Category: Philosophy (Page 1 of 2)

Warfare, Home and the Journey

January 13, 2020 / Tom

“Life is warfare and a journey far from home.” ~Marcus Aurelius.

What do you think when you read this quote? Do you think of places you’d like to visit? Where is it you’d like to go?

In Stoic circles, many suggest that this quote was advising travel to faraway lands, while others say it is evidence that the Stoics were travelers who sought adventure. I wonder though, can it have a much more meaningful connotation, one that directs us more inward in our own journey?

To me, stoicism always been an inward process that radiates outward. I see much of philosophy as inward activity generating an outward expression. Stoicism has become the inward displaying itself in the outer world and is a catalyst for who I wish to be. It is not, for me, so much a way of life as it is a way to life.

As I see it, this quote seems to have more to do with inward warfare and that journey we all undertake to varying degrees. It has less to do with traveling to exotic locations and more to do with traveling inward to places I rarely go; those places that scare me yet seem to have such influence over my life.

To understand what I mean, let me start with the second part of the sentence.

“…and a journey far from home.”

What is home to most of us? It is a comfortable place where we feel secure. We can lock our doors and close our windows if need be. We can walk around our space naked without judgement. The choices we make are ours, and we can live in a way that pleases only us. It is our safe place.

Stoics seek balance and in that balance, home is a necessary space. Yet, as with any place of comfort, staying too long at home is a waste of living. While spending time under the blankets in bed is wonderful on a cold winter’s day, it ceases to be a healthy way of living if we stay there too long. We need the discomfort of getting out of bed into the cold, and we need the outdoors to truly feel alive.

That is what I believe Marcus meant with he said, “Life is…a journey far from home.”

Many of us search for those comfortable areas within. Some of us choose to stay there, often for too long. Inwardly speaking, life is a journey far from the comfortable spaces we’ve discovered. Life becomes, instead, the journey away from our comfort zones into the relative undiscovered and uncharted territory of what makes us uncomfortable.

I will rephrase one of my original questions to reflect that notion.

“Where is it you fear to go?”

When I answered that years ago, I also decided that is where I had to go if I wanted to heal and live my fullest life. That took much in the way of the first half of Marcus’ sentence. It took warfare.

“Life is warfare…”

Many will misconstrue Marcus’ meaning when they read the first half of this quote so, invariably, they will be led to the wrong location for the second half. I don’t see life as a inevitable war outside my mind, but I could certainly have experienced the persistent warfare within my mind. Now we may battle those external forces that wish to push us outside our safe space, but that is just the outward expression of the battle being waged within. My truth has always been that when someone pokes at my internal fears the demons always rise to fight. My reaction to those who challenge me is often the reaction my mind has to it’s own journey.

Fear, as most of us know, can be one helluva ruthless bastard. It’s likely why many of us shrink from even the idea of challenging it. Especially the biggest beasts who we’ve ignored with such skill that they often need not even awake to defeat us.

Yet, if we truly wish to live, we must engage in warfare to beat back the beasts that keep us locked in our homes. We must fight them, defeat them, so that we can journey deeper into ourselves. That journey is not only the expression of life but opens up the trail toward living. When we no longer fear going outside our safe spaces we can unlock the door and journey to places beyond.

If life is warfare and a journey far from home, then living is the prize of victory. There is always a difference between life and living and that difference is usually expressed in the balance we must fine. Living can be both the swaddling under warms blankets and it can be the warfare we engage in to enter a winter’s landscape. Balance is in finding the right times for either.

Getting “On Rope”

June 21, 2019 / Tom

In my dreams my mind issued a challenge to my heart, and I awoke to a realization.

In the experience of reality, I wonder what is actually real. Are the thoughts dripping in my head real? Is the doubt that often invades my certainty an instinct or simply a voice from the past? Is what I feel in my gut or in my head? How can a mere man tell the difference?

