inspiration

A Baker’s Dozen

/ James Browning

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Here’s my list of thirteen thoughts to start another wondrous day filled with adventure, intrigue, reward and struggle.

~ We are always too busy!

~ Kindness multiplies back to the giver.

~ Being allowed to often get dirty makes a child grow up more healthy.

~ You have to get hurt. That’s how you learn.

~ To truly appreciate what you’ve got, at some point you need to have had nothing.

~ The average person hasn’t smelled a flower in months or noticed the moon for weeks.

~ The longer you carry a worry, the heavier it gets.

~ The future is an illusion; the past a delusion. Neither is even close to reality.

~ The kindest people have fought the toughest personal battles.

~ Running in sprinklers or playing in water makes a sad child feel better (adults too!).

~ We’re usually most creative near 18 months old. By twenty-one 90% of that is gone.

~ People who usually arrive very early or quite late are often the controlling type.

~ Within every person are many questions and even more answers.

And there you have it; a random baker’s dozen of simple wisdom I have chosen for my day; extras for my mental ‘toolkit’ for living. All won’t stick well and some will not fit today’s situations encountered. However, I am grateful my day will be better by filing these thoughts away. Sooner or later all will be useful, if not today, then before long.

“We’ve got facts,” they say.
But facts aren’t everything;
at least half the battle consists
in how one makes use of them!
Fydor Dostoyevsky

Three Thoughts for Monday

/ James Browning

crossroads-signHere and there I come across another writer’s words and find they say exactly what I wanted to say. To go any further and use my own words would at best be redundant, or more likely only a pale semblance of my actual thoughts. So here at a major crossroads of my life are three quotes by Anne Lamott that express my feelings clearly.

It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools – friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty – and said ‘do the best you can with these, they will have to do’. And mostly, against all odds, they do.

You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.

In the first quote I am reminded that doing the best with what I have is all there is. The second one explains why past love is so indelibly stamped on my heart. And now a third quote from Anne Lamott is a help fending off my tendency toward perfectionism.

Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived…Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation… Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.

Anne Lamott is an American novelist and non-fiction writer
and a progressive political activist, public speaker
and writing teacher based in the Bay Area of Northern California.

Completely Illogical

/ James Browning

Misty_Morning_Bridge_Wallpaper__yvt2If you can do it, should do it, and want to do it, what are you waiting for? Many things in life that we excuse or misplace blame for are not created by what we do but by what we fail to do. Maybe we just procrastinate and just don’t get around to action. Or maybe it’s just a thought, something that we think would be nice to do, but we just aren’t serious about it.

What keeps us from action? Some possible answers come from my own experience. One excuse is that we just can’t seem to find the time. That won’t wash. Whatever we do in life, we have found or made time for. Final choices are matters of priority, and sometimes we don’t prioritize well.

Fear is an obvious cause of inaction. There are many kinds of fear that cause inaction.
Fear of failure.
Fear of being different or out-of-step.
Fear of rejection.
Even fear of success.
Fear of failure arises from self-doubt. We may think we don’t know enough, don’t have enough time or energy, or lack ability, resources, and help. The cure for such fear is to learn what is needed, make the time, pump ourselves up emotionally so we will have the energy, hone our relevant skill set, and hustle for resources and help. These things can be demanding. It is no wonder there are so many things we can, should, and want to do but don’t do.

All our life, beginning with school, we are conditioned to consider failure as a bad thing. But failure is often a good, even necessary, thing. The ratio between failures and successes for any given person is rather stable. Thus, if you want more successes, you need to make more failures. Even the corporate world recognizes this principle, and the most innovative companies practice it. Jeff Dyer, in his book The Innovator’s DNA, says the key to business success is to “fail often, fail fast, fail cheap.” It’s o.k. to fail, as long as you learn from it.

Fear of being different often arises from personal insecurity and lack of confidence. These are crippling emotions and one’s life can never be fully actualized until they are overcome. This comes to the matter of self-esteem. The thing many people don’t realize is that self-esteem has two quite distinct components: self-worth and self-confidence. Self-worth is given (by being valued and loved by others, by God). Self-confidence cannot be given − it has to be earned. People who lack the confidence to “put themselves on the line” deny themselves opportunities to enjoy the fruits of success. Their life becomes a vicious cycle that begins with lack of confidence, lack of agency, lack of success, and increased justification not to be confident.

