Bullies, Bullets, and Blame

Posted on October 30, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Back in 2011, I wrote this article about another mass shooting. The names have changed but not much else, including our part—and responsibility—in these horrid tragedies.

I yelled at my cat today. It was a sharp piercing wail that surprised both of us. Seconds later one of my favorite tea mugs fell off the counter and crashed against the hardwood, smattering and scattering pieces of hardened clay across the floor.

Both LilyCat and I were so stunned at my outbreak we stopped and stared at the shattered mug and in that eerie and charged moment of silence it struck me how my angry outbreak had nothing to do with my cat. It had everything to do with my own frustration inappropriately taken out on her.  The cat doesn’t have the power to make me angry. No one does—whether feline or human. It is my anger and I must own it, and I also must own how my personal anger contributes to the greater atmosphere that brings energy to a Jared Lee Loughner, a young man in Tuscon, Arizona who fired 31 shots from a semiautomatic pistol into a crowd. My angry outburst scared my cat; Loughner’s killed six people, including a 9-year old child and wounded 13 others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Our anger certainly is different in the degrees, but my nonsensical anger does help to form the energy pattern of a Loguhner’s murderous rage.  

Politicians and political pundits have been quick to point fingers of blame against each other for the Tucson tragedy, but they have neglected to see that three fingers are pointing back. Certainly some politicians and pundits, opportunists, and talk-show hosts are bullies who have waged a war of angry words, and certainly some of the rhetoric is filled with such hateful fury it makes me cringe.  And, yes, I do believe these bullies have contributed to an atmosphere of divisiveness that spawns wrath and a sense of entitlement that if you do not believe as I do then I have the right to spew anger at you and take out my rage on your person. But also, I believe that I too must shoulder some of the responsibility for the Tucson tragedy—as we all must.

We are not responsible for pulling the trigger, but we are responsible for feeding the insanity of murderous rage. Every time we lose our temper, we fuel the insanity of murderous rage. Every time we refuse to take responsibility for our own pent-up stresses and frustrations and blame the other for our emotions and actions, we fuel the insanity of murderous rage. Every time we make—or listen to—hate-filled speeches, we fuel the insanity of rage.  Every time we watch a television show or movie that honors violence, we fuel the insanity of murderous rage.  Every time we engage in a thought, deed, or action of anger, we fuel the insanity of murderous rage.

There is a lot of anger in our country. It is not the first time this country has been filled with anger and divisiveness. We knew anger during the Revolution War, the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War movement against the Vietnam War, to name just a few. Perhaps as a nation we will not grow pass the anger that erupts whenever we have difficult times, but perhaps, just perhaps we will come to understand our personal contribution to the murderous rage that brought forth a Jared Lee Loughner, and in the understanding of this we will be better able to see our responsibility to be watchful of our actions that may be perceived by the other as bullying, be aware of the words that may feel like bullets to the other’s heart, and lay the blame of our anger where it belongs—at our own doorstep.

I would like to tell you I will never again yell at my cat, never again bully her, but that would be untruthful. There will come another day when I live in unawareness of the build-up of my own stresses and frustrations and hear myself scream when LilyCat gets my negative attention. What I will tell you is that in the awareness of knowing I am capable of loosing my temper, I grow in mindfulness of my own anger, anger that contributes to the atmosphere where a murderous rage can take hold. It is in the accepting of my personal contribution to the greater whole that I feel the depth of my responsibility to do my best to keep my own heart peaceful and my actions pure.

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Piper’s Visitor

Posted on October 26, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Juno came to visit me. Aunti Juliet brought her. She’s really big. And I mean really, really big. Juno, not Aunti Juliet. Juno’s a doggy like me. Aunti Juliet’s a human.

At first I was scared. The last time I saw her she was a little girl, not much bigger than me. She’s all grown up now. But I’m older. That makes me in charge. She’s only a little over a year old. I’m 10.

At first Mom and Aunti Juliet ate lunch. They gave us treats. I watched Juno. I had to make sure she didn’t get into trouble. Or eat all my treats.

