Following Your Bliss

Love will surely bust you wide open into an unfettered, blooming new galaxy -Hafiz 

Joseph Campbell, The Original Mr. Follow-Your-Bliss, wrote, "No one in the world was ever you before, with your particular gifts and abilities and possibilities. It's a shame to waste those by doing what someone else has done."                 

Bliss-following is not for the squeamish. Nor for the fastidious, prudish or anally-oriented. Bliss-followers are not at all in for smooth sailing, but often in for a rough ride. It can be a pisser to be a blisser. But, comfort and ease take a big back seat when it comes to joyful exuberance. And it is precisely that joyful exuberance - that life-giving vivacious enthusiasm - which enables blissers to put up with the crap and stay on the track.                  

Following your bliss is not about avoiding life's pit-falls. Not about side-stepping the snags, snares, hurdles and hitches which inevitably show-up on any path you take. Bliss-following is not about making life easy, but rather, opening to life's fertile fullness - life's fruitful flavors - life's force-field of friggingly fantastic phenomenal freedom.            

Bliss-following. Easy and trouble-free? Hell, no! Vitalizing and invigorating? Heaven, yes!

 Howard is going strong and overtime lately in the Daddy-Brag Department.  Younger daughter, Kelsey, just graduated from University of Miami Med School and is cramming for her Boards.  Older daughter, Windsor, and her husband, Alex, just bought a house in Atlanta - a heap closer than Boston - and are expecting their first baby (Howard's first grand baby) in August.  Howard is truly feeling blissfully blessed.

Surprise

Be grateful for whoever comes - each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

- Rumi

You can be surprised by the cost of gasoline. You can be surprised by an old friend you find on Facebook. You can be surprised by how smoothly your day went or surprised that your drunk Uncle Al didn't do the "pull my finger" trick at Thanksgiving dinner this year.               

You can be surprised by the weather, by the news, by your child's grades, by the results of your physical exam. You can be surprised by a birthday party, a stroke of good luck or how old your high school classmates looked at the reunion.                              

A true surprise can bowl you over. Take your breath away. Shock you and shake you up.   Can knock you to the ground or send you sailing among the stars. Control freaks, of course, don't like surprises. Many of us don't like them because they mess with our routines and regimens. They remind us that we're not in charge.              

There are, of course, delightful surprises and dreadful surprises. Surprises for the body, the mind and the heart. Surprises that can bring you to tears of sorrow or tears of bliss. So many surprises in this life; so little time.

A genuine surprise, however, is one life's greatest reminders that we do not know it all. Cannot know it all. Will never know it all. An authentic surprise is an in-your-face reminder that there is far more going on in this life than we can ever imagine. Almost anything is possible. Almost anything. And that's a good sign.

___________________

A huge, 250 + or - year old red oak tree had to be taken down in the yard at Hanger Hall.  Root rot.  Ida Jolly Crawley, a fine artist who owned Hanger Hall from 1919-1946, called the Hall the House of Pan.  She was convinced that the house (like Pan) attracted the Muses - art and music.  So, Howard contacted Jack Bailey, a wood carver who goes toJubilee! and engaged him to carve a life-sized figure of Pan out of the 15 foot section of the tree that the tree removers left.  The carving which should take several months in in progress.  Howard is thrilled!

Boggling

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.

- Rumi

Astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter is the winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics. Saul heads the SuperNova Cosmology Project at the University of California at Berkley.  In an interview on NPR, Perlmutter naturally talked a lot about infinity. He said, "Most folks think of the beginning of the universe as the Big Bang happening in empty space. But the empty space is the universe and the Big Bang simply projected matter into it. There are an infinite number of galaxies now sailing through the universe.   There will be an infinite number of galaxies in the future - all sailing through infinity. But the space, itself, is the universe."

His interviewer responded, "My mind is boggled."

Perlmutter replied, "You have to get used to having your mind boggled. And the more you see and discover, the more boggled your mind becomes. It's my theory," he says, "the only reason you go into a field like astrophysics is because you love to have your mind boggled."                 

