 How are you these days? With so much accelerated change and disruption, it can require a lot of courage to keep up, and overwhelm is often only a hair’s breadth away. It can be healthy to feel upset. It can be healthy to feel grief. Feeling difficult states does not mean there is something wrong with you. And, as I imagine we’ve all noticed, there are more and less skillful ways of being with it all. The less skillful ways tend to lead us further and further down a path of depression and despair, paralyzed by a sense of futility. The first thing I find I need to do in such times is be still and come home to myself, feeling all there is to be felt. Awareness can be like a safe harbor welcoming in all that feels unsafe, the many sensations like ships returning from the storm. When feeling unsafe, be safety. If I notice my attention caught up in distressed thinking I track that thinking back closer into the root, and bring whole being presence and acceptance to the direct experience of sensation in the body, for as long as is needed. As we learn to be the sanctuary for our own experience, we learn also how to offer that to others. In the words of a great Tibetan Buddhist Master Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: "Clarity of awareness may, in its initial stages, be unpleasant or fear-inspiring; if so, then one should open oneself completely to the pain or the fear and welcome it. In this way the barriers created by one's own habitual emotional reactions and prejudices are broken down…This produces a tremendous energy which usually is locked up in the process of mental evasion and a general running away from life experiences.” When the energy that was caught up in bracing ourselves against our experience becomes liberated, our mind returns to the natural state of curiosity and possibility. Here we can begin to see more clearly into the nature of our own creative agency, and how to bring through some goodness. Over these last weeks, I found I needed to up level my practice. Dig deeper. Be really honest about habits and limitations. Begin my days in stillness. Listen with my ear close to the ground. Create. Create. Create. I’ve been sitting with some wise words shared by my teacher Tomas a couple weeks ago: “When the going gets tough, you get what you practice…If I am stuck in feeling battered in negative reactivity and suffering when things are tough, then I need to look at my practices to see what needs to be changed, or strengthened or fine tuned, or perhaps let go of entirely and instead develop new practices that more effectively help me respond to the pressures I feel. How are your practices holding up to these challenging times? So important to be present in this day, this time, this moment. What worked yesterday might not work today, for circumstances have changed and we need to change to meet them.” This is resilience. A living practice of adaptation and response to change. A native ability to bounce back, to return to love, and to be in service to all that is worthy of our devotion and our protection. How are you keeping up with the needs of the moment?  I had a friend reach out about a journey I’m leading in a couple weeks. He’s been going through a particularly rough time in his life and felt curious about what I’m offering but unsure if he had the emotional capacity for more intensity. I get it. I’m guessing many of us can relate to feeling like it’s all too much these days. There's a lot to feel. It can seem overwhelming.
There are times when it’s really wise to recognize that we’re already flooded and we need to find a way to turn down the dial and soothe our frayed nervous system. Time to step away. Take a news fast. Rest. Wrap our blankets around ourselves. Weep. Be simple and quiet. Sometimes however, like a salmon being urged upstream past a series of waterfalls, the moment we are meeting requires us to lean in with our whole heart. The challenge is calling for more from us. It’s a deeper test of our vision and an opportunity to learn about expanded capacities of courage and perseverance. We’re enough. We have more to reach for and rise in. And in this process we discover how deep the well truly is. This is the path of initiation. We contract and may become afraid as we’re drawn through the gate, and yet the passage itself, fed by our willingness, leads to a new landscape of wholeness and trust. How to discern whether it’s time to lean back and rest or lean forward and invoke the warrior spirit? Deepen our listening. Be willing to tell ourselves the truth and have a keen eye on our own inner bs detector. Maybe it’s time to rally the warrior. Or maybe you’re just pushing yourself way too hard and you’ll make yourself sick. Maybe it’s time to pull back. Or maybe it’s just the old addiction to distraction or self-doubt rearing it’s head again.  Who are you now
When you take that final bow Give it all back to the ground Who are you now Whose face do you see When the crack it draws you in between And you remember all you've been Who could you be Anytime could be the last time We get to say goodbye What are we feeding With our precious life These are made of water Shining like a river bright One of these days they're going to pour back Into the ocean wide ~~Luke Anderson  Doubt your doubt.
