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Paradise Awaits

By Simone Lipscomb | October 24, 2013

simonelipscomb (7) — *Adult Bald Eagle. Image taken last winter in Florida*

I glanced up as an eagle snatched a fish from the water and flew away. Did I just see that? I thought to myself. Ospreys are common companions on the river but a bald eagle? I was ecstatic! As I glided in raptor-bliss a snowy egret flew overhead and then a brown pelican nearly collided with me as his six foot wing span overshadowed my SUP board. “Dude!” I said aloud. Smiling, I paddled on.

Crisp air and clear blue skies, filled with beautiful birds, felt like paradise. The entire four miles was one continuous flow of beauty–an experience that opened my heart with awe and gratitude.

Osprey...image taken in Florida last winter — *Osprey…image taken in Florida last winter*

The river time started with huge schools of juvenile mullet circling and moving together as my board gently glided through their watery home. The water was so clear I could see them glancing up at me as I paddled. Occasionally one of their scales would sparkle in the morning sun and this display of rainbow light caused giggles to explode from my core. Precious life. Sacred life. So holy, so amazing.

As I paddled downriver alligator gars surfaced to breathe, turtles sunned on logs, floating pelicans carefully watched my antics. Quietness, stillness was so evident–so appreciated by this soul. When the bald eagle caught my attention by grabbing a meal, I was already blissed-out as just a few minutes earlier an osprey had passed overhead with a fish. Life was evident with every turn of my head.

The paddling meditation continued as I moved further downriver. Reaching with each stroke of the paddle, engaging my core, pulling myself to the paddle blade as it resisted the water, I felt my physical core engage like never before. Training in the Pure Barre classes I take has helped me learn to isolate core muscles and work to strengthen them. Applying what I learn in the studio to my stand up paddle board workouts feels amazing. A light bulb flashed overhead.

It was easy to see the parallel between fitness endeavors and life’s journey. By applying something I learned in a studio class to my SUP boarding, I saw how my work paid off on the river. Each stroke produced an explosion of forward momentum. Likewise, when I explore my inner life by going deeper into my emotional core, I clear out and heal old wounds thus leading to big leaps of forward momentum in life.

When we gain courage to go deeper, work deeper, the payoff is greater awareness, greater freedom. This morning I was able to see beauty and allow it to go deep within to touch my most vulnerable self. Had I been focused on worries and fretting about anything I would have missed the tremendous blessing of abundant life along the river.

Pema Chodron writes, ” The armor we erect around our soft hearts causes a lot of misery. This shield, this cocoon is just made up of thoughts that we churn out and regard as solid. In fact, this shield is made out of passing memory.” These passing memories of things that happened in the past can close us to life. As she writes, “Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.” No matter what struggles and disappointments we have experienced on our life’s journey, only by choosing to let go of these painful memories can we lighten up. Letting go of ego, of the storyline of being wounded, helps us move into the present moment, the only place where happiness is found, the only place where paradise awaits.

Sacred, Holy Work

By Simone Lipscomb | October 22, 2013

Yesterday a person I haven’t seen in a while asked me what I was doing with myself these days. As I was attempting to answer she said, “Nothing? Still goofing around?” Maybe I misunderstood as I was attempting to answer her,”I’m still writing and taking photographs and generally trying to make the world a better place.” But our words intersected and I was left feeling quite strange. You see it didn’t matter who said the words…nothing…goofing around…what I heard is what I think about my life much of the time. The slap in my face comes from my own self-assessment, not from anyone else. Her words simply pried open the lid of my inner Pandora’s box.

A couple weeks ago a person I met asked what I ‘did’ and my reply? “I’m just a writer and nature photographer.” I couldn’t believe it when the words came out of my mouth. My jaw literally dropped as I caught my statement of shame and restated to her….”I am a writer and nature photographer.”

I’m just?

I stunned myself by proclaiming that the work of my life, this sacred, holy work is...just? Doing this work is following my spiritual path so why did I answer with such shame? And what’s with the snooty judgement of my life’s work?

