liveandenjoy

"People while alive live several lives at the same time, but different lives take over at different times. Shakespeare said we have several roles--not quite right. All roles are always there. When people talk of inner child that is more right. But children have inner old people. You live out one at a time but you can change roles. You choose the one you want. So some old people choose to be childlike, etc. The most fun is trying to live more than one at a time.

"Most people throw out the old role. Actually, they stop choosing the old; or stop even seeing the old as a choice. But it is all there once uncovered. The reason people like amusement parks is they experience two roles. Disney is the best example: you can be adult and kid; kids can be adults. Look inside and let yourselves go. Don't ever get trapped in one role." (10/4/95 - O#1)

"Stop trying to figure it all out. Acceptance, not control, is the key. Knowledge is thought to be power, but it is only knowledge. And a little knowledge can bring on blindness of the spirit." (12/23/95 - O#2)

"Life can't be forced, or it's not life. Life is more of a free-form dance whose pattern is seen in retrospect, rather than a march like a football half-time." (1/12/96 - O#3)

"Most therapists can relate to dysfunction, but not to function. Don't most therapists, in nontherapeutic situations, seem weird or aloof or cold or out of it? They have focused so much on need they can't relate otherwise. They always appear to need to be in control. Some need control, and others are just using gifts and talents; but gifts and talents that limit other interactions. They are like fans of anything. They have a lot to say and give in their area, but not much else--which is their blessing and calling, and their curse.

"Spiritual guides seem to be different. They usually begin by feeling full, not empty. They come to share, not to cure. And they know they can't give you your spirit's experience--only you can--but they feel the fullness so strongly, they know it is possible for those who choose. Psychologists begin with a belief that a patient is in a deficit and they will help bring them up to normal, but people like spiritual guides believe you start normal and they help you find the extraordinary. Filling a hole or building a hill takes the same amount of dirt, but the end product gives a much different view.

"Believe in yourselves. Let go and hang on. It is a roller coaster, but soon it will be a tunnel of love and a grand parade." (1/27/96 - O#4)

"Actors and actresses are confused people--don't know who they are. The best are the most confused, for they have no permanent sense of self. They live by scripts, not life. Bad living, bad marriages, bad drugs and alcohol, messed up... and their children. Some are long-timers, but few." (1/31/96 - O#5)

"Some actors and actresses are long-timers who don't seem to remember much. They are what they seem. They live out scripts, not lives. They meet external expectations, not internal understandings. They are adored because they play to us. But a few--a very few--have their acts together and play the eternal truths (Olivier; Bernhardt; Woody Allen; Liv Ullman; Anthony Quinn, maybe; Shirley MacLaine; and Grace Kelly, who could give it up.)

"We idolize famous people because we feel we have no life. Those who feel fulfilled do not envy celebs. You know you are in a good place when you just consider what a person does to be his or her reality, no better than your own; when fame is not impressive." (2/2/96 - O#6)

"Here's a paradox: Jews have always defined themselves by what happened to them. Read the Torah, etc. It is all about what happened, but they claim to believe in a God who is defined simply by being: 'I am what I am.' So do they really believe? I don't know. They believe they're made in the image of God, so they are conflicted people.

"They realize the covenant is not such a good deal. God says 'I am' and they say 'What' and then he says 'I am.' But does he produce, no. And they have struck a performance contract with the epitome of being, not of performing. It's like having a parent who says 'I am love' but who is not loving nor shows love, but transfers the guilt onto others. And the tradition says you blame yourself for some (a la Prophets) or blame others (a la the rest of the Torah)... o but do not blame God (a la Job). Title is more important than performance.

