Inner Surfing

Is he (the one on the right) really that into you?

How about the one on the left?

Welcome to my Inner Surfing Blog (or welcome back!).

I just got a strong impulse to start writing here at least once a week, so if it's helpful to you, please check back in––I won't go away again for 14 or 9 months without blogging, honestly! I seem to be receiving a lot of inspiration every day, and because I'm still on my mysterious hiatus from my former identity as a teacher, I generally share it all with a few close beloveds. But why not you too, if you want?

Talking of Christ (weren't we?) I was looking online for a good headshot of Jesus because I was feeling the urge for a bit more male representation in my house of goddess-images. I found an endless supply of hysterical Jesus pix! They all looked like egoic, seductive hippies to me (how about that one on the right!?) None of them seemed to represent that personal-yet-impersonal, expanded, I am consciousness-love that I was looking for, except perhaps the one on the left.

Meanwhile, in unrelated news: This morning in my mailbox I found the following quote from author Guy Finley:

The Right Way to Help Those
Who Do Us Wrong

Real compassion lies in our ability to remember that any angry, resentful person is usually just someone who can no longer bear the weary weight of his or her own carefully concealed despair.

I went to the pool for my daily soulwaving session and, as usual, along came Mario the maintenance guy for a chat. I've known him now for a couple of years. When he first started working at this apartment complex, he looked very down and depressed. He wouldn't look you in the eyes and I felt a frisson of discomfort whenever he would drag his cleaning cart through the pool building. Then one morning, I engaged him in conversation. Like most Latin people, he was taken aback by my fluent Spanish, but perhaps more so by the fact that I was friendly. The not-so-subtle class system in which Latin-looking people are ignored as our servants is very pervasive.

Someone must have said something good to Mario in our first conversation, because the next time I saw him, he was smiling and walking differently. He told me that what I had told him had caused him to turn his life around and he now saw that it was all about "thinking positively" (did I really say that––that is SO 20th Century!), and that his depression had completely gone away. I remember joking to my friends that he was my shortest and most successful client experience ever!

Back to today: Mario was looking very agitated when he walked in. He told me a story of how the maintenance boss had asked him to make a list of needed cleaning supplies, then torn up his list. Or something like that. He was feeling that all his sincere, hard work was completely unvalued. And he said, "They are always saying bad things about me, even though I try to be friendly, and just keep my head down and do my work well."

I tried to say a few wise things, like: "Good thing you're working for God and not for them," and he liked the ideas, but really just wanted to be heard. I felt a bit irritated because I wanted to "get on " with my meditation and exercise, but then I let go and realized that this was what life was bringing me. "This man is your Beloved right now."

Listening to more of the story I felt some outrage on Mario's behalf. I could identify with the painbody piece he was experiencing. Part of me wanted to go and tell his boss off, but of course this would have made things worse. Finally Mario left, and in the next unfolding scene, his boss walked into the pool to check on something. He talked to me in a very friendly way. I noticed the feeling of wanting to challenge him on his racism, his "bossism," his insensitivity, his unconsciousness of Mario's pain. But of course, as the quotation above reminds me, he has his own pain.

Ouch, ouch, ouch!

And then again, oh well!

Then another scene: Mario comes back into the pool, sits down at the edge and says, "Can I tell you something? I always thought I had bad karma until I began talking to you. Now I have good karma." Wow! Little Katie likes that!

Now, such comments are not uncommon in the kind of work I do, as you probably know if you have ever offered yourself in service to life, or humanity, or God, which I am calling today the "Beloved." People project the Beloved onto you, which feels wonderful, unless/until they project on you their issues with the Beloved (i.e. with their parents), which feels horrible. If my whole brilliant career has taught me anything, it is to expand towards greater detachment from this human drama of projection, which plays out on every level of human relationship. This has been the hardest learning of my life. It's hard not to take someone-seeming-to-adore-you personally; even harder not to personalize someone seeming to hate you.

I came back into my home and found a "Help!" call from a beloved former student who had been traumatized by a death. I called her and was able to listen and love and empathize and by the end of the call she was laying out plans for the next wave of my work, which was fun to listen to.

There is a plan for this next wave. It's in my computer and in my extended brain-field, and I receive constant downloads that refine and complexify the information and deepen my union with the place from which it emanates. I take dictation, and I also receive the Love that wants to express itself through me. The piece I haven't received yet is how this might play out in the world. I have no desire or guidance to make anything happen. Been there, done that. So I'm still leaving that part to God.