On Fire

Posted on September 14, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 7

Spider and web at Polly A Dean Reservoir: Photo by Noelle

Spider and web at Polly A Dean Resevoir: Photo by Noelle

In the lesson section of “A Course in Miracles” comes the lesson, “My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts”. We see only the world created by our past thoughts that we then project into our current now. Just like a projector projects a movie onto a screen, we use all that we’ve previous learned to formulate what we believe is happening right now. This has been complicated for me to grasp, yet somewhere in my brain I knew this to be true.

Recently, I attended a workshop on neuro-sculpting, the art of using meditation techniques to sculpt both the left and right side of your brain. One of the very cool and salient points relates to how the brain creates memories. We think of our brain like a big file folder. Christmas 1969 is in one folder, car accident 1991 in another and so on. When we recall something we think of it like opening up a cabinet and pulling that moment out and recalling it, as it happened.

Milk weed and grasses at Polly A Dean Reservoir: Photo by Noelle

Actually, the brain is a mega-processor that stores sensory information in a multitude of sites. When we recall a memory the brain actually has to put it together. It pulls information related to that moment in time from a variety of sources and re-constitutes it, so to speak as a memory. So in essence what we think of as a snapshot or a true to life, short film, is actually a manufactured story. To no surprise we manufacture our histories in various ways depending on why we wanted to recall it. Thus, nothing we are remembering can wholly be said to be exactly true. It is true to the point of view we currently possess and through that filter we formulate what we remember.

Tree reflection in a sewer, Johnston Lake: Photo by Noelle

How does this apply to a preoccupation with the past? Everything we perceive now we perceive only from the point of view of previous experience and knowledge. When I approach a road rotary I drive through it not as a new experience, but from all of my knowledge from past driving on how to drive through one. If my boss calls me into her office, my thoughts on my way there are tainted with every past experience I’ve ever had about going to an authority figure’s office. All those thoughts feel like they are related to what is happening now, but what I’m really experiencing as I walk to her office or enter that road rotary is every experience I’ve previous had on this subject.

Waking up is about focusing all of our energy off the film and into this now moment. Forsaking the illusions we, ourselves, have created over time and space from what we have learned, come to believe or acquired through life experience. So what does this really look like? I mean, if we aren’t who we think we are right now, with this massive machine of past-ness, then what is really happening now?

This becomes my consuming thought as I drive into work this morning. What is really happening now and how does this impact who I think I am?

Two small green bugs are clinging to my windshield. They have likely been there for some time, probably since the house, but until the sun’s rays hit the windshield I hadn’t seen them. Sunrise lights up the hairs on their legs and they appear on fire. The streetlight turns green, but it is very difficult to look away from them. One walks slowly toward the other and their antenna touch. I can’t help feeling I am witnessing the greeting of the Universe with itself. “Oh… there you are.” I open myself to feel the beauty of this. Not superficially, like someone reading a novel, but really open myself to their antenna touching. I am not thinking of previous bugs or drives to work or other sunrises. I am in my car, at the light, unfettered by other thinking, gazing upon two green bugs on my windshield. In this moment, I am wholly free of past or future. It’s just me, the bugs, the sun and the divine. I focus on breathing their fiery bodies in. The moment lasts what seems a very long time.

Tall grass at South Valley Park, Ken Caryl: Photo by Noelle

A horn blares and I start moving. I realize to hold onto the moment of fire with my friends is again to hold onto the past when something else is already in play. Each now is delivering something potent. I open the window and can smell exhaust immediately, but as I drive I can also smell the sweet scent of summer grasses, now drying, in the fields that I pass. They sway with the whoosh of passing cars. The sun now up, hits the glass of an office building and I am briefly blinded. I feel the cones in my eyes constrict like a cat against the intrusion of light. I relax and let my peripheral vision take over. A swallow, up way too early, dashes past my windshield, barely seen out of the corner of my eye. The car hums beneath my seat and I note the satisfied feeling of a belly full with breakfast.

Can anyone hold this level of exquisite detail all day? What happens when you relinquish every story you are in the habit of telling yourself all day about what you ‘think’ is happening and immerse yourself solely in the details of what is happening in just this split second? Can I be that aware, I wonder, as the smell of someone’s cigarette drifts in my car window? Do people really accomplish their jobs this way? It all seems unlikely and yet I instinctively know this must be the path.

