After all the flying back and forth I ended up staying in New York last weekend. In part, because I wanted to meet some wonderful friends of mine, Bo and Jordan. Bo is one of the two masterminds behind The Bright Room (formerly known as Horror Crash Puzzle). They recently relocated to New York from LA thus I hadn't seen them in a while and wanted to check out their new digs. Had a lovely evening with them, synchronistically ending up in a restaurant the delightful stranger I met on the plane the week prior had recommended. The other reason was that I wanted to go to COSM, the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, a project by Alex and Allyson Grey, two amazing artists I cherish quite a bit. Enjoyed an inspiring tour by Alex on Saturday evening and highly recommend you check out his work if you are not familiar with it - and maybe even support his cause with COSM...
The prelude for the weekend was that with my being in New York, my friend deposited a check for me last week, which under normal circumstances should have cleared within the week. Well, the bank decided to hold it for two weeks, much to my dismay. I called them up Saturday morning just to be told that there was nothing at all they could do about this, and that the earliest ANY of the funds would be available would be a week later. This was quite troubling to me as I was starting to run out of cash and could not fathom a whole other week in New York without these funds. I was actually quite pissed and angry, worried and frustrated about all this. Fortunately, I remembered that no matter what the circumstances, the only thing I can control is my state of being. So I decided to go for a walk in Central Park and talk to a tree about all this. If you have never taken the time to talk to a tree, I highly recommend it. I know it might sound somewhat insane, but then we live in a rather insane world, and logically, doing insane things in an insane world more often than not might be quite sane... Anyway, as soon as I left the house I found a penny. If you did not read my post about pennies, I usually take them as a sign from the universe that everything will be just fine and that I do not need to worry. As I was walking I focused on my breathing and emptying my mind, and intuition guided me to a beautiful tree. I approached the tree and asked for permission to sit with it for a while. Sitting on a root of the tree I closed my eyes and focused on emptying my mind, inhaling and exhaling. I vowed not to open my eyes or leave the tree until I felt completely calm again, and all the pissed off energy had left my body. Slowly but surely it began to dissipate and serenity began to take over. After about twenty minutes I felt completely calm, knowing that everything would be just fine. Sure enough, as I opened my eyes, there was a penny, right in front of me laying by the root of the tree. I have no idea if it was there before, but even if - out of all the trees in Central Park I picked one with a penny right beside it... I laughed and knew that everything was going to be just fine. Walking back to the apartment, I had my normal joyous state of being back, bounced a little in my gait and knew that all would be well. Sure enough, as I arrived back at the apartment, I decided to check my account balance... The whole check had miraculously cleared (thank you tree!). So, next time you are frustrated, angry, pissed off or worried, remember to adjust your thinking. That is the only thing you ultimately have control over. And if you can't do it by yourself, find yourself a tree and ask for help... Miracles do happen... ;-)
Coming back from New York to LA the other day I laughed as I walked down the hallway and picked up that week's LA Weekly. Love the wonderous ways in which the universe talks sometimes... (and there has been a lot of that including tons more pennies). Am officially bi-coastal in that I now have apartments in both places and spend equal amount of time in each city, with an additional half-day of my week spent above the clouds (and another one in airports). Beautifully disorienting creating a very conscious imprint vulnerability... What is particularly intriguing to me is that I get to have such wonderful cross-brain training: on the right coast I work on a finance transformation initiative a rather left brain focused endeavor (as much as it is an art as well) and I live in a corporate apartment. On the left coast, I live in an artist loft and am building an organization dedicated to conscious creativity... Fortunately, balance is already in the making, the system strives for equilibrium thanks to connecting with some lovely friends in New York and to making some wonderful connections at work with the first conversations on yoga, life, meaning etc. already in full gear... Yesterday my friend Tammy from the Self Centered Tour and I met at COSM, a most wonderful place I recommend to anyone in New York. Experienced a beautiful story-telling based presentation on Ayuasca with presenters like Alex Grey and Daniel Pinchbeck from Reality Sandwich. Several of the stories that night were touching and it was great to see over 200 people assembled, intersted in expanding their human capacities through expanding their consciousness using age old traditions. Then had a lovely new acquaintance on the airplane today who gave me a list of places to check out in New York (bizarrely enough, while I was waiting to board, I had noticed her and decided I wanted to sit next to her in the airplane - and sure enough did...). Looking forward to exploring the conscious and art side of New York, while building c3 into a business in LA...
