The Secret as Told by the Sea

This morning the sun beckoned me onto the beach early in the day. How different from yesterday! Yesterday I wore a goose down jacket and hooded faux fur jacekt, a ski hat, and winter gloves and walked uphill into a 30 mile an hour wind. Still, I was cold. The sea tossed and writhed before it threw itself across the beach in foaming wave after foaming wave.

This morning the wind had abated and the sea, although bursting into big combers and dashing up onto the beach in breaths of foam was much quieter. And incredibly beautiful. As my on-going search for beach glass continued, I stopped periodically just to savor the constant, but always different and ever-changing, beauty of "my" beach.

I've been studying and reseacrching The Secret for over a decade; this morning the sea revealed more. I remember listening to Abraham counseling to go "pet your cat." I grin because for me, walking the beach is a cat petting session. I feel completely relaxed here, continually in awe of the changing constantness of the sea and the beach, immersed in its beauty, and open to an enlarged understanding.

My walks by the sea disapate my cares and worries as if they get blown away by the breeze. In their place a peacefulness settles in my being. My checkbook today is even a bit more anemic than it was yesterday, yet I am so much less anxious and clutching about it. Like the sea, it is waht it is; it will change. I mused this morning about how different the ocean was today compared to yesterday, a certain lesson in how the illusions of today bear no relationship to the illusions of tomorrow -- a TUT message of a few weeks back.

I don't ask the ocean to be today the way it was yesterday or last week. I never think about how it will look tomorrow. I simply accept that it will be there tomorrow and I will go out to meet it; I will enjoy it profoundly. No matter how it appears, I'll just love it. What a lesson for my life! I'll just love it no matter how it appears. Would that I were so casual and trusting about the flow of cash in my wallet as I am about the flow of waves across the beach.

How cool that the Universe conspired to bring me here! To this beautiful place of beach lessons and insights. When I am that easy about the flow of cash in my wallet, it will flow! It is flowing now! You see, in my early days, the lack of flow was acute. As a child, I was traumatized by the money scarcity in my life. Slowly, with the help of many good people, and now the sea, I am reclaiming my birthright to abundance.

This morning, I watched the gull gathering on the beach as I, an intruder in their world, approached and noticed that they simply gracefully flew away, ignoring me. What a great thing to emulate; when the lack throughts intrude in my mind, I can give them wings and simply let them gracefully fly above me.

I have found a number of blue beach glass pieces this week. They delight me because there are fewer of them than the clear and brown pieces. A week or so ago, I'd thought, "I'd really like a red piece," never having found one in my time here. Once in a while I've thought, "A red piece would be fun" but without any great intensity that I get a red piece. It would be just fun to have one. I have it! Yesterday, I found a perfectly round, fat, red piece of beach glass.

Now, I understand the step of detachment better. A nice big fat million would be nice to have but I'm simply going to walk along knowing that I'll be delighted by what I see, hear, and feel as I go. For me, the block to my abundance has been the early trauma and the resistance that set up. Now, I know it's just finding a red piece.

Do I know that my red piece was a creation of my thought and energy? Yes! Do I know that the message I heard on my tape about not expecting support for my dreams from people who have given up theirs was perfectly timed for me? Yes! Do I know that all is well? Yes!

If I should forget again, I'll simply return to the beach.

More Beach Glass Musings

Several weeks ago, my TUT message (www.tut.com) of the day read: "The illusions that surround you today, Rita, have absolutely no relation to the illusions that will surround you tomorrow." The statement resonated; I printed it out in large words. It has been posted on my wall ever since.

It arrived at a time when I was pondering the reality that EVERYTHING that we experience is only experienced because of the way we see it. It is our observation that calls an experience into "reality." Pure quantum physics. Completely upside down from everything I was taught as a kid.

Yesterday while enjoying my beach walk, it occurred to me that every time I walk "my" stretch of beach, it is different. In the twenty-fours or so between walks, the tide has come and gone twice. Beach glass that yesterday may have been buried under sand is now exposed for me to find and drop into my pocket. Other pieces, not found, may have been adopted by the tide and carried to another place, or perhaps they are still swirling beneath the waves.