I often search for things to confirm my security or my doubts. Despite my fear of heights,I was once high-angle rescue technician. That fear, coupled with the dislike of pain and injury, caused me to check things repeatedly before getting “on rope” and trusting my life to it. I would look for issues with the rope, for problems with my harness, for abnormalities in the gear and the correctness of the knots. I made sure the team was trained and able. More importantly, I was also confirming the integrity of those things before giving them my trust. When I knew things were right, I would breath out my fear, hop over the edge, and head downward. Nothing exhilarated me more than facing my fear and defeating it on its own turf.

Perhaps that is a wonderful metaphor for my life when facing the various fears I’ve accumulated over the years. I have, as I am sure many have, been in some extremely dark and cold places. Oddly, when I would survive one dark corner of my world another would eventually come that changed my understanding of what darkness really was. I’ve also learned that my perspective, like my eyes, don’t actually adapt to the level of darkness in a space. They adapt to how much light is present. I’ve learned to seek out the light.

I still do not like pain and injury, although I’ve developed a high tolerance for both. So, I’ve learned to check, and recheck, things in my life to best ensure my survival. I check the integrity of the proverbial rope. I inspect my “gear” to ensure its strength. I ensure those who will be on my team are equal to the task at hand. Then I go on rope, and begin my journey into fear prepared. I may still fall, and I may still get hurt, but it won’t be because I ignored the things within my power to address. I knew I could only control so much, meaning my own actions and my own mind, but that I also had no control over so much my life and well-being depended on.

In the fire service, we learn techniques to give us the best chance to survive. We “sound” floors before entering a room. We check the roof before getting on it. We size up a scene before working a fire. Mostly, we rely heavily on our own experience and training to get out of many precarious scenarios alive. My experience (and the loss of some friends) taught me to instinctively check things. Constantly. Without fail.

So, I awaken to the drip…drip…drip of a nagging thought pressing on my heart. I start checking the proverbial rope, the lifeline I’ve tied to the anchor of my life, running my bare hand along its braided sheath looking for distortions. I check the knots I’ve used to bind me to the steadfastness I seek, looking for loose ties and uncertain bindings. I go within to ensure I’m thinking clearly, and that I’m certain of my plan. Then, I step off, trusting my instincts and hoping those I’ve placed my trust in won’t let me down.

I’ve gone on rope.

Yes, I Can

June 19, 2019 / Tom

I remember hitting the beach in November 2014. It had been a month or so since I had a stroke, and I was still dealing with many of the effects caused by a part of my brain dying. I was dizzy most of the time, and my balance was what I’d call “challenging, at best”. I could not climb down steps without a rail or assistance of some kind, and my eyesight was still not as reliable as it once was.

Throughout the recovery process, I took on challenges with a “yes, I can” attitude that I believe helped dramatically speed up my recovery. I would meditate on regaining my vision, internally visualizing the act of seeing as well as the rerouting of the necessary neural pathways. I would use those visualization techniques in learning to walk again, in rebuilding my strength, and in finding the joy that resided deep within me. I would not choose the darkness even in my blindness, and I would not choose being a victim even in my disability.

Instead, I choose my power and decided to “do the best I could”. I set no lofty goals save doing my best, and I would not get down on myself or the world when my best did not meet a prescribed standard. I would accept my “new normal” and let whatever came my way through hard work, meditation, and circumstance to flow.

When the recovery process was complete, my neurologist ask me to confer with him because of what he deemed “a miraculous recovery”. He asked me about my process, about my attitude, about what I saw as a stroke victim who had recovered quite quickly. I first corrected him, suggesting to him that the first key was that I was not a “stroke victim” but rather a “stroke student”. I had experienced and learned so much from being stricken that I could not see myself as a victim. I was a student, and I had be so well taught.

At the end of our many conversations on this subject I asked him what he thought. “I think your attitude, you visualization techniques and your relatively young age all combined to provide you a miracle. I’m grateful to have learned something from you.” At the end of the rehab process he had to test me to release me from his care, and he began to “invent” tests just to try to get me to fail one of them. At the end of that trial, he simply said, “wow”.

