Coming Out of the Closet...

From the picture above you will see that I am not coming out of the closet with what is commonly come out with. :o) However, in a way it is...because in having no hair (and I didn't do it for this purpose, however, in having no hair for the last month, I have become less and less aware of being female (feminine) or male (masculine). Without the attachment to hair (which is pretty intense for a woman...especially this woman...hair was always pretty important), there is less attachment, naturally less, to being seen as feminine (not that I am trying not to be feminine...it just hasn't come up like it did when I had to tend to hair and fix it so it look right to go out or put it up to well do anything). And there is not an attempt to a gender (male or female). There is just being. Not trying to be anything...just not really being anything.

You may wonder why I would shave my head (I say that cause I wonder why I shaved my head) and the answers seems to show up in like "ah ha" moments. There was no reason in the beginning, although there has been an inclination to know what it is like to have no hair and in retrospect...maybe a bit of pulling off of an old skin. However that is all in after the fact...all of what has been seen, has been seen after the action.

There has been plenty of awkwardness about it (it's not "normal" for a woman to shave her head in the society that I have been in) and there is not immunity here to the feelings of embarrassment and not knowing how to explain it and living in a small rural town. It seems that some people look at me like I have an illness...like maybe I have Cancer (which would make more sense than just … this person shaved all their hair off for no reason).

But we are not about making sense around these parts well where I live (which is probably why I find myself very much alone most of the time...not complaining). Because not making sense sometimes scares people...they don't know what to do with it...sheesh I don't know what to do with it...cept I've been hearing to "Let it Be." "Leave the thoughts about everything and anything alone."

So all the thoughts that you may be having about what you just saw...I've had them all too and even to the point that each week on Tuesday (which is my bath and shave day), I wonder to myself...will I shave my head today or let it grow and what I hear is "wait and see." <---not really in words...it's what happens ...waiting and seeing.

Some friends and Family have been pretty accepting of it and some have not (well at first anyway). I didn't know (though I had imagined) just how much I would like it...it really feels natural to have no hair and … there is no hair all over the home (stuck in the vaccum and tub drain) to clean up (which was always gross).

So it's not probably something most people would do and it may make you uncomfortable or think I am a freak or weird (however, there is more of a sense of "normal" without hair...because when there was hair there was a look of "normal" but not a feeling of it...now with no "normal" (hiding behind the hair) there's feelings of normalcy :o) So there is a sense of looking pretty close to how the feelings of being in a human body are...unknown...not so easily defined.

I won't say I'm not a bit nervous about sending this out...even though nobody but me really reads any of this anyway...but there's a good energy about it coming through so we'll go with that.

~Joysters

Coincidence/Synchronicity

Coincidence and synchroncity have played a huge role in my life, and at times have even been quite frightening, the mind/thoughts can become fearful when it can't understand how something has happened. It wants to box and categorize it and make it into something learnable.

The more comfortable I become with not understanding how and why things happen the less fearful they become.

Last night I had a dream that coincided pretty closely with the recent events in my life. I wasn't any one specific person in the dream and it was 4 characters that I was (although not me as I think of myself) sort of looking out of and on to each other...like an inside view out as each played their parts.

The characters were a husband/father (who was a bit of an uptight stressed out and a bit angry man). There was the mother (a bit flakey, scared she had cancer and liked to write in journals). A son (who was autistic). And the daughter (who was a snoop and scared to be alone).

So in this one scene they are all (except the mother) in the master bedroom, the kids are on the floor and the father is pacing back and forth and I am looking out of the son's eyes (in that moment) at the dad and the son is seeing that his dad is very frustrated almost to a rage with something the son has done and wants to scream at him and hurt him. But the son is somehow able to look out of his dad's eyes and has a great realization. The son says to the dad in his Autistic way..."Dad you know why you don't hurt me?"  "Why?" says the dad.   "Because you love yourself...if you didn't and saw yourself in me then you would destroy me, but because you love yourself you cannot hurt me because you see yourself in me."  And the Dad heard him as the boy said it and saw himself in his son and realized that he did love himself through his son.

