Beyond Reason

I've just begun the best day of my life.

"What happened? How so?"

These are the things people say when one says such a thing. They want to know: love? lottery? miracle recovery? Something makes it so, is what is assumed. And if something makes this so for me today, it's that I said so. I said that I am about to be smack in the middle of the best day of my life.

I could come up with other reasons to be having the best day, sure. The elegance of rain decorating the glass of the window panes, forming and reforming patterns, direction, motions: that might be a reason. Or the fresh-baked artisan bread of the morning: raisin, pecan, wheat, served with lemon curd and my favorite tea. That there is a passion outside, echo of the passion in me (extraordinary, but truly quite ordinary, that they are one and the same--of a piece). The artwork I purchased and brought home on Sunday: sacred, steady feet to abide with, for the Reiki room, platform for the clients and for me. I could point to the plethora of cosmos, or just the bi-color, yin-yang, mutant one that speaks "Anything is possible" to me. But not bad sleep, or blood stains, or unsavory dreams: no, it cannot be because of these.

At least that's how we think, yes? Nightmares, missed commit-
ments, migraines, broken teeth: these are reasons for a bad day, not a good one, oui? In the world of reasons, one could certainly argue for that. But this or any day is not good or bad for a reason, or any number of reasons. Even "It's good because I said so" is a reason, of course.

It is pouring now, buckets. This followed the 'gorgeosity' of fast-moving clouds in so many shades of gray: a Dublin sky it was, for a bit. Except that the air is balmy. Twenty-one centigrade. An even 70 degrees F. Which makes it like a summer's rain, not the cold, clammy, curl-up-by-the-fire-to-warm-your-bones spring or autumn rain of these parts. I could say this lovely tepid and thorough rain is the reason for my best day. But it is not.

Today is the best day because it is the best day--for no reason. It is no more or less so than any other day, although sometimes I amble about blind to this. I forget. That it's all such a marvel: the soft clothing to fold into dresser drawers, the hands which grasp and fumble, caress and 'heal,' the lids and lashes, safe keepers of the eyes, the bulbs in the earth asleep, awaiting spring sun and skies. Stairs for climbing and descending. Floors or mountains or plains to hold us up; torrents and floods and heartbreaks to knock us down. The wing of the bird fashioned for the lift, for the soar. The willow, the tulip, the burdock, the mullein, the rose; the prayer, the dance, the grieving, the lust and the poem: show me one fraction of this life that does not facet this luminescence I call Love.

And to touch It, this pure passion, is to remember myself (my Self, I suppose) who needs no reason to be joyful, to feel exalted: feast and feasting, abundant and abundance itself, uncontainable Greatness. Tat tvam asi.

"My love" is nowhere in sight, off happily loving another. So what? It happens every day. I shared life, loved honestly and truly (I thought), and yet I stand "alone." How does this happen? These days, I am "earning" scant income, though possessed of valuable and "marketable" gifts, talents and skills. How can this be? I am living in a place where I am out of place. Who cares? It is all to say that some might say I have good reason to be having a bad day--or two or more, or to be worried at least. But I am not. It doesn't matter. These "concerns" are no concern; they mean nothing, and there is nothing wrong. It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.

I see what matters, and that's very little (but substantial) indeed. It's the breakthrough of breakthroughs, I think: seeing through, burning surely and cleanly through the facades, the illusory though for so long seemingly substantive layers of mattering, the "story" of mattering, is to find the unboiled, unadulterated essence. The essential. It is here that I am having the best day, the best days: right here, yet ever on the verge of a new wonder, a new inspiration, a new "miracle."

There is a change happening, a transition, a turning, like the turning of the Queen Mary, which makes no forward or backward motion. Just the motion of turning, turning, to face a new direction and then proceed. It is not a place of limbo, though it can feel so. It is active, dynamic, full of intention. Sometimes to proceed in the right direction, one must tolerate the seeming stasis, the seemingly fruitless, seeming directionless action of turning.

