Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Monday, September 28, 2009

The Sparrow and the Eagle




I had a thought this morning: What if I were to let go of all of my thoughts? What would happen? I saw myself standing inside the basket of a small hot air balloon that was tied to the ground by hundreds of strings. Each string was attached to a thought. There were thoughts of fear over money and the economy. Thoughts of aloneness and of being by myself. There were thoughts of how my past had been and how my future could be; thoughts and dreams of how much money I wanted to have, who I wanted to live with and where. There were thoughts of starting and ending previous relationships and of regret over things I did or did not do in the past. There were thoughts of accomplishments and triumphs, of failures and of feeling incomplete. There were loving and unloving thoughts towards other people and there were loving and unloving thoughts towards myself. There were thoughts of how my business should work and thoughts of how my life should work. And there were many, many more.

Each of the individual thoughts was attached to one of the strings and the strings themselves were tied to the bottom of the basket. As I looked up into the sky I thought about what would happen if I were to cut the strings. I'll probably shoot straight up into space and die from lack of oxygen or freeze to death somewhere in the outer atmosphere. Strong winds will take me and smash me against the side of a mountain where nobody could ever find me. I saw myself lying somewhere, all my limbs broken, unable to move and unable to call for help. I saw the balloon go way up only to collapse and crash to the ground moments later.

I realized that those thoughts were part of the very weight that held the balloon firmly on this earth. Ok. I might as well try it now rather than wait much longer. The sun was setting and I surely didn't want to do this during night time. So I took a pair of scissors and cut the strings - five or ten at a time, all the way around the basket. What was interesting was that when I got to the last string, the balloon still wasn't moving. As if one small thought was holding it back, keeping it anchored.

As I cut the last string, the balloon gently lifted off. I expected it to kind of shoot up very quickly. Instead, a soft breeze took it and lifted it up. I saw the world below me: The meadow from which I started, trees, some houses, part of a road. As I passed above the tree line, a magnificent vista opened up in front of me. Rolling hills as far as my eyes could see and in the distance what must have been the ocean. The air was so clear it felt like I could see for hundreds of miles in the distance. A lightness of being enveloped me. I felt more and more weightless. The sense of freedom was indescribable. A deep calm set in. This was completely unexpected. And yet, at the same time, it felt as if this was the most natural state I have ever been in.
I felt utterly at home. This was, this IS, my natural state of being. And nothing I ever thought might bring me happiness or fulfillment or escape had even the slightest resemblance with what I experienced at that moment. In fact, everything I ever thought about anything - every fantasy, every dream, every feeling  and every thought - as lofty as it had seemed at the time - has probably prevented me from having this experience.

How long I stayed in my balloon, I do not remember. Was it an eternity or a single instant? I do not know. It matters not. This instant was enough. Enough to show me, to unmistakably reveal the purpose of the journey of my life. As to my thoughts: they are back and they will stay a while, I'm sure. Of this episode, one single question remains: "When I ask again who I am, who will I ask?"

"When this Power has once been experienced, it is impossible to trust one’s own petty strength again. Who would attempt to fly with the tiny wings of a sparrow when the mighty power of an eagle has been given him?" - A Course in Miracles

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Butterflies

copyright by Stefan Bolz

I sit under a tree on top of a small hill overlooking the magnificent valley. The golden late afternoon sun illuminates the tree tops below. No sound. Just stillness. On occasion, the wind gently moves the leafs above me. I look out toward the horizon. The emotional landscape of our relationship. In the place where we met under the tree, where we wove threads of dreams and affection together, the grass still shows the outline of where you sat next to me. Inside the quiet, the vacuum of stillness, echoes of our conversations linger still.

“What are you doing here?” she asks. I did not hear her sitting down on the other side of me. The grass dents, gives in, gives way to her small body’s weight. “I’m glad you came,” I say. “Of course,” she answers, her eyes capturing mine, not letting go, holding them within hers. Until tears stream down my cheeks like tiny rivers of glass. Her presence commands them, pulls them out of hiding. “I’m here,” her eyes tell me, and I nod. “You’re here.”

