Life is but a Dream, 1Sept2011

So, there's this Reader's Digest contest, Give us the 'Reader's Digest version of some event in Your Life, and do it in 150 words or less, and if we pick you (no criteria identified) you can win $25,000.  I thought,"That would be cool.  I wonder what story I could tell from my life that is short, sweet and to the point "(i.e. could be told in 150 words or less).  I let the question simmer overnight and this is what came up.

Everyone has a song.

Several years ago I came to the Arizona desert to study with a Native American.  One of the ceremonies we did at the conclusion of one of the weeks was to sing 'our song' to Grandfather Mountain.  I'm not a singer.  In fact, I'm pretty shy.  I dreaded this activity all week and wondered what song I knew well enough to feel comfortable singing out loud, loudly enough to be heard across the valley.  When it was time for the ceremony, I still didn't know what I was going to sing.  When it was my turn, I got very quiet inside, meditating.  The song that floated up in my consciousness was "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."  I laughed out loud.  What a perfect song for me to sing.  Indeed, Life is but a Dream.

Let It Be, Let It Be...

I'm a doer by nature.  So the notion of just being still, and letting things happen on their own is not completely 'natural' to me.  Yesterday I had the marvelous gift of being able to just sit on the shaded patio of a friend's beautiful house and just stare off into the distance at the mountains, the desert, and the building cumulus clouds of what would later become last night's yummy rains.  To not have to do anything, be anything, have anything, other than that moment of now was totally delicious.  It wasn't silence -- there were kids splashing and laughing in the pool, a bit of ukelele music on the I-Thing and conversation going on at a nearby table.  For a long moment, it was like all my gears disengaged and I was coasting without any effort.  I was sitting peaceably and contented, not thinking about anything, just being.  Nice.


That moment reminded me of the bliss of a morning meditation -- the internal stillness, the spaciousness, the allowing, the ease and the penultimate trust that all is well with the world and nothing at all was needed from me.


All is well.