Then we went outside and played in the meadow. Juno liked that. I could tell. Aunti Juliet said she did. I was in charge, so I told Juno to run and play. She even tried to get me to play. I didn’t want to play with her though. I just wanted to keep an eye on her. I had to make sure she didn’t get into any trouble.

Then we went down to the lake. We went on a long, long, long hike. I told Juno I was the leader. She said okay.

It was a really hard trail. There were boards we had to walk over sometimes. They were slippery and had holes between them. I was really glad my little feet didn’t fall between the boards. Juno’s feet didn’t fit between the boards, so she didn’t have to worry about that.

I didn’t have to worry either. Mom let me walk around the boards if I didn’t like them. She even let go of my leash so I could run ahead.

Aunti Juliet took Juno’s leash off too. Still, I was in the lead. Everyone knew that, even Juno. She stayed behind my mom. Aunti Juliet said Juno was watching out for her and my mom. That’s why she stayed between them.

I’m Mom’s watcher. I take good care of her. Always. Still, I guess it’s okay to let another doggy help when I’m busy leading us out of the forest and to safety. Especially if that doggy is a big girl like Juno.

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Chopping Wood and Carrying Water

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Diana Rankin

I guess I should have known the day wasn’t going to go as I planned when the first thing I saw when I stepped out onto the deck Sunday morning was a red tail hawk taking flight from my backyard garden.  Often, I see hawks fly over my home, even occasionally see them land in the meadow out beyond the backyard or in the fields when swooping down to pick up prey, but this was the first time I had seen one take off from the garden. He gave me a quick flash of his pale belly with its band of darker feathers, the color of the top of his wings, before he fully spread his broad wings out wide as he rose above the ground and was off among the treetops and out of my sight. I thanked him for his visit, and then got about my day, well-planned as it was with a full to-do list of outside chores.

Now you would certainly think I would know by now that the best laid plans of humankind usually go astray. The first glitch came when the riding mower refused to start—this after it started up just fine—twice. But it refused to start the third time, and this after I had hooked up the garden trailer and driven all 900 feet to the end of the lane and filled up the trailer with newly-trimmed tree branches. So here I am at the end of the lane, with my plans to deliver this load of newly-cut branches to the brush pile at the other end of the lane.  On the way, I thought I’d pick up a couple small trees that had come down in the last storm, throw them on top of the tree branches and be off to the brush pile. But here I was, stuck with a mower that refused to cooperate with my well-planned day.

I turned the key again in hopes of the mower starting. Nothing. The engine wasn’t even turning over. Not one single gruuuu or spit or sputter. Red Tail flew overhead going from a tree in the north woods to the utility pole almost directly above my head.  Hawk sat on his perch eyeing me below the way he watches for small mice and moles among the rows of soybeans. I pushed in the clutch, put the gear shift in neutral, and turned the key to start once more. Nothing.

Sheeeee, went the hawk. I turned the key again. Still nothing. A breeze kicked up and ruffled the velvet tops of the soybeans sending green waves across the fields. Once more I turned the key to try to start the mower. Not sure why I kept turning the key. You would think I’d get it that the engine wasn’t turning over, but isn’t that the way it is with our thoughts and deeds? We keep thinking the same old thought and doing the same old thing and expecting a different outcome. So there I was doing the same old thing and expecting the mower to suddenly change its mind and start. It was having none of it.

I pushed the lever to engage the blades, and then disengaged them. Sometimes the blades stick in place, which keeps the engine from starting. Still nothing, but at least I had a different thought and tried something different. But still it didn’t seem to do any good. Hawk looked down at me. The sun was growing as hot as my temper. A familiar panic was beginning to grow in my gut as I started fretting about what to do. The starter probably went out again. How am I going to get the mower to the repair shop without a trailer hitch? Who could I call to come here to fix it? The mower’s old. Should I buy a new one? I need a new roof. Not the time to buy a new mower. And on and on and on.

