Being Your Bliss

Posted on July 1, 2011 by mcallister

Joseph Campbell famously suggested that we follow our bliss. This is often taken to mean finding the thing that you love to do and making a career of it. Making a career out of something you love to do is great. However, if you imagine that you will find a starting point and know what the whole journey looks like or where it will lead you, you are likely to part company with your bliss almost as soon as you start. Campbell also pointed out, following your bliss does not mean you know where it will take you.

Sometimes this saying is taken as a broader injunction about how we live all our life, to use the feeling of bliss as a compass in where we go and what we do. This is a deeper level that requires that we know and reference the feeling of bliss on an ongoing basis. It also requires that we come to trust this inner compass. It will tell us if we are on our path at the moment, and perhaps where to go next.

I increasingly find that my mind, still running in old patterns, will spin visions of fear and anxiety when it can’t see next week or next month; but if I check into my heart, it is fine. Our bliss is not the pleasure or satisfaction of the body, though we may learn to find it there as well. Following your bliss is not about hedonism in a superficial way, it is about finding the deep joy of being alive that we all carrying inside us.

As children of western culture we tend to assume that following our bliss is something we do in the outer world, a path we take through life, a tool we can use to be happy. It may be all these things, but most deeply it is an inner path which leads us to those levels of our being that are bliss, that are always in touch with the divine. When we have found this inside, we also have our compass, and know the next steps on our path.

The expression is not ‘find your bliss’, we all have it already. You may say that you don’t know what it is, but I suggest that you do. It may be in small things at first; a flower, a song, the smile of a child. You may have put it away as part of ‘growing up’, but it is still with you waiting to be invited back into your life. Just as a mighty river starts as a small stream in the mountains, find a small piece of bliss anywhere in your life, follow that trickle of water, cultivate the experience. Allow it to grow it will lead you deeply into yourself, where there is a river full of joy and life force, which is our spiritual being.

You have heard of people who have achieved something wonderful, but had no idea when they started where their journey would lead, or how they would fulfill their vision. But they knew their bliss, felt that part of their being, and they trusted it. That perhaps is the hardest part. Letting the mind vent its worries and anxieties but returning ever more deeply to that part of you that is your bliss is in this moment. Close your eyes and follow your breath into your self and find it now.

(© 7/2011)

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Owning Your Choices

Posted on June 16, 2011 by mcallister

Several weeks ago I was hiking with my son in a canyon in southern Utah. Having descended a well maintained trail near a great stone bridge we hiked up the canyon floor on an “unmaintained trail” leading after several miles to another natural bridge and another well maintained trail leading back out of the canyon. We had chosen to do this hike in the evening. It was a wonderful scramble along mostly dry stream bed.
The canyon snaked back and forth, and was joined by far more side canyons than seemed to be on the map. While the hiking was easy and fun, with a bull frog chorus as the sun got lower, the sun was getting lower, and we needed to find the exit before the deep desert darkness set in.
In the end we found our way out, under a spectacularly back-lit stone bridge as the sun set and dusk came upon us. While we were never in real danger, the uncertainty and approaching darkness made them noticeably harder to make.
Last week I saw a movie called Angel-A about a young man living his life in constant haste, spurred by fear, and making choices that bring him to a literal dead end. An angel enters and forces him to slow down so he can notice his choices, to realize when he is making them and what they really are. At first he resists the idea that he actually has choices; he’s just doing what is necessary, even if half of Paris is out to kill him.
Our life unfolds based on the choices we make, but living in fear, or haste, we may not realize we are making them. When we choose not to choose that is also a choice and slowing in freeze mode is at the other end of the same spectrum. Some choices are hard to even notice. It is said that our lives are formed by the things we don’t see, or choose not to look at.
Like the young man we may believe we “don’t have a choice”. This stance robs us of our power. Even when we choose things that we don’t like or really want, we are choosing (perhaps the best choice at the time) but if we don’t own that choice as a choice how can we ever get to a place where we can choose differently? If you own your choices, even the unwilling ones, as choices, you begin to empower your ability to choose. Empowering choice in your life, you will discover better options. The young man in his power finds totally new choices which transform his life.
Most of our hike the rock walls told us where to go. Occasionally there were branches and possible alternate routes. If we had been too fearful, or hurried, we might have wound up in a side channel along way from a real exit. Slowing and trusting, we found the proper route and were led up and out, to a level with the choices of safety and warmth we sought.
You don’t have to like all your choices, but owning them as your’s, no matter how much they look like some form of external necessity, you claim your power to choose. You stop being a victim and wake up to a different world with power and choice and begin to co-create a life that works for you.

