New Project?

I have decided to start a new movement...may even try and get it started as a nonprofit organization (seriously).

I thought of it on my walk this morning after reading about a program begun in Gambia and Sierra Leone for teen peer education around health (and AIDS...but they don't separate the two issues over there). I found a paper on the complete organization and training online. Man, I love the internet!

They suggested that although this program was primarily targeted at the schools for now, that they were aniticipating taking out into the general public to teach all ages.

And I thought...what a great program!!! I want there to be programs like this all over the world. I envisioned the kids who had great interest in continuing to get further education or get involved in further areas of health, being recognized and receiving scholarships to become doctors and nurses (or whatever their interest), then go back to their communities.

The more I thought about it, the idea grew and I thought....heck...it's kinda like an army that brings life instead of destruction!!!

Then the name "Happy And Healthy Army" popped in...and I said to myself....Perfect!!!: They'll be the HAHA's!!!!

I've been smiling ever since.

Then...

A few minutes ago, my weekly Brezny email came with this quote from Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins (one of my favorite authors):

"The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You get to take yourself oh so very seriously."

Lovin' the synchronicity happening these days....

God's Smile uploaded by Worldpassenger from here

The Dark, The Light, Jesus, Osho And Me

I'm always a tad taken aback when people are surprised/shocked or judge that spiritual people get angry, have doubts, worry, whine or aren't always little positive, peaceful, balls of unconditional love and light.

I've met lots of Teachers and a smattering of gurus, read tons about more. I have yet to fully believe that anyone is only light and peace, that they never lose themselves if only for a short while.

Now, I won't totally discount it. I definitely don't know much of anything. I do know I'm a total full on skeptic of the highest order while remaining more than willing to be wrong. Maybe the Dalai Lama is. Eckhart Tolle says he never gets angry or loses his inner sense of peace. I can't know their experience and I suppose anything is possible.

But let us not forget that even Jesus got a bit attituded from time to time. He also got really scared and whiney the night before his ordeal (and I don't blame him one bit....sheesh). We have only a smidge of recountings of his days and nights, but my guess is that he probably raised a bit of hell from time to time. He surely hung out with a rowdy group, yes?

I've always wondered what it would look like if Jesus had the same media that Osho or some of the other controversial gurus have had.

It was easy to just pick out a few strategic stories that feed the Jesus mystique and focus on those. No print, no video, no tape recorders to contradict The Truth of the 99.99% of the remaining hours and days we know nothing about. Wait almost a hundred years and you've got the story intact. Have a synod or four, a council or two at Nicaa and poof, total shoring up of The Truth.

Osho, on the other hand, has everything fully documented. No possibility of hiding from any controversy with him, no opportunity for BC/BCE unrecorded spin and soundbites to become fact.

It took Christianity centuries to stabilize and survive. It went through many permutations until it did. I wonder what the Osho movement will look like in a few hundred years. Will the controversy override the gifts? Does it matter so much the behavior of the founder of the movement if the participants get so much out of it? Will Osho end up being deified in some way? (Jesus did not start out that way, but was later voted divine at Nicea). Will Osho's strong followers keep this tradition alive and will it become codified, with a hierarchy and over 1700 different denominations as Christianity did?

And does much of what we attribute to Jesus have to do with "Truth" or more with the fact that we don't have access to the what really happened so are able to create him in the image we need?

Was he really all light and love? I don't think so.

...just as I don't think any spiritual teacher is totally light and love (possible above disclaimers aside).

I feel in my soul that the most profound teachers are the ones who embrace all of Life. They shock us into looking at our disconnected ego judging them for not being perfect. They give us opportunity to remember our own divinity when we are forced to see that we are all humans here and that they are no "better" than we.

I saw an old acquaintance awhile back. He had taken one of my workshops about 15 years ago. He said that after that workshop he had been talking to someone (couldn't remember who) who said to him that of all the people they had ever come in contact with, I was the one who was most dedicated to doing inner work.

What I flashed was "Um...well...ahem...there was a reason for that...." :)

I have done lots of inner work. Even during this last ripping apart cycle, it wasn't like it used to be before. I'm way happier and at peace on all sorts of levels than I was 20, 30 years ago....wayverymuch. It could simply be age. It could be that I would have arrived here without all the inner work. I haven't a clue and I don't care.

I was messed up, but in hindsight I don't think I was any more or less messed up than anyone else. I've discovered that maybe it isn't so much about hating those parts of ourselves that we find imperfect as finding acceptance of them and allowing them to flow through to the next piece of who we are that is just behind it. Because who we are, what we feel and how respond are fluid, open and ever changing.

