Category: Spirituality (Page 11 of 19)

I have found such a beautiful reason to live today.  It’s not money, or success, or closing a deal, or my car, or my home, or “my family”, or any other “impermanent” thing I could list as a cause.  In fact, the reason I found to live today is somewhat different than a thing, in fact it is nothing at all (yes, I seem to love that play on words).  Let me explain.

Today I had conversations with two old and dear friends.  I have not seen these friends in at least 15 years and although they weren’t always on the tip of my tongue there were always within the soul that inspires it.  What I discovered in those conversations was that despite the gap of time that had elapsed since I last saw them the feeling they created in me had not dissipated at all.  The same smile crept up on my lips, the same laugh echoed from my throat, the same joy came crashing from my heart.  Certainly we had changed as years passed.  Certainly we had experienced life in many different ways, and those experiences had an influence on who we are and how we see the universe.  Surely we had all become byproducts of a life formula that is as individual as it is universal.  Despite all of that here I was, smiling, laughing, and taking great joy in the fact that these friends were in my present moment.

It came to me in an awesome wave of understanding that felt like the warmth of a fire on a frigid winter’s morning.  Here was my beautiful reason for living.  It wasn’t the conversation or the memories or the chance to connect with old friends.  It was the joy.  I felt as if the moment stood still, that any joy I was providing these people was being returned to me a hundred fold.  See, they let me in, and in doing so provided me with an eternal gift, a continuous wave of love and joy that is eternal even if it gets overshadowed from time to time.

I have come to what is, to me, a rather astounding revelation.  When I outstretch my hand to someone whether during a fire, or a rescue, or just on the street as another anonymous human Being my outstretched hand is not the gift.  No, the gift here is found in the acceptance of my hand.  What is the gift in this relationship is not the offer of love but the acceptance of it.  The giver of this gift offers me the joy of accepting it, and in that joy I have found an eternity that is indescribable and immutable.  The joy I felt in these old friends 15 years ago still existed today.  It wasn’t new joy, it wasn’t new love, it was the same as what as existed since the beginning.  The giver and the receiver are impermanent in the flesh but eternal in ripple or wave that we, in our limited ability to communicate, call “Love”.

Today I feel inspired to not only accept the gifts of love and joy but to re-gift them to as many as possible in the time I am given.  I don’t think anyone will mind…

Peace.

©2011 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

Sometimes I must just say to my self,
“Self, enjoy this moment and it will last forever,
find sadness now and suffer for eternity,
resist now and forever be resistant,
but love now and be awakened from the lie.”

I talk to my self because I am the only one who will listen,
“You know you’re being silly it’s part of the game,
it’s meaningless rejection given meaning by you,
You know it isn’t real it’s simple projection,
to dance in the fire is to prove you’re alive.”

©2011 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

Yes, some of you out there will read this and say, “someone got lucky!”  Yes, even though at present I am getting yelled at for loading a dishwasher that had some clean dishes in it I would agree.  I am not “getting lucky” in the deviant way some would suggest (including myself from time to time), but in the more complete sense of the phrase.  I can look back on my life from my earliest memories to this very moment and simply agree, “yes, I got lucky.”

See I am certainly not perfect.  I put dirty dishes in a dishwasher full of clean ones .  I sometimes put whites in with darks.  Sometimes I snore like a locomotive missing a piston.  Sometimes I forget my underwear on the floor.  I am a man, and therefore cannot make any excuses as to my imperfections.  I was made divinely imperfect so that I may find someone in my life who makes each day a bit more “perfect”.

That someone is my wife.  Sometimes I hate the term “my wife”.  It is as if there is some sort of possession there.  I have found over the years that I cannot own this woman.  She carries a pit of fire in her that cannot be held for long, yet cannot be let go of.  She is beautifully creative, forging the greatest beauty out of the roughest iron or at the very least will give great effort in trying.  She is a soft hammer and a hard chisel, the proverbial rock and hard place.  She can be as soft as a cloud and as tough as the lightning carried within it.  There is no “owning” my wife, there is only a partnership that suggests “my wife” is mine because she wants to be.

