Lizard brain and doing the right thing

I am not late. I do not need to hurry. It is refreshing.

I am at the University to give a talk on homelessness to a group of 4th year Sociology students. I park in the main lot between two cars; dark blue SUV on the right, burgundy something compact on the left. Lots of room on either side.

I open my driver's side door and a gust of wind rips the door away from my hand. It smashes into the burgundy something compact on my left.

I swear.

Not too loud. I mean, what if someone heard me?

I get out. I don't have to crawl out, or slip out. There's lots of room. Except, of course, for the fact that my door is jammed into the handle of the car beside me.

I try to pull it free. It won't budge. I try again. No luck. I try again -- you know that adage, doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome... call me crazy, I kept thinking I could pull the door free.

No luck.

I wonder what to do next. There's no one around. I sigh. Damn.

I walk around the back of my car, around the front and push against the opposite side of the door. Won't budge. I push again. Pslift. It releases its grip on the door handle of the burgundy something compact beside me.

I look at the handle. The side of the door. Definitely evidence of my door's contact with its surface.

I sigh. Again.

I don't want to open the door on that side. The wind is still blowing fiercely.

I move to the passenger door of my car. I test the distance between the door and the side of the SUV. A few inches to spare. I get in the passenger side. I search my bag for a piece of paper, all the while angrily muttering under my breath about warm winds blowing in from the west. Gotta love Chinooks. But man, they are fierce. Gusty. Gutsy. Strong.

And here's the tricky part. The part where I admit the little voice in my head whispering, oh so sibilantly, 'C'mon, you don't need to leave a note. No one will know. No one saw you.'

Shh, I admonish it as I furiously scribble on a sheet of paper my name and cell phone number and a brief description of what happened.

C'mon. It wasn't your fault.

Doesn't matter, I angrily reply. It's not about fault. It's about doing the right thing.

Doing the right thing, schmetterrling. Forget everything. You don't have to worry about a thing. (I hate it when lizard brain thinks he can be cute with rhyming and made up words chanting them to the tune of a Cole Porter song. Heck! Lizard brain can't even sing!)

I sigh. Again. Yes I do. I have to leave the note.

Okay. So leave the note but don't put it too securely under their windshield wiper. It wouldn't be your fault if the wind whipped it away.

Go away, I hiss back at it.

Stop being such a good girl, it hisses back.

It is unrelenting.

I walk away.

It comes with me.

I walk through the campus, searching for the Social Sciences building where I've been a hundred times. I mean, I took several courses there, I know where it is. But the wind is howling, my mind is cavorting and the lizard brain is slithering this way and that.

And behind its whisper is the thought of how much it's going to cost to fix the person's car. Damn. I don't feel like paying for damage to someone else's car.

I get to the theatre where I'm presenting. I've still got time to spare. I buy a bottled water, glance through my notes, set up my presentation on the computer and ready the overhead projector.

My cell phone buzzes.

I have a couple of minutes. I glance at the screen. It's a text from a number I don't recognize.

"Hi! I just got a note on my car from you. I poured water over my door and there's nothing worth worrying about. Thanks for leaving the note though!"

I breathe a sigh of relief. Doing the right thing always pays off. Always lifts my spirits. Always creates more of what I want in my life -- while maybe even creating a ripple effect that a stranger will possibly, someday, somewhere, pay it forward.

And what's even better! I don't have to carry guilt, shame or self-condemnation with me about not having done the right thing. I don't have to justify to myself, and probably anyone who will listen, how the wind ripped the door from my hands and.... changing the ending to not have contact with someone else's car so that I don't look so guilty.

Oh, and did I mention? I don't have to pay for damage. A little bit of water washed it away.

Not bad.

But damn, I wish I didn't have to listen to lizard brain slithering back into its cave. I mean, really, couldn't it just wash itself away like the scratch on the burgundy compact something on my left?

Soul Naked

Over at Peaceful Legacies this morning, the lovely Joyceann speaks of putting her 'naked soul on the page' in her blog, Conversation with Yoda. It is only in that condition of vulnerability that she is of service to herself and the world she suggests after a fascinating and enlightening conversation with Yoda.

