Life if like a box of cho - no, I’m just kidding. Actually, I think life is a lot like a Geometry problem. Perhaps that’s why, for the first time in my life, in 10th grade, I was one of the top two math kids in my grade.  - But my Algebra I teacher would have been absolutely stunned (as was I!) to see me in that position.
In Geometry, you have some information that is already given to you, with which you need to solve your equation. It’s always enough to do the job, though at first it may not appear to be so.  Like life, you say?  I agree!

And as in Geometry, some equations have you solve for angle AB, in another equation, while the degree of angle AB is one of the pieces of information you are already given, in order to solve a different problem.  So we’re all like that.  One person’s given is another person’s problem!

For some, patience may be a given - they’re almost born with it.  Patience, for me -well, that was definitely something I was solving for; and it has been hard-won.

It’s easy to judge others for what is so easy for us.  “What is her problem??” we’ve all thought.  Maybe we should take that question literally, as her problem is obviously something different than yours is.

When we judge others, we’re assuming they began with the same set of givens!  My friends in college liked to call me “bass-ackwards”, pig-latin for the fact that I generally tended to be going in a direction that no one else was going in. (I had started in a place that none of my friends had gone to yet. I began life with the givens of knowing that materialism alone would never make me happy, and have always known that I was not my body. I was uncomfortable with materialism, mistakenly assuming that if I took it on, I’d be lost in it, like everyone else I saw!)

These kinds of opposite directions - you and I learning what the other already knows - makes it easy to misunderstand and judge each other. Those born with perfect health, for example, often have a hard time understanding the reality of  someone born with serious health complications. Those born with wealth often have a hard time understanding what it’s like for someone who begins life with a negative family bank balance.

Just remember:  the person you want to teach probably also has something to teach you. (Right back at ya!)  Look for it!

Years ago, I attended a Remote Viewing workshop.  My (then) sweetheart’s idea. He thought it would be an interesting way to bridge our worlds.  The experience, however, did nothing of the sort.

Unfortunately for me, early in the day we were given the Buddah as our “target”.  Tuning in to this target, as instructed, I was immediately engulfed in a luminousity, an expanded, enlightened Consciousness  (Oops! that part was not instructed).

Moved and increasingly expansive myself, I went to the instructor with my guess:  Jesus. 

Not understanding that I had experienced the target, rather than gotten objective information about the target, his reply was simply, “No. Go try again.”

With further contact, the feeling, the experience, of course grew.  I didn’t know what to say.  “An angel?”  was my next guess.  And again, “No,” was the response.

He sent me back to my paper, filled with tables and grids.  I was, by then, in such a NoN-analytical state that I could no longer even pretend to perform the (highly analytical, highly mental) exercise.  Soon it was time for our lunch break, but I knew I would not be returning.  This just wasn’t working for me.

My brilliantly analytical (computer genius) boyfriend was embarrassed at my behavior (I was in tears by this time).  To the others in the room, I must have seemed like I was crying because I hadn’t gotten the answer right.

I didn’t blame my sweetheart, nor the instructor.  Their experience did not include mine.  How could they know what it felt like to be told that I should go from my experience of touching Enlightenment, of being engulfed in Oneness, that I should return to my desk. Return to some cerebral, linear process and do it “right”. SO many years later, I was being told, again, that my experience was not Valid.

This time, however, I was an adult, and simply chose not to continue the process.

I suppose it’s not surprising that Remote Viewing, developed in secrecy for military purposes, would not have a mindframe capable of understanding a mystic.  To them, Gautama Buddah is an historical figure, nothing more.  Facts, such as his country of origin, would have been a partially correct answer, as would physical characteristics.  If I’d drawn a picture recognizable as the Buddah, I’d have been RIGHT.  Experiencing the Buddah as if I were in his presence, or as if I were the Buddah, well, that just was never a part of their expectation, and appeared - from their perspective - to be the wrong answer.

We all need to honor our gifts, our way of moving through the world.  They’re not all the same, and there’s a reason for that! I honor the scientific - I love the world of quantum mechanics, technology, computers…  It doesn’t however, always love (or understand) me!

Sometimes change is a good thing.

While talking with a dear friend of mine, I discovered that this 82-yr.-old had lived through some serious changes.  And not the kind you might automatically image.  You might be imagining the loss of innocence, the loss of a simple life.  No, in this case, the direction is quite the opposite.

Looking at this gentle man, I watched as he told a story of having to kill his pet golden retriever’s puppies - all healthy, all 13 of them.  How brutal that sounds to me today!  As a 12-yr-old, it was the norm, what any struggling farm family would have done, he said.  This was confirmed by two elder friends, who nodded, listening, unshocked.   Yet today, my friend had tears on the brims of his eyes as he told the tale of blowing the life right out of these gorgeous pups.

“i will never again kill a dog,” he proclaimed, his Adam’s apple moving with emotion.  Mores and values are different today, and not always in a bad way.

