Alison

 

Tonight my husband and I went to Ikea to do some light shopping (he wants some new furniture for his He-Man room) and while there we decided to get dinner. This visit to the store was probably the fifth time I’ve been since it opened in late 2017 and was the first time I didn’t have to park a football field away or sift through crowds to get through the place or wait in long lines at the cafeteria or checkout.

While eating, a certain song started playing over the Ikea store’s sound system. It was a Wild Cherry song called, “Play That Funky Music White Boy.” It’s a song I hardly ever hear and which actually predates me by four years. At the risk of sounding like a old man, it reminds me of a time when pop stars had to possess far more quality than they seem to need now. Back then, artists didn’t really have anything in the way of voice scrubbing or synthesizers to “fake” music. But that’s neither here nor there.

At first when the music came on and my mind picked up on it I boogied a little in my seat while biting into my meal. I imagined how I might dance to the song, were I to stand from the dinner table. While seeing myself dance around before my mind’s eye, I was soon joined by an unexpected guest. Her name was Alison. It’s not Alison anymore because she’s dead. Her name is either Nothing or else perhaps she’s transmigrated, taken a new human body, and been born again as someone else with a new name. Before Alison died last time, she worked where I do. I never really interacted with her. In fact, I’m not really sure what she did for the company aside from thinking I remember hearing that she was in our legal department. I think she was a smoker and I think that’s what killed her, but I’m not sure. What I am sure of, though, and it’s the reason Alison joined me for a dinnertime dance tonight, is that she LOVED to dance. She’d dance with anybody or she’d dance by herself. I know this only because the one real memory I have of Alison is from one company holiday party. The Wild Cherry song came on and for a few minutes Alison was the only person on the dance floor, utterly unaffected by that fact. She had shoulder-length, fine, bleach blonde hair and when she danced she would do a certain movement with her head and neck so as to cause her hair to fly a bit. Alison wasn’t a tiny gal by any means and I think that limited her range of possible dance moves. Her generation, the one before mine, also seemed to be fonder of more generalized ways of dancing. You just got out there and moved. You might do a certain, specific dance move sometimes but a lot of what I’ve seen is just good ole rug cutting. Just get out there and jam! Alison would get out there and shuffle her butt all over the place!

(Back at Ikea) While the song was playing still, and when I found a quick second to stop dancing with Alison, I returned to the dinner table and mentioned her to my husband. He worked there even before me and he was well aware of Alison and her “prowess” on the dance floor. His face lit up a little when I mentioned the song playing and my clear memory of Alison gettin’ out there and doin’ her stuff. (FACT: My husband’s face should ALWAYS light up. His smile is darling. His blue eyes are amazing. And the smile lines at the outside corners of those blue eyes not only make me melt but also fill me with all the gratitude – so lucky am I to be with him. It’s the handsomest vision of God I’ve known.) I was glad that my husband was seeing in his mind what I saw in mine.

As the song finished and my dinner dance with Alison from the legal department ended, I found myself unexpectedly overcome. Literally. I had to put my head down and in a very real way fight back tears and I almost openly wept there in the Ikea cafeteria. Trust me – my husband would confirm that my version of openly weeping is NOT gorgeous. But I was so overcome, and even now recounting it causes me to cry some. You see, the SOLE memory I have of this human is that of her dancing. If I were to bump into her family and reminisce at all, the ONLY thing I would be able to say is, “Boy – she LOVED to dance!”

I’m not fooled into thinking that lonesome dancing is all there was to Alison. Like every other human, she entered this life with baggage. She carried that baggage throughout her life’s duration, and when she departed this life (…if cause and effect mean anything in this universe…) she probably took some of it with her. But it – my memory of her – strikes me as wholly precious. She could have stayed on the sidelines like I was at the company party – talking with people about how the President is terrible or how the parking garage badly needs repaired. But she danced. What kinda world might we inhabit if we lived our lives in such a way that the only memories anyone had of us – the only memories we gave to others – were sweet and simple and the kind that make handsome husbands broadly smile?

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha | Aum Shanti

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Look Another Way

 

Just about every day on my way to the office I take the same route. And just about every day on my way from the office I take the same, but different than the first, route. My second route involves the interstate for about 3 miles. Between my on-ramp and the next exit over there’s always a burp of road during which my radio signal goes out. I don’t know if this happens for people listening to “normal” radio in their cars, but for me listening to satellite radio in my own car, there’s a brief bit of silence experienced whenever I hit that patch of road. If I’m going somewhere between 55 and 65 MPH, then I’d say the silence has a duration of about 4 seconds. Not long, but noticeable.

Another exit over(now two exits from my on-ramp) is where I get off if I’m going yarn shopping – which I do, far more than my budget says is healthy. That off-ramp curves a lot to the left and especially so as it connects to the major road right there. Because of that curve, it’s nearly impossible to take that exit and not see a massive and massively tall telecommunications tower. Or…. some such kind of tower, anyway. When stopped there and waiting on a green light, my satellite radio signal is interrupted just as when I’m going over the one patch of interstate. At this exit it is very clear that the tower is the reason my radio goes out right there.