Be kind to yourself, for all our sake. Doubt the evidence you use to prove that fear rules the day and all is lost. Doubt the voice that says you’ll never make it, never have, the voice that says you don’t belong, never did. Doubt the voice that says insanity has the power. These lies live on borrowed time. They need your daily consent to keep you captive. They need your invitation to occupy your mind and sight. They need your confusion to have you believe that you are weak and afraid. Wake up love! OK, so you’ve been fooled, just like the rest of us. You are also just as worthy as any of us, just as capable to serve the vast intelligence and infinite potential of creation, just as ready to discover this majesty as your true self, even as you are simultaneously humbled to the core. Every exhalation a chance to surrender and release. Every in breath an opportunity to open wider. Fear not, your roots will find their way to the native trust that fills every particle of our one, huge, quiet heart. Look out at the world from this place and then tell us what you see. ~Luke Anderson  When did the violence start
Who knows who knows But I know I’ve been a part The line between good and evil runs through every heart Recognize where harm it lies and listen for the path Steady as the mountain willing as the water forged inside the fire sing the circle open wider Ancestor’s swinging swords carved a river of wounds and all the love they ever shared lives now as me and you How many generations cut from the ground Trauma tangled tight amidst the strength and handed down So now we meet the tending of the grieving mending shrine slow ourselves and feel until what’s bloody turns to wine Digging vessels deeper til the golden thread is found weave this world a tapestry with belonging as our sound Steady as the mountain willing as the water forged inside the fire sing the circle open wider ~~Luke Anderson  Come closer in to the broken heart, it is love still. Come closer in to the burning fire, it is love still. Belonging means being right where we are as we're falling. Life lifts us up and breaks us apart, it is love still. Feel it all the way, let the moment have you. Stay with yourself don't turn away, Let the moment have you. Feel it all the way, let the moment have you. Be with yourself don't turn away, Let the moment have you. Come closer in to the broken heart, it is love still. Come closer in to the burning fire, it is love still. Belonging means being right where we are as we're falling. Life lifts us up and breaks us apart, it is love still. Drop deep darker down the well, we're not just here to fly include all the ones you shut outside the ones in denial and the ones who hide. Feel it all the way, let the moment have you. Stay with yourself don't turn away, Let the moment have you. Feel it all the way, let the moment have you. Be with yourself don't turn away, Let the moment have you. ~~Luke Anderson  If life has space for this moment,
then so do you. If life has already accepted this moment, then so have you. If life is still creating anew, responding anew, then so can you. There is no gap in truth between life’s capacity and your own, fed as we are by the umbilical cord tap root stillness heart mother of all the worlds. Everything needed to love what is in front of you, behind you, all around and inside of you, is right here, freely given, exactly as and where and how and who you are. Lean in to this life with radical trust. Your precise shape is your simple purpose here. Set your sight on the invisible tip of growth’s arrow and choose alignment with the visionary streaming, real world weaving, of the one eye intelligence, awakening. Our joy in resolve, a core surrender in freedom and discipline, every cell, every faculty, willing channels for the burgeoning momentum of benevolence in all directions. ~~Luke Anderson  The heart is not a fragile thing to hide away from this world. Such a cost in bracing ourselves against our experience, keeping our heads above the surface, wondering why the desert comes closer. Much safer to strip naked, break into a thousand pieces, and discover what it is that we are truly held by. Grieve well to end the drought. Water the fields of all our relations with these tears, soften the hardened arteries of empathic intelligence, and here where our rivers converge, remember our pain is shared. If you find yourself in grief’s grey wasteland, ignore the call to set up home amidst the bitterness and half measures, keep on moving toward the sword that would pierce your whole heart. Grief unresisted opens the chest, til there’s no holding back the treasure, the clarity born of what it is that truly matters. All the love we ever knew, shared, or even dreamed of, was never lost. It is right here now, overflowing, seeds to be planted in the dark soil at the center of our lives, made fertile by our willingness to honor all that we grieve, by never taking this moment for granted. ~~Luke Anderson  Unbuckle those knuckles
