Living in the Moment

On July 21, 2012 By Just StephIn My Odyssey, Touching the InfiniteLeave a comment

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. ~Buddha

When I first heard the phrase “living in the moment” I found myself laughing sadly and shaking my head at the gullible fools who would buy into something so inane. Live in the moment? What fool would settle for living in the moment? Man oh man, talk about boring!

I didn’t want to live in the moment. What I wanted was to live my dreams, to achieve my goals; to make something of myself so that when I died the world would remember me! Forget about this living in the moment stuff. Obviously it was a cop out by those who hadn’t done anything with their lives; people who perhaps had once dreamed big but who had failed to follow through and were now regretting it; something to fall back on in order to make themselves feel better.

I knew better. I knew that if you wanted to be anything in life; if you wanted to make something of yourself, you had to remain in control; not only of yourself but of everyone and everything around you. Leaving anything up to chance was just plain foolishness.

If you wanted to get anywhere in life you needed to focus on your goals and break your projects down into small steps that you could accomplish and then, when all of the steps were completed, presto, your goal would be achieved. Well, that was the plan. And hey, it worked for businesses, why not for me?

There was just one problem. The goals that I had set for myself were not in alignment with my soul purpose. Hell, I didn’t even know what my soul purpose was. I had created a nice neat fiction for my life; a belief that when I attained a specific level of financial security or professional achievement that I would, at last, be happy. Well, that was the plan anyway.

And so it was that even when I had achieved each goal there was always something missing. It was like baking a cake. I’d followed the steps – added all of the ingredients in the proper order – and had a perfect cake sitting in front of me, but even though it looked perfect, it didn’t taste quite right. What had I done wrong?

Over time, however, I have discovered something; I found out what was missing, and it was far simpler than I could have imagined and all the more difficult because of that to implement. What I was missing was living (dare I say it?) in the moment; enjoying what I had already achieved without the expectation of what came next; of what I could do better next time around.

For all of my lists and my schedules; for all of my hopes and dreams and plans; for all of my visualization and projection; without being able to step aside and get out of my own way I ended up with a picture perfect cake that had little if any flavor.

This isn’t to say that we can’t dream.

This isn’t to say that visualization will not bring you your heart’s desire.

All this means is that we need to take the time – right now – to enjoy the moment that we spent all of our yesterday’s dreaming of and visualizing. It is the enjoyment of the moment that we have created that brings us the flavor of our days. And it is here, in the quiet of appreciation and the letting go of expectation where we will find that happiness has been waiting patiently for us all along.

Living In The Moment

To take each day as it comes

To live each moment as it arrives

To hope for nothing

To fear nothing

To expect nothing

Makes each moment a priceless gift;

A gift from the universe

Straight to your heart

A gift to be treasured and adored

A gift to be enjoyed, experienced

And then released.

~SSHenry

The Chrysalis Effect

On November 24, 2011March 1, 2012 By Just StephIn Metaphysical Mussings1 Comment

There comes a point in the life of certain caterpillars, when they have eaten enough; when enough nutrients have been stored, then the caterpillar reaches begins to spin a silk pad on a leaf or twig and proceeds to hang itself upside down from this pad. Slowly it begins to molt its outer skin, leaving itself encased in its green chrysalis.

The creation of the chrysalis itself is an incredible process, for this is not just some special substence that the caterpillar excreets for the job; what it is is the caterpillar’s own skin transformed into this hard green shell. The caterpillar willingly unraveles itself so that it can allow the change to occur.

Inside the chrysalis an amazing transformation takes place. The caterpillar’s body does not just undergo a complete and total physical transformation; its body completely breaks down into a “soup” of cells which, over the next few weeks reconstruct themselves into a butterfly.

The caterpillar doesn’t resist the pull of change; the instinct to stop eating and begin the next stage of its journey. It doesn’t lament what it will lose by ceasing to become a caterpillar, nor does it try to justify why it should continue its existence as a caterpillar when its heart is telling it that it’s time to let go. One other thing a caterpillar does not do is to worry about helping other caterpillars to recognize and listen to their own instinctual pull. Instead it simply acts on its instinct and trusts that this is the best thing that could happen at this particular moment in time.

No, the caterpillar does not resist. It simply stops what it’s doing; no matter what it’s doing. It stops with no fanfare mid crawl; mid bite; and begins to spin its silk pad, letting everything it was dissolve into nothingness, trusting that the universe will take care of the details, and proceeding to move on to the next state of existence. It surrenders to its heart and in so doing begins the most important transformation of its life.

So too does there come a point in the life of every individual when they are prompted by signs from the universe; indeed by the urgings of their own heart to simply stop being who and what they are; to surrender themselves to the transformational power of their inner-being. When they do heed the signs they begin to undergo an incredible transformation; a spiritual evolution that will turn their world upside down.

This transformation is not always pleasant. In fact, sometimes it can be downright painful, for the changes involve breaking you down; stripping you of every thought, every belief, even those relationships that you associate with being you. It will strip you of everything; reducing your ‘self’ to a protean soup of possibilities, and then will reconstruct you into the ‘you’ that you were always meant to be.

But here is the amazing thing, instead of losing your ‘self’ during the transformation, you emerge on the other side more ‘you’ than you could ever have imagined being, and with an understanding and a perspective that would have been impossible in your old way of being. Suddenly you can see what it was that you were missing; why it was that your old life never seemed completely satisfaction. And once your wings have dried in the sun of understanding, you will shake them out; spread them wide; and begin to fly.

The Bluebird of Happiness

On November 23, 2011March 1, 2012 By Just StephIn Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

Dragons will wander about the waste places, and the phoenix will soar from her nest of fire into the air. We shall lay our hands upon the Basilisk, and see the jewel in the toad’s head. Champing his gilded oats, the hippogriff will stand in our stalls, and over our heads will float the bluebird, singing of beautiful and impossible things, of things that are lovely and that never happened, of things that are not and that should be.”

~ Oscar Wilde

Dragons – Basilisk’s, hippogriff’s….unicorns…all things of fairy tales; or so we’re told; creatures from our fantasies; creatures that preside over our dreams; creatures that haunt us when we are drifting somewhere in that world that is halfway between waking and sleep.

But dreams are just that, aren’t they? Just dreams? Or are they, in the immortal words of Walt Disney “A wish your heart makes when it’s fast asleep?”

And perhaps that is the problem. Perhaps that is why the deepest most desperate desires of our heart remain just beautiful and impossible things – things that are lovely and that never happened – things that are not and that should be.

Perhaps they only reason that these beautiful and impossible things have not become a part of our reality is because we don’t listen to what our heart is telling us.

We refuse to act when our heart urges us to take action.

We hush our heart when it presents us with desires; with hopes and dreams that do not fit the life that we have crafted for ourselves. We smile at them wistfully; smile and tuck them away, far away where they will not intrude on the reality of our everyday lives, and in denying them we may ensure that our lives remain steadfast and constant; predictable and manageable, but in denying them we also deny the very essence of who it is that we are.

And those things that we dream of deep in the dark and secret places of our heart remain forever a mystery, a pretty dream, too good to be true, too beautiful to be possible, and so we go forever wondering just what might have been, and whether or not the bluebird’s singing is not just a pretty distraction, but instead a message straight from our souls; a message for us to open our eyes; to open our minds; to open our hearts before it is forever too late.

And perhaps we have the power to do just that; to acknowledge the bluebird and to open our eyes to the possibilities that lie all around us – and especially those things that lie buried in our hearts and minds and souls; bringing them to light at last, and letting them soar free and usher us into a future better than we ever could have imagined.