The Direction of Intention

534. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Margaret died today. She had an epic and courageous journey through Alzheimer’s and just before dinner she closed her eyes and passed. I met her 10 years ago, 5 years into her disease long after she was capable of living on her own. She was in the phase where she put magazines in the toaster and if left to her own devices might wander off into the Tucson desert. Even so, she still had a wicked sense of humor and was filled with mischief and this was true long after she was in the advanced stages. I loved her immediately because, even in her ravaged state, she had more life than most people have in their prime. When I met her she winked at me and with her eyes filled with mirth she told me to “leave the babe (her daughter).” She was a remarkable flirt.

I learned that everyday of her life, at sunset, she stopped what she was doing, went outside and watched the sun go down; a ritual of gratitude and appreciation of life.

Now that she has passed into memory I will keep her life burning in my remembering and these are just a few:

In the Arizona Wildlife museum she vigorously rubbed her breastbone trying to make herself purpose-burp. She’d done it earlier and I’d howled with laughter. She got such a rise out of me that she spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get me to laugh again (I am an easy mark and her endless attempts were more precious than the initial burp. I laughed louder and louder at her misses – we created a lovely feedback loop).

Near the time when we could no longer take her out we cruised the streets of Tucson, Lora and Margaret in the front seat of our rental car singing; Margaret no longer had the lyrics but her commitment to sound was prodigious. Every time she saw a red car she’d stop her song and say, “Now, there’s a red car!”

I will always carry those few luscious gem moments when, as we watched her slowly slip farther and farther away, she would, just for a moment, came back, her eyes sparkling, and exclaim, “Really!” as if her simple joy of life called her from the depths because she simply could not contain her awe.

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472.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Nicest moment of the week:

I wrote: I love you.
She wrote: I love you more.
I wrote: Oh yeah, I love you more than more.
She wrote: Really, well I let you win so it just proves that I love you more than you can possibly love me. So there! I love you more.

I surrendered. I waved my white flag and let myself be loved more. It’s a nice competition to lose. I recommend throwing the game the next time you find yourself locked in a vicious “I love you” match. Bet on yourself and then lose mightily. All the empty space in your coffers will soon fill up with something much better than gold. This little spontaneous “I love you more” competition left me smiling. All day. Later, when someone cut me off in traffic I said, “Oh yeah! I love you more!”

Language matters. I tried my new “I love you more” game on for size for the rest of the day and you’ll not be surprised to hear that I had an excellent day. It is nice to tell the world that you love it more than more, regardless of what comes your way. The real magic is what loving more does for you on the inside. It’s alchemy: the world may send you lead but you have the capacity to turn it into gold.

Oh yeah! Well, I love you more.

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388.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Kicking back on the hood of her car, gazing at the stars, Megan said, “Now, there is something I can worship.” The sky is so big in Nebraska that it is almost impossible not to fall into it and I had the feeling we’d been falling into this moment, this place and time for a lifetime. How many people before us have looked into the sky on a still quiet night and felt the enormity of their universe and the quiet intensity of being alive for the few turns of the earth that we have together? It is a gift to bear witness and story it into existence. Sky gazing opens us to the mystery and isn’t that the purpose of worship?

Earlier in the day Megan, Jill and I stood in the Platte River. We’d come to see the cranes. Megan said, “I always wonder where this water has come from; how far has it traveled to be here?” We immediately put our hands in the water to feel it – not just any water but this water that traveled this way at this moment, the same moment we decided to wade into the river. Little did we know that soon we’d be covering ourselves with mud to incite stories from kindergarteners, Jill’s inspiration. As I stood in the back of a classroom watching these incredible mud covered women listen with rapt attention to small people telling stories of bear hunts and being shot from a cannon into a mud pie I felt like the water having traveled so far and was grateful for the hands that reached into the river to touch my life at just the right moment.

Sitting on the hood of a mini-van parked far beyond the city lights on the spinning earth with a brilliant half moon slowly circling around us, coyotes howling far in the distance, cranes by the thousands sleeping beyond the fields, clock time was no where to be found. I marveled at the currents that brought me here to this place and this moment and thought, “This is what it feels like to worship. Isn’t it amazing to be alive?”

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380.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Ana-the-Wise and I talked of being neutral. She tells me that love is neutral. When I think of being neutral I think of scuba diving. The first and last lesson in diving is how to be neutrally buoyant. When you are neutrally buoyant, there is no resistance, you quite literally hover, neither sinking nor rising; movement in balance with the element, as the element. Your breathing slows, your awareness opens, you are present within the ocean of your life.

Both Ana and I are soon walking into potentially charged situations and that is why we were talking of neutrality. We spoke of not investing in the story or the circumstance; we talked of not investing in the fear or the angst. Being neutral is a practice. In Tai Chi, the master often asks, “How are your feet placed on the floor?” If your feet are properly on the floor, all the other relationships take care of themselves. Proper placement of your feet brings neutrality, balance, and alignment.

It is not detachment as much as non-attachment. There’s a big difference! Ana said, “When I think I need to change someone or make them see my way or help them see their opportunities, then I get hooked.” To be hooked is to attach to the story, to invest in being right. It’s a tiger trap that all of us step into: every right needs a wrong or else it has no way of knowing who/what it is. Can you define yourself from what you are as opposed to finding definition from what you are not? Can you define yourself from what you are instead of from what you assume others want? Detachment is to push away, to stop the flow. Non-attachment is to be in the flow without damming the river.

I’ve decided that presence is a quality of relationship – as flow is a quality of movement. We become fully present when we are neutrally buoyant in the world and not grasping or resisting, pushing or chasing. It’s a paradox: when you are present, separations drop away so to what are you in relationship? I imagine Ana would smile and say, “Exactly. That is love.”

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