Red Tail screeched as he took off, circled a few times over the field, and then landed on a utility wire at the other end of the south field. I started walking down the lane, on my way picking up one of the fallen trees and dragging it to the brush pile. I did that a couple more times, walking down the lane to drag back a fallen tree or push the trailer full of cut-limbs back to the tree line. Between trips up and down the lane, I trimmed the trees at the tree line, even bringing out the ladder to reach those over my head. 

It would be nice to tell you that friends unexpectedly showed up and fixed the mower, but that didn’t happen. I could have called a friend for help, but that didn’t happen either. I just spent the next several hours trimming trees and walking up and down the lane, and as I did I let go of control, and somewhere among all this chopping wood and carrying water, all those jumbled thoughts, plans for the day, and questions of what should I do now, all left my mind, replaced by the quiet of the day and the knowing that life was unfolding as it should, so I might as well just enjoy it.

About the time I was spending as much time drinking water as I was trimming trees, I figured it was time to quit and turn to less strenuous work. Mowing would have been perfect, but it wasn’t to be, and I was okay with that. Still, I did not relish pushing the mowed all 900 feet back down the lane. As I started walking toward it, I asked the mower to work, saw it running, saw me riding it with the blades cutting off the top layer of grass for a smooth finish of green along the lane. Thanked it for serving me so well and faithfully. And then I let go, knowing I would have the strength to push the mower back to the garage. So I kept walking, enjoying the day, the breeze that cooled me, the quiet of the countryside, and the way my life was unfolding this day.

Joseph Campbell said, “We must be willing to give up the life we have had planned in order to have the life that is waiting for us.” I suppose that is true whether that life be a well-planned life or a well-planned day. When we are able to let go and let life move through us, we are able to live in a much greater way.

On the way down the lane toward the mower, I stopped to pick up a feather—a red tail hawk feather. “Thanks, buddy,” I said, knowing that at some level he heard me. And so did the mower. As soon as I sat on the mower and turned the key, it purred into action.

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Butterflies, the Dove, and the Shaman

Posted on October 19, 2023 by Diana Rankin

There’s a patch of un-mowed grass in my yard. It’s there because a dying butterfly claimed it, and I saw no reason to disturb her. Having a neatly manicured lawn just isn’t that important to me, at least not as important as giving a butterfly her chosen space as she begins her transition into the next world. She wasn’t the first butterfly I say die—or the first winged one in whose death I was involved with.

Once I found a butterfly in my office building. She flew in through an open doorway and stayed where she landed—just out of reach of the sun in the hallway of a man-built structure in the 1870s. After watching her for a while, finally realizing she wasn’t going to get up and fly away, I carefully picked her up and carried her outside. She rode well on my palm and transferred through my nervous system her gratitude for her new place—a shady spot just beside the sun between day lily leaves and hydrangea bushes.

It wasn’t my place to extend the lives of these two butterflies, or to mourn over their passing. It was for me to thank them for sharing their magic with me, for giving me the energy of their lives, of what they represent—transformation into a new form. This is difficult for us—to watch something so beautiful die and not mourn. It is even more difficult when we are the instrument of that death, which I was the week I found the butterfly in my office.

It was a dove that ended its life on the front of my vehicle as I drove to the office one bright morning. There was no way to miss her. She flew up without warning from the side of the road and into the right front wheel well. I saw her hit. I heard her hit. But when I looked there was no bird on the side of the road, no bird impaled on the wheel well. No bird in sight. Yet, she had been there. Of that I’m sure.

“No! It’s a dove,” I cried out when I hit her, my heart thumping and breaking. And then I stopped. I heard her in my heart and knew she had come to me to give of her energy, her magic, her medicine. It was my choice to stay in the mourning of taking her body from her, or to engage in the interchange she offered me. I chose the latter.

It is in Ted Andrews’ book Animal Speak that I so often turn when a winged one or animal comes into my life, giving of its energy to help my life in its transitions and changes, celebrations and smooth pathways. Dove came to say, “These are the Between Times—a time in which there is a thinning of the veils between the physical and the spiritual, the past and the future.” She came to help me see the creation process within my own life.