and open to the free fall. In the grip of what we think we know we miss the whole picture. Unburden us. We've attended so long to the madness, faithful servant to the map that held us tight. Always this moment time to choose again. The door is wide open, but it may not seem so, the loss of our familiar felt as robbery. It takes some native trust to wander blind into those hidden places, alone and friendless for a while. Don't hesitate to remove yourself from every equation. Me, me, me is too poor a bargain for the heirs to a transparent universe. Heart broken open everywhere. No need to look for ground. Relax into the release. ~~Luke Anderson  It's time. So long outside ourselves, beside ourselves, and now we’re returning, a rare few all at once, most of us like layers unraveling day by day, year by year. We leave the maps behind, trust the instinct of our star-filled mammal hearts to know exactly where and with whom we belong, lean into the primal clarity of yes to this, or no to that, or no need yet to know. Sensing what is true, discerning what is not, releasing the habits, patterns and choices that have kept us estranged. We see through the temptation to live in threat, cultivate disciplined relaxation amidst the storm lest strung too tight we miss the simple quiet that guides the way. We are willing to be in the dark, ready to meet the grief and shame of generations, and coming to terms with the anger and despair. Running away has run its course, a thousand lifetimes attracted to distraction, terrified of the core, distant, walled, apart. Our intimate intelligence now inspires and ignites a thawing of all that froze, a remembering of all that fragmented. We are sanctuaries, each and every one, like broad trees we are planted in the moist earth silence at the center of the wheel Here we welcome each and every traveler. Undefended again. Unafraid again. Imagining movement that rises in stillness, awakening wildness, discovering we never left, home always, our source, our task, and our final rest. ~~Luke Anderson  Less arrogance. More listening. If we examine the nature of the power we assert when we think we are right, what do we see? Is our power porous, interested in what we don’t know, our minds open and curious? Or are we rigid, fragile in our so-called certainty? Is our power married with heart, flexible, calm, kind? Or is it a tight shell of fear, reactive and feeling entitled to take or hurt, our voice shrill and forceful? What do we do with the social power we have access to because of our privilege, our race, our class, our gender, our talents, our circumstance? Do we share this power, invite in and uplift with it? Have we believed somewhere along the way that any of us can truly win while another loses? Are we humble in our power? not as some kind of special spiritual ego mask, but because we have learned that everything we think we know can dissolve in an instant? Are we aware that we are fools who have stumbled around in the dark for aeons, until fortunate enough to be graced with moments of wisdom, now growing tender buds of discernment, carried on the backs of those who walked before? Has our vision yet revealed to us the consequences of our own unconsciousness, our misunderstandings, all we once thought we knew? If so then we have been humbled in the awareness that our power gives birth to more of whatever state of consciousness is driving it. Unless we are rooted in love when we express our power then when we act we’ll likely be channeling harm, and there really is no outside in this world, it all comes home in the end. Perhaps we feel that we are now using our power for good. Maybe so. There are more than enough opportunities to stand up in solidarity with the earth, her creatures and her people. Let us always remember then that we live in a hall of mirrors, that any ignorance