Monthly Archives: November 2022

Hail Mary’s

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I was traveling home by plane this week, and as these things go, my first flight was delayed enough that it looked like I would not make my connecting flight. That meant I was going to either spend the night, and all the next day, in Dallas waiting for an evening flight, or, I was going to get re-routed to DC, get put up in a hotel for a couple of hours, only to turn back around and catch an early flight.

As you might imagine, I didn’t want either one of these scenarios. So I decided that I would do the only thing I could do: I would place all of my focus, all of my attention, all of my energy, on what I actually wanted. Getting home that night.

Now, I’m not so naive as to not know that there are many, many factors beyond my personal focus at play in the Universe that would be influencing this outcome. I also know that the human mind and energy field is a powerful apparatus for creation. I decided that I would see what was possible if I kept my mind focused on what I wanted, versus what I didn’t want.

This is the opposite of what we usually do. Typically, we obsess about the outcomes we don’t want any part of. We make plans around what we don’t want, and then we make contingency plans based on that. All the while focusing (if you can call it that) on what we don’t want. And if you’ve ever paid attention to one of these moments, you know that while you are busy imagining all the worst case scenarios you don’t want any part of, you feel awful. Stressed. Chaotic. Angry. Anxious.

Which brings me to my next point. Staying focused on what I wanted kept me feeling calm, open and optimistic. Hopeful. Certainly in a much better mood. It also highlighted for me how often we don’t really go after what we want because we feel as though we will be disappointed. It feels like if we don’t really go for it, then It won’t be as painful if we don’t get it.

That night, I kept thinking about the football expression, “Hail Mary Pass.” How when it is all on the line in the final moments of a game, with nothing to lose by going for it, the quarterback will huck the ball as far as he can with all the players that can get free, making a beeline for the end zone. With the hope that someone may come up with the ball. A kind of all in, last ditch attempt. Exhilarating. And potentially, disappointing. But ultimately a no-holds-bar effort to go for what you want.

And so it was that I ran through the mega city airport of Dallas, going for my own Hail Mary, even with the great unlikelihood of making it as I was past the time of takeoff. As I came ripping around the corner to the gate I looked at the first stranger I saw and said, “Hartford?” to which he responded, “Delayed.”

I burst into tears.

Why the tears? Because in that moment, I was crystal clear that my efforts to go for it had been responded to in a big and beautiful way. This is something I yearn to live more and more connected to on a regular basis. And why not? The world is going to do what the world is going to do, and then, at some point, it will all be over.

Why not go for it? Why not align with all the invisible support available to us?

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Instructions For The Times

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When I think about the times we’re living through, I see vast, vast possibilities before us, standing side by side with the devastation of a world crumbling to pieces from the inside out.

I know it’s only natural to drop back into fear, anger, despair and outrage. I know it’s only natural to lash out in blame. I know it’s only natural to separate ourselves from one another. But what I also know on a deep and personal level is a place of possibility that I have visited many times in my life. That being, when you can allow for the breaking down, for the coming apart, for the falling to pieces, for the going up in flames, something new will be born.

Every. Single. Time.

Personally speaking, I am up for these times. I am up for more of us getting pushed to the brink of what is no longer working. I do not wish upon anyone the suffering that accompanies these kinds of tectonic squeezes and shifts, but I do wish for a struggle born of a big enough and noble enough cause that forces us to wrestle with creating an honest look at our lives. Individually and collectively.

To that end, I pass on a phrase a friend shared with me recently that I believe has the potential to act as a set of instructions for how to go about living through the breaking apart of the world:

Get Your House In Order

Get your house in order. If you let it, the words carry the resonance of a Truth that is deeply and uniquely powerful and personally impactful for each and every one of us. A code, if you will, that is personalized to who we are and what it is that needs to be done next. And then what needs to be done after that. And then, after that. And after that.

So, without trying to figure anything out with your mind, first, just say that phrase to yourself. What does it move in you? Repeat it to yourself in the days, weeks and months to come. Let its vibration work on you, guide you, and ultimately, inspire you to take action. You might also flip it around and make it a question. One posed on behalf of your own life and that of the world.

