Difficult Times

An especially beautiful sunrise over the mountains: snow, a fog bank, and sunlight in the trees

When you are in difficult situations, ask yourself what your life is trying to show you. Gregge Tiffen, Life in the World Hereafter: The Journey Continues (available from P-Systems - http://www.p-systemsinc.com/publications.htm and on amazon.com)

I wanted to title this post ‘The Most Important Question You Can Ask’, but I resist the temptation to shout what I understand to be mystical truth.  I don’t know about you, but I learn best when something comes to me understated.  I like to be surprised when some new piece of knowledge or an experience exceeds my expectations. My ‘critical eye/I’ kicks in when I experience something as less than I thought was promised.

What is true for me now however is that approaching all of life, especially difficult times, as learning opportunities is the most important shift that I have made in my 66 years of this life.

Sincerely asking the question ‘what does this event in my life want to teach me?’ with an open mind and an open heart is an elixir that helps me move from struggle and suffering to greater ease and peace.  With an attitude of genuine curiosity, I can engage in necessary actions that step-by-step often lead to inspiration and deep insight. Hidden possibilities are revealed in holding the question lightly even in the darkest of situations.

Old habits and patterns stagnated some aspect of my growth can emerge with an invitation to be released to make way for new growth.  Shedding skins and dropping leaves are two of nature’s many reminders that the way must be prepared for the new. Difficult times in our lives are like weather changes that signal the time for growth is nigh.  New growth signals our resilience and our adaptability, and it builds these strengths.

Life’s events are meant to be our teachers. We are not meant to enter them knowing what to or what the outcome will be.

They exist FOR us, for our experimentation and our learning. They are opportunities to call forth our will. Though they may bring pain, sadness, angst, even fear, life’s events –each and every one- are gifts of an omnipotent universe. That universe knows what we need on our path of learning to navigate on this planet, in this life, and beyond.

Wherever you find yourself this week, whether easy or difficult times are upon you, give yourself the gift of tapping into that omnipotence with the question: what can this event teach me?  Then, be willing to listen and to learn.

And equally beautiful in the west, a morning rainbow across the valley

Chasing Thistles. Removing Quills.

Yes, it is August. And, yes, that is SNOW.

If God bids me to chase thistles, I would gladly do it.  Dionysius

If you transpose ‘God’ to mean ‘universe’, you will understand this to mean that whatever the universe is asking me is my greatest joy. Trust that the universe is intelligence and therefore wisdom, harmony, understanding, and love, so you can’t go wrong. Gregge Tiffen (Echo – Sept. 10, 2012)

I’m coming to understand that the universe doesn’t distinguish between what we might think of as ‘major’ events and those we probably consider minor.  All events are opportunities to learn and to be our best self no matter how great or how small we think they are.  In this intelligent universe every event holds the bidding for that which is being asked of us in that moment.

Two events among many this week stand out as reminders that what the universe places before me is where I’m being asked to put my attention. They reminded me as well that, indeed, the universe IS intelligence.

Shortly after arriving, weekend Dragonfly House guests with reservations for a two-night stay informed me that they would “be out of here tomorrow morning.” I was a shocked and started to go down the path of a fearful (how will I replace the lost revenue?) reaction. I stopped me. Turning off the tap of negativity, I tapped into knowing that this event is meant to unfold in exactly this way.  I wished them a good night’s rest, reminded them of breakfast timing, and I let go.  Within a few hours of bidding them farewell the next morning, I had reservations in both guest rooms for appreciative guests who needed accommodations at the last minute.  Memo to self: Yes, things do unfold for the best.

