L♥VE

"Love is freedom. To look for it by placing yourself in bondage is to separate yourself from it. For the love of God, no longer seek for union in separation, nor freedom in bondage! As you release, so will you be released. " --A Course in Miracles

Happy Valentine's Day to you all! I L♥VE the idea of L♥VE as freedom, I always have. In the meantime, I show my L♥VE through control. :p What's that about? 

But, as a very wise man once said to me, "We are all doing the very best we can in any given moment." 

So, control was the best I could do at the time and today I am trying to do better. I am trying to release and L♥VE and offer freedom to everyone as a gift of L♥VE. I offer it to you. 

Do not place yourself in bondage to L♥VE, nor anyone else you L♥VE. And, when in doubt offer chocolate. 

I L♥VE you - have a fabulous V-day!

NO FEAR

"I will not be afraid of love today." --A Course in Miracles, Lesson 282

Trying to Find Love in a Bottle

"Having obscene amounts of money, power and status is just one kind of success. (And often a rather boring one at that.) Far more intriguing are the triumphs that come from outwitting ones own shadowy behavior and unconscious habits...." --Rob Brezsny from Free Will Astrology

Saturday afternoon found me sitting by the fire, reading a book and drinking a glass of red wine. This sounds lovely I am sure except....I can't drink anymore.
 
I never really could. I have always been a lightweight, tipsy after two drinks, drunk after three or four and completely useless the next day, but lately (since I had kids, stopped being so unconscious, started meditating) I just have no tolerance for alcohol. 

Half a drink and I feel tipsy and completely hungover the next day. I guess this would be okay except gone are the days when I could spend a whole day recovering. 

I have breakfasts to make and laundry to do and books to read and boo-boos to bandage and fights to referee and playdates to arrange.....you get the idea. No rest for the wicked and all that. 

So I have quit drinking, for the most part. You don't have to hit me over the head. Someone up there (glance Heaven-ward) doesn't want me to drink. Okay, I get it already. 

The thing is, sometimes I just WANT to. I just want to be able to have a glass or two of wine, kick back and relax my mind. For as long as I can remember my mind has been like a hamster wheel, always spinning. Spinning tales of fear and judgement, of worry and anxiety, of shyness and social anxiety, of not measuring up, not being good enough, not being liked, not saying the right thing, not looking the right way.

I know these are, for the most part, tales of untruth. I am pretty lucky actually and can fit in most places I go. I can talk to most people. But inside my head it is a mess of what is wrong, what could go wrong, what other people might think is wrong. 

A glass or two of wine totally takes care of that. Whoosh! All gone. In its place is a fuzzy little ocean of love. That's right. LOVE. Pure unadulterated love in a bottle. 

It's soft and warm (or sometimes slightly chilled), tastes good and goes down smooth, leaving a path of calm in its wake. It feels so good to forget for a little while all the stuff that is in my brain.

But it is not without cost and lately the cost is getting higher and higher.

On Saturday I hadn't finished my first half a glass (I drank two half glasses instead of one full glass to make it last) before I started to feel hungover. Lethargic, headachey, a little bit nauseated. Blech!

I was so disappointed. My fantasy had failed me again. All I wanted was one afternoon by the fire with a glass of red and a fuzzy head. Was that too much to ask? 

Apparently so. 

The thing is, I want to drink AND I don't want to drink. Sometimes I do. But mostly I don't. Most of the time that is okay. Most of the time not drinking works for me. But sometimes the fantasy (the fuzzy little ocean of love) gets in my head and I just want to put on some fancy clothes, some high-ish heeled shoes and go out with the girls for a few glasses of wine. 

I feel like somehow I am being denied something that is my birthright. It is so engrained in our culture. A cocktail, Happy Hour, a glass of wine with dinner, a coffee drink to finish the night....

What I realized during this last "binge" (if you can call it that) is that what I am really searching for is the same thing I am searching for when I sit down to meditate. A feeling of complete and total love and acceptance. 

When I have had a glass of wine I feel like everything is as it should be. I am perfect and so is everyone else. It is complete love and acceptance for things as they are. It is LOVE. 

But it's a false love. 

Real love comes from inside. From that deep place inside that is hidden underneath all of the pain and guilt and shame and fear. In the center of our beings. The center that somehow gets revealed to us through drinking and drugs and, oh yeah, through meditation, without all the yucky side effects. 