Ridge tree, South Valley Park, Ken Caryl: Photo by Noelle

For now, work is in my future. The bed I came from already my past. What will happen to me today, if I hang in this ever rolling moment? I feel the importance of that intention swirl around my heart. As I touch the coconut oil lip balm to my dry lips and feel it’s smoothness nourish my skin I realize it is me that is now on fire?

Light Skater

Posted on September 8, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 19

Bing Celestial Bodies Image Search

Exceptional is this moment where everything in me explodes into light.

Light so vibrant you can barely lay eyes upon it.

I am fierce and wild and full of the power of God.

Light oozes from my skin breaking the boundaries of man-made laws and material manifestations.

I am starlight condensed into diamond cells.

Each possessing the story of a thousand lifetimes.

Stories that define me or I discard, if I choose.

No limits.

A falcon whose vision expands a million plains.

No past or future, only now.

A celestial body that rips through the atmosphere brilliant, captivating and free.

Look closely at me.

I am you.

You are me.

Follow me now!

We are light skating across the firmament

Bing Celestial Bodies Image Search

Already Here

Posted on September 3, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 11

Mohegan’s Bluff, Block Island: Photo by Noelle

Allow yourself to think today as if your life is already what you want it to be. Watch what happens when you do not succumb to your own stories of limitation.

Namaste and Happy Thursday, Noelle

Lakefront Easy

Posted on August 27, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 10

Lakefront at Chatfield State Park: Photo by Noelle

Exhausted from almost eleven straight days of work I headed off to Chatfield. The three-day weekend promised at the end of the work run was now upon me, but the vestiges of long days dragged at my heels. The lake seemed the perfect place to begin my unraveling and as hoped, on a Friday after school had started, it was comparatively empty. With the exception of a few people I had the entire lake walk to myself. My gratitude for this would be hard to express.

Lakefront path at Chatfield State Park: Photo by Noelle

Lately, I have found being deeply present with others in my work, almost easier, but then my need for silence and less stimulation when I leave work has grown with it. I needed the trails to myself, which in an urban metropolis isn’t easy to find. I wonder at times if this is what all our country’s rage is about. All the easy frustration, road rage and disconnection. We all need more silence. More peace. Less bells and whistles. Less demands on our time and attention. We are overstimulated to the point of chronic irritation. I slowed my step to sync my mind with meditative awareness.

Lake trail at Chatfield State Park: Photo by Noelle

Flooding throughout the spring has left the trails still disrupted. Some areas remained washed out while others were littered with logs. The start of the hike was hot with little wind and I remained close to the shore. Millions of dead leaves, now mere carcasses of their former selves, covered the sand. Each a curious art form in their rotting down to skeletal state.

Lake trail at Chatfield State Park: Photo by Noelle

Sections of the wood were immersed in sand, clearly demonstrating how high the waters had come off the lake. In some places the beach and wood were now almost one. Huge trees had been ripped from their moorings and now laid humbled upon the beach. My feet sunk down as I walked among the trunks listening to the buzz of cicadas. This is their last hurrah. Fall will nip our heels sooner than the dead heat would ever give away.

Lake trail at Chatfield State Park: Photo by Noelle

As I walk I must weave in and out of the woods or traverse huge mud flats and shallow inlets trying to find the original path or one now made up. Walkways have washed out from all the lake flooding and I slug through in sandals, delighted to be wet. There was a time when I would dress in such tight gear to not be touched by the elements or get too dirty. I laugh just to write this, as the thought of not allowing my feet to get wet seems insane to me now. I walk in hiking sandals that have plenty of holes for water to rush in and I donned them just so. I stand in a stream and let it cleanse me of hours of busyness and demand.

I see how the small ways in which I blocked myself off have been eroded and washed away like these flooded inlets. I am permeable, I am porous, I am wearing away my former self as the wind bleaches the exposed roots of these lakeside trees.

Lake trail at Chatfield State Park: Photo by Noelle

Pirate Booty

Posted on August 18, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 20

State Beach, Block Island, Rhode Island: Photos by Noelle

A seagull attempted to land on it as a perch, but the top was too thin so the tough scavenger flew off. It appeared to be a marker, maybe to someone’s pirate booty, or a child’s war ship against the tide the day before. Now it stood lone and bare in the morning light. Treasure Island and Billy Bones floated through my mind, as I came upon it. As a child I loved the N.C. Wyeth paintings from the story and would look at them for hours making up my own pirate adventures.