I don't have conversations with Yoda, but reading Joyceann's blog, I might have to start. He's a pretty wise and insightful guy!

Getting soul naked on the page is what I do here. It is my belief. My vision. My desire -- to dance soul naked through words stripped of past-present participles and conjugated verbs that shroud who I am behind the veil of fear I am too naked when I reveal who I am without the constructs of the language I employ to keep me safe from being seen.

And if that isn't a conjugated, convuluted, complicated sentence -- what is?!

Stripped of its fluff, it means -- I gotta be soul naked to connect on a soul level.

Naked souls don't need clothes to keep them warm. Heartspeak keeps souls warm.

Living from the heart of what matters to me, or 'wholehearted living', as Brene Brown calls it in The Gifts of Imperfection, keeps me living from the inside out, fearlessly engaging through my gifts and vulnerabilities with LIFE.

It's all about LIFE. How I engage it. How I embrace it. How I live it.

Soul naked, I engage life on the playing field of heart-matters.

Soul naked, I embrace life in the arms of vulnerability.

Soul naked, I live life through eyes of LOVE.

Yesterday, I wrote to a friend and shared how I am in awe of this journey -- this place where I feel my very essence filling up with the knowing of who I am is expressed in being of service to the world -- not somewhere else, but right here, where I'm at.

Being of service does not mean hopping on a jet and flying to Japan to offer relief. I do not have the skill set, nor training to do that. All I can provide for Japan and other troubled spots in the world are my prayers and what financial resources I can give to support those who have the training and tools to do it.

There was a time when I dreamt of jettisoning my life and taking off for far flung places to relieve suffering in the world. I imagined myself in war torn lands, pulling tangled bodies from shell-rocked buildings and healing spirits torn by rape and genocide and grief with simply the touch of my smile and warm and loving hands.

Because, seriously. I didn't have much else to offer. 'Cause I never did get around to going to medical school or getting a doctorate in PTSD. I never did get the prerequisite tools to be effective in such work -- like trauma training and medical knowledge and all sorts of things that would have qualified me to add value and not be a hindrance to the work of those who felt compelled to share their knowledge and training in ways that added value on the ground.

All of which speaks to how deep the ego drive was to 'be known' and how facile the ego's attempts to convince me of its possibilities without my having to do 'the hard'.

That was a time when my ego dictated my ways. That was a time when my ego needed me to plump it up with thoughts of 'all I could be doing' rather than facing the reality of doing 'the hard', of staying in the place I was at to find myself beneath the trauma and pain and sorrow and the daily grind of getting soul naked in my life.

I got an ego. Gotta love it. It's mine.

I just don't need to feed it the mind-driven placebo of doing 'great' things somewhere else in the world than where I'm at.

My naked soul isn't into doing. It's into being. Naked. Open. Vulnerable. Of service.

Being of service knows that being there I would be a hindrance. Being here, my service is in sharing my best, sharing my wisdom, my story, my journey in ways that celebrate the majesty of the human spirit, in ways that awaken others to their magnificence, in ways, as my purpose statement says, that, "ignite joy in an enlightened world".

Soul naked service asks me to step into the realm of being my self, of sharing my journey through light and love and words that come from my heart.

Soul naked service asks me to not dim my words. To not hide them behind walls of fear and self-doubt.

Soul naked my words stand. Out. Up. On. Under. Behind. Before. Me.

Thank you Joyceann. Your words this morning are cascading through my mind. You're one amazing incredible woman. Thanks for igniting my thinking, sparking my desire and setting my heart on fire.

Thanks for inspiring me to get 'soul naked'.

Let us hold eachother together.

I'm going to die anyway, he said. So why should I quit smoking now?

The doctors agree. At this point, quitting would only add unnecessary stress. And the objective at this point is to eliminate stress, to create around him a space where he knows some comfort, some ease, some grace and dignity, in spite of the pain.

