The Spiritual Side of Things

14. June 2019 · Write a comment · Categories: 11 Life Practices, Dogs, Exploring Spirit · Tags: , , , , , ,

Blog post #7 06072019

So far, I have been talking about the day to day nitty gritty of caring for Spirit as we proceed through his healing process.

But, as it always is, it is my healing process too, if we broaden the meaning to include creating a more integrated, conscious self as a “healing process.”

All of us experience being divisible in this reality as “you and me.” However, the underlying reality is we are also and always in life together, indivisible, part of a mysterious whole. Our pathway toward a more fully integrated way of being, expressing, and experiencing this is to practice. (Practice #4 in my upcoming book, currently in editing, tentatively titled, Creating a Life that Works/11 life Practices.

In this book, we explore how this reality is put together and how we might practice playing this game in this more fully conscious way.

I have titled these practices as follows:

Part I Being (Practices in being more fully who we are)

  1. A Beginning Place/Being Now-Here (practice being present to what is)
  2. Our Inner Voice     (practice listening to our inner voice)
  3. Life is Re-creation (practice noticing the stories we are always creating)
  4. Me and We (practice experiencing being one with Infinite Being expressing)

Part II Expressing Being (the practices of playing the game with our words and actions)

  1. Doing What Love Does (this is Love with a capital L, how God expresses Love)
  2. Showing Up
  3. Choosing our Attitude
  4. Letting go
  5. Completing (practice disappearing upsets in our relationships)
  6. Bucking Up (practice fulfilling the promise of any long term commitment)
  7. Lightening Up

What I am discovering is we have the opportunity to practice most of these practices almost every day! It may be true that we could be practicing all of them every day. Perhaps, even in every moment!?

In any event, I am going to report how I experience engaging in these practices as Spirit and I go through our healing process together.

Why?

Reporting helps me to practice. And, who needs to practice more than me?

And, when would be a better time than now?

I am 80 years old. Probably shouldn’t wait much longer! J

 

So, let’s take a look at how these practices appear in one daily life, my own.

 

This particular life adventure began when I noticed what is: a lump on Spirit’s rear leg, then not long after that, another one on his lower jaw. (Practice #1)

What first emerged out of this awareness was noticing my own contribution to his illness. I realized I had long been busy creating a reality about him getting cancer with my fear of him getting cancer. (Practice #3, noticing my own story, reported in an earlier post.)

Next, I chose to let that (debilitating) story go. (Practice #8).

I consciously chose to create a new story. (Practice #3 again): I will treat this as a challenge, as an opportunity for healing. I would chart a new course, sailing toward an unknown shore, to be sure.

I may not know the outcome but am open to whatever Life brings, with love in my heart, grateful for each moment we have together. (Practice #7)

I could have let nature take its course and let him die (in a few months, I was told).

When I looked into his liquid brown eyes, my heart spoke, loud and clear (Practice #2).

I will spend whatever resources I am able to give him a chance at life (Practice #5).

Many, without the money to do anything else would have to make the heartbreaking decision to let him go (practice #8 again, and a much tougher row to hoe). How blessed we are that I have enough energy and money to use help from the veterinary profession for the treatments needed. I feel incredibly grateful.

Doing what Love does, in this situation, asks that I step up to meet the challenge (Practice # 6). I must be willing to provide my daily, even hourly, attention to his well being over the many months, perhaps even years to come. This is not going to be a quick fix but a long journey through surgery, radiation, and whatever other means I can bring to the table. (Practice #10).

One day, as I am looking at him sleeping peacefully, lost to the world, it occurs to me that I am doing this for him …. and for me ………. and what is the difference? What works for him works for me too. We are engaged in a win-win game together. Everything I feel for him I feel for me too. (Practice #4). I feel complete with him in this moment. (Practice # 9)

It also occurs to me one day, things could be so much worse.

His cancer is treatable, appears not to have metastasized, his appetite is good, his poops are good, he sleeps a lot (a key healing activity all by itself), loves being petted and is still excited by deer crossing a field, or a rabbit standing on the road, or when the plumber or a friend comes to the door.

He loves life.

Enough motivation for me.