That led to that moment on the beach. I made my way slowly down the steps in Ocean City, New Jersey, from the boardwalk to the sands. I walked slowly and unsteadily to the water line, and closed my eyes to listen to the sounds of the ocean. I had picked the beach because I knew I had a high likelihood of falling, and I wanted a relatively soft landing if I fell. As my body absorbed the sounds of breaking waves and the gulls singing high praise of their paradise, I closed my eyes and a vision of me running came. Something inside of me wanted to run instead of my planned walk.

A voice inside my head, the one that spawned from memories of the many times I struggled walking with a walker, the one that had to hold on to the rails as I walked in physical therapy, the one that experienced imbalance in a crowded and wavy pool, spoke to me in fear. “You shouldn’t do this. You will fall, and if you get hurt and it won’t be good. Just take your time, relearn, and don’t listen to whatever that is that wants to run. Be good. Be safe. Don’t venture too far outside your comfort zone.”

Yet, I could only see myself running. The voice would persist, but so would the vision. I inhaled deeply, and made my choice. I would run.

“You can’t do it,” screamed the voice in one final, protest.

“Yes, I can,” came my reply.

I opened my eyes, and looked south. I was near the 27th Street entrance to the beach, and south is a pier that extends into the ocean. I decided I would run to the pier and back which is, if memory serves me right, about a mile in each direction. I intently moved one foot forward, then another, and so on until I was moving in a very slow jog. It was probably slower than a fast walk for some, but I considered it a run. I kept going until that first fall.

It was not a graceful fall. Nor was it painless. But, as most of my falls have been, it was a fall in the right direction. See, when the voice of fear shouted “see, I told you!” so did the voice of “yes, I can!” as I rose from the sand. This time, however, the voice of “yes, I can!” was definitely the louder of the two.

Nothing solidified the “yes, I can!” voice within me like having to overcome the emotional and physical disabilities thrown on me in 2014. That voice is still the loudest within me, even when I hear that says, “no, you can’t”. The one thing that has proven true for me over the years is that whichever voice I agree with is the one that is telling the truth.

“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.” ~Henry Ford.

I finished the run, exhausted and bit bloodied but more confident in its completion. The next time I ran I fell less, and then one day I didn’t fall at all. I then decided to run at night when I couldn’t see, testing my brain’s ability to find balance without sight, and readjust quickly. Of course I hit the earth in that task too, but again I rose until one day I didn’t fall at all.

Perhaps without that “yes, I can!” I’d still be holding on to rails, afraid to run. Maybe I’d still be in a bed somewhere, dreaming of walking again and hating life for not being able to. I realize that not every circumstance ends the way mine did, and I still feel some effects from that stroke, but isn’t the lesson more about standing as tall as you can even when standing seems impossible? I’d like to think so.

Focus

June 11, 2019 / Tom

I was given a bit of sagely advice during Driver’s Education training. I was 16, and, for the first time, sitting behind the wheel of the car with an instructor, cautiously making my way down a lonely road. I noticed some deer eating in a field to my right, and they drew my attention.

“Look straight ahead,” said the instructor. “You will always go where you are looking. If you look to the right, the car will drift to the right. If you look to the left, the car will drift to the left. Believe me, there’s nothing you want on either side while you’re driving. Keep your eyes on the road ahead of you and you won’t veer off course.”

How apropos. I’m pretty sure the instructor was focused only on the task of driving, but as I’ve aged I’ve come to understand the wisdom of those words. No matter what parcel of my life I revisit, it was always my focus that determined what direction I went. If I was focused on the trauma, I lived traumatically. If I focused on my pain, I would hurt. If I focused on my truth, I would walk in those fields carefree.

That is why I understand the power of my focus. Where I focus is where I go, and if I don’t want to go somewhere I simply need to retrain my focus on my truest intention. It’s not necessarily the destination I am focused on. Instead, it’s the path ahead of me, around me, beside me and in me that gains my attention. That’s where I’ve found the best magic breathes, and where I am my happiest.

That’s not to say that sometimes I don’t need to focus on the dark matter in my mind. There are times when that is what I wish to do, and do that I must. Yet, I always ask myself why I wish to go there, why I feel the need to respond to the pull of that dark gravity. The answer determines my next steps.

