One of my long time compadres here at Gaia, SixthSense, started a website to encourage us all to follow our passion and shine our lights. 

He does interviews with people doing what they love and feel compelled to do that involves positive efforts in the world.  I'm honored to have been chosen for one of those interviews featuring Love One Another.  Check it out if you feel so inclined.  It's short and succinct in my estimation but I'm completely biased.  LOL!



Thanks again and again for the free press 6th!  You da MAN!  Keep up the positive for the REAL, Bro.  You're a PassionFull Force!  The irony and contrast that this debuts on 9-11 is not lost on me...let us not forget compassion.

...and in case you've forgotten already...

LOVE ONE ANOTHER    ; )

Mysterious Appearances. . .

You are a Mystery
and an impermanent appearance

You are ineffable, indescribable
and a mere image
altered by the changing Light
sometimes brilliant, sometimes dim
but always the Mystery

Have you ever watched Light
noticed its shape
the color
It’s effulgence
the gloom
the passing
?

It never stays the same
not even for a moment,  a fleeting Now

Gods, sages, mystics, avatars, and philosophers
say you are the Light
You have been ever told you are Light

The Luminance and the Reflection
are balance – bridal lovers,
meaningless without the other
United in the Dazzling Dark of Nothing, The Mystery

Observe Light
Watch your Self

Accept the Mystery

What follows are musings, bubblings up, thoughts, expressions from that place - that still small voice that's informed me since I was a boy.  I love that place, that voice and I miss it and suffer so when it's absent.  Or I should say when I AM absent...      

(the place and voice are kinda one thing - words don't work well describing what it is, sorry)

There is no intent here really, just expressing.  You've heard it all before in the same books and seminars and from the same teachers, strangers, and inner places and voices we all share.                              But here it is again...

About a month ago my wife and I went on a 32 and a half hour trip to the Santa Barbara wine country of the Santa Ynez Valley.  Why?  Because we had not  spent a night alone together in 7 years…yes, 7 years!

One set of grandparents lives halfway across the country and the other all the way and due to life circumstances to boring to enumerate, we hadn’t made time for us in all those years.  Our kids have benefited immensely but the strain was taking its toll on my wife and me.

So I told my Beloved it’s time.  She organized tag team baby-sitters and I took care of the rest…

We both love nature and photography and the Santa Ynez Valley in October light is splendid.  I had a loose plan but fortunately, like me, my Love likes to see where reality wants to take us and we followed the pull from our chests…  (which mostly pulled us together) and it lead us to wonderful sites and experiences in the shortest time imaginable.

We were like Honeymooners and everywhere we went the sparks of Amore bounced off of us like tracers of pleasure and people would engage us in conversation and servers would pour us an additional tasting just because they liked chatting with us.  Some locals told us of their favorite non-tourista cafe and we had an incredible lunch.

 

It wasn't long before the wine was going to have detrimental effects on our ability to get around.  So we headed for the hotel.  I planned a sunset drive so we could take pictures in the golden light.  We missed the good light by about thirty minutes because, well....  Let's just say that's all he wrote.  Suffice to say an itch needed scratching.

Scratch before a nap.  Scratch after a nap and before dinner.  Scratch on a fully belly after dinner.  Scratch upon waking.  We didn't realize how itchy we were.  We all know how good it feels to scratch an itch.

After a little more wine tasting we headed back to LA and the kids.  They survived without us all 32 and a half hours.  Imagine that !  Ray had a bit of a rough time at night because he still nurses and Molly got sad, we were told, for only ten minutes.  Jeez, just ten minutes.




Needless to say we've seen the light and how obvious it is that we as the heads of our little family must take care of our needs and interests as a couple if we are to be our most loving selves.

Lordy, I'm itchy already!!!

Love One Another  (especially those you are married to...)

p.s.  My apologies to other occupants of the Buellton Marriot.  I hope our scratching was more inspiring than disturbing.

"You are the Space for what is arising..."

That's what Eckhart Tolle said about an hour and a half into his two hour talk at UCLA's Royce Hall this evening.  Of course he went through a step by step build up to that statement explaining the unconscious mechanics of thinking, the importance of attention, and the obviousness of the NOW.  But the way he said, "you are the Space for what is arising," landed deeply on me tonight.  I felt it this time - just how beautiful it is to be Spacious - to allow - to let what is be.

It felt deeper than previous moments when I felt such a (non) thing.  I guess what I felt before was really just a gap.  Here's where words sound lame describing the feeling, the awareness.  Suffice to say it was deeper, transcendent, ...more fun.

And Tolle was fun too.  His humor was refreshing, light, and endearing.  He would chuckle sometimes when he talked about thinking as if it was this amusement he discovered, this benign absurdity.  He simply couldn't help himself but to find a certain humor to the seriousness of the mind and it's constant cravings and grasping.  Wow, what that must look like?  I'm mean, sure, I've giggled at my thoughts a few times in life but here's a Being that really gets it - the illusion of thoughts, the utter fallacy of the "conditioned mind."  With his humor, he was making connections with the audience and me in a deep way regarding the idea of fallacious thinking.  It just had a resonance this time, more impact then before.