If we are different, the in-crowd may reject us. Rejection is certainly depressing. Nobody in his right mind wants to be depressed. But no life can be fulfilling when it is lived to satisfy the opinions others may have of us. We need to be true to ourselves, to trust in our values and standards. So, when life offers you the chance to do something you can, should, and want to do, just DO IT! Taken from an article by William R. Klemm, D.V.M, Ph.D. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201303/just-do-it-0

It still blows me away how delightful it feels to be honestly, and with fervor, seeking my hopes and dreams. They were denied for so long for many logical reasons, but logic is a single black and white dimension without shape. Many of the finest elements of life are completely illogical such as love, beauty and faith. To have grown to become confident and self-assured enough to defy logic and allow contentment instead is truly a gift; one I am grateful for.

It is not because things are difficult
that we do not dare,
it is because we do not dare
that they are difficult.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Wait and Hope

/ James Browning

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Grief dares us to love once more.
Terry Tempest Williams

I cry over the pain of my past, but feel great joy and hope for the my future. She is out there somewhere in this big world, I just don’t know where she could be. She is the one my path has moved me toward my whole life. All the pain and heartache I have experienced has been to appreciate her when I find her; to be able to love her with all my being when she is before me. She might be anywhere, any country, any town, but I know she’s out there. The greatest love of my life is somewhere on this Earth, I am certain of it. But I won’t find her here in comfort wallowing in money and comfort. I must give up much of what has been in order to find what could be. I have to go search the world to find her before I run out of time. James Browning 10 29 2012

I wrote that eight months ago and found it again last night. While the thinking rings clear and true, I can’t remember specifically what was the catalyst. Maybe it was just a wanting thought thrown out to the cosmos hoping for its echo back to me.

The only worry that flies around me once in a while like a determined mosquito is a concern that I won’t recognize “her” should she appear. What if “she” is already around and I am missing it? Most such quandaries have been freed in the spirit of ‘what will be, will be’. All I can do is my best to let go, live in the moment and embrace life as it unfolds. Living ‘now’ well is the surest path to a recent past I am pleased with and a future that more closely matches my hopes and dreams.

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must of felt what it is to die… that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life. Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, ‘Wait and Hope”. Alexandre Duman

Whether my destiny is to only know searching or to walk through true love’s gate again, I am grateful for the contentment the possibility alone brings: a dream; a real dream that could become true. I am grateful to have the courage to free myself and seek what I hope for. Hallelujah!

Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist,
there are still those that lie beyond our capacity
and our imagination. From time to time,
when a piece of music no one has ever written
or a painting no one has ever painted,
or something else impossible to predict,
fathom or yet describe takes place,
a new feeling enters the world. And then,
for the millionth time in the history of feeling,
the heart surges and absorbs the impact.
From “The History of Love” by Nicole Krauss

Brave Again

/ James Browning

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My path was clouded and I was lost for so long I did not notice it. I lost the freedom to just “be” and the natural spontaneity I was born with; from feeling free in a magical world to becoming inhibited, guarded and restricted. Where before was only wonder and happiness, the shadow of fear and worry joined in.

The change of outlook happened in early childhood but exactly when and where I can’t come up with. There came a time then when I thought more about what I did not want than what I hoped for. My mind became clouded with wanting to grow up, escape and get away rather than where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do and having any sort of intentional direction. I just wanted to be a “big boy”. In adulthood it was dreadful to be adrift for so many years and not know it; to be unconsciously searching for what I already had but was oblivious to.

When you are born…

your courage is new and clean.

You are brave enough for anything:

crawling off of staircases,

saying your first words without fearing
that someone will think you are foolish,

putting strange things in your mouth.

But as you get older,

your courage attracts gunk,
and crusty things, and dirt, and fear,

and knowing how bad things can get

and what pain feels like.

By the time you’re half-grown,

your courage barely moves at all,

it’s so grunged up with living.

So every once in a while,

you have to scrub it up

and get the works going,

or else you’ll never be brave again.

From “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making”
 by Catherynne M. Valente

In trying “to find myself” I became lost in the fogged-up maze of the ‘real-world’.  And it’s no wonder. From my perception my “self” was hidden like a unnoticed parrot resting on my shoulder; one making sounds that were perceived distant, yet so close I looked right by them.

Once I began to focus nearby, I started to see what was hidden in plain sight. What I discovered was not all wonderful and pleasing, but it was real. In discovering the child I had lost, my courage began to return. I was in a sense, truly reborn. The crust, dirt and fear on my soul became thinner as I explored inward. I became brave again. To have relocated the courage of a little boy and a sense of wonder, amazement and beauty that goes with it I am deeply grateful.

