Do What You Love! If not for you, do it for me.

This weekend I was the recipient of beautiful gifts from some unbelievable friends. This weekend I gave myself some very helpful insights into my Self, my process and what it means to be of service in this world. We are, for better or worse, in it together, this magical murky yet very tasty soup called life. My life became a little richer, a little creamier, this weekend thanks to friends sharing their hearts, sharing what they love to do, with the world, and more importantly, with me. This my friends is what I believe is vital that we all do, in sharing our hearts fully, we are not only honoring ourself, we are giving those around us permission to do the same, permission to live a life filled with love, filled with joy, filled with Spirit. And it can fucking rock your world.

Wizard School has given me many amazing presents, one of the biggest is my project team, Team Bad Ass. My TBA teammates share with me all the time, in meetings, phone calls and in beautiful notes of support. We are together to assist one another in being successful with our Wizard School Year Two Project, a project of manifesting a heartfelt dream into reality. All three of them brought pieces of their heartfelt projects out of the test kitchen and into action, and I was blessed to witness all three of them shine so brightly. And that made my heart soar. That I believe is why it is so important that we all follow our hearts, our crazy beautiful seemingly nonsensical hearts. For if you are true to your heart, you give others directions to their own hearts. I for one tried valiantly to cover mine up at points this weekend, but I sit here now, the rain just starting to play her song outside my window and do what my heart loves to do. Thank you TBA!

My weekend of heart filled fun started on a very tasty note. Friday night brought me to TBA member The Optimists' home for a dinner party. She's worn many hats over the past year that I've got to know her - a super mom, a brilliant woman, funny, successful, a talented writer, a generous and loving ear, all of these things I am feel blessed to have in my life, but her light shined this weekend in the kitchen. Sure there are many facets to her I could write of, but this weekend, as I've experienced in the past, her light shined to mega-wattage sharing her culinary gifts with me and some friends. To be fed like a king, surrounded by magical classmates, I felt so loved, so nurtured. Are there two better gifts someone can give, Love and Nurturing? I think not. You can see that love of cooking as she glides through her kitchen, the praise she received from all the guests the simple manifestation of her joyfully sharing from the hearth (hey an oven joke!).

Sunday morning I found myself behind the wheel driving out to the desert, such a peaceful ride, gratitude cleared my path, making the trip a meditation on my amazing life. I was driving to see two TBA mates shine their lights doing what they love to do. First off was The Bedazzler, a singer, who's voice I've only known as a gentle guide in our team meetings and a force in our class room, sharing of herself with us freely and openly, I'd never heard her sing. Today I was blown away as she sung The National Anthem. She was so dope, I mean rad, both terms I've learned from her, both very positive. I can't wait to hear her sing some good songs. Hey I love this country, but I can think of half a dozen songs I'd chose before that one. But she knocked it out of the park, singing in a shack, on a wind swept hillside at the start of race day. Because Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!, is race day. And The Bedazzler started the day with her angelic voice and her inspirational heart, the crowd may not have been able to put their finger on it, but I saw it and heard it. She shared her gifts, she shared her heart, and they were touched, they were ready to race. They were also ready to have her back every month to share and sing, she is the new track songstress.

A race Crazy Hair, the final TBA member, does really well. In full disclosure, the track announcer gave me his nickname, and it is a positive projection as I sit here typing with a six inch afro. Crazy Hair races motorcycles and watching him slip down the straight away at 115 miles an hour, kicking his knee out and leaning the bike onto it's side to turn, you know he is connected to Spirit. Or he's a lunatic, and knowing him, his generous powerful heart, I know he's not crazy, well not suicidal crazy anyway. He seems to become one with the bike and the track. I knew he was gifted, but I had no idea how fluid, how, dare I write, beautiful it was to watch him shine. He's good. I know nothing of racing, but I do know finishing three hundred yards in front of the next guy is good. I asked someone at the track is Crazy Hair really as good as he seems to be. His simple reply "Yes" said it all. Later as we walked through the pits I noticed I was in the presence of a heart centered racing rock star, his heart wide open, people gravitated toward him for a word or two, all left with a smile and a wee skip in their step. It almost, almost, made me cool by proxy.

