The Healing Curiosity of the Here and Now

Is Life a Train Track or a Living Spiral of Experience?

Sometimes I wonder:

What if this seemingly finite lifespan was the only eternity we have?

What if every moment was preserved and available to live again and again?

If we had the chance to relive our lives, would we focus on the outer circumstance or more and more on the inner experience of our perceptions and choices? 

If I lived my life over would I become more self-responsible for my experience? Would I become more skilled at transmuting my inner pain into something evolutionary or even something wonderful?  What about you, dear reader? Perhaps the questions can only be addressed with a Curiosity about what is really happening here and now?

What if This was it? 

What if we were each solely responsible for our own feelings and experience?

If this moment was forever, if I was owning and living my truth, I would shed my idea of being a victim. I'd be able to release the pain of someones verbal attack or forgetful nature. I'd be able to release the angst of regarding the consequences of seemingly fearsome and heavy circumstances. Maybe I'd even be more accepting of what appears to be real with my friends, family and society, without selling out as either a raging victim or a passive dreamer. Maybe I could transform my incredulous stare into a more loving and fruitful attention.

I might know that what I see in others is not so much the truth, but only my perception of truth.

I want to grow and become resilient and become my happiest self in loving prosperity. What about you? Isn't this a time to be curious about how to get what we really, really want beneath the drives, resentments and lusts of a reactive mind? Life can be hard and soft, bright and dreary, dreadful and dreamy only as much as we add particular labels to experience.

Rumi said something akin to "I'll meet you in a field beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing." What kind of field do we want to meet each other in? Is it a loving place? Or is it a reactive, sad, scared, mean place?

In the midst of these seemingly lonely and dangerous times where is your refuge?

If there were one action at this moment that could shift you into a state of safety and purpose, what would that be?

I come full circle with a sharing an outline of my experience right here as an example to learn from.

My Outer experience: 

Financial, health, family, vocational and security vexations all at once. And now writing to you.

Inner Experience:

Before Writing: Grasping for reasons and ways to fix my predicament.
After Writing (A daily practice): Curiosity, Compassion and even Connection with You.

What is your experience now?

What practice or distinct act could shift your inner gaze right now?

Is everything seemingly out there in the world reflecting your inner world or creating it?

If you are not going to change your experience then who?

Love,
Rick


(c) Copyright, Words and Image, Richard Sievers, January of 2017. All Rights Reserved.

What Difference?

Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.
                                                                        Luke 22:42

It is Easter weekend, a time celebrating rebirth that sprung from the roots of suffering and death. I’m reminded that even Jesus experienced the suffering of a fate that was seemingly beyond endurance. Then he experienced death. Like all of us. Now the story about his resurrection is fantastic, but what I have been interested in is the life lived Before the inevitable demise.

I woke up this morning thinking on the meaning of this weekend. Then I fell into a half dream/half wake state. I dreamed that I died in agony and my last words were:

Oh God, I didn’t want to die this way…
Imagine those as your final sentence. One Hundred and Fifty Thousand people will die in our world on this very day. Accident, violence, debilitation, slow decimation… these are all possible for anyone’s death. What would we be like on the other side of that fateful sentence, of that life lost? What would a “good” death look like and what difference would it make? What about a decent, happy life? What difference? All could just end in annihilation. What if the person you called “yourself” continued on the other side of death in some form? Then, how would you live or die?

Two questions rise up over and over:

1. If there is only nothingness in store for me after death how would I live now?
2. If I continue in some form after death how would I live now?

Does the answer vary from either question?
I reply to this query: “NO, the answer is the same to either question.”
This is my vision statement for living at this moment, no matter the outcome after death:

• Live lovingly, creatively and aware.
• Treat others as you want to be treated.
• Swim in curiosity. 
• Be grateful in wonder.
• Cling to what and who is sacred.

The vision statement is the same reply to either question, because the consequences of choosing other ways seems to be sad and uselessly defeating. There is no doubt, this is a miracle of a planet. And whether annihilation or immortality (other something else unimaginable) this life, This moment is undeniably a wonder.

It appears that not many beings are bestowed with consciousness and choice of behavior like us. Whatever the end, I want to remember that simple truth for me: I’ll choose Loving kindness, replete with all the consequences that come with being sensitive and open in this hard world of humanity. And when I fail to reach the ideals of my vision statement I will turn towards hope rather than nihilism, cynicism, and craving. When life gets to be difficult and unfair I will pursue peace rather than railing against the unknown. What other real choices are there?

Perhaps the question is not how one would want to leave this world. 
Perhaps the question is how would one long to Live fully in this world, no matter the reality or absence of after-life?  
What is a vision statement for living that you could believe in? 
And what part of life’s difficulties could change into simple peace for being alive if you chose gratitude rather than despair?

Love,
Rick


© Copyright Words and Image, Richard Sievers, April 2015

Mixed Metaphors

Returning after an estate sale at my parent's house this week:

When I think of all the stuff I saw disappear. Sold. Poof....years of collecting, thrown out into the world. All the beautiful things were like cotton on the dandelion, yet not so fertile. The things were inert, like dust. The memories and hopes still hovered around them though. It was like their life was a blast of material fun.

This world, being an entertainment of the senses. Then the movie ends. The parents edge toward the paths of the other world. And I imagine my last days too. Can it be that those will really come for me? For you? What will the end be like? And how am I present now?

This life appears as so many metaphors all mixed together: Seed, dust, vision, path.
How poignant and fleeting, how seemingly pointless and truly fantastic this experience is.
Is there an answer to all the question the things ask as the once upon a time treasures fly out the door under the arm of a new customer?

At this stage of my life I'm not so ashamed of sounding trite or corny. So I repeat the only answer I hear rising out of my parent's empty house. Things disintegrate into loss. Yet there is nothing to lose with the one thing that is not a thing at all: LOVE.

Love is the answer to all the pondering. Not the metaphor of love, but the ordinary, nitty-gritty, terrorizing, infusing wonder that is love. Love of life. Love of the people. Love of the Earth. Love of the dust and the seed. Love of the vision of what is. Love for the path that disappears into a field of stars.


Love,
Rick

(c) Copyright Image and Words, Richard Sievers,  July 2014, All Rights Reserved

Who I Am Now

Our reality has lost the presence of some fine people recently. 

To the friends and family, to the Ancestors who have passed:

Who I am Now

 Cloud strewn body of memory.

Sun filled space of heart.

Song of eternity’s spirit.

Flesh of Earth.

Mind of God.

Till we meet again..........

Love,

Rick

(c) Rick Sievers, March 2014, All Rights Reserved.