So I am back on the wagon. It feels strange to say. I have never been endangered by my love of alcohol. Have never gotten a DUI or lost a job or even a friend because of my drinking. It has never led to any really unsafe situations or caused me serious problems, but I don't know if I can say that for others. When I am hungover I am much more likely to yell at my kids. To scream at my husband. To hate my life. 

I am much more likely to rail against things as they are and to want them to be as they appear under the influence of alcohol - perfect.   

That, of course, is impossible and furthermore, an illusion, even under the influence of a glass of red. Maybe especially under the influence of a glass of red. 

The world as seen through a glass of wine is soft and fuzzy, like the world through a pair of old glasses that no longer corrects your vision. You don't see clearly. Everything is blurry and you can convince yourself it is perfect, which may be why the world under the influence of a hangover is so hard to take. It is sharp and clear and painful. 

That same world, however, can be made soft and warm not by what you drink, but by how you see. Seeing the world through the eyes of love, instead of the eyes of judgement and hate, can give you that same soft fuzzy feeling, that same feeling of love. Without the bottle. 

It's not as easy, but it comes without a price. One that seems to be getting higher and higher every day.

A Post in Which I Delve Into an Old Cliche

 "If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were." 

--Richard Bach 

This quote feels like the worst possible cliche', but sometimes cliches have a ring of truth to them that just cannot be denied.

I had a conversation with a friend this week in which we were discussing marriage. Both of us have recently had moments in our marriages where we were just not sure we wanted to carry on -  and both of us have found this moment to be oddly affirming of the relationship at the same time.

Sending my husband off to Burning Man on his own made many of the people I talked to nervous. Aren't you afraid he'll___________? (Fill in your worst relationship fear.)

Fifteen years ago I would have been, but now I truly feel that he has to be free to do those things I fear most in order that he not need to do them. It's ironic and hard to understand on some level, but the freedom to leave, to stray, to cheat, to be yourself in all of your worst and best ways, is utterly necessary - I believe - for a healthy relationship.

On the flip side, my husband said he was amazed at how being away and having total freedom made him love and appreciate us and just want to come home and be the best husband and father he could be.

And yet it was only hours after he came home that we had a moment in our marriage that we had not yet gotten to - the moment of choice. 

It is a moment that I think all couples get to - some sooner, some later - where they have to decide if they are going to keep going or turn back. When you are dating this moment is not always easy, but there is less on the line. When you are married or have been together for a long time, or have children together, this moment can scare the bejesus out of you. 

It's the moment when you have to chose to stay, to work, to persevere even though - at that moment - you may not want to and it may seem easier or preferable to go. 

If either one of us had chosen to walk away, it could have all been over. The thirteen years of marriage, the fifteen years together, the family gatherings, the co-parenting, the best-friending....all of it. But we didn't. We turned around, faced each other again, and made it through. 

I have no illusion that this is the last moment like this we will have. I think the longer you stay in a relationship the more likely you are to have them. Sometimes a long term relationship can feel like a noose around your neck. 

Other times, of course, it can be as comfortable as a fuzzy old bathrobe, and - if you are really lucky - as fun as a roller coaster ride. 

When I was younger I thought I had to be ever vigilant, keeping other women at bay, watching my husband at all times for signs of infidelity. 
Now I know the truth: If you love someone set them free....and demand your own freedom. 

Only under these conditions can the relationship thrive and flourish and end up being somewhere you both WANT to be.

Open My Heart

"Love is not a matter of getting connected. It is a matter of seeing that we already ARE connected within an intricate web of relationships that extends throughout all life. It is a realization of 'no boundary' -- that we are all made of the same stuff, riding through time on the same spaceship, faced with the same problems in the world, the same hopes and fears. It is a connection at the core, that makes irrelevant skin color, age, sex, looks or money." 

--Anodea Judith from Wheels of Life: A User's Guide to the Chakra System 

I am reading about the 4th Chakra this week - the Heart Chakra - trying to learn how to open my heart. 

This has been a life-long process for me. Ever since I was a child I have felt like there is something "wrong" with my heart. I had a heart murmur at birth, but it supposedly went away after a few weeks and has not been an issue since. 

