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BRIDGING AUTHENTIC GENEROSITY

© 2010 Howard McQueen
Version 2.0 May 31, 2010

The root seed of aggression

is assigning blame to the cause of conflict

arising within us – to someone else.

When we hold someone else accountable for our mischief,

we make someone else's business, our business.

And the mischief blossoms …

We place such stress upon ourselves,
in our rush and race to our
self-imposed, self-contrived finish lines.
We buy into these polarizing times.
we hustle down dark, dead-end alleys,
we forget our softness
our yielding,
our interconnectedness.

The sheer momentum of six.five billion humans,
striving to survive,
wanting the best possible life for themselves
and their children.
So many heightened expectations.
Lifestyles so out of balance,
when contrasted to the simplicity of flowing
with life's humble blessings.

See everyone as your family,
by being patient and kind.
Let your intentions flow
into the sweet spots
where authentic generosity and abundance is grown.

As other's lives are flooded,
their own bridges washed away,
let us all be touched and reshaped
by the heartfelt sense of feeling united in family.
Read more…

Thank-you to Catherine and Chris

This is a big thank-you to Catherine and Chris for opening up their homeas an offering to the Asheville Open Gate Sangha.The potluck food wasscrumptious, discussion mutually satisfying, and, most importantly, weall had some good laughs. The nature walk around the property providedeveryone with a wonderful bonus treat. See photo for one of our lightermoments. Left to right: Lila, Melanie, Solomon, and Wendy. Photo snappedby Jeff Sharp on cell phone camera.

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WHAT WE INTEND BECOMES OUR EXPERIENCE

CONVERSATIONS WITH YIN AND YANG

WHAT WE INTEND BECOMES OUR EXPERIENCE

© 2010 Howard McQueen


Our life experiences are paved with intentions.

The infrastructure that fuels our intentions either

enables connection and flow

or

separation and stuckness


YANG finds himself settled into this long-standing groove, one that has him taking unilateral action to navigate much of life. This causes others to often feel cutoff, disconnected and stranded by his lack of inclusiveness.


YANG feels so completely justified in his unilateral acts, so much so he wonders why. As he explores this, what he sees is a certain seduction, a certain safety of keeping his intentions hidden and secret, often even from himself. It seems that waiting until the very last moment to spring the modus operandi, then he is all action and doing.


To be another in relationship with Yang is to never be prepared for what may happen, to always be trying to adjust – to abrupt and sometimes radical shifts in stormy weather.


YANG feels into this and recognizes the inner disappointment, frustration, anger and sadness still lingering from his childhood. He sees himself-as-child caught in the acceptance-refusal ping-pong web spun by his mother and father. The experience, like a wood burning tool, remains as a living, inscribed psychic portrait.


To explicitly ask permission gains an immediate approval from mom, but then mom sends me off to gain the permission of my dad. When I ask my dad, he asks what my mom said and when I say she said yes, he immediately says no. He is told that the refusal is because he asked his mom first.


Better to not even try to seek approvals.

Better to not ever divulge or project your desires.

Just unilaterally take action, at the last possible moment, and let everyone else adapt.


YANG’S evolutionary intention is to inwardly evolve from the reaction energies of his grooved chutzpah, to the responsive, inclusiveness of gusto. The encumbent modus operandi is rooted in chutzpah. It is time to lay this down.


YANG says, I feel safe in this body. This is my reality, and I am safe, I embrace my innocence, my joy and my creativity.


YANG sees and surrounds in compassion, his extremely confused and conflicted inner child. YANG offers up the constancy and unconditional guidance and nurturing that was missing in his childhood.


YANG then turns to YIN and says Dear YIN, I offer you unconditional permission to hold up to the light of awareness my behaviors containing separation and conflict. This hurt within me hurts you, hurts others and short-circuits our field of intimacy.


I AM completely committed to my evolution toward and into gusto. I shall set my intentions to contain the chaos and conflict. I am deconstructing and building the inner infrastructure to bridge to gusto.


