THE PRESENCE

WHO AM I?

     I am the Presence which makes the difference in this moment of your life. The Presence of the Higher Power.

     I am the Presence of something greater than yourself, greater than your intelligence and Ego. The Presence is not something you can out think, pretend doesn’t exist, or get it to respond and leave you alone.

     The Presence is an experience for which many long, but which most of us fear.

Why do we fear these moments? Because we each have carefully worked out whatever passes for our reality, the muddle in which we live, the expertise we have gained, the self-deceits, the shams, the accolades and the excuses. We FEAR what we will experience about ourselves in that moment of the Presence of the Higher Power.

It’s like the moment when Parzival rides out of the Grail Castle after he has not asked the question “Uncle, what ails thee?” and the guard on the watch tower calls after him, “You goose!”

WHY AM I HERE?

     Years ago I had a heart attack. Months later I attended a meditation retreat. Two simple meditative forms: the focused (or narrow) gaze and the wide gaze. I could do the focused gaze like gangbusters. Hold a pebble, look at it in detail, then recreate the pebble in your imagination. N-O Problem!

     However, I could not do the wide gaze: which is NOT focusing on the pebble but seeing broadly. Nope. No way. I had tons of excuses. I asked the teacher, Dennis Klocek, why I could only do the focused gaze. He said, “Because your heart is afraid that if you don’t hold onto the details, that you will disappear. That’s what hardened your heart and caused your heart attack.”

     My heart had carefully orchestrated my life so that I only did what I was good at (detailed work), what I wanted to do, because I WAS good, and it almost killed me.

“Jean-o, what ails thee?” Me.

WHAT DO I WANT?

     The question becomes: how do I BE different? How can any of us change?

     The Presence of the Higher Power is many times about reversal. We narrow-gazers need the courage to risk the wide gaze, to do the opposite of what our heart says we should do. To have a change of heart.

Or, if we are wide gaze people, we must risk diving into the details, struggling to keep it all straight, and learning things “by heart”.

     Ask the Question: “What ails thee?” Call forth the Presence which makes the difference in this moment of your life. The Presence of the Higher Power.  And then wait. Reversal does not mean specifically DOING anything different – but BEING different.

© Copyright 2015, Jean W. Yeager

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I AM A HAMSTER RUNNING IN MY WHEEL

WHO AM I?

     I am SO busy! I have two day-planners. I make notes of my notes so I make sure I don’t forget to do something.

     Each day I double-check on each of my personal agenda items.

     I send emails.

     I make phone calls.

     I note the emails on the proper logs.

     I save the digital files noting my note.

     Then I sip my water bottle.

     Then I push the wheel a bit more. That’s my very important job! Pushing this wheel. It won’t go around without me running on it.

     Gotta double check the bank accounts.

     I use bookkeeping software so I can follow my accounts.

     So I run on my wheel.

WHY AM I HERE?

Do I run on the wheel BECAUSE I have the wheel or do I have the wheel because I feel so ANXIOUS?

I feel late.

     It’s January. Taxes are due in April. Don’t wanna be late. Don’t wanna be penalized. Tax returns were connected to everything in our lives. Taxes are the big country-sized wheel around which all my paperwork and book keeping revolves and which keeps our country going! It’s patriotic. I wear Red, White and Blue and I drink Tea and have my own Tea Party!

     We all have our little wheels that feed into the big wheel – without our taxes the country doesn’t have any money to buy bombs to blow sand up in the desert, buy scanners to see my underwear at the airport, or other patriotic things – like scanning my e-mails.

I just checked my planner, and apparently I must to shred my 10 year old tax returns so no one can steal my identity. I got the box out of the garage where I keep 10-years of tax returns neatly boxed and in numerical order on wire shelves. Not too, OCD, eh? Patriotic!

     Geez, I remember all the details of those returns. I’m a little sad have to shred them, but that’s my job today, gotta push my wheel around. Make room for a new box of receipts.

     Then I sip my water bottle.

     Maybe I could hook my shredder to my wheel. That’d be cool!

WHAT DO I WANT?

