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Living Deeper

Everything Counts

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Every Step Counts

As I said in my introduction, I think one of the biggest lies of this life is that all its really meaningful moments are big events: getting married, touring Europe, having a baby, playing the palace, or making executive manager. For many of us unless we can point to something really substantial happening to us every week we have no idea we’re living at all!

Isn’t that why we idolize movie stars, football players and rock singers? It isn’t just the fact that they might have talent; it’s that we are enamored of their lifestyle. We spend time fanaticizing about what it must be like to live the grand life, a life of largess so spectacular and exciting. So, if we’re on the talk show circuit, our life has been validated. The rest of us are just wanna-bes, what’s left behind when the shiny ones step up on the platform of public acknowledgement. Then there’s the  inevitable confusion when we read about one coming home and taking a bottle of pills to end it. Are they trying to tell us something? I don’t consider the famous that fortunate. Most of them have very little private time and they lose the thread to their own heart.

Real life is all that stuff in between big events and most of our time is spent there. Day to day life, that’s what really interests me because it’s where the meaning is. It’s the pith and the point of it all. Yet, we have very little respect for every day life at the moment. It’s considered small and trivial.

I am passionate about daily life, connecting the dots of one mundane moment to the next, all I’ve seen to what I’ve read to who I am today and then watching it all play out in my world. Being able to ask myself: “Did I do that well?” “What do I think about that? Can I do it better next time?” The conscious awareness that every intention, every step I take, carries in it the face of my future, is a constant source of fascination.

Each moment of every day holds a challenge to know myself. A chance to try and:

  •  Be totally honest without hurting anyone’s feelings
  • Take responsibility for my choices and actions
  • Allow everyone else to be who they are
  • Relate to others on a meaningful level
  • Face a fear by doing something I avoid
  • Create without anxiety
  • Keep my balance emotionally, mentally, and physically
  • Heal the past
  • Value all that I have
  • Change what I don’t like about myself
  • Learn to accept what is hard-wired into my psyche
  • Nurture my physical body to stay healthy

These goals can be extremely challenging, more than enough to keep me busy or engaged in my life. Everyone has their own list of course. Someone else’s challenges might look quite different from mine. All we need is a little self- knowledge and we know right away what to place on our list.

What we do and say that day can be weighed against our list. However, I don’t feel too bad if I blow it today. There’s always tomorrow! I am not perfect. The list isn’t supposed to stress me out or undermine my confidence. It’s something to aspire to, not a way to punish myself. It should be almost fun.  Life is just a constant challenge to get it right. When we have a day where we’ve met some of our personal goals it’s the equivalent of winning an award. Other people may not realize what we’ve done, but we sure do.

Besides, going through a day meeting everyone’s eyes can be like climbing Mount Fuji to someone who’s shy. Strapping on some downhill skis despite your fear of heights pushes some people way beyond their borders. Giving up your wants in favor of a friend’s is tantamount to getting the key to the executive washroom when you’re inclined to be a bit self-centered. You’ve just earned a personal promotion and don’t it feel good?

We have no role models for this kind of activity in America, our culture admires people for what they can do or have done, not who they are. There is no expectation of honor or integrity that the people in the limelight must live up to, nothing internal they must be…to be admired. As long as they can pass that football, every bad boy jerk in the world gets his photo on the cover of Time. In fact it makes for better copy if they are less than savory, or even downright obnoxious!

Things that really give life meaning don’t necessarily garner recognition like diplomas or letters tacked to the end of a name. The attainment of some pinnacle of outward success is meant to be the icing on an already richly layered cake. It is the process that is important, not the results. That’s why winning the lottery doesn’t resolve a life automatically making that person happy for the rest of their life.

The not-so-measurable achievements of keeping pure of heart in a corrupt world, holding onto integrity while those in authority reward dishonesty, treachery, and greed or trying to get what I want without further polluting the environment or disrespecting another’s space is quite enough of a power-trip for me.

It does follow that as we change and grow and move ahead psychologically our outside life catches up and reflects that, but not immediately. The process may take years. It doesn’t mean those years are wasted, that they aren’t important. Just because we don’t have anything tangible to show for it so far, there’s no need to panic. The growth may all be internal. It all counts, every step: everything counts.

Of course if you can recall every plot line of Desperate Housewives and the names of all the microbrews you’ve tried this year, perhaps you are wasting your time and need a change, but as long as you have an intention is to live it well, a good life is almost guaranteed.

