“Let the wild rumpus start!”— Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don’t have to like it… it’s just easier if you do.”― Byron Katie
Let your imagination roam, wander.
Uncharted territory.
Off path.
Allow unknowing, mystery.
Invite wonder, awe.
Embrace light, laughter.
It’s a big big big world.
Inside and out.
Explore, get lost, be found again.
Wild essential things.
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”—The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu
“Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.” – Deepak Chopra
Rain followed by temperature drop followed by trees painted in gorgeous white brilliance.
A magical wonderland on display, inviting awe and amazement.
By March, we get weary of winter, and yet, days like yesterday remind us of the beauty of winter.
In the waiting, wandering and going through is life awaiting our participation and attention.
Rather than reacting about the length of winter, we can enter the depth of quiet, preparation and slowness of the season.
Prisoner or pioneer.
We choose daily.
Take the adventure in front of you rather than the trail you’ve already been on.
“Every time you are tempted to react the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.” – Deepak Chopra
“Nature is one song of praise that never stops singing.” – Richard Rohr
“Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.” – Sam Walton
Open arms
Eyes to the sky
Release to the possible
Let your imagination roam wild and free
Praise, glory and awe
Balm to the soul
Flight to spirit
“It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.” – Amelia Barr
“Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.” – Hafez
It’s a daily job, an obligation, a calling. Letting go.
Letting go of our opinions, judgment, complaints, our rightness and others wrongness to open up to love, to optimism, to fresh expansive boundless territory. Pursuing light and not stopping until we find it. We find what we pursue and expect. Be intentional and pay attention. The light remains whether we seek it or not. Seek it.
Self-awareness is the first step to self-mastery, empathy and hope – a mighty trio. Be open to surprise, expansion, depth and growth woven through ordinary days.
One of my daily non-negotiable rituals is meditation using Insight Timer. This morning I chose, or perhaps it chose me, the poem She Let Go by Safire Rose as spoken and composed by Jac Godsman.
She Let Go
by Safire Rose
She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of the fear.
She let go of the judgments.
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.
Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice.
She didn’t read a book on how to let go.
She didn’t search the scriptures.
She just let go.
She let go of all of the memories that held her back.
She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.
She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go.
She didn’t journal about it.
She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.
She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.
She just let go.
She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.
She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
She didn’t call the prayer line.
She didn’t utter one word.
She just let go.
No one was around when it happened.
There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked her or praised her.
No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort.
There was no struggle.
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be.
A small smile came over her face.
A light breeze blew through her.
And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…
“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.” – Alice Walker
For so long
Day after day
Running fast and furious
Checking the box
New list, new boxes
Task after task
Problem solved, another takes its place
Transactional living
For who?
For what?
Why?
To What end?
Ask the questions
Inventory what stays and what must go and then release it
Money
Power
Ego
Legacy
Expectations and assumptions
Quantity over quality
Examine how time is being spent or given
On sabbath, God’s day, He calls us to rest as He did after 6 days creating the world
The Author of Life, asks us to pause
To ask the questions, to listen, to pull off the racetrack to rest, nothing to check off, no problem to solve, to just be so we can carry Sunday into the week
God chases us as we chase everything and everyone but Him
Patiently, lovingly, mercifully, gracefully, generously
He chases, calls and waits for us to see Him in the threads of ordinary moments, always present, whispering, “Come, sit for a while”
You have earned your rest
There is nowhere to go
Nowhere to be than right now
On a bench, taking in the depth and beauty of this very moment
Sunday was created to linger, to laugh, to lounge, to live so the rest of the week makes sense and is lived on purpose, gratefully and with intent, not accidentally
Right here, right now.
Come, sit for a while.
“If you keep the Sabbath, you start to see creation not as somewhere to get away from your ordinary life, but a place to frame an attentiveness to your life.” – Eugene H. Peterson
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anais Nin
“The secret to happiness is freedom… And the secret to freedom is courage.” – Thucydides
I stopped by to visit and drop off a few coloring books for Liam who was just getting up from a Sunday nap. He walked out in his lion suit, a costume sewed decades ago by my Aunt Terry for my niece Emily for Halloween.
A random day in February and it was lion suit day. I’ve written often in Cast-Light about my dogs, Liam, friends and family. All sources of inspiration and frustration (humans can do that), light and love. Who and what we surround ourselves with defines the quality of our life. As important, perhaps more so, is who and what we surround our self with inside of thoughts, mind and actions – the me in the we.
When we are our most authentic self, showing up in our own lion suit and not the one others think we should be wearing, we come home to joy, purpose, clarity and contentment.
Many will tell you what “suit” they expect you to wear.
Don’t listen.
Many will tell you that you don’t wear a lion suit that’s too small for you on a Sunday afternoon.
Don’t listen.
Many will tell you, do it my way, it’s better.
Don’t listen.
Wear your lion suit with joy, awe and wonder, entering your own space, completing your own assignment. When I drift and wander, listening to everything but my own voice, I find the courage of a lion again when I see Liam in his lion suit, unapologetic, filled with joy and coloring outside the lines.