"Jesus was a radical. He spoke of acts, not just faith. He required individual responsibility. 'And if a man hits you, turn the other cheek.' He doesn't say feel like a victim. He doesn't say feel guilt. He says be there with the situation; confront it; deal with it." (2/13/96 - O#7)

"The trick is to be able to share yourself without expecting or requiring anything in return. If you can do that, you can stay whole no matter who you're dealing with or whatever the situation." (3/7/96 - O#8)

"A lot of loss in this world, and so much birth and creativity. Loss is another name for scarcity if you see it as loss. Eventually you will lose it all. But hey, you guys lost it a long time ago." (3/21/96 - O#9)

"If you have more money than you need, it means you are not using all your gifts; and if you don't have enough, it means you don't recognize all your gifts, so you keep spending money in lieu of working on uncovering your own assets. When you are most in tune with yourselves and others, you spend less." (4/20/96 - O#10)

"Spaces come in all shapes and sizes and places. We can make these spaces for ourselves anywhere we are. It's all the emotional crap that gets in the way. We can be open and honest with each other, but we don't know that until we try it and it takes some courage and confidence and trust. Trust, trust, trust. But enough of this serious shit.

"Play. Eat. Stroll in the summer sun. Breathe and laugh and hug. Swim and follow the birds with your heart as they soar into the fragrant sky. Be where you are and let where you are fill and fulfill your being. In other words, have fun! Growth happens in the times when we least expect it." (8/6/96 - O#11)

"Now, about abortion. This is a tricky subject. If one thinks like most do then the central question is, 'When does life begin.' Ha. Dumb question. Life does not begin as we know it--it is just a portion of a great continuity, as we all know. So when a fetus is aborted there is no loss of life.

"Now, as for the spirit that might reside in that fetus. How do you know that the abortion is not part of the process of its becoming. Who is to say what experiences of the spirit are real or good. It is arrogance to assume that all conception is measured by birth and life. Paths are not ordained. We do not know the future. So the spirit may find itself in a bad place, so to speak, but who is to say that 80 years has more meaning than 18 weeks. Let him or her who knows come forward and walk on water.

"We are--and I mean you people there are--so quick to measure everything by life on Earth this time around. It's like all is nothing, then conception, then birth, then life, then death, then afterlife and that goes on forever. What a stupid, limited view--one shot and that's it, ha.

"So, abortion must be about the issues for the living--what we can learn from accepting them or not. They tell us about ourselves, but have no higher moral meaning. They can be a sin, if one experiences it and has no learnings. But who is to say whether the learnings of the woman and the man are more or less important than the life of the spirit-as-fetus or -child. Lots claim to know, but they all have such limited views of the spirit.

"It's time people demanded and accepted a larger view. And when you are sure of that... ha, you know. And in doubt is faith and knowledge, for there is the potential for growth--and that is the theme and rhythm of creation. I ask you, where is growth in the traditional view of heaven. Even God stops being creative in that view." (1/27/97 - O#12)

"Once upon a time, there was a dragon named Lester. He had a friend named Fred. Fred was a frog. Lester would lope and Fred would hop.

"One day Lester hurt his front paws. All he could do was hop. And Fred was so worried that he ran, or rather loped, to Dr. Possum's for help. When old Doc Possum woke up he gave Fred some liniment for Lester, and Fred loped back as fast as a dragon to Lester.

"By the next day Lester was loping and Fred was hopping, but Lester said he was happier about something else than loping again. 'Fred,' he said, 'I got to know more what it's like to be Fred,' And Fred said to Lester, 'And I got to know more about what it's like to be Lester.'

"Isn't that what friends do--share what they have in common, and try to experience what could be differences. So a frog got more dragony and a dragon got more froggy and the world was a little more friendly. The End." (4/28/97 - O#13)

"If you impose your expectations on others, you will drive them away. But if you let them be themselves and accept them as they are, they will be there even more. Atticus suggested that you had to walk around in the other's being before you could know. Sound advice." (5/6/97 - O#14)

"We gotta do what we gotta do. It's about us, not about others. So judge not lest thee become a jury member and be sequestered while choosing someone else's freedom.

