Beauty Is Not Victory...

                                                    Morihei Ueshiba, Founder of the Martial Art of Aikido

Indeed, these are very troubling and challenging times... but, these are the exact times in which we are living... therefore, they present us with any number of opportunities to practice... do they not?

But, practice what, one might ask? My answer, though but one word, is quite complex... my word is beauty... Beauty, obviously, contrasts with "ugly"... attractiveness contrasts with the "unattractive"... harmony and grace contrast with "discord and harm"... and compassion and silence contrast with "cruelty and oppression"... and so on and on it goes... There are always opportunities to practice, do you see?

​Here's the hidden wholeness that lives within practice: to engage in effective practice is to reduce the distance between the many opposites of our world: our practice is to become the bridge that brings about the possibility of beauty, not victory; of harmony and festival, not anger and conflict...

​Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of the martial art of Aikido, taught: As soon as you concern yourself with the "good" and "bad" of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter... When you bow deeply to the universe, it bows back... Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train... Our times are profoundly embedded in the accumulated rage that automatically comes with our judgment of every "other", a general despisal of the humble, and a projection of "heaven" to be "elsewhere"... It is apparent to me (as I sit at my desk, looking out into the barren trees of the forest behind our house, and in the warming comfort of both loving and hot tea) that we must begin to cultivate the humility of our religion and genuinely practice the lessons their founders brought to us... In other words, cut the religious crap, and start to fucking be kind... 

​[There was a very long period of time in which it would have been rather audacious of me to use the word fucking, even if it was coupled with a wholly holy bit of sagacious advice... Not so anymore! I haven't any idea has to how many more days I will wake up to, and, I've long left behind the "directors" and "bosses" who needed me to fit into their requirement (judgment) systems... But, freedom is rooted in personal responsibility: I answer only to my conscience now, and, of course, also to those with whom I live in a mutual pledge of love... And I see that it is an everyday kindness that is the bridge of our cultural differences...]

​Isn't it the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you? 

​In the Aikido sense, it is the practice of shifting one's being into the conditioned state of balance: opponents always strive for victory by destroying the balance of those they want to defeat: when one is firmly (loosely) centered in a natural balance: one is flexible, one is creative, and one is free: free to change the rules even! Free to be audacious and cunning! Free to surprise and even walk away... This is the Tao... This is the Beatitude Way... This is the Wild Woman Way...

Since this is Advent, let's briefly consider the audacity of the Divine One: yes, work with the incarnational myth of the Christ: a King was expected: what did they get instead? A baby in the food-box prepared for the goats... A dominating power was desired: what did they get instead? A rEvolutionary-Wild-Woman proclaiming the day of liberation for the poor and oppressed... And what could we get, if we followed the audacity of the Divine One with some of our own? 

​It's right there, in the words of the Babe All Growed Up: the Kingdom of Heaven is within you! The Kingdom of Heaven is right under your feet! Instead, we are shitting predatory capitalism all over the reality of the Kingdom! We sell weapons of mass destruction to anyone with the cash to buy! Our big-city police are now mercenary armies! And hunger stalks much of the Planet, while a few of us struggle with obesity and waste! And yet, and yet, the still promised Kingdom is right under our feet...

Whether through the words of Jesus or of Morihei Ueshiba, we are invited to apply our sacred practice: in our homes, in our neighborhoods, and in our nations: the boundaries of the Kingdom are the limits of our imaginations... "practice" means to enter into the Expanded Consciousness of the Holy Oneness that knows no boundaries... as St. Maximilian Kolbe said: "love without limits"... Aikido. Beatitude. Revolutionary Grace. The Audacious King / Queendom: right here, right now: only a possible practice away!