Morning Opera

I have a confession to make. I love mornings! I have resisted this truth for years now because I’ve never been a morning person. I like to sleep! But this morning I finally admitted it to myself. I used to give my friend, Julie, a hard time for her morning perkiness (sorry Julie!). I wouldn’t say that I’m exactly perky in the morning, but there is a joy there for me in the silence before the onrushing of the day. It is a time when my heart and mind are in unison and my thoughts and feelings have a beautiful clarity (not all mornings of course). It is a time when I can hear the words clearly. It is a time when I can intentionally begin my day in conscious connection to all and to the One. It is a time when I can focus easily on gratitude and the multitude of blessings in my life. It is a time when I can see the world around me clearly and with great joy. I love those moments. I love moments of being witness to the incredible beauty of this world.

This morning for instance the field behind our house took my breath away. It wasn’t butterflies this time. This time it looked as though all the plant residents of the field were dressed for the opera! The tiny trees and tall grasses were all draped with shining spider webs. They were heavy with dew and hung from their necks and shoulders sparkling in the light of Grandfather Sun. Some were adorned with strings of jewels lit from within. Some wore instead glittering stoles draped from their shoulders. They were dressed lavishly. Each time I passed I swore I could hear their hushed voices in the moment of excitement before the curtain rises. Then came the voice of the rooster strong and clear and the singing began. Next thing you know I will be become an opera person too!

Joe Pye Weed

The past few months have been challenging in terms of finding time for writing. Joyfully, things have settled down some and I'm finding a new rhythm and time to write! It's amazing how much better I feel overall when I am allowing time for the words to flow. This morning I wrote the following poem. It felt wonderful to spend time with the words again...

Joe Pye Weed
by Lynda Allen

along her morning way
the slightest of flutters makes her raise her eyes
she pauses,
amazed that color could take form and fly.
a moment of grace.
yet the smile slips from her lips, like the dew from the leaves,
as her gaze follows the flight of pale yellow
to a field of mauve and green alive with wings.
her breath desserts her,
awe and wonder instead sustain her
as she takes in the miracle of beauty.
hundreds of wings of yellow and periwinkle,
black and cobalt
gently stir the air
as they sit two and three upon a flower
sipping and visiting
wings overlapping,
unaware of the splendor of their gathering.
breath eventually returns along with laughter,
joy overflowing in sound,
at the delight found along her morning way.

Mourning Dove

I can’t begin to tell you the number of times I have had a moment of revelation on my morning walks. I’m not talking about lightning strike, angels singing, heavens opening revelations - though there have been a couple of those! : ) I’m talking about reminders of simple truths or the coming together of pieces of a puzzle.

This morning was a puzzle piece kind of morning. I have been noticing lately how much I like it when the mourning dove takes flight. The sound she makes as she leaps into the air is like laughter. I have just been taking note of it on my walks and enjoying the moment of it. I noticed the contradiction of the laughter compared to her call when she is at rest which sounds sorrowful and so lends her her name, but I hadn’t given it much thought.

That’s usually how the revelations come about, through things I observe and take note of but don’t try to hard to figure out or see. I’ve learned the pieces will come together in their own time, at just the right time for me to absorb the learning they offer.

As I walked along this morning I once again came upon one of these lovely creatures. She took flight as I neared and I heard her joyous laughter. I thought again of the contrast of her joyful cry and her mournful one. That’s when the moment came. I wish I could describe it to you adequately, but it’s as if the pieces come together to form a key that opens a place within my heart where that learning fits. Everything pauses for a moment and I say, “Oh,” as I see the connections and the opening happens, I breathe it in and the lesson settles into my heart like the dove settling on her perch.

The lesson of the dove was a reminder of something I’ve written about many times, the bond between joy and grief. This morning it was timely for things I’m moving through in my life right now; moments of great joy intertwined with moments of sadness. What the mourning dove reminded me of was that the sadness is grounded and earthly and a natural part of the process, but that the joy filled laughter comes with taking flight.

