Do It NOW!

I’m noticing how life just goes on. This feels connected to that idea of pondering what I might say (what different things might I say, and how might I say them differently, etc.) if I knew that I had 6 months…6 weeks…6 days to live.

I take so much for granted. Things like….my sons will always come home from their last outing; that my Dad will be there on Sunday for me to visit; or my Mom will be there on Saturday for us to go shopping. I take for granted that there will be another Alaska cruise with my family or that the Big Island will be there to welcome me back in April!

I am very mindful that every time my older son goes to his job in security, the he does not leave the house without my declaring that he have a safe night, and telling him that I love him. In that instance, I am very mindful that I just never really know…. Perhaps I am different in that instance because I feel the intensity attached to how he moves through his world, and match it with my own. “Do it now!’ pulses in my head, fills my heart and vibrates in my voice. I just never know….

How often have I put off doing what I care about, believing that I can do it another time? How often have I felt such strength of connection to another and not shared it? How often have I not taken the time to share the conversation I’m having with myself with the person or persons who seeded the thoughts? Being alive is in this moment. Everything else is just thinking about living

So much of how we live has become habit. Habits of thought. Habits of behaviour. Habits of belief. Words that we speak because we always have and not because they’re true or meaningful. And perhaps more profoundly, habits of intention. No wonder we keep getting what we’ve got when it never occurs to us to mindfully choose what we want! We just go about our business on automatic, allowing habits of intention to simply keep pumping out more of what’s already there. Until it’s not there anymore.

I am becoming very awake to this intensity. I’m noticing it in my self, my family, my clients…and my world. I’m noticing it in Alaska. I’m noticing it in the increasing movement of Gaia in her earthquakes, torrential rains and howling winds. I’m noticing it in the awakening volcanoes that rumble and spew ash and flow lava.

I’m noticing it in the ever-escalating presence of violence in our families, our schools, our neighborhoods and our streets. And perhaps, most of all, I’m noticing the violence that is spawned by our fights to the death to prove that my god is better than yours. Such viciousness and brutality in the name of any god!

This quiet thought sits at the back of my mind, as I watch the three-part series on CNN on 'God's Warriors': what would happen to it all if we were to discover that 'god' does not exist? What if the notion of a god - one that is not us - all started eons ago and is a story that just keeps getting told, without challenge. That we discover the only god that exists is the one that we all, already, are. We are the god we seek.

Wow…what would all the zealots do? All that investment in misery for nothing.

From all that I’ve learned in the last 30 years, I know – without a doubt – that I am god. And so is everyone else. The really important thing to pay attention to is: how does the god that I am choose to live?

Breathing is good…..