“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” – Ephesians 6:11-18 NIV
“Solitude sharpens awareness of small pleasures otherwise lost.” – Kevin Patterson
“Once we’re awake, the struggle is often whether we live in the world of things while glimpsing the light of Spirit or in the light of Spirit while moving through the world of things. It is a practice just to be aware of which is driving us.” – Mark Nepo, Finding Inner Courage
In Minnesota, we take winter seriously. After we accept its inevitable return with a few complaints on the temperature adjustment and icy roads, we proceed to make the most of it by going out into it. I started snowshoeing this year and back at cross country skiing as well. Out in nature, in movement, breathing crisp fresh air. At the local golf course, they groom the trails as well as make snow for a small hill for snowboarding, skiing and sledding. They keep making snow all season to keep the hill in good shape.
When we accept that the only way to the other side of winter or other challenges is straight through it, we can embrace a lightness of Spirit, an ease in being. Each season offers unique gifts. There’s a quietude and solace in winter, preparation time, reflection.
Choose to move through the world awake, aware and grateful. The Spirit is all around and within each one of us ready to be held and to hold.
“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.” – Saint Francis de Sales
“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” – Rabindranath Tagore
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.” – Joseph Campbell
Yesterday, I rushed to get ready to drop the car off for a 7:30 am appointment. I skipped writing morning pages (uninterrupted stream of consciousness writing prescribed by author Julia Cameron), multi-tasked through morning meditation (Insight Timer – the best app that makes mindfulness doable) and rushed through strength training (burpees still suck).
I’ve been doing all of these morning rituals long enough to know that when I don’t do them, the “open doors” during the day will let out the heat, wasting my energy on circumstances and my interpretation of other people, rather than letting in fresh air and light in to facilitate flow and ease. Best-case scenario thinking of optimism turns rapidly into worst-case scenario thinking of pessimism.
We know our triggers and still we let them trigger us every time when we don’t anchor our thoughts and “GPS” our actions for the day through habits and rituals.
This year, it feels like all of the doors have been closed. But if we look deeper and longer, we realize that there are new doors that we can open to find blessings and gifts right in the middle of a pandemic.
Yesterday, the news announced a third vaccine. There is real light at the end of this long tunnel, as there always is during all tunnel sections of life. If we can find joy and light amidst a pandemic and be grateful, we have discovered the most important vaccine ever! Our joy and happiness are rooted within ourselves, in our control the entire time.
We choose daily whether we will be victims of circumstances, people, our own narrow thinking, limiting beliefs or even a pandemic. We have the responsibility, honor and gift of choosing which open doors to walk through, which ones to close and to keep searching to find new doors.
No matter what, believe that hope, joy and light have the strength to not only hold you but to also catapult you forward into transformation, becoming and fruition. So many beautiful doors. The cocoon always births the butterfly. Always.
“There is no such thing as a little freedom. Either you are all free, or you are not free.” – Walter Cronkite
We tell ourselves to “let go” or “let go and let God,” but then we don’t fully trust the process or God. We create a safety net, a back-up plan. Like a yo-yo, we let it go but keep a string tied to it so it keeps coming back at us. Letting go means cutting the string and releasing it fully.
Until we actually let go of past hurts, unforgiveness, offense, disappointment, judgment, fear and assumptions, they will continue to come back to ensure that the future is a replica of the past and today is lost gathering stones that weigh us down, stuck in the abyss of false narratives and comfort of justification.
When we let go, no strings attached, we create a space for gratitude, delight, awe, transformation, joy, peace and freedom.
Rewrite your story by changing the narrative. The first step is to actually let go and take one step into new territory, into the wide-open space of possibility found beyond and within each of us when we dare to release what was to move into what can be.
Assume the best in others and yourself and cut the strings that bind. Move on, adventure ahead.
“Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.” – Voltaire
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau
It snowed this week, and the lamenting began. Snow in October? It’s too early. Winter is going to be too long. One more thing in a year of constant change, fear and uncertainty. What’s next? (I have my money on the locusts.) No doubt if there ever was a year in recent history to complain, worry and be cynical about, 2020 is the winner.
We believe that things happen “to” us rather than “for” us. A simple yet profound shift from “to” to “for.” Just because we don’t understand “why” doesn’t mean there’s not a reason, one that will be revealed in time with the requirement of perspective, distance and reflection.
We forgo today’s opportunity for joy and meaning in pursuit of the illusive and perfect “someday” which does not exist or the “past” where we remember only but a slice that serves our narrative of the “good old days.”
In addition to the snow this week, it was a week filled with non-stop technology problems at work. Like the weather, also out of our control. My nephew Liam came over Thursday for a few hours. He immediately asked me to go out to build a snowman and make snow angels.
Kids, in their infinite wisdom until we screw them up with “adulting,” see the snowman and the angels in an October snow. They run into it rather than away from it. They see the “for” rather than the “to.” The early snow happened for them so they could build a snowman and lay staring up at the sky moving their legs and arms in delight to bring angels to earth.
The choice each of us needs to make daily is whether we see the snow or the snowman. It determines whether we will live present in each moment grateful for the gifts and blessings that we are swimming in, even in a pandemic. “to” or “for”? I’m going for the “for” rather than “to” as much as I can. And when I forget, I have a snowman and snow angel from my 4 year old life coach Liam to remind me of the best choice of “for.”
“Everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor E. Frankl
“Cast Light” is an invitation to release your inner light, your authentic self every day. Choose light and cast it to the world.
Featured Quotes
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”― Mary Oliver
“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” — Anne Lamott
