Signs, signs
Everywhere there’s signs
Blocking up the scenery
Breaking up my mind
Do this, don’t do that
Can’t you read the sign

– by Les Emmerson, performed by Five Man Electric Band and Tesla

I laughed out loud when I took this photo of a parking sign painted on the road. I was captivated by Autumn’s complete disobedience of the edict to keep the area clear and Her disregard of any threatened violations. Oh, how I fantasize about skipping through life, for once, unburdened by all the threats of the consequences for violating this rule or that. I do appreciate the order and ease that rules can bring and, at the same time, I absolutely thrill at seeing a rule well broken.

I have been busy — really BUSY — attending to some fabulous projects these past few weeks. And I can tell that my work is effective and germinating beginnings that will bring good changes. Even so, I am tired from my work; and being tired can make it harder for me to stay centred in my happy heart. Even with just a little bit of fatigue, I can find it hard NOT to get tangled up in other people’s shadow games and self-imposed rules. Rules are important except when they start to strangle authentic connection and honest communication. I have to be care-full not to let my Self and my Light be limited by others.

…If you wish your heart to be bright,
you must do a little work.

–Rumi

I have to practice — and practice — keeping my Self out of the Shadow. My tried and true soul remedy, when I have been in too many meetings following “Roberts Rules of Order,” is to look for a momentary escape or –escapade – to liberate and refresh my sense of natural order and flow.

For me the key is to discover the Creative Rogue, the Imaginative Rule Breaker, the Raven Amoung Us who messes things up just enough to remind us to not take the rules so seriously, but instead, keeps our sights more firmly set on the fundamental principles of Love and Laughter. Witnessing the sign I photographed and shared with you today is exactly the kind of natural chaos that brings me back to happy equilibrium.

You are probably wondering where all my talk about rules is headed. Well, my friend, I want you to know I have had a Divine Revelation — literally a “sign” — about the perfect rule we can all follow. I wouldn’t want to be the kind of friend who would keep this all-important Universal Rule from you (and here I am modeling some of my words on Leonard Cohen). So here it is. THE RULE that will help you live the Good Life is:

“Keep clea… or violations will be iss…”

Amen!

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Photo credits: Photo by jamm at brightheartsinging.wordpress.com

Song credit, lyrics from “Signs, Signs” written by Les Emmerson and song performed by Five Man Electric Band; Tesla

Poem credit: Poem excerpt from: Be Lost in the Call by Rumi. I found my link to this poem at http://www.khamush.com/poems.html

bright heart singing, copyright 2009 – jamm. Creative commons attribution, non-commercial sharing only (translation: feel free to quote me in context or use this entry but please always credit me for my work, thanks.) http://brightheartsinging.wordpress.com

What does the world require of me?

— UU hymnal

The first time I heard a scientist present the evidence that our use of fossil fuel and other “modern” behaviours were radically changing our climate and potentially threatening the survival of most species on the planet, I felt like I was hit by a train. Sitting in that dark room watching slide after slide showing alarming evidence of the consequences of a warming planet impacted me like repeated blows with a sledge hammer.

I went home after that talk CRUSHED. I felt plunged into despair and hopelessness. Rather than being mobilized to make change, I felt completely immobilized. I knew I had suffered some kind of Spiritual wounding. To heal myself and regain my balance, I had to unplug from all discussions about climate change and even avoid the media. I was hurting and not functioning long after that first climate change talk.

Then, one day I was at a party and the discussion gravitated to the grave implications of climate change. Oh no, I thought, I have got to get myself out of here. “I find this whole discussion so debilitating that I have to excuse myself,” I confessed to my friends at the party. That’s when one friend said to me, “What are you talking about. This is GOOD NEWS.”

What? Good news? I thought he was seriously deluded or just not paying attention to all the scientific reports. And at the same time, if there was good news, I really really needed to hear it. For the sake of my badly aching Soul, I needed some hope and good news.

So I asked, “What’s the good news?”

And this is a paraphrase of my friends answer: The good news is that the denial is over and true, motivated, conscious change is possible for the first time. No more doubts; no more um-ing and aah-ing. The “let’s-wait-and-see” time is over. The good news is that YOU are the one who can make the difference and NOW is the time. Can you, for example, reduce your gas dependency, stop using plastic bags, and recycle? “Yes, I am already doing that and I could even do way more than that if I planned out my life better,” I eagerly replied.

And in my “Yes” response, I felt the bleak, hopeless, spiritual despair around climate change lift and a new wind of “Can-do” Spirit entered my body. My spirit thrilled to the good news that we have a great opportunity to turn around a bad situation. My spirit came alive to the hope that all was not hope-less. My spirit blossomed in the faith that if I do all that I can and — with my good example — inspire others to do the same, that eventually we will have the transformation required to re-balance the climate.

