I WILL remain myself, ego in tact, as far as being my "self"... no options.  But as for peeling away at understanding what that means from within, that is the ego burning of a sabbatical... whether at home in meditation for ten minutes or away in the mountains for two weeks.

Do I suggest that everyone run away from the world for an expansive amount of time?  Well, are you taking the cell phone, the tv, romance novels, and a ton of other distractions?  If so, have at it!  If not, buyer  beware.  You will face the biggest nightmare of your existence:  YOU!

Although the hardcore part of what I read is not this, this is what can change the world from the perspective of anyone who picks up a random blog here or there:   Conscious intention toward those in our midst...  It's like tonglen, but in active moment to moment use. 

What happens for me so much of the time is that I TRUST that the Eternal Whatever It Is will take care of whatever is to be taken care of to the point of my pure laziness.  But alas, since I do believe I am a facet of that thing, I have a responsibility to do my part!  Dang it.  The first sentence is easier : )

Goldsmith mentions actually tuning in to God (however you define that) and putting out the intention for all of those in your midst, your reach, your world, this wish... for Eternal Grace, Love,Peace and Abundance!  And he suggests we do that twelve times a day. 

Can you imagine what a difference that small move would make in the world?  What if half the people in the world, a quarter of the people in the world, did this every day?  What if people stopped once an hour to focus and intend for all sentient beings to experience grace, love, peace and abundance?  Amazing, amazing, amazing.  It just makes me glow with potentiality.

Join me!  Don't just think the words though... actually intend them from your highest self.  Change the world, one grocery store at a time!

The river rages only feet from my window, only inches from where I sit (while visiting the Mount Pilchuck cabin as I have done so often,  http://www.mountpilchuck.com ).  I am again struck by how the river's journey is the journey of us all.

The drops of water fell ever so innocently from the sky... and in this case, many of them came drifting slowly to the ground as peaceful snowflakes.  By the shear wonders of existence, a drop manages to melt and slide down into a small trickle across the ground, that then meets with a stream, that then merges with the river that rages with force and power.

That tiny drop of water is tossed and churned, slammed into the rocks, separated from those it knew so well and re-merged with others, over and over again.  There are peaceful moments at the surface in the lulls, where the sun warms it, where all runs with liquid fluidity between slow and tranquil banks.  But, just as all seems quiet, a great falls tumbles the droplet from new heights.

More and more and more rivers join course, and eventually, in a collective never suspected before by the small drop, they reach the vast ocean.  There the droplet is in awe and yet suspicion about its validity in such an expanse, one among so many.  And the perils have not ceased, propeller blades, crashing waves, perilous storms. 

And then, when peace among  the vastness, rest, finally sets itself deep within the drop... as it slides along the sunny surface of the great water... ascension!  The drop is evaporated to begin again.

So I am.   

Omg... if you came to this blog thinking I have a clue... that I could define the "art of discernment"... you are definitely barking up the wrong tree.  I was thinking about this earlier, about my odds at the track.  Wow, ten to one?!  Worse than baseball batting averages by far, at least that's for certain.

This is one of my weaknesses.  We could get a list going, but I've spent about half of my time in the past ten days burning through ego crap... so I'm not goin' back to that again.  Discernment definitely is not my cup of tea.  I'm not manifesting here; I'm just noticing.

Almost as I type this, I see the irony in it.  There are no wrong actions, no wrong paths, no wrong turns.  Everything is about learning something.  I'm learning that I'm "wrong" a lot : ), wrong in the Eternal sense, or rather wrong in the sense of "change being the only thing that is guaranteed", and following guidance doesn't necessarily lead to peace and harmony.

I feel around as if the lights are off, and although I possess all other senses, still I fall down the stairs (I couldn't perceive them with my feet or hands?).  What the heck?  It seems like things should be clearer.  It seems like fluidity should fall into place and hold for more than a few moments here and there.

I boiled it down to this... I am still playing with control issues.  I want to call the shots of the journey, Eternal or earthbound.  That doesn't fly with the former.  And so the course is more like the raging rapids than slow and peaceful meanderings.  I go where I think I am led, and it just leads to further human peril.  Crazy.

If you spin me in the forest, then ask me to point north, my senses can be fully certain that north is one direction, and I know from experience that my internal compass is 180 degrees off... so I am intelligent enough to tell ya that north is the opposite direction of my bearings.  Perhaps that is how discernment will be in the end.  Maybe I'm 180 off.  Sigh.  I suppose only time will tell.