There are times when I need to feel the pain, whether emotional or physical. There is much value there for, as Rumi says, it is the bandaged place where the light enters. I don’t waste too much time complaining about this pain. Instead, I focus on the lessons that are offered there, the changes I must make for my emotional or physical well-being. Sometimes that pain is just a challenge, and I must used my inner wisdom to determine what the experience has to offer. Not every pain means it’s time to stop. Sometimes that pain is just a question unto itself, and the answer lies just on the other side of our response.

There are, always, moments when I need to experience joy. I believe the purpose of the valley is to expose the majesty of the mountain. Neither is very useful without the other. In fact, a valley without a mountain is what we call “the plains”, and indeed it is plain. I don’t seek to live in the plains. Give me the roar of an breaking ocean tide or the shadow of a mountain any day. I don’t mind the rise and fall of peaks and valleys, but the boredom of the plains would drive me insane.

Today here I am, on this road called June 11th, and I am intently focused on the road ahead of me. What is it I want from this day? What is it that I can facilitate in those intentions? What do I truly wish to see, to feel, and to experience from this scenic, mountain road and how do I overcome the obstacles sure to appear in front of me? I’ll take them as they come, but one thing is for sure. I will never get to where I want to go if I keep veering off the road chasing deer who don’t care to see me, or ending up in a lane not made for the direction I am going.

That, my friends, is the essence of a disciplined life.

The Big Move

June 5, 2019 / Tom

I remember the moment I knew I wanted to live near the mountains. I was standing on a spot at an ashram in Gold Hill, Colorado, looking east (it’s called the Sacred Mountain Ashram). I had never seen anything like the views that were before me, and I had never felt such a kinship with nature as I had at that very moment. She flowed through me, and I felt a sense of home I had never experienced.

I had been to Colorado quite a few times before. I had been to Colorado Springs and meditated at the Garden of the Gods. I had been to Pueblo, Denver, and Fort Collins. I knew how good I felt here, and how nice the people seemed compared to what I was used to back East. Nothing, though, prepared me for this moment when the

mountains whispered to me through my feet, and nature called to me through the center of my chest.

There had been much transformation for me in the years prior to that moment, and there would be much more in the years afterward. I knew there was little hope that I would live in this environment. I was married at the time, and it seemed we had set roots that weren’t going to be disturbed any time soon. Yet I said a silent prayer and set a sacred intention that my soul’s voice would be heard and that, one day, I would call this place my home.

As things happened, those roots would not only be disturbed but also completely altered. In less than 5 years I would be divorced, and path would take me to the Jersey shore (the Universe does work in mysterious ways). Then I would have a heart episode that nearly killed me. Then I would have a stroke that nearly ended me too. Yes, in those 5 to 7 years I would learn more about and fall deeply in love with me. 7 years, most notably the last two of them, would do more to change my life for the positive than the previous 40 had. Actually, those last two years were the culmination of the previous 45. Suddenly, the lessons, the experiences and the challenges all started to make sense.

One day the former (ex seems like such a harsh word right now) asked me if I wanted to move to Colorado nearly 3 years after our divorce. There’s a whole story there, but the moral of it was that the Universe had answered my soul’s call and presented me with an opportunity to be where I felt most at home. I replied with an exuberant “yes!” without giving it much thought, and then prepared to move.

I had no idea what I was going to do for employment. I barely had an idea of where I was going to live. I sold over half of my belongings, loaded up a moving truck, sat next to my son and started the trek to my calling. The former was in a different truck heading in the same direction, with my daughter. It seemed like a dream, but it was my dream and I didn’t want to wake from it.

Welcome to Colorado!

Within a couple of weeks of landing in Colorado, a new career presented itself and I took it. Things started to open up professionally and personally. My children were happy, and their new schools were perfect for them. I started to explore, challenging my body and my mind to take me places that would have seemed impossible only a couple of years before. I saw things that inspired me, that created a sense of awe, that opened me up to growth I would never have imagined possible. I always believed growth was possible, but what I once thought was limited seemed boundless, and I still have not seen the ends of this wonderful universe.

