In the Rapture of Now.

As part of the Soul of the Pilgrim online retreat I am experiencing, each participant is invited to write a daily reflection and create a mandala from that reflection.

Yesterday, I didn't have time to get to my coursework until the afternoon. On my drive home from a meeting, words began spilling out, leaping and cavorting to be expressed.

I gave them way.

And from those words, a mandala created itself as I gave into my creative urge to express itself without censure, criticism or coercive desire to be anything other than what appears on the page.

It is a challenging process, this creating without coercion. To let it be, I must let be my desire to make it perfect, make it exactly the way I want to see it be, as opposed to the way it desires to become.

I am... a control freak.  Okay, maybe not a freak, but I do like control. Who doesn't? Control, or at least the illusion of control, makes me feel safe.

Yet, in its very aura of safety, I am most unsafe. For in the illusion of control, I give myself up to the notion that I can predict and direct the outcome. Ha! I can't control nor direct the outcome of the world around me. Heck, I can't really direct the outcome of my efforts to create. All I can engage in is the creative process -- and when I let what appears, appear, I give up the need to control what happens as I become part of its happening.

Take for example the 14 Days of Poetry I gifted my beloved on Valentine's Day. It's become 16 days and I am letting it have its way without predicting its duration. When I began I was very connected to controlling both the process and the outcome. I wanted him to respond to my script, and I wanted each poem to be perfect. Ha!

When I shift, everything shifts. 

My expected/desired outcomes flew out the window as we both immersed ourselves in the journey of understanding one another and letting go of expectations of the other. In letting go of the need to control the outcome, love deepened, our experience of one another expanded, and harmony abounded. And now, we both are experiencing the joy of the creative process of expressing our love for one another.

Which leads me to the conclusion, control is not all it's cracked up to be.

When I am busy trying to control people, things, experiences, I am busy avoiding the experience of people, things, experiences.  And in my avoidance, fear deepens, not lessens because -- Avoidance strengthens fear. 


In my fear, I struggle to wrestle the future, the moment, and the past into something I can control and manage.

In my fear, I struggle to wrestle people, things and experiences into people, things and experiences i can control and manage.

In my open-hearted embrace of letting of controlling behaviours that limit my acceptance of people, things and experiences, the past is filled with love, the present with joy and the future with the anticipation of the miracles that can happen when I release my hold on seeing into the future. In opening up to being out of control in the here and now, I fall with grace into Love, living joyfully in the rapture of now where the future is yet to come.

Namaste.

Landmines are just a trigger from the past

"You have the power to create. Your power is so strong that whatever you believe comes true. You are the way you are because that is what you believe about yourself"
~Don Miguel Ruiz

Five years ago yesterday I believed I had received a miracle of my life. At 9:14 a.m., May 21, 2003, two police officers walked in and set me free. I flew.

Yesterday, I forgot that it was five years. Until late in the afternoon when a girlfriend called and we were talking about my trip to the coast and she asked how I felt going back to a couple of places Conrad and I had spent time in while he was trying to figure out a way to flee the country. "I believe I have the power to choose how I feel about those memories and being there," I told her. "This past weekend was a different time, a different woman than the one who was hiding out, believing she was dead, wishing it were true. Truth is, I'm very much alive and living it up for all I'm worth!"

And then I realized what day it was and laughed.

Time puts distance between past events. A loving heart fills memory with peace of mind.

Yesterday didn't feel 'significant'. It simply felt real. A confirmation that over time I have healed, I have grown, I have spread my wings and set myself free to live each day with ease and grace.

At dinner last night, I told C.C. about forgetting. "Maybe it's time to close the past off," he suggested.

I thought about his words and replied, "I don't have to. There's no pull to keep veering onto memories lane. No feeling of woe when I think of those times. They happened. And I have grown beyond their pale."

"But you write of them often," he said. "Doesn't that keep the memory alive?"

I cannot change or heal what I do not acknowledge.

Memory is not a living organism. Memory is a continuum upon which we place the moments that have meaning in our lives. Memory is a placecard. A nameplate in our minds. A painting of time and space once lived, that fades in time, changes hue. Shadows lengthen, the brightness of memory wanes. As we move away from that moment in time that was so painful, so hard to take, we change our brushstrokes, colour up our past to create new paintings, new vistas in today. Like childbirth, we forget the pain and gaze with awe upon the creation in our arms.

In memories wake, I forget the hurt and gaze in awe at how far I've come, how much has changed, how different life is today when I believe I have the power to step fearlessly into each moment, committed to be bold. Be brave. Be my best self.

Lewis B. Smedes wrote,“Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.”

In writing of what was I remind myself of what is true today. I remind myself of the beauty and joy, the gifts, the incredible richness of my life today.

In writing of those times, I share my strength, hope and experience with others so that they too can find new pathways through today into a hopeful, more loving tomorrow.

Yesterday was five years since a moment in time. A moment where time stopped, and I awoke to a world of difference, a life of meaning. Since that moment five years ago, I have stepped away from the pain into the love of living my life fearlessly in this moment now where I am free to be all I'm meant to be.

I can't let go of my past. It is part of my life. I can pull the triggers that keep me stuck in believing the past was all I deserve today. In shooting through memory's trapdoors, I free myself of the pain and release myself into the joy of being free today. When I write of those times today, I unstick my thinking that would have me believe the past is my tomorrow. My tomorrows are yet to come. Living it up today, embracing my life for all I'm worth, stepping fearlessly onto the landmines that memory strews upon the road of life, that's me. The past is a landmine best exploded. In stepping on the triggers, I leap for joy. Joyfully, I write the story of my lifetime in awe of my truth today. I am free to be fearlessly in love with this life I believe I deserve, my one, wild precious life today.

The question is: Where are you stuck in believing the past is all you deserve? Where are you avoiding stepping on memory's landmines for fear the past will explode in your face and rob you of today?