In contemplating the words from yesterday, whether they were actually spoken aloud or my inner filters chimed in with the negative assessment of my life, I realized an old wound had circled around again and was snarling at me. It says this: Nothing I ever do is good enough. I’m not good enough so therefore everything I give to the world is unacceptable….. Old beliefs don’t die. They just quieten their chatter and slip underground when we become distracted. They lay waiting until they can slyly sneak within hearing range and softly whisper their dark, sinister messages into our innocent ears. You’re not good enough. Why do you think you can make a difference? Why don’t you give up? The spiral brings the wound around again to be healed at a deeper level.

Photo by Rebecca Droillard — *Photo by Rebecca Drouillard*

Today I was reading from a course of study and the question was asked, “What more can one give but oneself?” I thought back to yesterday’s exchange and to a couple weeks ago when I stated I was just a writer and photographer. If I am ashamed of my sacred work, how will I ever believe that what I have to offer in service will be enough? How can I be enough in relationship with the Universe, my self, a man, other people?

What am I willing to sacrifice on my spiritual path? Everything, even the old beliefs that have kept me small.

*Armondo carves stones that he places on his property in Akumal, Mexico as a way to honor the earth*

No matter what work we do, if we do it with love and surrender ourselves to it, it is sacred and holy. May we find the courage to walk our paths and seek opportunities to share ourselves with the world.

Making a Difference

By Simone Lipscomb | October 20, 2013

Several weeks ago I met my friend in the Smoky Mountains for an afternoon photography shoot. As we drove through Cades Cove we caught up with each other and shared a bit about our lives. We are both committed to our paths and want to make a difference in the world and shared our frustration at not really knowing how to do that or if what we are doing is really positively impacting the world.

A friend in Japan has been exploring how she wants to work to help make the world a better place and is frustrated as to how she can do this. She has volunteered in an elephant sanctuary and in the past has worked with marine mammal rescue but she, like others I know, wants to make a difference every day.

Over the past couple of days another friend and I have been in contact about the desire to make a difference in the world. It feels like the HID light was just turned on deep in an underwater cave. His clarity encouraged me.

A funk, for lack of a better word, has been dominating my life for the past several months. I am not sure of the origin of this downward turn. There is so much negative everything happening and the environmental issues coupled with atrocities humans perpetuate on each other have made it difficult to know what to do. After working with vigor and with passion documenting the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and before that, in creating books of beauty and inspiration, all with the goal of making a difference, I find hundreds of books in boxes in my home…their message of beauty and hope sitting tucked away from the world. A perfect metaphor of how I feel. Despondency and feeling a loss as to what I’m really supposed to be doing with my life has been the question that occupies my mind.

The heart-friend I recently wrote of retired from over thirty years of service to his community. He was a leader as a firefighter and trained in many disciplines so he could be excellent in his work. Rookies and seasoned firefighters alike looked up to him and his valuable skills. His career of rescue work is truly inspiring. Upon retirement he wasn’t doing what he wanted to do…making a difference. It was a terrible adjustment for him as his heart is huge and his intention of service matches the size of his heart. It wasn’t until he followed his path to serve in a war-torn country that he once-again fulfilled, in his mind, his goal. He has found what he was looking for–making a difference.

We follow little breadcrumb thoughts which lead us to decisions. We act on these decisions and make changes in our lives–some are huge, some are small. We direct our energy toward the slow-growing momentum and then hope for the best. But how do we know our efforts really are making a difference? How do we maintain trust in ourselves and in our decisions? Here’s a cave-diving analogy.

Photo by Ed Jackson of me and my buddy Ray and his light in the distance

When cave diving a diver knows that caves are dark. It seems a silly statement but I cannot count the number of times I’ve been asked the question: Are underwater caves really dark? Think of the darkest, inkiest, blackest darkness and then think of it as flowing and moving around you. Yes…underwater caves are dark. So a diver takes redundant equipment into a cave–air and light. Three lights are required equipment–a primary light and two back-up lights. The primary is a very bright, strong light and the back-up lights are smaller and always contain fresh batteries.

