Month: December 2025

Knowing that I am linked does not always mean that I feel good about it. I have a growing awareness of being linked to the expansive fabric of the universe. I am part of it all. Every part of me has been around for a very long time and I am linked to all those other parts. My history is linked to a history that is so much bigger, so much more than me. That includes humanity.

The part of being linked that helps me feel good about it all is the deep linkage I feel with my friends. Being linked with my friends is so much deeper that the notion of being part of the fabric of the universe. The energy that flows between us is so affirming. It is so attractive. Referring to people as my friends sometimes bypasses the reality that these are people that I love and who love me.

Referring to them as my friends disguises my experience of longing to be close, with people I consider to be my friends. It is a linkage that generates a deep feeling of being linked with love. These are love-friends with whom I have eperienced a mutual affection and longing.

Then I am faced with the reality that I am somehow linked to many who act out of malice and hatred. The experience of this linkage is not at all pleasant. It pains me that I am connected to people who are responsible for horrid actions.

I am dragging the consequences of those humans who act maliciously and treated people and the world so badly. I carry the burden of a humanity that sometimes does not act out of love but out of hatred. I am linked so intimately with all of humanity that I cannot escape feeling the horror of what my fellow humans do to one another. I am not separate. I don’t always feel good about that.

When I become overwhelmed by the felt experience of being linked with all of humanity, I turn my attention to those with whom I am linked by love. I take refuge in my friends. When I become too aware that I am linked to all the anger and pain generated by so much of humanity, I take refuge in the loving links I have with many others.

These are more than friends. I turn to the links that are more than simple friendship. I remember that our common bonds are more than simple ideas but are an abundance of acts of love. I allow myself to feel immersed in the experience of linking acts of love. I feel the deep expression of love we have for one another and for many others.

Knowing that I am linked doesn’t always feel good. But I can choose where I pay attention to my linkages.

I have a deep longing in me. I became slightly aware of it when I was about twenty years old. I have become more aware of of the longing as years have passed and as I have become more free in experiencing it. It has been a gradual letting go, a gradual falling into a void.

The longing expresses itself in many ways and many sources. I am aware of it many times, but especially when I notice that it is reciprocated. People, animals, plants and places can all be an object of my longing. The occasion of longing may be as simple as smiles exchanged when passing in the skyway, a deep hug, the eyes of a dog, a walk in a beloved community of plants.

I am no longer surprised or puzzled when the longing happens. I am increasingly aware that we are all connected in the fabric of universe, animate and inanimate beings alike. I have moments when this connection is more clearly experienced. There are moments when I relax into the connection and the longing to be close surges through my body. Never to be grasped or possessed, the object of my longing persists and the glow of its presence fills moments, hours and days afterwards.

I feel this longing when I look at my blooming amaryllis and when I look around at all those seated in a circle in my Sangha. I feel this longing when a friend comes through my door or I look out my window at the snow covered yard. I know that the intimacy is already there, and I have but to allow myself to experience it.

For me, it is simply a matter of letting go and falling into the presence of whatever or whomever is there before me. For some, this is what they call falling in love, into love.

Perhaps it is special, but it has become more and more of an habitual experience of mine. Falling into the experience of longing is the way I choose to live.

I honestly don’t know what to do with my enemies. I am fortunately surrounded by many people I love and who love me. But there are those enemies out there that seem intent on following a path of intolerance and hatred. I can’t ignore them because their actions harm so many of their fellow humans and affect those I love.

It is not enough to judge their actions and declare them to be in the evolutionary backwaters of humanity. They act in a way that is inconsistant and even oppositional to the very traits that have made us successful as a species. They act in a way that ignores that humans have prospered because we evolved to care for and support one another. They hoard resources, contrary to the human tendency to provide for those who are hungry or weak.

They do not understand their inheritance as humans. They appear unaware of what it means to be human and care for one another. It is not enough for me to repeatedly remind myself that they are “dumb shits,” and turn away. I cannot ignore them, even while I attempt to keep them from stirring my anger. I will not be consumed with feelings of rage, even while I routinely feel a smoldering rage inside me as I witness what my enemies are doing.

I cannot simply lock my enemies in the basement of my life. They have surrounded me and those I love. They are having a real effect on the social world we have constructed and the given world we have inherited from the universe. I wish I could ignore them, but I am very aware of the harm being caused by my enemies. I am sad that I hold them at a distane, outside the realm of those I love.

