Brady

Meet Brady.

This photo was taken in the midst of a serious belly rub (hence Brady's goofy look) and I include it here because it just makes me giggle out loud. There's something special about this animal. Without expecting it, Brady has become one of my greatest spiritual teachers, delivering messages to me in a rhythm punctuated by perfect comedic timing.

He makes learning effortless, and it's only later that I realize just how deep the lessons really are.

I mean, look at that face! How can you spend time analyzing the lesson when you're caught up in a fit of giggles?

He's a perfectly packaged little Zen being who lives only in the present moment. Yoda, watch out!

A New Earth...A Powerful Awakening

I'm thinking about awakening tonight and what that really means for me and for each one of us. This idea has been following me around for the last few months, leaving me with the subtle feeling that I'm getting very close to making some sort of breakthrough. I don't really know what this is about just yet but my gut tells me that it has something to do with completing a lesson and moving towards a new level of awareness.

As many of you know, the past four years have been a whirlwind roller coaster ride that has brought as much happiness (Montana) as it has sadness and frustration (Princeton, the Ph.D. and my current work).

Throughout my childhood and into my early adulthood, I would wake up each morning and say, "Okay, universe, my life is yours. Do with me what you need to. Put me where you need me. I'm ready to serve." And, the most magical things would happen when I lived like that - I got scholarships to Ivy League schools, job offers without applying anywhere, free hair cuts/color, etc... It was amazing and magical. My family joked that it was as if I had a direct phone line to God.

The reason why I believe this level of flow happened for me (and why I believe it can happen to others) is that in all I trusted what was happening in the moment, was grateful for the outcome before I knew it, and had faith that I would land where I was needed.

Then Princeton happened.

I was accepted with a full tuition scholarship and given a generous living stipend, money for language classes, overseas travel, a camera, etc... It was like hitting the academic jackpot...something to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars just to sit and learn AND I didn't have to pay a dime. The doors to the school opened so fast and it felt so right that I just walked through them, trusting that Princeton was where I was needed and that all would be right as rain.

But, it wasn't.

It was hellish. I had trouble with my advisor, my romantic relationship was crumbling, my studies suffered, and I couldn't seem to do anything right, much less pass a language exam (took me three time to pass both my Italian and German exams) and in my second year, it felt like I was being pushed from the program even though I was well-liked and in excellent standing. It didn't make sense. In fact, it still doesn't. I have no idea what those two years were about -- and I chose to leave with my soul intact rather than prostitute myself for a degree which felt hostile and required me to jump through more hoops than I was willing.

The thing is that when Princeton began to fall apart and grew hostile, I wanted to sit down with the universe/God and say, "What?!!! You bring me here and now you're pushing me to leave??? What is this all about?" This shook my faith and my very identity to the core because I had engineered my whole life to reach the Ph.D. and there I was, at the very best program in the country, on a full-ride, barely into my studies and it felt like I was being asked to leave.

I talked to a spiritual director about this once, and he said to me, "Oh, I see. Did you ask God if you were supposed to receive your Ph.D. there?"

Right.

Looking back, I think I can make out some of it: leaving Princeton forced me to reconsider my life's path; it brought me to Montana where I met people who changed my life; the pain I felt at the University led me to start a Socrates Cafe at Princeton's public library and I'm happy to report that it's still thriving; the success there led me to start them in two other cities (Missoula, MT and McLean, VA) and both cafes are still going strong; leaving Princeton has allowed me to teach more students and I came away from Hiram College and the University of Montana, Missoula knowing some of the most dear, kindhearted, REAL people I have ever known.

In many ways, my life is much better post-Princeton than it was pre-Princeton.

Still, I haven't made peace with that decision and since then, I just feel like I'm drifting. This idea that I would become a college professor didn't feel right for a while -- only now is it beginning to blossom within me again.

***

This afternoon, I came across Eckart Tolle's A New Earth, which seemed to find me exactly when I needed it most. The best thing about this book is that Oprah has chosen it as a book club book which means that all of us can go to her website or to ITunes and download the classes (each 1.5 hours long) for FREE. I watched the first class tonight, and it felt like Tolle was speaking directly to me.