In spite of the pain and fear of dying, he is strong. In spite of the knowing his life is measured in days and hours, not years, he continues to flirt, to politely express his gratitude for the small things people do to make his day more comfortable, to make his presence known.

Last week, I gave a tour of the DI, the homeless shelter where I work to an amazing man, Mark Horvath. Mark has created a website where he celebrates PEOPLE, Invisible People. The people who tell their stories at Invisible People are human beings who happen to be experiencing homelessness. Mark has travelled across the US and is hoping to do the same in Canada, interviewing people who are homeless and giving voice to their stories. Today is Mark's birthday -- Happy Birthday Mark -- This link will take you to a video he shared of his conversation with Terry while at the DI last week. I wrote about Terry's Big Day riding a horse and penning cattle, here . In spite of the cancer, and his pain, Terry took the time to chat and smile, to be welcoming to Mark.

It's the' in spite of' that gets me.

Rumi scholar and a man with a melted chocolate voice Coleman Barks, suffered a stroke at the end of February and it is his voice that is hampered. Coleman Barks (whose reading of This We Have Now I posted yesterday) is healing and still he takes time to offer up a note to strangers and readers who follow him. In spite of his situation, he wants to ease the concern of others. Joyceanne over at Peaceful Legacies posted a copy of his email here -- it is a testament to the dignity and the greatness of the man.

It is a day of 'in spite of'.

In spite of the time change, time keeps passing without speeding up the events across the Pacific that would give closure to the pain and agony of an island nation.

And in spite of the devastation of the past 72 hours, in spite of the earthquake and the Tsunami and the fires and the horror and the pain and the fear and the desperation, the Japanese people are holding onto their politeness. "Glue of politeness holds nation together" writes Laura King in the Los Angeles times.

In spite of one man's journey through cancer, in spite of the disaster in Japan, beauty abounds in the space between each of us, the spaces that connect us. It is in those spaces, love, hope, light, possibility exists.

And so, in spite of the sorrow and pain in the world today, and because of the sorrow and pain in the world today, I choose to share something of beauty. Ruth, at synch-ro-ni-zing shared a post with me yesterday that she wrote November 4th, 2007, The Music, the Dance, about an evening she spent listening to Coleman Barks read Rumi while David Darling played cello and magic filled the air. Today, she's posted a powerful piece, Disaster, and why we write and at the end of her post, she shares a YouTube video of one amazing man's magic transforming a tray of water-filled glasses into music that speaks to the majesty and the magnificence of humankind.

I share it to express my gratitude and my awe and love and respect of humankind. In spite of the destruction all around and because of it, I offer this video to remind each of us that no matter the weather, the times, the happenings around us, life is sacred, life is divine, life is all we have to live. Let's celebrate it and eachother, in good times and bad, in Love. Let us support each other, care for each other, give to each other. Let us hold eachother together through Love.

Love never left.

She is angry, this woman of exquisite beauty and gentle heart. This child who was born of a mother's body on a day that lives forever as a miracle of life. This child who came fighting and screaming into the world, connected through a tube of life-giving sustenance that was severed at birth. Limbs freed. Body cut with a single slice from the cord that fed her for those nine months where she lay captive in the womb of her creation. Thrust into this world where she fought against the air breathing against her skin, the sun beating against her flesh.

There is no source to the anger. No "You did this and thus, I react so," reason. Hormones out of whack. A subterranean disquiet that surfaces when stars and moon misaligned like two tectonic plates grinding off the coast of Japan.

Sometimes, there is no reason for anger other than its need to be expressed. To be released. To be heard.

And in its expression there is and always will be, Love.

Even when its after-shock creates ripples of heat emanating from our bodies, that scorch and burn and thrust into the heart of those who love us. Even in our unquenchable thirst to suck dry the well of love, to prove to ourselves, for no other reason than we can, that we are undeserving, unworthy of that which has been bestowed upon us through the very act of birth. There is and always will be Love.

There is no disproving Love.

