Thank You Very Sweet

“Who do I have to be in order for this problem to be transformed?”

This is the question that Marrianne Williamson says that we should be asking ourselves when we encounter our problems. We should look introspectively at our participation; ‘how did I participate in this?’ When we change the cause, we change the effect. The miracle happens when we make that shift that leads to a more positive outcome.

When I traveled in Sri Lanka a few years ago, I saw these ancient trees that had fallen over and re-rooted.  It reminded me of a time when I was housesitting at The Country House during Hurricane Irene.   There had been a great Mulberry tree on the front lawn that had up-rooted and fallen over during the storm.  I called the owners overseas to tell them and they were devastated.  The tree was pronounced dead. They grieved and had it removed from the lawn.

But these trees in Sri Lanka had fallen and not died.  Instead, they re-rooted from the new position that they were in.

Imagine if we could do that?

I spoke on this in my yoga teachings last week and my friend Kate Corallo said something profound  to me after class: ‘Those trees know how to fall and re-root because they have had to do it over and over throughout history.’

of course.

I suppose this applies to us as well.  Stop resisting. The more we allow ourselves to fall and re-root, the better we become at it.  What an interesting life that could be..

Let it all happen.

Sometimes you encounter a human being that touches your soul.  This is how I feel about Mike.  Mike was father of the bride at a wedding that I officiated yesterday in Binghamton NY.  He is also a recent widower and so had to complete the task of pulling off his daughters wedding alone.  He said that the wedding was one of the things on his list of things to complete before he joins his wife in eternal rest in 10-years.

It was a beautiful wedding.  On an apple orchard beneath a canopy of apple trees and everything flowed so wonderfully, not a detail was missed. Mike really did a good job.  He didn’t do it alone, he said.  “When your love dies somehow the two become one.”

Mike looked off into the distance a lot as if he were contemplating the greater meaning of things. His talk was never small.  He talked about big things like love.  “The philosophers got it all wrong,” he said.  “Here they were seeking for truth and none them mentioned love.”   “God is Love and so is the essence of the soul – pure love.  So we must have God in us.”

1 John 4:16 affirms this.  “For we know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.  God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.”

We don’t have to desperately search for love or be starved of it.  Its here.  We just need to relax into it and re-member.  Thank you very sweet, Mike.

6 years ago around this time I set out to have 100 wonderful days of Kimberley Copeland. I was grieving at the time, and also feeling that my life was pretty wonderful. I was preparing to move to the Adirondak Mountains for the summer and be a resident preacher at a Unitarian Universalist Church. It was a perfect time to be intentional and fill my heart space with wonder.

I did.

I hiked, I climbed a mountain, I kayaked for miles with a bestie, I preached…

it was all wonderful. And at the end of my summer I found a little yoga studio in the mountains and began a serious yoga practice for the first time.

I returned to New Jersey that Fall, nervous. I was moving to a new community. Would it be as wonderful? My soul friend suggested that I continue with the yoga, she even googled a studio for me in my new neighborhood. They had a Friday night Bob Marley Flow and she thought I would like that…

I tried out the studio and this began my journey to become a yoga teacher. Within 6 months I was signed up for this studio’s teacher training. And on the three year anniversary of my first love’s death, June 9th 2013, I became a yoga teacher.

And now, here. I. Am.

living in a state of wonder.

{how did I get here?}

June 9, 2018 – 8th anniversary of Kesner’s death, 5th anniversary of my becoming a yoga teacher. The latter would never have happened without the former. Isn’t it all a wonder?

Life is lived forward and understood backward..

So I beg you.. have patience with every matter that is unresolved in your heart. Do not seek answers that could not be given to you now. Instead live the questions. In 2010 I didn’t know why this all happened.. to me.  But today it all makes sense.

And it’s all so good.

Beautiful and Wonderful.

Last week my friend called me with this crazy story about a woman washing Jesus’ feet with expensive oil and her hair.

“Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ² So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at the table. ³ Mary therefore took a pound^[a] of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”  John 12:1 – 3

After my friend read the text to me she asked me what I thought, she was planning to preach from that text on the following Sunday.  I said I thought that it all must have been quite a scene: the men all sitting around after dinner and Mary getting this really expensive bottle of oil and washing Jesus’ feet with her hair in the middle of all of that.  In another passage describing the same story there were even her tears involved in this foot washing ritual.  This all must have been pretty unusual, such an uninhibited expression of love.

I then tried to figure out if I had any friends that I loved this much.  Enough to go and get my most expensive bottle of perfume and pour it all out on their feet and wash their feet with my hair while they were having dinner at my house.

