• The Richness of Being

    • May 8, 2010 10:44 am

    Dearest Readers,

    How exquisite and recondite is Life that we can be weeping in grief one moment and laughing our guts out the next?

    As most of you know I have been blogging of late about the death of my friend Leanne Coppen. Before she died, when her friends and family were still convinced that she was going to beat the cancer, I sent an email to one of Leanne’s friends who had taken on the responsibility of gathering items for a silent auction to raise money for Leanne’s experimental treatment in Detroit.

    The gift I had to offer was an hour of Inspiring Coaching. The woman who was looking after the auction emailed me back and said, “Great!” A few days after Leanne died I emailed this woman to check in, acknowledging the sadness of it all as well as the connections, such as ours, Leanne had managed to unwittingly create.

    This lovely woman then scanned and emailed me a copy of the program from Leanne’s funeral as well as the text from Leanne’s father’s eulogy. As I read through his words yesterday I wept with profound sorrow.

    Then I wiped my tears, finished the task at hand and made lunch. Reading through The New Yorker as I ate I came across a cartoon called “F.A.Q.s about the Hadron Collider.”

    Now the only reason I know what the Hadron Collider is is because I read an article about it in The New Yorker months ago. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is something out of a Hollywood movie. It was developed, essentially, with the purpose of understanding the nature of the Big Bang, and in some way, will attempt to mimic the Big Bang itself, if they can ever get it to work. The LHC, its construction, its function and its operation, are astonishing things to wrap one’s brain around.

    So there I am, fresh from a deep cry over the death of my friend, reading this comic by Roz Chast, cracking up laughing.

    The cartoon depicts a brochure with a crowd of booby-looking people gathered together to ask questions about the LHC.

    “What would happen if I went inside it?” asks a Gomer Pyle-ish boy.

    Answer: Just. Don’t.

    “How many miles of pipes and whatnot are in it?” asks a Dame Edna-ish lady.

    Answer: A bajillion.

    “How much did it cost?” she continues.

    Answer: Forty squillion.

    And the best one of all: “If I concentrate ultra-hard, will I ever be able to understand it?”

    Answer: No.

    I’m telling you, I was laughing out loud, all alone, in my apartment, trying not to choke on my food.

    It occurred to me that I had just been balling and that is when I marveled at the mysteries of Being and since Leanne was a comic genius I knew she’d approve. After all, her departing words for all of her loved ones and faithful followers was, “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

    Inspiring Message of the Day: There is so much possibility in every moment. Grief is necessary. Laughter is vital. We are alive.

    The Great Accountant

    • May 7, 2010 10:04 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Well, this is the first time posting on the new website. Change is never easy and I already miss the hot pink flavour of the Blogger blog but with this site you can leave comments and I can feel safe from the porn spammers.

    A cool thing happened yesterday, which was just another one of those follow-your-intuition-and-be-amazed kind of things, and it’s worth mentioning here.

    Many months back I was “friended” on Facebook by a woman named Laura Hollick. I didn’t know her from Adam but I liked her photo and she introduced herself as a Soul Artist, which I found intriguing.

    Recently, she sent me a link for a Teleclass she was leading called Follow Your Heart and Make Money. Since her approach seemed to be in alignment with my own desire to be fully self-supporting through my own artistic contributions I signed up.

    During the second class we were asked to “ask” our True Leader, which I interpret to be Higher Guidance and for the purposes of this class I am calling Inspiring Light, what 3 actions we could take to honour the process and create Flow.

    After taking the time to get quiet, ask and listen, I heard the Still Small Voice of Intuition responding and wrote down the actions I was to take. One of them, surprisingly, was to call the Chartered Accountant with whom I’d been in touch about doing a corporate tax return. He had given me some advice and I’d thanked him and said, “I’ll take it from here.”

    Hiring a CA is expensive and I was convinced I could figure it out myself.  So I would call my father, a lawyer who is good with numbers and he would say, “Well, if you had an accountant…” as we struggled to understand some of the more complicated details.

    Why was I resisting professional help? I have the money. There was absolutely no reason for me to NOT use the CA. Fear of spending the money, yes. Fear of letting go of control, yes. But other than that, it made very good sense.

    Walk through your fear.

    So I called and made an appointment.

    When I walked into their offices yesterday the man I had originally spoken to on the phone came to greet me. I recognize him immediately. He attends the United Church, to which I sometimes go in order to ground myself spiritually. In that moment, I felt like I’d been led right to the Source.

    So once again I am shown that when we ask and are willing to listen, we are supported and guided toward our Highest Good. Even with taxes!