Meanwhile, the daughter is reading her mother's journal and blurts out "mom is going to kill herself because she has cancer!" and then looks at the date and sees it is way in the past and her mom is alive and the daughter intuitively knows her mother does not have cancer and they go to find her in the Garden releasing ladybugs.

It's not exactly how the dream went cause it's been a few hours and is fading from memory. However, I woke up feeling somehow changed and a bit scared of the realizations from this dream until reading something my Teacher has written many times. "Let the world be."

Which in this case is let the mind/thoughts not understand.

TheConcept

Taking a look at the concept of "me."  "Me" is an idea and accumulation of likes and dislikes from experiences that were had while riding through life in the body you find yourself in.  I was looking at how much easier life has become...the less of a "me" there is. 

Like the less I have things like "my ideas," "my art," "my work," "my family," "my life," "my music," "my favorite _____," <--- fill in the blank...the less resistance there is to life and how it shows up.

Sometimes we have to lose everything that we hold dear.  There is a poem by an amazing Sufi Poet from the 1200s named Rumi, he showed up in my life back in 1999 and has guided me through so many difficult and also amazing times.  Below is one of the poems by him and if you find yourself looking him up...check out Coleman Barks...he immersed himself in Rumi translations and has done an amazing job.

THE GUEST HOUSE

If you would like to hear me read it to you...click here.

So back to this idea of a "me."   We don't realize that we have misidentified ourselves by the thoughts that go through the mind and the preferences we think are so important...all of that masks what is before all of that...the Real You.  The Real You does not have any preferences...doesn't actually care one iota for anything...It (and it is not an it)...just Is.  But because It just Is...it is overlooked and the world becomes what all the attention is paid to.

Pay attention to what you think is so important...begin to pay attention to all the things you think you need and see how they are making you experience your life.  Are they making your life harder?  Begin to pay attention when you say "I like this" and "I like that" and this is "my" favorite.  Don't do anything about it...just begin to pay attention.

That's all for now.

~Joysters

DEATH (Melancholia)

This morning on my walk the body was very tired, this isn't a common occurrence any more, although it used to be.  So I only made it half way and turned around and came back home...at other times, I may have pushed myself to make it...suck it up and just get it done...but my walks have shifted quite a bit over the years and there really is no point in the walking...it is just walking...there is no where to get to and no reason for doing it (though I used to think there was) just simply walking .

When these things happen, becoming that tired...I am much more aware that things will eventually end.  I have, even as a young child, been acutely aware of death.  Sometimes I have been drawn to it as an escape and have had made attempts to "get out" of this world that way.  There have also been times that I have been extremely scared of death and the bodily pain that maybe associated with the experience.  One time I was pretty freaked out about it my Teacher said, "well, one thing you do know is that it will end."  That took some time to sink in...and now...there is a knowing that no matter how painful something is (not only painful but any emotion or state) eventually it will end and in that knowing...is a release of the fear and a recognition of this moment, one where there is not pain and no need to be afraid that pain may come at some other time.  A redirection of the attention, if you will, to what everything is showing up In.

Death and Fear are actually the same thought...because neither can really be experienced...you can be afraid of death...but you cannot experience it … so if you cannot experience Death than what is there to be afraid of....they are both ghosts.  If you are dead...who is experiencing it?  (Once again...one is pointed to the question of "Who am I?")  Who dies?  The body cannot experience death...it is either alive or dead.

Really the reason, at least for me, that death has been so scary, is because it reveals to the mind that it does not have control...you know you don't have control over death...even if you suicide...you know inside that you are only doing it because you are afraid of death...you are afraid that you are not in control of your life...which you are not.  However, you could just relax in that knowing instead of being afraid.  You haven't ever been in control, you just think you have and your thoughts actually come after action.  You may think that they come before you do something but you have been wrong...you may not like to hear that but it is so...the action happens and then thoughts appear and you think you did something.  You are watching a movie called "my life" but you are not the director or even the actor...you are just the watcher and as you slow down and allow this to be revealed to you...you smile a lot more.