So if I’m diving in a cave and for some reason my primary light fails, out comes a back-up light. If that fails, out comes the other back-up light. If we apply the analogy of cave diving to our lives, think of our life’s path as the primary light. We are born, we develop and learn and find our way to our path. A natural light is emitted from it as we progress. But there comes a time when we lose faith in our path, we find ourselves far from those we love, and who love us, we retire, or move to a new area, and that light wavers and then blinks out. We are left in the dark.

It’s not a happy place, this darkness. It’s difficult to orient ourselves, find our way. Which way do we go? Where is the line? Which tunnel is the way home?

When this happens we can contact a friend, one of our back-up lights, to help light our way. Sometimes the path we tread must have light from another source. When our own light seems dim, there are others who can help us see the path we have chosen. Their light can help us stay true and move forward when we have lost faith in what we do. We may come to a side tunnel in our underwater cave and the extra light may be necessary to see which way leads us home.

Some may think the primary light in cave diving is the most important but ask any cave diver who has had to deploy a back-up light or two. Those little lights are the real life-savers.

I am grateful for my heart-friend that reminded me to keep working on my path of service. His light encouraged me to stay with it, even when it feels like I am not making a difference. Sometimes I stumble along in darkness and then a ray of light comes forward to illuminate the way.

May we all be lights unto each other.

Thanks for reading. Please comment or share as you see fit.

A Sensitive Heart

By Simone Lipscomb | October 13, 2013

“I have sea foam in my veins, for I understand the language of waves.” Le Testament d’Orphee is a movie I’ve never seen but this quote from it touches me deeply. It was quoted in an article I read this morning during my hammock time with my ginger cat, Stanley. It was a piece about sensitive souls…the traits and behaviors…the feelings. As I read it a mirror to my soul seemed to open. FINALLY! There are others out there. (Deep sigh).

My first memory of my inner life being at odds with the outer world was when I was about eight years old. My father and I were watching a movie about an old man who saved up hard-earned money to purchase a pane of glass for the only window in his shack. He installed it and it had only been in place for a brief time when his mule kicked a bucket that went crashing into the window–which shattered. The man beat the mule. I cried and my father laughed at me for crying. He asked why I was crying. For the mule, for being beaten, of course. It was then that I begin to learn that my sensitive heart was in for a rough ride.

The article states, “You absorb sensation the way a paintbrush grasps each color it touches on a palette. The ethereal beauty of a dandelion, the shift of a season, the climax of a song, or the scent of a certain fragrance can sometimes move you to tears…Basically this means if you are sensitive, you have the ability to see colors and feel energy the way others hear jet planes.” Victoria Erickson, the writer, goes on to quote research that says sensitive souls make up about 20% of the population. People who are super-sensitive have nervous systems that respond easily to stimuli which can be overwhelming and exhausting. “Sometimes your sensitivity makes life extraordinarily painful and you want to shut down and hide your raw self from the loud chaos that accompanies this earth’s continual rotation.”

Victoria lists six ways to stay balanced….create, enjoy the company of animals, seek out water, recognize what is only your energy and emotion (its easy to absorb other’s energy), surround yourself with people that understand your nature and nurture that connection, retreat, replenish and rejuvenate. Her advice was so good that I saved the article to my desktop so I can review regularly.

After I finished reading I sat in the hammock chair with my cat buddy and pondered the eye-opening information. There have been many times I have been laughed at, made fun of, and generally put-down because I am sensitive. And I know there are others who have experienced this treatment. When this happens we close down, little-by-little. Our experience of the world narrows as we deny the very ability we have that feeds and nurtures us.