we can recognize in another has an existence inside each one of us that needs to be acknowledged and integrated if we are really interested in the healing of the whole. Let’s not throw our righteousness around like bullies because we haven’t yet learned how to be responsible for our own pain, and our own complicity in that which we seek to change. There is a transparent power that is shared with every being under the sun, a power not threatened by appearances, a power that animates this and every moment, steady as a mountain, quiet in its confidence, vast as space, limitless in its potential. This true power belongs to none of us and yet breathes life into us all. Sharing is its nature. It doesn't require our perfection or purity for us to learn to serve in this alchemy of awakened intelligence for us to learn to cooperate with the incoming tide of this evolutionary momentum. What is required is that we open our eyes and ears, turn for direction to the wild, clear and vital, and stay close to the sincerity of our deepest heart's yearning. Less arrogance. More listening. Less arrogance. More listening. ~~Luke Anderson  Warmed beside a hearth of radiant fire, the center of the wheel, the home we share with each creature under moon and sun, we notice those who glow with a joy not so shaken by up and down, a joy not set apart from grief, not found in must be must be happy or any other pretense at anyone’s expense. Sensed in their ears a lifetime of listening. Seen in their eyes what it takes to honor the vision. Heard in their voices a life filled with willing to be true. Felt in their touch a steady heart inspired to move. ~~Luke Anderson Gratitude for the image :Theories of Light by Jeffrey Smith  It's one thing to trust when we're flowing downstream, our hearts buoyant, choices easy, effortless cooperation in a sweet stream of synchronicity. How do we fare though when our way is steep, and we meet obstacle after obstacle, only to see the path ahead lead up a sheer mountain wall? Do we judge a path to be worthy solely when it flows with ease? How would a salmon answer that question, or a bird migrating across entire continents? There are always deeper tests of our vision, deeper tests of whatever it is we count on to guide us on our way. At times a lack of flow can indeed be an indicator to help us realize it's time to release our agenda and have the patience to allow a new pattern to unfold, a new door to open. Sometimes though, relaxing our determination and our commitment to a particular direction would amount to self-betrayal. At these times warrior lessons come thick and fast, and obstacles are not evidence of a wrong turn but an opportunity to learn about expanded capacities of courage and perseverance. If we depend on external signs of ease for guidance, at some time or another we'll end up lost, doubting ourselves when the sky grows dark and adversity comes to the fore. But all of us, every single one, are free to know what truth feels like in our bones in the silent glow of our innermost core. With this core as our rudder, we can be resolute no matter the circumstance. This is the vision, the trust in ourselves, that can lead us all the way through. This is the guide that illuminates the path worthy of our faith. ~~Luke Anderson Gratitude for the image Central Neuron by MorpheusZero  When the pressure builds
and you think you want to blame someone else, or even yourself, breathe into the burning core, your lungs willing bellows for the furnace inside. Offer into this fire all the ways you know yourself and other as victim and perpetrator, and breathe. When you open into the pure sensation, the full intensity of that which feels like it could crush you, you become space. In this honesty all stories collapse into the cauldron to feed a deeper vision. Before you have the chance to see with clarity you must first admit you have no idea what is really going on. Before you find your own innocence, you must first release your assumptions about everyone else’s guilt. So many dead bodies and tortured souls on judgement’s righteous road. What if there is no outside? How about we replace our indignant assertions with humble curiosity, claim full responsibility, each of us, for our experience, forgive the world, forgive ourselves, return to love, and then see what happens? ~~Luke Anderson 'Gratitude for the image "one with Nature' by Mukesh Singh  What do you want?