As a child I would watch Guiding Light with my mom. There was a character on the show (also a child) who had a heart problem and was in danger of dying at any moment from a heart attack. I convinced myself that I had the same condition and I was always putting my hand on my heart to make sure it was still beating. 

As a teenager, I felt like I had a hole in my heart. I had the feeling of WANTING boys - wanting them to like me, wanting them to want me - but I never really felt like I loved anyone. The one time I had a chance at true love in high school I pushed that boy away out of the sheer terror of it. It is a regret I carry with me to this day.

As I got older this "heart trouble" manifested itself in physical exercise. I have always been afraid to run too fast, to push too hard. I always keep myself just below - or sometimes far below - what I can really do or accomplish just so my heart won't burst. 

If I do run too fast or push too hard physically my mind starts to shut down and I ache and feel terror until I stop. I have never pushed beyond that place of sheer terror to see what lies on the other side, but I have a feeling that someday I am going to have to in order to get to where I want to go. 

A few years ago I had a dream about a past life that I believe explains a lot about my "heart problems" in this lifetime. 

In the dream I saw myself as a young mother - thin, petite and blonde (the very opposite of what I am in this lifetime) - in a hotel room in Las Vegas being murdered by my much older lover and the father of my child. He stabbed me in the back of the heart and neck, cutting off the love and communication centers, separating me from my son. 

When I think about this dream I feel a tingling in the back of my neck and the center of my back.

A few years ago I did an exercise to discover my soul's mission for this lifetime and this is what I got: "Open My Heart." I think I know why. I think I have started the process. Now I just have to see it through. 

As I do yoga and meditation and breath work and chakra work I am starting to feel something in my heart - an aching, an opening - and it is scary, but I am trying to breathe through it and let love in.

Today, just after I read the passage I quoted, I opened up my email and there was a message from The Universe in the form of my Daily Om from Rumi: 

In the sea of love, I melt like salt
Faith, Doubt - they both dissolve.
A star is opening in my heart

A star is opening in my heart. Yes, I think it is.

With LOVE from Paris

It seemed like everywhere I went in Paris, I saw LOVE. 

There was love in the window of a chocolatier, an elementary school, and a kitchen shop, as part of a fountain, outside of an art museum and, of course, in all of the beautiful old churches. Even on the side of a construction site. 

Love to you, today and always!

I hope it's SOON!

"The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, humankind will have discovered fire. " 

--Teilhard de Chardin, French Geologist, Priest, Philosopher and Mystic.

Love what is. That's it. Just LOVE WHAT IS.

"Love what is." 

--The Universe

I AM? YOU ARE.

"Let there be peace, I am a stand for peace
Let there be love, I am a stand for love
Let there be joy, I am a stand for joy
We are making a new world now." 

--Karen Drucker, closing song at Seattle Unity

Friday night I went to see the movie, "I AM," with a bunch of friends. I was poised to love it, to be inspired, and to have my life changed, but I left the theater feeling somewhat disappointed. 

My disappointment turned to dismay when I realized that almost everyone in the group I was with LOVED IT. I mean, REALLY LOVED IT. 

I was flummoxed. 

Did I not "get" the movie? Did I miss something? (It was the late show on a Friday night.....)

The thing I just kept thinking is: There is nothing new here. Everything he presented in the movie I have already seen or read or experienced somewhere else. We are all one. The Universe is connected in ways we cannot fathom. Yeah? And? 

I am not even sure what I wanted from the movie, but I wanted something MORE. Something BIGGER. Something MIND-BLOWING. 

I guess it was that movie for some people, it just wasn't that movie for me. 

The thing that really gets under my skin is something Tom Shadyac (the director and star) says in the trailer, "I decided to....spark a conversation around challenging and rarely-asked questions....What's wrong with our world and what can we do about it?"

I reject the premise that these are rarely-asked questions. I ask myself these questions. Every. Single. Day. And so do the friends I went the the movie with (a group which included a massage therapist, a psychic, a cranial sacral practitioner, and two highly intuitive energy healers). Which is why I just cannot understand why they were so enamored with it.

The irony of the whole thing is that just prior to the start of the movie I got into a discussion with one of the women in our group (a friend of a friend and someone I had never met before) about Catholicism and the clergy-molestation scandal. I did not handle it well. 

