HAPPIEST HEART

Sunday, February 14, 2016

HAPPIEST HEART

TODAY

LET

YOUR

HEART

LOVE

EVERYTHING

THE

WORLD

The world, just now, needs it.

Misty. 2/14/16

Thursday, February 11, 2016

WAITING FOR THE MARMALADE TO SET

It is hard to wait. No matter if it is waiting for marmalade to set or someone to come out of surgery. We have such hard time just being where we are.

I heard the phrase recently “waiting for the peace”. I cannot remember where I heard it, but the sense of it, the feel of it struck me and rippled into me. It was something like hearing a distant church bell in the countryside, a fog horn in the bay, certainly one of those sounds that you hear long after it has stopped changing the air waves around you.

But a sound that stays with you, making its own movements inside of us.

waiting.

Our mind wants to immediately ask “For what?”, but the heart wants to lean into that place of quiet rest. I wrote the following poem out of this meditation.

Waiting for the peace

I love that place between things,

the rain and the cloud,

cloud and rainbow.

That place that we are allowed to wait

Without the question.

nothing needs to be answered when we lean into the doorframe and watch the rain.

We are at once sound,

Moist opening of spirit,

Patterns of veiled

Downpour.

waiting occurs

Below the waterline,

Below the blurring of thought, we are flushed with knowing.

something else.

And only then,

Peace.

In life’s dry days,

Long days,

Fast days

We forget.

We cannot remember

Our own ability to wait.

To wait for the peace.

If we could keep our minds by the open door,

Leaning into the heavier air

as it Slides down the windowpane,

we would have no war,

nor rage,

but only the gratitude

Of knowing

that the world has forgiven us everything.

forgiven us everything.

Everything.

Every thing.

Blessings. Misty February 11, 2016

Friday, December 18, 2015

SHELTER

I feel this,

whatever it is.

Something like love,

maybe love. Shelter.

It cleaves to the earth

like grass in a rainstorm,

close.

Shelter.

not a hut

but a hedge,

a hearth.

YOU feel this,

whatever it is.

Something like love,

maybe love. Shelter.

It lives like a wolf

in a bramble

gazing out,

through the rain.

YOU know.

That wolf knows.

That drenched blade knows,

this place.

I just have to breathe

and be still,

then the sweet water

bathes

wraps,

shelters,

loves

maybe loves.

I awoke from the place where grasses dream

And dogs peer out under brier.

Shelter,

like love,

Or maybe love.

It stays with me.

Finally.

Good holiday week to you all. Blessings and blessings be with you.

Misty Wycoff 12/18/15

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

CLEANING FISH

I am privileged to live by the ocean. The majesty of the California Coastline has been significant always. It is probably in my DNA makeup somewhere. My maternal grandparents lived in the Azores, a Portuguese territory of islands in the Atlantic Ocean. I traveled there in my twenties and met distant relatives and lived between the islands of Texerica and Sao Jorge.

Small islands where, isolated from a larger society are deeply dependent on the sea. There are few places on those islands where the ocean is not below you, surrounding you, and being a constant wild force. When my grandparents came to America, they found land in California along the ocean in Bolinas California, where my mother found her own bond with the deep waters. I too was raised in close proximity to the sea, and being quite poor, we spent many free hours along the Bodega headlands clamming, rock fishing, surf fishing, wading for abalone, crabbing, and having many a meal from that bounty. I was lucky then, and
I am lucky now.

Some years ago someone asked me where home was. I am sure there was the expectation that I would give them some region of the country or a town, and yet what was immediately on my lips was, “The ocean is my home.” Saying it was strengthening to me, empowering and calming to me at the same time.

Nature is strong. It is always seeking to restore itself to it's best state. The ocean is strong. Wild and wonderful, it always seemed to me the same as how people think of God, beyond us, above us, better than us and stronger than us.

I see that Nature finds ways to clean itself, I know that rivers can return to health, cleaning up the foul things that humans have left behind, and land can be restored to health by rest and introduction of wolves and other natural species. But perhaps because I do live so close to the sea, I know more about it now and I am so deeply sad at the destruction of clean healthy ocean waters.

There are many plastic garbage patches or gyres, in the oceans around the world. There are six major ones in all of oceans around the world, one as large as the state of Texas. More research is proving that so many of the sea creatures have ingested or been otherwise damaged by plastics in the waters. In their original form the marine life gets caught in them and mistakes them for food. But something much more horrifying is that over time these break down into the small microbeads and become part of the water and every being it has touched. It used to be true that eating seafood was healthy for you. If we are not able to change how we deal with plastic, this will no longer be the case. And probably is now no longer the case. HELLO.

