We have a choice about how we are going to respond to what is happening in the Gulf – from fear and reaction or trust and vision. To make this shift from reaction to response, we need to see that all great evolutionary shifts have happened in the midst of chaos, as the old way is dying and a new is being born. This has occurred countless times on our planet, and right now you and I are living in the middle of one. In fact we are the evolutionary shift. The shift is happening inside of us. We are being moved out of an old way of perceiving that says controlling and struggling with life will bring us the safety we long for.

The old way of perceiving does not recognize the sacredness of our planet and it believes that getting ‘more’ (whether it is money, food, sex, success, etc.) will bring the peace it promises.This old paradigm also believes in ‘them’ and ‘us’. ‘We’ are doing it right and ‘they’ are doing it wrong. We have a choice whether to resist or to allow ourselves to be moved into a new way of seeing.

We are ready for a new consciousness – one that does not divide but that unites instead. It bows in wonder to the awesome mystery of this living moment and realizes that recognizing the sacredness of everything (including oil spills) transforms all that we touch. It also sees that this moment in which you are reading this newsletter is enough. In fact, nothing you can try to add to your life will be more satisfying than true connection with right now. It also recognizes that there is no ‘them’ and ‘us’. We are all in this together, floating on a tiny blue green jewel through vast oceans of space.

This is a call to a level of consciousness that sees the intelligent oneness of everything.  Can you allow it to wake you up out of fear and into trust, into the knowing that life knows what it is doing?  Can you allow the place beyond ‘them’ and ‘us’ to wake up inside of you and realize that we are just characters in this theater of awakening that is life?

So I invite you to notice when you go into fear. That is old paradigm. Yes, I know, it feels like the earth is bleeding in the Gulf coast, and she is.  Yes, what is happening in the Gulf is devastating but it is also our wake-up call.

The Dali Lama was asked if he thought humanity was getting better or worse, and he said absolutely better.  He cited the fact that even 50 years ago if there was a major disaster somewhere in the world, basically the people in that region dealt with it.  Now the whole world responds.  Can you see our shared heart in the response to the Tsunami in Thailand and the earthquake in Haiti?  Can you imagine a response of the heart to the oil spill?  THAT is the evolutionary shift.  It doesn’t mean that things don’t need to be done.  We all, whether we are a person, a company, or a government need to learn from our mistakes (mis-takes).  But let us leave the fear and blame out of it.  Let us move into the new level of consciousness that works with what is unfolding in our lives rather than resisting or blaming.  For whether we see it or not, Life is in charge, and we are part of its unfolding.

I love this message from Hafiz. It so simply and eloquently points to the power and beauty of being who we truly are – which is love.

Even after all this time
the sun never says to the earth,
“You owe me.”
Look what happens
with a Love like that ~
it lights the whole world.

But how do we experience who we truly are?  I find that meditation is one of the most helpful and powerful tools for this.  I have been working with Adyashanti’s suggestion that we take time to sit quietly, look deep within and ask with great sincerity, “What am I?”  It is what I call an open-ended question because the goal is not to find an answer, but rather to let go of pre-conceived ideas so the truth of who we are can emerge in our consciousness.

Most people live in struggle most of the time. It is the “doing” mind that is always trying to get away from what it doesn’t like and get to what it does. The difficulty with this is that it is endless….and it takes us away from what we really long for, a deep and trust filled connection with life.

We are all in a birthing process – the birth from contraction and disconnection to opening and connection. And as with all births, there are contractions. But we are learning how to ride the contractions and to gather the gifts that are always there.

So the invitation is to notice tightness when it comes, (in your body, mind or heart) and when you can, take a deep breath down into your belly, then with a long slow out breath, let go.

Be present for life, right here right now, and you will begin to notice that, although challenging situations do come up in our lives, problems only exist in our minds. Can you think of an example of this in your life?

It is a great opportunity for us all to soften around life when it doesn’t bring us what we want. We are so used to making the unpleasant go away that we don’t realize how deeply this keeps us caught in struggle.

When something difficult comes along, to open to it doesn’t mean just grin and bear it. It means watching what it brings up inside of us and giving it space so it can flower and then pass away. Then we can respond rather than react.

All of these parts of our struggling selves will escape our hearts and occupy our minds again. But that to me is why we have challenges, so we can see all the parts of ourselves that are in need of our heart!!

And when we learn how to not run away from the unpleasant, we will then truly come to know that we can trust this process and we will discover that we ARE life.

This brings us back to the mantra, It’s okay, it’s all okay.

Be light, Mary

Starting here,
what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers?
What softened sound from outside
fills the air?
Listen,
will you ever be bringing a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect you carry,
wherever you go right now?
Are you waiting for time
to show you some better thought
than those you have?
When you turn around, starting here,
lift this new glimpse that you found,
carrying into evening all that you want from this day.
This interval you spent hearing this:
keep it for life.
What can anyone give you
greater than now?
Starting here,
right now in this room,
when you turn around?

William Stafford

It’s okay – it’s all okay! It really is.

The purpose of our challenges is to open our hearts, and the invitation is to cultivate the spaciousness that those words invite us into. If those words don’t work for you, feel free to experiment until you find your own.

Another key piece is the invitation to bring spaciousness to contraction. We will contract again and again, but as we begin to trust more deeply the cycle of contraction and expansion, it becomes easier and quicker to rediscover spaciousness.