Yesterday Luke had his first (and I pray his only!) encounter with a porcupine, returning from a foray into the woods during our walk with a face full of quills. He was clawing and rubbing his face on the ground, obviously uncomfortable, yet not seeming to be in pain.  I moved into action more calmly than in hindsight I could imagine, first removing a few that I could easily grab with my fingers and a gentle tug.  The easy ones out, we began to walk toward home. Two B&B guests who had arrived earlier in the day crossed our path and followed us. With their help, only two pesky quills remained, one lodged just inside Luke’s upper lip.  Luke wasn’t so keen with the removal process despite my consistent efforts to keep him calm. Our local vet came over, but our efforts to get the quill removed from his mouth were nil.  After consulting we decided to leave it for a day to see if the quill would come out on its own.  Yes, it did – within the hour. Second memo to self: Yes, things do work out.

Later, when it was time to lay my head on the pillow after each of these events, I did so with gratitude for the event and with satisfaction for having met each, consciously or not, with the knowing that, indeed, the universe IS intelligent and I benefit when I tune into that intelligence.

The beauty of an early morning start to our first walk of the day.

The quills ...

Banishing Negativity

Grateful for another day of the sun rising over the Sangres!

Negativity can’t create anything. It can't even create further negativity because that energy just maintains itself.  Gregge Tiffen (PS 52, Series 8, The New Experiment, Week 47)

Negativity is a misapplication of the laws of the universe and the rules of the planet.  Patrece on behalf of P-Systems, Inc. (PS 52, Series 8, The New Experiment, Week 47)

I don’t know about you, but some days it feels like our world has become a cauldron of negativity. Is it any wonder that we don’t seem able to move forward, given that negativity doesn’t create anything? How can we possibly address what is on our own plates in terms of life, not to mention the plethora of critical issues needing the best of each of us collectively when fear and hatred are being hurled at us from so-called leaders, the media, and even one another?

While turning off the news or taking a break from social media may give us relief from time to time, do these tactics sustain us in maintaining a positive approach to life?  While I’ve long preferred and, hopefully, been successful at maintaining positivity in my life, I can’t claim to have banished negativity completely. Hey, I’m still human after all.

And yet, I honestly think that I’m doing pretty darn well with my personal positivity score.

But a weekend experience of allowing my ‘inner snarky’ to surface at about the same time as this week’s installment of PS 52 arrived, coupled with wondering why a project I’m involved in can’t seem to move forward, prompted me to take a look at negativity – that within as well as that beyond my reach. I was quickly reminded that my ‘inner snarky’ surfaces when things don’t turn out like I want them to (duh!): a show is late starting and I leap to ‘they are wasting my valuable time’, leaving in the dust relaxing and enjoying the moments of peace or extra time with a friend.  I quickly return from negativity-land, but I wonder: why do I go there in the first place?  Answer: habit (‘nuf said).  Solution: awareness + choosing differently.

As I reflected a bit more, I allowed myself to see and acknowledge the shifts and pruning of habits and beliefs that I’ve done over the years that contribute to my capacity to maintain positivity in our sometimes negative and chaotic world:

• Practicing gratitude for ALL
• Immersing myself in nature, self-care, and care for Cool Hand Luke
• Nurturing curiosity, especially when I don’t know how to move forward, shifting from declaring ‘I don’t know how’ to asking ‘How can I? What if …?’
• Taking responsibility vs. blaming others
• Developing my capacity to say ‘no’ to opportunities, events, and others that don’t represent the quality I want at that moment
• Nurturing and developing my core belief in the abundance and intelligence of the universe
• Nurturing patience for myself and for others
• Learning to enjoy my own company
• Continuing to learn about and experiment with how energy works
• Remembering that life is an experiment and events are here not for me to be right, but rather as gifts for my learning, AND that I have a band of personal guides that are with me all along the way
• Make and take time for fun!

For the sake of the universe, the angels, the planet, nature, humanity and ourselves we need to banish negativity.  Ground zero is right where we live. It’s you. It’s me. It’s up to each and every one of us to forge a path to banish negativity in all of its insidious forms from our lives. The quality of our future – this life and beyond – depends on it.

Taking time for some fun at Crestfest 2016!

Another beautiful sunset on a beautiful day in the Sangres.

Tasting the Sweet Nectar of Joy

It's easy to connect with the divine seeing the gentle joy of three guys resting in the woods nearby ...