I love my team. I can't believe how lucky I am to get to spend time with these three amazing beacons of light. We are so similar and so very different. We are all in each others lives for brilliant reasons, some clear, some will reveal themselves as time goes on. I love them dearly, and I was so honored to be invited in to their worlds this weekend and watch them shine.

Saturday night I experienced something truly profound, I went to a Kirtan lead by a Wizard School classmate, The Yuppie Yogi. He's not a TBA member, but I won't hold that against them. We all can't be members of Team Bad Ass, it would be a logistical nightmare.

For those of you not living in the fantasy world I call Santa Monica, you may be asking - What the fuck is Kirtan? I've asked myself that question a few times, and I'd been to one years ago. It'd been calling my name for a long time. I resisted for various reasons, reasons I won't go into, but will chalk up to ego. Kirtan simply put is chanting. To paraphrase Yuppie Yogi's answer, kirtan is a practice that gets you out of your head and into your heart, chants of devotion, celebrating and honoring God. Well God in her many funny sounding Indian incarnations - Shiva, Ghovinda, Hare, Krishna, Jai Ma - Nope not a Jesus anywhere. I could do some research on it, I may, but as you know, lack of knowledge has never stopped me from writing about something. It's Indian chanting, accompanied by music. And what musicians they were. I was so affected by their melodies, the planets seemed to come into alignment, I came into alignment. I had a blast, part mediation, part yoga, all God. Led by the Yuppie Yogi, who's voice and musical talents swept me away, brought me into my heart and out of my head. I took a two hour journey, going places magical and unexpected. I was hooked.

So do what you love to do. Do what makes your heart sing. Do it for yourself most importantly. But do it for those around you. Be brave, take the risk and be an inspiration. This weekend taught me that the greatest gift anyone can give to another is be true to your heart. This weekend I got to see God in action. Truly that is the clearest way I can describe watching people do what they love to do. Being around people as they let their light shine brightly, not to get the ego stroked, not to be the best or the worst. Doing what they love for that very reason, because they love it.

I struggle with this notion myself, I am getting better at it, but it's still a work in progress. So this afternoon as I post this story, I am honoring my heart. Words make my heart sing. My hope is that maybe this story will inspire another to listen and trust their heart, share it, but I've no attachment to it. In simply following my own advice, in following my heart, I feel lighter, I feel a bit more whole. Wow - I feel happy. So before I fuck this feeling up by second guessing, by some old pattern, I am going to hit publish and move on to some more writing.

I'll be back again this week for sure!

Love, Light and Laughs
BS

Acceptance Through Rejection - A Story of Love and Courage - Now With Less Victim! (But still heaps of nauseating self importance)

Greetings from the Asylum -

Life is funny. God is funnier. They both can be annoying, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Today I write this story for (hopefully!?) the last time so I can move on to new stories. I've been stuck and this post, originally penned in September, has been wanting it's moment in the sun. It's been rewritten, like myself, since then, but the story remains the same, a story of my heart, a story of love. Six months after the original draft it's a great barometer about how far I've traveled and how much my heart remains the same.

It's a story about a girl. About a boy loving a girl. About a boy loving a girl who's really not that into him. About a boy trusting his heart and trusting the beauty and the magic of life. It's a story of Acceptance Through Rejection. (And people wonder why I am Bitter?) I will tell this story as best I can through a Wizard School handout on Acceptance so that I can use this experience as an opportunity to anchor in the learning, share and celebrate.

This handout details the stages of Acceptance of an event.

