Three Sunrises, for Starters
I love this song, talk about shaking you up and moving you out the door. And this dude’s photos make it all the more beautiful.
A Soul, A Soul for my Pennies
OK educated people, how many of you believe in some sort of afterlife? I think I do, but on a very subtle level. Not like “golden harps” and all that. For sure all my atoms will be reused, but beyond that, do I have a soul?
Cause all my pennies, the piles and piles I have collected, well, they were feeling pretty real until last year when I turned 44. No more thirties anymore, no more forties either. It really hit. This little “walk on part in a war” is gonna end some day. That Doors song was bombastic, but so fatalistic and dramatic when inebriated, and it lit bright my mirrored hallway of teen lovelessness. Well all that teen angst of “The End” was now looking REAL! (Not the mother part, but the general tone, you get my drift…)
So “he’s old and his skin is cold” was now like yeah, ain’t that the damn-ed truth for sure. And I’m stone cold sober in my house with wife and child. And feeling the roman wilderness and the children all insane in a way I had not since my late teens. Yes, age was tweaking my inner Morrison and demanding I ante up with something more than the piles of pennies, and the childish marks I had made on the long stick of work and achievement, whatever those marks really were (and what about that stick?).
So what could I ante up with? Something in me. Some part of me that was deeper, honest and real beyond all the things that go away. That “indestructible” part of me I wasn’t even sure existed. I could, as an idea, say, “Yea, Death! I see thy machinations that turn all to dust and ruin. I cravenly bow to thee like a leaf torn by a winter gale. You win, damn bastard!”
But in the capitulation of emptiness, what did I have then? My shaking fear? My tears? My mumbled desperate prayers? Maybe more just a low begging. Well I lay on the 44-year-old floor of my being for a long while. And the wind howled. And the cold of the coffin tore and tore. It was terrible in that way when you are a child you think some punishment of guilt will never end. But it does. We don’t always remember, but it does.
And then after what seemed like weeks and months, I grew tired. Tired of the Grand Guginol, tired of the death show. That I had so graciously put on for skeletal gaunt cheap assed Death. And, I let out a breath, and another, and with each breath I felt my sinews weave back together. With what? It should have been nothing, but there was something, in the face of that terrible nothing ness, there was always something. I just never let myself feel it until this very year. It was like a flower, tiniest of tiny, that breaks your bleak early March eye sweep of the horizon. A little bud of green in all that dirty late-winter snow. Some force made it rise again. On the earth, so in me. There call it nature, in me, and whatever mystery you see, call it Nature, but also call it my soul. The fuse in the green vine as a great poet said.
It is that part of me that will live beyond my physical self, whether I get it or not, whether I get to ride the winged chariot with Jesus, Mohammed, or Al the grocer, or a puppy named Bernie. There is a force larger than us, and my despair helped clear the air or winter care, for me to dare and SEE it. My little shoot of BEING coming out of the cold snow of nothingness. That is my answer to my pennies, and tree houses turned to mansions, the answer to my fear.
Why I Love Simple Minds
There is an energy, a rollicking, rolling beat, like a heart with wings that I hear when I listen to these guys. The video is from the early eighties, and the attitude is kinda geeky, kinda almost contrived. But man, the beats of those drums, and longing in Jim Kerr’s voice, the spring and twirl of the guitar, it’s a river, a flow of noise that says “Wake Up!”, you are alive! Let this love of a man for a woman, or a human for their god, this raw desire in it’s Rumi like dervish of ecstasy, let it fill our blood, lift you up and make not only your feet dance, but your soul as well. For I dare you not to smile once you crank up this tune, and let the beat take you. If you smile and smirk, so be it, the clothes and hair of that time have taken you into a small cul-de-sac. Enjoy your tepid beer of mental success. But if you smile in joy, and can hear the deeper call of these five vibrating strings of people called Simple Minds, well, Yes to your heart! To! You!
(Play this LOUD!)