     This wheel needs a little oiling, it’s squeaky. ‘course I can’t take a day off to oil it because I’m so busy.

     When I worked for a corporation – a very BIG corporation - I had a very big wheel I had to turn. It really wasn’t MY wheel – it was one of the Corporate wheels. I had projects I had to do each and every day. I had to move my part of the Corporate wheel. There were lots of divisions. Lots of big Hamsters in Big wheels running, running and running!

     That’s good. Corporate Taxes are what keeps our country strong! Bigger wheels moving bigger wheels! I can almost hear the corporate squeaking going on everywhere across our great land. Very Patriotic. 

     Somebody told me that 26 of the biggest companies don’t PAY taxes.

     Wait! What?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/corporation-tax-rate_n_4855763.html

© Copyright 2015, Jean W. Yeager

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ON SALE NOW
Jan – June 2014 threesimplequestions Blog Posts
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THE WIND FROM THE FUTURE

WHO AM I?

     I am the wind from the future. I bring visceral fear. You fear that you will not be able to breathe. I fill your eyes with dust and you cannot see. I blow over the unknown. I blow over your future. I push you and whip you - you cannot get away from me. I swirl around the refuse of the future: the burnt out cars yet to be blown up by suicide teenage girl bombers, the bombed-out buildings that today you call “home”, the charred sandal that now clings to your dainty cousin’s foot, and the rotting goat whose slit-eyes calmly watch you just outside. I fill your mouth with the dust of the things you will do. The dust of your wasted tomorrows fills your eyes so you cannot clearly see today. The wind from the future blinds you.

I am unstoppable. You cannot stop your future. I bring confusion. Who is your enemy? Who is your friend? Who is that moving just over there? What is that smell? Is that the terrible smell of death? After the immediate explosion and the smell of burning fuel and flesh, and the cries of anguish, the smell of death is the smell of your future. Even if you are not in combat, you too will die.

WHY AM I HERE?

     Time and the calendar are on their way from the Solstice to the Equinox or vice versa. The warmth of the tropics blows north across the wet jungles. The polar vortexes dive southward across the forests and prairies. The wind of the future makes rain and flooding where the warm and the cold meet. The days grow longer. They can’t agree, these polarized forces. They come after one another, spawning storms which rage across the waters and drive across the land. And, in our governments around the earth, polarized forces rage as well as if presumptions and policies are the stuff of soul weather.

Typhoons in the soul blow apart our villages and toss around our life boats. What life? We drown in the great waves hopelessness and anger but try to hold the children aloft so the wind of the future does not drown them, too. They have so much future within them.

Forest and brush fires take the drought stricken areas and burn. We flee and leave the artifacts of our past. And then we mourn the fact that after the tragedy: bombing, fire, or flood; we have nothing to prove we were ever really there.

The past – the history of countries shows there is no ultimate balancing of forces, no peaceful future upon which we can rely. Season after season the storms are spawned, genocide after genocide one tribe/gang/party kills another, Church bombing after Church bombing nothing is sacred enough. There is always the lone killer.

WHAT DO I WANT?

The warmth and the cold, the wet and the dry, the fire and the ice comprise a whole. The wind from the future blows over them all.

And mankind too is varied: the good and bad, strong and weak, violent and peaceful, independent and enslaved, rich and poor; and the wind from the future blows over them all.

One future is fixed by its nature: plant, rock, water, fire. And it exists within time, the forces of weather and the Sun and Moon. Man cannot control these forces.

Each man can only control himself. And because we do not live alone and are isolated, we create a mutual destiny which will blow back and consume us all.

The wind of the future blows over us all.

© Copyright 2015, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved

ON SALE NOW
Jan – June 2014 threesimplequestions Blog Posts
Are Available In Book Form 
"Th3 Simple Questions: Slice Open Everyday Life" 
Available at
http:/www.th3simplequestions.com

Available at Internet Retailers 

By WestBow Press

6x9 Perfect Bound Softcover @ $11.95

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7124-0

6x9 Dust Jacket Hardcover @ $28.95

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7125-7

E-Book @ $3.99

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7123-3