HERE”S ANOTHER ONE for you:

When I lived in Ashland, Oregon, a year came and went which saw the population - and property values - grossly altered by serious earthquakes in California.  Up came the retirees, with their inflated pensions and savings, altering forever the landscape, and to some degree, the lifestyle, of this spectacular and special town.  Complaining about the changes became common conversation, but I couldn’t help but remember that the KKK once paraded down the main street of a VERY different Ashland, one that we wouldn’t have wanted to live in.

And it’s all CHANGES.

It’s easy with the recent purging of B!sh and Ch*#ney to think that we always are open to, and appreciate the possibilities of change.  But we don’t.

Sometimes it takes perspective.

This past October / November, I had approximately 3 weeks of steady bliss.  It seemed no matter what happened (or didn’t happen), I went to sleep blissful, woke up blissful, and noticed during the day a constant calm, a due-to-nothing joy.  It occurred to me then that Mona Lisa’s smile may have been one of silent, pervasive bliss.

It would certainly explain our fascination with her.  “She has a secret”, they say.  Perhaps it’s the secret of lasting contentment and peace, the secret of inner bliss.  I’ve been the keeper of that secret before - for a few days, for a week, for two… And every time, I’ve thought - and hoped! - that maybe this time it would be permanent.  When you’re “there”, it feels so familiar, so right.  It becomes hard to imagine the pain of losing it yet again.  Enlightenment, after all, is normal.

Well, Mona Lisa’s smile has come and gone, yet again.  December’s stresses, some of which I’m now rebounding from, make my recent weeks of unbending bliss seem rather distant.  But I know that they’re not.  Mona Lisa’s still smiling silently on my inside, and someday she’ll be my permanent exterior, a result of my permanent experience.  I won’t hold my breath for that, of course, and neither will you.  We’ll proceed as best we can, accepting what is before us, accepting what is true.  Someday that truth will be unchanging.  For today, it is not.

I’ve been reading Ram Das’ book, Still Here.  Wise, candid, and poignant.  Timely, too, as I recently flirted with death.  Shirley’s death, to be more precise.  She was expected to die any day. I spent two weeks with this 94-yr.-old, annointing her as they did in the Bible, her favorite book.  Discussing who she’d be reunited with.  Confessing her regrets.  I told her I could see God through her when we met, she was that translucent, that ready to go.  And now, 4 weeks later, she’s still here.  But stubborn again.  She’s lost her glow.

Shirley taught me about attachment - - again!  I wanted her to die with, or in, a sacred air.  SHE wanted to “die with her pants on”, wanted to be in control, even if it meant dying from an unnecessary fall while she tried to be independent one last time.  I found it so much less attractive, her behavior, but what really WAS less attractive was my judgement of the way she chooses to leave us.

I’m grateful for Shirley’s teaching, happy to have been part of her preparation for death.  And I’m even happier (though disappointed, as well!) to have been shown that I have yet one more attachment.

Thank you, Shirley - - and good-bye.  

Love, Shanti

Last week I was writing an email to people in power, pleading for justice.  We all do that; these days there are many serious issues to plead about!  In closing my email, I found myself signing it, “In Humanity”.

I then realized, with a start, that its opposite - inhumanity -  is only a pause, only a breath away.  A space, or breath stands between the two words.  That pause….  So very essential!

When the mind is Silent - paused - we find our connectedness.  From this point of compassion, where is no them, no me, it is not possible to act in a way that is inhumane!  What is natural - and effortless!, from that vantage point, is to act in, or with, humanity. This is the value of meditation, of prayer, and other practices encouraging mindfulness.

We’ve all heard the wise maxim, “What you put your attention on, grows”.  So, at the time of celebrating Harvest, grow Compassion.  Grow humanity.  Grow in Silence, through whatever practice works for you!  It is truly a worthy endeavor.
With much Love -

and In Humanity -
Shanti Mai

Unlike so many Americans with African roots, Barack Obama is lucky to know which country his family hails from.  It’d be like knowing merely that you were European…  Italian?  Portugese.  Belgian?  Finnish! Scottish?  Not many of us would be comfortable with such vague information.

When I was in 5th grade, a relative of my father’s - perhaps a 2nd cousin, we were not at all a close family - sent us a request for information; she was doing a family genealogy. I was very intrigued, and offered to help her.  Sadly, she broke my heart by sending me a very condescending letter. What she didn’t know was that, 14 years later, I would solve the mystery that ended up stumping her.   At the time of publication, her volume left a mystery:  was the “John Harrington” on the neighboring lot indeed the father, the next link to the past?  At this point, due to a lack of paperwork proof, that strain of the Harrington tale “ended”.

