Inquiry and assumption...

I’ve been thinking a lot about the meaningful distinction between inquiry and assumption. Those connections that remain inquiry-based - where each person asks the other about their intentions, motivations, and actions have a tendency to last far longer than those based on assumption. 

When we can allow ourselves to remain genuinely curious about why someone behaved as they did, we keep the gate between our hearts open. 

We co-create an ongoing opportunity to grow individually and together. 

When we rely on assumptions as our interpretive structure- particularly those lodged in our own issues and limiting beliefs- we are far more likely to close the door to the connection. 

The simple truth is that there are often countless possibilities for why someone responded as they did. And the assumption that we make is often misguided. Better we inquire- wherever possible- so that the connection has an opportunity to grow in awareness and understanding. Being curious about those that matter to us keeps the fires of relatedness alight.

We often hear people discuss the gift of the gab, where talking or asking is really a key to the job description. 

Asking with genuine curiosity always brings along amazing surprises, friendships and real connection by truly opening more doors and hearts that we can imagine

It is so important to feel into the situation instead of thinking about it, using open inquiry instead of assumptions. 

It keeps us connected in the heart and not separated by our minds.

I guess you can never make assumptions for our needs. We need to communicate even if we don't understand.  

I believe we just need to have the courage to ask the questions.

ps/smoh

Somehow I’M ALWAYS HELD

In my short time on this planet, I have known great sorrow, plunged into the depths of oceanic despair, been thrown so deeply into my loneliness that I thought I would never return.

I have tasted the ecstatic joys of meditation, the fierce intimacy of love, the savage pains of heartbreak, the excitement of unexpected success and the blows of sudden failure.

There were times when I thought I'd never make it, times when my dreams had been shattered so thoroughly I couldn't imagine how life could ever go on. 
Yet it went on, and sometimes I found humility within the devastation, and out of the ashes of imagined futures often grew new and present joys, and no experience was ever wasted.

I have come to trust life completely, trust even the times when I forget how to trust at all, trust that life doesn't always go according to plan, because there is no plan, only life, and even the times of great uncertainty hold supreme intelligence, and sometimes you have to fall to stand more fearlessly, with greater kindness.

And somehow I am always held, in a way I cannot explain and do not want to. I may be crushed yet again before too long, I may experience further seemingly insurmountable challenges and heartbreaks, but somehow I am always held. 

Somehow I am always held.

love light and peace

ps/smoh

The mind is loud. We have to slow down to hear the wisdom of the heart.

In my experience, the hearts laugh at the mind inventing problems that the heart cannot see.

The mind asks:

What can I DO to escape this moment? 

How can I get out of this experience?

The Heart wonders:

"How can I BE here more fully? 

What is crying out to be loved in me right now? 

What longs to be embraced lovingly in my belly, chest, throat, head?

The heart actually beats a little faster when the mind asks that. Nothing else I can find.

love light and peace
ps/smoh

VICTORY!

You don't have to be the best.

You only have to be yourself.

You only have to be real.
And speak from the heart.
And know that you have the right
to see how you see,
and think how you think,
and feel what you feel,
and desire what you desire.

You don't have to be a success
in the eyes of the world
and you don't have to be an expert.

You only have to offer what you offer,
breathe how you breathe,
make mistakes and fuck up and
learn to love your stumbling and
say the wrong thing and stop
worrying so much about
impressing anyone,
because in the end you
only have to live with yourself,
and joy is not given but found
in the deepest recesses of your being,
so there can be joy in falling
and joy in making mistakes
and joy in making a fool of yourself
and joy in forgetting the joy
and then holding yourself as you crumble
to the ground and weep out
the old dreams.

Joy is closeness
with the one you love:
You.

You don't have to be the best.
You don't have to win.

You only have to remember
this intimacy with
the sky, the nearness of the
mountains and feel the warmth
of the sun on your face
and know that you are alive,
and that you are a success,
and victorious,
without having to prove
a damn
thing.

jf/ps/smoh

“You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you.”

“The most thoroughly and relentlessly damned, banned, excluded, condemned, forbidden, ostracized, ignored, suppressed, repressed, robbed, brutalized and defamed of all 'Damned Things' is the individual human being.

The social engineers, statisticians, psychologists, sociologists, market researchers, landlords, bureaucrats, captains of industry, bankers, governors, commissars, kings and presidents are perpetually forcing this 'Damned Thing' into carefully prepared blueprints and perpetually irritated that the 'Damned Thing' will not fit into the slot assigned it.

The theologians call it a sinner and try to reform it.

The governor calls it a criminal and tries to punish it.

The psychologist calls it a neurotic and tries to cure it.

Still, the 'Damned Thing' will not fit into their slots.”

Human beings live in their myths. They only endure their realities.

We're trapped in linguistic constructs... all that is is a metaphor.

When we meet somebody whose separate tunnel-reality is obviously far different from ours, we are a bit frightened and always disoriented.

We tend to think they are mad, or that they are crooks trying to con us in some way, or that they are hoaxers playing a joke.

Yet it is neurologically obvious that no two brains have the same genetically-programmed hard wiring, the same imprints, the same conditioning, the same learning experiences.

We are all living in separate realities.

That is why communication fails so often, and misunderstandings and resentments are so common.

I say "meow" and you say "Bow-wow," and each of us is convinced the other is a bit dumb

Only the madman is absolutely sure.

The future is up for grabs.

It belongs to any and all who will take the risk and accept the responsibility of consciously creating the future they want.

Work hard to achieve what you need to but remember NEVER become a conformist or sell your soul in return.

Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently.

Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point.

Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission.

Human society as a whole is a vast brainwashing machine whose semantic rules and sex roles create a social robot.

Reality is what you can get away with.

As Oscar Wilde truly said, "Disobedience was man’s Original Virtue.”

Every fact of science was once damned.

Every invention was considered impossible.

Every discovery was a nervous shock to some orthodoxy.

Every artistic innovation was denounced as fraud and folly.

The entire web of culture and ‘progress,’ everything on earth that is man-made and not given to us by nature, is the concrete manifestation of some man’s refusal to bow to Authority.

We would own no more, know no more, and be no more than the first apelike hominids if it were not for the rebellious, the recalcitrant, and the intransigent.

The normal is that which nobody quite is.

If you listen to seemingly dull people very closely, you'll see that they're all mad in different and interesting ways, and are merely struggling to hide it.

"Is", "is." "is"—the idiocy of the word haunts me.

If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense.

I don't know what anything "is";

I only know how it seems to me at this moment." - Robert Anton Wilson

peace love and light

ps/smoh