While running the other day, I watched the birds flying near the path where I run.

I loved watching how they responded when encountering a gust of wind… they have so many choices, and you can almost feel the joy when you see one push up against the wind and climb higher in the sky with so little apparent effort.

It seems to me that I have too often missed the many dimensions presented to me in life when the wind gusts up against me.

I sometimes feel like I have to turn right or left. Or sometimes, I feel like my decisions will take me forward or backward… as if there is someplace to get to in life.

But for some reason, while running, I see that our choices also have a way of taking us to higher ground.

By higher ground, I do not mean this in a comparative way. I don’t mean that I want to go higher than you, or him, or her. I mean - a higher place for my own soul. A place where my soul sees the bigger picture. A view from which my fears and anxieties fall into place, and the puzzle of life makes sense.

The choices that take us higher aren’t always apparent or obvious. In fact, they can be invisible. I believe you just have to trust your instincts sometimes.

I have never surfed, but I am guessing it is a little like surfing… you just have to have a feel for your life, for the flow of events around you… and when the time is right, you just push or let go or lift up… whatever it is, you know it when you hit it just right.

When describing this to a friend of mine, she suggested it is like flying a kite. You do not control the wind, but you learn how to allow your kite to soar based on a few simple movements.

This is my challenge - the new game in my life.

I cannot expect others in my life to change their ways or methods. It doesn’t matter how right or wrong their behavior or choices seems to be. Change is up to them.

And just as I cannot change their methods, I can neither predict the push or pull I will feel as a result of the choices of others. The world will always push and pull at me. I can react. Or, I can respond. This is the choice that makes all of the difference in the world.

When the wind gusts up against the birds I see flying near the path where I run, it does not seem to me that they are reacting to the changes in the force and direction of the wind. It feels to me that they are responding. They are one with it, and use it to go where they want.

But it is not only the world around me — and the behavior and choices of others that present this choice to me. I am up against many of my own judgments and assumptions about people and life… which is another way of saying that I am up against my judgments and assumptions about myself. The world outside is a reflection of the world inside. They are one reality split into the appearance of duality.

As I reflect on these things, I find myself more open to responding, rather than reacting. This openness brings with it a greater openness to the life that is going on around me all of the time. And with that comes a far greater openness to my own future.

Today marks the first day in a long time that I feel truly open to my own future. I find myself now thinking ahead in a far more open, loving, and joyful way… rather than in a fearful anxiety-ridden way.

This is significant.

Like that beautiful bird I witnessed while running on the path… that strong looking black bird with the bright red patches on its shoulders… it took off from the thinnest of flowers and flew into the sky, and when the wind gusted up against him, he effortlessly turned right into the gust and climbed ever higher.

What a view he must have had of that beautiful sunset.

A resounding theme I am very attuned to in so much of what I am learning right now is around the idea of Choice.

Choice = Freedom = Power

I really appreciated this post I came across today titled ‘Negativitis’ cripples the human spirit… which arrives at the same idea I am running into everywhere right now - the Power of Choice.

Life is absolutely dynamic.

I remember now the teachings of Heraclitus, which I was drawn to some twenty years ago…

“We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not.”

Of course, this is just one translation - but the idea that stuck with me from his teachings was about the dynamic nature of all of life, and that we are all one and utterly unique all at once.

The theme of the river is also resonating highly with me right now. The power of the river is in its flow. During the harshest cold of winter, the waters of a mighty river seem last to freeze, if they freeze at all.

The motion is life. Just as we are in motion, until our bodies stop working - we are alive when we are in motion and in the flow of life. The more we are in the flow, the more we are alive.

To hold on to yesterday is to try to stay still in the flow, or to hold back the flow of life.

There are many ways of expressing this same idea - in the flow. To some, it is being in “The Zone”, to others, it is being in “The Now”. But no matter how you look at it, the core experience is to:

• let go of the old story, and the drama associated with it
• feel connected to the physical world around you here and now
• not occupy your mind with the creation of future scenarios

How you get there is up to you:

• Prayer
• Exercise
• Yoga
• Meditation
• Music - listening, making, dancing
• Add your own way here :)

Regardless of how you find your way to the Present moment, there is an almost immediate reduction in stress and fatigue. A playful spirit arrives. The Universe opens up. Where you may have felt constrained, you now feel free.