I am about to take flight into a new chapter in my life and I will leap with glee into that flight, but I will also occasionally settle on my perch and let my mournful cry come. It won’t keep me from my flight though, any more than it keeps the dove from hers.

Intuition

I guess I had never really taken the time to look at the word intuition. But knowing me, it was bound to happen eventually! So if you break it down into two words you get in tuition. Surprisingly, that surprised me. I had never noticed the wisdom of that before.

Yet, there it is as plain as day, the truth about intuition. The most literal meaning being, in instruction or more accurately for my human journey, in the process of learning. And what better way to learn than by using my intuition, my inner knowing?  There is where I find the less literal meaning, inner tuition – instruction gained within, at that place where all wisdom, all knowing can be found, a place I would call Divine wisdom. Why would I want to live any other way?

Well, it’s not so much that I would want to live another way, but that I sometimes allow myself to get distracted by the daily human stresses, problems, issues, etc. I mentioned that it is a human journey right?

So it then becomes a process of stillness. In any moment I can choose to be still and listen for that instruction, that wisdom within me. In any moment I can choose to focus my attention on my inner knowing rather than my outer distractions and then live from that place, interact with the distractions from that place. It definitely shifts my perspective on what is before me.

When I allow my intuition to guide me more clearly and more regularly, then those distractions become something else all together, they become moments in the classroom. They also begin to lose the power that I have given them to even be what I would call a distraction; they lose their power to create stress or disruption in my life and instead can become objects of gratitude for lessons learned.

Most importantly, when I am allowing for the stillness to listen to the inner wisdom, that inner wisdom and knowing eventually become the expression of my being. That is my goal; to be a pure expression of that inner, Divine wisdom and energy. Will I achieve that goal in this lifetime? For me that is irrelevant. The practice of it is enough to shift my life and even the world around me in a positive way and so I will continue on my journey of inner tuition.

As intuition would have it, I listened to the nudge to wait and post this after my morning walk today. Why? Apparently so that as a confirmation of this line of thought I would see a car drive by me with the license plate Hear Now. : ) I smiled inside and out.

PS - Would my intuition ever lead me astray? How could it when the origin of the word intuition comes from the Latin word tuitionem (nom. tuitio) meaning "a looking after, defense, guardianship?” How comforting to know that there is something within me that is always looking after me. 

Everyday Treasures

One morning not long ago I was walking up the street and I came to a place in the road where there is a wide median with lots of grass and a few trees. It was early enough that the sun was just coming up over the tops of the houses. I rounded the corner and looked up to find a beautiful sight. The grass was filled with what my daughters would call wish flowers, dandelions in full seed, and they were lit up with the sun behind them like a hundred little light bulbs. From the tree in the center there seemed to be hanging strands of sparkling silver. They might have been silk threads from inch worms, but in that morning light it was as if the tree had been hung with streaming tinsel.

Another day as I was walking alongside a fence next to the park, a robin hopped along the fence beside me. At one point he jumped up and flew down a few posts. As he took flight the sun was behind him and it was as if he became translucent. His wings became illuminated, transparent feathers of light. It was such a beautiful sight. It was as if this solid thing, while remaining solid, had yet transformed into light.

Then this morning as I walked along I found that the sidewalk was littered with diamonds! On leaves all across my path were drops of water both tiny and large that were so lit by the morning light that they sparkled like jewels. I smiled at the everyday treasures that I get to witness each day.

As I continued on today, a few more little diamonds caught my eye and a new thought occurred to me. These everyday things, flowers, silken threads from inch worms, a robin, water droplets, when in the light become radiant treasures. What do I look like when I’m standing full in the light and what treasures will I find there? I don’t know for certain, but I’m willing to find out.

A Lesson on Fear

The other day we were at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in DC. Unexpectedly, I received a very interesting lesson about fear while I was there.

There were exhibits about a huge variety of things, robots, building blocks, skulls, tornadoes and hurricanes, robotic fish, anatomy, and even the Magic School Bus. It was lots of fun and a bit overwhelming in the amount of information, but well worth the trip.

