My life is such an amazing miracle I feel moved to be a little more creative in my expression regarding this experience I call my life.
I just talked to my sister who answered her phone with something like: Hello dearest brother whom I love so very much. I tend to think I should be able to look and see what it is that I’ve ever done for her that would have her say such a thing. I seem to be more loved than I deserve.
And, I’m personally committed to “complete unconditional love for each and all of these others” which is similar except that I don’t often attempt to communicate my love so explicitly. And, this universal love isn’t personal and doesn’t relate to something any of them have done for me. It’s not an acknowledgment of them personally. It’s not like I’m giving them credit for something they’ve done. So, why is it when somebody expresses love for me, I look for how I come to deserve it. I seem to want it to be an acknowledgment of me for who or how I’m being or what I’m doing in the world. I’m still looking for validation.
Part of that is that I am committed to “noticing” whatever there is for me to notice but I seem to be looking inside of an expectation that there is something I’m missing. And I do truly want to know whatever it might be that I’m missing. What I’m noticing is that this bias is setting me up to always question what I don’t really need to question. I could simply trust myself to notice when there is something there and not keep checking with others - did I miss something?
So, perhaps it’s ok for me to just accept that my life is a full on miracle and that deserving it has more to do with noticing that it is a miracle than it has to do with whether I’ve paid my dues.
Love, Woodson
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Slip sliding away
I've noticed that the rush of this “epiphany” is already fading. I’m afraid it’ll just melt away like many enthusiasms past. Perhaps I have to be satisfied with momentary excitement about one thing and then another sort of like meandering around in a field of wild flowers.
I especially don’t want to loose the enhanced freedom I’m feeling from this breakthrough. I’m allowing myself to feel some small excitement about making specific commitments with myself. I’ve been so very good about my practice and my exercise that I’m somewhat encouraged. I am also encouraged by the freedom with which I published to my blog a couple of days ago.
I still have a sense of freedom with regard to taking this conversation on the road with me. I’m sure I will experience various fails along the way and I look forward to learning how to recover quickly. “Nothing is wrong” is a point of return - a little like an emergency exit from making myself “wrong” when I make a mistake.
My practice in general is my daily exercise and specialized training for my chosen sport, i.e., actually generating this conversation.
Reading this over before posting it, I am reminded how much work there is for me to do.
Love, W
I especially don’t want to loose the enhanced freedom I’m feeling from this breakthrough. I’m allowing myself to feel some small excitement about making specific commitments with myself. I’ve been so very good about my practice and my exercise that I’m somewhat encouraged. I am also encouraged by the freedom with which I published to my blog a couple of days ago.
I still have a sense of freedom with regard to taking this conversation on the road with me. I’m sure I will experience various fails along the way and I look forward to learning how to recover quickly. “Nothing is wrong” is a point of return - a little like an emergency exit from making myself “wrong” when I make a mistake.
My practice in general is my daily exercise and specialized training for my chosen sport, i.e., actually generating this conversation.
Reading this over before posting it, I am reminded how much work there is for me to do.
Love, W
Monday, March 17, 2014
Some personal evolution
I don’t feel I’m in communication with somebody if they don’t know who I am. And, I am one of the few people I know who has put the kind of effort I have into saying who I am.
This is related to a recent epiphany that continues to rock my world. Three days ago I watched a story about Carly Fleischman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34xoYwLNpvw I was sobbing and rocking by the time she started communicating.
There's an extent to which Carly acted out my experience of me finally getting to where I am today. It took me 73 years. Watching her made me cry because her story put me in touch with my own inner terror regarding being in communication with others. It isn’t like I feel terror but it is that I very rarely share my inner conversation with another. And then I almost always run away and hide when I do.
More on this as I have more time to explore and experience the alterations I'm noticing in how my world is occurring for me.
Love, Woodson
This is related to a recent epiphany that continues to rock my world. Three days ago I watched a story about Carly Fleischman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34xoYwLNpvw I was sobbing and rocking by the time she started communicating.
