To Infinity And Beyond

Portal to Infinity ... and Beyond!

The worst part of this Universal infinity concept is that as we grow up we lose the reality of infinity.  Gregge Tiffen (The Journey Continues: Communication With the Living – February, 2010)

To infinity and beyond! Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story)

Shoveling snow this week brought me to reflect on infinity. Although there is a finite number of snowflakes, that number is so huge that it stretches my mind to think about it.  I’m further stretched to consider that, like we humans each with our unique fingerprints and DNA, each snowflake has its own unique design.  

I really wonder how many snowflakes there are ...

Consider that, as in all of nature, the life essence of the snowflake is infinite. It has been and will always be. Forever.  The snowflake changes form and loses its identity as a unique snowflake. Then, it is no longer part of a beautiful snow landscape. Perhaps it melted and is flowing into a stream that will carry it the ocean or to an underground aquifer. Or, maybe it evaporated and will return to earth as another form of moisture.  That vastness and the cycles that reflect nature on our planet give me just a little glimpse of what infinity is.

The thing about infinity though is that, by definition, it can’t be defined. To define is to limit. And infinity has no limits.  That’s hard to fathom in a world structured to limit and control.

It may seem unimportant to consider infinity, but in reflecting this week, I found myself drawn to that place within that is Universal infinity, a place of peace and of remembering that I am an infinite being blessed with infinite possibility.  I had no beginning.  I have no end.  Simply, I AM. 

And, so are we all.

Take that in for a moment. Let it land deeply in your cells. They know this truth.  Savor it.

Then, file this recipe away for a time when you are stressed or feel stuck with no choices that seem good or right.  Let it remind you that in this infinite Universe there is always another way. That is the reality of infinity.

Nature's beauty is infinite

Controlling Your World

A frosty morning at the labyrinth.

Each moment holds the power of promise for you to exert your individuality, to expand in wisdom and to reflect only good. Universal intelligence is always working.  Begin with a promise to yourself that you will co-create with it.  Gregge Tiffen (The Significance of Beginning – January, 2007)

When things are chaotic in life, whether personally or in the bigger world beyond, I sometimes forget that while I do not control the event, I do control me.  As 2016 continues to march along, I’m finding the need to use that knowledge front and center in my life.

I made a decision a few weeks back that isn’t turning out as I hoped it would.   I say ‘hoped’ because the truth is that my gut told me otherwise and my intuition was to make a different decision. I didn’t listen. Ouch! 

And with the ‘ouch’, hallelujah!  The situation is providing rich territory to exercise and, hopefully, strengthen my tolerance muscle. I’m rediscovering just how important my home environment is to me and just how intolerant I am when I allow that be disrupted.

I’m challenged in this situation to ‘reflect only good’.  Just what is ‘good’, I’ve wondered.  I’ve found myself expressing my ‘cranky’ side, rather than feeling and expressing the kindness I need and want to express, the kindness that brings me peace and contributes to a higher vibration on the planet.

I’ve come face to face with just how ill equipped I am to consistently ‘exert my individuality’ in ways that are positive and contribute to creating the world I want to create.  It’s easy to say “be the change you want to see in the world”. It’s not always easy to do what’s required to be that change.

That doing includes controlling my internal chatter.  If I let it have its way, the ‘blah, blah, blah’ in my head does not support me either grace or tolerance.  Au contraire, it fuels intolerance and crankiness.  

Universal Intelligence is definitely at work, pointing the way to where I need to expand my capability.  It does so in all of the events of our lives.  Even those we might call ‘mundane’ are ripe with learning opportunity.  That is just what makes the journey the fabulous ride that it is, and this perspective is key to controlling my world.

The breathtaking visual beauty of Universal Intelligence.

Earth's School of Events

For Whom Does Your Bell Toll?

No event touches our life that does not have a use in our overall development. Gregge Tiffen (LIFE: The Staircase of Many Steps – January, 2008)

More and more I find myself curious about what I’m learning from every event in life. Even when that learning isn’t so clear that I can articulate it, I have this sense of embracing life’s events as a learning lab for my evolution.

We seem to do that easily with life’s so-called ‘challenges’. Part of how many of us navigate those events is to acknowledge that they are part of ‘life’s lessons’. That’s where I found my own awareness this week as I faced a computer challenge. What was the learning of spilling liquid on my keyboard and watching the screen go blank?