[As a quick aside, my history with the Catholic Church: I grew up pretty fundamentalist Protestant, became a Catholic when I met my husband, and ended my affiliation with the Catholic Church five or six years later for personal, political and spiritual reasons. While I no longer support the church financially or take communion, I do attend services from time to time with my husband.]

I had just read an article about the Texas priest who is under investigation for the attempted murder of a boy who has accused him of molestation and my hackles were up about the Catholic Church so when we started discussing Catholicism it brought up a lot of energy for me. A LOT. 

I was sitting there in my head saying, "Calm down. You don't know this woman very well. Your husband is Catholic and you can understand that. There is no need to make a stand here, etc., etc." But I just wasn't listening to myself. 

I wanted some kind of admission, from this woman that I don't know at all, that what her church had done by covering up all of these cases of molestation and refusing to apologize publicly for it was wrong. Wrong with a Capital W. 

But she couldn't, or wouldn't, at that moment give that to me. And I couldn't, at that moment, accept that. 

And then the lights came down and the movie started and that was it. We didn't get a chance to finish our discussion or come to any kind of meeting of the minds (and I think we would have gotten there had there been time) and I felt badly about that. 

So maybe I didn't get it because I wasn't in a space to get it. I was sitting there thinking, I know this already, this is nothing new, all the while still obsessing about what was separating me from this woman I had just met (our opinion about how best to react to the clergy molestation scandal in the Catholic Church).  

So what now? 

Yesterday I took the kids to Unity and got a hit of the I AM that I could appreciate, accept, and understand. 

At the end of the service we all stood hand-in-hand singing, "Let there be peace, I AM a stand for peace; Let there be love, I AM a stand for love; Let there be joy, I AM a stand for joy...." Tears came to my eyes, as they always do at the end of the service, and I realized, once again, that it doesn't matter HOW you get to Peace, Love, Joy, and Oneness, only THAT you get there. 

So if you see the "I AM" movie, I hope you love it. I hope it inspires you. I hope it gives you hope. 

I also hope that you recognize that just being there means you already are. YOU ARE.

God's Currency

"We're not here to earn God's love; we're here to spend it."

--Swami Beyondananda in Funny Times, March 2011

If you are a lefty and you don't read Funny Times, subscribe immediately. This is the funniest, cleverest, most joyful political magazine I have ever read. It makes fun of the left and the right equally (though there is no doubt that it is a "liberal" paper) and it doesn't shy away from spirituality as so many political mags do. 

This quote is a perfect example of the joy that is Funny Times. And, it seems to me, to lead naturally to the following question: HOW can I spend God's love today? What a different world we would be living in if that was the question we were all asking.

What is love?

"Let me remember love is happiness and nothing else brings joy."

"Grace is acceptance of the love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear."

"...[W]ithout the ego, all would be love."

"What is not love is always fear and nothing else."

"Your confusion of sacrifice and love is so profound that you cannot conceive of love without sacrifice. And it is this that you must look upon: sacrifice is attack, not love."

--A Course in Miracles

A late-breaking post today as I was in the midst of yet another existential crisis and did not get a post written....more on that later in the week. 

Since I really have no idea about anything today I am turning once again to A Course in Miracles to give me some insight. These are some of my favorite ACIM quotes about love. Hope you enjoy them! 

Happy Valentine's Day. I hope your day was filled with lots of love and joy.

My Dearest Friends

"I will recognize in everyone my dearest friend." 

--Unknown

I have been feeling kind of lonely lately. 

There are a lot of people in my life, from various facets of my life, who I appreciate and enjoy spending time with and love, but it seems that they are all scattered right now. 

With so many of my friends, our paths don't seem to cross every day, or even every week. There are very few people (aside from my husband and my boys) who I see and interact with every day. 

I guess this is just a fact of modern life. We are all involved in so many things that we are constantly ebbing and flowing in and out of each others' lives. 

While pondering this new reality (up until last year when I went back to work there were other parents I was hanging out with pretty much every day), I heard the words "love everyone," and remembered this quote.  I think I might try it.

Instead of looking around and hoping to see a friend, why not see who appears in front of me today and meet that person as a friend?

