1) How did you celebrate the New Year?
A couple of friends from out of town and I got together for afternoon tea (high tea), without too much of a plan about what we were going to do after. For hours we talked, ate, drank tea, reminisced, drank tea, ate some more, laughed a lot. Much, much later, in fact, long after the waiter had dropped off the check (hint, hint), and well after people had started showing up for the 6 o’clock dinner setting, and probably even after some folks had finished their dinners and left, we decided to check out the Imax for the final gigantic-screen showing of Polar Express. A dry New Year’s Eve, huh, you might be thinking. But no, it was not dry at all. Besides the tea, well, there was the rain that arrived right around the time we pulled into the parking lot of the theatre. We were glad enough for the rain, we all agreed we’d seen enough of snow for one winter.

2) What new thing(s) do you want to do this year?
I want to start a new business, a (on/offline) workshop that utilizes journal- or journal-style writing/creating as a tool for healing old wounds, old stories, to create a space for individuals to uncover or rediscover the unique voice that is theirs in the world.

3) What is one (or two!) of your goals for 2009?
I hope to travel more, to clear off all debts, to bring my writing to a new level, to make myself more felt in the world.

4) What do you wish for the world?
I used to long for peace in the world, but now I wish for clarity. I would like people everywhere to step back from their stories about themselves and about the world, about how they got to where they are, about who did what to whom. I wish for them the gods’ eye view that is available when we remember to look past the obvious, past the ego, past the pain.

5) What do you hope to nourish in your own life?
Acceptance of what is. Patience with process. Continuity. The ability to live so authentically and with such grace that each now moment glides seamlessly into the next.

Besides everything, you mean?

I have the hardest time asking for help.

I find it a lot easier to be on the giving end of help than on the receiving end. I expect it’s because I don’t like to show my vulnerable side. And I’ve always prided myself on being able to do for myself, to figure things out, to learn by doing. What I miss out on there is the human element, the connectivity, the give and take of everyday living.

Answers to questions like: What changed in your life? What was your process, exactly? What steps did you take? How did you get from there to here?

Around the beginning of the end of our relationship, my ex used to say, accusingly: You’re changing. I’m not, I would protest. I really didn’t feel it, didn’t know what he meant, not on a conscious level. Later still, he told me once, with tears in his voice: You’re going somewhere and you’re not taking me with you. Now, several years after we split up, he begs me to let him in on my secret: Please tell me, I want to go there too.

I try, I honestly do, to share what I can of my process, even though he interrupts me time and again with little resistances: I don’t believe in god, I don’t this, I don’t that. You don’t have to believe anything, I’ll say to him. You just have to open yourself up to you. Change is an inside job. It's not a veneer that can be applied on the outside, as if by some contract house painter you hire.

This is the thing, these internal processes sometimes defy being spoken about in human physical languages. And perhaps there’s a reason for that. I might say something like: it started with the two most important people in my life dying unexpectedly when they (and I) were in their late twenties to mid thirties. But then again, those were only triggers, weren’t they? And in a manner of speaking, I summed up everything that matters in my 6-word memoir. But as to specifics of the path I took (or that took me)? The process is an internal one, and therefore a unique and individual one for each seeker. If I could tell you exactly what I did, what happened, how I got out of that into this, etc, you might think, oh, if I do that I’ll get there too. No. You have your own path, your own way, the trick is not to follow what someone else has done, it’s to follow what your heart is urging you to do. Go within, that's where the answer lies.

Whoever Brought Me Here

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.

This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

—Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks)

I offer you peace.          
I offer you love.          
I offer you friendship.          
I see your beauty.          
I hear your need.          
I feel your feelings.          
My wisdom flows from the Highest Source.          
I salute that Source in you.          
Let us work together for unity and love.         

–Mahatma Gandhi, Prayer for Peace         

For many years I believed suffering was God’s punishment for wrong-doing or -being and had to be endured. After a while it occurred to me that I invented my own suffering, perhaps originally to punish myself for being *bad* (or different), for my seeming inability to fit into the mold that was set out for me to grow up in. Suffering was both penance and indulgence, in a manner of speaking. I hated it and somehow welcomed it at the same time.

It seems to me that the value in suffering is in its role as an arrow, its straight, true, honest way of pointing me in the direction where I should look if I want to understand my pain, to heal myself: You’re suffering? Look here (where you feel it). When I observe closely my own suffering, I see that it’s nudging me to move, to get off my position (literally and/or figuratively), to get unstuck. But only if I want to be whole. And in a way I have to make friends with the pain, not wallow in it, not indulge (in) it, not use it for my own ends.