"Think about it. We all spend so much time and energy worrying about what others do that we wouldn't do, then we are actually choosing what they chose simply by investing so much in their choice. Worry about our own choices." (8/1/97 - O#15)

"Fear becomes sadness when change is threatened because you begin to grieve for the part of you that you feel is going. But nothing is ever a vacuum... except for.... So, there will always be something to take its place. If we thwart the changes that will happen despite us, we begin to die a little spiritually. What we hold onto in fear keeps us from achieving what will take its place. We are never led to a place where we lose but do not also gain.

"We call a child who does not grow beyond a certain physical point 'stunted,' we call a person who does not grow beyond a certain point 'intellectually retarded,' we call a person who does not grow beyond a certain point 'socially arrested.' What about those who do not grow beyond a certain point spiritually.

"So feel the sadness but know it has to do with you, not with anything or anyone else. It is the sadness of loss and grief portrayed through the vision of fear, without the hope of promise that is always attendant.

"Now don't forget that some will enter by doors unbidden and some will scale the walls and others will drop in, so to speak, and that's not assailing your castle; it's visiting as friends. We all seem to accept gifts if we can feel they are on our terms. And that's a perfect prescription for loneliness and fear and sadness and anger. If you only accepted the mail and calls you want, you'd always get what you wanted but you'd only get a little of what you could. It takes the risk of opening to the painful and the trivial and the whatever to also get the serendipitous and the spiritual and the redemptive.

"So ponder all this, and remember anger only begets anger and sadness and fear only begets sadness and fear. Live in your own little worlds and definitions if you want, but there's a universe out here awaiting your choice to change and flower and grow. The truly wise never feel they have achieved wisdom. They never would have the arrogance to say they know themselves or they don't need to know or consider anything. The truly wise are always on the road, not staying at the inn.

"In the face of great change, it is appealing to journey that sad road only until a better vista is reached and then to sit there and say 'I've dealt with change and I know I have because I see beauty and hope again'--as if that first vista out of the valley is meant to be a final resting place. Greater vistas await and, yes, also deep and dark valleys. But the road invites. So give up the fears or at least find courage in their face, and give up the sheltering walls and closed doors and get out there. As long as you stay stopped in anger and fear you will feel like you have nothing. Like the bard, afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road.

"And don't mistake friendship for companionship. You will meet many at the inns; but few will be willing to endure the long tramps of day, and even fewer those of dark and desolate night. So chat around the merry fire at the inns but notice who is there on the road. Even in silence the companion is there." (9/27/97 - O#16)

"Ideals are good, but not for much. Let's say you are going to buy a car. You know what a perfect car is, but hey, there ain't no such thing on the market. So you buy the best available to you, and you may modify it or customize it a bit; but you also change your expectations. You become real, man. If you decided to deal with the car without changing yourself and accepting the reality, you would drive yourself miserable, and what's the point--car won't only change so much, and you ain't gonna be having no perfect car. So why be miserable. Be flexible and happy." (9/30/97 - O#17)

"A lesson: If you wait for a full glass you may die of thirst. Life is rarely--if ever--full, but always abundant. But people mistake one for the other. Say you have a gallon of wine. Does it matter if each wine glass is filled once full or twice half full. If one looks for fullness, this is an example of scarcity thinking.

"That's what a lot of people do. It's like couples who say their wedding was ruined because the cake was the wrong flavor. If the measure is completion or fullness or totality, scarcity is the motif. But if quality and process and faith abide, then abundance is the motif. Two people at a table: one eats everything he can; the other eats simply but complains that there wasn't enough, or he thought there won't be. The gourmand, despite his excesses, is a believer in abundance; while the other focuses on scarcity. Just listen to people and hear what they say. You'll start hearing which is which.