There's an extent to which Carly acted out my experience of me finally getting to where I am today. It took me 73 years. Watching her made me cry because her story put me in touch with my own inner terror regarding being in communication with others. It isn’t like I feel terror but it is that I very rarely share my inner conversation with another. And then I almost always run away and hide when I do.
More on this as I have more time to explore and experience the alterations I'm noticing in how my world is occurring for me.
Love, Woodson
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Still practicing
Even though I imagine my noticing must be deadly boring to anybody other than me, I noticed just now that Blogger's statistics show 148 page views for this blog in the last day. The only thing I can imagine is that my mention of Terry Patten somehow brought attention here. I actually feel a little embarrassed by how I think others might view my naivete.
Doing my practice I noticed a revulsion in relation to “all of life.” I saw the scum growing in the background of a really dystopian sort of scene. And, I do want to be in a direct, conscious relationship with that and all of the other scenes that might make my skin crawl. However, I want to focus my attention on my relationship to my own life and, in particular to being who I say I am and what I am doing and how that relates to all of life. And, I want to be conscious and responsible even in relation to aspects of life that incite my gag reflex.
I also noticed that I can direct healing energy to all of the areas of life that most concern me. I send healing energy to Bebe and Patrick and Penelope and that whole dynamic and to other interpersonal dynamics that seem somehow impaired or lacking a full measure of love. And I send my healing energy to Syria and to anyplace where some version of “war” is occurring. And, I send healing energy to congress and all of the “decision makers” in my government (national, state and local) and in every country around this planet. And I send healing energy to the boardrooms and executive suites of all of the wealthiest and most powerful commercial entities and most especially those showing the least concern for all humans and for our environment and “all of life.”
Love, W
Doing my practice I noticed a revulsion in relation to “all of life.” I saw the scum growing in the background of a really dystopian sort of scene. And, I do want to be in a direct, conscious relationship with that and all of the other scenes that might make my skin crawl. However, I want to focus my attention on my relationship to my own life and, in particular to being who I say I am and what I am doing and how that relates to all of life. And, I want to be conscious and responsible even in relation to aspects of life that incite my gag reflex.
I also noticed that I can direct healing energy to all of the areas of life that most concern me. I send healing energy to Bebe and Patrick and Penelope and that whole dynamic and to other interpersonal dynamics that seem somehow impaired or lacking a full measure of love. And I send my healing energy to Syria and to anyplace where some version of “war” is occurring. And, I send healing energy to congress and all of the “decision makers” in my government (national, state and local) and in every country around this planet. And I send healing energy to the boardrooms and executive suites of all of the wealthiest and most powerful commercial entities and most especially those showing the least concern for all humans and for our environment and “all of life.”
Love, W
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
My practice is changing a lot
I've been doing this practice - at least once each day - for more than fifteen years and it has been changing all along. But the changes in the last few months, weeks, and days have seemed more significant. The physical metaphor that has come to mind has some parts of my structure standing in shifting sand as if there were a small earthquake shaking my world. That sounds more dramatic than it feels to me but my experience of this latest change seems to warrant that image.
The change is that I have added "and all of life" to the end of the first sentence in my practice. So I now begin by saying: "I choose to be in a direct, conscious relationship with my life and with all of life." This changes much of the rest of my practice. I'm not going to go into excruciating detail here but it's enough to justify the metaphor.
Another thing that I've done recently is to explicitly acknowledge the shift in the practice from being to doing. This is part of a generally heightened attention and awareness to the distinction in my experience. I have added after noting the distinction: "As this human I choose to act - to do what I think might somehow serve or empower bringing forth a world where love is first and foremost." I'm still working on the exact wording there.
This practice is my personal conversation for evolution. I'm still looking forward to a time when somebody else actually reads this blog and, dare I think it, responds.
Love, Woodson
The change is that I have added "and all of life" to the end of the first sentence in my practice. So I now begin by saying: "I choose to be in a direct, conscious relationship with my life and with all of life." This changes much of the rest of my practice. I'm not going to go into excruciating detail here but it's enough to justify the metaphor.
