Getting Closer to Fine

Listen...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY1Bl4nfpdA&feature=related


...to a great 4 minute video of the Indigo Girls ...a wonderful 'time out' for you no matter how busy you are talking - sharing - doing - performing - clearing you inbox- working - parenting - serving others. Great mystics always ask "how can you refresh yourself if all you do is give? Is there no time for listening?"

I have a coaching client who's been pretty sick these past few years. In her mid 30's with a couple of kids and a drat diagnosis that "isn't getting better" so she's been told.

So she brings me one of her favorite albums and says there must be some mistake with the lyrics in the song Closer to Fine.

"I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains.
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain.
There's more than one answer to these questions,
pointing me in a crooked line...

and the less I seek my source for some definitive,
the closer I am to fine.

yeahhhhh


The closer I am to fine..."

Wait a minute...the less I seek my source for some definitive the closer I am to fine??

How can that be when almost all we've been taught to know says we must find those answers to the questions of life - and we better 'get it right' too!

"A+ for you young lady." (Don't want to fail now, do ya?)

This is 6th chakra territory where insight and pain sit side by side - and only the trusting dare enter.

My question to you is can you go inside yourself and find your way, even when "they" say you can't, or you'll never make it, or worse??

I won't coach you here, but refer you instead to Rainer Maria Rilke when he says...

I beg you...to have patience with everything
unresolved in your heart

and try to love the questions themselves as if
they were locked rooms or books
written in a very foreign language.
Don't search for the answers, which could not be given you now,
because you would not be able to live them,
and the point is, to live everything.

Live the questions now.

Perhaps then, someday far in the future,
you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer...

May you find the spirit of adventure in your own journey today, no matter it's contents...

Smile-on!
oooooohhhhhhhmmmmm

Day of Love?

I'm sure if you're living anywhere outside the high Himalayas you're not blind to the fact that today is Valentines Day. Hallmark sentiments and Kodak moments abound. Tokens of love are necessary - yes necessary! - in order to feel complete.

So what happens if you are single today - or between relationships - or on a rocky road with your special loved one? Is this a day of failure?

When we look at the seven chakras lining up in the name of love (the energetic anatomy centers that runs our circuits) we recognize some very important items:

• Your first chakra of security will require a good look-see at your beliefs. Let's just take "am I lovable?" as the question of the day. Now that's a good one to review! If you're anything like the rest of us you'll probably bump into some of the places, people and memories that might have you believing otherwise. Time to check out your beliefs. My advise? Keep the ones that support your lovability and just can the rest. They were never true anyway, just someone else's idea that you weren't enough - and you bought it. Time to hit refresh.

• Your second chakra of intimacy will be ringing like a doorbell. "Does he really care?"... "Is she really the one?" ... and if you hang your hat on relating as your measure, some days you'll be up, and some days you'll surely be down, down, down.

• Now the third chakra view invites a different measure altogether. Who are you anyway? Are you your personality - your education - your job title - your stuff?

This is the question for Valentines Day!

Who am I?

...and as we look at the essence of Self underlying the personality, the education, the job title and the stuff, we hit pay dirt. Good digs here!

You are the possibility of all possible human expression.

You are infinite creativity and divine opportunity.

You are the observer and the observed...the lover and the beloved.

You are you in all your glory.

Can you love this person? Can you accept and heal and delight in who you find?

The Mystic finds the essence of love in the clear, complete and total expression of Self. Give this to the world and how can you go wrong? The wonderful poet David Whyte http://www.davidwhyte.com/ guides us regularly to know that we are each unique in what we have to offer life - as long as we do offer it. "Noone can fail exactly like you can fail!" he exclaims and chides us to "fail spectacularly!"

Music to my ears and Medicine for the soul I do say.

So carry on-loved ones! Go be you and give, give, give.

Your self-esteem will sky rocket and your sense of purpose will shine.

Let Valentines Day be the reminder of your 'meet and greet' with the value of your own true self.

Go share now! And enjoy your day.

till next time...

oooohhhhhmmmm

What a Wonderful World

Did you ever notice the synchronicity of some small thing regularly showing up in your life during important times, or trying times, or times when you were calling out with your soul "Hey! Are you UP there?? Send me a sign, and I'm talkin' NOW!"

I have. Bigtime. For me it's a song.

I asked that it be added to the ritual celebration we gave some years ago for my parents at their 50th wedding anniversary - that alone was a miracle of fits and starts. So I had an established relationship that this particular song was significant - sort of my own secret remembrance that life is good.

Like any of you who've lived long enough to have the juice of life spill over you, I've had my share of traumatic events too. The first time I noticed that the song was part of them, I was sending a heartfelt prayer for guidance out to the place where my heart might meet the cosmic genius - and the song came on the radio.

Months later, I'm near to shock in that awful moment standing next to the hospital bed...looking down, aching...wondering..."will life ever be the same..?" and the music therapist stops by -"just making my rounds!"- and begins to strum the song on her guitar.

Oh it feels like the heavens are alive.

It went like that several more times - enough for me to know the difference between coincidence and life showing up to meet me where I stood.

Now I'm looking for an expert medical advisor - I have a tricky question few can answer. I'm at a cocktail party and meet a new friend. He happens to be a Doc. I mention my quest. It winds up he's not just any Doc - he's an expert in the field.