You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation - and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else. (Hermann Hesse)

For me,  this question is partly about whether I believe in my own pain. When I really look at it, I’d say, no, I don’t. Even as I’m suffering it, I see it as an illusion of sorts, a means to an end maybe; I see it as self-imposed in a way, as what I said above, a pointer. I don’t necessarily see other people’s pain that way. My way is my way, their way is theirs; I can really only speak for myself.

1) What do you think is beautiful about the Earth?
Oh man, that is the toughest question. How about everything? Okay, oceans, mountains, trees, people. Stars, rainbows, aurora borealis. The endless variety, how could anyone get bored?

2) What animal(s) do you think are beautiful?
Dolphins. Horses! My neighbour’s shiatsu-something cross, so adorably growing out of puppyhood.

3) What are your favorite flowers?
Rhododendrons, roses, peonies, bluebells, pansies, Christmas cactus, oh who can decide?

4) Do you like to watch sunset or sunrise?
Yes! I think I’m more awed by sunsets, but then, I’ve seen more of them than sunrises, not being much of an early morning person.

5) What makes your life more beautiful?

Friends, words and the spaces between, beautiful music, dancing…

1) What do you love to do in your free time?
Math and logic puzzles, especially Japanese. I’m a bit of an addict actually. :)

2) What music helps you relax?
Jazz, jazz fusion, Indian classical.

3) What movie did you enjoy recently?
The Polar Express (Imax).

4) Who makes you laugh?
Rick Mercer, in a wry sort of way, because if you can’t laugh about Canadian politics these days you’re sunk. Proper belly laughs, on the other hand, come at unexpected moments, could be something you say or write; could be some odd news story; could be just me in a silly mood, something I hear striking me funny (I got the best laugh from something my ex said on Xmas Day, unfortunately he didn’t see the humour in it). Ah, of course I laugh at myself too.

5) Where do you go/ do to recharge?
Mostly I walk, preferably in treed areas or along the waterfront, interacting with folk I meet along the way, occasionally parking my butt on a bench to enjoy the view.

What is there to know or understand that the soul doesn’t already know, the heart understand, without words to complicate?

You are the truth from foot to brow.
Now, what else would you like to know?

-- Rumi

In my life I have given far too much credence to other people’s opinions. And if they didn’t offer them, I still spent way too much time worrying about what they would say if they knew I was thinking of doing whatever it was I was thinking of doing.

I have also overvalued knowledge, looking for answers outside myself. And after all that, where do I find them? When I’m sad and alone and quiet, wondering where, oh where did I go wrong, I hear a small voice: Did you ever think to look here?

And security is another thing I've placed too much importance on (though now that I’m getting older I sometimes wonder if maybe I didn’t value it enough? :)  The thing about overvaluing security is, it has a sneaky way of keeping you from doing what you were born to do, or at least, what you’d much rather be doing than what you feel you have to do to survive. That's why you see all the bumper stickers: I’d rather be writing, sailing, a millionaire, at peace... Here’s one I saw recently:

Or how about these?:

I’D RATHER BE BEING (THAN DOING).

I’D RATHER BE IN THE MOMENT.

I'D RATHER BE IN THE KNOW. (I may have seen that one too)

I'D RATHER BE TAKING RISKS. (! uh huh)

I'D RATHER BE WHO I AM!

Where am I going with this? Well, it seems to me that the more I allow myself to live in the moment, the more likely it is that I’ll be guided to do what I’d rather be doing, or be what I’d rather be. Maybe I’m dreaming? What's your opinion? :)

We must become ignorant
Of all we’ve been taught,
And be, instead, bewildered.

Run from what’s profitable and comfortable
If you drink those liqueurs, you’ll spill
The spring waters of your real life.

Forget safety.
Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation.
Be notorious.

I have tried prudent planning
Long enough, from now
On, I’ll live mad.

--Rumi

War.

That we still act as if war is the most viable solution to problems at personal and world levels and any/everywhere in between.

That we haven't yet gotten that making war to end conflict not only can't work, it doesn't even make sense.

Why we find it necessary to fight for what we think is right in the first place, as if our view (on religion, politics, morality, on anything) is the only possible way to look at things.

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. (Albert Einstein)