Silver and Gold

A few days ago I think: "It would be fun to find a heart blob of water on my car with all of the rain we get." Today I think: "Take a look at the roof." I didn't expect the heart to position itself in the center of a spin of planetary orbs. Nor did I expect the flash on my cellphone to go off, since I almost never use it. But voila, magical golden light. Everything orbits love.

How It Is

 

Hearts underfoot everyday. That's how it is. On the dog walk, on the way to and from my car at work, in the grocery store parking lot. I keep thinking I'll begin to pass them by without stopping, but it's become a way of documenting my life. Love here. Love here. Love is here and here and here. There doesn't seem to be anywhere love isn't. :)

And then today I was getting out of my car in the garage, balancing several things, including an open container of Choffy grounds. The cylinder slipped out of my hand and rolled under the car. I retrieved it, and then thought I'd better clean up any spilled Choffy so the dogs didn't eat it up on their next trip out, since chocolate is supposed to be very bad for them. I had a paper towel in the car, so I squished and swiped up what I could. This was the blob that was left after my squish and swipe move. I couldn't have made it if I tried. Love is here. And here. Here in our messes, here in our path and in our plans gone awry. Love is here.

My students just laugh at me when they see me crouched low over the pavement on campus. "Gee, I wonder what she's doing?" they tease. These three saw me doing just that yesterday, and said, "Look! It's a heart. It's a heart!" Aren't they fun?

It's a Love Party!

It's a love party, and you're invited!!
(in honor of "Go Dog, Go!")

I  love flowers. I love hearts. I love spring and blossoms and sunshine and opening and blessing and loving and being love in the world. I love seeing love in you and me. I love beauty. BEAUTY! So much beauty in our world. I love music and creating beauty and being beauty and loving creation and celebrating and playing. I'm in a love mood, can you tell?

I love you, too! I love that we are all the same, no matter our journey, personality, political positions, struggles, or talents. We are exactly the same - glorious expressions of this infinite, magnificent Love of creation, finding its way and its Self through every experience. I LOVE US!!! Group hug. Really big. Arms around the universe.

I saw this sweet begonia at Fessler's nursery last May, floating in a sea of beautiful blossoms. 

One of the best i-phone snaps I've had the pleasure of knowing. 

love u. :)

Just Do It

I'm walking to my car after work, crossing the little bridge between the music building and the library. "Take a picture of the Mill Stream." I look over at it. It's a rain-mucked swirl of nondescript blah, so unremarkable it's almost like nothing. Hm... "Take a picture." I've learned not to argue. I set down my bags - satchel, purse, lunchbox -  and pull out my camera.  I snap 8 or 10 shots of the water. I don't point at anything in particular, just frame it up here and there. It looks really boring on the little camera screen. I tuck it in my bag and off I go.

And then I find this in the boring nothingness - a very interesting heart surrounded by what looks like an adventure-filled, winter-wonderland of treacherous terrain. But it's just rainwater. Or the magic of miracles.

It's not much of a tale...

So last week I went through an energetic dump of attachments, a great big "trash out" day (think of attachments as invisible cords between you and other people that broker an energy exchange). Suddenly I saw myself standing in a void that stretched on forever, when just a moment before I had been in the middle of a well-defined structure. The structure had held me in place, propped me up. I had consisted of it somehow, was it. But all of those attachments were only illusions of support in my life (this makes me think of false support systems in singing, otherwise known as tensions), and now they were gone. I was free, standing in open, vast nothingness. It was so beautiful. The next day I got sick, and for three days everything in my body hurt. I asked my body what it needed and it answered, "Nothing."  Then came the awareness that every attachment we make hurts all over, both us and whoever (or whatever) we're attached to. And today, just to punctuate the punch line of this particular "story" of my life, I came across this Whinnie the Pooh quote: “It's not much of a tail, but I'm sort of attached to it.” Made me laugh so hard! I love life.

Photos from the Willamette U. campus - tree nest and rainwater pooled in the parking lot. 

Perfection

When we fully know ourselves, we know perfection, because we know God.

Hearts en route

What's in view for you today?

Pictured above:
Car rental parking lot
 Misty mountain snow heart from 35,000 feet
Ceiling light in the Jackson airport

Everything is Changing!

Isn't this funny? Here I was in the hotel in Jackson, MS, brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed on our last night here, and look what dropped in! A heart in the flow. So fun.

Lately I've been playing with the idea that everything is in motion. We think of so many things as set or given: situations in our lives, our bodies, even the way we think. But nothing stays the same, ever. It isn't even possible, because molecules themselves are in a constant state of motion and change is the nature of the universe. As I open myself up to this truth, I am having a fun time noticing that it is my response to (or thoughts about) experiences that cause the perception of fixed. And since that's just my perception, stuck/same/fixed is always optional, never given. More accurately, it's not even true!