Several years ago I was living from paycheck to paycheck, wasn't really that excited about my job, and felt somewhat trapped in existential fear tied to money... At the time, I was working in two separate office buildings a block away from each other and going back and forth between the two a lot. One day, right about half-way between the two buildings, meandering about money and how I felt about it, I looked down to see a penny right in front of my feet. In the past, I would have not cared, left it for someone who needed it more than I did. But that day, I decided to pick it up, in honor of the money the universe was providing me with (literally laying in the streets). Grateful, my thoughts shifted to a more positive stance, a new but familiar sense of possibility arose as if from a deep slumber.
The next day, I found another penny in pretty much the same place. Maybe I had missed it the day before. I looked around closely to see if there were any others. None in sight. When I found another one the next day, I was feeling an eerie, but curious sense of delight. This continued for several weeks on a nearly daily basis. The universe was shouting at me...
Since, throughout many ups and downs and apparent chaos in my life, I have found a whole ton of change in many moments that were utterly delightful and let me know that everything was perfectly fine, that I would always be taken care of and that I did not need to worry about anything - ever. They have shown up in the wildest places at times, making me giggle on more than one occasion. I have also found other change, one day I found thirty something cents splattered in front of my bank and I have even found change in dreams. One of my favorites so far was a dollar coin in the crack of a street in Silver Lake that looked like it had been there for a while but was at the same time still curiously shiny.
Today, I decided to take the day off; it had been a tumultuous few weeks and I had not had much rest. When I awoke this morning, I knew I needed some sunshine. Following the guidance I went to Los Feliz to have lunch, bought a book (VALIS, which my lovely friend Stosh just raved about last night), and had a wonderful sidewalk experience eating delicious pizza while watching a little boy next to me giggling, bubbling and screaming out in total joy of sensory experience as he was observing the street life. As I am walking down the street afterwards thinking about how grateful I am for this life, breathing in the air, listening to the ocean of sounds, delighted by the plethora of colors underneath the blue sky and feeling the warmth of the sun on my back, there is a penny on the floor... love these kinds of confirmations...
Continuing my journey with a big smile on my face, and after a short stop over at my amazing friend Barry's, I started on my way home. Took the train downtown to Disney Hall, but then, instead of taking the bus decided to walk home from there instead. As I am walking down the street I slip into a walking meditation, consciously rolling my feet on every step, thinking "now" each time I touch the ground (a nice way of keeping the left hemisphere busy so that you can connect to the world around you through your right one). I could feel my amygdala popping as a delicious pressure arose in my forehead, my brain giggled and I began to lose my boundaries, connecting to the world around me. In that moment I looked down and... another penny...
Feeling the joy completely engulfing my body at this point, I continued on my way home, though not in a straight line, but instead purely following my intuition and the traffic lights. In the very moment that I was thinking about how I appreciated the path my intuition was laying out before me, I looked up and saw the sign in the photo (which apparently advocates a 9/11 movie, but that's a whole other story).
With all the complications life can offer, with all the frustrations, road blocks, disappointments, all the strife and struggle, it is nice to be reminded that everything is just the way it is supposed to be, that it does not matter what happens around us, that what matters is what we choose to perceive and how we choose to respond to it... the kingdom of heaven is right in front of us at all times... Religens, in Latin, antonym to negligence, means paying careful attention to the archetypal experience around us.
There are signs everywhere. Each of us can find ours, for each of us they might be different. For me it's loose change. For me, to watch loose change is part and parcel of the practice of my religion.
It is so exciting to me to see all this influx of information on consciousness and the advances that science is making in understanding reality - while validating what so many mystics have been teaching for thousands of years across the globe. This TED talk is one of the most outstanding I have seen in a while. Real, emotional, brilliant, and full of compassion.
Traveling again lately due to a project in New York. Being bi-coastal has been interesting for sure. LA and New York are to very different worlds. Really enjoying flying again. Airports and airplanes are great places to meditate. Connecting with various levels of humanity and realizing our underlying oneness by observing people in transit, uprooted, on vacation, on business, with drama and comedy. It's a great exercise in patience. Waiting in security lines, wondering how many signs will still not be understood, no matter how iconographic they become. And then there are the hours on the airplane. Confined. Constrained. Up close and personal with complete strangers. A wonderful opportunity to go deep inside, leave the body for a little while and float in other worlds. Serene...
Came across this TED talk this morning (was posted on my new friend Tony's tribe profile, where I ended up after he sent me a gorgeous video on dolphins blowing bubble rings). Have tremendously enjoyed most of the TED talks I watched so far, and particularly liked this one. One statement he makes toward the end is that he does not believe politicians can change the world, but that stories do... Well, this is a good one:
Coming back from New York to LA the other day I laughed as I walked down the hallway and picked up that week's LA Weekly. Love the wonderous ways in which the universe talks sometimes... (and there has been a lot of that including tons more pennies).