N.C. Wyeth illustrations from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Like my fantasies of childhood I found the beach full of little mysteries as dawn came upon it. Crabs battling in tide pools, shell paintings and this monstrous sand castle still erect and undisturbed by the night’s tide. A stalwart stronghold made with little more than hands and buckets. Having recently started dabbling with sculpting SopI marvel at this structure. Created in an afternoon, with little more impetus than a laugh and no more concern for it’s perfection or durability than the time it takes to be distracted onto a boogie board. Yet in my own creative process I can ponder and obsess over the next steps in plaster as if I were working with TNT or finding the cure for cancer. I dig my feet into the sand and commit myself to remember the care-free force of a child.

Sand castle, State Beach; Photo by Noelle

Small pathways discovered through the shrub-covered embankments, now dotted in pink flowers, enticed me into small sand dells and new routes home. I picked one of the morning blooms and placed it in my hair embracing all the beach bum I could pull into my lungs.

State Beach, Block Island, Rhode Island: Photos by Noelle

I sit daily in meditation, but few things calm and bring me into full alignment with my best self so completely, as a walk on a deserted beach. So to you my dear friends I offer this call to adventure and discovery that it not die upon my own lips.

“Avast, me hearties! There be treasure here.”

State Beach, Block Island: Photo by Noelle

Seaside

Posted on August 13, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 19

block Island High Speed Ferry to New London: Photo by Noelle

Someone’s Coke had exploded on the window; no telling how long ago, but it looked old and crusted. The waves fill in the scene between the running, brown spots telling a tale of holidays and luggage, children eating crushed sandwiches with chips and foamy soda. My nieces are giggling in the booth behind me and I pretend to read my book. In truth, the ocean moving beneath my window is far more intriguing. The girls launch off to the outer deck leaving the Coke and me and the dark green sea. Such a vast ocean full of life and dancing seagulls that laugh at soda and women longing for their vacation not to end.

I breathe deep and feel the sand still embedded in my sandals rubbing against my heal. The vacation may be over but my morning walks are alive within me as I sail for home.

State Beach Block Island, Rhode Island: Photo by Noelle

Some mornings the temptation to lie in bed would be great, but the island is a haven for bird migrations. The dawn is full of winged song and chattering old maids. Plus, I knew few walked the beaches in the morning leaving it mostly to myself. By nine o’clock people would be staking out their spots for the day, especially close to the water, but at the crack of dawn it’s a random dog walker and one or two folks likely fallen asleep on the beach from too much drink the night before.

State Beach Block Island, Rhode Island: Photo by Noelle

As I walk the surf rolls over my feet, a tempting lover, but hard to get. It’s in the way she pulls at my ankles then drifts back into the sea as if she could careless at my response. I chase her, as any sun-drenched lover would and she covers my legs with love. She could beguile the hardest soul winking delicately in the new dawn and makes positive beggars out of crabs whose claws outstretch demanding she return them home.

I collect stones and fill my pockets, smooth and black or mica-covered quartz the favorites. I walk, rubbing them, committing to a seaside rosary of sorts as I speak to spirits that pull my hair into the wind. Salt graces my lips and I lick it off for breakfast, smiling at the seagull who hovers wondering what I dine on. “The same as you, my friend. The same as you.”

Mohegan’s Bluff, Block Island: Photo by Noelle

I came upon a stingray, likely dead, but his eyes were still open and partially covered by a pool of water. I pulled him back into the seaweed thick surf and he quickly disappeared under the rolling garden. I could not tell if he lived or merely vanished in a tangle of kelp, but for some reason I felt very satisfied. After a time walking the beach I wondered at my need to deliver him from his death. We all must leave this plane at some point. The sight of death rarely disturbs me and I am at peace with the beautiful eco-system that has a purpose for even the decaying body. I sat on the sun-warmed sand and watched the surf for a long while. Clearly that day, I did not want either him or myself to be anywhere else but with the sea.