What if you imagined your body as vibrating, flowing energy - what would be possible for you? What if you imagined your world as full of possibility through motion rather than the same old same old? What if you didn't need to experience the same thing over and over, but could flow through it and on to what's beyond that, and beyond that, and beyond that?

Each time I bring my attention to this way of being and flowing, it's easier, lighter and more natural. It's like learning a new game to play. Doesn't it sound like fun? :) Does to me.

Flying High

View from airplane window of the setting sun over the cloud horizon

I thought I'd share this beautiful heart light on Valentine's Day because it reminds me of the truth of you and me - the brilliant, eternal light of Love! Besides that, it just looks cool. :) I took it yesterday as we flew to 

Mississippi to visit our boy Michael. Infinite LOVE to each of you, today!

The Choice is Simple

Today's image of the singing tree outside my office window

What if I go this way? "Oh, you'll find love that way!" says God. But what if I go this way? "You'll find love there, too!" But isn't one of these paths better than the other? "Better? Better could only mean more love, but how could there be more love here or there when it's completely everywhere always? Relax. You're already there. Which is here! The question isn't which way to go, but how to see."

Out of Control

My favorite and most delightful hearts always find me when I'm not looking, when I'm not trying, and when I have no idea what's out there. Like this one. Which I didn't even find! Rob showed it to me. Oh. My. God. You think I might get this by now, that this is life. That this is how we are meant to live - out of control, not trying or efforting, in a continued state of openness and receptivity to the field of infinite possibility of constant motion, change and flow (otherwise known as grace). A field that 100% of the time reveals and blesses more than my singular imagination ever will. So there to remind me was this snow heart at the end of the driveway, the driveway that Rob shoveled squeaky clean yesterday, and somehow it just plopped itself here today.

Expectation and need for an outcome are control. I am choosing out of control. Yaaaaaaay!!! I see the control beast rear up in me and in the mirror around me - otherwise known as you guys :) So I speak about myself here: about the desire to be right, get it right, be good, teach stuff to other people so they can get it right, too, because won't that mean I'm loveable and liked and succeeding and so on and on and on, which will mean I'm safe and therefore will survive. Maybe lots of people will click "like" on facebook so I won't be annihilated! It's funny, isn't it?! Holy crap. And none of it is true. Getting it "right" is just another description of separation, and separation is an illusion. Never mind that we call it reality. That's funny, too!

Here is what out of control means to me: in love. Want to come be in love with me? I'm in love with you. :)

A few more heart surprises from the dog walk in the slush - out of control, in love. 

 

 Look! the control beast is in LOVE!!!! :)

He's all cute and smiley. 

slush heart almost got stepped on

Snowflake Hearts

Soft and fluffy, falling, blowing, blanketing LOVE all over us. Snow love.

Spirit Surf

My spirit is a wild, fiery beast, and it is the vast, silky curtain of the night sky. 

We are everything at once, in constant motion. I love the ride.

Fountain, Willamette University campus

Squashed

Love is old, 

Love is new,

Love is all,

Love is you.

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance in the US. :)

 

Butternut squash, front and back sides of the same slice. Can you believe it? LOVE!

Beautiful Body

Another variation on the heart rock theme, also from Buena Vista, Colorado. This one pretty well blew my mind when I spotted it. Say what? Sedimentary, ignatius or celestial - who knows!?

I share it with you in honor of your beautiful body, the amazing vehicle of your divine consciousness. Today I'm loving on our bodies for the following reasons: #1: They are always truth-tellers. Unlike our minds, which can bargain, bully, and outright bullshit, our bodies only give us the straight-up truth. #2: The information they give is perfectly accurate and wise, 24/7. Our bodies never lie, and they are brilliant. #3: They also never criticize our minds. Seems to me the mind isn't quite the same friend to the rest of the body! And #4: This amazing bundle of creation is the home for our souls to come and play here on earth, to learn, to experience, and to expand. Such a gift! Thank you, beautiful body, for carrying me through. Thank you for your wisdom and for being the divine vessel that you are. Thank you even when I don't understand, when things appear broken or wrong, and when I imagine you are my enemy and I want to shoot the messenger!

They say we're all made of star dust. Looks to me like that dust has cleaned up pretty well. I have often said to our dogs, "Thank you for coming as Sasha!" or "Thank you for coming as Maxwell!" So today, I say to this amazing energetic impulse of divine creation that has assembled itself into a miraculous bunch of molecules and cells, "Thank you for coming as Christine!" Try offering this gratitude to yourself. It's really fun. Can you hear the heavenly echo?

"You're welcome!"