Emanating Love

"Emanate love to all in your sphere without distinction or prejudice." 

--Sunyata Satchitananda from the website www.mythiclove.net

I went to a Holiday concert this week that a friend of mine and her children were performing in. It was a lovely performance; the director was enthusiastic, the songs were uplifting and everyone seemed to be having a great time.

There was one woman in the choir who particularly stood out for me. She was standing in the back, not doing anything special, but as she sang she just radiated love.

I watched her closely throughout the whole concert, trying to figure out her secret. I studied her face to try and see what was different.

Physically, there was nothing special about her face. It was more attractive then some, less attractive than others, but a pretty basic human face. Still, there was something about it that went beyond the physical.

Her face was open. Her face was loose and broad and radiant. Her face was smiling all the time.

I kept finding myself thinking: I want to do that.

And asking the question that followed: How do you do that?

As I continued to look at the woman with the radiant face what I saw was Total Acceptance. Of herself and of others. She truly loved herself and therefore had no reason to hate anyone else.

I know that I am not there yet, but I hope that's where I'm headed.

True Religion

"The truest religion is love."

--From "Citizens of the World" by PANGEA

If a picture is worth a thousand words a video must be worth at least a blog entry's worth. This seems the perfect follow-up to yesterday's entry. Thanks to my newest follower for this....
 

Changing the World

"When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country. But it, too, seemed immovable. As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it. And now as I lie on my deathbed, I suddenly realize: If I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family. From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country and, who knows, I may have even changed the world."

--Inscribed on the tomb of an Anglican Bishop in Westminster Abby (1100 AD)

Reading this quote always makes me breathe a huge sigh of relief. 

I am introverted, easily overwhelmed, and need a good deal of rest and alone time just to deal with my life. I am always amazed at stories of people in my same situation (middle-class, middle-aged parents with elementary-aged children) who are adopting twelve children or organizing fund-raisers to build schools in Africa or traveling around the country raising awareness about some good cause when I can barely manage to spend one hour a week in my kids' classrooms helping their teachers. 

Sometimes I feel like the planet's laziest, most under-performing humanoid.

But I am working on my shit 24/7 these days. Ever since my "awakening" - aka the birth of my first child and the two years of sanity-destroying sleep deprivation and insomnia that followed - I am trying every moment to be the most present, grounded, and awake person I can be. 

Sometimes that ain't much. 

But some days it feels like I just might be sending out a wave of light and love big enough to spark a change in my family, my community, my country and maybe even the world.

Happy Blogaversary!

Today is the one-year anniversary of this blog and that seems a reason to celebrate, but also to reflect....

I am proud of what I have accomplished in the past year. Posting three times a week for one year without fail is something I wasn't sure I could do when I started (I had tried blogging a few times before, but always found I petered out after two or three posts). I did it!

"BUT," says the voice in my head, "You haven't REALLY been writing, you've just been posting quotes from other writers....."

Which is true. But. I have my own BUT for that voice.... just doing that has been an exercise in practice and discipline and has been laying the groundwork for what is to come next.

So, what IS to come next? I had grand plans for a total redesign - maybe even a name change - for my blog, but here we are at the one-year mark and I am nowhere near ready for any of that. So this year I am just going to make one small change and build on that over the next year.

This year I am going to add some writing to each post. It will most likely be a brief comment (somewhat like I sometimes post in the comments section) on why I chose the quote or what it means to me, how it helped me grow.....whatever seems appropriate for that quote, that moment, that day. I hope you will enjoy reading what I have to say.

Happy Blogaversary to you too! Thanks for tuning in.

Love, Lara

"...[W]e all want the same things (to be happy and be loved)..."

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

"I believe that the voices of fear, both from without and from within, can only be dispelled by trusting the voice that comes from the heart. If it speaks of love and compassion for others, for the world itself, it just might be the voice of God -- or a reasonable facsimile."

Chuck Lorre, writer, from Vanity Card #212, The Big Bang Theory: The Complete First Season

"...[T]here was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love running...both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you got, being patient and forgiving and undemanding."

Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

"Hell isn't a condition imposed by a judgmental God, but rather the inevitable consequence of one's own decisions - it's the final outcome of constantly choosing the negative and thus isolating oneself from Love. "

David R. Hawkins, Power vs. Force