Recovery Time

As purveyors of attention, we humans float the continuum from passive observers to active creators.

 Today I create as a writer, and as a house painter, while I create my emotional experience. On occasions I get caught, trapped,  in my creations. My attention becomes fixed. I loop over, under, and around, being magnetized to my creation.

 In the Gurdjieff work we called it identification. In Buddhism it is called attachment. From the Avatar seminar it is labelled fixed attention.

 My mind won’t let go of the experience, and my judgements of the experience.

 How long can it take to get out of a creation?

 Discreation can seem an event of epic portions. Novels often follow the format of being trapped in one’s creation. If there is a lie involved, it becomes a drama. If its life, it can escalate to war.

 How long will the Jews and Palestinians stay in their animosity creation?

 How long will the USA stay in its police creation?

 How long can I stay attached, upset, confused, undecided?

 As long as us creators decide too!

 In the 1980’s Ron Smoothermans’ book, Winning Through Enlightenment, the major message was that forgiveness was choosing to make your life work.

 In the movie Garden State, brilliant writer, director, actor Zach struggles thru anti-depressants fogging his being.  His love interest, the former mother of Luke and Lela Skywalker, Galactic Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman), catches Zach in a creation.

 “You’re in it aren’t you?” She asks a checked-out Zach.

 From the flat look of Zach’s face, he checked out of presence into a memory.

 It is a tender moment when consciousness reveals itself. As one human being Natalie helps him become whole again, not that we are EVER ANYTHING but whole, but there was an incomplete memory trapping Zach. A memory in need of being experienced to its completion.  Natalie acknowledges where he is (or isn’t-present) and cajoles him with the truth. He responds, awakens, recovering his presence. His face relaxes, becoming a mask of joy.

 Though time is an illusion, being trapped in a creation can seem like an eternity.

 The recovery time of our attention is sped by both the freedom to decide to recover, helping and being helped by another. 

 May each day, each hour be full of the quick recovery of all our attention.

What If...

Enjoy The Little Things

You said yes, with little or no doubt, first thing out of your mouth when asked, “Can You…Will You…Can We????

  It’s all about participation, the verb that can transform life into a party.

 Yes, to those things I am uncertain I can do.

 Yes, to those things I have never done before.

 Yes, to the Wisdom of aging and the Ages. 

 I ponder the concept of the Pursuit of Happiness and the insights of Thomas Jefferson. In Jefferson’s time “Pursuit of Happiness, “written in the Declaration of Independence, meant PRACTICE. One of the premises of the Declaration of Independence meant to practice happiness, not pursue, or chase anything!

 Life, Liberty, and the Practice of happiness.

 In our times I expand the concept to include:

 Follow your Bliss.

 Do what you love, and the money will come.

 Be Happy for No Reason.

 The Dali Lama says, “Our business is to be Happy.”

 Master Thomas Jefferson starts his famous statement with Life.

 I was at a seminar and the trainer asked the participants  “Who wants to represent life?” My right arm headed for the sky. Every chance I get, I say yes. In this group it was obvious that I was the oldest personification of Life.

 The trainer placed a chair on the front of the stage, I was asked to stand on the chair and represent Life. I respectfully obeyed and looked out on those seated on the floor below me. I took deep relaxing breaths, inhaling and exhaling as much Life as I could. I felt my hands filled with energy as gratitude seemed to flow into the room. I enjoyed the attention, importance, and the challenge of being present.

 The trainer said, “When we are small children, and we reach out to the ‘bigs’(adults) in our Life to lift us, and if we are continuously ignored, we imprint that Life is unable or unwilling to give. We decide that I am not good enough to have what I want. The child begins to imprint thru their Life not to bother to ask for what they want.”

 At that moment in me, the persona as Life stopped being a mystery and became an entity, a field of abundance. I felt a profusion of energy residing in me.

 I am Life, its representative with incredible power and permission to give, to connect and affirm: Ask me, I am here to deliver, was Life’s message.

 The trainer said, “Reach to life,” the group did, and I, as Life reached back. We merged Life, Liberty, and the Practice of Happiness by happily asking for what we want.