gratitude for unusual things

Today I am grateful for the wisdom of fear, anger, pain and sadness and the gift of being willing to sit with them as long as necessary. There is no completion or resolution, there is only just what this is in this moment fully experienced.

SOMEthing seems like it has shifted

Feels like a new phase but there are no phases, only a continuous, unfolding, now.

The call to be completely present with what is, repeating itself regularly.

The prime difference seems to be the frequency of the call and my ability to answer.

Opening chest, aware of body, aware of the body healing the cancer, aware of the body being open, my acceptance of and comfort in the body, more at home in it.

Like the eyes are open wider in a new way, seeing everything, the spider on the ceiling, the color of the wall, the painting, the entire view with whatever the view contains, like the illumination is brighter, colors and shapes and features more vibrant.

Why does it matter that I describe it? Because I think it cements this way of experiencing making it more frequent. This way of experiencing seems helpful and describing it supports that.

Enthusiastic Cooperation with the Inevitable

"It has somehow escaped my notice that most people operate in a manner that is far inferior to that which is their natural birthright. This isn't really an enlightenment thing as much as a simple human development thing. It can't be overemphasized, Not my will but THY will be done, Brahma is the charioteer, the will of Allah, etc. If you don't get this, you don't get anything.
Enlightenment, which is a fancy word for awake is for every person to arrive at eventually, whereas this higher unbounded mode of being is here now for whoever truly wants it. Most 70 year olds are 11 year olds with 59 years of experience and die in the nest where they were born.
Look for yourself, look AT yourself, look at the news, at politics, at religion. Look at education, business, health care, entertainment. Look at the why and the WHY of the why. All you'll see is greed and vanity, the offspring of fear.
It's not that there's a better way and people don't take advantage of it, but that a better way is at all times in full force and effect and to function from the puny state of separation is to work feverishly against it. In other words, it works in our lives NOT to the degree that we harness it or master it, but to the degree that we STOP working against it. It's just a natural coming of age, of developing to our full potential." Jed McKenna
The challenge in this for me constantly is to let go of thinking that I'm pretty much just a human being living on planet earth and when something seemingly goes 'wrong' in my life, it's a bad thing. In my case, if I'm fully identified with myself as a body and mind, given my prognosis, I'm pretty well screwed. If I can live in the place where I recognize my soul thing is doing exactly what it wants to do and that the body and mind and comfort and happiness are irrelevant to it, and are merely vehicles for experiencing life here than life becomes a matter of curiosity and interest. The "Gee, I wonder what will happen next?" thing. Open to all of it, whatever it looks like, knowing that it's all good even if I can't see that in the moment. Heart open, surrendered. As Father Anthony DeMello said, "enthusiastic cooperation with the inevitable".
Just my stuff.

Miracles

It's not about inviting miracles into our lives, it's about nurturing one's ability to see everything that happens as a miracle. The ego mind may not LIKE what's happening, but it's not about the ego mind. It's all unfolding perfectly, it's just that sometimes we choose not to see it that way.

email to a dear friend

I'm so glad your blood tests are good! That's fantastic. Guess you'll just have to stick around on the dirtball, huh? Sorry about that. :-) That kind of stuff always drops me into, 'OK, what do you want me to do with this time here? How do you want me to show up? What do you want of me?' I'm not talking about some god thing necessarily, but it seems like there's SOME point to being here besides running out the clock. I'm just talking about my own process, not suggesting anything for you.

Today is my 5 year anniversary since diagnosis. M asked if I ever thought I'd make it this far. NO WAY, but I have, thus the fairly constant curiosity.

I know that gratitude for still being here is what I mostly feel about it, but sometimes I get a little snarky too. That 'What the f are you doing to me?!! Can't I be freaking done yet?' I know I have a strong preference for staying even if it means lots of self work or showing up for the hard stuff or whatever. Freaking tears over that one.

I'm now truck shopping. I've looked a a few, but no decisions. It's not a totally rational process, it's allowing the right one to appear. Sometimes it feels like, "It's not ripe yet." the decision, you know?

I've been listening to some current Adyashanti audio. It seems that when he's doing his rant, soliloquy thing, he's speaking to those who are pretty far along in the process of awakening or whatever you want to call it. So I get to hear about all the places I probably won't get to in this lifetime. :-)

He said something kind of interesting, describing 3 different levels of awakening. Take it with a grain of salt, but it made sense to me cuz I've had some of the experiences. He stresses the difference between intellectually understanding this and having the actual experience and that there's no point in striving for any of it. Jed would say, just slay the very next thing that's in your way and then clean up the mess and keep going. 'Further.'