My enemies are a sign of my own shortcoming. I fall short just by my identifying them as my enemies. I want to be aware of them and alert to their presence, but I refuse to be drawn into their circle of malace. I am watchful and wary, and I am sometimes acting in opposition. But I will not dishonor my own heart with the same kind of hatred and rage that consume my enemies.

For now, it is enough to keep my heart from being affected by my enemies. I will protect my heart from my enemies. I rely on those who love me and whom I deeply love.

A reflection on the childish behavior of some adults.

Childhood is always imperfect. I don’t think any of us had a perfect childhood. The notion of a perfect childhood is a myth. We go through life attempting to recover from what we experienced as children. There are no exceptions, but the degree of imperfection is highly variable.

For some, childhood could be marred by a lack of food, shelter or affection . We never recover the connection with the world we felt when we were born. For others, the experience of childhood imperfection is much more dramatic. Many childhoods are scarred by blatant abuse. Physical abuse, includig sexual abuse, is a common experience in childhood. Trauma comes in many forms.

Many people never recover from the trauma of childhood. They carry with them the experience of an imperfect childhood and often continue to live it out. Sometimes they inflict on others what they have learned. Sometimes they simply react to situations the way a two-years old might have a tantrum. Some never grow into sexual maturity and, as an adult, relate to children the way they would as a child, spreading abuse in their wake.

Fortunately, many people have the insight to recognize the imperfection of their past and choose to craft what they have not experienced. They choose to make what has been missing. It is a choice to plunge into the unknown and untested. Rising out of an imperfect childhood can be difficult, but it is also a choice. Many spend their lives learning what it means to be a human being. They make choices to learn what it means for them to be a human being. They choose to shed the imperfections of their childhood.

Many of us experience guides and aids along the way. When we are fortunate and observant, we learn how to abandon an obsessive clinging to the imperfections of our childhood. The help sometimes comes in the form of other humans. Sometimes, it is simply the dramatic and abundant world around us. We are often given chances to recover, but we must be observant and choose.

I sometimes become aware of the imperfections of my childhood. I also remind my kids that they did not have perfect parents. But I also tell my kids, as I tell myself, it is not sufficient to be aware of the shortcomings of childhood. To observe the shortcomings of my past is the beginning of a healing and growth. I may never achieve the perfection of my human essence, but this is a good time to move in that direction. I choose not to be limited by my past experience of imperfection.

I have an occasional practice of redeeming words that have a slightly unsavory aspect. I wash them up a bit and then embrace them in my common vocabulary. “Seduction” has been a recent word that I have burnished a bit and then claimed it as an attribute of mine. This morning, I have chosen to see myself as incorrigible. It was perhaps applied to me in jest. But I see it as insightful and accurate. I am incorrigible.

I recognize that I truly am a follower of patterns and rules. I yield and accommodate most social norms. But I also push back at boundaries. I sometimes find new meanings in old expressions and make them my own. I love following a path through the woods, but occasionally I wander off into areas that appear untouched by human trafficking.

Long ago, I was chosen in a seminar to play the role of trickster. It happened by lot, by blindly drawing cards out of a cloth bag. I never thought much of it at the time and I dutifully played the role of trickster in the group. Looking back, I realize that the name I pulled out of the cloth bag was truly my own. I am a trickster. I can be quite conventional and at the same time I can see situations with an awareness that is not at all common or conventional. I choose my vision over that of many others. I may go where no one else is choosing to go.

Perhaps this is simply one of the gifts of being on the autism spectrum. I see many things in non typical ways. I choose to make situations make sense, but I do it in a way that makes sense to me. I choose my own way, I choose my own path. That path goes beyond, or at least pushes up against, the boundaries that others see. I abandon or at least push against what is typically seen as normal.

I am aware that I push against the normal with confidence and conviction. For me, it is a normal thing to do. Being a bit of a trickster is simply who I am, and I wear that label with a deep sense of personal identity. A trickster does not hesitate to walk outside of what others see as norms. For me, that is about the same as being incorrigible.

I am not about to change. I embrace who I am, and the norms I see are the ones I follow. It is my vision of things, and I am compelled to follow the vision that I trust. I resist any attempt by others or institutions to impose norms on me. I resist control, especially if that control attempt to impose a norm on me that is not my own. I am comfortable being abnormal. I guess I am truly incorrigible.

I haven’t always known it. For a long time, I think that I have wanted to be a mystic. It has been more of a longing than an intention or decision. I have wanted to fall into the dark and infinite mind of the universe . But I was only slightly aware that becoming something like a mystic may have been my heart’s desire.