It is happiness within yourself that gives you that joy in which all feelings of the world leave you because you are so filled with the feeling of yourself.  Gregge Tiffen (soon to be published in the Collected Works of Gregge Tiffen)

At first read, you might experience a reaction to the words ‘so filled with the feeling of yourself’.  It may even sound egotistical. After all, we look askance at people who are ‘full of themselves’.  

But look, read again. Just what does it mean to be ‘filled with the feeling of yourself’ to the point of joy?  Is it only those transcendent moments that many seek in mediation?  Or might joy be simply recognizing, feeling if you will, the divine that is you as you move through and experience the most basic events in life?

This week I’ve had the opportunity to review some soon to be published material from Gregge Tiffen that is being compiled as The Collected Works of Gregge Tiffen. (YES! I’ll let you know just as soon as it’s available.) In this material he reminds the reader (at least this reader!) that spiritual awareness, connection to the Divine (Universe, God, or whatever label you choose) can be experienced in the simplest and most basic activities. He includes responding to the call of nature when you really need to go along with other daily activities that, for the most part, we take for granted.

Have you ever really rested in a restroom or do you just get relief? (Written in 1989 in a creativity workshop offered by Gregge)

But what if we took these ‘routine’ activities for the miracles and creative opportunities they are? 

This need not be a long, ponderous process. Indeed it is not!  It is developing a new habit of allowing everyday activities to be joy-filled for just an instant. It is recognizing “the great feeling of release and cleanliness from that which had the body all tied up” (GT – unpublished work) as the miracle of life that it is - for just a moment.

It is taking time to taste the sweet nectar of joy in all of life.  As I reflected on this, I challenged myself to recognize just how much sweetness and joy I experience in a day’s events and to be present to that joy. 

Daily, each of us engages in activity and has moments with the potential to touch our divine nature. Perhaps that’s needed today more than ever as our own personal counter to the anger and angst that seem to fill our world.

In the week ahead I invite you to join me in tasting the sweetness that is your life.  From the bathroom basics to the challenge of a difficult situation, fill yourself with the feeling of you, the you that IS the divine.  And, when you lay your head on the pillow each night, count those blessings.

... and, in the wonder of unusual clouds hanging over the Sangres.

Rhythm & Blues

Demonstrating Dog Rhythm

Everyone and everything has a different rhythm. Gregge Tiffen (The Journey Continues: Time Travels, July, 2010)

No, I’m not changing my focus to commentary on music. Whew! I was musing about a title for the topic as it emerged this morning, realizing that being out of my rhythm in my daily life makes me blue (at best, but honestly it makes me cranky and downright disagreeable to which others can attest). 

I wonder if the simple answer for many of life’s conundrums isn’t for each of us to get into our unique rhythm, not the one that the world and its systems have imposed, but the one that is unique to us. What if angst and conflict in relationships is rooted in nothing more than that our individual rhythms clash?  What if the anger and fear that we witness daily in the world is growing from those same roots?

This musing comes from self-observation through several recent experiences. I’ve experienced the cellular constriction (I personally feel it in my shoulders, neck and stomach) of stress and the internal chaos that ensued as I attempted to meet what I perceived as a demand from someone I’m working on a project with.  I realized that the stress was my body’s reaction to being taken out of its natural rhythm and flow.  As I looked deeper, I also found that there was no demand imposed by another at all, rather what I believed to be an expectation that I didn’t take time to check out.

I’ve also experienced the joy and ease of flow spending several days with a friend with no plan, no schedule and no expectation.  We each honored our unique individual needs, desires, and rhythms coming together with minimal planning for meals, conversations, and an entire afternoon and evening watching movies and loving on our pups.

The later represents what an easy flow life holds the potential to be.  We find that ease reflected all around in nature. Each tree grows in its rhythm. Baby birds hatch. They are fed by parents. They grow and fledge in their unique rhythm. The rhythm changes in response to weather, food, and surrounding conditions. The rhythm of the flowing creek changes from season to season: slowing in the winter cold, moving with more velocity the temperature warms and ice and snow melt.