I have hiked to great waterfalls, sat in natural hot springs, meditated next to rushing streams and have written while sitting on boulders as old as the earth itself. I’ve seen dinosaur footprints, talked to moose and elk, white-water rafted and climbed a 14er. On the 4 and a half year anniversary of having a stroke, I climbed, crawled and scraped my way to the top of the Manitou Inclines to celebrate recovery and ability. I’ve had interesting conversations with people from all over the world, not to mention mountain goats who have eyed me above the great treelines of high places, and with chipmunks who have followed me back down those places. I have discovered the presence of nature within me, and that expansiveness has allowed for an explosive growth. The physical and mental challenges I’ve faced coupled with the communion I’ve felt with my natural self has provided me with more than I could known without it. My soul knew exactly what it was calling for.

That growth, along with experience, has shown me that my flesh is not a boundary, it’s filter. A filter that works in multiple directions. I can feel things differently, see them more clearly, taste them from a place deeper. I can hear the beauty of a Universe begging to be known in the songbirds, in the rush of a spring runoff, in the falls of a glacial stream. I can smell the fragrance of life in every single breath.

That big move actually happened, but it also a wonderful metaphor. Big moves aren’t always grand gestures. Sometimes,for me, the biggest moves have come in the small footsteps made without falling, in the sight of my children after blindness, or in the embrace of someone who loves me just as I am. Another big move has been in challenging myself to find peace when I don’t get my way, and to find patience when it scares the living hell out of me to wait.

Sometimes the big moves don’t involve moving at all. Recently, I’ve been blessed with dreams and visions that have helped me answer questions, find a path, or discover a new way at looking at something. I’ve experienced the power of Reiki just by laying motionless and allowing what happens to happen. I’ve experienced the truth of meditation, that wonderful stillness that sustained me as a child even before I knew what it was, and reminds me of who I am as a much wiser adult.

There has always been a benefit for me in both recognizing and learning from the those big moves. The largest benefit, however, has come from making them. Nothing actually happens without my participation, even if that participation only involves acceptance ; an acceptance that allows me enjoy the ride regardless of where the wave takes me.

Healing (A Poem with some prose)

June 2, 2019 / Tom

What if today,

We found ourselves centered in the midst of our own Being?

Could we stroke the hair

Without owning the despair

Of the one we love?

Could we somehow find the balance,

To love without owning?

Without owning the one we love?

Without owning their demons they play with in the night?

Without owning the lies they tell themselves in the moments of their despair?

It’s a challenge, no doubt.

The Savior in me wants to die on the cross for you,

To save you from your sins, to cast the devils the beguiles you into the Sea’s abyss.

And banish your tears,

Exile them well beyond the fabled gates of heaven.

But the lover in me knows there is a much harder choice.

I must let you go to wallow in your misery,

Allow you to wade in that ocean of darkened truth,

I will not let you drown, no….I will die to save you then,

But no person alive has ever become the strongest swimmer they can be

From the security of a lifeboat, of the safety of a sandy beach.

We must all come close to drowning to know the beauty of this life,

The wonders of our own strength,

The truth of who we are indeed.

Knowing love will not allow us to sink beneath the surface.

If we drown, it will be of our own choosing.

We can always push the outstretched hand of love away,

One last breath before we sink, exhaled in the denial of one truth,

For the finality of another.

We are all blessed creators, even in our moments of uncertainty.

For it is we who create even the darkest moments we have wallowed in.

_____________

I have several scars, one of which resides within my left eyebrow. It was the result of a sucker punch, but that’s a story for another day. I remember when I was in the emergency room getting stitched up, the doctor doing the stitching said these poignant words to me.

“It may start to itch as it heals. Don’t scratch it, or it will never heal. Let the healing process do its thing.”