The stages Adya talked about are:
1. Perceiving the world not as an I but as just awareness without the mind. You ARE just awareness.
2. The experience of being 'all that is' (if you will). That you ARE the mountain, the table, the other person and in fact everything.
3. No 'I' which he couldn't really say anything about that 'I' could relate to, go figure. He just skipped over that part.
:-)

The tumor didn't like flying to NC of course, but it's not only that that seems to be causing it to not shrink. It's a bigger than it was, more painful, still not interfering much with my energy or at all with swallowing or artery or nerves or breathing or any of that. It's a freaking mystery to all of us.

There are times when I notice that I don't take a full breath. In that, I recognize that there is a fear of complete surrender to whatever might happen. Like by somehow not taking a full breath I can control the outcome. It's hard to take a full breath into 'I might die in the not too distant future and I totally embrace that.' I'm just not allowing myself to have all the feelings. Not all the time, but sometimes. I'm tired of not showing up for all of it. All I want to do is BE afraid when I'm afraid, BE sad when I'm sad, live fully, not hide from any of it. If I have to live every day all day with tears streaming down my cheeks, so be it.

Still planning on HI, working towards it, bought tix for 1/12.

Gee, I wonder what will happen next? "Will they make it to Hawaii? Will Dan last long enough to teach P how to homestead and garden or will he recover or maintain for some years to come? Will he reach some place where he's really at peace with whatever happens or is he going to hang out in some level of angst?"

Stay tuned, huh? That's all I'm doing. It's all I know how to do.

Travel home from NC

Yesterday was a long travel day, intercontinental. Rough on this body, hard time sleeping last night but so exhausted. The tumor thing feels like it's trying to grow again. Now that we're home, the sense is that I don't do ANYTHING that is not clearly indicated. Some dear friends have sent me contact information for yet another healer. I'm going to give it a shot because of who they are.
NC was a trip, literally and figuratively. It was lovely to meet P's family and to hang out with them and we did have fun, and the trees were pretty but the whole airport thing? Eeesh.

Consciousness is a now thing

consciousness isn't a when thing, it's a now thing, it's a choice. The fact that I was fully present for a time yesterday has no bearing on this moment.

No title

I like to be in that place where experience is happening and I'm sort of the portal through which experience happens and that's all I am. There's no judgment about the quality of experience, but wonderment that it is happening at all.

Exhale? Anyone?

We come to a point where we rely on stillness instead of mind and action. The body responds like a big exhale, shoulders drop. And it doesn't happen all at once. It's a process of continued failure in challenging circumstances of mind to deliver. Then I just let it all go and discover that it's ok. At first the surrender is an aberration, "OK, well there isn't anything I can do, so F it then." Then we notice it works, then we remember more often. FREAKING EXHALE and let it be what it is! If it's pain, ok. If it's bliss, ok. If it's fear, ok. I'm not in charge, it's an interesting planet, some of it seems F'ed up. So, fine then. OK then. What's for lunch? :-)

Embrace what is

When we embrace complete acceptance with whatever is going on with no attachment to how the next moment unfolds, what's left is this deep gratitude for just being here alive and experiencing whatever is occurring. It is enough and more than enough.

Nirvana is personal annihilation

Nirvana is nothing more or less than personal annihilation. Buddha
Have a nice day!

The way through the next gate is always fear

The way through the next gate on the spiritual path is ALWAYS fear. MORE surrender, blocked only by our fears. Just figured that out.

How to manifest stuff

1. State your intention clearly
2. Take action, the only language the universe understands
3. Let go of attachment to outcome or to what it looks like
4. Be in gratitude, always, no matter what it looks like.

Then all your dreams will come true!

There is a crack

‎"There is a crack, a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in."
(Leonard Cohen)
A crack could be anything that "goes wrong" in your life -- in relationships, finances, work, health, etc. First you suffer, then (potentially, if you do your freaking work :-) ), you let go of your attachments. And so you are forced to go deeper within, to a place of peace and silent power. (Eckhart Tolle)

What some might consider miracles are daily events around here

methinks that miracles infuse every breath of every one. We don't always understand them and few recognize that they are constant. When we finally know that everything is a miracle, we see them everywhere and know they are exactly how the universe is always unfolding.
Then we are aligned with the divine, living in grace and we know it. Beats living in fear. Just sayin'.

When life sucks, look for treasure. You may not see it right away, but it will show up, unless you deny it.

it's amazing how many people you see constantly disavowing the divine. Saying, "this SUCKS!" as a way of life, time after time, all day. If they only knew how much easier life is. Yeah, sometimes it looks really sucky, but I always know that lurking around the corner is some kind of treasure that's going to arise from an event whether a car break down or a job lost or the death of a dear friend.