Growing Up ... When Will They Fledge?

Perhaps as we navigate the complexities we’ve created in our relationships and the systems of the world, one of the basics that we might return to is discovering and honoring the individual rhythm that is uniquely ours. Perhaps some of the ‘blues’ (and worse) that we experience can be remedied by letting go of that which is not compatible with our rhythm, including beliefs, habits, other people, projects, jobs, and the list and the beat go on.

What’s your experience?  What do you think?

The Sun Has Her Rhythm Too!

Breaking the Chains of Dependence

Gentle greeting in the woods this morning.

The minute you become dependent upon anyone in any way you no longer have any power to move forward in your own pattern, in your own blueprint, and on your own behalf. You come to a halt. Gregge Tiffen (Finding Freedom: The Meaning of Independence, July, 2007)

Reflect on this quote for a few moments and you may come to discover a key to why we so often feel stuck and experience the frustration that accompanies that ‘stuck-ness’.

Another Independence Day has come and gone here in the USA, the 240th since a small band of visionary revolutionaries, some of whom had deep mystical understanding, declared independence and set a course for a new nation.  We’ve celebrated our freedom once again. But I’ve come to wonder if we/I really know what freedom is. Do we/I know the importance of exercising our independence? Do we/I even know how?

As I observe the political landscape, I see and hear demands for freedom. Fear that someone who is ‘different from me’ will take our freedom away is rampant.  It seems we have lost our understanding that the source of freedom and independence is not man or government. Rather, free will is our gift from the Universe. Independence is Universal law.  Dependence is a violation of that law.

And yet we have created and continue to support dependence in our systems of government, education, business. We give life to these systems when we depend on them as our source. We’ve become dependent on bosses, clients, government agencies and circumstances for our happiness and well-being.  And, in doing so, we give away our freedom, our power to choose.

When I’m deeply honest with myself, I can see dependence imbedded in personal relationships and friendships as well.  We expect others to ‘be there’ for us and we may even be dependent on them needing us as well.

It’s no wonder that the level of frustration, angst, and fear has reached revolutionary proportions. We aren’t being true to our nature. We desperately want to find our way back. So we revolt. Many lash out at the ‘powers that be’ as if they are the source. Others wisely recognize that change starts within and that responsibility is key to the exercise of freedom.

A first step in taking responsibility is the recognition that the tyranny of dependence is in part self-imposed. From that awareness we are in a position to declare our own, personal independence. I’ve discovered that ‘unlearning dependence’ requires the willingness and self-honesty to look inside to what motivates my action. When I help out a neighbor am I simply using the opportunity as expression of my best self or do I have a hidden (mostly to me) agenda to fill an unmet need?

We restore our independence our willingness to look honestly step by step and choice by choice. We learn from experience and commitment that our independence is mostly an inside job. That job is made more challenging in a culture that fosters dependence as a means to control.  Yet, in the final analysis we and we alone are the authors of our own freedom.

Freedom of expression in our July 4th parade!

Speak Easy

An exclamation point in the sky reminds me that every word I speak is magnified.

By the very virtue that you open your mouth, there is an affect upon you.  Gregge Tiffen (Open Secrets: An Honest Performance - June, 2011)

It’s your honesty in attitude that controls your voice box. (Open Secrets: An Honest Performance - June, 2011)

When I’m truly honest with me and look at results and patterns that are not as much to my liking as the day above, I can find clues in words spoken without that care.  And, that’s a story for another day. http://cindyreinhardt.com/blog/voice-your-power

Today is the day for that other story that I digressed to several weeks back. I do so humbly as over the past week or so I’ve noticed an old habit creep back into my way of being: a sharp tongue voiced in reaction to some little event (usually one with little obvious consequence). For the most part (though not exclusively) these little explosions are not directed toward or in response to another person. No, they’re the curses (small but intense) that come out when the hose crinkles stopping the flow of water or some other minor annoyance.

