Dear Pneuma,

I am enjoying the grey wetness of this day. Everything looms close and quiet. The world is tucked in and waiting. It is the wrong time of year for emergence, though. It is supposed to be the time of closing down, and shutting in. Yet, I sense something blooming beneath the pulse of the world-something new and exciting.

This is a good time for courage. This is a good time for stepping out. This is a good time for commitment. I think the grieving is done for now.

Yours,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

It seems to me that me and my neighbors are too busy; so busy we hold onto routines and dogmas, onto fixed rotations of to do's, been done's, and still needs doing's just to have a way to mark the time; so busy we only steal time to be together by checking our email, reading our friends' blogs, and watching the newsfeed pages to which we subscribe; so busy, we can only unwind our sorrows with more activity.

We convince ourselves that time is within the range of our control, and then lose the time to be:

Be with others.

Be present.

Be happy.

Be sad.

Be rested.

Be restful.

Be kind.

Being this busy is an ugly habit because it suggests that worth is measured in things done. It tells us that when we allow time to overtake us, we become failures. It says that broken routines are evil-that dancing a step out of time is wrong. We not only forget in ourselves how to play, we teach our children that they are not to play. Our importance begins to outweigh our meaning, and Time becomes a mad rush through the museum, so intent on seeing everything, we remember nothing at all.

Managing time

Controlling time

Measuring time

Beating time

These are all ways to kill our joy.

I believe the great revelation of God is IAM: a statement of now being. Time is not tomorrow. Time is not yesterday. Time is today, and only today. Are you doing today what you hope to do tomorrow? Are you reaching out today where you intend to reach out tomorrow? Are you risking today what will be worth risking tomorrow? Are you feeling today what you will take time to feel tomorrow? Are you loving today the people you might meet tomorrow? Are you being today what you want to be tomorrow?

Here's to a life lived in Time,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I took an online personality test the other day, and it informed me that my altruism is low. In other words, if it is you or me, I am much more likely to choose myself over my fellow humans. I find this disturbing. After all, my favorite heroes are the ones who sacrifice themselves for others. Does this mean that I am the person in the disaster movie that climbs over my fellow passengers in my eagerness to be first off the sinking boat? I always imagined I was the person who died of starvation in the Andes because of a refusal to desecrate another human's being.

Instead, here I am-selfishly average with a low sense of self-sacrifice. Boy, every time I think I have conquered a bit of my baser nature, I am confronted by another piece. Yet, in truth, I am my nature. I am not someone else's nature. I am made to be as I am. So my question for you, Pneuma, is what do I take from this? Is this a call to change, or is it instead an opportunity to wrestle in myself to a place of deeper understanding about the human being?

Of course, I could always decide that online personality tests are simply a fun game with little to no actual meaning.

Hope you are loving your life,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Freedom, control and fear.

Free: How we are made. The way we come into the world. The way we die. The nature of our souls.

Control: An illusion that makes us forget how we are made. An effort to change the fact that we are in the world. A state that allows us to forget we will die. A corruptor of human souls.

Fear: Participating in the illusion, binding our brothers and sisters, our children and parents, and the forces of culture and nature into hopelessness, rigidity and despair.

Love: Choosing to set our brothers and sisters, our children and parents, and the forces of culture and nature free of expectation. Choosing to become as we are made. Choosing to be in the world until we die.

Just some ruminations, this Saturday night,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Someone told me this week: "It hurts, really bad," and I replied, "That's all right. It's supposed to hurt." I wondered if there was something wrong with me. Should I have said, "Hush?" Should I have said, "That's enough?" Should I have said, "Don't worry. It will go away?" Maybe I should have said, "It can't be that bad. Just get over it."

I didn't because I simply don't believe that we are supposed to live our lives avoiding pain. Life is supposed to hurt. It does hurt. Because we touch. Because we are bounded and connected in physical being. Because we care for others and they are not always with us. Because we mingle our souls and they are pulled apart. Would I trade the hurt for the touching, for the boundaries, for the connections, for the mingling, for the cares?

Is there a sickness in me that I am happy to pay a price for being alive? Should I expect life to come free instead? Should I believe the Universe unjust in that it requires some day I will die? Should I aspire to a place of ease with no limitations?

Yet I can't help but wonder what ease would make of me. How would I know what I am, if I never found an edge? How would I know myself different from you, if there were no spaces between us? If I never felt alone? If I never had to let go? If I never drew back with a bleeding wound? I believe pain must be a good gift of God, which, like so many others, is easily misunderstood, mismanaged, and misused.

May I be brave and wise in knowing when to embrace hurt, when to resist hurt, when to face hurt and when to run away.

As Ever,

Cobalt Dreams