When my daughter was born, I begin to reawaken to the part of myself I had closed off, lost even, through my childhood, adolescence and young adult life. Her arrival into my life was a catalyst that pushed me onto my spiritual path and steered me deeper into my heart. When she was born I suddenly knew what it was like to truly love someone.

Everything didn’t change overnight. It takes an immense amount of work to learn to stay open to the beauty around us and not close down when the rest of the world seems to not notice. There were many, many rocky years and times when the dichotomy, of what I knew to be my truth and what the world told me my truth was, was difficult to sort out. I carry many battle scars.

About eleven years ago I reached a very low point in my life when things literally fell apart around me. It was as if everything I cared for shattered and shifted and I was left feeling completely beaten down and also, oddly enough, feeling incredibly open. At that time a man came into my life that helped nurture me so that I could put my life back together, in a more harmonious way. His was a sensitive heart, even though he didn’t like to admit it. The light he shined into my life helped me believe that I could be myself and live fully. At first he kidded me about talking to trees but before our relationship ended, I caught him talking to trees….although he would most likely deny that now.

I was blessed to have someone who believed in me, that stood beside me as I lifted myself out of the rubble of my life.

What does the world do to a sensitive heart? How do we survive the challenges, the fears, the chaos we encounter simply by living on this planet? This fragile beauty, this light within us can be so easily destroyed, snuffed out. The magnificence of a sensitive soul can be chased into hiding by the stresses of daily life. This, to me, is the greatest loss we all experience. When we lose our brothers and sisters whose sensitive hearts and souls bless this place, then truly we have lost great treasures. I know there are many whose light has been diminished or hidden by the stresses of life. May we reach out in understanding and love and stand with them as they work to find peace and wholeness.

When these lights go into hiding it’s not simply a personal loss, but a planetary loss. We need more people now than ever before who are in touch with their hearts and in communion with the beauty..and who are unafraid to show it. May we support each other always in finding and staying connected to our true selves.

Building Walls or Building Bridges?

By Simone Lipscomb | October 1, 2013

Walls of steel…walls of stone…..wooden walls…walls of fog…icy walls…emotional walls. To protect….set apart…keep safe…isolate…obscure.

Who among us hasn’t constructed a wall of some sort? Perhaps a wall in a home to provide protection from the elements or to create space within the home for privacy. Perhaps a storage room or garage wall to keep property safe. Walls are an important part of our lives. Sometimes they are the only thing between survival and death.

We construct inner walls as well. Many times these are erected in childhood when we’ve been harmed and we do this to protect that deep, sacred part of us to insure it doesn’t get wounded, scarred…annihilated. It starts out as an intelligent, survival skill but as we mature that structure becomes a liability that cuts us off from the world and usually from the people that love us the most.

One of the saddest things to witness is a person who refuses to deconstruct such walls and therefore creates a tighter and tighter corner in which to exist. If people in that person’s life act outside a very narrowly defined behavioral spectrum, his or her walls push them away and they are exiled forever. No amount of love can penetrate such rigid structures.

The perception is filtered through old wounds that fester like poison within and keep joy and true contentment from being accessible. And while I have witnessed such tragedy individually, microcosmically, I see this on a macrocosmic scale in how one political party relates to another; how our country relates to other countries and even how we relate to the planet.

The basis of all of this wall-building? Fear.

The Course in Miracles states: What is not love is fear. Over 28 years ago I read that statement and have pondered it. I see the absolute wisdom behind those simple words.

I believe it is time to deconstruct walls. Inner walls erected between individuals, communities, political parties, countries…the planet. If we aren’t coming from a place of love then we are coming from fear. Is this really how we want to live? Can we make positive changes in relationships, communities, countries…on the planet if we continue to base our behaviors on fear? Look around and the answer is evident.

If we must build anything let us build bridges from my heart to yours, from yours to others, from community to community, political party to political party…country to country….human hearts to the planetary heart. Who knows…when we meet in the center of the bridge most wondrous things can happen. When we choose to come from our hearts instead of our wounds miracles are birthed.