for my son, who is better at trusting than I am

(© 6/2011)

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Rituals and Mastery

Posted on June 1, 2011 by mcallister

The natural world we live in is a mixture of order and chaos, the predictable, and the unpredictable. We know that the seasons will cycle, but every year they are also different. We know that the Spring brings rain and snow melt, but the level of flooding is unpredictable. In the midst of a variable world, we are wired by evolution to seek out the orderly, the predictable, the stable, that which is consistent so that we can have some certainty of surviving tomorrow as well as today.

Our need for regularity and predictability leads to rituals of all types. They both embody these qualities and serve to help create them. In this sense any regularly performed series of actions is a ritual. Some are small and personal; how we wake up in the morning and brush our teeth, have a cup of coffee or tea. Some are large and collective; the schedule for irrigation waters in the spring or the nine to five job which results in a paycheck on a regular basis. Some are spiritual or religious; the blessing of a new building, dances for rain, a collective service of worship, or a personal meditation.

All of these activities serve to create or embody stability, regularize our relationship with the world around us, natural and human; to promote survival and a sense of safety. Humans are nothing but inventive and we all have our rituals, large and small.

The interesting question about rituals is when do they serve our spiritual needs and are they sometimes a limitation, something done for their own sake, powered by the deep need for safety and survival but unconscious, habitual, perhaps even counter-productive? The 2 martini lunch was once seen as a normal social/business ritual, but now it is more often the sign of the dependancy of the alcoholic.

Do you work the job because it allows you to live the life you choose, or because you feel you have to have a job and can’t live without one? Do you wash your hands because it centers you and prepares you to eat a healthy meal, or because some unconscious belief won’t allow you not to? Do your rituals help you find an appropriate state of mind before performing artistically, or in sports, or are they compulsions that you can’t choose to skip?

In short; are your rituals an expression of, and an aid to, your mastery of your life, or have they mastered you? This discernment can be as uncertain and variable as the spring weather. Some are socially sanctioned and some are not, but this is not the same as which ones are healthy and productive, and which ones are controlling and destructive.

Take some time this Spring to consider your rituals, especially that ones that you haven’t thought of in those terms before. Give yourself permission to be conscious about them; to drop or alter old ones that limit or control you; to create or adopt new ones that empower, inspire or connect you. Notice which ones are based in fear and are mastering you and open to ones that are based in gratitude and love, supporting your mastery and joy.

(© 6/2011)

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Of Squirrels and Seedlings

Posted on May 16, 2011 by mcallister

On a recent sunny spring afternoon I went for a walk with a friend. The deep blue of the mountain sky was highlighting the fresh green of the new leaves. A warm day full of life, and fat squirrels. One of these in particular we encountered carrying a huge piece of bread almost as large as he was. Part of a hoagie roll perhaps? My first thought was, look at the abundance of that squirrel. The squirrel was alternately stopping to eat, and carrying his bread across the grass looking for a tree. But though the bread was light and not heavy to carry, it seemed to be too bulky to climb into the safety of one of the trees. Climbing with his prize was apparently too much of a good thing.

The next act involved a large crow sidling over towards the squirrel, attracted by the bread. The squirrel retreated around the base of a tree, not wanting to share, even though he has more than he really knows what to do with. All the while continuing to feed. I have to wonder how much of this he can eat anyway? After a bit of a dance the crow seems to loose interest and moves on.

Perhaps you have recently planted your garden? How many seeds did you use? Did you plant just a few and spread them out, or scatter the whole pack knowing that you’ll have to thin them later? If they are to become large and healthy plants they will need space to grow into, or be overwhelmed as they all start to grow at once.
How often to we start six projects and get lost in them as they grow, crowding each other out in the gardens of our lives.

How much or how many really serves us? When is it better take a piece and leave the rest; to have faith that the few seeds will grow into healthy plants; or to prune and thin and give some things away? We can follow the instincts of the squirrel and the programming of society, or we can feel into ourselves and find a different level of purpose that goes deeper than survival, that allows us to ask, what really serves? when is it enough? which plants do I keep in the garden and which do I move or give away?