She came to give me her song that I might mourn what has passed but awaken to the promise of the future. She came, as did the butterflies, to confirm the transition of which I have been aware, and to help me see what I can give birth to in my life.

I think of that dove and butterfly as I now watch the one in the un-mowed grass. And I think of the new birth in spirit world that comes for them.

The shaman’s life is full of new birth, the new that only comes after a death, an ending. All our lives are full of little deaths, mini deaths that—if we let go—allow us to move into the new—a new way of being, a new home, a new job, a new realm of existence.

We can hold onto the winger ones, mourning their passing. We can feel saddened by our part in taking the life of another of God’s creatures. Or we can thank the ones who come for imparting their medicine, their energy, to us, for gifting us with the magic they carry within them and have chosen us with whom to share this magic.

In accepting what is, we honor them, and we honor ourselves as beings who understand our oneness with all life and the miracle of the continuous circle of life and death and rebirth.

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Piper Goes on Vacation

Posted on October 19, 2023 by Diana Rankin

I caught my mom packing the suitcase. I looked right at her and barked. “Make sure you pack my things,” I told her. She listened.

She packed my water bowl and food bowl. And of course, my food. She even packed my portable bed. Best of all, she packed my treats. She’s a good mom.

That was my first vacation with Mom. We had two.

First we went to visit friends of Mom’s. We drove a long time. Sometimes it was scary because there were big trucks on the road. They made really loud noises when they went past us. I liked it better when we were on the quieter roads. Mom calls them country roads.

We went to a place called Oxford, Ohio. I met Aunti Carole and Uncle Michael. I like them. A lot.

We went for long walks. Mom said our walks made us smarter. Because we walked on a college campus. It’s called Miami University. It was pretty. At night we stayed in a room with Aunti Carole. I liked our vacation.

We took an even longer car ride on our second vacation. We went to a place called Warren, Ohio. We stopped to take walks on our way. We walked near the woods. Still sometimes those big trucks made noise. I don’t like big noisy trucks.

We took another walk when we stopped. A nice lady, Aunti Marge, told us where to walk so there wouldn’t be any big noisy trucks.

Later we were inside a great big room. I was allowed to walk around. Everyone loved me. That’s ‘cause I’m so lovable. And pretty. My Aunti Jenny helped keep a watch on me. I think everyone else was watching me too. I met lots of new Auntis, Aunti Donna and Aunti Sharon and Aunti…well, lot of Auntis.

One of the women named Bev said there were a lot of sad people there. That’s sad because it was a big, big room and lots of people. Bev said I was making all the people feel better. They came to hear my mom talk and ask her to give them messages about people they love who had crossed the rainbow bridge. That’s what my mom does. Help people feel better.

I helped Mom give people messages. That made them all feel better. I like helping Mom. I liked making people feel good.

That night we stayed all night with Aunti Jenny and Uncle Paul. They are really really nice. I even let Aunti Jenny hold my leash. Not that I need a leash. Mom said I had to have it on because we were far away from home.

Aunti Jenny let me jump up on the sofa and sit near her and Mom. They talked and talked. I got really really sleepy. They just kept talking anyway. Uncle Paul was smart. He was already in bed.

Finally, after forever we went to bed. I slept on my travel bed right next to Mom on her big bed. And I watched her all night long. Well okay, I slept too. But I slept near Mom. I protected her. Who know a ghost might come to disturb her sleep. And that’s my job. To protect Mom. And to make everyone who is sad happy.

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Piper’s Morning Meditation

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Every morning my mom goes into a special room. I go with her. That’s ‘cause I always stay by her side. Mom calls the room her meditation room. I think it’s just a room where it’s quiet. And I can sleep.

Mom thinks it’s special though. Every morning she goes there to sit and write in her book. She calls it a journal. Sometimes she reads. She says it’s where she talks to Phillip. She calls him her spirit guide. That’s a special angel. He watches over us and helps us to do the right thing.