The transformation continues to manifest.


Another threshold is crossed.

Read more…

RELEASING CHILDHOOD’S NIGHTMARES

© 2010 Howard McQueen


We constantly pave over our experience with life,

forgetting that we are merely the parchment,

the visible sacrament for the invisible omnipresence,

that breathes and shines through us.


We are connected,

yea, super-saturated

in the simple, yet profound divine-ness,

the utterly fantastical-ness,

when we open to the here and now.


Once, I was lost

in the delusion,

the pain wrought by the falseness

held in separation.


I see and appreciate this now

as the small me holding on to personal discomfort;

the childhood’s pain obsessed over,

energizing my personal delusion,

paying forward our collective nightmare.


I give all this up

to honor the in-being

within me

within you

within all of us.


This is what I am.


Read more…

WAITING FOR THE TRAIN TO GUSTO

Draft Version 1.1

(C) 2010 Howard McQueen



There is an internal dialog,

a conversation awaiting your engagement.

This inclusivity contains and reunites

Those aspects seekings to sabotage intimacy

and those remaining connected,

in the flow of intimacy.


The predominate vibrant song

to be summoned,

offers the permission

to surrender to intimacy,

to do whatever is necessary

to uphold and reclaim the intimacy

that has been short-circuited.


It stems from a faulty interpretation that trust was lost,

a confusion, stemming from a momentary obscuring of love.

This discordant chord, seeking center stage,

need not continue the cathartic circus --

It offers us the music of liberation,

to be in service to halt the straying from our inherent freedom,

to stand in the nakedness and vulnerability of our deeper truth.


Our pain is inherited, learned and imprinted.

This circuit of suffering can be completely rewired,

And our beliefs, desires and intentions rewritten.


What we face as our opportunity-challenge

Is the transformation of pain and discord

Into this manifest, inclusive

Work-in-process masterpiece

of taking in all of life

as the sublime gift.

Read more…

SURRENDERING TO INTIMACY

(c) 2010 Howard McQueen


When we surrender to intimacy

the lurking and hiding,

the pushing away and aggressing,

are supremely threatened.


That which interrupts the sacredness of intimacy

can then be illuminated in the spotlight of awareness

and seen for its rooted claim,

its clinging to separation and pain.


Available for summoning is an inner courage,

to support and service the surrendering and dying

of the self grown accustomed to its rootedness in separation,

its holding on to the inflamed intentions

to disrupt and attempt to scuttle intimacy.


The work is a process of surrendering the separation,

to consciously and continuously choose intimacy,

to compassionately witness when our intentions stray.

These are our pointers to the root causes,

breeding our discontent and suffering

Read more…

LAYING DOWN JUDGMENT

(C) 2010 Howard McQueen

In forgiveness there is the healing
of that which we judged and condemned.
What if we were to lay down and dismiss the judge and jury
and live without comparison, condemnation and judgment.
What if we were free to live from the center of our authenticity.
Imagine the wealth of spirit we would then appreciate,
share and exchange with each other.
Read more…

THE THRESHOLD OF VIBRANT STILLNESS

(C) 2010 Howard McQueen

The space
before there is doing,
the shimmering vibrancy
the pregnant hum
the threshold of life and form
awaiting its moment to spring forth

Where energy manifests and returns
this in-between mysterious existence
so full of stories
arising from the dynamic fold.
Read more…

FRAMING AND CONTAINING EACH DAY

(C) 2010 Howard McQueen

We humans live in the rhythms we create.
We sometimes loose the remembering
to frame each day with blessing

All the tasks awaiting us
urge us to rush,
to skip over the larger container of sacredness.

Blessing becomes active prayer,
containing our sense of sacredness,
reminding us to begin each day,
each endeavor,
with sacred vows
to frame the mysterious unfolding
captured within our lives.

May you rest in the wonder, awe and connection contained in blessing.

Read more…

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