More than anything, deep in the heart of your being, what do you want? If you surveyed your time on this earth from a deathbed, what would really matter to you? What are the memories that would engender the peace of nothing essential left undone, a life well lived? Never forget what is most important to you. Allow yourself for a moment to imagine a you who has held steadfast to the clarity of your vision, who has overcome all obstacles on the path, who has vanquished all doubts, composted all darkness to feed the radiant jewel of a life giving tree, your unique offering to the world. Invoke this liberated, potent, awake version of yourself. Right here. Right now. Any time you feel the fog of fragmenting voices, the hypnotic sleep of superficial agendas, any time you lose faith in yourself and your commitment or capacity, invoke the one who has already made it through to the very end. Let your every cell resonate with the frequency of victory, and know that this is no arrogance. For if you truly listen to the deepest aspiration of your heart, then what you discover is that your core desire is a note that serves an evolving harmony. Your love seeks above all to give itself fully to the world, with nothing held back. When you recognize that you, and only you, are responsible for your choices, for mastering your experience, for the life you weave, for delivering your gift, then no-one can hinder you. We are at all times surrounded, permeated, by a great intelligence. Creation moves unstoppably toward healing, the ultimate revealing of our magnificence in the beauty way. Countless allies come to the aid of all who align themselves with this light. So offer your willingness to every step, however faltering, with all the sincerity, strength, and courage you can muster. Though you might be daunted by all that would tear you down, though your willingness might seem insufficient for the task ahead, give everything you are. Your small willingness will be met by an infinite supply, and you will rise up, and we will all rise beside you. ~~Luke Anderson  There's a time in this awakening to open the chest and step without even a hint of defense toward the dark, a time when even the slightest movement to rid or to vanquish will be the very energy used against you. There's another time, however, when you'll be called to bare your fangs and claws and wield a discerning saber with ferocity, without hesitation. Summon your dignity from the center of the earth and set loose howling spirit winds to every last corner. Clear the table. When the psychic parasites try to hang on with claims that you'll be lost without them, command them without pause to the central sun to be dissolved. Return them to essence, to be born anew in kinder form. Learn the value of guardians who protect the inner sanctum from any compromise. Stand sure at the center of your mandala. Claim your throne. Declare this sacred space for the benefit of all beings in the confidence that you are a lion, whose claws are sharpened by the clarity that only love may enter here, whose fangs are forged in the annihilating fire of infinite light. Your worthiness to liberate your body and being, your place of earth and sky, comes not from any special favor or privilege. This worth, this birthright, is given freely and without end from the deepest source to every particle of creation, and all of life celebrates with you each moment you recognize your luminous self and your truest choice to live as love. ~~Luke Anderson Gratitude for the image ‘Metamorphosis of Narcissus’ by Salvador Dali  When confidence and calm
collapse, I sit here trembling like a frightened dog, and I’m unable to soothe the ache, attached as it has become to this mirror of you outside. But even here, almost overwhelmed by the sense of being a victim and beggar for love, even here, I know I must create. So in the midst of the shame, I open to a hint of light to make space for the guidance I’m barely willing to hear: “Put down the begging bowl, cast aside the push and pull of your demand, and give your love to all the ones you believed you needed it from.” “Give love, without bargain. When you give love, you are love. Be the spring, and source, and gift.” “Lay down your fascination with neglect. Lay down your hope and despair. Release us, all your mirrors, with your generosity. There is nothing to do but love.” “With all your heart, even when it feels like the most impoverished heart that ever there was, even when it feels like you need another’s love like parched earth needs rain, love. Just love.” ~~Luke Anderson Gratitude for the image Sundrenched moss-covered roots by Jeffrey Friedl  Rain falls,
and we learn to listen as the ground draws us in to moistened roots. When there are no words, no answers to all the questions, savor the quiet and rest as the empty space. Allow the out breath to have its time. Be still. Trust. New life arrives by itself. ~~Luke Anderson  Have you noticed life is making love with you? Are you now penetrated, to the very deepest reach of your being, by her breath? Are you discovering that so-called ordinary pleasures, a taste, a view, the contact as you lean your head against a wall, that all of these can be ecstasy beyond compare? Tire soon, beloved, of the endlessly disappointing story in which you wait for a special someone to free you from the imagined separation between yourself and the all. You may indeed experience a temporary release from isolation if and when you encounter another who also seeks the same, but as long as you both believe yourselves incomplete without the other, you will lose again the sacred garden before long. The hole inside that you