If awe and wonder are indeed the beginning of wisdom, we would all do well do allow our minds to be boggled on a regular basis. Boggled by infinity. Boggled by great music and art. Boggled by love. Boggled by belly laughs.  Boggled by the fact that every moment, each of us are riding a product of the Big Bang through the universe. Through the infinite universe. So many ways to be boggled; so little time.                

When your mind is boggled, you tend to spend less time worrying over your VISA card or wishing you had a bigger TV or wondering how you're going to ditch that extra 10 pounds before swim-suit time.  Boggling reminds you that you don't know it all.  And never will.  Boggling has a way of shaking you loose - so loose that giggles, delight, awe and astonishment are able to seep in and grace the face of your soul with a big juicy grin.

Howard lives with 14 other folks in a gorgeous 1890 Victorian home called "Hanger Hall." Ida Jolly Crawley, an artist who lived in the house from 1919-46, called it "The House of Pan" because it seemed to attract The Muses of Art and Music.  Howard recently had dying tree taken down in his front yard and has asked a wood-carving friend to carve a life-sized stature of Pan from the 12-foot stump.  Howard is very pumped about the prospect and eager for Pan and the Muses to bring even more joy and creativity to Hanger Hall.

Control

Why are you frightened and why do doubts arise in your hearts? - Jesus 

Things we wish we could control: 

1) our emotions, 

2) our kids, 

3) our love life, 

4) our future, 

5) our weight. 

Things we might be able to control: 

1) our weight.

None of us want to be control freaks. None of want to be impatient, constantly competitive, uber time-conscious, stressed over achievement, Type-A, obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive, anxiety-ridden, heart-attack candidates. None of us want that. But every one of us wants some semblance of control over our lives. We want to feel as if we have some say in how our lives go down - some fragment of power over our stint on this planet - a little time at the wheel or the rudder.              

Perhaps the secrets of control are found less in manipulation and more in choice. Less in manipulating things and more in exercising options. 

Maybe, rather than insistently trying to get our selves to a certain port, we would be better served by checking out the diversity of dingys as they sail through our harbor and choosing the ones with which we might want to sail.   Or, in the wisdom of Calvin and Hobbes, "It's not in denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept."                         

Sometimes life can sail you to places far more exciting and fulfilling than anything you may have mapped for yourself.

Howard is googled-eyed these days.  He has learned that sometime later this summer, he will be a GrandPapa.  Daughter Windsor and her husband, Alex, kicked things into gear and from all reports, "Itty-Bitty," as she's now called, is looking good.  Howard says that he remembers being freaked out when he discovered he was going to be a Papa; and he admits he's not too far from that feeling now.  Windsor and Alex have (gratefully) spent their last winter in Boston and will be moving to Atlanta in June.  Only 3.5 hours from Grandpapa. And he's smiling.

Forgiving

Forgiveness is the treasure you need to craft your falcon wings. -  Hafiz

"Don't let yesterday take up too much of today," goes the T-shirt wisdom. But for most of us - at least most of us with a spoonful of memory left in our gumbo - forgetting about yesterday comes as easily as giving ourselves a root canal. And that's especially true for the sore spots yesterday left on our emotional rump.

We effortlessly forget about yesterday's good times -the excellent meal, the sunny day, the joke on Facebook. Good times, for some reason, don't Velcro themselves to our brains like bad times do. But let your boss at work chew you out or your car start making expensive noises or your current hottie tell you that you're not a s much fun as she thought you'd be, and your brain pulls out the super-glue and goes to work.

Buddhists say that the cause of suffering is holding on. But Buddhists also say that letting go is not that easy. In fact, some Buddhists go into monasteries and spend their lives trying to perfect the craft of letting go. But, if you don't have the time to spend the rest of your life in a monastery and if you don't look that good with a shaved head, what are you going to?

Forgiveness is a good start. Forgiving others. Forgiving others who don't forgive you. Forgiving yourself for having a hard time forgiving others who don't forgive you.