Step One in Acceptance is the what, the thing that happened, the story - that's the boy loving a girl bit. Wednesday night I found myself in the lobby of Wizard School for a night of magic and wonder, otherwise known as a Wizard School sales pitch showcase. In the exact same place she stood last September, was the woman I love, the woman who in August I'd asked to marry me (her answer is clear I believe). The original drafts of this story went on about how special this love is, about the magic we share. I've edited those out, not because they aren't true, but six months of clarity inducing wizarding has given me a greater bullshit (ego) detector.

My September spotting was a trigger, I shut off, my heart sank, tears welled, I began to judge. I'm happy to report Wednesdays spotting was with an open heart and the cracks of a smile on my face. We embraced, said our hellos, we moved on (her as always seemingly easier than I, ahhh the ego). This is the point in September where I find out the guy she's schtooping is one of the graduate success story speakers (Great! Thanks God, you fucker.), February brought me none of those fantastic tidbits of information. She sat beside me (well the shut off angry version of me) in September, she sat in front of me on Wednesday.

Which brings us to Stage Two of Acceptance, Neutral Observation. I am happy to report that this came so easy to me the other night, I never had to get there, for I was residing there, curious as to why God had brought this event back around for another gander. In September it was through blood, sweat, tears and clearly an intervention from God that neutrality, the ability to observe and not wallow, came to me. Back then I felt awful, retreating inward, shutting myself down to keep myself small, wrong, unworthy...you get the idea. Wednesday night I felt connected to Spirit and dare I write happy, happy with me and happy to see her.

Both evenings, this Observation was a reminder to me of what my heart wants. Of why I love this woman. The connection was there for me, a beautiful light of connectivity, of true magic. My perfect mirror, both of us basking in the Light, as we simultaneously pulled out our notebooks (she now writing in my brand I and my ego observed, earlier it was some frilly chick notebook), jotting down thoughts and ideas. Happened both nights. September I observed her private smiles and girlish I'm boning that guy giggles to the man she was dating (they date no longer); Wednesday I observed her rubbing her two friends, doing a little energy work on them both. One of them (the one I don't know) giving a little energy work back in the form of the thigh rub/pinch move time and again, not that I, the enlightened egoless being, would notice such things. For that would make me human. And truth be told, it doesn't really matter, but it is funny.

Very easily I moved into Stage Three of Acceptance, responding from my Authentic Self, from my truth, from my heart. I Accepted that I Love this woman. That she is the one I want to share my life with, the person I want to kiss in the morning, share my day with and hear about her day, the person I want to create with, and her warm breath the last thing I feel before I fall asleep. Waves of compassion and peace flowed over me. It was beautiful, waves of Love, waves of knowing, waves of, yes, Acceptance flowed through me. She gently rested her head on my shoulder in September, February it was her reaching out to hold hands, that spark that I know to be true, flowed through me.

In September my Acceptance stopped there, I wasn't ready to move on. The whole post was another tap dance for her to see me, now I realize it was me not seeing me, I do now. I Accept more and more of me. This week brings a new level of acceptance, acceptance that takes much more courage. Accepting that she and I together may not be part of God's beautiful dance. I've said it, written it and wished it, but now I accept it. Sure it hurts. Part of me doesn't even believe it to be true, but I accept that. I am accepting me and this situation, just as it is, not as I want it to be. Accepting and Loving me.

Which leads to the final stage, Stage Four for those of you keeping track at home, of Acceptance. Actions and Choices. I am clear that I will not settle for anything but what my heart really wants. I am so clear on that, in all of life’s uncertainties, it’s nice to be clear on that. So I will walk away from her, let her live and Love, and I will do the same. No restrictions, no judgments, simply choices. And I will continue to Love her and use that Love to take more actions, make more choices. Self honoring, self loving choices for me and me alone. Knowing that these choices are choices to Accept myself more fully, Accept and Love who I am. Clearly God thinks I can not do it with her by my side.

