Too much wanting! How to cope with disappointment

I should be sailing away into the Desolation Sound tomorrow to celebrate the summer solstice on Pearl.  We have been planning this Solstice sail for weeks now--the house sitter arranged, the garden deep watered, the special solstice food prepared.  Today we hear that our oyster seed for 2016 is arriving on Sunday.  Just like the farmer cannot tell the lambs when to be born, the shellfish farmer cannot control when the oyster spat is ready.  This change in plans cannot be avoided and is no one's fault, but how to cope with the disappointment?

My first response is to clean something.  Really clean something, not just go over the surface.   Mop the floor, dust all the book jackets, clean the boot trays. When I am disappointed, my energy feels low and heavy, like disappointment is a weight that suddenly I am carrying with me everywhere.  When I clean in service to raising the vibration of my living space--it raises my vibration also.

Another response to disappointment is to go outside and work with my hands in something. Top dressing the container pots to prevent water loss and clearing the pond help me let go of the mental turmoil created by my continually telling myself the story of what was supposed to happen, Working in water and soil grounds my mental fantasy back into the practicality of what is happening.

Finally, I cope by not having a hard opinion of myself for feeling disappointment in the first place. It's OK to honestly feel the frustration and sadness of loss, but not so helpful to attach to it. Instead it's valuable to gain perspective.   I think I'll do a Journey Oracle reading to understand the teaching of this situation in its larger context. And this is the perfect question to take to the Oracle: "Why so much wanting?"

Am I psychic?

I am creating an on-line reading for the Journey Oracle cards that will be able to be purchased from my webstore, and I suppose this means others will wonder am I psychic?  What is it to be psychic? Webster's defines psychic as "of the soul, having to do with the mind, and knowing beyond natural or physical processes."  While I agree with the first two descriptions, I take issue with the last definition. The ability to read an oracle card depends on completely attending to natural sensations and physical information without listening to an inner voice of assumption or judgement.  Here is a quick Oracle reading of what I mean.

This Journey Oracle card is a picture of my situation, which is contained in this question,"Am I psychic?"  My first sensation is of a bird looking intensely, looking with intention.  Watching.  To be psychic is to be looking where nature is looking.  Looking with bird vision into far distances and the tiniest detail.

This second oracle card is a picture of my experience of my situation which is the question, "am I psychic?"  Open eyes, big ears, long nose; everything taking in sensation.  And yet what kind of creature is this?  What kind of creature is psychic?  Unusual, not easily definable, not ordinary.  

This third card represents change.  Not an easy image to identify.  Looks like a landscape that is also a person with startling blue, sad eyes, made of water, fire and stone.  I see a little figure going through an opening on the right.  Change is going ahead, going through.  Change is seeing that everything, every creature, every force is a person.  Everything is psychic; is participating in soul, in the Great Mind. 

This last card of the reading represents the resolution of the situation.  One eye is dark, one eye clear. Being psychic is looking out with intention from the spirit side.  And all it takes is one clear eye. 

Full Moon in Von Donop Inlet

Sometimes the Journey Oracle cards, shamanic drums and new painting have to take a break for a full moon sail into Von Donop Inlet on the northwest coast of Cortes Island.

We find good holding in 29 feet of water over a mud bottom and have a perfectly quiet night, no wind and only two other boats in the inlet with us.

Although sometimes its fun to plan exotic holidays, on a night like tonight I have no yearning to be riding in that far-away jet liner as it pierces the sunset sky.

May this June full moon be a blessed beginning to the summer for us all, with time to meet the life that teems in these waters and on the land, and with just the right size vehicle to be a part of the whole.

Meditating on Art

My painting technique is very slow.

It takes months to translate a photograph back into a living image that gives me the same sensations as the original location in nature where the photograph was taken.  In a way you can say I want to put back the spirit of place that the process of photography took away.

And of course I am the one taking the photograph so this situation creates a checkmate. Neither the photograph nor the painting is correct and whole by itself.  This checkmate becomes a meditation on art for me.  My titles are like echos of the meditation focus.

Sacred Meat is a meditation on impermanence.  Everything arises and falls away.  Nothing stays in its endless moment but continuously flows through every form of growth and decay.

Tinfoil is a meditation on aversion. I like my natural places to be "natural" instead of marred by rusting metal, yet rust and metal are completely natural.  So it must be my judgement that is the problem; that makes some objects worthy and others junk.

Usual Magic is a meditation on how extraordinarily ordinary is a state of wonder.  Every glance has the opportunity to lift me from my vision that controls and labels, to my vision that sees the spacious perfection of each smallest thing.

Next Steps is a meditation on rebirth.  The self is not the stones but the water flowing within the stones, that continually shape the water's path but are not of it. As Ahjan Sona, the Abbot of Birken Forest Monestary said, "there is no self, but there is selfing."

All art is a meditation.  From the images on my shamanic drums to the shifting views of my Journey Oracle cards,  all art is an opportunity to go deep into contemplation, from which wisdom might arise.

Learning to be patient

I like to think of myself as calm, but I am always learning to be patient.  Here are some of my favorite teachers of patience.

The twigs of springtime do not push against the weather, trying to get into the front of the line.  There is no line, there is only the slowly increasing angle of the sun and its energy for growing as the season transforms toward that moment when the air is soft and warm.

The cats do not push against anything, even the cat door, unless all is as it should be.   I often have to relearn from them how to slow down, give full measure, wait until the coast is clear.

Always I am learning patience from my painting.  I cannot easily comprehend the months and months it takes to bring a photograph back alive, so I only see a few inches at a time.  My whole task is to slow the eye down and give good weight.

Distribution of the Journey Oracle Divination Deck is my most recent teacher for learning to be patient.  And this is about the biggest lesson of all.  Trust.  Because I suspect patience is built on trust. Trust that all will unfold in its best time, and in the best version of its highest intention. Trust that we each are in the right moment and the right place. Trust in knowing that sharing my journey with the oracle is for the highest good.