He said that we need to ask life what our purpose here on Earth is AND we need to make ourselves still in order to hear the answer. He said that at one point in his life, he felt compelled to move to the West Coast and write a book there. He had no idea what the book would be about and he didn't know anyone ON the West Coast. Still, he trusted that small voice and took himself out there, knowing and TRUSTING that this impulse would provide answers to his question of "why?". Once he was there, he said he made himself still for days -- quieting his mind and his thoughts -- until one day, the book started coming to him. He also realized that to bring this book to life, he needed the West Coast's energy to nurture the ideas within him.

The result was, of course, A New Earth.

He also said that we have to ask ourselves two questions:

1. Am I ready to be still? (He said there are people who may need to suffer a little bit longer before they're reading to stop chattering and start listening.)

2. What is my relationship with the present moment? (Am I in it or am I thinking about other things? Am I enjoying my shower or am I already "at the office"?)

Furthermore, he said that what you resist, persists.

It is this last comment which felt like it was being directed right at me. Obviously, I must be resisting something in order to have all this persistent chaos in my life. What am I not making peace with? What is preventing me from having the life I know is within my grasp?

Is it karma? Am I working off an old cycle?

Is it fear? Fear of the unknown? Failure? Unacceptance?

Is it ego? Tolle says that you'll know a desire is ego driven if you finally get it and it does not satisfy you.

OR am I exactly where I need to be? Am I here, in this job, with these people because they need me the most right now? Am I called to act as a light in the darkness there? To smile when no one else does? To bring life to stagnation? To help others regain their souls?

I think this is why this past week was a good one for me at work BECAUSE I felt like I was really making a difference -- bringing problems to the attention of management, reaching out to those who are suffering or being persecuted, changing the way the environment there feels by showing up and demanding that it change. I think that this is why I can't seem to leave my job. Why the doors here opened up so quickly and why I feel compelled to stay just a tad longer. I can't name it but this year feels very important to me in this way.

I dislike that it takes me from things which feel important elsewhere but I know that, at most, it will only require another year to finish this...to be present there. I can't explain it. Just because I may have given up on the universe doesn't mean that it has given up on me. Maybe, even when I was unaware of it, I kept saying my prayer and the universe responded in turn.

Hm. It's certainly a theory and it's comforting. In the meantime, I choose to make peace with whatever I'm resisting. I choose to expand and advance past what I don't understand right now.

I think the difference now is that I trust it will happen.

I am in the process of believing it already is.

Sticking It Out

This from a recent Heron Dance:

Heron Dance #240

So much of what really matters in life comes with sticking with it and allowing things to come at their own pace. You stick with what really matters through the dark days, and light comes again. The things you stick with through the winter are the things that are most important in your life. Sticking with those things offers a rich experience of life.

***

I feel like I've been in the winter for a very long time. I know spring is just around the corner and that what I'm doing now will bear fruit in the future; however, it comes at great cost to my own personal happiness.

I also feel that this job is teaching me something powerful -- I'm becoming a better thinker and writer and I am gaining empathy for others where I work. These lessons will help me become a better teacher, Ph.D. candidate and healer in the near future. In fact, I almost feel like I could use another year in my work environment before I launch myself back in a Ph.D. program because of the training and practice I'm getting.

Still, on days like today, I want to leave this all behind for the wilds of Montana. I took this job to finish something I started long ago and within a year I should be able to walk away with that lesson completed. Still, does this internal knowing mean I should stick with it? Or should I eschew everything and move to a town which feeds me?

I'm really not sure.

Why I'm Voting for Barack

I've spend the past several weeks reading the two books which Barack wrote (The Audacity of Hope & Dreams of My Father) and came away impressed with his intelligence, his ability to convey complex ideas easily, his honesty and humility. The whole time I was reading his books, I kept thinking to myself, "Self, I want this man to become President. I feel like he will make a difference in office and I want to support him in that endeavor."

Given this, I'd like to share with you some quotes from The Audacity of Hope which captured my attention and made me read his words with gusto. There's so many more quotes, however, to quote them all, I'd need to cite the entirety of both his books.

