SPIRIT WIND BLESSING HAIKU

Wind Woman, Cherokee, OK

Listen to the wind,
as it shakes the tall corn stalks.
Listen to your heart,
and know your Creator lives.

God is in the wind,
her Spirit moves through the land.
She gives us first breath,
and she receives our last sigh.

May heavenly winds,
blow gently on your household.
May the winds blow strength,
into your body and life.

May you move freely,
with winds always at your back.
May destiny’s winds,
carry you among the stars.

May you gently walk,
in the shadow of rainbows.
May the winds recede,
into a golden sunset.

Footnote:
The winds in the Carolina's aren't as active as Kansas,
but today they have ushered in welcome dry and cool weather!

BEING ALIVE

Feeling Alive, Lake of the Ozarks, MO

Joseph Campbell has famously mused that we human beings are possibly not so much seeking the meaning of life as we are striving for the experience of being alive. We have to go through the motions of staying alive for a good portion of our lives that includes eating, drinking, working and sleeping. For millions of people in third world countries there isn’t much time for doing anything but surviving. However, these people are also spared the constant distraction of all the noise and disruption that comes with modern urban life such as all the electronics, jobs and activity. On more than one occasion I’ve dragged my body into the house after work and announced that I’m brain dead.

Perhaps the time is far overdue to take a time out and seek those experiences of actually appreciating that we’re alive and living in this mystical universe. There may be some universal experiences that qualify for most everybody and there must be some that are unique to an individual or a group of people in specific cultures in different parts of the world.

I think the trick would be to find a quiet time and place to really stop life’s merry-go-round and sit silently while remembering those moments in your life when you felt that every cell of your being was blissfully alive. I’m sure any moment of tender love would qualify for just about everyone. Walking in the raw moods of nature with the wind in your face along with sun, rain, snow and radical temperatures certainly gets your attention. Listening to a full orchestra performing the classical language of God heightens our senses There’s a real sense of being alive when standing in front of a Van Gogh impressionist painting and letting the artist take you through the swirling olive orchards, across to the shadowy hay stacks and into fields of waving wheat with menacing black crows flying overhead. Sitting in a dark theater in London and experiencing a performance of Les Miserable takes you down an emotional gauntlet. Walking in the footsteps of Jesus on the shores of the Sea of Galilee where he fed the 5,000 was a very alive experience. My first flying experience in a business jet as we gracefully glided around massive Midwestern thunderheads was awesome. A pensive moment of relationship with our Creator connects us with the ultimate source of life. When you pause to reflect, these moments come alive as well.

Being alive is a priceless gift that should be appreciated and not squandered or ignored. It’s a sad legacy to have lived one of those lives of quiet desperation. Certainly seeking those times of feeling intensely alive can involve risk as well as reward. But that risk is everything to being human.

THE PUTTING GAME

Practice, Practice, Practice, Jamestown, NC

Golf is a series of games within the game including driving, long irons or hybrids, short irons and wedges and putting, not to mention the seemingly infinite ways a group of golfers can wager on the overall game like Skins, Bingo, Bango, Bongo, etc. Golfers go to all sorts of extremes to save strokes once they’re on the green. The combination of putter heads, grips and shafts is also off the charts. I do believe, however, that if you no longer trust in a putter it’s time to move on to another one that you do feel can work for you. That little flat stick can make millions for a PGA player. When Jack Nicklaus did the improbable and won the 1986 Masters with an extraordinarily oversized putter head, the immediate backlog of orders saved Macgregor’s year. I know of no one who now uses one of these and even the Golden Bear doesn’t know what happened to that putter, although he thinks one of his sons may have given it away to a friend. If found, it could be worth a cool million to the Golf Hall of Fame.

A golf analyst recently mentioned that Jack believes there is much more of an art to the game of putting versus a science. He noted that he only concentrates on keeping his head still and making contact with the ball squarely in the sweet spot. The rest of the game of putting is an art of sighting the break of the greens, pacing the ball accordingly on that line and willing the ball into the hole. In my case, I’d have to add keeping my feet on the ground and not moving backwards! Jack apparently always told himself “that ball has to go in the hole!”

