The Cleverest Trick

Rumi Says:



"No better love than love without object,

no more satisfying work than work with no purpose.

If you could give up tricks and cleverness,

that would be the cleverest trick!"


If you can, be sure to see the Berkeley Art Museum's latest show "Create".  It features incredible art work, unselfconscious, true, beautiful, touching, and all done by people with various kinds of disabilities.  They have truly given up "tricks and cleverness" and become amazing artists and observers of life.  Compared to the work of  many "real artists" these folks have a freshness and energy about their work that illustrates Rumi's point beautifully.  Go and see, and you'll feel what I mean.

Smile

Waking up in the morning can be unpleasant in the Winter.  The weather and gloom are strong incentives to pulling up the covers and going back to sleep. 

Spring makes it a little easier.  The sun peeks around the curtains and birds sing.  If you have a thoughtful partner like I do, coffee will be brewing in the kitchen and soon the paper will arrive without my having to move a muscle.  It makes me smile.

On those Winter mornings, or when life is not going my way, my smile has to take the place of the sun and the birds singing.  I grin and bear it, and as I fake it I start to make it.  My grin starts to generate feelings in my body that seem like genuine happiness.  More smiling makes me feel more genuinely happy.  Smiling is so powerful.  It can actually change your mood. 

My son visited Oregon State, and was amazed how friendly the people were. "They actually Smile at you when you see them on the street", He marveled. "It's so different from the curt nods they give you in California. And this is supposed to be the Sunshine State!"

You may only have your smile to share with others, but it's a rich gift!  
A friend sent me a TED talk all about smiling.  Check it out.  You'll discover that your smile is your everyday beauty.  Don't be afraid to share it.  Smile. Right now.  You'll feel better.  You'll feel beautiful, and those around you will benifit too.  Every day.

Phew!

After all my talk yesterday about blogging daily, I almost didn't post today.  So much kept getting in the way of my commitment.  In dealing with all resistance, persistence furthers, so here I am with this photo.

My daily dog walks often take me to beautiful places.  Sometimes there's so much loveliness out there that it's hard to choose just which image I'll use. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and these logs caught mine.  The blue of the lichens, or whatever this is on the side of these dead trees, really struck me.  Not only does their shape and color remind me of barnacles on whales, their presence shows me how much use something dead can be.  The death of everything becomes the food for everything, literally and metaphorically.  Death supports life, and both can be beautiful.

Marching On

Time does it, and so do I. Sometimes slogging on is closer to the feeling I have walking my sometimes muddy life path.

I've been finding this time very confusing. For some reason, I can't seem to get my priorities straight. I make choices, and then question them. Self doubt abounds, and I can't seem to find where I put my compus or even what it looks like.

My true north: feeling free. Easy enough. How to do it? How to feel free when there's so much pressure to do what you SHOULD do and not what feels the best. Time to clear those boulders from my path.

Joseph Campbell said when you feel lost you should close your eyes and think about the time when you felt the happiest. I have lots of those times, but they seem to involve other people: dancing, watching my boy play soccer or act, talking with any of my kids, great discussions with my friend. What I'm looking for now is those times when I felt happiest by myself.

I think I can say that making something, anything, where I lose myself in the act of creation--those are the times when I feel happiest. Time to do that. Time to make something beautiful and thus find the beauty in myself.

Time to head north.