Lynx

He was a loveable little kitten with a grey/brown tiger-striped fur. He’d been at the animal shelter for 3 months in the same cage with his brother and sister. They’d all managed to escape the usual fate of upper respiratory disease that takes many cats in the shelter. He was strong from the get-go. We named him Lynx because he had little tufts of fur sticking out from the tops of his ears. We took him home with us to be a brother to the other kitten, Leo, we had just rescued from there a month earlier. They were best friends right away. When we got home we let him out of the cage and Leo ran to him immediately. They sniffed each other and, after mutual approval, started to play. It was meant to be. They grew together, both very loving and affectionate cats. It was the perfect situation I’ve always wanted as a cat owner; two cats who loved each other, played together, cleaned each other’s ears and took care of one another, and kept each other company when their people were away. Lynx loved to go outside! We would let him out for a few hours a day, except during winter when we’d open the door, he’d sniff the air and realize that it was way too cold to have fun and would turn around and trot back into the house away from the frozen tundra. He showed us his hopefulness and optimism when he would ask to go out 5 minutes later thinking that the weather would be completely different than the time before. But the rest of the year, he would enjoy the outdoors. He enjoyed life on earth for 3 turns of the seasons. During spring, summer and fall, he would spend as much time as he was allowed outdoors, making sure to come in well before nightfall. He enjoyed all the things cats do; chasing birds and mice, gentle breezes blowing across his fur, sitting contentedly on the porch, basking in the sun or hiding under his favorite pine tree across the street for shade when it got to be too warm. How could I have kept this sense of freedom from him when he loved it so? If he would have stayed indoors all the time, he wouldn’t have been as happy, but may have lived longer. Is it better to have lived a short happy and free life than to exist in monotonous mediocrity for longer? Would it have been selfish of me to keep him in just because I wanted him around forever? Would he have left us anyway because it was just his time to go? We will never know. But I do know this. Quality of life is so much more important than quantity.

He was one of the most loving and affectionate cats I’ve ever encountered in the world! And he was a very good listener. He would actually stop what he was doing when told “no”. I’ve never known a cat to do that (besides his brother Leo). He was a survivor; from the early months in the pound to getting bailed out from 2 “arrests” by animal control, to being shot with a bee bee gun... (obviously there was a neighbor that wasn’t quite as appreciative of him ;-( He definitely used up all of his nine-lives. But he was happy. Today, he was hit by a car and reached his inevitable expiration. He has transcended to the next level of existence. Heaven sure is lucky.

Goodbye my little Lynx. Mom, your brother Leo and I will carry on without you. You will be terribly, terribly missed…but always, always loved.

Beep...beep...beep!

Listen, we’re friends right? So I feel it’s my duty to tell you that you’re not exactly all that you think you are…you’re so much more. Oh, so much more. You are everything. You are an infinite being. All universal possibilities are contained within you. When you don’t claim your Divine Right, you do the whole universe an injustice. Just thought you’d like to know. Consider this your spiritual alarm clock…WAKE UP!

From Asus to Zune

A couple weeks ago, I took a vacation to California. I made a packing list of all that I would need for the trip. The list included all the standards of course as well as some modern technologies; everything from my Asus laptop computer to my Zune MP3 player. As I made the list, I contemplated whether or not I really needed to bring a laptop and an MP3 player on vacation with me. Do I really need to be so entertained? I started to wonder, is all this technology distracting me from the joy of the vacation or enhancing it? Do I really need to be so in-touch and communicative with everyone in my virtual world? Or worse yet, do I really need to do work on my vacation?

Because I always try to find a spiritual meaning in everything, I started to wonder what our “packing list” would look like when we enter a life here on earth. Judging from what I’ve experienced so far, I imagined the dialogue in my head to go something like this - “Let’s see, Inferiority complex, check; a little unworthiness, check; a hint of every day drama, check. Oh yeah, and don’t forget a wee bit of control issues, check; and the unlucky-at-love card, double check.” Is this what we do? Is this necessary in order to have an entertaining life? What is the purpose? I started to imagine what life would be like if we didn’t have all the drama to distract us? What if we all were living our divine truth and acting in accordance with divine purpose? What if… would the world be too boring?

Imagine if you will a day where you would wake up to the sound of birds chirping which fills your heart with love and your ears with a beautiful song. After rolling out of bed, you slowly get ready for the day at your own pace. You read the paper and it’s nothing but good news; beautiful pictures, good deeds, babies being born, people helping people. The rest of the day you do the thing that makes you happiest in the world and it sustains you. In the evening you sit peacefully with the one you love, a soft, warm breeze blowing through your hair sipping on a glass of red wine. Doesn’t sound boring to me. In fact, it sounds like heaven. Heaven on earth.

As for the “packing list”, all of my life experiences so far and my practice of daily meditation have helped me to slowly transmute the patterns of separation into divine love. And for the record, I did use the laptop to goof around quite a bit on vacation, mostly on Facebook (connecting) and even did a little work (productivity). But, when the undeniable voice of vacation came calling, I put it away and went with the flow. Even though it rained 80% of the time, I made the most of it.

It’s funny how the everyday dramas can be very distracting from divine truth, but it is also when we usually learn the most (productivity). And when we go through dramas with each other, we grow and learn from them together (connecting). So, until I am fully living in wholeness in alignment with my divine purpose, a balance of the two is important; Work and play; Action and meditation; Growth through patterns of separation and moments of living in wholeness; Balance…