Who I Used to Be, Who I Am
Just got this in an email, me graduating high school. All my photos of this time are gone from a flooded basement in Park Ridge, so it’s some kinda shock to see myself “looking back at me as I was looking back at you,” as the Massive Attack lyric goes.
Who am I ? I’m the dude reaching out, looking at the camera, wanting to make a connection. I’m so still that kid. And it feels good to acknowledge that part of myself. For as much as I’ve changed, that core part of me is the same. And I think it’s important that we honor that core. For we may rise or fall in the estimation of the world, our loved ones, or of ourselves. But that fire, that spirit in each of remains, through all the seven-year-cycles of your body “replacing of all your cells with new cells”, through all the education or lack of it, and through all actions, inactions, loves and hates: There you are, the same kid, some tiny universal force looking up through the well of time, reminding you of you.
Saying through the grainy Kodak film: “Whazz Up!?!”
“Soul?” I mutter waking from a dream, “Are you my soul?”
Love and Gross National Happiness
Great TED video by a San Fran hotelier CEO who realized during the dot.com crash that he needed to start thinking about what could be measured beyond the bottom line gain/loss dollar. It led him to Bhutan and a reassessment of Gross National Product (GNP) for Gross National Happiness (GNH) index. The key point being that the kind of Bhutan himself said that you cannot really measure happiness BUT you can measure the pieces of life supporting happiness. You can create the circumstances of happiness: the ability for people to achieve their highest good, to have education, time with family, food, decent shelter, etc, and people will more likely find their way to happiness. Check the vid, it is well worth watching and will give you context for my following comments:
What I want to talk about is the spiritual jump it takes some, and especially a numbers-driven business person, to open their heart to other people and love. For it was not the usual response to the dot.com crash that caused this CEO to decide to learn about GNH instead of focusing on GNP. How did he learn to value the people at their company, and encourage their growth to be exceptional care-takers and communicators? For it’s a major theme right now in the start-up world that everyone has an exit strategy: create a very salable business, sell it, and get out.
Why didn’t this person? Why did he choose a another road? The road of continued engagement?
I think because of love. He saw the human beings at his business, and realized they were people with gifts, and not just numbers on a spreadsheet. Not just dollar figures in his march towards millions. What does love mean in this circumstance? That other people matter, that connecting to others means something, that there is a bigger meaning to life. I think in this example, love was the force that bonded the CEO to his employees, and to a larger vision of what they could be. What do you think?
Love Bursts Upon You
323
As if I asked a common Alms,
And in my wondering hand
A Stranger pressed a Kingdom,
And I, bewildered, stand -
As if I asked the Orient
Had it for me a Morn -
And it should lift its purple Dikes,
And shatter me with Dawn!
- Emily Dickinson
—–
I find this poem a perfect expression of love that bursts upon you from the everyday: a gesture of the turning wrist, a smile that comes from the corner of your eye to leap in from and fill your bowl of consciousness, the surprising screeching rub of cello strings on the rosined string of the bow, the warble of the 5:30am birds. All that we take for granted and all that is always there to open you to the world.
Love. This is one kind of love. The ever-present secret!
Can there be much more? Joy? Surprise? Truth in the absolute moment?
What’s Love Got to Do With It?
Maybe a lot. So this blog will talk about and look at love. What is it? Where does it come from? And how can can we all create more of it?
We all say we want it, but what is it we actually want? Romantic love? Maybe. But there is probably a lot more to love than that. Some sages and religious folks even say love is the force that created the universe. So between the hungry love for another person and the planet-orbit creating love of all creation, there a lot to this idea of “love.”
It’s impossible to talk about all these facets, so I’ll dive in with Bob Marley’s One Love, a great view on how love binds us all together. It’s performed by musicians from all around the world and is from the award-winning documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music”. It will stir your heart for sure to hear all these voices raised in love of our common humanity.
Why do we all feel it when they sing? “Love” to hear your thoughts in the comments, and I’ll talk about that in a future blog post.