As I’ve gotten older, and a bit wiser, I’ve realized that piece of advice is a great metaphor for all of the wounds, both emotional and physical, I have that needed to be healed. The more attention I gave them, the more I scratched them when they itched, the less likely they were to heal and the more likely they were to get infected. If I could only master leaving them to the natural process of healing they would heal fantastically without any intentional effort of my mind or ego. In fact, the only mindful intention I would give them was in the mastery of not picking at them. Believe me, that isn’t always easy.

That does not mean that we should ignore our wounds. We do, after all, need to get stitches from time to time. There is a time, though, when we need to let go of the focus we place on our wounds and allow the natural process of healing to take place. Sometimes, we need to get the hell out of the way, and focus on other parts of life, if we ever want to be truly healed.

That is a great reminder for me today, and a pretty awesome intention to set as I begin my morning.

A Weekend Intention

May 16, 2019 / Tom

I am waiting, excitedly, for the weekend.

Not like I wait for most weekends. It’s not that type of wait. It’s not about being off from work, doing household chores in between bouts of hiking and writing and workout out and spending time with the kids. As a single dad, weekends can take on a meaning some would find hard to understand, but for those who do you’ll understand what this type of wait means.

My beloved has created a wonderful weekend. We are heading to someplace loaded with nature coupled with workshops based on the ancient Toltec philosophy (minus the human sacrifice, I trust). For those of you who know me, you know that parts of that philosophy have had a tremendous impact on my life, beginning with the book The Four Agreements. We are also sharing our anniversary together, and expanding our relationship to a new level in what has been our process, our way, our time. It’s not my way, and it’s not her way. It’s our way. We share in the challenges, the triumphs and the growth equally.

This weekend, I get to increase my knowledge while expanding my openness. Best of all, I get to do this with the woman I have a deep love for, someone who has not only opened me up further than I’ve ever been, but also someone who has shown me that all of the effort I’ve put into my transformation has been both successful and well worth it.

(Channeling Johnny Olson) But that’s not all!

The last few months have taken their toll on me. I’ve had to move, deal with the absolute selfishness of some, try to meet the demands of fatherhood, employee, writer, long-distance lover, meditator, philosopher, friend, ally, enemy, and relative lone-wolf. While those things on their own don’t ordinarily bother me, having them all heaped together in a short period of time is like trying to run a marathon in about 20 minutes. I can feel the stress taking its toll on my body, my mind, and my desire to engage in the world. I can feel myself losing control of some parts of me in order to maintain the focus those other things have demanded.

Sometimes the fighter in me, the warrior, takes over. He is that same beast that helped me survive the many traumatic events that distorted my views of both the world and people who live in it. That fighter is often cold, distant, and can isolate himself with great skill (he’s had much practice). Yet he has softened much in the face of the warrior’s transformation. I have sought isolation recently, but I have not built the walls around me I once built. Instead, I have sought that isolation in the vast wilderness within, sans the walls I once thought protected me, accepting whatever would come into my space while I went about my business of living the experience.

I realize that this, too, is part of the cycle. Life ebbs and flows in a wonderful rhythmic tide that keeps us learning while providing opportunities to exercise what we have learned. Education is in the learning, but wisdom is in the exercise of what we’ve learned and seek, if nothing else, to be wise. I could not find the joy I have found if I had wasted the many lessons this life has taught me. Instead, I need to find wisdom so that those lessons can have a positive value. Otherwise, the pain and trauma I’ve endured will serve no real, positive purpose.

That, in my heart, would hurt worse than the trauma itself.

What this weekend represents is a wonderful opportunity to learn, to love, and to sharpen this warrior’s Wisdom Sword. It’s an opportunity to reset my mind, my heart and my intentions toward my truest purpose in life. It’s an opportunity to share, for the very first time in my life, my intimate process of expansion and reestablishment with the woman who lives within my heart each and every moment. She has always been a part of what is the normalcy of expansion, contraction and existence for me, but never the deeply intimate process of my rising from bent knee to stand, rather than kneel, before the altar of life.

Of course I’m not sure that the outward expression of this process will be as profound as the inward process is. I’ve never shared it with anyone in order to get that feedback. These moments have always been mine and mine alone, experienced in isolation and solitude.