You often meet your fate
on the road
you take to avoid it.
 Goldie Hawn

A Letter To My Son on Father’s Day

/ James Browning

ORIGINALLY Posted on June 19, 2011

Dear Nick,

Vivid in memory are the emotions I experienced just after you were born. The day after you arrived I wrote in a journal about the joy I felt, the gratefulness within for you being ‘normal” with the proper number of fingers and toes, the awe that filled me for life and the hopes I had for you. I described your birth as “the most incredible thing I’ve ever witnessed” and also wrote “No child could be more wanted or more loved.” Those thoughts have aged sweeter as time has clicked by.

Frequent have been musings of how I could have been a better Father. Had I not chased with such vigor the emptiness of dysfunctional illusion, success and money I could have been there for you more. There were too many of your games I missed,weekend outings that never were and small events at school that were big happenings for you when my presence was missing. I never did build the treehouse I promised you.

Your Mother and I went our separate ways when you were sixteen which took you hundreds of miles away. One of my deepest regrets is your high school years when seeing you only every couple of months I became a sideline spectator of your life. Yet, as I mature and learn I have come to know regrets past making sure you’re aware of them, have no good purpose.

There are so many wonderful memories I have of your growing up. No child has ever been more curious about the world than you. You never crawled and began to recklessly walk at 7 months old. Such determination you have always had!

In school you did well and had the respect of most of your teachers. You made good friends and some of those relationships are healthy and thriving today. The only time you ever really got in trouble at school was through protecting a friend from a bully. How the game of hockey worked when you started to play at seven was unknown to me, but no father was ever prouder than I was to watch you. The lessons that came at you in college were hard ones, but you learned from your mistakes. I can not begin to express my admiration for your determination and stick-to-it-ness to get the education you wanted.

On this father’s day I hope these borrowed words express clearly to you the feelings of my heart and the wishes of my soul.

Until you have a son of your own… You will never know the joy beyond joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son. You will never know the sense of honor that makes a man want to be more than he is and to pass on something good and useful into the hands of his son. And you will never know the heartbreak of the fathers who are haunted by the personal demons that keep them from being the men they want their sons to see.

We live in a time when it is hard to speak from the heart. Our lives are smothered by a thousand trivialities, and the poetry of our spirits is silenced by the thoughts and cares of daily affairs.

And so, I want to speak to you honestly. I do not have answers. But I do understand the questions. I see you struggling and discovering and striving upward, and I see myself reflected in your eyes and in your days. In some deep and fundamental way, I have been there and I want to share.

I, too, have learned to walk, to run, to fall. I have had a first love. I have known fear and anger and sadness. My heart has been broken and I have known moments when the hand of God seemed to be on my shoulder. I have wept tears of sorrow and tears of joy.

There have been times of darkness when I thought I would never see light again, and there have been times when I wanted to dance and sing and hug every person I met.

I have felt myself emptied into the mystery of the universe, and I have had moments when the smallest slight threw me into rage.

I have carried others when I barely had the strength to walk myself, and I have left others standing by the road with their hands out stretched for help.

Sometimes I feel I have done more than anyone can ask; other times I feel I am a charlatan and a failure. I carry within me the spark of greatness and the darkness of heartless crimes.

In short, I am a man, as are you.

Although you will walk your own earth and move through your own time, the same sun will rise on you that rose on me, and the same reasons will course across your life as moved across mine. We will always be different, but we will always be the same.

This is my attempt to give you the lesson of my life, so that you can use them in yours. They are not meant to make you into me. It is my greatest joy to watch you turn into yourself.

To be your father is the greatest honor I have ever received. It allowed me to touch mystery and to see my love made flesh. If I could but have one wish, it would be for you to pass that love along.

I love you,

Pops

You are my son-shine.
Author Unknown

Home Sweet Home

/ James Browning

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There are stories from the American Civil War before a battle when the soldiers of one side would begin to sing and the opposing arm would then join in from the distance. Singing “Home Sweet Home” in unison was said by many who fought to be one of the few good memories of the great conflict.

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble there’s no place like home!
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne’er met with elsewhere.

I gaze on the moon as I tread the drear wild
And feel that my mother now thinks of her child
As she looks on the moon from our own cottage door
Through the woodbine whose fragrance shall cheer me no more.