The obvious is ‘keep liquids away from keyboards’, a lesson I assumed I knew, but certainly didn’t apply. We often discount this level of learning as not important, but even learning to tie our shoes (something most of now do without much thought) has value beyond the surface in the connections it makes. How is it that we learn to deftly move our fingers to form bows that secure our shoes on our feet? And, what in that learning do we apply to hundreds (maybe thousands) of tasks every day?

Events like this wake me up and pull me out of my tendency to not be present in each moment. It reminded me that although drinking a cup of tea while using the computer isn’t rocket science, I’m better served if I do so with awareness and care.  The event also gave me the opportunity to choose how much to beat myself up (very little, I’m happy to report), to do what I could in the moment (turn the keyboard upside down and lightly blow a hair dryer across it), and then to let it be. 

Letting it be proved to be easier than I thought. Perhaps I’ve learned that I can only do what I can do, and energy exerted after that is wasted. Since the event happened on the weekend, I took time to make a plan for getting critical tasks done on Monday. I shed some cleansing tears. With gratitude and faith, I asked the Universe to assist. Then, I went to bed.  When I woke, I didn’t rush to see if the computer would power up. I didn’t even think about it as I engaged in my morning rituals. In hindsight, I have a sense of personal satisfaction about that.

Then, late morning before heading out for a long walk with Luke, I thought about the computer and decided to discover whether it would turn on. It did. Wowza!

I felt deep gratitude, not only for having my computer, but for the event and the learning that it brought forth. The cleansing tears that followed, those were tears of joy.

Life is learning. Learning is life. We cannot ‘not learn’, but we can choose to not embrace life as the learning lab that it is.

What is your choice?

Receive the Gift of Solstice

It's Beginning to Look (&Feel) a Lot Like Winter!

What I would exhort you to, what I would give as a gift to you, what I would lay down a soul for, would be for your awareness to recognize that this is a personal event for your life. It is the time that has been set up on this planet for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference.

May the reindeers pull your sleigh filled with new awareness across the rooftops and into the fertile green valleys of a truly new season.  Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: Giving To Yourself)

Each year I seem to discover that my sense of the potential for reNEWal in this season deepens.  I savor this time when ‘all of heaven and all of earth coordinate’ for my benefit as a very personal ‘me to me’, ‘me to Thee’ and ‘Thee to me’ experience.

This season, the events leading up to Solstice brought me the gift of looking at my attitudes, up close and personal. Some serve me. Others do not. The later will not be invited to the new me, the one that emerges from the release at Solstice. They are not who I am and do not serve how I want to participate in the world.

I’ve called on last week’s post, Prelude to Solstice, several times this week as I walked through the local controversy, creating responses and proposing a way forward.  ‘Take Heaven.’  ‘Take Peace.’  ‘Look.’  Yesterday a friend reminded me to include grace.  In a flash, I realized that she had been working overtime. I know that ‘the day will break and the shadows flee away.’  Grace brings that knowing.

Early Morning Coziness

I feel good about how I’m addressing the situation (and great about the team I work with). I’m not so pleased with the energy that’s been required and with those moments when I simply felt overwhelmed. Luke and the beauty of nature brought me back to balance.

I’m comfortable not knowing the outcome and how the public will respond. I totally trust its perfection – whether it’s an outcome I prefer or not.

As I put this experience, as well as business (and busy-ness too!) aside, I invite (really I implore) you to embrace the personal, individual nature of this season.  Take some time just for you.  Take homage at heaven and earth coming together. Feel the presence of nature.

And, let go. Release attitudes, be they good or bad. Release the people in your life, all of them – those that are meant to shall return.  Release hopes, dreams, fears, goals, regrets. Let go of EVERYthing.

It is only the empty goblet that can receive the next sweet taste of the abundance that life will most surely bring.

My Goblet is Ready

I wish you boundless blessings in this sacred season and in all the days ahead!

Prelude to The Winter Solstice

Early Morning Greeting from the Moon and Venus

All of heaven and all of earth coordinate at the Winter Solstice. Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

This week amidst a community controversy in which the board that I chair is being challenged, I’ve felt out of sync with the season and out of sorts with myself.  I want to stop. I want to stop not just for a few minutes to catch my breath, center myself and move on to the next task or conversation, but I want to STOP and BE the winter. Quiet. Still. Peaceful.

My time for that will come. I feel her on the horizon. Until then, there are ‘miles to go before I sleep’ in these last days of autumn before that moment when heaven and earth synchronize at the Winter Solstice. I know without a doubt that I will be there.

