Tag Archives: Spirit

The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes

It’s a series on Netflix and I love it.  It’s worthwhile to explore why. 

I don’t want to live in these extravagant homes, even if I had the money.  I’m happy in my three bedroom detached condo.  I don’t want to spy on the “lifestyles of the rich and famous”.  So often there’s no happiness there.

But there’s something that thrills me about this:

Look at those curves!  Feel the ourageousness of it all.  I want more of that in my life – off the wall, on the ceiling, flying through space.

Speaking of outrageous, the hosts of the series are a laugh a minute.  Even better, Caroline and Piers thoroughly enjoy each other.  I roared when she opened a heavy wooden door for him with a bow: “After you, my lord …”

Perhaps it is the scenic lots that have tickled my fancy:

I love long vistas.  My living room looks out on a farmer’s field.  But I don’t need to be perched on the side of a mountain, above the rest of humanity, gazing down on a sublime lake.

The vistas of the spirit are even more stunning.  The wide open spaces of two hearts beating as one.  The touch of the infinite in the moment at hand.

The world of “different” is alive and well on the planet.  Be noticed and talked about, for good or ill.  Hey, I loved that curvy home.  Here’s another noticeable:

It’s cool … yes?  But give me a real human being in the richness of their seasons.  Give me the tears that fall – in sorrow or joy.

I love “Extraordinary Homes” for its smiles, its colours, its curves and its spirit.  I smile too.

The Mouth Knows

Are we spiritual people?  I don’t even know what that means.  Perhaps you do.  It might point to communion with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  It might be to walk in the steps of the Dalai Lama.  To be in prayer as you kneel by the bed and as you walk down Main Street.  To be loving and compassionate.  To have equanimity in your heart, undisturbed by the events of the day.  To lead a solitary life, cloistered away from the teeming masses and the volatile emotions.  Or to hug every person you meet.

I have a theory that there’s one experience essential for the open heart, the open hands, the Spirit.  I won’t share my opinion just now.  I trust you’ll feel it at the end of the story which follows.

A couple from snowy Minnesota decided to take a winter vacation back in the simple Florida resort where they had stayed for a honeymoon twenty-five years before.  Because of his wife’s delayed work schedule, the husband went first, and then when he got there he received a message that she would meet him soon.  So he sent her this e-mail in reply.  But because he typed one letter wrong in the e-mail address, it went by mistake to an old woman in Oklahoma, whose minister husband had died the day before.  Here is what she read:

“Dearest,

Well the journey is over and I have finally arrived.  I was surprised to find they have e-mail here now.  They tell me you’ll be coming soon.  It will be good to be together again.  

Love as always.

P.S.  Be prepared.  It’s quite hot down here.”

Measurements

I walked into Fabricland a few days ago and bought a cloth tape measure.  You might be thinking that I’ve branched off into dressmaking but you’d be wrong.

My new trainer Derek has connected me to a daily online program that seeks to enhance my nutrition and mental health.  I have daily assignments and I knew what was coming up today: measuring myself here, there and everywhere, plus taking photos from the front, side and back.

I know the word “measure”.  It’s to “ascertain the size, amount or degree” of something.  Today it was neck, shoulders, chest, waist, hips, thigh and calf.  At the end, I felt like adding “head” to the list.  It was such a strange feeling, to sense the onset of inadequacy (too much of this, too little of that) and then to experience it fading into the background.  My previous bouts with body examination certainly weren’t that.  They were in my face.

So there I was with the tape, addressing the tasks in a matter-of-fact manner.  There was a lightness while finding clear evidence that my waist was large and my biceps were small.  Edginess tried to intrude but then apparently encountered some mysterious force (not my will) and decided to withdraw.

Improving my physical fitness, nutritional health and appearance is clearly a gradual process.  When I feel what’s happening inside, I’m fine with there being no hurry.  I also see that there is a better and worse here and measurements will reveal the changes.  However, there’s no tape measure for my heart.  Although I want my love to continually expand, there’s a wisdom that tells me to go deeply into whatever I’m experiencing in the moment, even if it’s not suffused with unconditional positive regard for other human beings.  I’ve glimpsed a place where all comparisons fall away.

It seems that measurables exist beside the immeasurables.  It feels like a dance between the horizontal world of becoming and the vertical world of being.  And I love dancing.

An Inside Job

I wonder what we look like on the inside.  I’ve turned the pages of anatomy textbooks and seen the jumble of muscle, blood vessels, organs and bone, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

If Spirit fills us all, it’s often not visible to the outside world. With many people, however, it does leak out into the atmosphere some.  But you have to be an alert observer to see it walking by you on the street.

Let’s say most of Spirit hangs out inside us somewhere.  Would it be in the brain, in the heart, tucked under my kneecap, or just spread liberally throughout the bod?  I wonder if an autopsy has ever come across patches of essence.

For the pathologist to catch sight of Spirit, it had better be some colour. How about red?  (That’s my favourite.)  Might get confusing, however, with all the blood that’s usually in the immediate vicinity.  Isn’t purple a common New Age colour? Perhaps that’s it.  Or … maybe you could reach under the spleen and find a pocket of rainbow – the full spectrum blended together, from Red to Orange to Yellow to Green to Blue to Indigo to Violet.  Maybe that’s how Spirit abides. And another thought: Is it possible that it can only be found in one human being on Earth – a certain Roy G. Biv?  No, that’s silly. Spirit is in all of us.

I also wonder whether the light of Spirit vibrates inside of me, or flashes, or if it’s a steady beam.  Relying on my knowledge of Christmas lights, I vote for steady.  The flashing types bother my brain, while a string of solid white lights looks so pretty in the falling snow.

These could be deep thoughts, or maybe shallow.  Whichever the case, please don’t go cutting into yourself to find the colours. Makes a mess and it hurts. Far better to let your pores shine out your goodness to the waiting world.