There is no killing of its essence. No tearing apart of its core. No ripping into shreds the fabric of its being all there is to Life. For no matter what weapon we pick up, what daggers we hurl or bullets we shoot, Love is always there. Love is always present, even in our darkest hour. Even at the moment of our death. Love is and always will be, present.

Love that endures, all our efforts to break it apart. To shatter it into a thousand pieces of proof, testifying to the lie we hold onto for fear the truth stored in a kernel of hope at the core of our existence will never be proved; we are worthy.

Accept it. It is true. We are worthy. We are Love.

There is no burning love. There is no destroying it. Converting it. Subverting it. There is no death to love.

Anger can be destroyed.

Fear can be subverted.

Lack of faith can be converted.

And love cannot die.

There is no end to love.

No matter how hard we fight to end it.

There is no end to love.

Love lives, always, and forever.

Such is Love.

No matter how hard we try to walk away, to sever the ties that bind us, there is no going back to a place we never left.

We are born in Love. Created through an act of unifying love that created all the world around us. There is no returning to the womb. No going back to that place where we were immersed in the mystery and the mysticism of our creation.

We cannot return to the womb. We cannot return to Love. We never left. And love never left us.

Never will.

This We Have Now (Coleman Barks and David Darling) from Integral Life on Vimeo.

I choose.

There are moments when it seems trivial to write of mundane matters, of everyday affairs, of personal dreams and aspirations. When wars are waged in the Middle East and earthquakes and tsunamis pound Far Eastern shores, it feels as if the world is collapsing in upon itself, and my musings have little value and effect.

I give my head a shake. Take a breath.

I don't write here to calm wars or troubled seas. I write here to calm me, to claim my peace of mind.

It is in times like these that it is vital and important to write of heart matters, to dream of peace and love, to work for peace and love, to breathe into the pain of a world in upheaval and pray... for peace, for healing, for calm to be restored so that homes can be rebuilt, lives reclaimed, life re-engaged.

***********************************

Yesterday a friend wrote and asked, What else could you do every morning at 6am other than be at the computer blogging? i.e. is it the best use of your considerable energy and talent.

I'm sure there are other things I could do. But I like doing this. I choose to do this. It brings me pleasure, keeps me living on purpose and connects me to a world of beauty and wonder and amazing people. Writing here every morning keeps my writer's fingers nimble, my mind engaged, my spirits lifted. Writing here is what I do. Writing here is something I do every morning just for me. It is my choice. It makes me happy.

Years ago, a therapist I was seeing asked me to close my eyes and imagine I was sitting under a tree, resting in the heat of a hot summer's day. Someone approaches and offers me an ice cream. "What kind of ice cream do you choose?" he asked.

I thought a moment and said, "Lemon Gelato."

"Why Lemon Gelato", he probed.

I had to think of a 'good' answer. I hemmed and hawed. "Because gelato's got fewer calories than ice cream."

"Why else?" he asked.

"I like lemon."

"Why else?" he asked again.

He was beginning to tick me off. I struggled to find more reasons and did -- find more reasons.

Finally, he threw up his hands and exclaimed, "Louise! Stop. Do you see what you're doing?"

I looked at him, confused. "Answering your question."

"Why?"

"Because you asked me why I chose lemon gelato. I was telling you why.

"Do you need to justify why you're choosing lemon gelato? What business is it of mine? Who gives a damn why you want lemon gelato? What's stopping you from stating, 'It's my choice?'"

And that was when the truth hit me. In my need to answer his question was my victim's voice.

In my constant searching for the 'right' answer was my victim's place of feeling obliged to explain myself. In my answers were the clues to my feelings of being less than. My need to 'find the right answers' so people would like me.

The power is in my choice. The power is in claiming I choose what I choose because I do.

The power is not in my justification of my choices.

That day, sitting in my therapists office, listening to the tick tock of the clock on the mantle, hearing his voice pound me with questions I scrambled to answer was, and still is, a huge lesson for me. A big leap of understanding. Of self-enlightenment. Of inner knowing.

I have often defended my choices when all that was required was a simple, "I want to." "It's what I choose." or even, 'Thanks for sharing', and leaving it at that.

