Be The Cause

Daily walks are a bit different here ...

For every minute you are angry you lose 60 seconds of happiness. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not ignore your role regarding the quality of life here on Earth. It is your input that contributes to determining whether tomorrow will be a beautiful day.  Gregge Tiffen (It’s Springtime: Flow With the Power of Nature - March, 2007)

Gregge Tiffen’s quote above refers to our impact on weather. “Weather is an atmospheric blanket that surrounds us” he continues, “… our mental movements affect the atmosphere. If we are angry, upset, fearful, exhausted or in any way upsetting the normal flow of Universal energy, we affect our weather.”

As I reflect on what I’ve witnessed in the national political arena this week and notice my thoughts about and reactions to that, I wonder when, where, and how the anger will manifest. I wonder how much upset it takes to generate a hurricane like Katrina that struck New Orleans, Louisiana in August, 2005 or any of the many “natural disasters” throughout time.  I’m curious about the impact of both the travesty of how our government responded to Katrina and the impact of the upset and fear of the people impacted.

And, then I bring my reflections to me.

How many ‘seconds of happiness’ did I abdicate yesterday when I reacted in disgust to the sad state of our political discourse?  What is my responsibility for helping shift that climate simply by living life more gently and expressing kindness as an act of creativity?

What about those moments of being annoyed by a canine cancer patient who isn’t sure if she wants to be inside or out?  She teaches me so much about how to live when she lights up and jumps with joy when ‘ball, walk, and park’ are in the same sentence and we head out the door.  And, what about those times when I’m upset with me? Perhaps that’s a story for another day.

I’m struck by how the Universe continues to march forward in its own natural flow, adjusting as required to keep an infinite number of celestial bodies from crashing into one another. Who do we need to be to tap into that knowledge and wisdom?

I’m humbled to be a speck in this unfolding and to know that what I do, what I say, what I think matters and that the atmosphere I create in the moment for me (and my canine crew) impacts the weather. 

And, so it is for each of us.  Know the importance of doing that which makes you happy and brings you joy this day (and the next …). Be the cause that creates the effect you want on the planet. Do it for you. Do it for humanity. Do it for the planet. Moment to moment. Day to day.

Luke's 'cousins' Bonner & Gilley

Luke sporting his protective shirt (and that's another story for another day!)

Life: The Great Experiment

Opportunities As Vast As the Valley, As Beautiful As the Sunset

View your whole day as a fantastic learning opportunity. Welcome the next moment with love and excitement. Today’s experiences are different than yesterday’s and tomorrow’s will be different from today’s.  Gregge Tiffen (Fanned Fire and Forced Love Never Did Well – February, 2008)

Life isn’t so much a singular experiment but rather a laboratory where we are each given full access to opportunities to learn:

•       to live in a physical body that is with us for only a blip of time;
•       to use mind and discover what emerges;
•       to discover spirit, that part of us that is infinite, had no beginning and has no end. It simply is.

Here at ground level on Planet Earth humanity seems to have lost sight of this enormous learning opportunity. Despite the wisdom of the ages coming forth through many voices, we have forgotten why an individual consciousness enters a body for a period of time, then moves to another realm, equally exciting and important for learning, but of a different sort.

For most of us, our experiences in school were more about being controlled and forced to learn ‘facts’ that we never used. We weren’t taught to think, to be independent, to embrace life with joy and wonder. 

I wasn’t encouraged to experiment with life to discover what would happen, learn from it, and adapt as the next experiment unfolded.  But slowly, step by step, day by day, moment to moment, I’m waking to this purpose. As I prepare to embark on an experiment to experience life away from home for an extended period, I’m doing so with excitement and curiosity. There are new landscapes to see and new people whose paths I’ll cross. There will be a few familiar places and faces, an opportunity to care for a friend’s beloved pets while she travels.

And, there are a few trepidations. What if …?  Each gives me the opportunity to choose. Is this something I need to attend to or something to let go? I’m discovering lots of opportunities to let go; to trust.  After all, it is “fantastic learning opportunity”!

How grand is life when we come from this perspective – life as a “fantastic learning opportunity” in which we welcome each moment with love and excitement?  Does it seem like a fantasy as you navigate yours world today?  What is front of you right now? What happens when you look at it from this lens?

A Morning Walk Starts Another Beautiful Day!

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.

A Thought Never Dies

Hints of Fall Begin to Dot the Slopes

Every thought we have and every word we speak goes out into this infinite Universe and stays there. Every thought we have has an effect on us and our planet as well.  Gregge Tiffen [Life in the World Hereafter: The Journey Continues & The Journey Continues: In Search of Wisdom – September 2010]

The above quotes got my attention this morning as they were what my eyes landed on in each of the two books I picked up as I began to muse about today’s post.  I wondered just what the heck they had to do with an event this week that I’ve been reflecting on and guessed that I’d be writing about.

Last week I wrote about the need for forgiveness to forge peace.  Other than questioning the level of my own courage to forgive, my reflections were more global.  Said another way, they were more about the world and others than developing my own capacity to forgive.

As is the way of learning, the issue was brought home to me this week in one of those ‘small events of life’ that generated deep reflection and questioning: a conundrum, as yet with no clear ‘answer’.  An unresolved conflict between what I claim my values to be and choices I make that aren’t aligned with them. I’m grateful for the curiosity which inspires me to explore and want to sort it out.

This idea that a thought never dies that it goes forth into the Universe forever has my attention in this internal conflict.  You see, for all my thoughts of peace breaking out all over the world, I experience being annoyed by and being concerned about the impact on me and my environment by some of nature’s creatures. I call them ‘pests’: mosquitos and mice to name two specifically.

I aim not to give them much energy or attention. But sometimes they demand it.  During mosquito season, my inner killer came forth daily as dozens would follow me or guests in the door. Without much thought I swatted them. Dead.  Months before, after experiencing an infestation of mice that I was unable to control by natural means, I made the difficult decision to use poison.  Unlike mosquito swatting, I made a conscious choice.

I had the awareness that this choice wasn’t aligned with my claim to value non-violence and peace. While it’s been successful in reducing the mouse population, I’ve never been totally at peace.  It isn’t what I want to contribute or how I want to express myself in the world. Every choice is after all an expression of me.  Yet, I rationalize my decision with the success of not hearing mice scurrying in the walls.  

Enter this weekend, a larger creature.  In the dark of the night, it took bites out of every piece of fruit in my two fruit bowls and knocked several items off of the kitchen counter.  Other ‘evidence’ clearly indicated that it wasn’t a mouse. While I was definitely upset, my thoughts didn’t go to ‘kill it’.  And, as I reached out for advice on dealing with the situation, the clearest was to “set a live trap”.   That action was a success, and a rascally young pack rat has been relocated to a remote area several miles away and, hopefully, its point of entry sealed: a small victory for non-violence and for own thought process.

Compassion for the Perpetrator

Although I’m keenly aware that my thinking and my choice contribute to negativity on the planet and to our human propensity toward violence against one another, I’m not at the place of reversing my mouse control decision.  The angst and curiosity of the conundrum will continue at least for a while.

A Beautiful Path for Strolling Contemplation