When I look back on last year, it isn’t just about what I’ve done. Sure, it feels good to see things happening, to see the tangible results of hard work. Bragging rights are fun, but the true work and the best accomplishments always take place inside of me. The best results are measured by how much satisfaction I now get from my life. Hopefully, I am getting smarter, braver, and kinder: that’s what will lead me to experience more joy and satisfaction!

Nothing is wasted, everything counts. With or without outward recognition, when lived with intention, with vision, and in detail, every-day life is the most heart thumping, emotionally exhausting, head crazy thing there is. It’s a ride and if we’re living it right, it’s an E-ticket one.

All Text and Photos are Copyrighted 2012 CLCW

Living Deeper

The Importance of Vision

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February 2007

“…Live the life you have imagined…” -Thoreau
“Be the change you wish to see in the world” -Gandhi

The second day of February is historically more than the Groundhog’s Day. On the old pastoral calendar it was the first day of spring! Now, we may have a foot of snow on the ground, but underneath the soil the seeds are stirring. When I walked out the other morning I heard the Chickadees singing “Say Phoebe” the translation of which must be something like, (among other things,) “Hey! Want to build a new life together?” Every year the hardy little birds lead us all in pushing nature’s restart button. In support of them (and breaking with tradition,) this is the time of year I am most likely to make personal resolutions or plans. This is time of year to have Vision.

For me, having Vision is an extension of being awake and aware in life. It is the simultaneous melding of accurate present circumstances with an imaginary future for the purpose of achieving my desired goals.

The first part of Vision is to periodically run reality checks on all our operations, to see things as they are in order to embrace what is really going on. To tell ourselves the absolute truth, we need some understanding of who we are, what we want and why. We don’t need to be psychic to see that when we take what has manifested around us and add our feelings and reactions to it, we project a future. It’s just like watching a movie where the leading man (or woman) has a peculiar attitude that you just know is going to propel them into certain circumstances for good or ill.

The other half of having Vision is holding onto a picture of the future as we imagine it. Where do we want to go? Picturing your life as you would like it to be means understanding who you would be in that life and that is the key to getting there. To overtake that future requires being that person right now. It is good to have some steps in mind for the journey but remember over-planning will get in the way of any unforeseen yet fortuitous happenings. We are interested in the result, not attached to the process. We must be willing to balance our idea of how we think things should happen and having faith, for the universe delights in unexpected short cuts. With that in mind have all the long range goals you want.

Now we stand back and marry both sides, asking ourselves: do they mesh? Are we headed for the future we want? Or is our Vision skewed in some way and why? What are we willing to do differently to get there?

Vision is our mooring in life, without it we drift on a tide of reaction and indifference. It’s another of those things I think is sadly lacking at the moment. We have mission statements, business models, projected sales and financial planning, but, I don’t see much Vision at work in our world, not positive vision anyway.

An example of global Vision would be for a country to have an accurate sense of the outcome on any action it may take. Governments especially, must have Vision; all good leaders should have a positive vision for what can be achieved. It’s not about who we have been but rather, what are we capable of? To be sure, always something far better than what we were. As a country called the United States: who would we like to be tomorrow? A kind-hearted people working toward peaceful coexistence? What kind of circumstances will be living with in 10 years? Prosperous and respected? Our present government never took this into account. True Vision in a governmental body organically produces responsibility for any outcome is a direct result of their viewpoint. Here, more than anywhere else we have the obligation to promote and preserve positive action at all times, preventing reckless reaction.

The ability to follow a present course of action to a thoughtful and logical conclusion is paramount. If our “leaders” could have skipped ahead to the idea that fighting, instead of working with enemies only breeds more animosity, and at the same time, held a vision of a world where countries could connect to what we have in common instead of fighting over what we don’t, well, we might all be living in a very different time.

Vision in a society or culture is seeing all the motivations that a group of people may possess in the pure light of day and then imagining, going beyond, to all possibilities of what they could be. Can they work through their fear of change, for instance, and learn to accept the variations of nature? Can they “see” a time when they are not afraid but confident and empowering to all? How will their new philosophy affect their infrastructure and their laws?

Vision in a community is being able to see how the town of Sandpoint’s present attitude can affect the way we will all live forever more. What do we want our town to look like, to feel like? We must understand how every decision we make today effects Sandpoint’s beauty, character, wealth and people for many decades to come.

At the foundation of all these though, remains Personal Vision, the most important of all. Everything begins at the individual level. To address your present attitude and circumstances with honesty and accuracy is to project a realistic result that one can study for acceptance or rejection. To then create and imagine a life experience that speaks more intensely to who you really are and what you are capable of is to see your life the way it should be and then, holding it in a stop frame use the image as a template to, like the Chickadees do, build a new life.