It's all a matter of perception (and working your baggage)

‎"There are only two emotions that inform and animate the human animal; fear and a gratitude/awe/love mix that we might call agape. As the fear is processed out, agape comes in.‎
More accurately, the pure light of consciousness comes through us and is refracted through the prism of self. If the prism of self is cloudy and gray, contaminated with fear and ego, that's how we experience life. As the prism of self becomes clear, life becomes beautiful and magical. That's Human Adulthood. Enlightenment is the same except there's a final step. The prism of self is removed." Jed McKenna

I get scared sometimes...

I get freaking scared sometimes. That i'm going to die. That this is it; that my life has no meaning (and in the ultimate sense it doesn't, of course). That I won't get to HI, that I don't know how to do this thing called life (and death).
The fear is a gift, really, because I recognize it as such and use it to get to the bottom of what is really the truth of me that underlies the body/mind/ego. Danny is just a face in the clouds that forms for awhile, is visible and then is gone.

Every Attachment is Treasure

every discomfort, every attachment no matter how slight is a treasure if I can see it as such, observe myself and my feelings and my motivations from a place where I'm not actually down in the hole of emotions and discomfort and attachment. Oh look! "This is making me uncomfortable, I'm attached to this or that outcome. GREAT! An opportunity to explore." Some slight little snarkiness, some moderate physical pain, some almost imperceptible fear or sadness. That stuff is pure gold.

I give up control

everything seems to be in flux and is kinda confusing. I DON'T know what's going on, so back to, "I hereby give up any idea of being in control of anything. I have NO freaking clue about nothing and never did." There universe, I surrender. Why does that seem so difficult sometimes? Damn, the ego is pernicious.

Living in the present

If you are depressed, you're living in the past.
If you're anxious, you're living in the future.
If you're at peace, you're living in the present.

The Recent Past

A couple of stories from the yard sale. 1st, it was a HUGE enterprise involving weeks of going through stuff and sorting and boxing and then taking it over to the house where we were going to have the sale and storing the stuff in the basement. Then the day before or so, we posted a request for HELP! on fb and all kinds of people showed up with cars and trucks and tarps and tables and extension cords and muscle and helped us get the last of the stuff over there and carried the boxes and stuff out of the basement and set up tables and covered them with our stuff.
We had intended to spend two days setting up and having a private party and sale for our friends and then open it to the general public on Saturday and Sunday, but without even hanging any signs, people started stopping by and going through stuff and asking to buy it and we finally just entered the fray and started the free for all that was the next few days.
Every night six or eight friends would hang around and chat. I'd enumerate all the people who helped but I don't want to mess with anyone's privacy, but THANK YOU and you know who you are.
The yard sale was just a yard sale but the magic was incredible. I'll tell a few stories in the next posts.

The Present

We're in Raleigh, visiting P's mom until Monday or Tuesday, I don't know. It's lovely and quiet here 45 minutes north of Raleigh. Gray and kinda rainy today. My energy is ok though I've been sleeping a lot and laying around in between.
When in the Raleigh area, the thing to do is to sit on a rocking chair on the front porch with your feet up. Here I am practicing this aspect of the North Carolina culture.

Update

Ok, so I'm so far behind on keeping this up to date that it seems like I should start with the future, work back to the present and then onto the past. If that makes any sense at all to you, you're already a whackjob and more like me than you probably want to be.
The photo is the piece of land that my dear friends on the big island of Hawaii told me I should come over and homestead. It's the light green triangle sort of thing with the cliffs, not the place with what looks like a beach. I've never seen this piece of land in person. There is water to it and phone and it is supposed to have good Verizon coverage, but there's nothing else there except a fabric covered tube barn.
So that's the future. Maybe January, god willing, we will get on a plane and go there, showing up with a crate full of homesteading tools and some clothes and kitchen gear and figure it all out on the fly.
I've sold Jazzy, my dear RV sanctuary which is going to fund the trip and we had a huge 3 day yard sale and sold almost all the stuff that's not going. Now we have to buy a pickup, build a crate in it, fill the crate with stuff, drive the crate to Oakland and get it shipped then come back to Chico, sell Pamela's car, finish up whatever's left, then drive to the vehicle shipper, get a cab to the bart, take the bart to the airport and get on the plane....That's the plan. Wonder what will really happen?

recent photo showing the real me

Guess I coulda smiled more for this shot. I AM happy. I just look funny.