Almost daily I receive email offering some cure or solution or method to alleviate the various troubles or struggles that may or may not affect my life. One of today's offered a proven method to feel energy, curiosity and creativity again. This practitioner knows the proven method, which she has named after herself, and she is going to share it with me on a call, if I register.

"There is a teacher who knows how to do this..." reads the email, and this woman is that teacher, I am told. I see the method is endorsed by physicians, scientists, and leaders in transformation, and that it can help me to enjoy improved memory, be lighter on my feet, perform better at sports, etc. The upshot of this marketing e-blast? This woman has something I want or need. I should go to her to get it.

There's a new method a minute, it seems, to resolve our various emotional, mental, spiritual or physical challenges. Then there are the astrologers, the psychic readers and channels. We are fortunate; there are so many who have genuine gifts and talents to share. But the client-practitioner dynamic can become problematic, depending on the approach of either or both parties. With an "I have your answer" approach by the practitioner, or a "You have my answer" approach by the client, it can be easy to lose sight of where one's best answers actually reside.

In my Claritywork practice, I am graced with the privilege of seeing, of being reminded again and again, how each of us knows for ourselves. We are geniuses for ourselves. Granted it can take some practice to become adept at unearthing one's own answers; that's where a trusted teacher or guide can come in handy. But nevertheless, they're there.

How beautiful this is: to know that I already have all the answers I need, and that every moment is the best moment of my life, whether aware of it or not. When I do realize this, I am boundless, powerful beyond measure, radiant Light/Love, and I want to live forever--or rather, I feel possessed of a passion I am sure could live forever. I think what really happens in such moments is that I touch forever, the forever that defies the apparent rise and fall at so-called birth and at death. I do not become one with but rather rejoin--or am, end stop--that infinite boundlessness that I call Love.

And so are you. So what could I possibly have to sell to you? Sure, I can show you, "re-member" you to your Self, body, mind, and/or spirit. But should this be bought and sold? That's how we've set things up, yes. "Time is money," and all that. "I paid for my training, you pay for my time," and such. I have a skill or a gift, and that is a commodity: I should put a price tag on it. Even my Reiki teacher encouraged us to charge the going rate for our services. "You took your time, and paid your money to learn this..." she reasoned. It makes sense. And this is how we've operated in the "civilized" world for...how long now? But I have grown dubious about this arrangement.

How does one quantify Love?

I spent the better part of the weekend looking at art, speaking with the artists who created it, mostly in the very studios where it was created. I read artist's statements, title tags, prices. And I ask: what makes one piece worth $3500 and the next, perhaps even substantially larger and more intricate and time consuming, worth $350? All reasons aside, and notwithstanding the cost of materials, or even time, what makes it so?

Perhaps what I am saying here is that I have become sorely suspicious of commerce. What is being bought, and why? What is being sold, and why? I don't have ready answers for all this; I am living these questions. And I am not saying artists--or astrologers or psychics or even Clarityworkers--should not sell their work or wares. It's how you play the game. But I can say this: I choose not to charge for Reiki sessions. I donate them at Open Doors in Braintree, MA on Thursdays, and otherwise, I practice on a "Love offering" basis. Love circulates through me to the client, and then circulates through the client to me, in whatever form that takes. So far, the form has been money, in whatever quantity the clients has been moved to offer. And I can tell you there is a world of difference between receiving payment of a set fee, as I have done for decades now in all my other work, and receiving a monetary gift in exchange for what I have offered--in the field of energy work, at least. There is a feeling of "correctness" to this...arrangement, for lack of a better word. If asked why I do not charge a fee for services, I say something like "This feels right to me." But that is a reason, of course; what I'm speaking about here goes beyond reason.

And it occurs to me now that that's where I'd like to live, all the time: beyond reason. To live an altogether unreasonable life. Perhaps, once my ship has fully turned, that's where I'm bound.

