The Beautiful Answer

Balancing Monsters of Love

Found this quote today, which seems to pretty much sum up every single moment of my life these days: 

“What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.”

                                                          — Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers

Trust Me

One of my least favorite things in the world is when someone says, “Trust me.” They’re usually saying it when you should do absolutely nothing of the kind, such as when they’re demanding you park in a red zone because they know “it’s cool,” or that it’s fine to not use a condom, or that you should “take a shortcut” down a darkened alley on the way to a club. Um, no thanks. I’m good. 

Why is it the people we should never trust are always trying to get ours? Why do my Spidey senses start tingling whenever they’re around? Most of the time they don’t even have to open their mouths. I know they’re going to try to get me to do things I don’t want to do, and they won’t be successful, My only issue is why they’re bothering. 

On the other hand, I do trust my guides, my angels — whatever you want to call them. I’m pretty informal with my guides. They think I’m funny because I treat them as I would old friends. They usually knows what’s best for my life, and seldom demand that I trust them. I’m sure they would like it, and for me to be a little less hard-headed. But we have an understanding. They’re patient with me, along with my human limitations. 

I’ve been receiving all kinds of information these days, most of it pretty great. The issue comes down to trust. Am I hearing and sometimes seeing accurate information? Am I able, despite my humanity, to step aside and let it be, without coloring it with my own experience? Try not doing that; it’s pretty friggin’ hard. I mean, we’re literally doing this with every breath we take, and every thought we have. 

For now I can try. Yeah, I know Yoda doesn’t believe that’s possible, but I’m going to suspend my disbelief and just go with it for now. If I had to choose one reframing method, maybe I can borrow a page from Funkadelic. Free your mind and your ass will follow, indeed. That shit you can trust. 

Just Ask

Don’t know if I completely agree with the dictum “ask and it is given to you.” That’s certainly part of the formula, but not all of it. In my experience, it takes a combination of asking, asking at the right time, meaning it, and agreeing to take some concerted action toward that goal. Oh, and I should add suspending all sense of control over how “it” appears in your life. 

I read a lot of people, and do healing work with a lot more each week. What the ones who enjoy successful outcomes all have in common? They are flexible about how something shows up in their reality. For example, you might really want to manifest a great mate — someone who will love you and have wild crazy sex with you and be your constant companion for the rest of your life. But then you get really fixated on one person, or a type of person, with only blond hair, and only green eyes, until you’re left with very few options to choose from, factoring in age, geography, etc. 

The universe and our guides, no matteer what we think about it, always know what’s best for us. They’re moving billions of puzzle pieces around a gigantic board, trying to do the best things for the greatest number of people. They’re trying to find jobs for some, mates for others, homes for still others of us, all while creating situations that will challenge, amaze and develop us as souls. 

So on this day devoted to gratitude (for the pilgrims I suppose it was just surviving a harsh journey and then in a new world filled with unfamiliar people and foods), I decided to reframe the idea of asking and then demanding that something be given to me precisely the way I want it. I thought about three things I really want to manifest in my life over the next few months or so, then saw them as balloons that I released into the air. As they soared high above me, my city and into the clouds, I imagined they were caught by some kindly helping being, who saw my intentions and thought, “How can I help her attain these, while never letting her lose sight of her humanity and her programming, to help alleviate suffering in this world? 

I imagined this helping being thinking it over and them beaming in a bright, beneficent smile, having seen the exact way to make these things happen for me — as long as I cooperate, of course.  :) 

Mindfulness Movement

Today has been a blur practically since I woke up. Work has been amazing, with lots of new opportunities and clients. I love meeting new people and helping them find solutions to their problems, so I suppose I’m in the right fields, as a writer and intuitive healer. But what do you do when someone doesn’t believe in you, or part of you? 

To some extent, I get it. I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to demystify the intuitive arts by claiming the ability I was born with (that was hard enough) but also striving to be seen as a real person, not some woo-woo gypsy who’s trying to separate you from your money. I suppose it would be easy to blame Miss Cleo, or Stevie Nicks (I know, she gets unfairly blamed just because of the way she dresses), or anyone who’s ever attended a Renaissance Faire. But I’m not in a blaming mood. 

I am in a sad mood, that people can believe in gods, fairies, monsters, angels and the devil, even a long-dead guy named Jesus, without ever having met him. They can believe in the effect of tides on people’s moods and women’s menstrual cycles, and how hot summers can increase the crime rate. But somehow, they can’t believe in my ability to direct energy, make contact with spirits, and even my heightened ability to see and hear beyond the physical realm. That’s too much for them. 

So what do you do when you don’t exist to some people? When they don’t give the same respect and attention to things you’ve spent your life studying, perfecting and piling up certifications in? After all, I didn’t ordain myself as an intuitive healer. I studied, just like doctors and lawyers do. Then I applied the teachings over years of practice, just like any professional would. 

I don’t do spells and don’t have that kind of “eye-for-an-eye” thinking anyway. I don’t operate that way. So maybe my regular level of mindfulness will have to take a step up today, in order to reframe the pain this has caused. I can soften around the place that hurts, and welcome it instead of pushing it away. I can sit with it awhile. And I can bring my mindfulness to a new place of movement, by standing up for myself in a way that doesn’t extend the suffering of this moment one instant longer.