Cosmic Joke

We must laugh at ourselves. We are the master fool. You have done nothing wrong, but you have also done nothing right. In essence, you have done nothing.

Life is the Cosmic Joke, and you are the star of your own show. Stop taking yourself so seriously so that you can catch the mechanics of your character.

Play your part well. Laugh during the funny parts. Close your eyes during the scary parts, and cry during the sad parts.

Emotions are the spices of life. Go ahead, be spicy. Have fun and enjoy all the thrills of life, but remember too much salt spoils the broth.

You will make mistakes. Sometimes you will suffer, but nothing lasts forever. Dive in. The safety of the shoreline eventually disappears into the ocean.

You can either go get life or wait for it to come to you. There is no right or wrong way. There is only the Way.

In This Moment

In this moment I am breathing in the quietness of the morning. My mantra today is, "There is nothing to do. It's all already been done."  Lately, I have to remind myself, increasingly more often, to slow down. What I am hurrying to get to? Where is it I am going? That quiet, but oh so wise voice, whispering from the backdrop of my consciousness, answers, "There is nowhere to go and no time other than now."

Last Sunday I made post on Facebook asking my friends to give me some inspiration to write. It has taken me the week to settle into a space quiet enough to sit and allow my thoughts to formulate into words. In this moment, I am feeling grateful, as their thoughtful comments have inspired me. I hope you will see your threads in this quilt I am weaving with words.

If I am to be completely transparent, I must admit that my inner quiet this morning is partly due to being utterly exhausted. Although, I do love what I do, twenty-six years is a long time to be a Massage Therapist. I find as the years go by I need more breaks from this work to avoid burnout. In this moment, my body exhales a sigh of relief knowing I will let it rest today.

One of  my loveliest, dearest friends, sent me a care package of delightful things and a soul renewing letter.  She said in her letter, that one thing she imagined I never knew about her was that she secretly wished her hands looked like mine. She's a bit younger than me but close enough to see what was around the corner for her. While I have heard from many people, I have great hands. No one has ever said they were pretty. I have had old looking hands since I was young. They look like useful, hard working hands, but I will not kid myself. They are not pretty. They are thick and muscular, showing the signs of far too much sun with fingers curving in strange ways that have yielded to the demands of pressure I've put on them over the last few decades.        

In this moment, I think about her hands and how lovely I always thought they were. We haven't seen each other in a few years. From the age of about 45 on, it seems women's bodies change at an alarming rate. She said her hands looked like mine now, and she was happy they did. Without even seeing them, I know they express the hands of a woman strong enough to dig in the dirt and soft enough to nurture things to grow. We age gracefully by accepting the changes that come and honoring the lines and scars that living a juicy life leaves on our bodies and the imprints it leaves on our souls. Regrets are for those who wish to age without grace. My friend and I were once young, sweet dancers, who grew into sexy sirens with full hips and who are now growing gracefully into wise women with the authenticity of their lives expressed on their faces, wearing our battle scars like badges of honor.

"Cicadas emerge this year after 17 years of incubation."  In this moment, I wonder what I have been incubating. I ponder what my life would've been like if I had remained still the last 17 years. Knowing what I know now, I would like to think I would've taken better care of my skin and my joints, saved more money and lost my temper a little less. Funny thing is, I know a lot more now, and I still spend too much time in the sun, spend too much money and spend too much energy being upset when things don't go my way. I have held back very little. But if I have incubated anything over the last 17 years, it would be the fear of inadequacy, of somehow not measuring up, of not meeting my full potential. As that serves no purpose, I am ready to release that now.

Aging gracefully happens when accept this moment as it is and realize it's all we have. Our full potential is not something that will happen in the future. It happens when we are present in the totality of Now. When we can not only accept our failures and misgivings but when we can recognize our strengths and talents and when we can be grateful for all of it...  then we have learned  the art of aging  gracefully.

Sometimes we fail to see the beauty in everyday. We have special days to honor mothers, fathers, veterans, and even the Earth, so that we take time out to be grateful for all that we are blessed with. What if we treated everyday as if it were sacred? What if we honored the other humans, plants and animals we  cohabit this planet with?  What if we stopped long enough to notice the beauty of the moment, the sublime in the mundane and the order in the chaos? It's all there for us all the time. We're just one walk in the woods away from it in any given moment.

There's a magical place with tall trees, spring green ferns, spotted mushrooms and fairies of all sizes and shapes that exists in my imagination.  Did I mention butterflies? My magical place is filled with butterflies, lots of butterflies. At times I just want to kneel down and wrap my arms around this beautiful place and whisper sweetly to that little girl inside that still just wants play, and dream and dance, "I got you. It's okay to come out." Sometimes, it's almost as if I can feel her disappearing from my awareness. When she gets buried in mind underneath all the demands of the day, I head to the woods, the mountains or the ocean, wherever I can get to. I know that whatever inner conflicts I have cannot hold a candle to the purifying fires stirred by the wildness of nature.


In this moment, I feel the call to take a walk on the wild side. Yes, as always, even when I feel have nothing to write, the simple act of slowing down enough to sit while the words flow, is healing. I may not be able to travel to the other side of the globe today, no hanging out with wild sadhus, wicked saints and groovy gurus, but I can go to the woods and take in all it's glorious wildness, because in my mind there are always lions and tiger and bears. I am not a tired masseuse. I am a strong yogini with wildness in her heart and magic in her veins aging gracefully with the passage of everyday beauty in everyday life.
#shineshamelessly#blissoutmadly#juicylife#