In this modern world we are taught to always be busy, always productive. The mind becomes restless with open space or empty time. But it is only with these that the creations that serve us, or express our being, can grow and flourish, can be properly appreciated and enjoyed. Abundance that is so large we can’t carry it defeats the purpose. Abundance that is so many that none have space to flourish also defeats the purpose. Diving deep allow your heart to say enough, or to choose the few that can joyfully thrive and support you. Give your self time and space to focus, trust, and enjoy.

(© 5/2011)

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Grounding Your Bliss

Posted on May 3, 2011 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

Sitting in a sacred space in the earth, meditating on the beings that come there and what they might want me to know or do for them, I wait in cool quiet near-darkness lit by a few candles. I am reminded in my minds eye of a picture of my soul floating in its own space individuated from the world that I live in, the state of letting go of the chaos of the world and diving within to find the connection to spirit and source that has been arising more and more this year. This has seemed both a desirable and necessary practice to stay centered and functional in the acceleration of change in the world.

The offering this afternoon is another step. The energies of the earth show me that they can help me to ground my spiritual essence (the state of awareness and connection to spirit) into the greater web of spirit in the world. This is something other than the complex of ego created human drama that we have all been trying to find our space relative to and separate from. The weaving of nature and the energies of the earth that are here to support us, as they support all life, is calling us home. Finding my place in this web is useful, perhaps necessary these days. It is a way to walk in the world without getting tangled in the dramas, to have my space both as spirit and as a human being. They are showing me that we need to ground the bliss of spiritual connection into the manifest world. The planet needs this and we need it. This is how we can be in the world, but not of the world, and the planet is ready to help us.

After a while I complete my meditation and with gratitude I leave the space. Though I am not at all sure what this grounding will look like in practice, I know it will be shown to me if I am open to listening.

A day later I realize that there is an opportunity unfolding for me to take up a long standing invitation and drive out to visit a friend in Moab. I am intrigued by the unfolding opportunity and the feeling of adventure that a completely unscripted trip presents, but I also am feeling the message of the day before and wondering if there will be an opening to the energies of the earth.

Two days later I drive west, through snow in the mountain passes, spring growth along the Colorado River, reaching the incipient summer heat of the dessert in the afternoon . A friend of a friend guides me to a place that I can be more or less alone in the nearby canyons and on day three I set off with a rough map scribbled on a scrap of paper. Parking among the mountain bikers at a major trailhead, but walking off in a different direction, I take a short trail along a wash up between high cliffs of red stone. Drawn off the main path I explore a circular space, with cliffs towering above, climbing back and up until I am under the overhangs as far as I can go.

Sitting there to do a small ceremony to open to the energies all around me, I realize that although I am above ground, with a deep blue sky overhead, I am surrounded by the red rock. The wall behind and even over me curving around on either side and a straight wall in front of me on the other side of the way I came in. I can feel the vibration of this rock, of the earth, and know that this is at least part of what the earth beings had wanted me to do. So I sit, grounding, releasing, opening to being in this place.

I spend hours in these rock formations, climbing higher on the original path, until I am sitting on top of a huge earth sculpture of rounded stone, surrounded by other walls and ridges; living stone with the sky over head, and the wind pushing through the canyons and the passages. No people, just the earth, wearing, cleaving, falling and crumbling down the years. Slowly I know that the matrices of the rock around me are aligning me, clearing me, helping me to embody what I had seen. As the fear comes up the wind blows it away. I am giddy with the energies as well as the heights.

Now I’m back in Boulder, bringing something with me. You probably have a different way to do this, but the earth will help you to find out how to ground your spiritual bliss into the body so you can walk it in the world, in your day to day life. All you have to do is ask, open, quiet the mind, and listen with your being. Between the call and the response you will find the way, allowing it to unfold as you go.

You connect to spirit and find your bliss, not to escape this world, but to have a place to stand so you can bring that essence and bliss back into the world, finding balance and joy in the web of life. We do this for ourselves, but also for the planet and for our community. This is why the earth is so eager to assist us.

With blessings and gratitude.

(© 5/2011)

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