I know too that I alone am responsible for choosing how I walk through the tasks along those miles. I choose calm, confident, clear, kind as my foundation. These are grounded in love.  My choice is simple; implementation, not always easy. Often when I’m challenged, fear interrupts and invites me to its prickly path of tension, harshness, unkind words spoken and not. Too much of the world is on that path. I don’t want to be a part of that crowd.

And, so I pause. Make time for a long morning walk with Luke to visit a favorite spot along the creek. I ignore the ringing phone and resist the temptation to see what new jab is posted on Facebook. I pick up Gregge’s booklet Winter Solstice. I find this message, perfect to remind me of the choices I can make now and moment to moment, before my time of winter solitude, and beyond winter into the spring:

Prelude*

There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take.

No Heaven can come to us, unless our hearts find rest in today.

Take Heaven

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take Peace

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see, and to see, we have only to look, I beseech you,

Look!

In the quiet there is tranquility. May your life move and radiate in that unity and your heart sing the hymn of peace to all mankind.

And so, at this time I greet you not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with prayer that for now and forever the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

* Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

A Gift of Love from Cottonwood Creek

The Powerlessness of Control

The Deep Quiet of Winter Begins to Settle In

At some point it becomes necessary to realize that spiritual Power rests in giving up the issue of control as an attempt to control people outside yourself.  Gregge Tiffen (The Power of Giving Thanks – November, 2007)

On some level most of us know that controlling others doesn’t work. We’ve had experiences in close relationships, jobs, and organizations that show us this up close and personal. The violence, chaos, and crises in the world reflect attempts of one group or country to control another.  Our own culture of consumerism and competition, even politics, reflect attempts to control.

It wasn’t until I looked at an event in my own life this week through the lens of Gregge Tiffen’s quote above that I began to understand the high personal cost of my own efforts to control things outside of me.

This week I was reminded that trying to control others and situations involving others takes me away from being me and lands me square in a place of exhaustion – physically, mentally, and spiritually. In hindsight, I realized that allowing myself to skip the most important part of my day, my morning quiet time, set me on this particular path to stress.

In my quest to provide an awesome experience for my bed and breakfast guests this week, I forgot that others and situations are not mine to control.  An early morning plumbing problem in the shared guest bath, combined with a talkative guest in one room and a quiet guest in the other, found me trying to control the volume of conversation, which logs went on the fire, while I dealt with an overflowing toilet.

The plumbing problem fixed itself. Guests had their breakfast and happily moved on into their day. The clock read just shy of 10am. I was tired and found it difficult to focus my thoughts and energy on the day’s work that I wanted to accomplish. 

I slogged through that day and the next, still experiencing feeling tired and unfocused. A day later, in the quiet of my morning reflection time, I read Gregge’s words above. The dots were connected and I realized the source of the drain on my focus and energy.  I learned yet again the futility of trying to control others. And, I learned its cost:

Attempting to use your power to control others is exhausting.

This point of reflection leads me to wonder whether and how collective exhaustion in society contributes to creating the chaos we witness daily.  What might be possible in our world with just a bit more time and effort for quiet, personal reflection and the peace and personal power evoked from that awareness?

No Insignificant Thing

The nights are getting colder and slowly ice grows on Cottonwood Creek

Believe in the importance of everything you do.  Gregge Tiffen [The Journey Continues: The Legacy for Generations]

Many voices in our culture (most of them well-meaning, I assume) urge us to ‘be, do, and have’ more. “Do big things in the world” and “Make your life matter” we’re told. It’s as though we aren’t enough. 

I lived a lot of my life on that path, striving for goals I thought I should have and placing my security in the material world. Now though, I’ve come to understand life and living differently.  After years (decades?) of angst wondering if what I was up to met the standard of ‘big enough’ and not feeling as though my work in the world was meaningful (of course, I was comparing it others), I’ve come to a new understanding of what ‘important’ and ‘matters’ mean.

Being off of that treadmill is a breath of freedom and fresh air.  I see what I couldn’t see then: my worry was for naught. Nothing that I do is unimportant. And, that’s true for you too.  WooHoo!

In previous posts, I’ve written that every thought we think and every syllable we utter lives forever.  In a Universe that is energy, those thoughts and utterances matter. Whether I smile tenderly or snap impatiently in response to something in nature or Luke or another human being, it matters.  Whether I’m speaking passionately about what I care about, attending to business, or walking in the woods, it matters.

