Starting the Day

I was lying in bed around 5.45am and was having dreadful thoughts about my day today. I stopped and thought for a moment. I scanned my day to figure out what was causing it and I realized what it was. Absolutely nothing. I had not one thing to feel negative or dreadful about for the day ahead. Before my feet even met the floor my head was creating a dreadful day. In fact, I realized I had every reason to have a very good day. No challenges would be permanent. Situations would only be negative if chose to spin them that way. I understood right then and there how if we’re not conscious of it and present in it each moment is defined by some past regret or we’ve projected out into the undefined future. That unconscious need for constant negative bias is fascinating.

Cosmic Confidence

I’m having a fascinating morning. I haven’t had the TV on or music playing. Just pure silence today. It’s been snowing all morning and everything is white and grey outside. A few times in this now I’ve glimpsed briefly through life’s complications to the simplicity of “solutions” beyond them. I can’t explain it any better than to call it a sort of “cosmic confidence.” A sense of seeing our everyday complications as mere distractions that keep us from feeling that deeper simplicity which feels like not THE answer but AN answer. A doorway through which I can feel contentedness, a very deep harmony or serenity waiting to be accepted. Everything for that brief moment falls into place where it all makes sense and I can feel accomplishment and fulfilment. Friendships, the act of not caring what others think, turning away from unconstructive thinking, etc, etc, etc all just seems to “fit” and I can understand the much larger picture in a forest for the trees way. It’s all right there in front of all of us. We just need to learn how to look.

Sunday Morning Serenity

I walked Rufus and it was one of those mornings where there was so little activity outside you'd swear overnight the world ended and you're the last person alive. It was dead quiet. Just me, my Frenchie, and the sunrise. Now I'm back in the house enjoying my morning coffee. No music. No television*. Just the growing day out the windows and peace and quiet. For the life of me I can't figure out why people are afraid of this kind of serenity.

*I don't own a television. I stream things I want to watch on my laptop. My total viewing time is about three to four hours a week. 

A Green Monster Morning

Each morning before my coffee in the morning I have a small cocktail glass of some kind of juice. One grocery store I shop at makes their own fresh juices. They have everything from orange and grapefruit juice to beet and carrot juice. All freshly made each day. I buy their "Green Monster" blend; it's spinach, celery, green grapes, and granny smith apples. A glass of that each morning starts my day off on a sweet and healthy note.

I finished all the Green Monster yesterday so this morning I had a glass of V8. Equally good and refreshing! It feels great putting healthy stuff in my body first thing of the day. 

The Joy of Hyperpresence

This morning I'm flooded with an overwhelming sense of calm and place. It's a feeling of "I am RIGHT HERE. I'm in THIS MOMENT." There's nothing ahead to be anxious about, and the past isn't something regrettable. It's just lessons to be assimilated. It's a kind of hyper reality and sense of deep satisfaction. I don't have the biggest place, the fanciest car, the most expensive stuff, and I'm not famous or rich. But I'm right here, right now, and I'm fantastically content feeling me feet firmly and serenely planted in the moment. It's a term I call "hyperpresence."

Morning Coffee

I'm sitting sipping my coffee in my favorite chair in my dining room. In that moment in the quiet of the morning, the sun not up yet, I realize it's the perfect moment. Not perfect in the sense of everything arranged just so or everything aligned to the boundaries of a perfectionist mentality. Perfect in the sense of simple. The simple moments are the most profound and usually the most overlooked. Sipping coffee in a favorite chair at the favorite time of day. What could possibly be better than that?

A Man and His Dog

I had a very odd yet comforting dream about 3.45 this morning. I was sitting in what would be a back living room or TV room in what felt like a 50s to 60s era house. The walls were darkly paneled and I was sitting in a recliner. Beside me was was my dog with lots of grey hair, content in his old age. The sliding glass doors to the yard were open and a warm breeze was flowing in billowing the curtains silently and softly. I could smell the outside and I walked out onto a small concrete patio. The sun had that blinding freshness to it that springtime has sometimes. I could see the houses on either side, the lawn was a vibrant green, and everything was perfectly quiet in a serene and calming way. He was standing beside me and everything felt so absolutely immediate. I felt completely and utterly present and the moment seemed to last in a weird sense of "arrival" as if this was the moment I had been moving towards my whole life. I understood the past and how it helped propel me to the exact moment on that back patio, and it all felt so right and comfortable. Almost like wrapping it all up around me like a nice blanket. My dog looked up at me as if to say, "Yup. This is where it's all supposed to be, and it's just you and me sharing it and we don't need any words to understand what it means."

It was such a powerful (only word I can think of, even though it's way overused!) image that even now it brings a lump up in my throat thinking about and feeling how profoundly serene it was.

The Machine of the Universe

I had a very nice "moment of presence" at the gym this morning. The sun was just beginning to peek over the building (my gym's windows face west), and it was shimmering on a huge tree at the end of the parking lot. Every leaf seemed bright and vivid and intensely alive. The music I was listening to on my iPhone was the album, "Om: The Primordial Sound".* It's very meditative and puts me in a nice relaxed and focused zone. At the very moment the music hit a dramatic spot a flock of birds careened in front of the patch of leaves I described above. They shimmered for a brief moment in the sunlight as well. In that nanosecond it almost felt as if I wasn't in the gym, but away and part of some larger whole. My place in it fit like some tooth in a gear meshing with the notches in another gear. A tiny but integral cog in the machine of the universe. It was one of those moments where everything falls away and it's just you and the experience. In that brief flash you know beyond a doubt you are an integral part of something much bigger. *I highly recommend this album. It can be found on iTunes for those interested.

Follow Your Bliss

Here's a conversation with Bill Moyers and the great Joseph Campbell. I listen to this every morning. I hope you enjoy it and find inspiration in it as I do. Click on the picture to follow
the link.

Pasteries, Beaches, and French Roast

I just went and got pasteries for the morning breakfast, then took a walk on the beach. See picture for my exciting (at least to me!) beach finds. Now while everyone else is still sleeping, I’ve made a French press full of heavy, hard French roast coffee. I’m sitting in the quiet of the morning enjoying my beach treasures and my coffee realizing this is it. It’s simple, it’s quiet, and these little things and quiet moments connect me to the larger “it” that’s out there.

Morning

I really, really, really dig the early morning hours, 4.30ish to about 9.30 or 10. Everything is so clear and uncluttered. This morning putzing around the house, feeling the sun coming up and filling the place with light, the morning sounds of life coming to life outside I didn't want to leave the house and taint the mood with outside negativity, hatred, hustle and bustle, and panic of everyday smallness.