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Where am I looking for Guidance? I will ask for what I need today, for my next steps to be shown to me and I will trust that the answer will lead me to my Highest Good.

    One For All

    • May 6, 2010 9:16 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Have you ever noticed that the word “community” ends in the word “unity”? You probably have because it’s rather obvious but I don’t think I actually became aware of it myself until last year. I was looking to name an Inspiring Workshop for an NGO and suddenly realized that one was embedded in the other.

    Pun intended. The word “unity”, in fact, comes from the Latin unus, meaning “one”. I have a friend who used to say, “We’re all One,” all the time. Whenever a coincidence happened or when something arrived full circle and we all went, “Wow,” she would pipe in with, “We’re all One.” Well, we are!

    Yesterday I was speaking with someone who said she’d been looking for a community in which to feel “a part of” for years. Last week I heard a woman say she never felt like she fit in anywhere. The experience of feeling “apart from” is more common than we think.

    My whole life I felt like an alien. I was sure I’d been dropped on the wrong planet. You guys got it somehow and I didn’t. Or, the opposite: I got it and none of you did. I felt isolated, different, separate.

    Even though the mind will tell us that the cure for this kind of profound loneliness is isolation, we must not buy in. The cure is Community. The cure is Oneness with our fellows.

    How to find the fellows with whom we can truly connect? First, we have to know who we are. How can I join a community of like-minded people if I don’t know my Self? Self-discovery is a vital part of making that community connection.

    For instance, I used to try to connect with the party crowd. It’s who I thought I was. Bar-hopping, shot slamming, wild and crazy guys and gals. But aside from some drug-induced conversations that felt really deep in the moment I mostly just felt more alone than ever.

    Time for a new crowd! I had to come to terms with the Truth: This is not who I am.

    So who am I really? I am a person who has a desire to live a clean life, a spiritual life, a life of service and connection and Love. I am a person who believes in Higher Guidance. Once I connected with my true Self I could begin to connect with others like me.

    Finding our fellows is not necessarily an easy task. It takes time and energy and a large dose of willingness. But those whom we seek are out there. Whenever I lead Cultivate Your Courage there is inevitably someone in the group who will say, “I can’t believe I’m in a room full of people who live with fear the way I do.”

    Believe it. We’re out here. Come and find us.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: The cure for my loneliness is Community. I will continue on the path of Self-discovery so that I may begin to seek out like-minded people and find my place among them.

    Why Don’t You Try Acting, Dear Boy?

    • May 5, 2010 1:43 pm

    Dearest Readers,

    Have you ever experienced the magic of theatre? Seen a sheet transformed into a baby or an ocean, watched an inanimate object come to life with an actor’s deft touch? There’s nothing like it. This magic can transport us to other worlds. It can also serve as a wonderful reminder to keep it simple.

    Next week, I’ll be performing in Nakai Theatre’s Homegrown Festival with a new show I’m developing called GITA: God in the Army. The piece is still very new and I’m going to present an excerpt, about 10 minutes.

    For the set, I was planning on hanging a couple of chains from the ceiling with hooks on each end. Upon the hooks I would lay a bar to create a kind of trapeze. The trapeze would have a number of functions the primary one being a bar for doing chin-ups (or for attempting to do chin-ups).

    This idea seemed simple enough. But it has been causing me some consternation. Gotta do this, gotta do that, gotta buy that, measure that, hang that, figure that out etc.

    In rehearsal last night I was using the bar as a prop and because I don’t have chains hanging from my own ceiling I held the bar above my head and acted as if I was pulling myself up in chin-up-style-fashion. It suddenly occurred to me that this maneuver was just as effective as having the bar actually secured by the chains.

    One of the greatest things I’ve learned from coaching is that we are allowed to make things easier for ourselves. I come from a “make-it-harder” kind of family and thinking I need to take the more difficult path is an Old BS (belief system) that I’ve been letting go of for many years.

    The new belief is about Being Gentle on myself. How can this be easier on me? What would take the pressure off? What can I do to simplify the situation so that I can relax?

    So, dear friends, the chains are gone (good metaphor) and I’m gonna act the chin-up instead. Olivier would be proud.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When I am in a situation that feels overwhelming I will ask myself what I can do to keep it simple, make things easier and let go of pressure. I will allow the Gentle Road to be my Path.

    Do the Do

    • May 4, 2010 10:28 am

    Dearest Readers,

    As I negotiate the murky waters of grief made even more so by the distance between me and the dearly departed I find myself searching for things to help me connect to the loss. Is there a song on the iPod that will bring the tears? A poem? A movie?

