I'm rereading one of my favorite books. It's not one of those charming fairy tales I love so much, unless of course you consider your self and your soul as fairytale fodder. (Who doesn't, right?) It's called SOULCRAFT, by Bill Plotkin. And if you're involved at all on a spiritual journey that's included times of intense darkness, this book is essential. Similar to the many offerings by soulful author Thomas Moore, this book investigates the variety ways we are initiated into the realms of soul, but it does oh so much more. It charts a path as blazing and unique as you are, as I am, and insists that all we need for initiation into the deep, is our own wild soul and a connection to inner and outer nature. It not only allows for - but encourages - the cocoon stages of our lives.

I'm just into the first third of the book, and I find myself taking notes, staining the pages with yellow highlighter, and running to my laptop to type missives to myself. This is one such missive. Check out these priceless quotes I found on page 40 last night:

I slept and dreamt that life was joy,
I awoke and saw that life was service,
I acted and beheld, service is joy.

Wow. This brings it all back to me. In a time of great pressure and chaos, when bills and limitations can become the focus, and "how's" and "why's" overwhelm, still the truth remains. When we act in accordance with who we are, when we bother to both find and excavate our essence, turns out our contribution to the world is both a gift to ourselves and to others. There's no way to really do this. You must be it.

Here's another juicy quote from page 40:

A task without a vision is just a job
A vision without a task is just a dream
A vision with a task can change the world.

I've been so task oriented. I confess. There's that left-brain side of me that chants, even while asleep, "You gotta go go go and do do do or you ain't gonna have have have." It's not that tasks are wrong, it's that they're often in service of the wrong vision. Or worse, no vision.

I'm not writing this morning because I have answers. I write this morning because I have a quest.

To be authentic.
To be joyful.
To be of service.
To be a vision.

And to align my beingness with doinginess, so that my task and vision can change the small corner of the world that is mine.

And on that note, back to the book I go...

Some days (all, really) it's the little things that make the biggest difference. We get sidetracked by big issues, big bills, big talk about little fears. And the clearest way for me out of that impossibly restrictive mindset, is to indulge delight. 

Even the littlest, seemingly inconsequential dalliances with delight can shift my mindset, my perspective, which in turn can completely shift my reality.

So a few days ago when we were drowning in a sea of deadlines and contemplating (in a very whiny way) our dwindling bank account, I decided the best thing for me to do was go shopping. In my photo library. I just went for a walk among photos from Victoria, most of them taken by Aimee when we were there for a visit.

Thirty minutes later I had this lovely composite. And a new attitude. 

I love red and green. Red for STOP (whining.) Green for GO (play). And somewhere in there, a lesson for driving home delight.

 I've been promising for some time to feature guest editors and contributors. I like to think of them as guest muses. Happy to report today I'm making good on that promise.

I met one such muse lately, and reading her words was like taking tea with Rumi, while Rilke handed me a plate of scones and Clarissa Pinkola Estes gently placed a cloth napkin in my lap.

Yeah. Like that. A perfectly calm and civilized meeting, but laced with power and beauty, rubies in pearls in the bottom of our teacups, shining.

Meet Lisa. And her shrine. The one we all come to know once we venture out into the unknown to find our true voice and vision. Enter, if you dare.

*************************************

Entering the Shrine
by Lisa Chun

I.

It was a tough week
not just for me
but seemed like it was tough for everyone.
Nic said she was deep in the thick of it
with her relationship. I said, I’m deep in the
same thick of it and I’m not in a relationship.
It’s bad, it’s really bad.
Then she pulled out a koan her teacher
had given her that week. It spoke of being
caught in a rain storm and finding a shelter
for oneself, a shelter
which for the sake of this discussion
could also be seen as a shrine.
Who is the Self?
What is the Shrine?
Such is the nature of koans.
I had to admit I didn’t get it.
I said, you gotta help me out here.
I said, I went to the movies and I cried.
I went to the library and I cried.
I cried driving home from the library.
I cried when I got home.
Everywhere I went this truth:
that I want to write poetry
and read poetry, eat poetry,
peddle poetry, sleep with poetry.
If this is god speaking to me
then god has asked me
to be as vulnerable as I could possibly be,
wants me to be all exposed, and publicly, too
and just the thought of it is making me feel
ill. Exultant and heartsick at the same time.
Like running to and away from love.
And at risk for homelessness, too,
cause I believe in miracles but I haven’t met
that many rich poets and Nic said

You need to enter the shrine of the park bench and
I need to enter the shrine of the grouchy relationship.


II.

And so it goes.
You enter the place you are most afraid to enter.
You enter the shrine of your vulnerability and
the shrine of your own beauty
    (surrounded by frothy white
     cherry blossoms and snow beginning to melt)
and the shrine of your mortality
    (protected by gargoyles with eyes made of rubies and fire opals)
and the shrine of your hunger for things not of this world,
for a deepening
and
the shrine of your fear that there may be no one else who gets this and
the shrine of your utter aloneness
    (in the Japanese design aesthetic, three irises arranged
     skillfully in a simple vase
     on a simple table
     next to three smooth black stones
     as an artful display at the door)
and the shrine of your own hands
making something true
making something beautiful
that endures
and the shrine of all your dashed hopes,
the dreams which may never come true and
the shrine of your earnestness and
the shrine of all your love that got squandered
because the hands and hearts of others remained closed.
The shrine of perpetual forgiveness.
The shrine of waiting.
The shrine of arriving.
Again and again.
Here.
Here.
Now.
The shrine of your refusal
of your resistance
and your denial.
The shrine of your addictions
    (both obvious and subtle).
The shrine of all things out of your control.
    (it’s all out of your control.)
The shrine of your acceptance.
The shrine of your self embrace.
The shrine of your cool light.
The shrine of your genuine warmth
as a pink in your cheeks.
The shrine of something new arriving for you.
The shrine of your unexpected good.
The shrine of your spontaneous healing.
The shrine of laughter, joy and good food.
The shrine of your near heartache
when the thing you are called to do
is both the thing you want the most
and the thing you want the least.

And you do it anyway.

The shrine of your right life
entered through the door
of your disbelief.

*****************

Enter the poem-shrine of Lisa Chun at www.LisaChun.com

So today is being absorbed by boring eBay stuff. I say boring, because my brain starts to deflate as soon as I apply myself to analytical, organized, detail-ridden thinking. But in tough times, let it be known that I am grateful for a selling channel like eBay, cuz those of us that love making art also love to eat and bathe. The starving artist thing is so passe. At least for those of us that enjoy cupcakes and limoncello!

Since I have to dive into the eBay pool to list all things Beauty and Beast, Alice and Chesh,  I begin today with the Moulin Rouge soundtrack and a trip through some of my photos. 

These were taken in a whirligig of an antique store in Atlanta. Everyone repeat after me: "Because we can Can CAN!"

Taking a stab at Haiku. I know it's not an offfiical-type Haiku, given that I'm not really juxtaposing two different things, but whatever. This is my fall-fevered attempt!

Autumn's Kiss

Autumn's kiss turns veins
to Christmas chile, red-green
love in Santa Fe

Don't we all just live on eye candy? Until I have time to return to the writing desk, may this inspire juicy art and joyful life!