Even now, I am not really sure just what it means to be a mystic. I just know that I want to swim in the limitless, loving amniotic waves of the endless void. I want to routinely embrace the darkness of each endless fall. That is what I imagine the classic mystics experienced, even though they expressed it in an assortment of different ways. More exactly, those who recorded the activities of the mystics, wrote about mystics in a way that made sense to them.

Now, I’m not even sure that my experience makes sense to me. I just know that there is a deep sense of nothingness. I briefly experience falls into an absence of all that I know, and I feel that I am entering an intelligence that is beyond my grasp. I just am aware that it is an intelligence that is warm, welcoming and loving. I allow myself to get swept up by that loving surge of energy and formless awareness. It carries me into whoever or whatever is around me. My whole body and mind radiate an awareness that seems part of a universal mind, a universal awareness.

There is no way of knowing exactly what the mystics experienced. Giving their experience any description is an attempt to do what language is incapable of accomplishing. My own adventuring into emptiness is something of what I imagine mystcism is like. What I am experiencing is a form of intimacy with the universe that has been my longing for sixty years. There is no other way to describe it except to say that it is the path of a mystic. It is a path I joyfully embrace, mystical or not.

Seduction mostly has a bad name. That bad rap was even continued by Garrison last week. Thursday was Rilke’s birthday, and to mark the occasion Garrison Keillor wrote about how Rilke traveled around Europe and seduced rich noblewomen. The way Garrison presented it, it was not a compliment. To me, Garrison protrayed his own misogyny and notion of male dominance over women. It was a distorted and narrow notion of seduction.

True, there are times when seduction is coupled with manipulation. Someone may seduce another in a way that involves deception or control. If someone has power over another, seduction can be manipulative. The power could be out of many things including wealth, station, custom or relationship. Sometimes seduction is related to deception when someone is not who they pretend to be. Unfortunately, there can be many corruptions of seduction.

For me, seduction can be a deep invitation to an intimacy that is freely offered and freely exchanged. Seduction is a free giving and a free response. There is no element of control or manipulation. Seduction into intimacy is a choice that invites a choice between free individuals.

I recognize this kind of seduction when I acknowledge that the beauty of a garden seduces me to enter into in and actively pleasure in its presence. I am invited by the forest to give my full presence to its velvety and inviting presence. The sound of music filling my home seduces me to yield to an open acceptance of its beauty and excitation. The snow falling outside my window seduces me to a deep appreciation and engagement with the mysterious wonders of winter.

When I pass someone in an open space, our eyes meet and the smiles we exchange convey a seductive acknowledgment that mutually affirms our presence. I know when I speak to someone, it is a seductive invitation to respond. If we choose, we can begin an exchange that is more than simple words. There can be times that we choose to feel the presence of one another. The seduction begins with exchanged words, but it can go deeper into a mutually felt presence. If we choose.

Perhaps I am simply revealing my acknowledgment that I am a seducer. As I go through my day, I routinely seduce many people around me. And I am often seduced by then as we enter into many pacts of intimacy. For me, seduction is a common experience as I am seduced by the world around me and people who willingly open to me.

I am aware that not everyone who has attempted to seduce me has been successful. I have many times chosen not to be seduced. Or I have set limits to the degree that I am willing to be seduced. It has been my choice, just as I freely offer that choice to anyone that I gesture a seductive invitation. While I know my chosen limits, I think that my default presence is to be seductive. I want to be intimate with the world, and I offer that invitation to join me in intimacy often and freely.

Sometimes, I think that the fear of genuine intimacy has caused seduction to acquire a bad name. An inability to be intimate has stirred fear in the closed hearts of many. The only kind of seduction they can imagine is one that is manipulative, absent of intimacy. I choose to see a kind of seduction that is freely given and invites a freely chosen presence. I offer an engagement that is without deceit and without control. I invite an experienced presence equal to mine.

Sadly, the way that Garrison protrayed Rilke’s seductions does not encourage a view of free exchanges. I think that Rilke had a lot to offer because I read his poetry. How much that entered into his seductive behavior I can only guess. It is enough for me is that I am seduced to enter into his world daily . And I guess that many others may have freely entered into that same world, each in their own chosen way.

Solitude has been puzzling to me. For me it has been a tricky affair. I value my ability to descend into a region of solitude. But the absolute immersion of Anchorites in solitude has actually seemed quite distant from the human condition. We are by nature connected, and a denial of that connection in total solitude seems misguided.