And there is great glory in that from my perspective.  This is how I got lucky, a woman I can only describe as fearsome allowed me into her life.  I saw not only a beautiful pool in her eyes, but also my own reflections in moments so intensely personal as to effect the universe.  Sometimes I liked what I saw, but mostly I recoiled from the image.  Oddly enough, I found that when we see ourselves in such beautiful art one of two things can happen.  Either we find that we can stand within the picture and compliment it, or we contrast with it and somehow make it less beautiful.  Then we can make a decision, either we love what we see and work to make it more beautiful, or we don’t and we destroy it from within.

Of course this is to suggest that the artist herself has no input, which clearly is not the case.  Our wives as artists not only hone us to magnificence but also give us the inspiration we need to shape ourselves into something that fits into the art.  They provide the vision, we provide the color.  Sometimes it works in reverse.  Still, what is left to observe is a masterpiece that is forever in the making.  I can see the results of our efforts in our children, and can look at awe at the creations that such work can provide.  My children are, to me, an example of what can happen when two artists give their all to each other to create one beautiful masterpiece.  Or two.  Or three.  It’s not about the sex, or the conception, or the birth, it’s about the continual willingness to create and work together to provide such wonders.

This is what a wife does to us.  Remember folks, you don’t need to be “married” to have a wife.  You simply need to have a partner in your life who is part of you.  I don’t need a state contract to say Veronica is my wife, I can feel it in every cell of my being.  That feeling, that testament to something indescribable, is what makes us “married”.  That same feeling is what makes us so willing to become better versions of ourselves, to make that person who inspires it revel in the feeling as well.  It’s a shared caress that makes us husband and wife.  It’s a kiss stolen in the chaos of life that makes us one.  It’s the willingness to become better for each other regardless of how perfect we believe we may be.  It’s NOT just the sacrifice that makes us lovers, it’s the joy we find in making it.

Yes, “I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more” for a simple hug from my woman.  I mean could anything beat the feeling I get when I get that hug?  I haven’t found one.  So as I am being told I have to leave (she also either keeps me on schedule or throws me wildly off it), I do so with one parting thought.  A wife is someone to live and to die for.  She is someone you stop a moment of inspiration for because she WILL inspire another.  She is someone you listen to, long for, and dream about.  In this instance, she is someone you stop proofreading for.  At least that is my experience, and I hope that is shared by many others.

“Yes babe, I am coming!”  That’s the best I can do, for now…


©2011 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

The solitude of this place brings it all home.  I can’t tell if this is a dream or not, but I reach for her in the empty spot that is where she should be.  I call out her name but hear no reply.  I look for her but see nothing.  I am utterly alone.

I yearn for the warmth of her body and the sound of her breathing.  She’d kill me if I woke her (“pleasant” is not a word that describes her when she awakens) but I’d give anything just to see her there right now.  I can feel her without touching her, but I’d almost risk her wrath for even the slightest touch at this moment.  Time stands still – a second lasts a lifetime when you are waiting for the next; minutes, hours and days become an eternity when I simply want to be home near those who hold my love and dreams within them.  This is the beautiful torture of love.

So, I am here and she is there; a hundred miles becomes a million, the darkness becomes my only sanctuary.  I will close my eyes and head back to the peaceful realm of slumber where I can touch her, feel her, and know that she is there.  Goodnight my dear, hold me in your heart as I hold you in mine, and miss me as I miss you.  I will be home shortly…

Peace.


©2011 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

“Goodnight”.  A simple word acting as a levee, holding back a flood of emotions not betrayed on this night.  A lonely word meant to suggest the end of the day results in a flurry of inspiration that must be captured or lost.  It’s funny how small moments like this can create something wonderful in the heart of men.  This moment will do nothing but allow me to explain what a “goodnight” means.