Maybe like everything else, inner peace isn't about being all light and love but our response to ourselves when we aren't light and love for whatever reason. Maybe the anxiety, depression or stuckness isn't about itself or what's in front of us but rather our response to it and the story we tell that makes us miserable.

Maybe it's that the enlightened ones get angry, but they fully allow it and go postal in temples. The full on embracing of the essential feeling allows it to flow through so return to peace much more quickly than others who will analyse the politically correct way to respond when they're pissed and keep holding it in their bodies, afraid to let their authentic selves expression.

And maybe it's the ones who are OK with all of that, not judging themselves for their responses that are anything other than light and love that get to be at peace more.

Sure has been a big piece for me.

So, sometimes I'm in ecstatic union. Often these days I'm at peace and I don't know why. Sometimes I wake up in the night anxious and can't get back to sleep. Sometimes I love holding my grandson...sometimes it bores me. Usually I am fully accepting of my arteest daughter's moods...and once I got tired of it. Often you'll find me tremendously patient and compassionate. And sometimes my buttons are pushed and I get snarky.

I want and expect my Spiritual Teachers to have problems, to be assholes from time to time, to smile and laugh lots, to admit their shadows and their doubts. Many of the ones I know smoke (and I loved hearing all the judgmental gasps at workshops around that one!!). Some do drugs. Many have strong libidos and sexual kinks. Some get really pissy at times. Others refuse to talk to their disciples and students. I want all of that.

Why? Why don't I want perfection? Because it doesn't feel real to me. Why? Because I, too, used to think there was some end state of perfection that I could attain...that I wanted to attain and that I fell far short of. Because of who I was, I thought it was defined by some outside set of rules of "the way we should be." Because I wasn't all that, and I was a Type A, I used to feel competitive, "less than," imperfect, unlovable just as I was, in a fight with myself to be everything I clearly wasn't. I lived in a constant state of self judgment.

I don't always respond happily when I fuck up, but in the end I like that I'm a messed up ball of imperfection. I like that I fall off the path....and since I'm OK with all that, I tend to get back on it pretty darn quickly. I like remembering and living the knowing that the lighter the light, the darker the shadow, that it's all connected everywhere and that I'm a reflection of that, too.

And the best part of all this? Because I'm OK with all this inside me, I'm also mostlyusuallypretty OK with the imperfections inside you...and the world...and all of it....

And the best part of all that? I get to be pretty darn happy and in integrity in relation to the world.

Art

Photo of Jesus by Kevissimo from his series "TRIBUTES FOR KINGS, THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS" This guy has some amazing photographs and does shows. Yum.

Nature And Nurture

I was watching a baby the other day. His thighs were the fattest I'd ever seen, truly one of the stars of what I call "Deprived Child Syndrome" or "Michelin Man Syndrome" that healthy breastfed babies get. He was happy, bubbling bubbles, totally fascinated by his toes.

And I thought how cool it is that we come into life expecting to be taken care of, expecting to be loved and for the world to revolve around us.

Every mother I've ever talked to confirms that each child is born with an established personality. I have yet to hear a parent say "oh my....this baby is exactly like my first one." Usually it's the complete opposite- we think we have it down but the new one comes to confound us, reminding us,once again, that we have absolutely nothing to hold onto in terms of ego in parenting.

And every time I remember new second time parents marveling, I wonder how it is that we can think we are simply some Skinnerean experiment. How is it that we think that we are solely a result of our conditioning and environment? No way.

With the gabillions of chemical responses, hormonal influences, thousands of neurons firing, personalities that are clear before labor, individual responses of newborns to the exact same environment...how could we possibly think that we are born blank slates with nothing inherent about who we are?

I'm not saying who or what it is that we are when born or what we bring in. I'm not vying for some specific story of the model of the universe or creation. You won't hear me saying that some god on high has given us a task here to complete, our fates set in place the moment we are conceived. I don't care how anyone else explains all this to themselves. I simply notice what mothers have known for centuries.

I'm not arguing that nurture plays no role in our development. I am suggesting that we come in with our own unique makeup to respond to what's in our environment. One person might shrivel and die in an abuse situation. The other in the same family, may end up using that experience as a tool to create amazing, positive things in their lives. How each responds has nothing to do with the outer world. It's their inner world that creates a particular outcome.

I love the mystery of this. It makes for total lack of control and, for me, wondrous opportunity for creation because of the wild cards of our own unique nature's response to our nurture.

Art from here

A Note To The Artists Whose Work I Share Here

I love art!

I would love to be an actual patron of the arts, buying pieces to enjoy and support you. It's one of my intentions and I envision being in that position some day.

In the meantime, I share the art I find that I like and would buy (hope to buy in the future.)