Seasons of Glory

This one's for the morning glory, for her daily greeting. For greeting. Sure, all the other flowers of the garden have received me too as I have stepped into each new day of this spring, summer, and now fall. But somehow, it's the morning glory that distinctly greets.

Perhaps it's because it is so fleeting, gone when the cool and sideways light of the morning gives way to the full-fledged day. Perhaps because of its capacity to surprise: with no flower making it beyond a single day, each day's blossoms burst forth in new configurations, from new and unexpected places on the vines. They're "belle de jour" in French: beautiful--beauties for but a day. They come, they go--they don't last: this is the message of both the French and English names. But however ephemeral, and however known for that, it's their abiding, their steady constancy that spoke to me this morning when at the kitchen window--Oh, hello--I caught sight of one out there bobbing gently on the morning breeze.

These belles have kept coming all through our extraordinarily long, sunny, hot, and very dry summer, and they continue to do so even as their vines and leaves have begun to yellow and drop. Daily, they have steadily, unfailingly delivered a fresh and glorious constellation of delight. I am grateful for their company, their constancy, for their crowning each of my days--so many days--with royal color and radiant light.

And for their promise: already they are preparing for the next round. They have madly strewn their seeds upon the ground, to be sure to live on and on. Isn't that Love's way, it strikes me now. However it appears to rise and fall, It's really just stayed steady all along.

My New Love

Zinnia she calls herself.
A beauty by any name.
Daredevil wonder, a force.
So many gardens in
one single bloom.

Hello September

Thanks to listening to and following a pull to go yesterday, I am renewed and refreshed today by the inescapable, palpable magic of Walden Pond. Walden is a very special place with a distinct, special energy--and wood faeries galore no doubt--that infuses the moments spent there.

I went there to swim. My first and longest swim led me surprise to vacant stone steps in the sun on the far shore. Anyone who knows Walden knows how rare it is to find one of these prime spots unoccupied on a hot summer day. What a gift! And it happened to be the very spot where I'd spent good time with a good friend not so very long ago. Here I was again creating another memorable moment on that spot.

I sat and basked awhile, soaking up the sun (I had set up in a shady spot on the opposite shore). After awhile, I felt moved to do some Reiki, so I did. How luxurious it was to send and receive this energy while seated on this solid, sun-drenched stone, half in and half out of the velvety water, against the gentle sounds of the strokes of distant swimmers and of dragonfly wings about me.

I felt royal. The whole swim and pause had an aura about it. Almost a destined feeling, as though it had all been designed for me. That royal feeling continued riding home.

When I passed the "Pick Your Own Flower Garden" on the way over, I made a mental note to stop on the ride back. It's been there forever, but for some reason I haven't stopped in years. I was looking forward to it: a fresh bouquet, plucked by my own hands! Then I had second thoughts: wouldn't they wilt on the ride home? I remembered my travel cup in the car. I never finished the water in it. That last inch would be the difference between a perky bouquet and a limp one. Great! I could make a second stop I wanted to make with a free mind Dairy Joy, here I come! The Javaberry soft serve, accompanied by fresh flowers, was just plain yumm.

I set out here to write about the flow of all this, of one afternoon, how sweet and smooth was the wandering from one delight to the next to the next: each its own sort of call Come here, come here, each for its own sake. But that flow moves still, today. I pick up the camera, take it to my bouquet and start snapping. One thing leads to the next. I discover a flower I did not even know I had picked; it rode in on the stem of another. I feel the Life Force so powerfully and intimately in these flowers. I feel a very small part of something very very large and extraordinary, and I feel privileged to behold them for a time.

And in walks September, and I realize: how perfect that they accompany me on this anniversary day, as I say:

Happy Birthday, Love's Freeway!

I had totally forgotten! But it seems Love did not. She nudged me along at every turn, putting gift after gift--this bright, bold, beautiful carnival--into my hands. And happily onward I go into another year singing Her praise, gratefully, thankfully singing my heart's true song.