Mom says we all have a spirit guide. Daisy’s mine. She used to live here before me. When she crossed the rainbow bridge she came and found me. She told me Mom needed a doggy. That’s me, a doggy.

The room has a big chair in it. That’s where Mom sits when she’s writing. And there’s a table with a lamp on it. There’s also the table Mom calls the altar. It has a candle on it that Mom lights before we sit down. The altar also has feathers on it and pictures and a bundle that smells funny and other stuff Mom calls sacred. I’m not allowed on that table, but I can sniff.

The room also has my favorite thing in it. That’s the pad we sit on. We get to do that when Mom stops writing. Mom doesn’t really sit on the pad most days. She sits on a little bench. She puts her feet under the little bench. Her knees are right near me.

Mom’s really, really quiet when we’re on the pad. She calls it our meditation pad. It’s so quiet I can hear Mom breathe. Then she gets even more quiet. I have to listen real good so I can hear her. And make sure she’s alive. That’s my job. To take care of Mom. Even if it means being real quiet. Even if I’d rather be playing ball.

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Are You Receiving Gifts or Trying to Learn Lessons?

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Diana Rankin

People have told me that Planet Earth is a school, and we are here to learn our lessons. I disagree. I believe we are here to love. That’s it. Just to love.  When we love, we see all that comes to us as a gift. It is in receiving the gifts—instead of learning a lesson—that we learn more about love and about life. 

This is not to say that we never have anything to learn. Quite the contrary. We should be life-long learners, but at some point, we need to graduate from school and become adult learners. As long as we are in school, our mindset keeps us as students with a teacher in front of the classroom teaching us. As we graduate, we allow our own wisdom to be our teacher. We learn to listen to ourselves as well as the wisdom of a multitude of others including nature, animals, books, and certainly those humans who have gone before us on the path we now tread. We let go of the need to learn and do it right and instead we learn to just be, receiving the gifts and relishing in the excitement of each moment.

Daily, I see so many with tears falling from the deepest of heart breaks from grief or betrayals.  As we look at the deeper meaning of the pain, we are able to see beyond any lesson and find the true gifts. A lover’s betrayal often opens the heart to greater love by setting the one in pain on an inward journey, seeking the spiritual path and truly uniting with the Beloved, which then heals the pain by allowing us to understand—and accept—the truth and the limitations of the human beloved. When we are able to see the one who we perceive as hurting us as an instrument to help us remember the truth of who we are—a being of love—we are able to see the heartbreak as a gift and the giver of that gift as a soul mate with whom we made an agreement: “Come walk me lest I forget who I truly am.”

If we are caught in lessons, we keep asking ourselves what we are trying to learn and may miss the gifts of the time we spent together. When we seek the gift instead of the lesson, we see how one action that may have been hurtful to us actually led us to a place that was for our betterment and gave us the greater gift of something that turned out to be so much more than what we once had.

Again, this is not to say there is nothing for us to learn. Certainly, when our hearts are broken, we want to ask ourselves what is our part in the heartbreak. Perhaps we need to choose more wisely, to be more discerning. But if we stay stuck in always learning our lessons, we often miss the gifts that await us. Instead of celebrating the gifts of the situation, we get caught in bemoaning that we didn’t learn our lesson the first time and are once again in a situation that causes us grief.

Words have power. They interact with our physical and emotional health.  They propel us forward or hold us back. They build us up with confidence and surety or they tear us down in blame and insecurity.

Lessons. Yes, we all have things to learn throughout our lifetime, but there comes a time in each of our lives when we are allowed to walk away from school and live in the celebration of the gifts of who we are and all that life holds for us.

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Creating Happiness Grooves

Posted on September 28, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Think of unhappiness as a groove worn into your brain from a constant flow of unhappy thoughts like a creek worn from water erosion. As humans, we tend to return to the familiar, even if the familiar is painful. By now, you may have a Grand Canyon of unhappiness patterns that you fall back into without even realizing it. The good news is that once you stop digging the unhappiness groove deeper and create a new pattern of happiness then happiness becomes the familiar groove and is easier to access and fall into.