So there has been a fascination with death for me....I have experienced many losses in life, physically lost people very close to me and have gone to some pretty deep depths of despair at times.  The undoing of what I believed has been quite emotionally painful at times although I wouldn't change a thing...not if I could.

So this morning I got home pretty exhausted and which made it perfect to take some time out and watch a movie that my Teacher recommended that he had recently watched called "Melancholia."  I snaggled into the couch with some blankets and turned on the Roku and got onto Netflix because it is an instant play film and made some tea and let the body rest as I watched the movie.  And it is very good...it is visually beautiful and Kirsten Dunst does a really good job...actually all the actors did a really good job. 

One of the things that came up for me was purpose...you know many people say that things happen for a reason and we all seem to be working to get better or improve life … but what if nothing means anything...that everything that you "think" you are working towards or for...is just for nothing...there is no meaning at all...you have just been (in one sense) killing time (which doesn't exist anyway).

Does it really make a difference what you are doing in this life?  I'm not saying this in a depressing sort of way...maybe in a way that you can look and just see … "what am I doing?"  I mean if you are just wasting time anyway...what are you wasting it on.  Possibly you can relax in yourSelf more and more as you see that this is all going to end and there is no rush to get anywhere.

Sometimes at first, you may become scared and go through the process that you are going to die (you as you think of yourself … are going to die) and then you will possibly begin to relax into the fact that everything does...we are just seemingly floating in space on a giant composter.  We are on the Cemetary Planet...everything here dies and is born...but who you are isn't born and doesn't die...who you Truly Are...the planet is in.  This is the beginning of seeing Heaven on Earth.  Heaven is looking out of you...and everything, however, one must begin to question who they are to begin to See.

Anything that pushes one closer to the Present moment, where nothing, no thing is happening...is a Gift.  And so Melancholia the movie...is that gift to me today...another reminder that this will all come to an end and a Pointer to what doesn't.

Rest in Peace.
  ~Joysters

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

I thought it was kind of funny when I went to look for a picture for the title of this post that it pulled up this image above, although I just found out it's in it's 3rd season (The show "Who Do You Think You Are NBC.)  I hadn't heard of the show until just now or at least hadn't paid it any mind and so it was kind of neat that I got to take a look at where it was pointing...to our ancestry.  I haven't spent much time investigating mine...I've always been much more interested in what cannot be explained than what can be and ancestry to me...well it seemed that people had put too much stock into where they have come from before looking to see who is in the shell.  Like...if you look at the body like a car then if you are let's say "Irish" then we could say you are a  Volvo and if you are Japanese then you are a Toyota and if you are German then you are a Mercedes but if you see what I am getting at...it doesn't matter what Ancestry you come from … you are not the car/Ancestry (however, I don't discredit it and...in this world...it probably has a lot to do with how your personality is...because of Ancestry and DNA...it makes a pattern for the car/body you are driving in...but it is not who you Are.

Which leads me to what was coming up today.  I was looking at the thought "who do you think you are?"

Where do I get off saying and doing the things that I say and do?  Cause I used to be so scared of who I am...I thought I really knew who was driving this car.  I used to think "I know who I am." 

I used to be so certain of what I am like and what I will be and what I will do.  And then about 20 years ago, geez thank god for patience...if I hadn't been in it, it might have seemed like a really long time...but I was immersed in those 20 years and now I am looking back and they don't seem so long, so about 20 years ago the question "Who am I?" appeared.  And it is obviously appearing for you too or you wouldn't be reading this so hang in there if you are beginning to question yourself...your in the right place or you wouldn't be here. 

So … I'm about 23 years old, at that time and finding myself in a similar situation to the one I find myself in today and I am beginning to wonder who I am (back then it was a question I was looking for the answer too and now it is a question that points to what is beyond any words or thoughts or beliefs or ideas, but this is 20 years later so I digress). 