My mom was the only person that came to mind.  I would do that for my mom. If I knew that my mom weren’t going to be with me much longer I would pour my most expensive oil on her feet and wash her feet with my hair and tears.  Just so that she’d know how much I loved her.

Mary loved Jesus and she knew that he would not be there for very much longer. I am inspired by the freeness in her expression, particularly today – in such a censored time.  The fragrance in the freedom of her love for Jesus filled the entire house then and it has the potential to inspire our imaginations today.  Maybe we don’t have to figure out any more about this story than that. Relationship Goals.

On Friday my yin yoga teacher mentioned that we’re basically translucent. She was describing an autopsy video that she’d watched where the practitioner shined a light through layers of human skin, tissue, organs and bone and all were illuminated.  This made sense to me because all of these layers are porous, including bone, so of course light would shine through us.

This all made the idea that ‘our felt sense of separation is an illusion’ a lot more real for me.  Many smart people have said this, like Einstein. And what if this idea of denying the flesh really has to do with denying any notion that we are disconnected from each other and all of life?

We are ‘one body,’ no?

And what does this have to do with love? Well I think it’s the answer and the cure to the darkness.  We have to love all those separated little dark spots in the body where no light is shining through right now.  Knowing that it’s possible, that light can penetrate those areas  –  those dark spots in us and in others.  It requires radical acceptance and maturity.

I say the Lord’s Prayer almost daily and lately have found resonance with this idea of asking for daily bread. “Give us this day our daily bread,” we say. Jesus’ prayer asks for today’s bread, not yesterday’s or tomorrow’s.

Can I live like this? – I ask. Accepting and digesting only that which is available today. Not overly concerned about past or future but here, now, trusting that today’s bread is enough.

Can we?

Last night I was listening to an interview between Oprah and Wayne Dyer.  It had to do with Dyer’s studies of the Tao Te Ching.  In the interview he said a few times that the Tao teaches that we are to do nothing, rather we are to allow ourselves to be done.   He also said that Tao means “the way.”

I thought this was interesting because I’d been thinking about Jeremiah’s visit to the Potter’s House all week.  I thought that would end up being the theme of my Spirit Flow class in Wayne last night but instead I felt compelled to talk about prayer.  But this morning I talked about the Potter’s House in my Saturday 9AM Clifton class: God told Jeremiah to go down to the potters house.  Jeremiah found the potter there working with his clay, it took one shape, then fell apart and then the potter reshaped the mess into something else.  God said to Jeremiah ‘just as the potter does, can I not do this with you?’

And yesterday on a call with mom she referenced Malachi 3:3 which has to do with being refined by fire.

And this morning I rediscovered a quote attributed to Michelangelo  “there is a statue in every block of stone.”  As if to suggest that we are masterpieces waiting to happen, the excess just needs to be chipped away.  we need to be formed, and reformed and refined.

So back to this idea of being done. What if we did less doing and more allowing?  What if all we really need to do is be present and allow our lives to take shape in the ways that they were designed to?

“Be still and know that I AM God.”

Last night in Cheryl Barclay’s Bob Marley Yoga class she opened with his simple quote ‘Light up the Darkness.’ It made me think of this dark closet that I have  in my apartment.  I interact with this closet on a daily basis and yet I’ve never turned on the light in there.  I have a general sense of what’s in there and have learned how to navigate it in the dark.

But I did this thing the other week, I screwed in a light bulb in my closet and turned on the light!  It was really a moment. I found all sorts of things, both useful and unnecessary.  Many things were thrown away and others repositioned and reorganized.  It was a little breakthrough for me.

This morning I told this story in my yoga class and encouraged us all to turn on the lights in our metaphorical closets and really deal with our stuff.

Imagine that!

Yesterday a friend asked ‘What’s your life full of these days that makes you feel alive?’  I responded by saying that my life is full of ‘doing more things that scare me.’  Things like turning on the light, exposing.. dealing with.. clearing out..  letting go… correcting.. repositioning… reorganizing..   It’s scary but its making me feel alive too.  And its a more authentic way to live; better than feeling around in the dark, I think.

I’ve been listening to Marrianne Williamson’s talks lately on YouTube. She’s said that we have a “Crisis in Adulthood” in our country – a lot of kids walking about in adult bodies. It’s interesting to think about and I have been all week.

This shows up in our relationships- we can be selfish, having a ‘what can you do for me?’ sort of attitude. Or blame others when things go wrong rather than look introspectively and ask ‘how did I contribute to this?’  Or maybe we have tantrums or punish when we don’t get our way?

In Paul’s letter to Corinth, he says “when I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I reasoned as a child but when I became a man I gave up childish things.”

Perhaps It’s time to give up childish things? Instead of taking, give. Instead of blaming, take responsibility and self-correct. Instead of pouting and punishing, accept.