State Beach Block Island, Rhode Island: Photo by Noelle

Enchantment

Posted on August 10, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 20

Lazy Sunday: Photo by Noelle

I run my finger along the skin of my thigh. It is surprisingly smooth and soft. Knees bent the skin pulls taut and I can see the shape of the bones. I lay my hand flat over one knee and imagine I can feel the marrow alive and thriving at its center. These are my pieces. Pulled out of a toy chest and assembled into this form, specifically for this ride. I breathe in my good fortune, relishing the sound as the lungs fill with an expansiveness I had but all forgotten.

I remain still, my heart beating steady as spring rain – my breath slows to hear it. Each chamber opens the door to my life blood, as the grandest of hosts in a burgundy castle. “All are welcome here!” they call out and my blood flows in as giddy guests. The veins in my arms talk of banquet tables and vast dance floors where all life is on display. Fat oxygen molecules swinging as if ballerinas in and out of capillary beds hum my existence into life. I am humbled by the grace of single blue line mapping the tale of me.

The moment is brief as my senses remain tied to the dark chocolate I’d eaten a few moments ago. More bitter than sweet and rich as gold across my tongue. I feel the smile more than any facial change as I fall under my own enchantment. Beguiled by sensory facets that change as diamonds in sunlight. I wonder I had not noticed my beauty so thoroughly before. I cannot be disappointed, though. After so long a wait to make such a discovery now is pure magic.

I have lived inside this body for many decades and she surprises me still. Come close and I will show you the stone that has lived in my hand since childhood. A fall on a gravel driveway in the dark of a Halloween night left her there. Closer still and I will show you the scar where glass cut my back in a car accident and the place the surgeon’s knife lay fast upon my skin. Here you will see how my fingers bow slightly and over here the freckles that call to mind a constellation in a faraway galaxy. Let me show you the hands that age as all artist’s hands must. Weathered and wrinkled, traces of life beneath their nails. At this distance the green-gray pupil that has seen mountains and oceans fall beneath my feet will be readily apparent. She will, in all her extraordinary clarity, look back at you with immense openness.

Inch close enough to hear my whisper and it will thread the needle you have held out for me, magic upon your ear. For what am I, if not the very grace spirit is made of…

Hometown

Posted on August 6, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 20

Stamford Train Station: Photo by Noelle

I pass through her shadow much like passing through a lake spring. I catch a glimpse of her in baggy shirt and jeans by the State theater, but it’s only a ghost that passes into the shade of an elm. I felt her pulling my steps into the same sixteen year old’s rhythm on Washington Blvd and I forced myself to pick up the pace. She haunted me at the corner of Summer and Broad where the old Caldor’s Department store used to be. Just thinking about that old five and dime throws my thinking back forty years. I shiver as the closed in feeling of a girl’s bathroom swims into view. Children laughing and pulling at my clothes as they shove me into the stall door. I dressed in hand-me downs and cheap clothing that all the kids knew where it had been bought. I stop walking and let her ghost drift past as I turn my face into the sun on Atlantic.

Caldors marketing stock photo circa 1970

I look in boutique windows that I would have never looked in as a child and her ten year old shadow hovers at my hip. We were too poor to buy clothes in such places. Now I dally vaguely window shopping, I suspect because I can, but I need nothing. As I walk past the first McDonald’s in our town I remember my mother bringing home fries once when I was sick. Probably sounds like a curious luxury to a world gone wild on fast food, but in the 70’s it was a big deal. I had strep throat for the umpteenth time with fevers that got as high as 105. She packed me once in ice to bring the fever down and would lay with me running her fingers through my sweaty hair until I’d fall asleep. I often slept on the floor with the fans because it was the only cool place to be in the summer. Even now I remember how unbearably hot I felt and the gallons of ginger ale I drank. As the scent of the fryers comes to me on the street I remember the taste of the salted fries she brought home. She sat with me by the sliding glass doors where a breeze came in and we shared them. It makes me weep to think about it. The ten year old shadow takes my hand and we keep walking.

This is my hometown and yet I could not feel any less at home. Walking along is an immersion in a time capsule. I no longer run from my previous selves, but I feel their weight here. I feel the lack of self-worth and fear she had. So much confusion of how to act or how to be. Loneliness. Isolation. I am a thousand light years from here and yet I find I want to find her on the next street. Take her shopping. Hear her laugh and see that lightning smile. Tell her, as Dr Seuss told us all, “Oh the places you will go, my love. Oh the places you will go.”

