High on Happiness

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A change of pace, a break in the routine, a good stretch, a brisk walk, a nap, twenty minutes of meditation—what renewal a rest can bring!   The mind needs an island of space every now and then, a mental vacation, just to be, to relax, to unwind, to play.

When you feed your mind with little getaways from life’s stresses and demands, you free it to return to its wide, spacious realms.   There, all the pieces fall into place, new possibilities emerge, new perspectives take shape.

Then, when you call it back into service, asking it to focus once more on the business at hand, it comes to you refreshed and paints the sky of your awareness with sweet clarity on your situations.

So, have you freed your mind today?  Oh!  I think you have!  You’re gazing at a summer field where life is rich and green, and reading these words at High on Happiness.   Good for you!

Remember, it’s here for you any time, wrapped in love.  Because you matter.

From the heart of the Great Yes, filled with its unspeakable love, light flows endlessly.  It forms the worlds and all things in them.

The atoms dance in its waves.  The cosmos sails on its splendor.

Invisible, it shows itself through all that it illumines: A summer flower, a smile, eyes that brim with its compassion and joy.  Their radiance is its signature and fulfillment.

And all that is true, and good, and beautiful reflect its perfection and grace.

So summer comes sliding in all sexy and hot.  You gotta have some spice to keep it going, a touch of flame, some long afternoons, sizzling nights.

You go jazzin down the street with the rhythm in your bones, the wind of your movement brushing across the snares, singing C’mon, baby; let’s do it.

And it’s fire hydrant fountains and the slap of rope on the sidewalk as the young girls chant and the old ladies on the stoop fan themselves with paper and sip lemonade.

And it’s all so deep and juicy.  And life’s good, man.  Life is good.

Well, actually it’s a broken humerus. Mine. Right (dominant) side.  In three places.

That’s the upper arm bone that connects to your shoulder.  It was a sort of collision between me, my friend’s rambunctious, well-muscled puppy and a fence.  The fence won.

“It’s broken,” the ER doc said after the x-rays.  He had them squirt vials of delightful drugs into my veins, put me in a sling, and gave me the phone number of a specialist to call on Monday for “follow up.”

“How do they fix it?” I asked.  He said sometimes they just keep it in the sling.  Sometimes they put pins in it.  (I picture a voodoo doll.) He was low-key, comforting as he wrote out a script for me.  Then, after telling me to rest and put ice on it, he was off to see the next patient.

The nurse helped me get into a wheel chair, since the delightful drugs were kicking in really well.  “Three breaks,” she said in a kind of confidential tone.  The number flashed in purple-pink neon in my brain.  “That sounds like surgery to me.  But then I’m just a nurse.”

I work with seasoned nurses like her every day.  I understand that she thinks I should have that possibility spelled out for me and appreciate her candor.

I’ll find out on Monday.

Meanwhile, I’m going to take a break, no pun intended, from posting new stuff here until I get my bearings.  Typing with one hand is really, really awful!  And-booooo!-taking pictures is no snap (sorry) either.

So roam around the archives for awhile.  Some really good stuff lurks there, if I do say so myself.  I’ll pop in when I can and come back with barrels of fresh joy as soon as I’m able.  If you’re not already on the mailing list, sign up now and you’ll get my “I’m baaaack!” letter the very minute I can send it.

(She exits, stage right, blowing kisses.)

Beyond the rush and drama of the day, and beneath it, breathing itself into the cells of trees, and singing frogs, and sleeping birds, serenity stretches its lush, gossamer sigh.
It’s full of luxury and ease, like a deep mountain pool.

Our buzzings hover above it like hungry mosquitoes. But it is not disturbed.  It wraps them in a cloud of compassion and offers us the nectar of its peace.  Humans, it knows, will do what humans do.

Even so, it seeps into our sleep at night, offering reassurances, painting our deepest dreams with its panoramic view.