Back to 23, I had been told for so long who I am...that I am a girl, a child, an adult, that I am a mother, that I am a body, a woman, a worker, that I am what I do and I am what I think, that I am my name, I am a product of the experiences that happened in this life, I am American, I am Indian I am Irish and German...but I was starting to see that all those things could be taken away.  If the body dies...then who am I … if I am not the body...then who am I? 

So shortly after that a book called "A Course In Miracles" entered my life and I read and studied it and did the lessons for years and still this longing to know this answer because the whole Course in Miracles evolved around an "I."  And so "I" got built up to something that was getting somewhere...until one day...I met my Teacher and he pulled the carpet out from under me...all that "I" had become from ACIM was smashed very quickly and it was a terrible time...some pretty all time lows because "I" couldn't understand that "I" wasn't. 

"I" thought I was going to be enlightened...the "I" that "I" had created would be enlightened...but if I wasn't that "I" then who am I?  If I am not who I think I am, who people say I am … "who is running this ship."

 If I am not who I think I am...than Who am I?  <---Back to square one.  (Actually less than one but the mind cannot imagine that...it can Know it which is beyond the mind, but the mind/thoughts don't believe that there is really something bigger than it...something that it is in...immersed in...like a fish in a fishbowl...it doesn't know that it is in water...you don't know what you are in but you are in It.)

This question would not leave me and my Teacher began to reinforce the Pointing that "I am not who I think I am."  And so I spent the next 12 years looking at the thoughts and somehow knowing they were not "me" but still believing they were.

So it has only started becoming more and more obvious and surrender to...in just the briefest of moments there is a stopping and an awareness of beyond thought and acceptance of  not knowing who I am and not trying to know or understand anything...there is an instantaneous rest when one stops trying to know who they are and just let's go.

It has been a long road to be where I am...which is exactly where I have always been but it looked like I took a long way to get here...it has just been the unlearning process...like instead of wiping out the whole computer at once...each program was removed to see that there is no actual operating system there is just operating. 

See you will begin to see that you just do what you do...there is no "you" doing it.  You get to begin to relax because "not existing" is no longer frightening.  You become okay with not knowing because you know that you haven't been doing any of it ever and what has been doing it...has taken care of you (<---humor me since there is no me or you just accept that words have to be used to Point to what cannot be spoken).

So you might say … well then who are you talking to...well I am talking to myself just like I always have...I use the body, nature, universe...all of it to reveal the Self to myself.  When you are all alone, that is all you can do and there are infinite ways to do it...you think that you are separate from me so that I can talk with you...if you knew we weren't separate then there would be no need to communicate in this fashion.  But you do know that we are not separate, even if you deny it...otherwise you wouldn't be able to type or read this.  I am always here caring for you as you are for me...giving and receiving are the same and I can only give you what you are willing to receive.

If you ever want to watch some good movies that Point...here are just a few off the top of my head:

• The Matrix
• The 13th Floor
• Fight Club
• A Pure Formality
• What Dreams May Come 

Okay, time for reading :o)

Outside The Box

OUTSIDE THE BOX

~Joysters

So this morning on my walk, there was a thought that some of the things that have been happening in my life are outside the box. You may often here someone say "think outside the box," but do they really mean it or has it just become another thing that is said to someone to shut them up. Like maybe you do think outside the box, however, the minute that you share those thoughts with another...many times you will find your ideas and thoughts rejected and the life sucked out of them and then they sort of just fade away.

Lately, life has been being lived "outside the box." Like it's becoming more of a mystery...as I mentioned I cleared out my home of all the food and alot of stuff that had been accumulating...a sort of simplifying, if you will. And then there was the not speaking for quite a few weeks and fasting a few times for 3 days and 10 days on the Master Cleanse. During this time, it has been like being outside the box and looking in on the boxes that everyone says should be there.

People seem to like to think about things outside of the box but then if they are actually lived...the world/people will come and try to jam you right back into that box because people/society/the world are in a box and they don't want you to be out of it because then they have to see that they are in it and they don't want to see the prison of ideas that they are contained in. What they want is to make everyone just like them. Don't do anything differently because it too scary for the masses...what if everyone just started doing what they want...then what?