Personally, I was spiritually devastated by a massive presentation of research findings about the perilous effects of a warming climate; but then I was not in denial about climate change in the first place. I felt nearly mortally wounded after such a heavy hitting presentation that was designed to break down someone with thick-walled denial about climate change. Oh please don’t misunderstand: I am deeply indebted to and grateful for the brilliant scientists who brave making these presentations available to us. I just need to be discerning about how much information I consume in one sitting because I can feel seriously overwhelmed and dis-empowered to act.

Ever since I heard the good news about climate change, however, I have been optimistically changing my habits, increasing my efforts to be mindful about my “foot print” on our beautiful planet. By focusing on the good news — while not in denial over the climate challenges — I have been nourishing my Spirit, acting-in-faith that my very best effort will be just enough of what this world requires of me.

What does the world require of me?
To seek justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly upon the Earth
Justice, kindness, and walk humbly upon the Earth.

– from the Unitarian Universalist hymnal

May you find your good news “edge” that will inspire and sustain your very best effort while you work, play, give service to others, and live a life in balance with the our beautiful Earth . Blessed Be.

For more on Blog Action Day see: http://www.blogactionday.org/

bright heart singing, copyright 2009 – jamm. Creative commons attribution, non-commercial sharing only (translation: feel free to quote me in context or use this entry but please always credit me for my work, thanks.) http://brightheartsinging.wordpress.com

A little sabbath,
minnow whose brightness silvers past time.

The rest note,
unwritten,
hinged between worlds,
that precedes change and allows it.

–  Jane Hirshfield, The Door

It is Sunday and still I long for a regular Sabbath day, a planned sanctuary from all the hustle and bustle of my week. This morning, instead of attending church, my daughter and I spread a blanket on the sun-warmed driveway and took out our water colour paints. With paint brush in hand, I decided to play with the concept of the rest note, that musical symbol for silence. In song writing, the composer has different symbols for shorter and longer periods of silence. Recognizing that silence is a form magic that is co-created when composer, musician/ singer, music, and listener come together, the composer can add a fermata (fair-mah-tah) (that bird’s eye looking symbol that hovers above the squiggly rest) above any rest (or note) in order to hand artistic control over the duration of the silent moment to the conductor. With the fermata, the conductor is free to interpret the music-as-it-plays-out-in-the-moment, and deliver the moment of silence with “just right” timing. Magnifico!

To my mind, creating a Sabbath for myself requires advanced planning; in other words, I need to my write a “rest note” into my week’s “composition.” All to often, however, the needs of others around me  — and, if I am honest, my own lack of focus — affect(s) my ability to achieve a sustained and meaningful rest. Would adding a “fermata” to my planned rest: adding a permission to artistically interpret — in the moment — and make adaptations that fit my “little sabbath” rest around the needs of others in my life increase my chances of success? And what would that artistc interpretation look like for me and my moment of rest?  For me, the effort of composing a week of meaningful work and finishing with a moment of play and rest seems so complicated. The idea that there might be some artistry or flair to achieving a sabbath-of-sorts makes me feel inspired to keep trying until I succeed.

I have been very inspired by reading Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s brilliantly written book, The Sabbath. I don’t have a religious or cultural structure to support “a day of rest.” But perhaps if I taped my little painting, “rest note with fermata,” above my mirror during this week, I might remind myself to focus on my need to set aside time at the end of the week, so I may create sacred space for me and my family. Hmmm, I think I will give it a try.    :0)

May you find rest in your week so you may be refresh and ready to begin again the Good Work of your life. Om and namaste.

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Image credits: Water colour painting by jamm at brightheartsinging.wordpress.com. This painting is based on a line of sheet music from Paul Simon’s, “Quiet,” “The line begins: “I am heading for a time of quiet, when my restlessness is past.”

Book credit, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath.

Poem credit: Jane Hirshfield, The Door, published in Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelations, p. 131.

bright heart singing, copyright 2009 – jamm. Creative commons attribution, non-commercial sharing only (translation: feel free to quote me in context or use this entry but please always credit me for my work, thanks.) http://brightheartsinging.wordpress.com

When the perfect circle marries all beginnings and conclusions.

–  Paul Simon

I read a lot of music each week. Mostly, reading sheet music is an unconscious act for me: I simply understand what I am reading without needing to decipher what is before my eyes. But every now and then a piece of music calls me to slow down and savour the musical writing in the same way I would study and thrill at a gorgeous poem. Paul Simon’s less known song, “Quiet,” is one such composition that captured my imagination and collected me into contemplation today.