I haven't run into truly valid information about this... nothing that works for me.  The more I notice higher connection, the more puzzling the whole endeavor becomes to my human self.  Are there any good books on this, anything?  Most of the junk I run into does this sweet and light fairy dance about twin flames or whatnot... like perfection is found in a "soul" mate.  Ya, whatever.  The only "soul mate" that truly exists is the bond between lover and beloved, between the One and the All, between God and self.  But, hey, we're here on the planet, so we may as well play! 

I'm actually talkin' about this:  I decide to face my demons, and I drag Judy kicking and screaming into facing hers.  How is that fair?  It's particularly bizarre in that, I knew by removing myself from those that have this sorta Eternal bond thing, that I would be slamming them into walls as I worked to break down my own.  It went wider than I would have guessed, challenged more people than I thought about ahead of time.  Who would know?  So in working to "grow" myself, I grew a garden, hee hee hee.  (Sorry guys, I know growing hurts.  I do "apologize" to ya all... in that, I had to do it... and I know you didn't all want to come along for the ride.  Eric definitely didn't, so, thanks so much for enduring there!)

How is it that there can be higher connection?  I aspire and live in the concept of Oneness.  We are all One.  So what is this Kundalini energy connective thing that I have with some people?  Or what is it about others that I've had deep, perspective connections with the Eternal in being in their presence?  Why?  Why is it different by "who"?  It just makes no sense whatsoever.

Inquiring minds wish to know.  I could just surrender to it being an Eternal Mystery, that never ending excuse of everything these days.  I just don't want to.  Control.  Yep.  : )

There is this incredible collection of works, 50 Spiritual Classics, gathered, synopsized and commented upon by Tom Butler-Bowdon.  Hey, in American culture, it's a real shortcut to the greats!  I've been surprised at how many of the authors I have consumed in the past couple of years (in my own explorations), few of those in 50 Spiritual Classics unknown to me.  My favorites are within the cluster, St. Augustine, Casteneda, Ram Dass, Gandhi, Jung ... and I'm only at numbers 19 or 20 : )

I own Krishnamurti, but I don't think I'm well read in his works (I've really been too diverse to be well read in anyone's works).  A point he made that caught my attention, and that has been repetitiously catching my eyes and ears recently, was this:  Unhappiness is the illusion of separation between self and love.  That isn't a quote.  It's a concept.

It's an interesting conundrum.  There is a strange human "mind" trick that plays in to separating one from the All, or one from God, or one from fulfillment, from pure love... however you wish to do the math.   And most of us are well deluded by this. 

I kinda like the rationale that goes along these lines:  Against odds that surpass lottery winning, each of us was conceived.  Then, with all things against our barely beginning substance (a mother's body actually attacking the foreign nature of our presence), we each endured.  By some magic that no mind could ever design or carry out, we grew inside this other being, and then survived passing out into the separate existence of planetary life.  Our hearts beat.  Our lungs breathe.  These darn cells regenerate and create and do all sorts of strange and miraculous things that our minds and perceptive being have NOTHING to do with (is your nose growing?  I hear noses grow for all of life).  Somehow, through the unbearable list of challenges and risks and stupidity that each of us has (called living), we still manage to survive, and endure, and be perplexed by it all.  Now, this isn't my argument... it's stolen (thanks Kwami)... but the point is undeniable.  We are so dang connected to some Mystery something, that it's difficult to deny.

Pondering whether this Mystery has any intention for our happiness is something that I bet most of you could spend days arguing.  I'm not really on one side or the other, and actually think that "God" doesn't  hold a lot of stock in whether we're happy or unhappy.

In my own thoughts, I'd actually validate that there is very little caring at all... especially since "God" doesn't seem to have an individual form to care from.  But the deal evolves (yes, in my own, perhaps, deluded mind) that it is in our own power to see ourselves as this miracle that we are, and take hold of that Oneness, and claim happiness and fulfillment in its Infinite glory.  Nothing separates us from this happiness, from Eternal Love, but ourselves!

OK, ya, I'm certainly willing to admit the horrors of my last two weeks, and I'm definitely gonna say that I did NOT feel in control of the lowest points of low (luckily, no one was around to medicate me)... but I can say that the reason was definitely a sense of separation.  I felt very separate from the Eternal Forces that run this place.  I know that it is ridiculous and perilous and ludicrous to "feel" that way... but I did it anyway.  Could I have chosen otherwise?  Perhaps.

