NO REGRETS

No Regrets

"The meaning of life is to find your Gift. The purpose of life is to give it away."   Pablo Picasso

I am sitting in my Naturopath's office trying to explain the the recent changes in my blood tests and health in general. "I can't really explain why everything is different...why there are these improvements". Just 30 days prior, my health and life in general, were going down the tubes at a phenomenal rate. My blood sugar was in the diabetic range, my blood pressure way above normal, my cholesterol way out of whack, not to mention my weight which put me in the dreaded "morbidly" obese range. God how I hated the use of that diagnosis. Yes, the signs were not promising, but worst of all, I had pretty much resigned myself to my situation.  I had kind of given up...hell, let's call a spade a spade.  I had given up, what might be called a passive suicide, and yet here I am discussing this miraculous transformation. My latest test results are in and they are all showing that everything is back in the normal range.

"What has been different in the last month, than previously, do you think? What do you think has changed for you," she asks. She is a young, dark skinned woman, probably middle eastern, beautiful actually, with large brown eyes and an open, insightful and accommodating attitude. "Well," I answer. "I guess I signed up for another - tour of duty."What do you mean by that?" she asks.  "It means that I have agreed to be here on the planet for another while longer, and to be in service to humanity, and offering all that I am, whatever gifts I have to whoever can use them." She blushes ever so slightly, and then smiles.  "Don't you think it might help to reframe how you see what you are here for...?"

For some reason "that" had never occurred to me. It instantly made a lot of sense. "Yeah", I reply, "like I am being given another opportunity to share another facet of myself, to give all of what that facet of me  has to offer to the world...certainly a lot less struggle and pain in that outlook!" I reflect on some of the metaphors I have used historically. They suddenly seem totally inappropriate. One that came to mind was "that I didn't want to be found dead in the trenches with all my ammunition still in my gun" and another was that "when I cross the finish line, I don't want a drop left in the tank!"

I felt a sadness as I sensed lifetimes past where I had not given all I had to life, and to the people in my life. Lifetimes where I had given up on life long before it was over.  Lifetimes where I had not fully given what I had come to give. Lifetimes  where I had chosen to coast through to the finish line, my gifts  still intact, untouched, wrapped, not given, name tags and all.

The deepest regret from those lifetimes has been the regret of not honouring who I had come to be, and what I had come to share. No celebration, no honour...no solace.

I pull myself together with a shudder, and I suddenly feel her eyes on me...watching intently. I
become aware of the pulsating of my body, of the intensity of my passion, of the vitality flowing through me...I am alive and in my body. "What are you feeling she asks?" with just a glimmer of a smile showing.  "I am overwhelmed with Gratitude for the Grace that has been offered to me to get it right this time around...to love and give and love some more until I am empty and can give no more."

The war is over, the tour of duty is gone, and an adventure of love and sharing is opening. I am free to express it and share it in as many ways as I can think of, as big, as creatively, as fully as I am capable of in every moment in time. I want to scream my Gratitude at the top of my lungs, and thank the universal perfection, for revealing to me that the only things that could ever make me happy are sharing the things I came to share, and to cherish each and every moment and everyone in it...until I cross the finish line...No Regrets!

WANDERS, WONDERS, WHISPERS

"The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on."

I awoke this morning to another engagement with a blues quintet I now call "The Specters"-They are anxiety, meaninglessness, hopelessness, loneliness and despair. They are a group who have been together for a while now, and they like to play a brand of music best referred to as the spooky blues.They used to be a sextet until helplessness dropped out and got a day job. I must admit, when I first encountered them, I was not particularly glad to meet them. In fact, I was incredibly scared...actually "in terror" is a better description.

Initially, they were just very spooky, but later they became downright terrifying, and they threatened to bring the whole matter of my sanity into question. At the very least, they were gonna rock my little world...and that they did.

The Specters? They are not, and were not really "real", but rather they existed as potential experiential states, just below the threshold of normal waking consciousness. They derived a kind of psychic reality, from my willingness to give them my attention and imbue them with a power they do not innately possess, through my fear.

True, they do have a potential reality, within my psychic experience, but only to the degree that I choose to create a place for them through fear. I didn't know that back then, and to that degree, and of course my fearful response to them, they became real to me. A little bit like noises, in the dark, in a big empty house, there is the potential of making something out of nothing .

So why do I mention these?  Well, as I awoke this morning I saw that they were there again to keep me from all that I know is true and to keep me from hearing the quiet whispers of my heart and soul. I began to wonder just how many are being held back by these pesky little zeroes, and the darkness they represent. It is these little non-existent creatures that seem to "paradoxically" inhabit the areas of our mind that are just outside our comfort zone, and slightly below our conscious waking state. They seem to exist and seem to block us along a pathway to a higher, happier and more conscious state of mind. They keep us from fully pursuing our wonder, our deepest dreams and visions, and yes...our Purpose. Like the dark house and the noise in it, we are frightened off by the specters of darkness in our own mind.

It is possible through meditation, yoga, spiritual retreats and even music to move through these areas and to ignore these annoying blockages to truth. Perhaps for a few this is possible and this is the case. By and large, however, it seems most people have been spooked, and scared off of their journey by the dark specter of anxiety and panic, or perhaps the fear of the experience of emptiness and despair that can arise out of meaninglessness and hopelessness. I am not saying these experiences don't exist as potentials, I am simply saying it is time to find the courage to go further into the dark, and look and listen...!

Quiet whispers call you further forward into the light. Ignore the specters that seem to beckon to you at each and every turn. These are not your enemies, they are at worst an annoyance. It is safe for you to ignore them, and to keep moving, and if by chance you have given your power away to one or more of these shadow figures (as I had done), and even been ensnared by these illusions for a long time, it is still possible with and through the power of your own mind and heart to set yourself free. Do it, do it now!

If it is still too frightening to even conceive of, then ask for help, ask the Universe for help, dare to be set free and to live the life you were called to live. The dogs may bark but the caravan moves on. SNN