I am heading for a time of solitude,
of peace without illusions,
When the perfect circle marries all
beginnings and conclusions.

–  Paul Simon, “Quiet”

I dusted off my water colours to paint my favourite phrase in “Quiet” so I could to share this lovely line with you. After singing a lonesome arc of melancholy, Paul Simon’s meaning and music crests on his highest sustained note — “CIR-cle.” Here, at the high point, he brings us into spiritual suspension; and at that sweet fulcrum between his rising and falling lines, he invites us to free float up in the ether before we gently tumble down to the mundane “all” of this Earth.

I am relieved that Simon places the word “circle”– and not “perfect” — in the Heaven of his composition. His choice of which word to place in the highest niche of his line tells us “Quiet” is no search for perfection, but rather, a plaintive yearning for the the peace that comes when we –finally– arrive back home where we started.

The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other’s welcome.

–  Derek Walcott, Love after love.

Back-to-school after summer break, back to work after the weekend, back in bed after another long day of family and work to-dos, there are many circles of many sizes being drawn in the sands of my life. It feels good to notice when my beginnings marry my conclusions and I start once again on my next meaningful cycle.

May you take time to honour the closing, and look forward to the beginning of your next circle. Shanti and Shalom.

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Image credit: Watercolour by jamm at brightheartsinging.wordpress.com.

Music credit: Paul Simon, Quiet. I recommend giving this beautiful song a listen at the iTunes store.

Poem credit: Derek Walcott, excerpt of Love after Love, published in Roger Housden’s, Risking Everything:110 Poems of Love and Revelation, p.5

bright heart singing, copyright 2009 – jamm. Creative commons attribution, non-commercial sharing only (translation: feel free to quote me in context or use this entry but please always credit me for my work, thanks.) http://brightheartsinging.wordpress.com

plump bees twirling on small and humble blossoms like hippopotami pirouetting on lily pads.

We have so many dandelions in our lawn that our neighbours’ fret and beg us to mow our lawn before we contaminate their lawns with the weeds. And who can blame them for their weed angst? We have more dandelions than grass. If there can be a “pride of lions,” then we must have a “prairie of dandelions,” a fact that has not gone unnoticed by our local bees who flock to our plentiful weeds.

“May I have this dance?” asks a hopeful bee.

“Why yes,” is the dandelion’s reply as its tall and slender stem then bends under the ungainly weight of the bee as the the two dance a bumbling pas de deux. The bee rides the dandelion in a graceful arc — Doooown — until dandelion’s head nearly touches the ground and then springs back — UP — as the bee hops off to find its next dancing partner. Waltzing dandelion-bee couples can be seen by the dozens all across my lawn each summer day: plump bees twirling on small and humble blossoms like hippopotami pirouetting on lily pads.

One summer the wasps were numerous and nasty. We erected a 10 foot square tent (nylon roof, 4 screen sides, and no floor) so we could picnic outside without harassment from those striped snipers. At the end of the summer, when we folded up our tent, we discovered a perfect square of grass in the middle of our dandelion prairie. Every dandelion had disappeared inside our tent footprint! Ruling out differences in rainfall and sun exposure, we determined the difference between the thriving outside and the disappearance of dandelions inside our tent was that we had inadvertently screened out visiting bees along with the annoying wasps. Without the bees, the dandelions simply vanished — dramatic evidence of the interdependent web of life.

We humans say “dandelion” to name a plant that knows its Secret Spirit name is really “Dances-with-Bees.” Well, I have some questions for you, my friend. Could it be like that for us humans and the Divine? In an attempt to screen out wasp-like problems, do we prevent the Honey-Breathed Beloved from approaching and asking us for a dance? What if our Secret Spirit name is really “Dances-with-God” and our failure to accept sweet invitations to that Holy Pas de Deux means we slowly but surely vanish?

Every child has known God.
Not the God of names,
not the God of don’ts,
not the God who ever does anything weird.
But the God who only knows 4 words
and keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come, dance with Me”.
Come dance.

— Hafiz

May you always dance your Divine Dance. Whoo-hoo and Amen!

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Photo credits: Photos by jamm at brightheartsinging.wordpress.com.

Poem credit: Hafiz in The Gift,  translation by Daniel Ladinsky. I cut and pasted a copy of this poem from: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=125906576&blogId=379274722

bright heart singing, copyright 2009 – jamm. Creative commons attribution, non-commercial sharing only (translation: feel free to quote me in context or use this entry but please always credit me for my work, thanks.) http://brightheartsinging.wordpress.com