(Channeling Johnny Olson again) Tom Grasso, come on down! You’re the next contestant on The Moment Is Right!

While I’m not jumping and screaming like the contestants on the Price Is Right often do, I am excited about what this weekend offers in potential as I set my personal intention for Self. I am excited about spending these moments with my solemate, of learning something new, of walking in the forests and staring at the Pacific in a shared moment of intense love. I’m excited in employing the wisdom I’ve sweat and bled to realize, and in expanding my eternal horizons.

There will be volumes written, I am sure. Some of that may even be shared. Regardless, I will be resetting at what appears to be the exact right time in the exact right place with the exact right person.

Peace.

The Alchemist in Me

January 12, 2019 / Tom

What should I think? I try to think like all the others, overlooking things and turning them into nothing much. I try to shrug off certain things, things that used to be no big deal, nothing much, too little to care about.

But I can’t. I’ve lived in the shallow end of pools both big and small. I’ve tried to create nothing out of something, seeing wonders I’d pretend were ordinary. Once I could pretend snowy mountains and ocean sunrises inspired no great emotion in me. I thought that normal, and in that time and space of my life I just wanted to be “normal”.

Yet there is an alchemist in me. Something that wants to appreciate the things of this life that inspire me, both great and small. It could be just a word from my love, or a planet visible in the night sky, or a shooting star, or even just the way a calm lake can mirror the great artistry around it.

The little things that may be lead to some are gold in my heart. The way your eyes light up when you smile. The way your hair looks when you wake up in the morning. The way you look all curled up on the sofa, gray blanket hugging your form.

It could be something as small as the way you put on chapstick, or enter a room like a wondrous tornado on a mission. Perhaps it is in how I like finding your hair clips laying around, or even the way you load the dishwasher.

It could be the bigger things. The way you love those around you. Maybe it is the delicious way you cook a meal, and the warmth I feel as I take in every bite. Then there is the way I feel when your head finds its way to my chest, or your fingers snake around my own.

Life can’t get much bigger than all of these things. Trust me, when a man has starved for the air he breathes he never takes any breath, big or small, for granted. He wants them all. He even wants those moments between breaths because they remind him of absence he has known. Especially when he knows the next breath is coming.

There is a wonder to such an appreciation. I have also learned to appreciate the absence of things big and small. That absence reminds me of the beauty of their return. It allows me to flow in the appreciation of things I love, of things I pray never leave for long.

So, on this day I sit in appreciation for the experience of things big and small, and for the alchemist in me that creates great waves of gratitude, appreciation, and attention to all things of love big and small. Yes, it matters. Yes, it always will.

An Angel Lives Among Us

January 10, 2019 / Tom

Says the old, disheveled man sitting on the curb.

“I had a dream once that I was not alone. I had grown my wings and would fly, a beautiful angel by my side. We would fly above our limitations, pierce the clouds of fearful minds, together. She would fly beside me and never want to part and I was, for once, as loved as I could love and as part of her as she was part of me.”

He looked up at the sky, a tear working its way down his dusty cheek.

“So wealthy in her space I wished to be. We’d find our tree and build our heaven together. No work, no fight in us existed in the moment. No materialism, no struggle for more, just wealth in the love we’d always sought, and trust that what we found existed. When nighttime voices woke us from our sleep we’d find comfort in the warmth we’d found beside us. It was all such a beautiful dream that I had once, if only I could have it come again.”

He rose and walked away, stumbling a bit as teary eyes blurred in intoxication. He looked down at the concrete that now adorned his feet, and remembered the dusty trails and sea-packed beaches that once had graced his steps. He could almost hear the gulls singing as the waves broke beside him. He kissed the open air and turned to me with a familiar look.

“Make your way, my son. Do not give up what you love when the sadness comes. Do not hesitate to open your heart when you hear the demons raging just outside your door. If you find her, love her with all your strength. When that truth arrives, pray it is her truth as well. If it is, it is worth dying for. If not, it’s worth living to regret. If she comes, never let her forget how loved she is, and never throw away that gift regardless of what winds may blow your way. She, and the love you’ve found inside for her, is why you were born. Live for it, and never die again.