They’ve been especially abundant over the past week. I dislike how I feel about me when I utter them. And, I know deep inside that my words have an impact not just on me.  They contribute to the noise and chaos that is roaring in our culture, adding fuel to an already dangerous fire.

That’s not how I want to contribute to our world.  And, it’s certainly not the attitude I want to carry with me in my immediate environment. I notice how one creates a path to the next and the next and beyond. I feel their impact. They drain my energy and undermine my clarity as I look beyond to the places where I want to put my energy: a project for the water and sanitation board, making the Dragonfly House ready and inviting for guests, a series of webinars to reignite my coaching, loving on Cool Hand Luke and simply enjoying each and every moment of the day.

Gregge’s words appear as I read and I’m reminded of all that I know about the power and the impact of my voice.  I take a breath. Express gratitude for the awareness. And, I ask ‘now what?’ How will I use this awareness to speak easy to me, to Luke, and beyond?

Cottonwood 'snow' on Cottonwood Creek. Ah, summer in the Sangres!

The Power of Quitting

To Be As Crystal Clear as this Lake below Zapata Falls ...

You are meant to understand your dual polarity needs: the work and the play, the private and the professional. If you keep just one single polarity, you diminish productivity. One gives you the energy to accomplish and enjoy the other.”  Gregge Tiffen (Impatience Fishes In An Empty Pond – June, 2008)

Decades (oh, how I would like to say ‘years’!) ago when I was fresh out of graduate school, I didn’t have this wisdom. I was hell bent on using my urban planning skills to make the world a better place. I regularly (and proudly) worked intense 70+ hour weeks, continuing the habit I created in grad school taking a full course load while holding a full time consulting job.

Five or so years into that way of life, I was exhausted and miserable. Ready or not, I felt challenged to confront the reality that I was working hard but hardly living. At about the same time as this recognition came, a series of events at the agency where I was Deputy Director (I worked my way up the ladder fast!) left me feeling uncomfortable and unable to fulfill my role. And, so I resigned.  I didn’t understand until much later that through those uncomfortable events, the Universe was conspiring to support me.

I read. I rested. I slept (really slept!). I played, went to therapy, and travelled. I spent days on the Pacific Coast mesmerized by tide pools. I was introduced to metaphysics, Gregge Tiffen, and what has become a lifelong curiosity. I fell in love, experienced a breakup, and met the man I would later marry.

And after six or so months, I was ready to re-engage professionally, this time with a commitment to work and play.  Creating a different life was possible because I had the courage to quit, walk away from the so-called ‘security’ of a paycheck. And, many years later I made the same choice, ending a marriage.

Yucca in blooming splendor!

Today, I exercise my ‘quit’ muscle when I find myself in situations where my experience is complete. That can look like satisfaction upon completing a project or, at the opposite extreme, it can be when a situation doesn’t feel right and I no longer choose to put my energy there.

‘Quitting’ can also be simply taking a break, as I did this past week, engaging in a ‘stay-cation’ to hike and enjoy my cousin’s visit. It can be stepping away from a ‘problem’, knowing that I can return later with a fresh perspective (though they often resolve themselves before I do!)

In our culture we tend to look down on ‘quitting’ as the shadow or ‘bad’ side of being engaged. ‘Quitters’ have no honor. Perhaps though it’s time we develop a new view: quitting as a valued skill that has its place in our life skills tool box, keeping us on course so we don’t find ourselves, as I did those decades back, in a life that others (employers, family, friends, the culture) would have us live. Rather we are living and learning in the life that is authentically and uniquely ours.

A view of the Great Sand Dunes from Blanca Peak. On a clear day you can see forever ...

Pivotal Moments

Another beautiful sunrise in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Consciousness recognizes Life not society. Gregge Tiffen (The Journey Continues: Sex, Lies, and Assumptions, June, 2010)

Life is an infinite series of potentially pivotal moments.