May we find the spaciousness of acceptance and compassion with ourselves and with our lives.

Be light, Mary

April 1st is known as April Fool’s Day, a day for pranks and jokes. But what if the greatest joke is something that most of us don’t recognize? What if all of the struggles we have been living are just a game in our minds that cuts us off from life? What if we could truly trust life? I know that sounds like the last thing we could ever do, but I am here to tell you that it is not only possible, it is the truth!

I am not saying that there aren’t challenges in our lives because we all have them. It is the stories in our minds around our challenges that are an illusion. We deeply upset ourselves over fears about what may happen and ideas about what should or shouldn’t happen. The truth is, we are addicted to struggling with life, endlessly trying to unravel an imaginary ball of yarn while we are standing in paradise!

Author Andrew Harvey was once told by a Tibetan Lama, “When you finally see what is really going on, you will nearly die laughing!” Paradise is this living moment without any conversation attached to it. It is simply direct contact with life, which we are all deeply hungry for. Imagine getting up in the morning trusting that life is truly for you – knowing everything that happens as the day unfolds is either an invitation to be fully here with the great river of life or an experience that reveals the particular brand of struggle you are addicted to that keeps you caught in the world of your mind.

Can you feel what a relief it would be? You wouldn’t need to argue with life anymore. You wouldn’t try to control it, second guess it or even feel a victim to it. You would be fully engaged with it, letting go of the steering wheel of control. When we struggle with life, we tighten, cutting ourselves off from the joy of being alive. When we stay open to whatever comes our way, we feel exhilarated by the ride. That is the place we can live from as we see beyond our addiction to struggle and instead, open to the great adventure called life.

As you read this, your mind may be coming up with thoughts of resistance. It may even be saying that it must stay in control or nothing will happen or that bad things will happen. I know those are a very seductive ideas, but they come from our disconnection from life that stops us from noticing the great and vast intelligence that is life and its essence which is Love. Struggle will never bring us the peace we long for. Softening and opening into life will.

How do you discover that the safest thing you will ever do is show up for life as it is? Here is an invitation. When you wake up tomorrow morning, hold the intention that whatever life brings you on that day is exactly what needs to be there to release you from your struggling self and bring you back into the joy of being fully alive…fully engaged with the life you have been given.

You can also spend the day noticing that when your mind tries to control life, it inevitably tightens you – tightens your body, your mind and your heart. When you notice yourself struggling with life, take one deep breath and say to yourself, “Right now, THIS is life and it’s okay!” Know that the willingness to stop arguing with life and to stay open to it instead brings more ease into your life.

In order to stay open to life we do need to change our relationship to discomfort because many moments of our lives are challenging and even painful. More and more of us are learning how to open to the wonderful moments of life, but we haven’t been taught how to stay open in difficult times. If you are interested in exploring this further, here is a link to a chapter in my book Belonging to Life called “The Fertility of the Dark.” For now, what I can say is that our difficulties are not what they look like on the surface. Whether it is a stomach ache, heartbreak, or even a terminal diagnosis, our difficulties are doorways into the aliveness and joy we long for.

I am off to leading a retreat in Bali. I will hold you all in my heart and know that whatever comes your way is for you!

May we all be fully alive in each moment! –Mary

Being present to your experience in the moment is the first step in dealing with anxiety. What most people don’t understand is that in order to experience true peace and joy, you need to learn how to be open to it all, including the unpleasant states.

I too lived in great anxiety, and as I learned how to be with it, over time it lost its power over me.

Mindfulness of our immediate experience is the doorway.

Be light, Mary

In the light of the Haiti Earthquake, I looked for a poem that spoke to the feelings many of us are experiencing around the devastation and suffering, and chose this one by Hafiz. However we respond to this tragedy, the most important thing is to respond from an open heart.

Do Not Sink Into Sadness

Joseph the lost will return – Jacob should not sink into sadness; those who sit in the grief house will eventually sit in the garden.

The grieving chest will find honey; do not let the heart close.

The hysterical mind will find peace – do not sink into sadness.

If the way the earth revolves confounds your desires for two days, do not sink into sadness: all turning goes as it will.

I say to the bird: “As long as spring baptizes the grass, the scarlet blossoms will continue to sway over your head.”

Even if the flood…drowns everything, do not sink into sadness, because Noah is your captain.

Do not sink into sadness, even though the mysteries of the other world slip past you entirely. There are plays within plays that we cannot see…

–Hafiz

I invite you this week to explore being present for the joys of life…the little things like the quality of light in your yard, or the sound of children playing; or the taste of a juicy piece of fruit.  As we work on dissolving the bubble of struggle through the light of our compassionate attention, it is good to remember the field, and holding the intention for opening to the little joys of life is one of the best ways to do this.

At the same time, I invite you to work with tightness. Any tightness, whether it is physical, emotional or mental, is a sign that you are in the bubble of struggle. When you notice it, simply let it go.

If it doesn’t let go, another option is to bring the breath to an area of your body that is tight (there will always be a physical tightening that accompanies mental and emotional tightening.) In the beginning, you gently touch it with your breath from the inside out. Then, if this tightness is willing, gently open it with your breath.

May you be curious about and responsive to any tightening, and may you be open to the little joys in your life throughout this week.