In my mind's eye, I can picture the beach. It's not really the beach; it's my picture of the beach, the way I see it. I understand more deeply my creation of my reality. Each day it's a different beach. It just appears to the the same, until I look closely.

My experience dictates that I keep the changes within a narrow range. I don't see the water as red -- I see it only within the realms of the way I've seen this particular beach and other beaches in the past. I am reminded of the story of the natives who could not see Magellan's ships because they had no previous experience of ships; it took them sometime and the chief physically visiting the ships before they could perceive those ships, bigger than any they had ever seen, but impossible to see at first.

It would be a bit too disconcerting if I could see the water as red.

It's a different illusion every day. Can I let go of the pre-experienced days of my life, all those days that are the creation of my history? Can I let go of yesterday's illusion and let the beauty of today's beach arise in my awareness? If I want my life to be different, can I let go of yesterday's illusion? Can I let go and exult in the I create today?

Beach Glass and Beginner’s Mind

Last week as I walked White Horse Beach, I met an older man walking in the opposite direction. He asked, “What are you picking up?” “Beach glass,” I grinned as I rattled my treasures in my pocket. Newly arrived in the area, I was a collecting newbie and delighting in all the beach glass I was finding amidst the thousands of smooth, beautiful rocks of Mother Nature’s gigantic, melodic polisher.

The Irish brogue with which he spoke was almost as smoothly polished as the rocks at our feet; only a hint of its original form remained. He informed me that he’d had a home on this beach for years and went on to say that finding beach glass now was nothing like it had been years ago. “There used to be so much of it and in so many marvelous colors.” He showed me the two small pieces he’d picked up that afternoon. I extended my hand where at least twenty pieces glistened in the sun.

Shortly afterward, we parted and I continued my walk, now musing on our conversation. Aha! A lesson in the utility of a fresh start, of being in the state of beginner’s mind. I, not contaminated by previous experience or expectations, was finding many, many pieces of beach glass. Every time I return home, I have a big handful of beach glass. My gentleman approached his beach glass search from the mindset of comparison, not expecting to find much glass. And he didn’t. Wow! What a lesson in the power of expectations and the value of approaching everything with a fresh start attitude.

I spent the last week, celebrating my 65th birthday, a significant birthday in our communal experience. I have never been 65 before. What a grand opportunity to declare a fresh start. Circumstances are so right. I’m in a new home where I listen to the sound of the surf as I fall asleep and beside which I walk every day. The beach reminds me that a fresh start exists in every moment. Here for a month now, the beach is always different, waves higher or lower, water color tinted a different shade of blue, green, or gray, tide rising or falling, surf sounds a quiet thump or a magnificent roar.

I have decided to pretend that ever day is the first day of my life. The red-wing blackbirds singing in my other’s tree sounded exceptionally delightful. I stopped to appreciate and admire the dripping icicles wetly shimmering in the early morning sunlight on her rosebush. I savored the feel of March sunlight on my back as I walked up the hill and the push of an aggressive wind that shoved me along the beach this afternoon. I am noticing more now that I get multiple fresh starts every day.

I am also free from the Lyme disease caught on my Appalachian Trail solo through-hike in 2000 and the excruciating pain of trigeminal neuralgia that I suffered for so long. For the first time in years I am confident that my body will cooperate with my longing to hike, bike, swim, and run. I feel the excitement that I felt 30 or more years ago when I began my life as an athlete. It’s all brand new again; once more I explore the delights of my activities without preconception of how I “should be” performing. My yoga practice is so helpful in my ability to stay mindful, in the moment, and conscious of each moment even each breath, as a fresh start. I love the newly returned strength and grace of my body.

I am doing an inventory; what ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings have generated the results or experiences I want? What, in my new life, do I want to spend my time, energy, thoughts, and money on? How can I spend more time with my beautiful GRANDdaughters whose very being exudes fresh start? Fresh start is contagious; how do I spend more time with friends of any age from whom I can catch more of it? Where to put the post-its in my house and calendar to create a visual reminder that I am brand-new in this life, every moment is a fresh start?

When I forget to have beginner’s mind and become aware that I need a new fresh start, I have just the anthem. As I came down the stairs this morning, shortly after my morning ritual of standing at the window and breathing in the ocean, I found myself singing, “I’ll pick myself up, brush myself off, and start all over again.”