Living Deeper, Seasonal Savvy

Winter Solstice 2005

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The snow is piling up on Black Pine Mountain and it seems downright refreshing after the dormant dryness of last year. The dark is a bit depressing and I never get over how fast it falls. One minute it’s day and the next, the stars are out.
There is plenty of dark now; we’re approaching the longest night of the year. Since summer, the sun has been sliding south, taking the light with it, days growing shorter by the minute. On December 21, Sol reaches the farthest point south and it’s as far away as it can get from us Northerners. This explains the very long night. Meanwhile, the Australians are baking on the beach till all hours.
For centuries the Winter Solstice, or Yule, has been celebrated all over the world as a powerful yet festive time for good reason. The autumn equinox showed our ancestors a sun that was slipping away day by day and they had no assurance that it would ever return. If it kept going, they were all doomed.
By the solstice there was near panic. They needed comfort and craved some control over their destinies. So they began to develop elaborate rituals to encourage the sun’s return. They lit bonfires on the hilltops, imitating the sun’s light and heat, a way of honoring what the personal fireball did for us.
They Looked everywhere for a sign that life wasn’t completely gone and would perhaps return to full flower in time. They searched for what still might be living and green in the soil of their natural world.
The evergreens were a sign. They cut fir or pine trees and brought them into their homes in a celebratory way. If these trees were alive then surely they would have a chance also. They devised an ornament made from the trees branches, a circlet of evergreen boughs to hang on the door, this was another symbol of the sun and through sympathetic magic perhaps it could be encouraged to come back their way again.
Then, wonder of wonders the sun did return, the light was born again and all rejoiced at the Yuletide. Life on Earth would continue.
If this theme strikes you as somewhat familiar, it is. Before Jesus was a glimmer in Mary’s eye, people celebrated this life affirming holiday and revered it as a time of renewal and the moving out of darkness. When the Christian priests wanted more followers for their new religion they decided that the solstice was a good spot to place the birth of Jesus.
The symbolism was apropos and, besides everyone was partying anyway, the people might just be persuaded to celebrate Jesus instead of the Earth. I’ve been told that the Bible hints at Jesus’ actual birthday being sometime in the fall. At any rate it worked pretty well.
I think that it is important to know the true history of things so that we understand what we take for granted and why. One problem that arises in shifting the celebration from the natural world to that of a holy man is that we no longer feel we belong to our own earth. Our spiritual emphasis has become human-centered, no longer do we revere and celebrate the Earth and all that live on her.
This may seem like a (deceptively) trivial point at this time of year but having all the old celebrations of nature and the seasons removed from our psyches has helped to cut the cord of kinship with our very surroundings, snowballing into an appalling human apathy when it comes to our planet and home. How can we talk about the winter wonderland while tossing an empty beer can into it? We got control and lost the connection.
As you sit by the fire on December 24, it doesn’t matter whether you choose to celebrate Christmas or Yule. They are equally religious and beautiful holidays and past misdemeanors really don’t matter anymore. The theme is still one of bringing light into our homes and hearts and remembering to love.
Whatever your spiritual beliefs let them include one of the greatest gifts God or Goddess gave us: the earth. That said, Jesus is part of the godhead, but so is the earth – so how can we sing the praises of one and ignore or even harm the other? It makes no sense to me.
What matters this holiday season is that we choose to revere and honor all of life and the spirit of the God/Goddess inherent in it – called Jesus, the Earth or our other fellow beings.
So in that spirit, go on out and commune with some stark, yet still quite lovely scenery. The way the snow shines like a million diamonds on the hill, the color of the birds at the feeder all flutter and fancy in the still air, the whisper of a deer walking through the woods, a gentle reminder to slow down and breathe within our busy lives.
These are things we can enjoy with or without money and they bring us ever closer to a connection with the incredible life we’ve been given and the beauty of it.
When we stop and turn our attention to the natural world, and care for it, we raise our awareness of a gift we may have forgotten we have and help us to feel gratitude for who put us here. It all leads to the same place of holy reverence because we are all part of the same life force, are we not? It’s a circle, but we have to make more of an effort now, because we have no routine seasonal ceremonies to remind us of the honor we hold.
During this time of rebirth, let’s give rise to an attitude of inclusiveness, along with the love and joy, embracing not only our fellow human hearts and minds, but the others we share this planet with. For by honoring them we honor their (and our) Maker.
May the power of the season continue to inspire you throughout the year, Merry Christmas and Happy Yule.