And it all starts with you. It is your choice.  Just as your drama is your creation, your response to your situation… you can likewise simply accept your reality, and choose to let go of your mental constructs… think of the stories you have told yourself over and over… and let them go.

Visualizing this process is a powerful way to move in this direction. Envision yourself standing in the river holding all of your stories close to you… they are a cluttered mess of branches and leaves, things floating by you in the river that you have clung to, and now - the water swirls around you and your mess… and you are stuck there in your place as life passes you by. Eventually, you identify with your place in the river, rather than as being part of the river.

When you are ready - you choose to let go. Envision yourself taking apart your clutter bit by bit, with loving kindness… you take this branch and that leaf and hold them out into the river and release them. Watch yourself in your mind as you let go.

You become lighter. You free yourself from the mental clutter of your life.

And next thing you know, you will begin to sense a lot of good things coming your way.

You may be tempted to grab hold of the first best thing you see and cling to it - but as the good comes into your life, let it go too.

Give back everything you get, and you are sure to be getting more.

Your free will is your greatest gift, and the source of all your power. Give it away, and you will feel powerless. Embrace your power, you will feel free.

I live in the Chicago area… and today is a day we all have to deal with water in its many various forms - especially the forms of ice, snow, and rain!

But it has brought to my mind some very interesting themes I keep stumbling across.

First, I have lived my whole life feeling physically oriented around water one way or another. In my youngest years, I remember feeling very drawn to and safe with a place we simply called “the reservoir”. It was a set of three connected small man made lakes in my home town - but to the eyes of a small child, they seemed wild and vast.

Soon after that, I became oriented to the closest of the great lakes - Lake Erie. I spent most of my early life near this lake, and visited it frequently.

My family has also always been oriented towards this lake… so much so that my mother, who passed away recently, has requested that we return her remains to that lake.

I also have this vivid memory of going on an all night fishing trip with my father to one of the piers near Huron, Ohio - and watching with absolute amazement and a good deal of fear as the lake began to churn with an approaching storm, and swept up over the pier, forcing us to leave before morning.

I have many powerful memories associated with that lake.

Back in 2000, I moved from that area to an area that to me seemed like a whole new world - the Chicago area. But I was instantly oriented towards another of the great lakes… this time, Lake Michigan.

I drew power and strength from this lake through some very hard times in my life.

More recently, I have moved a little farther away from the lake, but find myself almost equally drawn to the Fox River. I love this river with all of its various moods and twists and turns. Watching it flow through the seasons this past year has been a joyous journey for me. It is always ready to match me in the moment - bring back to my mind the ineffable qualities I cherish in life - resiliency, flow, and the power of nature.

Zooming into the moment, I was wonderfully amused when listening yesterday to a speaker who was delivering a message about how to better tune into one’s own awareness… about how to develop one’s deeper and broader senses, and one of the very first things this person recommended was to drink more water!

And in a fast moving discussion last night with a fascinating group of people, a friend brought up the whole concept of The Hidden Messages in Water, based on the work of Masaru Emoto.

So today, I am drinking more water, having fun with this last little blast of winter, and simply feeling much appreciation for the role water has always played in my life.

How much of “the way of the world” do we truly understand consciously? Is it possible we understand it more unconsciously than we do consciously?

Or in other words, do we have an awareness of how the world works that is deeper and broader than our conscious awareness?

It seems to me that some people are very comfortable answering Yes to this question. I definitely fall into this category.

Then there are those that seem to carry a deep seated disdain for this type of thinking. To me, it seems that these folks fear or resent or simply invalidate the idea that inner-thinking and inner-experience can reveal any sort of truth about the world outside.

But I would ask… no matter how much we learn through science, no matter how much we measure all the amazing objects “out there”… how much do we really know about them?

If anything, we have a tendency to replace the open and mysterious with poorly understood concepts. In the end, these concepts simply become props on the stage upon which we play out our lives’ greatest acts.