It's the ego stance of individuality that is the very nature of all misery.  When we look at the exact moment we are in, hold only it in the court of non-judgment, and live... we're doin' okay!  We choose our perceptions in the exact moment of their occurrence.  Why not choose Oneness?  Why not choose happiness and love in every moment?

And when you get it down... come teach me! 

Or just dreaming anyway.  Wow, weird, weird, weird dreams this week.  Quite the cast of characters too.  I saw a bunch of Mom and Dad (it's fun to get a chance to see Mom once in a while, since she died a couple years back).  Eric hopped in here and there (wacko... I've only had one dream with him in it in my entire life).  Judy and Chelsea and Kayleen, Debby, Robert and DeeDee, Nyasha and Shante of course...  Visits to Victoria and a ranch and my actual home (which I've never been in in a dream, but then, I'm not there now, so maybe that's why).  And although I've written bunches of the information down, I have no idea what to do with it.

I have little faith in my discernment (see the blog by that title).  Whether representational or literal, do I go 180 degrees in determining what the information means?  Or do I just enjoy the movie quality of a separate aspect of my existence?  What would Carl Jung say?  Maybe if I asked, he'd hop into one of ‘em and do a session or two with me.

I won't risk unveiling the reality that is me by going through any of the current ones.  I have to keep ya'all  guessin' a bit. But I'll tell you one of my classic dreams, and ye who analyze will get a big kick out of it.  I was pregnant, ya, not in the dream.  So in sleep (and probably in reality), Eric was away at work.  I birthed the babies, multitudes of ‘em, and they were infant snakes (if you know ANYthing about dreams at all, you know that snakes are phallic, yay!  I have a really good snake dream from my teen years, but I digress).  I tried my hand at mothering the little suckers, but one by one they befell horrific deaths (like falling off the sofa or drowning in the toilet).  By the time Eric was to return from work, I was pretty perplexed to have killed the lot of them.  I wasn't too disturbed by it all in my dream self... more puzzled at what the Dad might think of my terrible Momming skills.  Truly, this is the classic stuff of pregnant dreaming.  Somehow, when my real children hit the planet, I managed to mother them well enough to get them to near adult form (at this point 16 and 17 and a half years of success).

I laughed about that dream on the day of its occurrence.  Even then,  I could see that it was "fear animated".  Perhaps that is how I should look upon the collection in my journaling, just the casting of emotion and indecision onto a movie screen.  Time will tell.

Happy Dreamin'!

Today is the last day at the cabin.  I didn't think I would blog... but ya just never know, eh?  I sat here in (Divine) contemplation, while I ate a particularly delicious yam.  Brad, the incredible, admirable, amazing owner of the cabins (oh ya, everyone should visit here, http://www.mountpilchuck.com ) is a ROCK HOUND. 

No, he does not listen to AC-DC and Ozzy, or at least I haven't noticed that he does.  He collects rocks:  Big rocks, that weigh more than I do, and tiny rocks... everything in between...  rocks whose layers and shapes and colors would blow your mind.  He glazes them with something shiny, a verathane of sorts, and has them everywhere amongst the antiques.  If there's a surface, it needs rocks.  Outdoors, there are rocks.  It's absolutely stunning, really.

So here on the table, where I was admiring the river and appreciating the yam, one of the rocks caught my eye for the first time.  It's only a handful, but it is a rock encased in rock.  It's like a stone that is inside a peeling, with a third of that exterior stripped away.  The outside is dark, like deep, rich earth... and the inside is light like perfect Indian skin (meant with shear adoration).  I was thinking about this rock.  At one time it was a prisoner of its outer shell.  Aren't we all?  And, although not entirely free, it has a great head start on peeling away.

There really couldn't be a better analogy for my "adventure".  I had some parts of my outer layer to peel, some work to do, to strip off just a little bit more of what imprisons me.  And, nowhere near fully exposed, I still feel shiny and ready to re-emerge into the world.  After a few months of crazy, hopeless meditation attempts, today, things are back to the glowing, zealous, unconditional love of times past.  I can breathe again.  I can stop thinking again.  I can touch base with the me that hides deep within, with my God, with the Eternal Oneness that is a collective of us all.

I wish nothing less and everything more to all of you.  Break free!  Namaste :  )