WOW. All righty then...

...and as he opens his laptop to give me the longed for information - the song is part of his background start-up. It issues forth like a trumpet, and I know that all is well.

Keep you eyes open kids - and your ears!

The answer to your prayers might not need a golden chariot shooting lightning bolts to find you, but rather it could be the very thing you are looking at now, right in front of your nose.


A Hawaiian Story: THE STARFISH

Once upon a time, there was a wise elder (kupuna) who went to the sea to contemplate. One day, while walking along the shore, the elder looked down the beach, and saw a gracefully dancing human figure. He wondered out loud,"Who would so joyfully greet this day with hula?"and began to walk faster to catch up.

Getting closer, the kupuna saw that the dancer was a keiki (child), who was not dancing at all. The keiki was reaching down to the sand to pick up something, and was very gently throwing it into the sea.

The kupuna called out to the keiki, "Aloha! What are you doing? "The keiki paused, looked up and replied, "Throwing starfish into the sea...the sun is up, the tide is going out. If I don't throw them back, they will die."

"But, don't you realize, " asked the kupuna, "that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it? You can't possibly make a difference!"

The keiki listened politely, then bent down, picked up another starfish, threw it gently just beyond the breaking waves, and exuberantly declared, "It made a difference for that one!"

"My" song, this rendition in the beautiful voice of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAl1JBruK4Y&feature=related

To Share or Not To Share? Here Lies the Question.

My good friend Jan wrote "Your blog is wonderful, so insightful and informative. I never understood the reason for a blog, and why I would visit it over and over, but yours gives me many good reasons to come back again and again..."

ahhh - music to my ears. I responded to her that my hope was 'to blog not blather' - though I can tend to go on if asked...

So I'm following Guy Kawasaki through his blog and on Twitter (hey, I'm hip, you knew that!) and I feel he is 'my own.' Less than two years ago when I began formulating my new business plan I encountered his work through some relatively obscure comment he made somewhere and thought WOW! I've found something here!

I was sure I was like Columbus in the New World - me just me...ahhhh.

Little did I know this guy is renowned as a major communicator, with posts and blogs and tweets galore...so many that one of his many accolades includes "among the top twitterers!"

(Ahhh - makes a mother proud...)

So what does the ever present Mystic have to do with this?

Well... just that the Mystics share.

They don't say "two for me and none for you."

They pass along the good news.

They help others succeed.

They share.

My generation grew up in a world that valued competition. The secret kind. As in "don't tell your competitor what you know..." and "you've got to stay ahead of the competition..." Hey, I played DODGEBALL in high school for heaven's sake!! (that's where your classmates put you in the middle of a circle and try to kill you with the ball.)

Anyway, things have really changed - at least in some quarters.

Now "winners" are "sharers."

Which is why I love Guy Kawasaki. He shares.

Why not jump in, if you haven't already kids?

Share whatever and whenever you'd like. Share your favorite movies, blogs, websites, songs, ideas, quotes, moods, friends. Share laughter. Share your skills. Share in your neighborhood. Smile! Share YOU with the world and BE who you are.

There. I've said it.

(Just remember when you're doing this online, we do all have filters, and most of us know how to use them.)

So mystical rule #1 trumps all:

Say what you mean.
Mean what you say.
Don't be mean.

One of my first mystic teachers told me if you wish to HAVE something, try giving that very thing to someone else. If you wish to have help, then give help to others. If you want prosperity, then help others be abundant in whatever way you can.

So here I am, giving Guy his due. Besides sharing the fact that he's good - really, really good - I can give to myself by sharing him with you.

See how that works?

(BTW - even if you don't think "they" need it - or even deserve it - give what you wish to receive anyway, and just watch the transformation.)

What a concept!

Now sign up on the right column of this page if you'd like to follow my blog.

And may prosperity find you wherever you are.

love and blessings,
gael

Mystical Organizing

Being organized...I'm a fan. A big one. Ever since I realized I was swimming in missed opportunities (and late fees) when I was in my 20's, I made it my business to slooooly - but surely - learn the fine art.

Today I'm reading "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity" by David Allen. whoa...

I really thought I was pretty close to good systems management. And I am. Well, mostly. Ever hear the saying "a place for everything and everything in it's place?" Me too, but not like David Allen.

So what am I doing right now? Posting this, then taking up some of his good advise.

What does this topic have to do with the ever present question "What Would a Mystic Do?"

Right in the beginning of his book, the author declares that whenever we carry our "to-do" list around inside of our head (instead of finding a method to list/document/file/organize or remove it from said head) it will take up residence and bother us until some resolution occurs.

Ohhh. Bother us until resolution occurs...

The very same issue that leads any average seeker to say "I just can't meditate!" Why? Too much mental chatter trying to resolve.

I say do your outer work! Get in there and clean up those files. Get your to-dos out of your head and onto your "next action list", throw out those useless piles, and for heaven's sake stop worrying.

Could it be that cleanliness actually IS next to "Godliness?"

If Godliness includes a still mind at rest, and the experience of all things at peace, then indeed I do believe so.

It sure makes it easier to sit down to find it anyway.

So go clean your room!

...and happy meditating.

oooooooohhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmm.

love and peace to you.