Another thing that I've done recently is to explicitly acknowledge the shift in the practice from being to doing. This is part of a generally heightened attention and awareness to the distinction in my experience. I have added after noting the distinction: "As this human I choose to act - to do what I think might somehow serve or empower bringing forth a world where love is first and foremost." I'm still working on the exact wording there.
This practice is my personal conversation for evolution. I'm still looking forward to a time when somebody else actually reads this blog and, dare I think it, responds.
Love, Woodson
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
My practice today
Coming back to this blog, I've just completed reading through all of my entries from the past. Doing that I noticed that I had posted my verbal practice as of 2/19/11. This entry is my practice as I committed it to writing a few days ago. This version includes some bits that aren't necessarily verbal in parentheses along with some comments/ explanation in brackets. I want to be completely clear that this is my practice designed and built by me, for me. I specifically do not recommend anybody else use this other than as an example of how one human chooses to bring himself forth daily.
I always precede my core practice with an exercise in getting present. The words I use for this are: Breathing, loving (accompanied by breathing and calling forth my sense of love), [I might repeat parts of this any number of times until my experience corresponds to the intent.] Conscious contact [looking around, noticing my experience of contact with my world including my internal world and including all of the others I experience - both physical and otherwise.] Gratitude and reverence. [These words both represent aspects of my experience that I can’t fake and that I do recognize. If I’m truly present to my world, gratitude and reverence are present and I’m where I want to be to begin my practice.] Intention and focus. [This is the choice to begin my practice with intention and focus.] [PRACTICE] Who I am is choosing. [This begins my own creation - my identification of myself as a distinct being. I am the one who is making this particular set of choices, in this particular order.] And I choose to be in a direct, conscious relationship with my life. [with my experience of being here as a distinct point of observation and creation. This is both in terms of which events occur in my life and how the events in my life occur for me.] And, (toward this end) I choose to be conscious, intentional, intelligent; joyous, loving and brave; grateful, reverent and humble. [I take enough time with each word to be clear what I mean with each.] I choose to be alert and volitional. [The word “volitional” is experimental.] I choose to be this planet and, as this planet, I choose to be a world where love is first and foremost for everybody. (Just like gravity.) I choose to be this human in ways that call forth my utmost respect and admiration for who I am being and I choose to act in ways that result in outcomes that intend. As this human (With regard to action - doing vs. being), I choose to explore and to be fully present to my experience (to my experience of love in particular) and I choose to be responsible for my own creations. [I think this is the most important choice I make.] Toward this end, I choose to do this practice at least once each day and to pay attention and to notice how it’s going. I choose to notice in particular with regard to being who I say I am. And, I choose to notice whatever is here for me to notice, to learn what is here for me to learn and to do what is here for me to do. [This is where the volition is called for.] And, I choose to enjoy it all. I declare that I am (here and now) who I say I am. I a & a [acknowledge and affirm] a design that I see manifest in everything that I experience. And, I a & a the gratitude, reverence and responsibility that is my relationship to this design and to my experience. [Note that I am responsible for this design - certainly this part that I am speaking.] And I a & a this experience that I call my life occurs for me as miraculous. And, I a & a that there is work for me to do (both in the sense of chopping wood and carrying water and in the sense of personal growth and development - and that it requires me to be volitional). And I a & a that nothing is wrong. [This is critical for me in order to release whatever I might be holding/ creating as “wrong.”] I a & a the complete, unconditional love that I have for myself as I am and the complete, unconditional love that I have for all of these others that I experience, as they are (and as we are). And I a & a that among my own creations this practice is pre-eminent. And, I a & a that I include my journal on the list of work that is here for me to do. // Details of the wording change every time I do this practice and what there is for me to do changes more than most. It is whatever is up for me at the time.
