Not Soup

We may eat soup for lunch but we are not soup. 

We may have a moment of anger but we are not anger. 

We use the soup in our physical makeup and we use the anger in our emotional and mental landscapes but we are not them. If we hold anger, we are stuffing our energy with something that is more free-moving than that. 

The soup moves through us. And if we let it, the anger can move through us too - blowing over like a summer squall.

Butter Tarts

Mom's recipe. Bring a napkin. 

3-4 tbsp. butter 
1 c. packed brown sugar (brown not yellow) 

1 egg 

1/4 tsp. salt 

A handful of raisins 1/4 to 1/3 c. 

A handful of chopped walnuts 1/4 to 1/3 c. Don't chop too fine, you want a bit of crunch. 

1 tsp. vanilla 

12 tart shells 

Cream together the butter a sugar. They just need to be combined, not beaten. Add egg, salt and vanilla and mix well. Fold in walnuts and raisins. Spoon into the prepared tart shells. 

Bake 450° F on a low rack for 8 minutes. The pastry should be cooked, the tarts browned on top and the filling a bit runny.

Shapes

While outside early one morning, lingering under a tree, I shifted my posture deliberately to see how it affected my state of mind. 

Years ago, our psychic development group explored examples from a book about how posture can change what's going on in our energy. We placed our arms and legs in specific positions at specific angles and quieted ourselves to see what might be changing. 

One position in particular called to me. It was the position I naturally took when I was standing under a tree, listening to spirit. Seeing it in the book made me aware of how I tended to hold my arms. They said "37° angle with the elbow at the axis." I tested their angles and sure enough my arms were just about 37°. Oddly comfortable. But when I adjusted the angle 5° the energy changed. 

The vaulted ceiling in a building of worship isn't just about architecture. The shape itself lends itself to 'upward' thought, the idea of raising our humanity to meet the divine. 

Shapes can make a difference.

Reality Shift

Want a little woo? 

1 
I was driving to town and saw a new house just over a hill. Yet it wasn't there the last time I went by just a few days ago. I do remember the new house, it's just that I remember it being one road over. Same new house, different location. 

2 

Each day for years I walked through a nearby forest, the trail as familiar to me as my face. Along the path was a spot where I loved to pause, the place marked by two old stones. I loved the energy there and paused there often. One day, there were three stones there, not two. The place looked almost the same. The two old stones still sat where they always did, but within a few feet of them was another that had not been there before. I checked the new stone over carefully and saw that it wasn't new at all. Mossy, deeply embedded in the earth, it had clearly been there for ages. 

That meant that I must have been mistaken. Yet I wasn't mistaken. I'd walked that path hundreds of times and the third stone wasn't there until that day. I spent the next few hours trying to convince myself that I must have been mistaken and that there had always been the three stones. There could be countless reasons why I'd made a mistake. Yet, I knew I was right. 

3 

A friend's daughter had been dating a local boy who lived in a red brick farmhouse up the road. They stopped dating, but each time I passed I recognized it as Bill's farmhouse. One day, the house was wood, not brick, white, not red. I pointed it out to my husband, "Look. Bill's house was red brick. They must have sided and painted it white." As you can guess, my husband looked at me like I'd lost my mind and told me that the house had always been white. He's good with details, which made me wonder for a second if I had just remembered it wrong. But I'd passed that spot often over the years. I'd have known. Yet that day the house was white frame. 

It stayed white for years - until about a year ago when I drove by and saw it had changed back to red brick. It wasn't new brick, it had clearly been there for decades, weathered and stained in spots. 

The nature of reality is change. Episodes like this remind me that reality itself is fluid.

One Little Assumption

So I’m noticing a set of tracks in the snow on the trails. “Oh, they have the same springs on their boots as me.” Dog prints nearby. Then after a while, “Oh look their feet are about the same size as mine.” Then after another while, “Their feet walk in the same pattern as me.” 

You can see where this is going. 

It was the dog prints along with them that threw me off. I have no idea how long it took for me to realize they were my footprints from yesterday afternoon, and we’ve had no snow since. Someone’s dog must have followed my tracks. 

One little assumption, the dog, blinded me to the rest.

Love the Problem

If we work from the idea that we are all made out of love, that love is the driving force behind all creation, then it follows that even our difficulties are made out of love. 

So what do we do with that? 

We stop hating it. Of course we want the problem to go away. But if we're hating it, we're giving it energy, we're feeding it. Even the quiet inner hate that keeps us motivated to change things isn't a fire that burns through problems, it's a fire that feeds the hate. 

We may not want to Love the problem with a capital L, but we can approach it with a bit of grace. Or kindness. Or acceptance. Or friendliness.

“This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor...Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes.”

― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

And all that energy we were spending on hating the problem is now available for us to enjoy the 100 little pleasures in each day.

A Little Silence

At this time of year in my corner of the planet, parents and children are readying themselves for a new school year. New routines. New schedules. Busy busy busy. As life begins to speed up again after vacations and summer pleasures, it can be hard to find a minute of peace and quiet.

Yet this is when we need it.

It's not hard. All that's required is a desire to relax deeply and turn off the world for a little while. No music. No conversation. All that's needed is a willingness to meet awareness itself – that bright, deep, quiet place where we really live.

Yet for some reason, there's always an excuse to avoid it. No time. And then there's the fact that for many of us, doing nothing feels like a guilty pleasure. We have been so deeply programmed to believe that idle time is unproductive, or that idle hands lead to mischief, we forget that those idle moments are the ones that bring new insight, deep rest, and fresh energy. We forget that silence brings us into the presence of something greater.

In that bright, deep, quiet place, joy rises. Not the superficial joy that might come with an expensive car, or an understanding spouse, or a dog that doesn't pee on the carpet. It goes deeper. It carries us farther. It nourishes and inspires us. As Jane Goodall says, in "Reason for Hope": "And now, if I am sad, or filled with sudden rage, I find some quiet place with grass and leaves and earth, and sit there silently, and hope that they will come and call me with their silvery voices, and make me clean again, those little angels of the trees and flowers."

And, if that's not enough, when we leave that quiet corner, it spills over into everyday life. Appreciation rises effortlessly for the things that are in our life – a new feeling of generosity towards that old beater that carries us to work each day – a new tenderness towards the old dog, even as you mop up the wet spot. New qualities of respect and acceptance unfold naturally.

All that, just from a few minutes of silence a day.