My putting is admittedly not stellar, as my playing companions will attest. But I’ve experienced days when I really was in that mystical “zone” of mindlessly stroking the ball into the hole. And it doesn’t take long for someone to say “where is Larry and what have you done with him?” Unfortunately, it isn’t long before the old Larry returns. And there are plenty of instruction books on the subject like Zen Putting, The Art of Putting and Your 15th Club that promote leading you to the promised land of one putt greens. One of the best teachers of the putting game, Dave Stockton, says there’s way too much over thinking going on in putting. He doesn’t even believe in a practice swing because it interferes with your brain’s autopilot that has already figured out how to make the putt. That’s considered “getting out of your own way” with too much mind chatter.

I always try to be philosophic when driving the golf cart back to the club house after holing out on the 18th green by repeating “if this game were easy we wouldn’t come back.” And the devil always seems to let you make a good putting stroke on 17 or 18 just so you don’t get too discouraged, throw your golf bag with your car keys into a nearby lake (which just swallowed your next to last ball) because he wants you back again so he can mess with your head and dance with you on the greens.

PERSISTENCE HAIKU

Poeny Ant, Jamestown, NC

HIGH HOPES

Everyone knows that,
ants can’t move poeny plants,
but he has high hopes!

CHECKING OUT

Live Transaction, Greensboro, NC

This Saturday is one of those career gardening days in early May that stirs primal urges to go dig in the dirt. Since I’m the first generation on both sides of my family to be born and raised off the farm, I understand that I still have dirt coursing through my veins. So I dropped in on one of my favorite “candy stores” that sells living gardening plants, shrubs and trees to just browse around and finish my morning coffee I had grabbed in Starbucks’ drive-thru. Naturally, it didn’t take long to fill a shopping basket and head for the checkout counters to be greeted by a friendly young woman who scanned my store card, addressed me by name and thought my selections were priceless. That certainly qualifies as a positive life experience.

I had previously turned into a “service station” to personally fill up my car and then stopped by a local grocery store to pick up and scan some essentials like aluminum foil and lite beer. They now have more self-checkout stations than those that are manned by a breathing human being. I worked at the local neighborhood grocery store as a kid, sacked groceries and actually carried them home with customers that would have walked to the store on a day like today. I used to walk into a bank lobby to complete transactions with a friendly teller who knew my name. Now I use the ATM machine in the drive-thru. I’m old enough to remember the “good old days” at a legitimate service station when an attendant filled up the tank, washed your windshield, checked the oil level and tire air pressure, asked about the family and gave you a free set of glasses after returning with your change for a five dollar bill. That actually does qualify as one of those long gone good old days versus those that are only predicated on nostalgia.

It occurred to me on the drive home that I’ve probably stood in hundreds of checkout lines in my lifetime at this stage of the game. It’s truly one of those mundane chores that all of us have experienced multiple times. Those activities only qualified as positive when the attendant engaged us in small talk during the exchange. If not, you might just as well be using the robotic self-checkout station equipped with a voice recognition and texting response. And we are rapidly getting there in all of our internet transactions and daily chores. We’ve all been created as relational creatures but the relationships are being dehumanized by our automated society in a rather disturbing and increasing manner. We no longer even need to leave the cocoon of home for most of the material things we use these days. And our basic human need of relationship is rapidly checking out on us.

P.S.
On a more humorous note, I recently ran across a suggestion to connect in the check out line; when the cashier asks if you found everything you were looking for, take her hands while making eye contact and say, "I have now."

CHASING THE SUN HAIKU

Early Risers, Kiawah Island, SC
Swaying Sea Oats, Wrightsville Beach Island, NC

Find Yourself in the Islands

Morning sun rises,
saturating beach and sky,
with glowing red rays.

Morning joggers run,
early risers walk the shore,
others meditate.

Breezy sea oats sway,
sand pipers scurry in foam,
all chasing the sun.

Sit in the warm sand,
listen to the tide roll in,
seek and find yourself.

ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Open Country, Flint Hills, KS
Weathered Door, Ohio

Follow your Bliss

“Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.”--Joseph Campbell

Life is a great adventure and death is the last great adventure. In the meantime, we are in pursuit of the divine that is within all of us and the fulfillment that the adventure brings. Campbell notes that if you have embarked on a well-worn path, it is not your path. Seek out your own path in life that has been mapped out exclusively for you. When your life seems to be in rhythm with the heartbeat of the universe, you have found your path to divine destiny.

"People say what we're all seeking is the meaning of life...I think what we're seeking is the experience of being alive."-- Joseph Campbell