direct motion. not retro.

this chart is good chart, the learned brahmin examines my stars and planets, but...i knew there's a 'but' coming...but one thing is that many times negative thoughts come in your mind, and that's why restlessness. his heavy indian accent - d and t are pounding drum beats - hits the message home hard. since then i've been pondering my life thus far like super duper fast forwarding a movie. i have had one opportunity after another. fantastic opportunity. i have had the great good fortune of meeting phenomenal people in both work and personal arenas. beautiful people. off the charts talented people. fun people. they embrace me, take me under their wings with generosity and kindness beyond measure. what do i do? i watch pangs of pain as i type this. i push them away. again and again. all because of what? negative thoughts that poison my mind. i remember at one point a girl friend who treats me like her own sister sits on a stair step and breaks into tears and says, we are friends, why are we like this? really. this is a strikingly handsome lady from a distinguished lineage, capable, knows everybody in hong kong, has a big and golden heart, and loves me. what do i feel in that moment? gee, i am so disconnected, so shut down, no words come to the stubborn and stuck mind.

why am i allowing the memory to roll like this? is it remorse? am i thinking, o i should have, if only i did it differently...no. no. no. because i want to cut the pattern. i want to be in direct motion. not retrograde. i know, mars in direct retro right now. i have no clue what mars in retro means but the idea somehow resonates with me. i want to be in direct motion, not going backwards. negative thoughts foment restlessness. and that drags me away from clear thinking, from being immersed in my own true nature.

eighteen years of efforts pay off

i say, i am exhausted. hwubby says, you are exhausperated. i say, what? he says, exhausted and exasperated. he's right. i've been on crisis mode 24/7 for one and a half months straight. now even though there are aftershocks and devastation to deal with the main quake is, i can safely say, over. so, yes, i am exhausted. what about 'exasperated?' i haven't yet reflected closely the entire arc of twists and turns. but what comes to me now is, among other opportunities, this has been unbroken practice on acceptance. i have to say this is not my strength. not thus far. there's a deeply rooted tendency to wish things different, to reject, to resist. yet the unfolding circumstances demand me to face them as they are because they are utterly out of my control. now i could have thrown in the towel. here's where eighteen years of putting in steady, sweet efforts pay off. again and again i experience this surge of inner spiritual force lifting me in moments of immense difficulty and apparent impossibility. i recall vividly saying to myself over and over, whatever i have to go through, whatever i have to lose on the outside my inner self, my own greatness, remains full, pure and luminous. and i so i find myself choosing to go toward light with relative ease. i say 'relative' because the residual pattern of 'refusing to accept what it is as it is' keeps nagging me and gnawing at me though it is only a weak whisper, not strong enough to engulf me. not anymore. as a matter of fact i chuckle as i recall something that happened a couple of weeks ago. hwubby says, i'm glad you find it funny. i do. now that's real progress. it means i am in touch with the unchanging bliss of my own self.