The way he led us to the sense of "who you are" - the awareness of what is - had so much more impact in person than in his books and audio presentations.  The charm and lightness of his being isn't something that comes through those other means but in person it is pure sweetness.   It is a palpable presence and it is completely charming and alluring.

I had moments of gratitude and love for people in the room and I was not doing it.  It was just happening inside of me, bubbling up like an effervescent spiritual vapor tickling my observance.  Fascinating and fun.  Freeing, actually, subtly relieving me of my alleged duty to involve myself in mentation.  It felt good! 

It was a frickin' two hour vacation!  To where?  Here, Now - all there ever is - and it's still happening right now          and now             and now.  How beautiful!

I am the Space for what is arising.  Always have been, always will be...Now and Always.

Thank you for a lovely and enlightening evening Eckhart Tolle...

Love One Another

I'm puttin' this here for me, folks.  It will likely bore you to tears.  This video is pictures of a family vacation from three years ago.  My Honey Pie and I love to vacation in the Northern Cali Redwoods and we've been unable to for the last three years since our little boy was born.  This is the trip that inspired his creation - so to speak...  LOL! 




We're going this year, I think!  Hallelujah!  We are planning to anyways...

Love One Another

I'm not sure but I think it's because it's our true nature.  It's our unconditioned nature.  We've spent so much of Creation/Evolution conditioning our biology to survive.  (I view Creation and Evolution as the same...Creation is evolving and Evolution constantly creates.)  Perhaps this conditioning has served most rather well but overall I think we've missed something.  Our biology can live 80 and 90 years but our spirits can sometimes seem to falter very early on.

Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, and so many others have urged humankind to Love One Another.  Why?  Perhaps it will lead us down a different path.  The path we're on feels as if we're going down hill at break neck speeds.  Perhaps it has do with projection, the psychological kind.  I often observe myself placing all my unwanted thoughts and emotions on the exterior perpetuating my unwanted thoughts and emotions instead of recognizing, associating with, and healing them.  What if we projected Love more often?  What would my life look like then?  What would the world look like then?

Those projections are often described as dissociated selves, or could I say "anothers"...anothers to Love.  Strange wording, yes, but it helps me to understand that Love One Another has many connotations.

Why Love One Another?  I feel that's what we are, Love.  Love covered with conditions and
dissociations waiting to be recognized. 

Only Love recognizes Love...

regardless of the question...

Darshan (originally) tagged me now Tom and Darina have hit me with the Seven update.  Yes, I have more important things to do but, heck, I'm vain. 

FIVE (NO, SEVEN) THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME and probably didn't want to know, HA!

1.  My wife and I recently took in two foster kids, a 14-year old boy and his 12-year old sister.  Needless to say our little family has changed rather dramatically since early December.  The two we took in need some peace and security as life hasn't dealt them much of either.   And for legal reasons that's about all I can say about that.  I'm getting a first hand opportunity to practice LOVE ONE ANOTHER as these situations are demanding and rather messy.  I'm learning heaps of wonderful and not so wonderful things.  Learning not to judge.

2.  Don't laugh but I Co-Starred in a Movie-of-the-Week called, "Everybody's Baby:  The Rescue of Jessica McClure."  She was the little girl who "fell" down a well in Midland Texas in 1987.  I used to be a reporter and I played myself in the movie as I had moved to LA to try other things.  Nutty, huh?

3.  I was also featured in another MOW called, "Shoot First:  A Cop's Vengeance."  I did a Polaroid commercial, some sketches on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and many other acting gigs unworthy of a mention.  I wisely got out of acting.

4.  (NEW)  I like to moon my friends at parties commenorating national holidays, i.e. 4th of July, Memorial, Labor, and just about any other special day.  This practice has slowed considerably since having kids.  I don't wish to emotionally scar any one below the age of 17.  Since passing 40 my ass has fallen below acceptable levels.

5.  (NEW)  I turn up the music ridiculously loud and air guitar, air drum, air bass, and air keyboards like a madman when my wife and kids leave the house.  I LOVE IT.  Rock Out WYCO!!!

6.  I once got a sex change operation and became a lesbian. (Think about it for a second)  I've since had the operation reversed and I'm nearly back to my former self but I still love to wear Capri pants, high heels, and silky under garments.  But who doesn't?

7.  I'm completely full of BULL most of the time but you probably knew that already.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

I'm tagging

(DUE TO TIME CONSTAINTS LIKE HAVING TO WORK!!! I will not be seven tagging any additional Zaadzsters at this time.  Beware, I will.)

SixthSense
Jaguar Goddess
Aeon
Bobbi
EBuzz  (see if he comes out of hiding)