"The same goes for competence. Nothing brightens my day more than dealing with somebody, anybody, who takes pride in their work or goes the extra mile -- an accountant, a plumber, a three-star general, the person on the other end of the phone who actually seems to want to solve your problem. My encounters with such competence seem more sporadic lately; I seem to spend more time looking for somebody in the store to help me or waiting for the deliveryman to show. Other people must notice this; it makes us all cranky, and those of us in government, no less than in business, ignore such perceptions at their own peril" (p. 60).

"Like most of my values, I learned about empathy from my mother. She disdained any kind of cruelty or thoughtlessness or abuse of power, whether it expressed itself in the form of racial prejudice or bullying in the schoolyard or workers being underpaid. Whenever she saw even a hint of such behavior in me she would look me square in the eyes and ask, 'How do you think that would make you feel?'" (p. 66).

"So let's be clear. The rich in America have little to complain about. Between 1971 and 2001, while the median wage and salary income of the overage worker showed literally no gain, the income of the top hundredth of a percent went up almost 500 percent...I simply believe that those of us who have benefited most from this new economy can best afford to shoulder the obligation of ensuring every American child has a chance for that same success. And perhaps I possess a certain Midwestern sensibility that I inherited from my mother and her parents, a sensibility that Warren Buffett seems to share: that at a certain point one has enough, that you can derive as much pleasure from a Picasso hanging in a museum as from one that's hanging in your den, that you can get an awfully good meal in a restaurant for less than twenty dollars, and that once your drapes cost more than the average American's yearly salary, then you can afford to pay a bit more in taxes" (pp. 197-98).

There's much more to be said here; however, I think it's best if you discover Obama for yourself. You won't regret reading these two books -- powerful and thought-provoking.

Finding Meaning in Life

Last night, I had a powerful conversation with my friend, Olin, about life and how to find meaning in it.

It boiled down to the following two questions:

1. What is my mission in life?
2. What do I need in my life in order to complete #1 to the
best of my ability?

For example, if someone's mission in life is to help troubled children, then it doesn't matter where in the world one does that. However, if the goal is to help troubled children and you find yourself in an environment which doesn't provide what you need to best help those children, then you are doing everyone, including yourself, a grave disservice.

I offer this because I've been thinking lately about my life's mission and if my current work is in line with it. It's not. My mission, I've realized, is to help others become their best possible selves -- physically, emotionally, spiritually. I've tackled this mission through teaching, which was a step in the right direction but limiting because the job's confines don't allow me to work with the entirety of the person sitting within my classroom.

I've also learned that in order to best help others see their own gifts and talents, I need to be well rested, energized and live in a positive, intellectually/spiritually/emotionally nuturing environment. DC ain't that!

My current work does not touch either one of my life's goals, and it's time to change that before my environment changes me.

Olin pointed out that if a human being is going to thrive in the world, then he or she needs to find meaning in life. If you can't find meaning in your suffering, then it's just going to diminish and kill you. He also reminded me of the quote: "That which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." And I giggled at his suggestion for an addendum "...but you have to find meaning in those hellish times."

This morning I finished watched a powerful documentary about the Iraq War entitled "No End in Sight". It was haunting and fascinating, and I was riveted by what I saw and heard. During the documentary, they interviewed a few soldiers about their experiences in Iraq. One interview stood out in particular because it so closely followed the theme of my conversation with Olin. Army Gunner Hugo Gonzalez stated that he hoped that the situation in Iraq improves so that one day he can look back on it and find meaning to his current suffering (loss of some vision, brain trauma, post traumatic migranes, memories, etc...).

I don't know from where this desire for meaning comes but it seems an universal one. Perhaps it's to give us each a sense of purpose for showing up on Earth. Perhaps it's because we want to know that we matter in this world...that our actions can and do affect others. I still don't have any answers.

Olin also asked me to consider if I can find meaning in my current work. If I can't, he wanted me to ask whether I really needed to be involved anymore. Powerful questions, and I know the answer.

So, the good news is that I've correctly identified the problem and can label the "what". The uncertainty now lies in the resolution of the problem...the "okay...what now?"

I'm tackling it one day at a time, confident that the resolution is close at hand. I know it involves a move away from here and probably to the Northwest, and my deepest desire is that it returns me to Missoula.