An exile from home splendor dazzles in vain
Oh, give me my low, thatched cottage again,
The birds singing gaily that come at my call,
Give me them with that peace of mind, dearer than all.

How sweet ’tis to sit ‘neath a fond father’s smile,
And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile.
Let others delight ‘mid new pleasures to roam,
But give me, oh give me the pleasures of home.

To thee I’ll return overburdened with care,
The hearts dearest solace will smile on me there
No more from that cottage again will I roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

Home! Home! sweet, sweet Home!
There’s no place like Home!
by John Howard Payne, 1823

Dearly I love to travel, but even more  I love coming home after a satisfying journey! I was just away on for a long weekend filled with more fun and joy than I have experienced in a long time exceeded only by the good felt walking through my front door last night. I am grateful to be able to travel and even more to have a home to come home to that I enjoy so much .

How often have I lain beneath
rain on a strange roof,
thinking of home.
William Faulkner

Photo credit: Denis Collette…!!! / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Undisturbed Calmness

/ James Browning

Public domain image, royalty free stock photo from www.public-domain-image.com

Inherently there are only two states of being:
1. A state of inner wholeness
2. A state of inner incompleteness

This state of inner incompleteness starts developing the moment your focus became identified totally with the physical, specifically with the mind – usually by the age of 4. You get identified with the narrow, label based, identity created by the mind – what is called the “ego structure”. The ego structure by itself is not a problem, and serves a practical purpose in allowing a meaningful physical experience, but when you become totally identified with it, your perception of yourself becomes very intensely narrow.  [W]hen your state of being is one of inner incompleteness…

– You feel needy of approval from outside and many times your actions are influenced from this place of needing someone’s approval of you.

– There is an element of “craving” that’s always present in your being because of the delusion that some manifestation/experience will make you feel whole permanently.

– You sense momentary peace now and then, in your being, subject to some external outcomes but this peace is soon clouded by the feeling of incompleteness

– There is a constant background of unease/frustration/irritation within you which you constantly blame the outside for

The stronger your identification with the ego… the narrower your awareness becomes, and the more incompleteness you sense within yourself. The physical realm does not have the capacity to take you to permanent wholeness because by its very design it’s a “temporary” realm and is subject to constant change, dissolution and impermanence…

Total identification with the mind’s ego structure, and its consequential negativity, created the sense of incompleteness, and a movement of “dis-identification” with the momentum of the mind takes you back to your original wholeness.

Don’t try to imagine what this place would feel like. The mind, as usual, has the tendency to associate “extra ordinary” ideas about this state of being. It may imagine that this state feels like some constant trip of exhilaration or an unending high or some blissed out state, like what you get out of a drug – but all these are “excited” states, that are temporary and fleeting, what I call surface level ripples on your being.

If you have such imaginations, you will end up running into some unending pursuit without ever resting in the ordinariness of your being. Wholeness is very ordinary, it’s very simple, and it does not come with any bursting lights and sounds, it’s the undisturbed calmness inherent to the space that you are. Take from a blog written by “Sen” http://www.calmdownmind.com/do-you-feel-whole-within-yourself/

When I can take myself “out of gear” is when truth overrules logic. I used to believe that what was true and what was logical was the same thing. No more. Now I understand that logic is only “principles of proof” while truth is fact or reality. Logic is only a construct of the mind and a companion of inner incompleteness. Truth is undeniable and where inner wholeness is rooted. I am grateful to understand the difference and know wholeness begins with acceptance of what “is”.

Become totally empty
Quiet the restlessness of the mind
Only then will you witness everything
unfolding from emptiness.
Lao Tzu

An Excellant Practice

/ James Browning

Mad Hatter_9_1I woke up not knowing who I was and where I was. For the first fifteen minutes it was a frightening experience. The mirror in the bathroom bounced back to me the image of a stranger and a face I did not recognize. I surveyed the reflection: middle-aged, thinning hair, four-day whiskers more white than dark, about twenty pounds over weight, but seemingly in good physical condition otherwise. Who the hell is that?

Feeling thirsty I went to the kitchen, but stood there not knowing what to do. What did I like? Coffee, tea, juice… I had no idea if I preferred one over the other. Cigarettes were on the table. Did I smoke? Beer was in the fridge and vodka was in the freezer. Did I like to drink? I wasn’t able or willing to make any decisions so I got a glass of water and left the room confused.