have been so afraid of, dearest one, and taken as evidence that you need to be rescued by another, this emptiness isn’t in fact something to fill, but rather an open doorway to intimacy with the whole universe. When you find out for yourself what is at the heart of your loneliness, rather than trying to seduce another to fill it with the fantasy of a perfect embrace, you’ll discover we’ve been in union with the master lover all along. ~~Luke Anderson Passage out of the initiation chamber at Newgrange, Bru Na Boinne, Ireland  Utterly lost, we knew for sure we needed to find our way. Unable to hide from total failure, we were humble enough to receive. Allowing ourselves to be broken, we discovered the whole. Drink deep of the medicine in our darkness. Better to be unravelled by grief than holding back the tears. Better falling to your knees and clawing at the earth than cold with tight lips and sarcastic commentary. Be unafraid of the full breadth of your experience. Travel to the very end, beyond notions of what you can tolerate. Whatever you do, don’t stop halfway through the passage. Don’t settle for the minor improvements, the better shade of grey. Keep on heading toward that which fills your body with trust. Every cell in you will sing as you get closer. Your eyes clear, your heart wide, and you, free, a blazing sun, filled with the joy that comes when you find what you are here to give. ~~Luke Anderson gratitude for the image by Maria Rikteryte  I bow to the dark womb
where all grow, from which all receive their nourishment, and to which all return. As long as we keep chasing light out there, afraid of the dark within, we'll remain in exile, bound by myriad confusions. There is a question with the power to liberate, a question which if followed all the way through, with devotion and courage, carves a pathway home. “Who am I? To whom, or to what, is this experience occurring?” Here we find that every idea of self is an object of awareness. Discover the subject. To do so, we have to be willing to admit the entirety of our ignorance, to become intimate with all that we fear, to forgive ourselves the suffering caused by misidentification, and dissolve entirely into the void. When we realize ourselves as no-thing we meet the greatest relief. And when, as that no-thing, we look out at the world, we see ourselves everywhere, all being one at last. In this love we know that light is born in the dark, movement in the unmoving, sound in silence. Here we are free to give and include all that we are. ~~Luke Anderson prayer offering on the Ganges river  The wind and branches whisper
of a grand conspiracy: everything and everyone secretly aware of the plan to wake you up, to reshape your misery in the form of endless gratitude. Be glad that you suffer when you veer off course, it’s a true kindness that helps us remember. You’ll recognize the way when you can be thankful for the pain that opens your heart, thankful for your birth and each breath that gives you this moment to love, thankful for death that reminds you to take nothing for granted, thankful for darkness that reminds you through contrast what you really want to choose, and thankful that no matter what we do or have done to us whatever lives is still made of light. ~~Luke Anderson  Who were you before your parents were born? Who are you now before you believe that thought? There is an imposter in the house. He terrified your ancestors too. With many names he feeds on your fear, is nourished by your sorry stories of better or worse, of me against you. There is a short cut, a way through this ancient suffering. Short, because there's no distance between the beginning, middle and end of this passage and who you already are. But it's a deep cut, a flaming sword that will take your head and feed it to the lions, releasing your heart to sprout new eyes that can see and ears that can hear. Die before you die. This is the miracle of life. Die before you die. This very moment, every moment, give up your fight against mortality. With every ounce of your being bring yourself completely here. Abandon your distaste of this earth and the guaranteed end of your body. You come from the stars, but every world is a true home. It is only when you meet death exactly as it is that you will know the difference between the vampire that sucks you dry, and the eternal light of the present. ~~Luke Anderson  There is a song that sings to me with nectar of sweet beginnings. It honors all with ears to hear by bowing to the end of fear. I love you with an endless stream of hummingbirds with velvet wings. The stars pour down their simple grace. The moon reminds us with her face. There’s death for joy to heal our life. There's light enough for us this night. The one who weaves this dance is true, this vision offered now to you. I love you with an endless stream of hummingbirds with velvet wings. The stars pour down their simple grace. The moon reminds us with her face. ~~Luke Anderson  In an instant, our stories collapse into a field of infinite possibility, and all is still. We land at last in our own skin and there is nothing wrong with these tender, porous, earthy creatures. Stunned by the immensity of lifelong misperception, we are finally relieved of all that kept us apart. Here we find what it means to be truly in awe, fully alive in the heart of an open moment. We see each other as if for the first time, no gap between us, no thought believed. Remind me, brothers and sisters, when I fall asleep again, imagining I know who you are, or what is possible for us. Remind me to throw away every one of those tired filters and step across the bridge again. ~~Luke Anderson |