"The question should not be 'Is the glass full' but rather 'What's in the glass.' Get it. And not the volume in the glass. Your scraps of near nothing can be a feast for another; a plate full of shit is just a plate full of shit. And a grain of hope can change the world." (12/8/97 - O#18)

"Take what's good and ignore the rest--unless it's essentially painful. Hey guys, there ain't no fantasy perfect people out there. If there were, they'd have moved on. So measure against reality, not dreams. And hey, you know what, dreams then come true because the core of any dream is more real in reality than in fantasy. The Moo has spoken." (1/17/98 - O#19)

"No pearls today, diamonds. Hard truths are diamonds--like hey, you are all going to die, and only a few when they want to and should... pisser. Ice cream melts. Nothing you liked in childhood ever tastes as good. Scars are stronger than healthy flesh. And Franco is still dead. What you think you know is not what you really know, and the difference is filled with grief and tragedy. What you do and what you are are not the same, and the difference is filled with faith and hope and whipped cream, I do eclair. Enuf." (10/2/98 - O#20)

"If you live toward a goal, you will get the goal maybe but lose yourself. But if you live as yourself, you will get where you need to go. So live to be yourself, not to get things done. It's true. So believe it, live it, enjoy it... charge it, Papa will pay." (10/6/98 - O#21)

At an informal chat session:

"Hi all my dear friends, and it is so good to see you all here. I know the holidays are coming up and that this is a hard time for many of you. As physical beings you look at what you can see. Makes sense, yes. But what you can see is not all that is there. What you see as lack or loss or empty spaces are really nonexistent. There is only a gap in your own perception. At those times when you see an empty space, or you find yourself focusing on what isn't there, try to see between the spaces... try to see around the spaces... call out for what you need but focus on what you have, and what you need will appear. Now, it may not be what you want... but it will be what you need.

"My Thanksgiving wish for all of you is that you focus on abundance, on that which is in your glass, on the possibilities of the future. I know it's hard, but if you can do that you will feel fullness fill that which now looks empty. Amen." (11/22/98 - O#22)

"All the celebrations of the spirit are more about what will come than about what has happened. So D-Day is a loser; Easter is good or bad, depending on your theology; 4th of July can be either, as well. Most are ambi-meaningful. But a few are just awful, like Hiroshima Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day. Ramadan is interesting because it embraces both themes--day is loser and night is winner, but only in contrast to day. And anything that celebrates a military victory is a loser, and fleeting anyway. If it doesn't connect beyond one people, POOF. And we are on the verge... don't step on the verge... of some new transglobal celebrations of hope--already but not yet." (12/4/98 - O#23)

"I have no purpose, no direction known. I float the cosmic sea in search of far-off shores where spiritual truth hints at glory beyond words, and I am seasick. But when you are seasick, you should keep your eyes on the horizon. So, too, for lifesickness, when life makes you dizzy and barf." (2/6/99 - O#24)

" 'Hope is the thing with feathers.' But hope is also the medium of change within perception. Beliefs speak of our thoughtful and soulful aspirations; they are the expressions of a view beyond the known or the given or the experienced. However, beliefs are not enough. One can have a belief without much feeling for its fulfillment. Some say, 'I believe I will go here or there,' but then add, 'I have little hope I will do that before I die.' If beliefs are the target then hope is the momentum; it takes hope to have a belief shape a perception.

"You can't have hope without a vision of belief, but you can have belief without hope. But, I challenge you to tell me what the value of a hopeless belief is. It is a paper belief, like a paper tiger. If one has beliefs that do not lead to hope, what's the point. Often, people beyond hope must change their beliefs. So hope is the link; it can't stand alone. And here's the clinker: if it doesn't lead to something it withers. So, ‘a hope deferred is a hope denied,' as my bro Langston said. So follow this: Belief must lead to hope or it's not a real belief for you; hope must lead to change of perception or it's not hope for you. Too many people live by other people's hopes.

