One _____ at a Time: January 2013

What you think and what you feel

and what actually manifests is ALWAYS a match.

No exception.

As Friday approached this week, I felt a looming pressure to have REALLY BIG PLANS-- like really cool life-adventure plans, Earth-shaking developments on my half-baked New Year's goals, self-enrichment evolutions, contributions-to-history ideas, and new save the planet strategies. But I came home from a business trip to a tsunami of dishes and laundry that looked like it might wash my plans down the drain. My self-defense reflexes kicked in and I realized, Aha! Make a list, Chris. But I couldn't find any paper or pens to flesh out my thoughts. So, I decided to take voice annotations with my phone before the inspirations disintegrated.

When I hit the record button, the awkward sound of my own voice tripped me up.

Take 1

Do I really sound like this? OK, let's start again.

Take 2

Um...#1... [long silence broken by sound of brain farting].

Reverse-engineer my favorite $20 nut butter.

[crickets chirping...recording ends]

I could barely believe my own ears-- NUT BUTTER?! That's it. That's the best you could come up with?!!!!

All of a sudden, it became apparent that my so-called "big" plans were calling into existence the most neutered weekend of all time. What happened to the boldness of 2013 I had been rearing for?

Nutzzo - $20 nut butter from Whole Foods in all her delicious rip off glory

Now, I'm not sure if I believe in the Law of Attraction as one might formulate it from reading a book like The Secret, but since I started paying attention to stories about manifestation and the examples of the people in my own life, I approach the act of dream-crafting with fear and trepidation. I have come to a humble reverence of not only the power of positive thinking, but more generally, in the power of any kind of thinking-- very respectful of its power to set things into motion. And so, for me, to spend time thinking, dreaming, and feeling deep desires is playing with fire-- I don't do it lightly. Perhaps that explains why I commit first and foremost to wimpy tasks like nut butter analysis.

Dwyer's Nutz-tastic - my own homemade nut butter has all the same ingredients at a fraction of the cost-- cashews, almonds, pecans, Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, hazelnuts, flax seeds and chia seeds. No pleasure is a guilty pleasure.

Even such a tiny success as this weekend's nut butter plagiarism is more than I began the weekend with. So, I'll definitely take what I can get. But it also leaves me wondering what to do with my timid desires for grander things-- or really, what to do with my desire to desire grander desires... and how to desire them with more courage. Perhaps this is the secret to leveraging the power of the universe's proverbial Genie's Lamp. For, any fool knows what the first wish must be-- more wishes! Even if I'm not sure what to ask of 2013, I can begin with the small step of asking for the courage to ask courageous things.

Changing Gears a Bit

Yesterday we went to a Dude, Where's My Thyroid party for our cancer-bitch-slapping friend AJ, who's always been a tremendous example of joy and toughness. We played the ol' time party game, Pin the Thyroid on AJ, and man!...I didn't even attach the thyroid to the right zip code. I completely missed my goal. Nevertheless, it was a great celebration.

As you can imagine, AJ's plight got me thinking about death and life in a more urgent way than usual. On our way home we found some extra transcendence as we got to see the first full moon of 2013. It had me taco-necking out the car window, staring at the beautiful sky in awe, far removed from thoughts of nut butter. I was thinking about how cool the moon's natural rhythm is and wishing I had a better rhythm of my own. I thought about how the moon is ever-attracted to Earth...and yet she never reaches the object of her attraction. Instead, a different kind of law of attraction keeps the bodies apart, an yet, in a constant dance together. That somehow felt like a consolation to me-- that even though I may muster the courage to commit myself to hefty goals that may never completely materialize, the fact that I have committed myself to attracting them, may, if nothing else, set in motion a beautiful dance.