I am a part of and contributing to consciousness with every step I take.  The attitude that I engage from is more important than what I engage in. When I engage with that clarity, I’m at choice and aware of the worth in what I’m doing.

I’m not talking about drum-beating, banner-waving importance to satisfy the ego. Rather, this is the importance of self-satisfaction, self-belief, of discovery, learning and growth. It is a deepening knowing that we are each important parts of a greater whole. Yes, both YOU and me.  

It is recognizing that the opportunity to adopt a shelter dog five years ago and to engage in the journey of giving love and care and receiving unconditional love holds as much importance as other personal and professional accomplishments in life from step-parenting, marriage, and being a charter member of the ICF.  It is taking time to be patient with myself and a postal worker who had difficulty figuring out how to get my international, military package on its way. It is trusting that I’m always in the right place at the right time and not allowing the unexpected extra time required to complete a task  to be a waste or a burden.

Patiently waiting for Mom ...

Importance is not a quality that comes from comparison or competition. It emerges from honest self-assessment, self-acknowledgement, and practicing the belief that there are no small things. What important things have your attention today?

Life Flows

A beautiful, soft morning across the San Luis Valley to start my day.

We are part of a natural flow of experiences in which all that we are really doing is allowing ourselves to participate in the flow.  Gregge Tiffen in Deeds are Fruit, Words are Leaves (October, 2008)

Events, many unexpected, seem to show up right on time to benefit me in some way.  I’m learning to trust more deeply that natural flow.  Beneficial events aren’t just those that feel good or bring me pleasure. Especially when I look back, I can clearly see how challenging, unpleasant events brought growth.

I don’t always get to that perspective immediately. When I do, I’m able to meet the event with curiosity, gratitude, and (hopefully) a modicum of grace.  It’s humbling and gratifying to remember that I and I alone choose how to walk through life’s events.

And, so do you. Life flows and we choose how to participate. As I prepared to participate in a somatics course this week (graciously offered by two awesome colleagues and Newfield Network), I was reminded that life flows in all directions. To paraphrase master somatics teacher, Stuart Heller:

Life flows up and Life flows down. Life flows forward and Life flows back. Life flows in and Life flows out. Life flows right and Life flows left.

Stop for a moment and let that sink in.  Better yet, stand up and move in each direction: up, down, forward, back, in, out, left, right.

Life flows out. The course and the flow reminder were just in time for me to demonstrate the power of how we walk (and sit) through life’s events to a coaching client who was trying to figure out how to broach a sensitive topic with a team member. As we explored possibilities, I suggested that she shift how she was sitting. After shifting from sitting on the edge of her chair and leaning forward to occupying the whole seat, leaning back and opening her chest, she discovered a new range of language was possible to engage in the conversation.  

Life flows in. Recently I’ve received several surprise presents that made my heart smile.

Warning signs sometimes flow into life to wake us up.

Life flows down. An issue with my health presented the opportunity to explore the depth of my conviction about my body’s ability to, with proper support, heal itself.  As I scheduled acupuncture appointments, body work, drank my herbs, adjusted my eating habits, I realized a missing ingredient: bringing my belief and my intention consciously and clearly into the process.

Life flows up. So, I’m creating a new practice to engage all of me in the healing process.

Life flows back.  As the bed & breakfast high season winds down and winter is on the horizon, I found myself experiencing some angst about money and completing the ‘get ready for winter’ list of household tasks. I needed to gently guide my thoughts to a track other than worry.

Life flows forward. Within a couple days of putting my attention on remembering that ‘all my needs are met’, I received a phone call from a woman needed temporary housing. We created an agreement that meets both of our financial requirements. In addition, she’s helping with the winter chores (a good thing as temps are dropping and we could be graced with our first snow soon) AND caring for Luke and our home while I travel next week.

Life flows. Stop for a moment and look at the events in your life over the past week. What do you notice?  How do you feel?  How are you meeting life’s flow, especially when its direction may not be exactly what you thought it would be?

Winter's white blanket is edging our way.

The Challenge of Independence

A Road Less Traveled ...

It is a crucial requirement that each of us become an independent thinker an independent person as an aware consciousness. Gregge Tiffen (The Language of A Mystic: Innovation - October, 2009)

Those who know me, would likely agree that I’m fiercely independent.  A leader in the coaching community once labelled me a ‘contrarian’ (I would wear the badge proudly). And, some of you might be smiling or shaking your head in agreement about now.

