Every child is an artist.
The problem is
how to remain an artist
when you grow up.

~ Pablo Picasso

Yesterday was very busy. I did the grocery shopping and had everything put away before John got up. I worked right up to the Sunday morning meditation at 11:00 and was back online at 1:30 for the last Remembering Wholeness until fall.

Part of the busy was preparing the ingredients for stir fry. Note* It was delicious!

I don’t just mean the finished product of the stir fry was delicious, although it was. I am saying the moments of my day were delicious. And like the pork and the veggies in the stir fry, delicious and tender.

One friend was given this darshan – darshan is seeing a holy person or the image of a deity and being seen and given a blessing. Late last evening my friend asked if I had the otter transcript of the darshan he had been given. I had grabbed the otter notes just in case when Barbara Brodsky was having some challenge saving it, and I was so honored to transcribe it for my friend. I think you will agree that although my friend’s circumstance may be unique, the darshan is universal.

I know that you are what in this world would be called very sick. Looking at the issues of what it is to live or to die.

Right now, you are alive.

There’s more life to come.

But for everybody here in this world, eventually there will be a passing from this life.

My Friend, you can live what remains of this life — whether it is weeks, months, years, or decades — you can live it more fully if you can relax and trust that when the end does come, it is soulful. You are held in love and the transition can be a very beautiful and smooth transition.

Remembering there is nothing to fear about that, you can then bring the attention back to, “So, now, how can I live this life with as much joy and presence as I can, however much time that is.

How can I live through this year of 2022, next year of 2023, with a full heart of love, not looking ahead with fear, knowing each day to be a natural transition to the next day and making the choice to invite the highest health possible for the physical body as this spiritual body moves through its process and opens more and more to the light.

I know there is pain, and discomfort, and, of course, as I just said, fear. This is natural.

Allow yourself to be where you are. If there’s discomfort, you can acknowledge that discomfort. You don’t have to be stoic and say, no, there’s no discomfort. There is. The physical body will have discomfort.

And if there is fear, allow the experience of fear without getting caught in the story. You understand? I know you do understand what I am saying.

In this way you can live each hour, each day, each year as fully and joyfully as possible and spread your energy here. Finish doing the high, loving work you came to do, where you have demonstrated the power of love for your wife, for your friends, for your sangha.

You are a great inspiration to others.

But you may become tired of doing that and say, “I’ve had enough of being an inspiration and I need to let it go.” That’s okay, too.

Know how much you are loved, and that everyone in this circle (and many more) hold you in their hearts.

Today at 3:00 I go back to my doctor. My blood pressure is still not where we would like it to be but I am more often allowing the experience of fear without getting caught in the story. It is my highest intention to live each hour, each, day, each year as fully and joyfully as possible.

John is in a sciatica flare. It came on early last week while I was attending the intensive. He had to cancel the 24 hour “ambulatory” blood pressure study on Thursday because he was not able to be ambulatory. On Saturday I mowed our lawn. Possibly the first time I have mowed in close to 40 years. I had never used a self-propelled mower, and one hummingbird feeder was sacrificed in my learning curve.

I was enjoying the last morsels of the stir fry when my phone rang. It was a woman I met on Friday at her rummage sale. I left my phone number, sharing that I have a friend who is making “Purposeful Purses.” She got the idea from another friend. Into these purses go bottled water, toiletries, a pair of socks, and a few non-perishable food items. These purses stay in her vehicle and are presented to a homeless person at a stop light or at the park or wherever she encounters them.The woman was calling to say 4 purses had not sold and she welcomed the opportunity to be part of this purposeful purse project. I thanked her and said I would finish my dinner and ride over and pick them up.

It was such a gorgeous day, and I had been indoors online for about five hours, so on my way home I turned at the corner and gave myself the gift of a little longer ride. Just as I was coming up to the entry of our park, I saw a coyote pup in the field across the street! I pulled to the side of the road and stopped and we looked deeply at one another. He pulled away first but I continued to watch as he gingerly picked his way to the church parking lot and out of my view. This morning I looked up Coyote Symbolism & Meaning:

Have you been under a lot of stress lately? The coyote symbolism might give you a boost to laugh at yourself or even play a trick on you.

The general symbolic meaning is a jokester, playfulness, adaptability, seeing the truth behind it, a complex and cunning personality, wisdom, and cleverness.

It often represents two sides of the same coin, being a troublesome creature, but a good fortune sign.

The coyote will bring hidden emotions and thoughts to the surface, making you uncomfortable but healing you.

The coyote animal totem is for those that want to forget about their worries and live in the present moment alongside the most important people in your life, your family.

Children will suddenly approach you as they love your joyful nature and energy. Being so full of life, you will feel even more refreshed around them.

Aaron’s Thought for Today reinforces the message:

Gain and loss, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, light and dark — these are seeming opposites, but nothing is truly an opposite but always part of everything else. What would joy be without sorrow? How would you recognize joy? How would you recognize the light if there were no sense of darkness? How would you know spaciousness if there were never contraction? But we must recognize the distinction between ultimate reality and those mundane objects that arise from conditions and pass away. Reflect on the beauty of light and love as ultimate realities, and how darkness and contraction arise out of conditions and pass away. ~ Aaron

Over the weekend my nephew, David, enjoyed a visit with our daughter, Stacey, in Tennessee. Our great-grandson, Jackson, was visiting with Stacey (G-Ma) and David said Jackson was stuck on him like glue. I can understand that totally as David, having spent many years incarcerated, is now keenly aware of and thriving on the gift of his freedom.

Bees dance amidst the flowers outside my window and I savor the pleasant, cool, low-humidity days because I know they are going to be replaced with heat and humidity before nightfall. That is the point, isn’t it….