Because of knowing that the tower at the second exit causes my radio to go out, for the last six hundred years of my life whenever I’m on that interstate and about go to over that “dry patch,” I look to my right (south) and try to spot the tower which must be there causing the signal’s interruption. And for the last six hundred years of my life I’ve failed to see it.

One day about two weeks ago – seriously, only two weeks ago – a thought crossed my mind that I ought to look north right there. I did and I feel almost embarrassed to admit that I was surprised to see the tower I previously would have sworn ought to be on the south side of the interstate! As soon as the surprise of that awareness wore off I was left with the realization that not only had I been looking the wrong direction the whole time but also that whole time I was practically obstinate about my thoughts and how they guided me.

For really no good reason, aside from failing to assess what was in my own head, I missed out on a perfect answer to what I questioned. In hindsight, I can now recognize that the south side of the interstate – in the area I was looking – has no place for such a tower. There are houses and businesses and schools and churches and parks. None of that mattered enough to me to ever cross my mind because I was so busy thinking what I already thought without ever really looking at what it was I was thinking or why. In that same area, but on the north side of the interstate, far more open space was available and no real proximity to homes, etc… got in the way of making that space the better option for that tower. That fuller realization – seeing the bigger picture – seems so obvious in retrospect.

I almost titled this post, “Look the Other Way,” but that didn’t communicate what I wanted. I’d already been looking the other way. We all do it, and usually too often. Looking the “other way” can take a variety of forms. Sometimes it’s done because we’re uncomfortable with what we’d see or have to face if we look another direction. Sometimes we look the other way because we’re lazy. I think sometimes, too, we look the other way because we feel we’ve worked hard to get to the view we currently have and looking another way instead of the other way would mean more work or somehow suggest outgrowing where we’ve gotten ourselves – that can be daunting and often brings feelings of wasted effort. It’s important to recognize, too, that looking the other way is always willful. We do make LOTS of choices and seemingly without even realizing we are but looking the other way, even when we don’t realize it, is always a choice being made somewhere inside you. The choice being made says, “I refuse to see…”

I encourage all (myself, included!) to look another way. Maybe the direction you’re already looking is just fine – but you can’t possibly be sure of that unless you look another way. You have to see what else is there.

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha | Aum Shanti

The Second Purnam

 

January 2018 actually started off REALLY rough for me. I’ll spare you the details and really those who are closest to me had front row seats, so… probably not much more needs said. What I can say about all that is that, painful as it was, 2018 started off with learning and further confirmation of  my suspicion that 2018 would perhaps be a time of personal change. A lot of people will roll their eyes and think, “Typical new year’s resolutioner…new year new me nonsense.” But that’s not what this is about.

Anyone who knows me knows that I use my body’s clock to observe my New Year – not something based on someone else’s calendar. So my resolutions are actually set in August. Having said that, there’s a movement of energy that happens at the start of year that we all feed into and I’ve no issue admitting that that will likely affect the goals I set my sights on back in August.

January 2018 started with a full moon (purnima) and it ended with one, too! We see the same happen in March and there’s a purnima on my birthday this year. (Fun Fact: There was also a full moon on the day I was born and actually VERY close to the time of my birth) My mind sees this as auspicious and perhaps as a sign that fullness will be the tone of 2018. It’s now the second full moon of January and the second full moon of 2018.

Without going into great detail, which would surely bore you, the resolutions I set for myself last August all relate to simplification of life. So many challenges walk into our life when we open our eyes for the first time – and they often seem to compound as we age. And now, with plenty of age of my own, I’m feeling drawn to streamline things a bit – especially in 2018. To eliminate as much unnecessary burden as is practical to.

The Sahaj Marg / Heartfulness Maxims have been in mind for a while – probably more so lately because Daaji has spoken so much on a few of them recently. Good timing, too, because the ones that have been on my mind are some of those which he’s touched upon. Those Maxims are 4, 5, and 6. Maxim Four advises us to simplify our lives so as to be identical with Nature. This really sums it up, but to add to that, Maxim Five continues with advising us to always be truthful and accept miseries that come with life and to see the good in them. Finally, as the richest icing on any cake, Maxim Six is a rewording of one of the holiest and most profound ideas known to humans, “Know all people as thy brethren and treat them as such.” (NOTE: This is NOT the same as the Golden Rule or the idea of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It’s far deeper than that and touches on really meaty spirituality.)

These three combine to create a really wholesome, full, satisfying, and amazingly simple picture for the basic and strongest framework for one’s life and self-governance. These three can teach us a lot – not the least of which is how to eliminate drama from one’s life, how to gain better control of finances, how to make and keep new friends, how to heal familial rifts, and when applied properly to many contexts – even how to overcome addiction.

Fantastic! Such strength at the fingertips of (any)one who understands and implements these Maxims. Heartfulness, along with January’s two purnimas, helps me understand a positive and complete view of what 2018 might bring.

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha | Aum Shanti