Friday, April 10, 2009. Happy Good Friday. And happy birthday to me. I love it when my birthday falls at Easter. I could never figure in advance when Easter would be until I started following the moon phases. Then I realized it’s always celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the Vernal equinox. I love the whole idea of resurrection, rebirth, Spring renewal. I also like that my birthday falls on the 100th day of the year, except on leap years. It’s not just that I like seeing zeroes at the end of a number, either. I just like the number. To me it means whole and complete, 100%, something I strive to be. 100% conscious, that is, 100% of the time. Ok, all my buddies are laughing themselves silly right now. I didn’t say I was 100% conscious 100% of the time, but at this stage of the game, I can recognize pretty quickly when I start to drift. I can usually know as soon as I’ve made an unconscious remark, and keep myself from making the next one. But it wasn’t always that easy. That’s for sure.
It used to take someone bringing to my attention some lame something I said or did, before I reflected on it. Then I got to where I could realize it by the end of the day, as I did my nightly review at meditation time. Now it’s often just before I say it, or shortly thereafter. That’s a total blessing. That cuts down on the karmic backlash, for sure. It was not until I began spending some serious alone time that I started waking up and wising up to who I really was and what I was really doing.
For my birthday today, I have something exquisite planned. I’m going to get up early and meditate and do some yoga as the dawn breaks. I’m going to do a prayer session at the healing bench and have my morning tea outside and listen to the neighborhood wake up. I’m going to come into the office and answer some emails and do some work and go get the mail. I’m going to make a favorite soup or salad for lunch and take a walk around the yard and maybe do some gardening and watering. Then I’ll probably end up back at the office again until the wee hours, when I’ll crash out in my chair after having a totally blissful day.
Oh? You ask, how is that different from any other day? Why would I want to do that for my birthday?
That’s another thing I learned as I plod the Path: to treat every day as a holiday. To celebrate every day as if it’s my birthday. I’ve learned it’s not all that hard to focus on what makes my heart sing and let Spirit guide me how to turn that into supply. I’ve learned it’s not about what I do, it’s how I feel about what I do.
Sometimes it barely matters what this body is doing, when my mind is so engaged elsewhere. Now I know how some people who have had serious injuries and disabilities can bear it. Their attitude places them outside the body, and the body is the only thing restricting them. Other than that, they know the sky is the limit. I remember years ago being in the hospital for the third time with pancreatitis (my past life – I’m all better now) and recall being in the emergency room waiting for the pain shot. I knew that they had to process me and get the IV in before I could get the shot, and I was unable to control my body that kept contorting and moaning. It had a life of its own!
I remember alternating my thoughts between recalling the feeling of the pain shot the last time I got it (a year before), and recalling how it felt as the pain slipped away (because I wanted to vibe there and make it happen quicker). That thought alternated with the thought that I was sorry my friend Suzie (who took me to the ER), had to see and hear it all. I knew for myself it would pass quickly enough, and except for physical distress, I felt fine. I mean, I wasn’t afraid or anxious. But I couldn’t stop the writhing and moaning and felt sorry that she had to watch it.
It makes me think of when the cheetah catches the gazelle. In the documentaries, you see the gazelle yelp and flail, but I know that the consciousness of that gazelle, before it feels more than it can bear, will leave that body behind to writhe and yelp on its own. That’s just the nervous system winding down at that point, although it looks horrible to watch if you don’t realize that. My dad was in a coma for the last week of his life and I’d sit on one side of him, and his wife on the other, holding his hand. Periodically he’d squeeze a hand and once even kind of sat up a little. But I knew those were automatic body responses. I knew he was no longer in there. I think at that point he was already blissed out and totally happy for the first time in many years, his mind far, far away, having – as they say – slipped the surly bonds of Earth and touched the face of God.
I believe I touch God with every move I make and every breathe I take. The more conscious I am of that, the more blissful my life is and the more magical, wonderful things happen in and around me.
I couldn’t ask for anything more.