"Now for a concrete example, or actually a wet one: lifeboat, several people. Some say that they believe it is beyond hope. They give up and so it's beyond hope for them. Others say they believe this or that, but it gives them no hope so they have also given up. But others say they believe. Some believe in God and prayer, and so they pray; others believe in their physical strength and that gives them hope, and they begin to paddle; some believe in creativity and so have hope, and they stitch together a sail and sail on. Those without hope will be lost souls even if they are rescued, for they found their beliefs brought no hope. And those who hope will be saved even if they are not rescued, for they will have lived out their lives to the fullness of their being and believing. Make sense. Or, a person is facing cancer: no beliefs, no hope, goodbye; beliefs but no hope, goodbye; beliefs and hope, chance to recover or to die with understanding and meaning.

"Do you get the very special thing I am saying. Hope is not about having everything come out right as we would have perceived it before the situation. Hope is a trusting that after the situation we will perceive meaning and learn from it. So, you are here doing this because your beliefs said spiritual persistence is possible, and that gave you the hope of talking to me. It couldn't stop my death. It can't make it all ok by standards of before the accident, but it can make meaning of the realities. You, through hope, perceive meaning where, without that hope, you would have none; and those perceptions open you to new experiences.

"Belief, hope, perception, experience: the equation enlarges. And there is more between perception and experience, but that's another day. And I caution you, hope without belief is as foolish as belief without hope. Both will suck you dry spiritually--one seemingly negative as no hope; and one seemingly positive hope, but no faith. You need both. Faith and beliefs are cousins. Beliefs are the materials that are gathered and assembled and named through faith. Faith is a verb. Faith is the means to beliefs that engender hope that you will perceive a world that is moved by _____ to new experiences." (3/10/99 - O#25)

"Now more about hope. Hope does not create realities, it only opens us to the possibilities we could not see without it. So it is like a lens, not an object. And hope without a viewer cannot exist. Hope is always tied to a spirit, whether alive or dead. So, to speak of collective hopes is to do a political number to a personal thingie. The collective cannot do anything, except as it represents the realities of individuals. And hope without action is like a recipe without food--you get the idea but it is not satisfying." (3/13/99 - O#26)

"You lose, and you win. Live in the paradox. Clarity is not all it's cracked up to be. Take muddy water and filter it; sure it's clear, but gone are all of its substance like silver and gold and all the good stuff. Getting things clear doesn't mean better. Just a thought." (6/15/99 - O#27)

"Now about change. Most people resist change, but one thing worse is getting shortchanged; and that is what you get when you resist the natural change. If change is to come into your life, embrace it all. You don't want just some. For example, my death without this. Too many, finding themselves in change, stop halfway and say, 'I can't take anymore.' Hey, if you are crossing a river it doesn't do any good to stop in the middle. So, realize the great fear is really that it won't change enough, and that fear keeps us from being open to enough change. Hmmm... I'm smart. Those who suffer change don't let it play out. Like people who have to leave somewhere or something and then don't reestablish themselves elsewhere or with something else. Ok, that's it.

"You know you haven't let it play out when the pain of loss is greater than the reward of change. Like when you are getting change and you tell you are getting shorted, but then at last the needed dollar drops and the equation is equal. Then you can walk away in balance. Look, if each time you had a transaction you lost a dime, it might not seem like much; but each year you'd be down a couple hundred buckos. And that is also what some do. They let themselves get shortchanged just a wee wittle tad, and say it's ok; but over time they lose lots, and don't know why they feel so shortchanged by life. So, go." (8/16/99 - O#28)

"You can take it with you, but only what really counts... which ain't money, dudes." (10/24/99 - O#29)

"So, a Thanksgiving Day thought. Too often people think of thanks as a relationship with the past. It can be that, but it also must be a relationship with the future. When we give thanks that is true, we are saying that as we aim ourselves through the web of being, that for which we are thankful will inform and guide and shape our paths. To say thanks and not be changed in the act is a fraud... book 'em, Dano.