Sometimes, when you wake at night, you can even hear its gentle crooning.  “Be at peace, my child,” it whispers.  “All is well, and you are loved.”

Sometimes, when you need it most and least expect it, a postcard from Home arrives.

The light falls just so.  You catch a few strains of a long-forgotten song.  A fragrance drifts past.

Sometimes it’s nothing more than a feeling, a shift in awareness.

However it comes, it touches your heart and comforts you.  It reminds you who you are, how large you are and how lucky.

And even though it may seem that you are far and have been long from Home, you are still so closely connected that it drops you a little postcard, just when you need it most.

“Football?”  I said.  “That’s the big, pointy one, isn’t it?”

Normally the fact that I’m severely sports challenged isn’t a problem.  But given that I live smack dab in the middle of what folks here proudly call “Steelers Country,” on Super Bowl Weekend, I have to work hard to play the part of a fan.  It’s either that or face exile.

So I wore my black slacks and yellow sweater to work today.  It got me by.

My coworkers wore Steelers jerseys and caps and earrings and pins and socks.  Across the river, at the hospital’s maternity department, they even wrapped the newborns in Steelers’ “terrible towels.”  (I don’t know why they call them that; I’m too embarrassed to ask.)

All the clerks at the grocery store were dressed in Steelers garb, too.  Gold mums tied with black and gold ribbons were on display, and bags of black and gold nacho chips, and Steelers cupcakes and cookies and pizzas, and plenty more of those towels.

People are pumped; that’s for sure.  It’s a party weekend big time.  And here in the middle of a long, cold winter, I’m happy to see it.  I’m glad sports fans have champions and heroes to cheer.  I’m glad they have an excuse to focus on fun, to enjoy the color and spectacle of it all.  I’m glad for the display of grit and discipline that goes into reaching the top of your game, and for the wit and daring, the teamwork and coordination, the dexterity and skill that goes into playing it.

Those aren’t things we get to see just any day, all in one place, in the spotlight.  And we need them.  Even if we’re only paying attention to who’s winning and who’s losing and to all the goodies on the buffet, the stuff that makes it grand is right there in our faces, and it sinks into us and feeds our souls.

Another year comes to an end and as its final curtain descends, it sends its luminous blessing.

Take with you, my children, all that was golden, all that whispered to you of my love.

Take the moments of sweetness, of laughter and delight; take the lessons and the wisdom.  Take the colors of my seasons, the hours of labor and leisure, the music of my songs.

Wrap them in your soul, and remember me with gratitude and joy as you begin your journey through new days.  I have done my best to strengthen and enrich you, to carry you toward greater actualization of your magnificent potential.  And you have not disappointed me.

Now I bid you farewell.  May all was beautiful, good and true in the days that I gave you live in your heart and illumine your way.  And may you always remember to be at peace, for you are truly loved.

Once you know your direction, the general way that you need to go for your dream to become your life, once you have made up your mind, made the decision and committed, let go.

That’s the secret.  The Universe knows your dream and how to take you there.  Let go.

Let yourself melt into tomorrow.  The river knows how to flow.

All it asks is your presence, your trust.  Lean into its whispering.  Bend where it bids you to bend.  Dance when it asks you to dance.  Linger, flow, tumble and cascade, but always with ease.  Resist nothing.

The river knows the way.  Let yourself melt into tomorrow.

Now is the time for focus, for crystallizing dreams.  Now: reach for the looming possibilities, the taunting desires. Claim them, name them, hold the vision of them fast.

Shine on them the light of your passion and daring.  Let their structure and details be revealed.

Taste the reality of their potential. Adopt their fulfillment as your mission, your quest.  Let nothing deny you.  Give way to no hesitation or doubt.

Say, “This is mine.  This shall be.” Then vow to make it so, regardless of obstacles, whether you know the way or not.  The way will appear as you walk it.

Trust.  Dare.  Crystallize the dream.  Live it.  Know its joy.