Almost everything was interactive including the part about bugs. I don’t normally have a problem with insects and sharing space with them. I do have an issue with eating them as they were offering the opportunity to do and which one of us who shall be nameless, Bill, did partake of!

The lesson came in relation to a tarantula. Spiders are wonderful creatures that can teach us a great deal if we care to observe and listen, but they are also not my favorite creature to be in close proximity to. Most insects I will gently invite to go outside if I would rather not have them in my house. I can do this with spiders also, but for them I generally use the cup and piece of paper method of removal. It may all go back to my youth when my older sister captured a spider for me once and I asked her if she was sure she got it? She of course said, yes and proceeded to open the tissue she had squished it with to prove it to me. Well of course the spider was not dead and the minute she opened the tissue the spider leaped out, right towards my unsuspecting self creating much screaming and running!

So as we proceeded down the aisle of insect related booths and I saw the man standing in the middle of a crowd of squealing children with a tarantula on his hand I had a moment of hesitation. We quickly joined the circle around him though and truthfully I was not really afraid of holding the tarantula under those circumstances. I knew it wouldn’t hurt me and for some reason it was not as scary as a tiny leaping spider. However, I found there was an old pattern there nonetheless.

This man was a great proponent of spiders. As I waited in the circle for my turn to hold it he handed it to a little girl standing in front of me. She was a tiny thing of maybe five years old. She flinched a little but basically had no problem with this tarantula. I stood above her and told her how brave she was. That was the wrong thing to say before a tarantula loving man. He looked at me in all seriousness and said, “Actually, it’s not brave at all because there is nothing for her to be afraid of.”

I knew instantly that he was right and instantly felt that maybe she was actually taller than me after all. I was trying to be supportive of her but instead was only contributing to creating a fear in her that was unfounded. Can tarantulas bite people? Sure, but it’s rare. As he was quick to point out, they may take an aggressive stance to ward off potential predators (like humans) but they rarely bite them. They much prefer to scare their predators away.

It was a reminder in an unexpected way of the power of fear and the need to not perpetuate it. Clearly our minds can create ways of supporting those fears without us even noticing. Or perhaps with us even believing we are being supportive like I thought I was.

Is it brave to face your fears? Sure. I held that tarantula and enjoyed the experience without fear. But I think it also took bravery for him to point out my prejudice and perpetuation of fear and for me to look that in the eye in addition to the tarantula. Thank you to my friends in learning, large and small, who may never know they taught me such a valuable lesson. 

Writing as My Life Teacher

I've been doing a lot of writing lately. It's an infinite joy for me to be in the flow of the words. I've come to learn how it feels when the words are flowing freely through my heart from a place of all, and when I'm trying to shape them with my mind.

The process of writing is a wonderful teacher for the rest of my life as well. I strive to live each day in the flow of life, not attempting to shape my days through my mind, but allowing my days to flow from my heart from a place of love.

Striving is the key word of course. If I could notice as quickly as I do in writing, when my mind is attempting to push its own agenda, my life would be much simpler. It’s not that my mind is bad; it is a wonderful and miraculous gift. It is simply that my mind holds on to all the old patterns and ways of seeing the world and living that I find no longer serve me in living a life of love.

There is hope though. My mind has learned to let go and trust in the writing process, it has learned to surrender control to the heart and the infinite wisdom found there in my connection to all. In that moment of being open to the words, my whole being in is a state of joy, my mind feels no loss of control only the exquisite bliss of being in the flow. Now I have only to find a way to live that way each moment, to allow my whole being, including my beautiful mind, to live in the bliss of the flow, that bliss of moving with the loving flow of the Universe, rather than attempting to wade upstream against it. 

I am closer to this each day. Each moment that I write reminds my human mind of the joy of remembering and living in connection with Spirit.

What is it in your life that reminds your wonderful, human mind of the bliss of being in the Divine flow of life? Whatever it is, I wish you have every day that reminder in your life which allows you to be in the flow of life, which allows you to move with life each day with grace.