Maybe I could find out something about myself by going outside. Quickly I went to the bedroom where in an open closet shirts, shorts and pants were hung. None looked familiar and it was difficult to make a choice. So I just reached out and choose what ever my hand touched first: blue shorts and a tan t-shirt.

Walking through the front door onto the porch “where the hell am I” echoed back and forth in my head. What was before me was beautiful, but unnerving. Standing stunned looking toward the sunrise the ocean glistened and glinted with splintered reflections of light. Far left and right I could see other modest cottages like the one I woke within, but none closer than a quarter-mile.

The morning was pleasant with a cool, comfortable breeze. The back and forth of the waves coming and going created a rhythm that joined with the beauty all around to began to calm me. I didn’t know who or where I was… but I liked the spot I found myself in.

Barefooted I walked to where sea and sand met and began plodding slowly down the beach. No one was in sight.There were no other signs of life in the first twenty minutes of daylight I found myself within, unencumbered by memories of the past or thoughts of the future.

There were no worries. I had no regrets. My hopes were nonspecific and dreams were such vague notions having any at all went unnoticed. I felt love and loved, yet knew not who or by whom. I felt alone, so very alone but at ease with it. As I walked down the beach with the morning sunlight from the horizon hitting me was beginning to feel good, even natural.

I walked and walked until I could not see myself any more. Wait a minute. I am the one watching me walk and the one doing the walking? I must be going crazy or something… What’s happening? Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing here? The storm of thoughts that I had awakened with began to swirl again as I raised up in bed to find I had been dreaming.

Dreaming?!? It felt so real. After the initial fear and confusion seeing myself walk down the beach/walking down the beach was one of the most peaceful feelings I have ever had. It was in that sleepy moment the realization came strong and profound: losing myself completely can sometimes be the most freeing experience I can have. Only then can I see back, forward, down and up without my thoughts being clouded by past, present, who I am, have been and desire to be.

How light I felt: Whole. Complete. Filled with hope and wonder. Connected to all my eyes saw and to what I could sense but not see. No regrets. I was complete just as I was.

In the losing of myself, for just a little while as I moved from subconscious awareness to reality, I felt fully whole. The dream and the accompanying epiphany carved a substantial amount of consciousness upon me that I will use as a reference point in the future. I am grateful to have learned respect for feeling lost, left out and completely alone. There it is possible to come to know some of the most clear perceptions about being alive.

The Mad Hatter: Have I gone mad?
Alice Kingsley: I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.

Alice Kingsley: Sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
The Mad Hatter: That is an excellent practice.

From “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” Lewis Carroll.

Open Arms and a Grateful Soul

/ James Browning

meander_way_to_light_by_the_arkzWhere you come from is gone,
where you thought you were going to was never there,
and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.
Where is there a place for you to be? No place…
Nothing outside you can give you any place…
In yourself right now is all the place you’ve got.
Flannery O’Connor

Having been a searcher for the majority of my days, I relate strongly to O’Connor’s words. I tried various jobs, living in lots of cities, and changing partners frequently in a quest to find myself. I chased happiness while not knowing what it looked or felt like. Knowing what being happy wasn’t covered the near full extend of my knowledge. Running toward and away simultaneously kept me stuck in the same spot no matter how much who and what was around me got changed.

It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth,’ and so it goes away. Puzzling. Robert M. Pirsig

There were moments when happiness was within me and love was in my arms, but I recognized neither for such things were strangers. It was impossible to embrace what I sought when there was no tangible idea in my head of what I was seeking.

What you’re looking for is already inside you. You’ve heard this before, but the holy thing inside you really is that which causes you to seek it. You can’t buy it, lease it, rent it, date it, or apply for it. The best job in the world can’t give it to you. Neither can success, or fame, or financial security – besides which, there ain’t no such thing. Anne Lamott

Once I was able to find some stillness within to be in one place mentally and physically, my chase of happiness, contentment and love appeared to be the impossible quest it was. Such things can’t be found, located or hunted down. The way to attract them I learned was to focus inward, find peace with who and what I was and come to grips with what I truly needed. Then the good stuff I sought started to arrive.

It’s written, ‘seek and ye shall find’. But first, ‘imagine what you seek’. Otherwise, you will end up searching everything everywhere forever. Toba Beta

An unchaotic mind, body and spirit was all I ever needed to come to know that being happy came through acceptance and allowing myself to be contented with what was. Grasping and grabbing was not the correct path, but open arms and a grateful soul were.

The search for happiness
is one of the chief sources
of unhappiness.
Eric Hoffer