Love, Woody
I always precede my core practice with an exercise in getting present. The words I use for this are: Breathing, loving (accompanied by breathing and calling forth my sense of love), [I might repeat parts of this any number of times until my experience corresponds to the intent.] Conscious contact [looking around, noticing my experience of contact with my world including my internal world and including all of the others I experience - both physical and otherwise.] Gratitude and reverence. [These words both represent aspects of my experience that I can’t fake and that I do recognize. If I’m truly present to my world, gratitude and reverence are present and I’m where I want to be to begin my practice.] Intention and focus. [This is the choice to begin my practice with intention and focus.] [PRACTICE] Who I am is choosing. [This begins my own creation - my identification of myself as a distinct being. I am the one who is making this particular set of choices, in this particular order.] And I choose to be in a direct, conscious relationship with my life. [with my experience of being here as a distinct point of observation and creation. This is both in terms of which events occur in my life and how the events in my life occur for me.] And, (toward this end) I choose to be conscious, intentional, intelligent; joyous, loving and brave; grateful, reverent and humble. [I take enough time with each word to be clear what I mean with each.] I choose to be alert and volitional. [The word “volitional” is experimental.] I choose to be this planet and, as this planet, I choose to be a world where love is first and foremost for everybody. (Just like gravity.) I choose to be this human in ways that call forth my utmost respect and admiration for who I am being and I choose to act in ways that result in outcomes that intend. As this human (With regard to action - doing vs. being), I choose to explore and to be fully present to my experience (to my experience of love in particular) and I choose to be responsible for my own creations. [I think this is the most important choice I make.] Toward this end, I choose to do this practice at least once each day and to pay attention and to notice how it’s going. I choose to notice in particular with regard to being who I say I am. And, I choose to notice whatever is here for me to notice, to learn what is here for me to learn and to do what is here for me to do. [This is where the volition is called for.] And, I choose to enjoy it all. I declare that I am (here and now) who I say I am. I a & a [acknowledge and affirm] a design that I see manifest in everything that I experience. And, I a & a the gratitude, reverence and responsibility that is my relationship to this design and to my experience. [Note that I am responsible for this design - certainly this part that I am speaking.] And I a & a this experience that I call my life occurs for me as miraculous. And, I a & a that there is work for me to do (both in the sense of chopping wood and carrying water and in the sense of personal growth and development - and that it requires me to be volitional). And I a & a that nothing is wrong. [This is critical for me in order to release whatever I might be holding/ creating as “wrong.”] I a & a the complete, unconditional love that I have for myself as I am and the complete, unconditional love that I have for all of these others that I experience, as they are (and as we are). And I a & a that among my own creations this practice is pre-eminent. And, I a & a that I include my journal on the list of work that is here for me to do. // Details of the wording change every time I do this practice and what there is for me to do changes more than most. It is whatever is up for me at the time.
Love, Woody
Terry Patten brought me back here
I just finished a reading of Terry Patten's extraordinary paper “Enacting an Integral Revolution: How Can We Have Truly Radical Conversations in a Time of Global Crisis?” What he's describing is the sort of thing I'm imagining as a conversation for evolution.
I'm not prepared to attempt a thorough response but I want to plunk a quote in here hoping I'm not violating his copyright.
On page 26, (4), he says: “After having learned to enter into this process, and to become a responsible “player” in this intersubjective playground, participants can experience themselves participating as a collective intelligence which is itself learning about how to more fully emerge through them, not only to advance into new clarity and presence but to evolve the very way it does so, advancing in its elegance, clarity and grace.”
I want to play that game.
Love, Woody
I'm not prepared to attempt a thorough response but I want to plunk a quote in here hoping I'm not violating his copyright.
On page 26, (4), he says: “After having learned to enter into this process, and to become a responsible “player” in this intersubjective playground, participants can experience themselves participating as a collective intelligence which is itself learning about how to more fully emerge through them, not only to advance into new clarity and presence but to evolve the very way it does so, advancing in its elegance, clarity and grace.”
I want to play that game.
Love, Woody
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