What do I need to do next to get my own house in order?

If you can be with this, I promise you this: Your life will be the better for it, and so will everyone’s around you. For the world can only find order when each and every one of us has figured out how to get our own house in order.

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11.11

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As I write this, today is November 11th. 11.11.  In many places in the world, it is a day of great significance. In the U.S., it is the day we honor our veterans. And in many circles, today is known as a portal day. A day of personal and spiritual significance. A day to pay attention to. A day to set powerful intentions on.

A day to move closer to the Truth of who we are and why we are here.

Funny, how typically I would have been writing yesterday on the 10th. But the writing just wouldn’t come. So I set it aside. Now I know why. I was supposed to be with this day in this way. I was supposed to be willing to do something different.

This small example sums up what a day like today is all about: An opportunity to be different than my usual habits and preconceived ideas. A day to move and choose and talk and be with more intention. More reverence. More awareness that there is Something Greater at play in my Life than how I would have it.

But in order for us to be available to these more sensitive threads in the universal order of things, we must not only pay attention, we must be committed to leaving some room in our minds, our schedules, our wants, for these sacred threads to reveal themselves to us. Not just in specific times like a holiday, a death, a birth or going to a service, but in the moment to moment unfolding of our lives.

We are missing something when we believe we are too busy, or that there are only certain times we can be more available to a holy opportunity.

It is there in how you eat. How you speak to another. How you think about those you fear or disagree with. How you consume things. How you stay when you should go. How you remain silent when you should speak. For it is there. Always. And in All Ways.

What we are talking about here is one moment in time, a momentary portal, to remind us all to be more One, more unified, more whole in all that we are and all that we do. For it’s easy to do it on the “special” days, and much, much harder to keep the commitment going over more of the days of our lives.

So even when the day passes (which it already has as you read this), can you remember to look for 11.11 more often? Can you remember to let it’s significance reveal something to you in any given moment? Can you commit to making more room inside of your life and mind for the unexpected that shows up when you live more as One than 2 or 3 or 10 or 200…?

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Goodness

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For the past several months, in the weekly yoga class I attend, we have been working with something called The Mother’s Symbol. It represents various faces and powers of the Divine Feminine, as well as twelve qualities, or virtues, to cultivate in life.

The virtues include things like Sincerity, Humility, Gratitude and Perseverance. This past week, we focused on Goodness. In the exploration, the teacher quoted the words of a great sage who wrote of “goodness for the sake of goodness.” In other words, not being good to get something, or to appear a certain way to others, and certainly not to use being good as something to lord over others.

For the whole class, all I could think about was us as a collective. Us as a culture that has come to weaponize goodness. Current day ideologies that have taken what it means to be “good,” and narrowly defined it to fit an agenda which is then used to call out and convict those who do not measure up to a biased and destructive definition.

But if we come back to “goodness for the sake of goodness,” we would see that this is never a virtue to claim for an external reason; whether to look good to others, get something, or keep from being cancelled or attacked.

Instead, real goodness is cultivated from within for its own sake; transcending outside agendas and our own personal fears. Goodness from its purest perspective is only about our own evolutionary and spiritual progress. Only about our connection to Something Far Greater than us.

Only about a return to the Truth of who and what we are, and where it is that we come from. This is vastly different from the social agreements and ideologies we commit ourselves to, or are forced into.

If we really knew this, we would never, ever, use goodness as a weapon against ourselves or others. We would never, ever, use it to try and control our own behavior or that of another. For that would be in violation of, a desecration of, the most fundamental and sacred aspect of our very Nature. That being, the inherent Goodness that lives within.

I am left wondering, as I often do, if in the world of social media, extreme and polarizing ideologies and party politics, if we will be able to find our way into our own inherent goodness. I pray for all of our sakes that we can. For without experiencing the Goodness within, how will we be able to see that in another, or know the Truth of who we really are?

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