Well for me...I don't know :o) I don't know nor do I care what it would be like if everyone lived outside of the box...all I am doing is living it. You have to make the commitment to yourself first and then once that is made...live it.

As an example, about 5 years ago I began an afternoon meditation...that meant everyday, rain or shine, anything that was going on, 7 days a week...that I would be at meditation. Might not sound like such a difficult thing to do, however not only do you have the outside pressures of incringing on people's time but also you have the thoughts running through your own head of "why are you doing this, this is dumb, people are going to be pissed, your missing out on all the fun, your but hurts, your legs hurt, get up get up get up" and then sometimes you get the breaks especially after, well for me the first 2 years were the hardest but now...now after sitting through all of that noise and not getting up, even when the thoughts are screaming there is a snake coming towards you, open your eyes, move and you don't ... well now... now is bliss.

And sometimes it was embarrassing to tell someone that I had to stop whatever I was doing and go sit for 1/2 hour and do nothing. This really annoyed lots of people...it was supposedly an "inconvenience" to them and their life and what they wanted, however inside I figured if a brick had dropped on my head I would be dead for that 1/2 hour anyway so I just pretended I was dead a lot of the time...especially when it was stressful like one time I had told the team mom of our kid's football team that I could help her but at 4:30pm I would have to leave for 1/2 and sit. She was fine with it when she said she was but then when 4:30pm came and we had run into overtime and it was a very exciting part of the game and she needed me to help her with getting things to the boys...I had to remind her of our agreement and I had (not really had but it is a commitment to myself) to walk out on my son's football game (however if brick had dropped I wouldn't have been there either). I came back after meditation to some angry parents and sort of a disbelief that I would walk out on life like that. (That is just one example of many, many examples of the world attempting to push you back in the box.) You may tend to make people and the masses angry...you have to learn to answer to yourself first and then to the world and it has probably been for you, like it was for me...the other way around for so long that you have to unlearn and deprogram and as you do you are reprogrammed from a place of who you are.

So I am not saying that living outside of the box is easy and again ... as you do it people will want to stuff you back in so the commitment to yourself, above all else...must be a real commitment or it will just fall away like all the other times that you have been excited to do something "outside the box" and then let the outside forces strip it away. Now meditation isn't something I do...it is a way of life...it is natural...I don't often have to think "oh it's 4:30" the body seems to know what time it is and it goes and sits. That may sound strange to someone that hasn't done it...hasn't made a commitment to something and suck by it wholeheartedly but it is that way.

As you begin to do these things, you will need less and less permission to follow where life is leading you. It will be scarey at times and hopefully you are lucky like me, and have a Teacher in your life that pulls you in when the tide gets rough. Begin to trust in yourSelf. Begin to know that you are ok and provided for. Begin to step outside of the ideas of who and what you are so that you can actually see and experience life from being who you are.

Well that was good...I'm glad I had this talk with myself, oh and don't be to quick to share your dreams...let them simmer and cook and then start to take action before you tell anyone what you are doing...especially when you are just starting out...you don't want your dreams killed before you even get to enjoy them. :o)

Who You Think You Are is Just an Idea

Just sitting here and there is an obvious sense of emptiness. My Teacher has called it "absence of presence."

When he first shared that I had no idea what he was pointing to...however patience has paid off and although I can't tell you what it is ... I can tell you what it is not.

You can't do anything to become aware of it ... anything you do moves to try to be aware moves you away (and as that is said... really you cant move away from what you are in and so even movement is a lie but that is another topic for another seeming time).

So "I" am an idea.

Anything I would say about myself is actually a lie because I am not an idea...but any thought that says "I" is an idea.

My true identity cannot be identified.

I am not a body but the body is in me.

I look out through all eyes/i's.

I look out of your eyes and out of the dolphins eyes at the same time and see mySelf...there is no separation between the two on how I see.

But thoughts think that there are two things...just remember...just because you think something doesn't make it so and paradoxically because you think something...so it is.

Rest well in Me...you are completely taken care of until the end of your days.