Punch & Judy

I was at a resort once, where pools of radiant blue water shimmered in the sun, and people ambled around them half-dressed, lazy, like they were all happy and dazzling themselves. This was a delightful feeling. There was the occasional sharp voice, such as when a man ran to pick up his little boy as he spoke to a “stranger” who seemed maybe a little too influenced by the sea-breeze cocktails and beer. In the boy’s eyes was a sudden fear, an unknown, as if he didn’t know what had happened in the rush and grab and run. The tipsy man seemed unaware of any change in the breeze, turned away, laughing, on with the next note. I turned back to listen to a woman in a wide-brimmed hat and large sunglasses. She had been talking to me for a few minutes, only I heard maybe half of the words. The airflow continued until I put up my hands to shield the sun and we smiled, she delighted in the day’s welcome and the moment of joy. We were “strangers” to each other, yet no thought of danger.

I woke up the other morning with these shimmering views. Why? Change happens, and I am feeling my way into knowing what do we do with what we "know"? What does this mean to me, and why do I care? The other day at work Kathy exclaimed after seeing a client, as she often does, I love the nervous system! I often think about those words, her excitement, what this means to her as I hear it. The excitement shimmers all around and within her. I have not always loved my life, loved life itself, so I recognize again why this learning for my mind has been an unlearning of the blocks I had put into place, the gates that block the fields of flowers, and the intense pleasure of this slow awakening to what it means for me to "love my nervous system." I have been afraid of "it," without knowing this, because understanding such "things" was not my domain - it was to be the realm of those who specialized in this, the "doctors," or...... Those with expanded knowledge of subjects are animated by them as they relate the knowledge to the gift of a mind using the knowledge in ways that are fun, exciting, creative, helpful. We abuse what we do not understand, because the "unknown" frightens us. This is one way for me to identify what it has meant to "fear the spirit within me." What an amazing gift it is to Awaken - like the pins and needles of a foot awakening after being "asleep." Think of the words - "pins and needles" - sometimes we say, I am on pins and needles (anticipation, waiting to hear....); pins and needles we use for so many things - to insert, embroider, knit. The complex design of any landscape is there to appreciate for those who awaken to it. I am grateful for life, for what moves us, every way.


Seeing the truth of who we are in our life experiences beyond the limited way we think of "physical mirrors" helps us to see our need and urge to grow from the energy level we are living into the next energy level of appreciating life as an energy being. What we haven’t yet learned will flicker in and out of our mind, images that leave very little lasting impression. We must learn to pick and choose our own energy fields like walking through fields and picking flowers, noting those that bloom. Transient hidden memories are more like sheet lightning, or “transient wanderers” we may pass on the street, or take note of – each energy image makes such an impression that we take note (we feel the sadness sometimes, the doggedness, the persistence of pushing that cart or clutching that cardboard sign, the dirt that clings, the hunger that persists) – and then the image recedes, as landscapes do when we pass in our car and the scene through our window changes. We often cling to hidden memories that we are afraid to let go of, rafts for us in the ocean of our energy and our mind. As we open ourselves to the flight of all thought, we feel freedom and know it.