This week though I’ve begun exploring independence from its opposite: dependence. The exploration comes forth from this musing in my journal in a couple days ago:

If the truth of lack is abundance, how can truth be applied to the budget of the local water district where I serve on the board? How can I apply this truth more powerfully to my own finances?

The vast San Luis Valley reminds me that abundance is the truth.

Warning: you won’t find the answers in this post.  I’m still in the exploration.  I have more questions than answers (and, that’s a good thing!).  What I’ve come to see (in a BFO – blinding flash of the obvious) is that independent thinking leading to innovation requires experimentation.  In our culture, we’ve erected numerous barriers … dependencies, if you will … to truly independent thinking and the action that follows. 

These dependencies create a complex web that is often ignored. Take for example being dependent on a job (or having enough clients) for money to meet the needs of self and family. Or, in the case of public agencies like the water district, being dependent on generating sufficient revenue to pay the costs to keep each tap flowing. The complexity encompasses not just the issues on the surface, but a dependency that values knowing, order, and getting things right over curiosity, experimentation, and possibly needing to make course corrections.

Dependencies are embedded deep in our culture from systems and life experience. In school, we learned that good grades come giving ‘right’ answers. We carry this forward to careers, jobs, businesses, institutions – praising what’s ‘right’, condemning what isn’t – our dependency on being accepted and approved trumping our willingness to experiment, learn, grow, change and, yes, be alone in taking our stand.

Now that I see the challenge more clearly, what new possibilities will emerge? What would an innovative approach to public finance and a budget shortfall look like from the perspective of knowing that abundance (not lack and its associated fears) is a universal truth – that there is always enough?  What conversation can open that door?  What dependencies and pre-conceived ideas must I let go of to invite and engage the conversation?  How will I tap into the courage to do just that?

Yep, more questions than answers. I’ll let you know what emerges in the weeks ahead. Meanwhile, what are you dependent upon that is in the way of living the independent life you were designed to live?

Morning light and the Zigguraut never fail to offer just what I need ... calm, inspiration, beauty (and the list goes on).

The Gift of Resistance (Take 2)

Will there be snow on the peaks tomorrow?

"Challenge your resistance or resist your challenge."

"You become a part of your own excitement when you recognize that you living your life is you being revealed to you." 

Gregge Tiffen [The Great Pumpkin: Was Charlie Brown Right? – October, 2007]

As often happens I didn’t start this post with the idea of busting a meme, yet in a BFO (blinding flash of the obvious) during our morning walk, I saw that indeed I am challenging the conventional wisdom which says that ‘challenging resistance means doing what it is I/you are resisting’.  Au contraire.

Challenging resistance doesn’t necessarily mean doing something I’m having a reaction to, avoiding, or wanting to run away from.  Rather, it means recognizing my reaction as resistance. That requires being aware of and willing to name what I’m experiencing as resistance, followed by questioning to discover the source of that resistance and what gift it has to offer.

Resistance has crossed my path several in several experiences recently. First was the idea that when I declare that I ‘don’t know’ or don’t have access to the information that would guide me to know, I’m resisting. That’s an idea that I’m still working on.

Then, in a course that I signed up for mostly to earn credits toward renewing my coaching credential next year, although I was intrigued by and thought I ‘should’ (ugh!) do it,  I noticed I was reacting to being taught. ‘I already know this’. This doesn’t apply to me, because I’m (blah, blah, blah). Without an intention to learn, I quickly moved to what I might call arrogant boredom. I grumbled my way through the first two lessons, not taking time to be aware that I was resisting and to reflect on that awareness.

I also found myself reacting to a post from someone I follow on social media. As she pontificated on being beyond about how she’d grown and others who hadn’t (blah, blah, blah), I was turned off, tuned out, and I felt made wrong. More ugh! And with those ‘ughs’, I noticed opportunity to explore and reflect.

Enter reading the booklet that’s the source of this week’s quotes.  I paused, took a breath, named and owned my resistance. As I opened, I allowed the resistance to inform me and to guide me to choose again. In one situation, I’m in the process of shifting my resistance to curiosity and exploring how to incorporate the content on my terms. In the other, I’m simply letting go, declaring that there’s no right/wrong, good/bad, rather understanding that my beliefs are not aligned with the ideas being put forth.

Through recognizing and owning my resistance, I gained new insight into me and discovered the gift of challenging resistance: new knowledge; knowledge that is both useful in the moment and becomes wisdom to carry forward on my sojourn – in this life and beyond.

Yes!  Morning brings the season's first dusting on the peaks ... and

A cheerful bluebird that reminds me to smile!