When an angel lives among us, let us rise to the occasion and pray we are enough to be an angel in return.”

He may have walked away, but he has never left me. I pray often in his memory that my wings are good enough to fly, and I am worthy of the love that’s by my side.

Calling me Home

January 8, 2019 / Tom

I ask myself this often, “Where am I being led?”

I was led to love her, even when I wasn’t sure I could. I was led to move to mountains even when it seemed impossible. I was led to survive things that I never thought I could.

So I ask myself this today. “Where am I being led?”

The Universe, I am told, always conspires to lead me to where I need to be. If I actually trust the sages who have foretold of such great fortune, should I pay attention to the happenings around me as a greater message than the fear I feel in them? At some point it seems I must put the lessons that experience and sages have offered to the test or risk continuing patterns that have never served me well. That is, after all, why I began consulting those sages to begin with.

So, perhaps I am being led back East. Certain things have happened that seem to suggest that is possible. While I am resisting that, I am also cognizant of the fact that what the Universe wants, it gets. If my purpose is back East, then my purpose must be met. Still, I am holding on to what got me here in the first place and the tremendous growth I’ve experienced since my first climb, my first hike, my first round of acclimating to altitude.

What draws me East is multifaceted. My tribe is there in abundance, and I miss those who have always had a great impact on my life and well-being. There is love. There is familiarity. There is experience.

What keeps me at the mountains’ doorstep is also multifaceted. I have a few souls I consider friends. There is nature, and a culture I’ve grown to love. There is also love here, albeit not as frequent in my presence as I’d like, she is still here occasionally and likely to experience the same type of growth I did. There is family.

My gut and heart are pulling me to where the Sun rises, while my logical mind and intellect are keeping me where the Sun sets. When I sit in meditation I hear the sounds of waves crashing and gulls singing. I feel a hand in mine. I feel life begun anew. I also hear the sounds of a spring thaw rushing down riverbeds longing for the purpose. I hear eagles calling my eyes skyward, and owls whispering in the pre-dawn darkness.

In my prayerful meditations I’ve asked for clarity. This morning a guide I met over the weekend, “Betty”, came to me. I asked her “Which direction should I go?” She replied, “When we first met, where were the mountains?”

“Behind us.”

“Exactly. Now do as I said. It’s time to have fun.”

Betty never said when I was supposed to do this so I figure it may be years ahead of me. Yet perhaps the message was clear. It will be happening. Yes, I met a guide and yes, her name is Betty. More on her at some other point when the time feels right. She also helped me with another challenge this morning. I’m glad I finally met her.

There are so many things about life and the living of it that may mystify, confound and scare us, one of which is a message that guides us into an unknown direction in a time of uncertainty in our lives. These times may present us with moments that end what we know but they may also give birth to moments that will, if we remain conscious during them, become what we know. I guess that is where faith and love come in.

I guess what I feel is that not one lesson, not one seminar, not one meditation matters if we don’t employ what we have learned into action. Wisdom is the application of experience, not the gaining of it. Courage is action in the realm of fear, not the absence of fear. Isn’t the best spiritual practice one of life born in the active stillness of meditation, in the active chaos of living, in the active art of loving someone in the pureness of truth? If I fail to act have I actually learned a thing in my spiritual work?

How many of us are inundated with signs only to ignore them with the questions those signs are intended to answer? I can only help but thinking that at some point our guides and the Universe will say “enough” and either we lose our gift or are forced to accept it.

Currently, the path forward only involves the action of observation and listening. Then I won’t miss that sign truck pulling in front of me, or that message from Betty reminding me of my purpose forward. Maybe that will keep me from a collision with a fixed object that leaves me k(no)w choice. Amazingly, Over the Hills and Far Away is playing on the radio right now. Thank you, Universe.

Mellow is the man who knows what he’s been missing
Many, many men can’t see the open road

Have a blessed day.