I still struggle to stay out of my victim's voice when faced with having to stand up for my choices, stand up for my right to choose what I believe is best for me.

And I'm growing, deeper into my position of knowing, I have my answers. No one else does.

It was an important question my friend ask me. "What else could you do every morning at 6am other than be at the computer blogging?

In the question, I am reminded once again -- I am powerful when I stand up for me, without defending my right to stand, without explaining why I'm standing and not sitting down, without justifying my need to stand, or sit, or fall, or walk away.

I am powerful when I stand up.
I am powerful when I sit down.
I am powerful when I fall.
I am powerful when I walk, towards, away, under or over.
I am powerful.
When I stand
in my 'I'.

I am grateful for the clarity that comes with knowing, I do what I do in my life because I choose to do what I do.

My life. My choice.

And I believe in my choices for me.

I trust others to be doing in their lives what is best for them to do, that what they are doing is the choice they want to choose to create more of what they want in life.

I write here every morning because I choose to.

Shining bright

"I dream. I test my dreams against my beliefs. I dare to take risks. And I execute my vision to make those dreams come true." Walt Disney

I was deep in my meditation when the child came walking towards me in the desert. She shimmered in the light, her being refracted by a thousand rays of sun glittering all around me. As she approached she smiled and held her tiny hands towards me, offering me the brilliant ball of light that danced upon her outstretched palms. As I grasped the light I felt my body expand into hers, the light immersing us both in its brilliant prism of a thousand colours reflecting the beauty of our human condition.

After the meditation ended, as we went around the circle speaking of our experiences and I had shared mine, Del, our guide asked me, "What do you know?"

"There was a voice," I said. "There was no source to the voice. No place to find it. It simply was. "There is no past. No future. They are one and the same. They are present, here in the now," the voice said. And in its clarity I saw the truth of that moment -- I was right there. In the now. Being the light."

"And stated in the 'I', what do you know?" he prodded.

"I am my truth. I am the light."

At one point in the meditation, there was a moment where I saw mankind. A car drove down a street, hit a child crossing the road. The father came. The child lay on the concrete. The driver stood by his car, tears streaming down his face, angrily shaking his fist. The father walked towards the man, held out his arms and embraced him.

There was a mass of people, dressed in white, walking towards an army of men holding guns pointed towards them. The army fired, the people kept walking towards the guns, even as those amidst them who were hit, fell to the ground. They kept walking and the army kept firing until, the army laid down its guns and embraced the people walking towards them.

"That is the truth," said the voice, "We are beings of love."

I have a dream, spoke Martin Luther King, Jr. on a hot August day in 1963.

"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I too have a dream. That we, the human race, are born to be free. Born to live our greatness, unfettered by the fears of our limitations. We are not born to fall. We are born to fly. We are not born to wallow in the muck of human suffering. We are born to walk and run and leap amidst the beauty of our human condition being all that we can be when we let go of fearing the beauty of our existence. We are born to dream and have our dreams come true.

I have a dream of peace on earth. I have a dream of love amidst all humankind. I have a dream of a world where war is no longer fought. Where children no longer starve or die because of unpure drinking water. I have a dream of a world where no one kills another for the cost of a rock of crack, or the shirt on their back. I have a dream of a world where humankind values themself and each other more than they value violence and drugs and money and sex and getting what they want at the expense of everyone around them. I have a dream of a world of harmony.

I do not believe my dream is impossible. I believe my dream is closer now than its ever been before. I believe my dream is possible and I am willing to risk stating my dream, to put into action all my being the light of my truth to make my dream come true.

What about you? What do you dream? What do you believe? What are you willing to risk to have your dream come true?

Do you believe? In a world of no more war. Of no more starving children. Of no more violence and drugs and people falling on our streets, lining the sidewalks leading to a shelter?

What do you believe? What are you willing to risk?

We all have dreams. We all fear taking action to make our dreams come true for we all fear our dreams will never come true. And in our fear of dreaming, our dreams die unspoken, unrealized, unseen.