So, whether he decides to leave in a few months and stays with me for many more years to come, I feel blessed. I feel cheered by this challenge, even joy! (Practice #11)

 

Two practices I have touched on, completing (practice #9) and the practice of being me and we (practice #4) warrant a bit more comment.

Unlike with my human relationships, which are more prone to fall in and out of completion, I am essentially almost always complete with Spirit.

How do I know this?

Whenever I look at him, there is a smile in my heart.

If there is an occasional incompleteness, if something needs repair, it is always within me (my fear based thoughts about losing him being one example). But, day in, day out, being complete with Spirit is our normal state of being together.

 

Robin Wall Kimmerer (Professor, State University of New York and author, Gathering Moss and Braiding Sweetgrass) proposes using the word, Ki as the singular pronoun to use when referring to non human life. This gets rid of “it” as in I ran over “it’ with my car or “it” landed on my birdfeeder or….

 

Naturally, as she notes, the plural of ki is a word we already have, kin! Perfect!

So, Spirit is Ki.

But I am Ki, too.

Each of us is part of the All That Is, Infinite Being expressing. Spirit expresses as Spirit, I as me, each of us, as who we are being in this reality.

We are all kin.

While in this duality reality of light/dark, large/small, good/bad, right/wrong, we mostly experience being me and “other.” But some magical moments, at least, I experience being both me and we. (Practice #4) He has given me so, so many such moments.

And he sleeps here at my feet, healing his body. So far, anyway, he is choosing to stay here, with me in this life.

 

 

 

11 Life Practices; Origin of the book

19. February 2019 · Write a comment · Categories: 11 Life Practices · Tags: , , , , ,

The Origin of 11 Life Practices

Hi Steve, Mark,

As you know, my wife Dianna died at 7:04 AM on February 20, 2008.

As you also know, while still grieving, I started to write a book. I wanted to tell her story, about the way she lived her life.

We were all moved by how she expressed herself in the world.

That book, Dianna’s Way, was a best seller … well, among her friends and family anyway. 🙂 Thanks for buying a copy, by the way. Did sell a few hundred copies and I enjoyed talking to people about it.

Still, I was nagged by a feeling there was still more to say.

What were these qualities that made her stand out?

In Dianna’s Way, I showed the reader what these qualities look like when embodied in a real human being, but nowhere did I identify them, even for myself. Which was fine – it was a memoir not a self help book.

As I began to write this book I slowly realized I was not talking about qualities, I was talking about practices.

Makes sense now. It’s not like we’re born with a list of qualities we then magically use to master the game of life. Regardless of our raw talent, none of us walks out on a baseball field for the first time, already a Hall of Fame player.

To get good at playing the game, we have to practice, practice, practice… And of course there are guys like you that never get any good at it! 🙂 Sitting around drinking beer or smoking joints does not get it done. Okay. Kidding. I admire both of you or I wouldn’t be writing to you.

Anyway, as you now know (finally – I hesitate to tell you I told you so but I told you so) better than I, we are playing a particular game while we are here messing around in physical reality. Sure, we enter this reality imbued with some genetically based talent for playing the game (physical life) but if we want to excel at our position (our unique expression of Infinite Being), we will have to practice if we are to gain the skills needed to become competent at playing our position (our role in the grand game of life).

In the game of life, from our first breath to our last, not a day or an hour or a minute goes by that we are not practicing. We are always in the game, no time outs, like it or not.

The only question is, practicing what?

Some practices are useful for creating a life we love living, some are enough to get us by and some are counter-productive. Of course, I wanted to focus on the former – we all know how to do the rest without trying.

Hence the origin of my upcoming second book, tentatively titled 11 Life Practices/ Creating a Life that Works.

In my next blog, I will talk about why I saw the practices naturally divided into two distinct groups, hence the reason for Part I and II of the book.

New book almost here – 11 Life Practices, Creating a Life that Works

04. February 2019 · Write a comment · Categories: 11 Life Practices · Tags: , , , , , , ,

Dear Steve and dear Mark,

You guys should have stuck around awhile longer.

I have nearly completed my second book.