I always catch myself when I start to say ‘I always …’ Oops! There I go. Perhaps we do have characteristics, habits, ways of being that have been with us ‘always’, although ‘always’ is infinite and goes back beyond this silly measure we call time. ‘Always’ includes every experience that consciousness has had in every form physical and non-physical in the vast Universe.

That’s a bunch of experience to bring forward to this moment. No wonder life sometimes seems so complex.

But I digress. This day find myself reflecting on my own personal thoughts and our collective thoughts in times of tragedy. I’m observing how I and others respond (or react). I see elements of what looks to be our highest and our best. And, I see the opposite extreme. I reflect on how events impact us and how our collective consciousness – the combined thoughts, words, deeds of each of us – are creating the world we experience.

I’m wondering how it is that in the in the immediate aftermath of the event we know as 911 I could pen a challenge to not let fear take over our thinking?  And, I’m wondering how it is today I maintain that same sense about current events while I am not consistent in bringing that same understanding and peace to personal situations and relationships? How is it that my actions ‘locally’ don’t consistently align with my higher global worldview? These questions call for continued observation and reflection. Perhaps there is no definite answer other than how I use what I discover.

All events in life – the personal ones and the global – are FOR us. They invite us to choose whether or not we will participate and how we will do so (or not). They invite us to learn. Some invite us to be distracted from our path. Other events cheer us on.

Every event holds the potential to be a pivotal moment – one in which we choose to be true to Life rather than follow the dictates of a society that tells us how we ‘should’ be.

Every moment holds the potential to be a stand for who we are as an individual, to accept others on the same terms, and to bring authentic love and understanding into our world.  There is beauty in the prickly business of life, our opportunity is to see and respond to the beauty, not the thorns.

Beauty Blooms From the Prickliness of Life

Batting Practice: Time Or Energy?

The flow is increasing, Cottonwood Creek widens and the sound of the gentle stream is a roar. That's the energy of Spring and Summer!

We are to implement what the Universe puts before us, or we lose energy. We use the energy to meet the requirement when the requirement is there in order to gain from that cycle of ‘time’. This is functioning according to Universal time.  Gregge Tiffen (Impatience Fishes In An Empty Pond – June, 2008)

Some folks don’t like baseball because it isn’t a time limited game. When I lived in Houston years ago, I was an Astros fan and attended what turned out to be one of the longest games in baseball history: 22 innings or such and ending at 2am.  Based on our experience, we have an idea of what energy and time will be required when we begin a project or a task. But we don’t know how it will unfold or what twists will be presented.

It’s challenging in our world to not live and be limited by the clock.  We use time to pressure ourselves and we allow other people and conditions to pressure us with ‘deadlines’. We’re surrounded by visual and audio reminders to be ‘on time’.

We forget that the Universe didn’t create time. The Universe created cycles. Within those cycles energy flows, and it falls to we humans to use and direct that energy for our benefit in the experiences life presents. From these we gain knowledge.

I found myself exhausted one day recently and had the thought that it was like I’d been at batting practice all day, swinging against every pitch that came my way.  I realized that my attention for most of the way hadn’t been to use and direct energy. Rather I was ‘getting things done’ on a mostly self-imposed schedule. I was doing each task so I could check it off of my list and get to the next.  I was working against myself and being exhausted by my focus time.

Unlike the batter who uses the start of a new cycle after a pitch to reset and refocus for the next pitch, I didn’t hold each task as a cycle. I didn’t honor the completion of one task and give myself the gift of resetting and looking at the energy requirement needed before I engaged in the next.  I was doing, not directing energy. 

As I look to the week ahead, I’m going to experiment with stepping out of the batter’s box between Universal pitches. In doing so, I aim to bring more awareness and choice to how I direct my energy. And, at when I’m done, to feel complete and satisfied, not unsettled, exhausted, and anxious about what I didn’t get done.  Care to join me here at ‘home plate’?

Patiently waiting while Mom takes pictures and some quiet moments by the creek.