Dreams can come true when we risk letting go of our fear of dreaming and pick up our courage to take action to make our dreams come true. When we choose to put down arms of war and hold out arms of peace. When we quit walking away from suffering and choose instead to embrace eachother in love. When we choose to stop falling into the darkness of despair and choose instead to stand for what we believe in. When we choose life over death, peace over war, love over hatred, joy over anger. When we choose these things that create more of what we want in the world, our dreams do come true.

For in our dreams is the truth of who we are. We are the light of the world, shining as brightly as our greatest dream of peace and love for all humankind.

The Angel of Long Point

The New York Times
March 24, 1905

Abigail Becker shortly before her death in 1905

LANGTON, Ontario, March 23 - Abigail Becker, famed in song and story throughout Canada, is dead at her home in Walsingham Centre. Unaided, she saved the crew of the schooner Conductor, wrecked at Long Point, on Lake Erie, in November, 1853. For her bravery the Government gave her a farm. Buffalo shipowners $1,000, and the New York Life Saving Association a gold medal.

The events of that fateful day of November 24th, 1853 have been told in poetry and prose. The story of Abigail Becker's heroics celebrated in story and song.

In The High School Reader, Amanda T. Jones' poem, Abigail Becker is told in its entirety. All six and a half pages. All 45 verses.

In the Preface, the authors state:

"The heroic acts described in this poem seem so wonderful, so greatly superior to woman's strength, even to human strength and endurance, to accomplish, that were it possible to doubt its truthfulness, doubt one certainly would. Nevertheless the poem is not only strictly in accordance with the facts, it is even within and below them."

I'd never heard of Abigail Becker before or, if I had, I'd long forgotten the story of her bravery. But on this, the 100th Anniversary of International Woman's Day, I find it fitting to celebrate and commemorate a woman who risked her life to save the lives of seven men clinging to the rigging of the Conductor, a schooner that had run aground in a gale on the night of November 23, 1853. It was in the morning of the 24th that Abigail came upon them. Being unable to swim did not deter her. She waded out into the waters and dragged each of the seven men in to shore.

Called, The Angel of Long Point, there are many tales of Abigail's heroics. Like the time she rescued two men lost in a snowstorm and cajoled and lead them back to her fire to warm up.

She was feted by royalty, the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, stopping by to drop off a gift while on a hunting trip to Long Point. Queen Victoria sent her 50 pound which she used to buy her farm -- it wasn't 'given' to her as the New York Times obit stated.

But perhaps Abigail's greatest heroics were found in the seventeen children she raised. She had married her first husband, Jeremiah at the age of seventeen. He had six children and subsequently she gave birth to an additional eight with Jeremiah and then three more with her husband, Henry Rohrer, whom she wed a few years after Jeremiah was lost at sea in 1864. And then she adopted two more.

I'd like to have met this remarkable woman. She sounds no-nonsense. Calm and courageous. Of Dutch descent, she was strong and determined. Her life was hard, no time for schooling. She could not read or write, as the customs collector discovered when he arrived one day to give her a medal struck by the Benevolent Life Saving Association of New York. He needed a receipt, but Abigail could not sign for it. Nonplussed, he took her to a photographer where a daguerreotype was taken of Abigail proudly displaying her medal.

As Amanda T. Jones wrote in the closing of her epic poem, Abigail Becker:

"Billows may tumble, winds may roar,
Strong hands the wreck'd from Death may snatch
But never, never, nervermore
This deed shall mortal match!

Dear Mother Becker dropp'd her head,
She blush'd as girls when lovers woo:
"I have not done a thing," she said,
"More than I ought to do."

She lived and died before International Women's Day was decreed.

She was a woman before her time. A woman who believed that human life was worth saving, and the only limitations a woman faced, were the one's she set for herself.

to Abigail Becker, women's lib was unnecessary.

It is to women like Abigail Becker I say a prayer of gratitude. We've come a long way baby thanks to you!

This link is to a YouTube video of Canadian Folk Group, Tanglefoot singing, The Angel of LongPoint