I am someone who feels art should be shared. I know many artists and they struggle financially. I'm also a networker, and like to share stuff I'm excited about. My word of mouth adverstising has brought business to many in many fields- restaurants, products, foods, bodyworkers, artists, doctors, therapists, workshops, etc. I find it the best way for us to share what we have and be able so support ourselves doing what we love. I find it a win/win situation.

I also see the internet as an amazing vehicle to have our energy out there as little beacons of light, providing us with incredible opportunity to spread the word about what we want to offer the world and get ourselves out there. I assume that is why you are on the internet to begin with.

I am aware that there are copywright laws. It is not my intent to violate them. I do my very best to give credit to the artists out there and provide a way to spread the word about your talent so that it can come back to you and bring you increased income. I don't contact you beforehand because this is a blog, I put these posts up quickly, I find the art as quickly as I can and I don't have the time to write you and ask for your approval.

If you want me to take your art, down, I will remove it within ten minutes of opening your email. I hope you understand the intent with which I used it, which was not to rip you off, but rather to celebrate you, your vision and talent and to advertise for you, too. If you do not want these gifts, then just tell me and I will find other art and artists who do.

Many Blessings and thanks to you!!

Father Issues

I'm not one to try and dig up all sorts of history to focus on in my healing. Being an actional person, I tend to think that rehashing old stories is counter-productive in the long run, serving only to keep me stuck in Victim Mode.

I do, however, think it useful in the short term to identify areas in which I may be unconsciously operating from.

Over the years I've tended to identify my main issues/woundings as stemming from my relationship with my mother. Occasionally my intuition might flit on the concept of "hm...gee...this is interesting that I don't feel anything around my father." But he remained a blank.

Years ago, in one journey/meditation I did around healing with my parents, I felt/saw/experienced us on a beach. We held hands, dancing in a circle. We started to fly. My dad kind of faded out of the picture behind my mother and I "got" (in that way that we get things while in trance: fwoomfwoomfwoom) that most of the issues were with my father and that we had all agreed on a soul level that she would put herself between the two of us. It was a true ah-ha moment.

However this vision was not enough for me to focus there or do any of the real work that I devoted to my mother (and other) issues. I find that quite cute...running from the what, Pamm?

He calls me now. I'm not sure what that looks like just yet, but I feel the call of healing my personal relationship with male energy. I have chosen, these last fourteen years, to learn what it means to be devoted to being with and serving male energy as it redefines and re-creates itself. But the years have come full circle (or what looks like full circle to me right now, anyway) and I'm learning the things I "need" that I've put on the back burner in my crusade of being "of service."

Years ago I did a stint around healing The Father when I did an adventure with Christianity and disconnected angry Radical Feminism. I'm not there any more and I don't know what any of this looks like today.

I do know it's deeper. And I do know that when I put the intention out there, things appear. It's already begun as I kindasorta began this a few weeks ago. It's scary, but completely freeing. This time of year is historically one where I experience stagnated, stifling, stuck energy. My birthday is soon and I've had intuitive flashes that it's about pre-birth body memories of waiting...sitting...or that since mother was a smoker I'm reliving feeling terrified and paralyzed with no oxygen, not being able to get the "life force" I needed. Stay small...stay quiet...maybe I'll survive. Whatever....

But this year I feel more energized than I have in years. It grows daily. I've been taking concrete steps toward doing life differently, learning trust in Life and Love...learning to listen as best I can then act according only to my heart...no shoulds...following the illogical...not doing what I think others need, not taking on projections. I'm both excited and scared shitless. Yum.

Time for a Quest.

Art: The Love Between A Father and a Daughter by Keith Burns from here

Pronoia

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT from Rob Brezny:

"Evil is boring. The universe is friendly. Life is on your side. Joy is your birthright. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. In fact, all of creation wants you to succeed. Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. Retrain your senses and intellect so you’re able to perceive the fact that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it."

* The preceding oracle comes from his book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.

Here's a review of the book.

Art: Waterfall from here

Lava from here

Icebergs from here

Trust

I'm asking again (and it feels really wonderful to be here).

If it's manifested, clear, no question as to what is or is to be created...then is is Trust?

Isn't Trust when we have nothing to back up our perceptions on the outer world?

When it looks like all is lost and we are "not safe?" or "not getting?" or "not loved?"

Isn't Trust the essence of peace, right here, right now?...not needing to ponder, plan, worry, anticipate, grasp?

Isn't it the knowing that this moment is perfect, no matter what our stories define it as?

And that maybe all this is soul practice for Trusting the perfection and Love offered in Death? (as the Tibetans teach)

That Trust has nothing to do with anyone or anything outside myself?

Isn't trust the core of Unconditional Love, inner peace...all of it?

I'm asking about trust as I continue to learn it.

Lovin' the journey.

Art: Open Heart by Leonard Morales, Jr.