To create happiness grooves, first become aware of the grooves you are creating—happiness or unhappiness. Happiness begins with our desire to be happy, and like most things in life, happiness comes to us as we seek it out. We most likely must do a bit of work to find it though.

Try this: On a sheet of notebook paper, write down a reason you have to be happy. If you can’t find a reason to be happy, start with a reason to be grateful. It can be as simple as being happy—or grateful—that you can read this publication or that you have a bed to sleep in, or that someone smiled at you today, or that you had toilet paper, or that…you get the idea. Once you have completed the first reason you have to be happy, continue to a second reason, a third, fourth and so on.

When a reason for unhappiness comes to mind—and it will—turn the paper over and write down that reason for unhappiness, and then immediately turn the paper over again and continue writing down reasons why you are—or should be—happy.

At first you may not feel particularly gleeful about your reasons for happiness. But as you continue to write, you’ll notice a lifting of your mood. Keep writing until you actually feel light, happy, and maybe even become positively giddy.

Remember these reasons for happiness when you fall into the groove of unhappiness. Or,

  1. Write your reasons for being happy on small, individual pieces of paper,
  2. Fold once
  3. Put them into a jar (You can add more happiness ideas anytime)
  4. When needed pull out one of the pieces of paper
  5. Read it and smile

If needed, pull out a second piece of paper or more until you do smile even if you’re smiling at yourself for needing to pull out so many pieces of paper.

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Piper Goes to the Doggy Wash

Posted on September 28, 2023 by Diana Rankin

I heard Mom on the phone. She was talking to Auntie Allison. And I heard the word bath. DOGGY BATH! Oh no! I barked and barked at Mom. “I don’t need a bath, Mom! I don’t.” I told her over and over. But she didn’t listen. I needed to go hide.

Guess I’m not very good at hiding from Mom. I don’t like to get very far away from Mom. So I ran behind her to hide. She looked over her shoulder and found me. She turned around and petted my head. Then she wrapped her arms around me. “We’re going to go have fun,” she told me. I knew better.

Auntie Allison met us at the Doggy Wash. She had two doggies with her. I was watching one of her doggies when Mom picked me up. Whoosh! She put me down into a really really deep tub. I tried to climb out. But she wouldn’t let me.

Then I heard the most worsted sound ever. Water poured all over me. It poured and poured. Mom got me all wet. If that wasn’t bad enough, she added soap to the water. And rubbed it all over me. She rubbed and rubbed. At least she talked to me the whole time.

Okay, I admit it felt good. I didn’t even talk back.

Then Mom pulled down a tube that made wind. And blew all that wind on me. It was scary at first. Then it felt kind of good. I didn’t tell Mom that. Instead, I looked at her with big sad eyes. Those are my begging eyes. “Let me out of here!” I pleaded with her. But she ignored me. At least for a few more minutes.

Then Mom wrapped me in a big, soft towel. And she held me really really close. And she petted me and talked to me. She told me what a good girl I am. And she promised me a treat when we got back to the car.

Mom’s hugs and pets feel really good. And I like hearing what a good girl I am. And I’m going to get a treat! I guess the doggy bath is okay.

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Intuition, Be Here Now, and Mindfulness

Posted on September 20, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Flashes of intuition often come when we least expect them, but to receive them we must be present for ourselves. As Ram Dass said back in the 1970s, “Be here now.” But what does that mean? Here’s an article I wrote that helps explain.

We wear a lot of different hats in our lives—living mini lives within our bigger life; lives that make up the fullness of who we are—mother or father, wife or husband, daughter or son, employee or employer, housekeeper and gardener, caretaker of  children/pets/parents. We need our appointment books and electronic calendars to remind us of where we need to be and when we need to be there; what task we need to be attending to at any given time. It seems to me with so much going on the only way we can exist with any amount of sanity is to stay in the present moment—to be here NOW.