After my September experience, I wrote this story, but found I couldn't post it and found myself going back to her, using her even when she wasn't physically there. I would set some weak boundary, and it soon would be broken. I would re-accept her Facebook friend request (Gasp!) and start another of our beautiful conversations. I'd start right back in, believing that if only I did this I could change her heart. I was living a fantasy. It was heart aching, it was sad, it was a wee pathetic. It aches my heart, but not as much as not being true to my heart. I don't want to be her buddy, and that's what it seems she wants. Since my brilliant August proposal the one where she said thanks but no thanks, I've attempted to gain clarity on what she wants out of us, but realize it's not really about what she wants, it's about what I want. And what she was willing to give was not what I want. Maybe someday I will be ready to be pals who check in from time to time. Maybe someday she will be ready to commit to she and I being an Us. Now with my new level of Acceptance, with a new level of courage, I can and will move on.

And that is what courage means, being true to your heart. It came to me in a meditation of sorts immediately prior to seeing her this week. Then a not so subtle reminder was hammered home in a video taped message from an author as part of the presentation. That video helped me two years ago decide to go to Wizard School. Last class weekend the woman from the video came up to me to sing my praise and offer me a wee bit of authorly advice. I couldn't believe she was there in class, couldn't believe she singled me out and couldn't believe she was speaking to me again, via video tape, this week. She was talking of courage and at it's root it means from the heart (from the French word for heart, Coeur). I told you God is funny.

This courage may not be the stuff of action movies, but it is a big step for me. Sharing my heart on a deeper level with myself and with you. Realizing that courage is not hiding my heart, not being "tough", but rather being sweet (see Bitter to Sweet) and open and loving. Sure my ego did resist that, just ask the two college kids who cut me off in the Ralphs parking lot that I threatened to slap, after I walked away from my new definition of courage to get some Ben & Jerry's - Hey it's better thank a cigarette and some dope!

The courage to say I do have an ego. The courage to trust my heart. The courage to say if you don't like it, I hear you. Hello or Goodbye. And that's what I've done. Said goodbye. I wrote this love letter before and didn't have the courage to post it. Now I do, the courage to say hello to my heart, the courage to say goodbye to my love, the courage to accept the beauty and the sorrow of life. And Love them both.

So I love a woman. Big deal, lots of people have loved and lost. I know this, I accept this. In that meditation, the one about courage, what I had discovered was a fear of being seen as a coward. A misunderstanding I created that to know and show my heart was weak. A base fear, a fear that I believed on some level to be true, that I was weak and that I was a coward. Not easy things to look at, not easy things to share. So I am treating this post as an example that I am not a coward. A sucker in love maybe, but not a coward. It that gives me more strength to dig deeper, to reveal and heal. That however sappy I can be, I am brave. Brilliantly deranged, but brave.

I do want to thank my friends, you know who you are. The one's I bitched to in my victim state about how wronged I was. It wasn't true, it was perfect. How much I love a girl who just wasn't that in to me. It was exactly what I needed. She loved me, she loves me, it wasn't meant to be, there's no need to judge or resent, not to protect me anyway. I am moving on, done playing the victim poor me role, moving on with a song in my heart. You were good sports, great friends, and for that I am filled with gratitude. You may never have understood my love, you may have even tried to call me crazy, but I know you always loved me. That is something I cherish, something I hold sacred.

And I will take a moment to thank her (funny the whole post and no nickname) in the silence (and apparently on the internet). She got me to Wizard School, and now God has pushed me from the nest so I may fly. I Love her today more than ever, and I accept that, and move forward. Knowing. I don't fully understand why I love her so, I don't fully understand why she has always resisted my love, but I am done trying to understand, I am accepting and moving on. I am surrendering to my life and my beautiful process, and diving deeper into the river's current, seeing where it takes me next. So to you, Lady, I write the five words that sum it all up - Thank You. I Love You.

My love letters continue, now they are to God and to you lucky pricks. I release this story so I may reconnect to The Great Story In The Sky. Thank you for reading. Thank you for Loving.


Love, Light and Laughs
BS

PS: Next post I will write about the mediation technique that helped me get this story posted. I call is Write and Burn. It's got tears and fire, perfect for boys and girls!