In the 60”s we used to say/chant “GIVE PEACE A CHANCE”. I would like to ask you to “GIVE THE OCEAN A CHANCE.” Just for today, try to not buy plastic. Buy glass bottles and recycle them, Encourage your families to do the same.

I will let these photos speak for themselves.

Now you might ask what this has to do with how we feel as humans. Well here is the thing. We DO feel what is happening to the planet. We DO feel the sadness of the animals, and ocean creatures. We DO feel sick from the experience of living in this planet that is struggling to clean up our messes. This is sometimes beneath our conscious awareness, but that same sick feeling we get when we hear of senseless shooting and terrorism is a part of our awareness all the time. It enters our dreams and lives beneath our words like a sickness, a cold or flu that hasn't quite blossomed.At some level we all know that we have seriously damaged our planet, Maybe we have keep the degree of this damage hidden from ourselves, but we know. I know.. You know.

I believe that Nature is working as hard as it can to clean up our trash.

SO JUST FOR TODAY….. Clean something up. Take care of the land, the ocean and the animals that we share this space with. All of that will make you feel better.

Maybe each day we can help that process along.

Today..... clean something up..

Pour some water on a plant.

Pick up ONE piece of trash.

Buy something in glass instead of plastic.

Plant a seed.

It will make the earth happy and your heart smile.

Blessings everyone. November 18, 2015 Misty

"In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: "When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?"
Gabrielle Roth

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

FUZZY AWAKE - SOFT EYES

There was a phrase used in a post-grad dream course I took some years ago. The phrase was "soft eyes". It was a way of letting go of our specific perspective and seeing something that was more of a whole vision. In a yoga class I once heard the teacher say "Relax your eyes back into their sockets". Surprisingly, I found that I could do just that. I hadn't known how hard my eyes were working. Being awake can sometimes feel like a version of Where's Waldo, looking for that little stripe shirted man/boy with wire rimmed glasses.

This is not a way of not caring, or going to sleep, or being lazy. It is a way to see the "gestalt" the whole of a thing. Have you ever watched Cesar Milan, the dog whisperer? He will often point out an animal that is NOT in calm state by having the audience look at the eyes and the ears. They are all about focus on a particular thing. The animal is full of tension, a kind of ready alert or fight/flight stance. Exhausting for sure, but perhaps more importantly it is about being lost to MOST of the world and seeing only one thing.

In recovery we often talk about being "hyper alert, or hyper reactive". It can also be called a kind of "possession" like being taken over by something. When humans are in this state, there is no relaxation, nor any openness. All you can see is what you are looking at and looking for. If you need examples think about how polarized our political or religious views are. One can see it in scholars as well; those who have spent so much time studying one thing that they have lost the ability to be open to the appreciation of another view.

I was recently with a group of very intelligent, informed, conscious people and I noticed how stilted the conversation became when religious/spiritual talk showed up. Everyone seemed to say something about it that they had probably said a few times before, and then not wanting to dig into a difficult area, simply moved on.

I am a boomer baby so I believe that we have power to change things and it starts with what I myself am doing. With the ocean temperatures rising, it is hitting the consiousness of more people that maybe, just maybe we are in trouble here on this planet. We are just another species here, and we know that sometimes species don't stick around. A wider view of life might just be in order. So I always think of what I can do in one day to shift things in the world. Do you do that too? How does that look?

If I eat more rye bread today, it will increase the need for rye which will help the organic farmers replenish the soil by being able to shift out of wheat farming just long enough for a nurturing crop to be planted in rotation.

If I listen to one person whose perspective is not mine with respect and kindness, WITHOUT grabbing my favorite hobbyhorse line to prove them wrong, I can plant a different kind of seed in that person.

If I keep my trash in the right containers I am not adding plastic to the land and the oceans that are getting so unbalanced with our disrespect, I can not plant more destruction in the world.

Soft eyes bring in the wider perspectives. It is so easy to be focused on what I need, what I want, but here's the thing. We are one of, if not the most rich, spoiled for luxury, groups of people on the planet. If we don't have the ability to look beyond our our ego driven quests, perhaps we will not survive.

I believe something is beings asked of us here. We are being asked to step up, to be a voice that speaks out against greed, hatred,and unconsciousness.

I can only do those things if I use soft eyes, if I see the bigger view, if I don't use my vision to keep grabbing the same re-inforcers to my way of thinking.

So close your eyes and let your eyes rest back into their sockets and breathe. Now open your eyes and be soft with them. Let something else in. It may be a fuzzy vision, but that is alright too. See our fragile world. Let that image shape your day. And play nice out there.

Blessings, Misty September 8, 2015