“Be here now,” the phrase coined to represent being fully present and engaged in your life by Ram Dass back in 1971 in his book with the same title— Be Here Now. It was a good book then. It’s still a good book. Today we call it mindfulness.

I’m on my second copy of Be Here Now, the first, with its tattered edges and worn pages, long since gone to someone else’s bookshelf. I no longer remember to whom I gave the book, but I always remembered the book, so a dozen years or so ago I picked up another copy. It doesn’t have as much character. Its edges aren’t tattered or are the pages worn. I haven’t needed the book to remind me to stay in the now the way I did when I was younger. As I’ve grown older, I’ve grown a bit and become more adapt at reminding myself to stay present, to be mindful. But I remember, oh how I remember, that first copy of Ram Dass’ book and the revelation it was to me.

I was a part-time hippie then. I lived in California. And I was a seeker. By day I put on my corporate suit and wrote copy for a small publishing firm. We specialized in books on marketing and how to make money. Napolean Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich had a big influence on us although he wasn’t one of our authors. Mainly we published the owner’s books and his theories on how to market products to the masses. It was a fun job with an office full of friends. The owner, who taught part time at a couple major California universities, even had me fill in for him on occasion because I had taught school for a couple years in Ohio before I became a part-time hippie and headed off to California. The owner didn’t know I was a hippie. Had he known, he never would have let me stand in front of his students—half of who were older than me and the other half who looked older—and impart to them the information I had memorized from reading his books.

I got fully into teaching, the same way I got into writing. Both activities required me to be completely present in the now, but at the time I didn’t realize this being fully present in the moment was what Ram Dass was talking about. I hadn’t yet attended a single Buddhist retreat or listened to a Buddhist talk about mindfulness.

I was still trying to figure it all out, so it was the weekends I lived for—the long days when we jumped on the motorcycles and flew along the California freeways, stopping at friends or the homes of people we met on the road. We didn’t need much sleep. We were young. We’d spend the night passing joints while words poured forth and our minds—if somewhat stoned—were filled with new expressions and concepts we were certain no one else had ever thought of.  I’m sure some of our ideas were slightly delusional in our marijuana-filled psyche, but some of our thoughts were . . . well . . . deep and full of exploration of human potential. That’s where Ram Dass and Be Here Now come in.

It was a new concept, and we latched on. We dug in, lit another joint, and analyzed every word. How can you plan for a future and be here now? What about yesterday’s memories? If I’m sitting here now and only thinking about my big toe, does that mean I’m here now? Am I here now if I’m thinking? Is being here now beyond thinking? Is it just experiencing?  “Hey man, let it go, let it all go. That’s being here now.”

It’s only now—so many years later—that I realize how much time we did spend in the now, in the present moment. In the moments of our analyzing and arguing, we were alive in the moment. In our gliding down the freeway on two wheels, we were living in the now. In the time we spent touching the minds and hearts and bodies of each other, we were fully present in the now. In the time I spent writing and teaching, I was fully engaged in each moment. It was only when we stopped living and tried to be in the now that we failed. It was only when we stopped engaging the fullness of who we were in that moment of time that we stopped being in the now.

I didn’t realize that then, didn’t realize that being in the now is being fully engaged with your life in the moment, regardless of what that moment brings. We spend much of our lives in the now. Life forces us to. It forces us when we are blowing kisses on a child’s tears, when we are answering the questions of a student, when a car is coming at us on the wrong side of the road, when we twist an ankle on steps and need to right ourselves, when we are awed by a sunset, when. . .  when . . . in a thousand ways life forces us to be present in the moment, to be here now. And when life is not forcing us to be in the now, it allows us to be in the now if we accept the gift of the present moment—each and every moment.

It is in these moments of mindfulness, of being in the now, that we have clarity of the true majesty of life. It is then we know that we are the beauty itself. We are our own wave and we are the ocean.

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