    One of the most challenging things to do (at the best of times) is to stay present. I’ve got a couple of months of travel coming up at the beginning of June and it’s incredibly tempting to future-trip my way to departing, traveling and returning back home in fantastical avoidance of the Here and Now.

    “Life is a trip,” is what I’ve been saying lately in reference to all that can happen in a day or a week. I honestly don’t know how people do it, and by that I mean live, without a spiritual life. What sustains me, what keeps me going and fills me with hope and excitement and the willingness to keep moving forward is faith.

    Faith in the Power that makes the grass grow, the sun shine and the wind blow. Faith in the Abiding Presence of this Power in the minutiae of our daily lives. Faith in Love, that inexplicable Energy that springs forth majestically in even the darkest of situations.

    For me, this faith is not blind. It’s not hoping. It’s not wishing. It’s practical and it takes work. It’s practical because it makes me want to live fully and deeply, which is a heck of a lot better than wanting to die and I’ve been there done that. And it takes work because it requires prayer, meditation, demonstration and practice to bear fruit.

    This blog, as I’ve mentioned before, is part of this faithful work. When I woke up this morning I was heavy with the burden of facing another day. Not wishing to stay in that place and being aware, at least on some level, of the incredible abundance in my life (making gratitude practically mandatory), I set about doing the things I needed to do to shift my thinking.

    As I head toward completion of this post I have a lighter spirit, my energy is beginning to flow and I am feeling much more like do-ing the tasks at hand while be-ing in the present to do them.

    The shift began with willingness on my part. “Despite my fear I am willing to move forward.” From there I sought help from Higher Guidance. “Help me, take this day, show me. I’m small, I’m weak, I can’t do it alone.” Slowly but surely my energy has been restored, returning little by little as I do the next thing, take the next step, walk through the fear.

    The rain falls steadily but I can see the Sun behind the clouds.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Life’s a trip. An ever-unfolding adventure. When we forget this idea and it instead feels like a slog we can ask the Higher Power Back of All Things to support us and hold us up. It will carry us forward with steadfast Love.

    Working Out the Bugs

    • May 3, 2010 9:14 am

    Dearest Readers,

    When I was a child growing up in the Yukon the wilderness was my backyard. Even though our house was in a proper neighbourhood there was nothing behind it but bush and mountains. My sisters and I had a tree fort and when that got boring we’d venture further afield by climbing the clay cliffs, exploring the forests and running along the hidden backcountry trails.

    One of the telltale signs of spring in the Yukon is the crocus flower. With a hairy stem, purple petals and a yellow centre, this sturdy little soldier grows in clumps, pushing up from the ground in the most surprising places. “Haven’t seen any crocuses yet,” is an oft repeated remark by Yukoners around the end of April.

    I have a vivid memory from my childhood of sitting on the slope of the clay cliffs behind our house on a spring day surrounded by an explosion of purple blooms. I remember picking one and examining it closely, admiring its fragile beauty. Upon closer inspection, however, I discovered the flower was crawling with teeny, tiny black bugs. Shocked and repulsed I threw it away as though it had stung me.

    On a walk yesterday I saw the first crocuses of spring. A set of twins or triplets here, a clump of fifteen there, their lovely pale mauve and yellow faces shyly opening to the sun. I suddenly remembered the episode I just described and thought how apt a metaphor the story is for the duality of nature.

    In everything there is beauty and there is ugliness.

    Not that bugs are ugly for all you entomologists out there but humour me, will ya? The Duality of Nature: there is light and there is darkness, there is life and there is death.

    As some of you know I am grieving the loss of my friend Leanne Coppen and so, admittedly, I’ve got death on the brain. The Big Questions are swirling around in my head. The only answer that brings me any peace is this one: The Great Mystery.

    There are black bugs in the flowers. There is death in vibrant life. We must live fully every day knowing each side of the equation has its place in the Universe.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I will embrace the duality of Life to the best of my ability. I will accept that being fully human means allowing both darkness and Light to enrich my experience.

    Receiving and Giving Back

    • May 1, 2010 8:54 am

    Dearest Readers,

    This will be a short post today as I’ve committed to helping with a specific chore and time is running out with all I have to do this morning.

    The chore is, in fact, a service. My upstairs neighbours have been kind enough to let me use their second vehicle for errands that require four wheels. In order to give back I have committed to helping them clean it so they can now sell it.

    This service is really the least I can do. They wouldn’t take my money and I believe in paying back. Sometimes we are given gifts and we need to accept them as such. But other times we are obligated to return the gift through selfless service. This is how we maintain spiritual balance.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I will make good on any non-monetary debts I owe through service. I will give back by taking action in the appropriate way.