“Uh, look! A butterfly. Let’s chase it!” Already standing, she runs after it, and then stops, looks back. “Come on, Steffi…". I smile. I try not to but I do. I get up. Dents in the grass. Three of them. “Let’s chase some butterflies and watch the sun go down. And in the new dawn, a new day will rise and cocoons will open and birds will start chirping and threads of dreams will be woven. And the sun will be warm and affectionate. “

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Monday, September 14, 2009

The Gap

Copyright 2009 by Stefan Bolz

As long as I can remember, I longed. I longed for love. Never for fame or fortune or riches or cars or my own sailboat. No. I longed for love. It was on the flight back from a recent family visit to Germany that I found myself asking the question of how to bridge that gap inside of me between the part that always longs and the object of my longing. It seemed impossible. My first memory of longing was in first grade when I fell in love with a girl in my class who lived across the street from my parents' house. I remember we went on a school bus trip and I sat next to her the whole time dreading the moment when we would step off the bus and part ways.

That was my first memory. I longed ever since and probably longer. Longing became my second nature. I was never alone for long for longing and the fulfillment of it became who I was. A couple of months ago, in one of the sessions with Julie, my therapist, I saw the image of me standing on one side of a great canyon. On the other side, far in the distance, I knew was the love that I longed for. I have had inklings of being on the other side lately. Usually for very, very, short periods of time I experienced the freedom of not having this almost constant tugging, searching and not finding, finding and finding out that whatever I thought I found was not what I was looking for in the first place.

The gap between me and ... love... these two diametrically opposed states of beeing seemed impossible to bridge; and so was the distance between where I stood at one end of the massive canyon and love on the other side. There was no way of getting to the other side. The gap stretched out for miles. It's depth was only imaginable. The only thing that connected one side of the massive canyon to the other was a rope. It looked frail and thin and slippery. There is just no way, I thought to myself.

Next thing I knew I suddenly found myself hanging from the rope, smack in the middle of the canyon. I realized in terror that there was absolutely no chance for me to make it to the other side. Neither would I ever be able to go back to where I came from. My fear of letting go of the rope was equally overwhelming. So I just hung there. My hands cramped around the now slightly slippery rope. "What would happen if you'd let go", Julie asked. "I don't know. I'd fall", I said, my mouth filled with sawdust.

At one point I just couldn't hold on anymore and my hands opened. The split second of anticipation of my fall gave way to the strange sensation of hovering suspended in the air for a while and then slowly sinking down toward the ground. It felt as if I was carried. Carried and held at the same time. Next thing I knew I lay on the ground, very comfortably in the grass, looking up towards the sky. I saw the right side of the cliffs where I stood before and the left side where I thought I needed to get to. The rope was now not more than a thin thread floating in the air high above me. As I lay there very peacefully it came to me. It was suddenly clear as winter sky that I would never be able to bridge the gap. Ever. Not in this life time nor all the lifetimes I still had in front of me. The gap would always be there and there was just no way that I could ever bridge it. But neither did I have to. The thought came so quietly as if it had to sneak into my mind behind all the devastation and fear and an overwhelming sense of doom. It stood there undisturbed by all the raucous shrieking. It's presence was strong but gentle, quiet but loud as thunder. I don't have to bridge the gap. That was it? The statement had little meaning to me as of yet. The thought that I could not bridge the gap but did not need to bridge it either had very little impact on my conscious mind - until the moment it opened itself up like a flower in the morning sun unfolding and unveiling its full beauty and fragrance and depth to me, overwhelming me with joy and hope and a sense of deep, deep comfort.

There is a line in the movie "The Matrix" when Neo, waiting for the Oracle, watches a little boy bend a spoon with his mind. Neo asks the boy how he does it. The boy tells Neo: "Ask not how to bend the spoon. Just know that there is no spoon." While I laid on the table in Julie's practice in Accord, New York on a Friday morning around 11AM, it occurred to me that the need I had felt my whole life, this longing to be complete, was a trick. A very inventive one but still a trick, a slight of hand, a smoke screen to prevent me from accepting the one simple truth about myself that I was and am and always will be complete. That there was no gap, no search for love, no distance between me and what I had longed for all my life.

The presence of the thought in my mind radiated waves and waves into every dark corner, illuminating my being with millions of lights. Its loveliness was complete, its care and comfort simply not of this world. 'There is nothing to do," I thought to myself. No process, no journey, no overcoming, no challenge, no tests no accomplishments. Just the simple acceptance of what is already here.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009