A great example of this is our very understanding of this thing we call The Universe.

Much like the term God, this term… “The Universe” will mean very different things to different people. I got a chuckle out of this patronizing and snide post that belittles a person for feeling gratitude toward The Universe. After all, how could another person’s belief system possibly measure up to our own?

Ours is right. Ours is true. Ours makes sense.

Even if we simply try to comprehend a more or less scientific understanding of The Universe - what the heck is it? I am college educated. I understand the basics. But the more we know, the more we learn about what we do not know.

I mean, I “get it” — to a degree.

But still… c’mon. Just how big is it? What’s outside of it? Nothing, you say? Am I able to truly comprehend nothingness? Seriously… how can my brain truly comprehend the age, size, or complexity of something like “The Universe”??? And yet, there it is - a word used in everyday language that we all just assume means something more or less specific.

I will never forget sitting in front of the TV as a kid watching in absolute amazement as Carl Sagan talked to me about the science of the Universe. I love this quote:

“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

~ Carl Sagan

I agree entirely, and can only guess that we would go about our grasping by different means :)

I also appreciate the work of Stephen W. Hawking, who said:

“Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?”

Indeed… what is it that breathes fire into the equations?

Any answer offered up rides on waves of language from you to me. Verbal Conscious Language is inherently limited.

And so we come back to the root of the question… how do we know?

Knowing bubbles up from within. Only when a deep inner knowing matches the language and words coming to us through Verbal-Conscious-Language do we recognize it. There must be a mutual context, a shared world view… you and I must co-exist in the same ecosystem of thought for us to even see one another as valid Providers and Consumers of Language and Thought.

What’s more - this deep inner knowing is larger and broader than the outer knowing. Our lives are full of opportunities to see this knowing play out in a variety of contrasting ways. For any shallow prop on the stage, we can knock it down and replace it with the real thing. A thing of depth and dimension.

This play of life is what life is about. It is about creativity, exploration, and Joy. And when our deep inner-knowing aligns with our outer awareness, things feel lighter and easier. Things happen. There is more Joy. There is inherently less conflict.

In this state of being, there is resonance.

Resonance is defined as: “the state of a system in which an abnormally large vibration is produced in response to an external stimulus, occurring when the frequency of the stimulus is the same, or nearly the same, as the natural vibration frequency of the system”.

The Universe is a word that points to an idea… and for me, this idea is a place which is a system. It is a system of energetic information. I am part of that system. I am of the system. Does the system care about me? Yes - very much so. And No - not at all. This is the problem with language. Just because I can ask a question does not mean it is a valid question. Just because I answer it one way does not mean I cannot answer it another.

When Abraham-Hicks states “there is great love for you here”, we will each hear what we are drawn to hearing. Our understanding will depend on our alignment with the words and thoughts.

I’ll leave you with a big Thank You for reading these thoughts, and with this quote from Alan Watts:

“You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean. The ocean waves, and the universe peoples. And as I wave and say to you ‘Yoo-hoo!’ the world is waving with me at you and saying ‘Hi! I’m here!’ “

I could feel my negative patterns return for a brief moment followed by laughter when I found myself wondering if I had gone too far today - as in over the edge :)

I live in the Chicago area, and the snow and ice has moved on and in its place we have rain and fog. And my basement has been busy attracting water!

By the way - I find it fascinating that the Abraham-Hicks material suggests that ALL physical matter is always Attracting. I guess I understand the gravity element to some degree, and I get the obvious things like the birds and the bees… but I never quite followed this thought all the way through before.

So while I was busy attracting dryness back into my basement with the handy dandy shop vac, I was taken away thinking about the awesome power of water. Just a small portion of the basement seemed to have standing water, and yet I discovered quite quickly just how much water there really was.

I was also immediately reminded of just how much water makes up our planet, our bodies, and so on. When we discover water outside of our planet, it makes instant headlines worldwide. I started dreaming about the ocean tides, and going for walks by the Fox River.

And all this as I bent over sucking up water from my basement floor!