Would have loved sharing it with you, seeing how you reacted to it. Of course, I know neither of you can read but at least you could have held it in your hands and admired my great work. 🙂

My working title is 11 Life Practices/ sub title: Creating a Life that Works.

I split the book into two parts.

Part consists of four practices in being.

Part II consists of seven practices in expressing our being.

The two parts are bridged by a chapter called “The Huddle” where we review what is at stake for us all and why these practices matter.

My goal is to publish it sometime in the fall of this year. Hopefully sooner but we will see how it goes. Better done as well as I can than just done.

Miss you both very much.

Will be seeing you soon enough. But not too soon either.

Love always, dear friends

John

 

Dianna’s Way is on the way.

17. November 2012 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Dianna’s Way is now available at www.diannasway.com, Amazon, and, soon, at Barnes & Noble – or you can order it through your local bookstore. Fairly soon, it will be available as an eBook as well.

This book is a very personal and inspirational story about an ordinary woman who chose to live an extraordinary life. She also happened to choose me as her husband. Lucky me.

When I look back on my life with her, I can see I may have taught Dianna a bit about the world as it is but she taught me, by example, so much more about how it could be. It also occurs to me she offers a template for living that opens the possibility for creating an extraordinary country.

Perhaps transforming America begins with transforming ourselves via an inner, individual process but I would not rule out interacting in concert with others by “feeding” each other. Some do best playing solo while others are at their finest in an orchestra. The music is no less beautiful or moving.

No matter our pathway, our creations still emanate from self with a willingness to be responsible for self.

Responsibility: literally, the ability to respond appropriately [to life].  What I learned from Dianna is the only appropriate response to life is to practice being a context of Love.

Self: Careful about the definition of self. Not what we normally think it is. Something to be explore later.

So, I find myself being guided on an odyssey into the wider social implications of living in “Dianna’s Way”. I have tentatively titled this journey A New Age American Dream (NAAD).

From a social perspective, a fair starting point is look at where we are now, which is becoming, for too many of us, living a new age American nightmare.

Why do we, as a nation, seem to be headed in the wrong direction? What can we do about it? Is there any hope for a better way forward? Is there any way to knit together a deeply divided nation into a sane, workable whole, pulling in the same direction?

Frankly, I don’t know.

It doesn’t have to turn out well. It isn’t going to turn out well unless we do create a better way forward.

I do know I am not much interested in generating a laundry list of our problems – we already know what they are even if we may not agree on why or how we have created them – nor am I keenly interested in a different laundry list of nice little remedies. All of this is in the realm of what we can call the content of our lives – and the society we live in.

So, while I may begin with a broad overview of what works and what doesn’t in our society, this is merely a description of that content – many others have already done a fine job of detailing all that stuff.

I am much more interested in the context all this content thrives in.

As Einstein once so famously said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

True.  

For my purposes, I would say it this way:  we cannot change the content of our lives – or our society – while trapped in the same context that creates the dysfunction we find ourselves already immersed in. We will have to step outside the box (the current context we live in).

So, first, some definitions:

Content: Everything that shows up in our lives as our experience, individually and collectively.

Context: Where we come from when we act and experience the acts of others.

“Where we come from”: What we believe is true and, even more deeply, who we believe ourselves to be, whether consciously acknowledged or not.

In Dianna’s Way, I describe my own discovery process that led me to appreciate I need both Light (consciousness) and Love (not love as we normally think of it but Love, the energy emanating from God, Spirit, from the All That Is). Only then could I comprehend how this incredibly powerful woman was able to live her life the way she did – and realize these same tools can be used to create a society that somewhere inside ourselves we have all dreamed but not yet successfully created.

Dianna supplied me and others, consistently, seemingly effortlessly, with a model for expressing our selves when and where it matters – in the practical, day to day life that greets us each morning.  

She supplied us with a Context that works.

Not a bad place to begin.

 

Ironically, I have had the idea to write a book called the NAAD for at least 40 years. But, until Dianna cracked open my heart without saying a word, silently pointing the way toward surrender, toward trusting in Spirit, it was a book I was totally ill equipped to write.

Perhaps now I can.

You and I can certainly have a conversation about all this as I think out loud on this blog.

I welcome your participation.

 

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