©2011 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

I am a bore.  I have no desire to go to bars.  I have no rhythm so you won’t find me on the dance floor.  I hate strip clubs and don’t find strippers appealing in the least (in fact, I don’t really have the need to have my worth measured by how many dollar bills I am willing to fork over).  I never liked eating at Hooters, and never go to places for the attractiveness of the women in attendance.  I don’t get high, in fact I don’t use recreational drugs of any kind.  I don’t want random sex with random people, I am happy with the “someone who loves me” providing me with that not-so-simple pleasure.  I can find a simple one-on-one conversation as stimulating as any group debate, and find intelligence and wit as attractive as curves and her beautiful brown eyes.  I love long walks on the beach, sometimes to allow thoughts to drain from my mind, but would love the conversation about those thoughts (or thoughts I have yet to think) with someone else who also needs to drain. 

You know you have been having a tough winter when you long for the green, green grass of home but then realize you haven’t left your yard…

©2011 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

You are what you crEATe.

©2011 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

Embrace what you cannot control as something wonderful, create what you can control into something wonderful, and you will live a life that can only be described as “something wonderful”.

©2011 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

 Today I envision I am on a mountain.  I can smell the freshness of winter coming with each inhalation, and can feel the release of the warmth inside of me into the entirety of all around me.  I can sense my own smallness in the silence that is while feeling the enormity of who I am in the noise.  The rushing waters in the creek just beyond my eyesight remind me that the Earth does give, while the remnants of man found in trash that eases its way down the waterway reminds me that I do take.  I can hear the songs of birds given me cadence as I head upwards toward the sky.  I give thanks to the young tree that gives me stability when I stumble on the mountains steepness, and offer praise to the old oak that allows me to rest on it when the walking becomes to much.  How fast I can stumble down this mountain, how slow is the climb back up.

The air is clean, the sounds are natural.  There are no cars or planes or trains or others to distract me from that which I am a part of.  I can feel the breath enter my lungs and can feel its gift travel throughout my body.  That is the brilliance of the effort, the more my body needs the more I appreciate what it receives.  I never think of the gift of breath as much of anything until I need to breath hard.  I never appreciate the gift of food until I feel the pangs of hunger.  Perhaps I need to feel them more.  Perhaps I need to challenge this body more so that the mind can appreciate all of the things it takes for granted.  

I look up and see the sun through a clear blue sky.  The wind makes music in the limbs of the trees around me and I keep beat to the sound that rings in my head.  I am nearing the summit, I can see the top through eyes that have so often seen nothing but the bottom.  I can hear the silence through ears that have for so long heard nothing but the noise.  I can feel love in my Being that has so often felt nothing but pain.

I want to share this feeling with others, but simply ask “who am I?”.  Certainly the leaves that have taught me a song in my steps know more than me.  Certainly the trees that have given me stability and rest know more than me.  Certainly the birds that sing a song of life know more than me.  Certainly the sky giving a view to the sun above knows more than me.  I am a nothing, and even in this moment’s realization the leaves, the trees, the birds and the sky say “we are nothing too.  You have created us as all that we are.”  “We are equals,” they seem to say, simply being until created into something by someone: superior, inferior, fearful, feared, good, bad.  Imagine man just being man until he created himself as something else.

I awaken from this momentary respite.  I am sitting at my desk looking at a computer screen wondering “where is my mountain?”.  I don’t have a clue yet, I am simply here being distracted by life and the creations I have made in it.  The noise around me is torturous, I just ask for some silence.  I ask simply for clean air, clean water, and solid footing.  I ask simply for view of the top so that I can get a view from the top.

Someday I will find myself within view of a summit.  I will feel the solid earth beneath me, hear the silence and sounds of nature all around me and know that I am there.  For now, I will let life get in the way.  

©2010 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