"So, always as you say thanks in any way, ask yourself how you will be different because of that for which you are thankful... and it is the transformation for which you should be truly thankful. So yes, don't just say, 'Thanks for holding the door for me, Mr. Brown,' but also say, 'It reminds me to be polite to others.' Thanks is only the opening phrase of a whole sentence, and it is the dependent one--even if not grammatically--because you could live without giving the thanks, but you can't live without the learning part." (11/25/99 - O#30)

"This is about the end of The Wizard of Oz, where all you want or need you've always had. For it involves time and space which, being illusions, collapse the whole field of being into any given moment, place, or event. Nothing is ever really elsewhere. We just don't realize this until we get spiritually smart. And then WHAM we get a new set of things to be smart about. Ouch! that smarts. So, I go. I stay. Both." (2/8/2000 - O#31)

The Wizard's balloon that was to take Dorothy home breaks free when Dorothy leaves it to retrieve Toto, who jumped out to chase a cat. Dorothy is left behind feeling lost and helpless. Then Glinda arrives in her bubble.

Dorothy (to Glinda): O will you help me... can you help me?
Glinda: You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have!?
Scarecrow: Then why didn't you tell her before?
Glinda: Because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.
Tin Woodman: What have you learned, Dorothy?
Dorothy: Well, I... I think that it... that it wasn't enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em. And it's that if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again I won't look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn't there I never really lost it to begin with. Is that right?
Glinda: That's all it is!

Excerpt from The Wizard of Oz, © 1939 Loew's Incorporated. Renewed © 1966 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.

"So, look outside. What is that area. Backyard. And if it isn't there you never lost it. But you've lost it many times. But seriously folks... field, web of being; yes, your backyard is part of that. And so if it isn't there, it's not in your web. Too many people look for what they think they lost, but it was from someone else's web or field. Your field and another connect, yes. You hear stories about the other. That doesn't mean it's in your backyard. It's in theirs. There is an old story about dogs in Levittown who went crazy trying to find bones they had buried in look-alike backyards.

"So, when we feel loss we have to be able to know what we lost; not just what we think we lost. True, what we think we lost is real in a way, but being able to so differentiate allows us a better understanding of ourselves and our field. As we find out what of our feelings is not us, we also find us.

"Suppose someone is looking to transform their family into the Cleavers... no, not Eldridge. They feel they lost out on their childhood. But hey, there is only one Beaver... and it ain't you, babe. Everyone gets a childhood, so you can't have lost it. It might not look like everyone else's but it's yours. So, too, with every search for Paradise Lost. Aha. You never lived in Eden. That's someone else's story. And this also applies to dreams and hope. If it isn't yours you can't lose it and if it is not yours you can't be it. Maximize your reality within the field of your being. And conversely, when others try to load their stuff on you it is not yours either. So when someone suggests you've lost it because you mourn too long, how do they know you've lost it when it wasn't yours but theirs to begin with. I theenk thees ees eenough.

"Go back only to find your own roots, not those of others. And you'll know when you overreach your field. It will feel foreign, even as you may artificially push toward it. When someone sees your field as theirs, probe their experiential history. If they really lost it they can tell you about when they had it, and if not... wellll. To deal with realities--no matter how hard or painful or seemingly empty--is still better than chasing dreams, illusions, and chimeras which appear in the mind's delusions as full and rich and promising; but which--by their unreality in that life--are but façades for void, abyss, and nothingness. For they stand as cardboard faces on realities that aren't yours. Look behind them and there is not only no backyard of yours, but since it is distortion of someone else's backyard it's not there, either. You see, it's not real for you. What you suppose is there is not real for either you or them. So it is empty. Absolutely empty. Don't go there. Turn back. Your real pain and loss is infinitely better than the pain of that emptiness." (2/12/2000 - O#32)

"3 thoughts: I forgive myself, I forgive others, I begin again in love. Letting go, letting others go, proceeding in love. It's a spring theme. Each spring the world, having been scarred by all the seasons, starts again. It accepts itself as it is. It buries what others have done to it. And it begins again in loveliness. That's it." (3/18/2000 - O#33)

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