An Ordinary Grace

As I write this post it is snowing outside. Snowing is happening. And so is typing. Thought-ing, breathing, living, seeing---all happening. To not attribute any of the happening to someone or something is key, and counter intuitive to how we operate as persons in the world where I am the thinker, the breather, the seer.....where I am the writer of a post. I still get caught in the claiming. I still get caught in the I-ing. I-ing happens just like snowing happens. Thought-ing and I-ing are the same happening, as the I idea is a thought. Thoughts and typing and snowing are all objects of perception. And even perceptions are a registering-- a certain kind of sensating, that is seen. Is there anything not in front of the lens of seeing? It could only be the seer. Who or what is the seer? When I look for that which is seeing I find nothing. Well not nothing, but no-thing. No thing graspable or even really describable. Just a here -ness which has no thing-ness about it. A presence tha

Yesterday I found a puzzle piece in the parking lot next to work. It was a charm for a bracelet or hung on a necklace as you can see. It is someone's missing puzzle piece. I have been finding things on the ground for many years. I almost always ponder the meaning of these appearances in my life. What is the message from the universe? There have been a lot of messages. A lot of stories have been woven around found objects.  So many things have been found I have made a little wall of junk or WALKER'S JUNK WALL as I have named it. The trod upon, broken, shiny, lost earrings and combs of lives I have picked up and kept. This is the abundance of life as a materialist. I love things...having things...arranging things...gathering them together just to look at them. This junk wall is at the entrance to my garden...also a collection.... of plants from everywhere and pots and rusting "sculpture"...just to look at and be with. Detail of Walker's Junk Wall Wh

I was chopping onions and mushrooms to top a Monday night pizza when a most familiar feeling of dis-ease and resignation came over me. The "God it's only Monday and I have a whole week of the work grind ahead" feeling. Perhaps you know it? Perhaps it hits you while enjoying a beautiful Sunday afternoon... coloring the day a little blue. Why does this happen? (Haaa!!! Why does anything happen?) This is the trillion dollar question with no answer, or a perhaps the answers exist as a trillion different stories. The noticing of this tendency to favor (or dread) upcoming moments....moments that only exist in the imagination... is the beginning impetus to sort out the potent mechanism of mind. Really, one (thought/emotion/feeling...they are intertwined...TEF) is no better or worse than another in the grand scheme of things. (Am I full of shit here?) No TEF is personal, unless I claim it. Each TEF is happening now....IS my now whether I like it or hate it. It truly is a mec

"It is not the me looking for freedom. It is freedom appearing as a me looking." This from Lisa Lennon on the landing page of her website . Scroll down.....and then enjoy the liquid movement!

I liken current living to schizophrenic episodes one after the other of active remembering and unconscious forgetting. There appears a struggle to keep "the knowing" at the forefront of mind. 1) "Will it ever not feel like work" ?   Like when you decide to actively take over the breathing process....it is labored and generally uncomfortable. Thank goodness attention gets channeled elsewhere so autopilot can once again establish equilibrium. 2) Is autopilot God? 3) Who is working so hard (to remember that what is happening right now is all there is)?  There is no "I" here to manage this daily living, and believe me "I" have looked for a solid me. This is the kicker for us all....the punch in the gut... that it all just happens and any idea of remembering or forgetting is life dancing the dance of you. How frightening! How maddening! How freeing! There is no control over anything... A beautiful example of this dance is a child. Wa

Walking from the bus stop this morning to the coffee shop next to work, felt awareness came to the forefront...effortlessly.. with a largeness/vastness that was breath-taking. This is the thing....I spend a lot of my waking time thinking about awakening...longing for abiding awakeness. That longing manifests as reading books and watching videos....passing the time in the presence of (what seem to be) fortuitous influences. Remembering to stop and fall back into the feeling of awareness. As I sit here and write, I know how silly I am, continuing to play the role of seeker!!! [Cliche alert] I am what I am seeking....this vast felt awareness is what I am. It is dizzying, and the most natural state there is, though I seem to play the game of forgetting. You ask, how can one forget something so monumental? Forget might be the wrong word. It is not a total I am asleep forgetting....just a moving to the background where it has always dwelt. Hence the move to the foreground this morning.

  When learning the visual arts, you see that darker tones recede and the brighter tones advance towards the eye. Painters, photographers and designers use this basic reality to their creative advantage. Chiaroscuro (Italian word meaning.... light dark ) is an oil painting technique that uses strong tonal contrasts of light to dramatic effect. I am mulling over the receding bliss of awakeness that recently engulfed me. To sit in the joyful being of awareness is what I have longed for. As an I, I learned, that this felt awakeness is absent while "I" am present. (There is too much bandwidth used maintaining the framework of a personal life.) When I serendipitously recedes into the darkness, the shining aliveness advances.....comes to the forefront. But I cannot make it happen, like a painter can deliberately load titanium white on a brush.   I struggle with this....used to thinking that I can do (more or less) as I please, assuming intended results would (more