Solitude for me offers me an experience of having no distractions. I cultivate the ability to let go of all sensory experiences and, free of of engaging thoughts, descend into the darkness of an endless fall. I take this brief plunge into solitude many times a day. I relish this quick experience of solitude. In a strange way, it opens me to experience an immense realm of connection.

Tuesday, I found myself standing on the light rail platform at fifth and Nicollet, waiting for the train. I was typically alone in isolation. I notice an older couple standing quietly not far from me with their hands on green luggage. They are likely waiting for the blue line to take them to the airport. I decide to break our solutude that we stand in and soon, for several minutes, we are sharing thoughts about going to school for free when you are older. The train arrives, and I am aware that we remain somehow connected as they head off to the airport.

I know that I dwell in my own solitude. But I also know that we have always been connected, being part of this vast intertweined universe, even while we stand apart on the LRT platform on a cold December day. For a few minutes, we allowed ourselves to eperience that connectedness. We allowed ourselves to fall into part of the loving energy we each carry in our apparent solitude.

That we are alone is a great deception. I defy the belief that we are alone every time I hug someone. I am not alone, you are not alone. None of us lives in a solitude that must remain impenetrable. Still I am convinced that my being comfortable in solitude opens me up to a generous invitation for others to experience connection with me.

I am not afraid when I lose myself in the solitude of nothingness. Losing myself in a loving connection on the LRT platform or a lingering hug is both appealing and natural for me.

In a strange paradox, being able to enter solitude with ease allows me to enter connection with an equal degree of ease. It is my familiar notion of “both / and” that colors so many of my experiences. I think the Anchorites only practiced living part of the paradox. They practiced how to look inside the window, but not outside it.

I like and embrace my solitude. And I have the same zeal about experiencing deep connection.

I want to be more than aware of the world. I want my every attentive look to be an invitation for someone or some aspect of the world to enter into cascading darkness, into the swirling dynamics of the universe, into the deep embrace of intimacy.

Every experience of mine is also an invitation to engagement. It is not only about me. It is also about the object of my open attention. I not only reach out, I also invite in.

I want my life to be more than my reaching out to connect with the world. I want to be an invitation for others to enter into the farthest reaches of reality through me. I am a live conduit. My openness is not for me alone but also for anyone or anything I encounter. I want to be a welcome sign for the wonders of the universe.

I am an invitation for anyone open enough to see. I want to be an open invitation for anyone willing to enter.

I am present in a vast pool of possible experience. I know that my experience is not absolutely unique to me. The universe is filled with vast, surging energy. It is also formed by an intellignece that permeates and shapes everything that has existence. It is not a chaotic or random universe, but a universe pulsing with intelligence. I exist in that vast pool of intelligence, and my experience is guided by it. And I have a role in how I participate.

My participation in this vast pool of intelligence is not at all random. My involvement and alignment is guided by my decisions and actions. So too do all my associations guide how I make my way into this pool of experience. My participation in the universe was highly conditioned from the moment I had awareness.

For me, the obvious impact of my culture has shaped how I experience the world, how I make my way through the pool of world intelligence. I am aware how my culture is ever ready to impose dogma on me, tell me how to choose to act, shape how I experience the world. In many ways, this has allowed me to participate in the world in a useful, even meaningful way. It has also been on the ready to limit how I am present in the vast pool of universe intelligence.

My parents and all my ancestors have had a significant role in shaping my experience. Like the culture, they have been standing around me telling me what to see, what to feel, how to interpret the world. Especially for the early part of my life that was very useful. Then I learned to say “no”, and I began to shape my own movement through the pool of experience.

My own degree of openness to that vast array of potential experience has been influenced by how I have been open to the energy, the love of the universe. My own innate desire and deliverate decision for intimacy has allowed me to be shaped and guided by a multitude of individuals and events. I am a product of the many individuals and parts of the world that I have allowed to stand beside and penetrate me.

How much I have been shaped and formed by the world around me has to a large degree by what I allowed in. It has been very important that many aspects of the world and individuals have chosen to be close beside me. It has also been important how maleable I have allowed myself to be. Being open to all the experience that has presented has been a practice I have spent much of my life learning.

I am grateful for all aspects of the world which have been present to me. I am grateful for all those individuals and entities who have presented themselves to me. I am also grateful for my learning to be maleable and open to the wonders of the universe. It is a process that continues as I plunge deeper and deeper into the pool of experience. I continue to learn how to open to the intimacies of the world. I fall ever more deeply in the love of the universe.