Stamford Train Station: Photo by Noelle

Regarding My Absence

Posted on July 9, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 54

Hine Lake: Photo by Noelle

I have not been posting much of late and missing many of my friend’s blog posts. I thought I’d share a quick update.

I have made the decision to self-publish my meditation pieces. It occurred to me one day that if I don’t do this I’ll have immense regret. My mother spent a life time writing poetry on the backs of envelopes and dreaming of publishing her work. She never did and it was one of her greatest disappointments at the end of her life. Not too long ago I had one of those crystal moments when I realized if I didn’t do something wild and foolish soon, I’d be lying there thinking the same thing.

In the past two weeks I’ve signed the contract and paid the bill. The book was complete, but after some consultation I am restructuring it before it goes to Lulu.com. I have deadlines I’ve set for myself to have it all completed and submitted before the end of July. Thus, my absence from my own blog as well as many of yours. I plan on being back online in August. Until then I extend you all the happiest of summers or the most joyous of winters for my southern hemisphere friends.

I also give you this: If there are any dreams left in your back pockets, take them out. Lay them out on the table in front of you and ask yourself, “If today was the last day of my life, how would I feel about not having pursued this?” It’s worth asking.

Wish me luck.

Hine Lake: Photo by Noelle

The Station: Part Three

Posted on June 25, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 15

Breakfast: Photo by Noelle

The clanking of pots caught my attention and I turned to look inside. A gray head bobbed behind the grill; I suspected he was doing prep work. The tables were half set up and the smell of bacon drifted out the cafe window. Listening recently to a lecture with Carol Tuttle, she guided a meditation where you experience the divine through your senses of touch, taste, smell, and so forth. Without hesitation my first thought was that God likely smells of bacon. I smiled sheepishly. I sometimes have deep vegetarian guilt.

Even at 6:30 on a Sunday morning the station is active with movement, though my own eye is more interested in the long angles. Nothing effects our inner clocks so completely than the long angle of sunlight at dawn and dusk. One elicits a feeling of promise, while the other – mystery.

Union Station: Photo by Noelle

Union Station and the Moon: Photo by Noelle

Amtrak: Photo by Noelle

People milled in coffee shops or sat on the benches by the Amtrak ticket window. Newspapers laid in laps or noses were buried deep in phones, while dreams of future destinations stuck out conspicuously from suit coat pockets and overstuffed purses.

The Flower Stand: Photo by Noelle

The flower stand was still closed, but full of spring blooms and a rainbow of tissue paper and inexpensive vases. I looked back at my reflection in the glass doors to the refrigerator case. A rose bloom appeared where my mouth should be committing me to only speaking love for the rest of the day.

The Station hotel: Photo by Noelle

I moved along the perimeter and stopped at the entrance to the hotel. I have never stayed at the Crawford, but the romance of it fills me with a timelessness and magic I haven’t felt in years. The concierge and I share gentle bows of good morning and I move on. I roam about the terminal for the better part of an hour, letting my ghosts wonder the gates and tracks, fingering imaginary maps to infinite destinations. There’s a beauty in not needing to go anywhere. I can simply indulge in the energy of the space without the frantic longing to be on my way. The mindfulness metaphor there is not lost on me. The Power of Now, as Tolle would say. If I stop and breathe deeply I can smell the scent of every train station on this earth, for they all hold decades and even centuries of diesel oil, engine smoke, luggage fibers, coffee grounds, newspaper print, and thousands of hungry soul’s anticipation in their rafters.

The Windows: Photo by Noelle

The Terminal: Photo by Noelle

Glitz and Glamour: Photos by Noelle

I stare at this last photograph on my phone and marvel how I can be a dozen different versions of myself, by allowing my mind to fall into a single image. I hear the call to track 3, followed quickly by eggs over easy with whole wheat toast. A door to the street opens and the smell of engine exhaust wafts into my nostrils. The flower girl steps behind the flower counter, the sound of jangling keys to open. The man seated to my left rises, still wearing both reading and sunglasses on his head, and begins to move. I breathe deeply.

I am a Time Traveler and this moment is my current home. While we are together, allow me to introduce myself.