A Weakness for Self Help
A good friend of mine coined the phrase “a weakness for self-help” which totally rang a bell with me. I’ve read like a billion of self-help books. But that weakness sometimes leads me to interesting ideas.
The most recent one was shared at work, it’s called Strengths Finder 2.0 and works on the premise that we spend far too much time trying to fix areas where we are struggling instead of focusing on our natural gifts. So maybe I’m a good people person, but I suck at math. School, and society, will tell you to focus on the math and just pooh-pooh my natural abilities with people. It boils down to some kind of punishment/hard work principle: If it’s too easy, something must be wrong with it.
This book takes the other tack, and much better it seems to me, by saying “Yes, you are a good people person, how can we help you become a GREAT people person?” It’s like noticing that Michael Jordan was really good at basketball, and then helping him become great. The multiplier effect of his natural ability plus his superlative training brought him to the master level. What if, instead, he had kept pushing on the baseball thing his whole life? He would have been decent, but never the genius he was on the basketball court.
So, not to be left in the dirt of the proverbial baseball diamond, I completed the 40 minute online quiz to learn more about my “real” strengths. With only 20 seconds per question, you are forced to work quickly as they try and get your intuition cranking. The results posted immediately and my main areas of strength are:
- Adaptability – I’m a “now” kind of person, unfolding like a gorgeous flower, yo.
- Empathy – Sensitive and caring with others feelings (sometimes, yes.)
- Positivity – Give freely and love encouraging people.
- Intellection – Love, love, love learning new things!
- Input – Collect and share all kinds of info (indeed!).
These are a pretty good snapshot of me when I’m feeling happy and empowered. (Something I’ve tried to do before that didn’t fit this was woodworking, which was a total drag.) The question is “how long will this concept last for me?” as I love, love, love new input and ideas.
And I can’t wait for the next self-help book.
Fighting the "Blah, Blah, Blahs"
When you were a kid you never wondered why parents on the Peanuts TV shows sounded like wax plugged corn cobs. It was just funny! And somehow so true!
But now I suddenly find myself getting the other side of it from my seven year old. I speak and she looks at me like she’s hearing that Peanuts “Wuhn wah wah,” and she immediately retorts with “Blah, blah, blah!” I say, “It’s time for bed,” I get “Blah blah blah!” Or I might venture a tentative, “please brush your teeth,” or “how’s your day,” or sometimes even “hello!” “Blah blah blah!”
Some days, ANYTHING I say is met with the crushing ego-chisel of “Blah, blah, blah!”
At first I was mad (like for a LONG time), but then I tried to take the high road, laughing and blah-blahing along with her. That would stop it, sure. Well it didn’t. Just more of it. So I got mad again. “Blah, blah, blah!” Sigh.
After receiving an especially mean-spirited “blah, blah, blah” after complimenting her on a drawing, I suddenly realized it wasn’t WHAT I was saying, but HOW. I listened to myself when I spoke to her. And I noticed a holding back; a constrained, removed, waxy-throated adult voice. What a drag. Just like the parents in Peanuts. When I engaged more with my body, arms and legs, my eyes, literally connected more with the words I was speaking, the “blah, blah, blahs” subsided. Not always, but enough to make me feel like a person instead of a coat hanger, or door knob.
The lesson for me: Be honest, risk, open up. Especially when nervous, or timid about speaking. Be there. Cause hearing a “yeah, yeah, yeah!” every once in a while instead of the punishing “blah, blah, blah!” is the most awesome feeling in the world.
Wasabi Pea Haikus
Container so large.
Wasabi ocean rattles.
Unexpected tears.
Late night snack of green
Dry, crunchy, spicy, coated –
Oh…Wasabi peas.
Snacks lack the delight
Of wasabi peas at night.
The gut ache begins.
– Written by two souls, Julie Poppen and Gene Dillon, who grieve my inability to stop the midnight munching. Do you have wasabi pea haikus to share? Let’s have ‘em.