For myself, I wondered why no one tried to start from the other end - to start where Harringtons started and see if they could find evidence bringing a John Harrington to that town in that time…

I forgot all about that thought until, at age 25, newly arrived in Ireland, my brand-new map in my hand, I became transfixed (without a thought in my head) with a little island off the coast of County Cork:  Bere Island. Nearly a week later, having gone to a music festival and traveled around a bit, I claimed Dublin as my own town.  Told a new friend about my neat and mysterious experience with Bere Island, to which he said, “Well sure, that’s where the Harringtons are!”  and proceeded to bring out his phone book, which actually included the professions of at least some of the listings.  The first one he showed me was (first name?) Harrington, ferryman. For a small island, there were lots of Harringtons.  I knew that, though there were lots of Harringtons in England, that my family was Irish.  Several visits to England had never brought any feeling of familiarity, had solved no personal mysteries. Discovering the Irish connection really did. (More about that later in a later post!)

It was like my cells recognized their own roots.  So….  Intuitive - or genetic?  Who cares, really?  It was a deeply confirming experience.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s like the question about the chicken and the egg.  It’s irrelevant really, which came first:  What’s important is the connection between them.  And that’s what you get when you know your roots.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi used to compare meditation with pulling the arrow back on the bow:  pulling the arrow in the  opposite direction prepared it for stronger, more focused action later.   My time in San Francisco was like that.  There was time spent with my powerful (and beloved!) daughter, Sophia, being an integral part of her life and budding art career (www.sacredmuse.com), but, other than that, it was time spent pulling the arrow back on the bow:  not much looked like it was happening.

Now, back in Washington, called back by the siren’s song of Seattle and, indeed, the entire Puget Sound (it’s quite a chorus!), I see the results of the apparent “nothing” I was doing in San Francisco.  During my last night there, spent in Sophia’s tiny studio apartment, I hardly slept. Blissful, divine energy pumped through me and a renewed life-focus strongly resurfaced, clarified and intense.  The frustration of San Francisco, the backward-seeming time spent there had resulted in a strenghtening of my resolve to be free, to spread freedom - - and to become a stronger beacon of darshan, which required a deeper surrender.  I gave it.  I gave it my all, and cried in bliss and gratitude.

Everything had been increasing in “juice”, in flow, as I had approached my return to Washington state.  The wind was perfectly positioned at my back; suddenly every move I made resulted in three steps forward instead of just one. The “backward” steps I’d been taking in SF, where every forward attempt resulted in the reverse direction, was suddenly paying off.

So - Don’t assume you know what is happening.  …And when you want to lock into judgement of what is - or is not - occuring, remember those times when, with the broader perspective of time and experience, you’ve been grateful for what, at the time, seemed like cold, hard knocks! God invented tough love!!

A couple of my friends impressed me today. One of them was 845 miles away, yet managed to send me a Skype message by thinking about me.  Didn’t touch her Skype account, yet a message came in from her account! Okay, the “voice message” was very short, and had no voice, but she wasn’t even trying to send me a psychic message, or anything of the sort - just merely thinking about me. Interesting - and impressive.

The second friend called me as the bus I was on was at the stop at 9th and Mission (in SF), asking me if I wanted to go to the Asian Art Museum, saying that she had an extra ticket.  When she asked where I was, she said, “Get off!  Get off!”  So, trusting her, I did, and proceeded to call the Muni information number when I got off the bus at the next stop, 7th and Mission.

Muni said, “Walk up to 9th St. and turn right. It’s two blocks from that intersection.” She’d suddenly had a strong feeling that she should call me and ask if I wanted to go, and she did so JUST AS I WAS AT THE RIGHT BUS STOP.

From my side, I’d left the Zen Center (having never been there, and heading from there to an unfamiliar part of town), turned my phone on, and gotten on the very first bus I saw!  Then I called Muni info to ask if I was heading in the right direction… 

- And, as we have seen, I was!

We talked, then, about synchronicity, and her view is the same as mine:  That, if you’re in the moment, following the flow of the present moment, you are in the right place at the right time, you are the thread properly placed in the cloth on the loom, not the thread twisting around, running at cross purposes with the whole.

Like many of you, I’d felt that I’d lost this connectedness for a while. It was delightful and reassuring for it to begin all over again. THIS is the way I know Life to be.

I heard an interesting herbal talk on the radio a few days ago, naming herbs it would be good to take during this time of stress for all of us here amongst the wildfires of northern California. The speaker mentioned not just the damage to our lungs, but also the emotional and mental stress involved: Our senses are receiving the message, non-stop, that danger is present.

I heard this when the sky was finally beginning to show a little blue after weeks of the odd, unhealthy grey of distant wildfires, and when the stagnation I and those close to me had been experiencing for several weeks (all during the burning) had begun to lift, to shift. The sun was again visible, and my dreams had become very strong and clear. A gentle mist arrived, and it seemed to lift with it our life-gridlock. Decisions suddenly became obvious, seemed to nearly “make” themselves.

We forget, sometimes, to consider how external influences affect our day-to-day experiences emotionally. The ancients knew that they were intimately connected to their environment. In another place, another time, we would have had no question of whether it was “just me”, or whether it was the weather, the environment; there would have been no illusion of distinction or separation between the two!

And now, care to join me in a cup? Licorice root? Mullein, anyone?