Out Beyond Ideas...

                   A favorite family photo, from a few years ago, taken of us while exploring the Apostle Islands.

I couldn't have imagined, as the saying goes, in a million years, the stupifying wonder I have experienced in this little family! On the left is Donovan: he is already a writer: stories (books) flow out of him like magic: indeed, he is a magician... On the right is Devin: he is an artist: magical, comical, and other-worldly comic art is the talent he has been gifted with: but more, he is the most empathetic soul one could imagine. And they are both now as tall (probably taller) than me! My little sweetheart, Rose of Sharon, has grown about eight inches since this photo! She, like her brothers, is a wonder: a dancer, a dreamer, a creative, and a lover-without-measure...

​And then there is the radiant one, the Bringer: bringer of "what a difference", bringer of kindness, of laughter, of wit, of deep conversation, and of sagely wisdom... In a long-ago era, she would have been a shaman, a medicine-woman, a priestess... Now, she is "just" a Goddess... I wonder everyday how it was that she chose to rescue the beaten-dog of me... my Michelle... For anyone, desiring of building your own sacred life, it is of fundamental importance that you "Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames." (Rumi) Somehow, this fire-seeking has been the one constant in my life...

​To "set your life on fire" is to find your place in this wild world. And your place has to include those who fan your flames... Long-ago, we humans most often gathered together in tribes... we lived close... we practiced work, play, mating, parenting, feeding, and protecting one another, sort of like a big extended family... This is exactly what we all need! Sure, there are hermits and outcasts of one sort or another, but that which fans our flames are intentional communities (friends and family): with similar passions, commitments, dreams, and possibilities...

​"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there." (Rumi) Here, Rumi is inviting us into a brand new way of thinking, believing, and of relating to one another and to the world in which we live. It is called nonduality... A child has to differentiate in order to come to a basic understanding of self and surrounding world... but to live forever conditioned by differentiation, is to choose life in a prison instead of a life of freedom! Only when in the field, can there be a recognition that there is something beyond both belief and unbelief, beyond male and female, and beyond every difference that defines the prison-mind... 

​Out beyond ideas, beyond knowing and unknowing, is the Light: not the light that is separate from the dark: but a light that incorporates the dark into an intended Oneness... Words can only approximate (and very poorly, at that) this wonder... We must thank the quantum physicist and mystic both for their similar discoveries: there is only Energy and Consciousness... and the Flow... in the Evolutionary Quest for Self-Awareness... For a while, we are energy and consciousness (on a "microscopic" scale, of course) in pursuit of the very same thing: indeed, there is Aha! no difference! And! this quest keeps on going into the biggie realization: every "other" (whether thing, creature, or person) is  yourself in disguise!  (Doesn't this make the raping of our home Planet, racism, sexism, nationalism, and every other profitable division clearly understood as utterly stupid?) 

​Rumi offers this as a working definition of what it means to be a human being, a person: "You are the universe in ecstatic motion!" Now, combine that definition of person with this: "Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah!" Right there, you have a self-definition with a life-challenge! Inevitable indifference turns out to be little more than a hic-cup: everything gets interesting with a nod to the impossible!

​Happy happy happy Everyday! It is possible!