Osprey

   

       When we open ourselves up to childlike fascination, wonder, excitement, awe, and curiosity, we increase our capacity for love. And we increase our capacity to experience the world anew.
        Think of how a little kid might look at this magnificent Osprey, maybe for the first time. The jaw dropping gleam in their eyes surpassed only by their complete rapturous engagement. They would stand there, transfixed, by what appeared to be a magic animal from a different realm. They would stare, simultaneously studying the animal and also engaged in a mindless awe.
       I know this, because this is how I experience not only this bird but lots of life. Whether its nature, the music I’m listening to, the woman I’m with, or the conversation I’m having, I strive to bring that passionate involvement, that sense of awe, wonder, curiosity, and fascination, to all my life.
       My summer at Omega and Kripalu opened up my heart and deepened my connection to my truest self. In the process, I experience both a quieting of my mind and the ignition of an engine within. I want to bring more of my fire to the world, and I want to help others find and ignite their fire. The book I’m writing will be a platform for that. But my whole life can be a platform for that too.     
       So here I am at fifty-one. I find myself with more capacity to love, more capacity to let love in - in all of its forms and manifestations - than ever in my life. I find myself with more capacity to experience the world anew. Furthermore, as I learn to more fully engage, as I learn to more fully allow, my capacity for love will only increase as I get older. Isn’t that fucking exciting? Isn’t that better than the other, conventional party line paradigm of diminishing returns of love as we get older? Isn’t the potential life altering expansions and experiences that are possible from the increasing love paradigm worth the risks? Fuck yeah.
       Fuck yeah.


©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

       Many spectacular mornings have graced my life. Today’s however, brought me to tears. Even before I woke up.
       So I’m hanging out with Jackson Brown, and I tell him that his songs “Doctor My Eyes” and “Running On Empty” touch me profoundly. Some of the best melodies and lyrics on the planet, I tell him. He thanks me, then starts singing……..“Doctor my eyes have seen the years, and the slow parade of fears without crying, now I want to understand……” And of course, as he’s singing, because this song is some powerful medicine, I start crying. All of this is happening in my dream. Did I forget to mention that? Excuse me. Tearing up when I’m moved by music happens to me when I’m awake, too. Except that I’m not usually hanging out with Jackson Brown. Not yet, anyway.
       In the middle of my special moment with Mr. Brown, my alarm goes off. The alarm song is “In God’s Country” by U2. More music who’s magic is so beautiful that it will often move me to emote, just as it did this morning. Have you ever really listened to the opening of that song? The electric harmonic rhythmic chugging over the simple acoustic strumming; followed by a highly echoed, hauntingly beautiful and soaring two note electric guitar pattern that rings over a backbone of bass and drums. And then, a melody that stirs mystical realms. My god. If ever I create just one thing in my life as beautiful as the opening of that song, whenever I leave this earth, I will leave with a full heart.
       So here I am, haven’t even gotten out of bed yet, and I’ve already connected to my heart so powerfully that I’ve wept twice (I count the dream cry. Yes. Yes I do.) It’s five-fifteen in the morning. I’m about to go kayaking, aiming to watch the sunrise from the water.
       After loading my kayak in the car and driving to the beach, I enter the ocean. Paddling across the bay about a half mile out, I experience a stupefying solitude. Houses and boats and all sorts of human trappings ring the shoreline, but there's not a human being in sight, and I haven't seen one all morning. I feel like I’m the only person on earth. The ocean laps against my vessel, gently splashing me as I paddle. Ospreys fly over head, snatching up breakfast from the bounty of the bay. It’s Magic Hour, the time just before and after sunrise (and sunset) when the light does things on the horizon that it doesn’t do any other time of day; that it can’t do any other time of day. It’s as though, just for those precious minutes, light is given a different set of brushes, a different palate of colors, and the sky becomes a different canvas, upon which to create. The scenes are so breathtaking, so stirring, and produce such a unique atmosphere in which to exist, that I wish all of the day looked like this. Maybe that’s what heaven is. Magic Hour. Twenty-Four-Seven.
       And, today, August 27th, is my friend Ron’s birthday. He was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2001. Today, he would have been fifty-one years old. I hadn’t remembered that this morning. I only realized that much later in the day when a friend reminded me.
       Ron somehow manages to speak to me, every year, on this day. But none louder, none more powerfully, none more evocatively, than the way he did today. With all of my heart, I know that it was Ron who gave me the gift of this magical morning. It was Ron who gave me this whole unforgettable experience.
       By the way, Ron loved Jackson Brown. And, until today, I had never dreamed of Jackson Brown. Not once. Ever.
       This morning, my meditation was my kayak across the bay at Magic Hour. Which itself was preceded by a very moving heart and soul connection to “In God’s Country”, which was itself preceded by intimate moments with Jackson Brown and his music in the dream state. All of this, nestled in the open arms of my friend’s loving reach from the other side.
       This morning, I experienced my insides so powerfully stirred that they literally boiled over, directly into this writing. Directly into my sharing this deeply personal, deeply intimate experience with the entire world.
       This is what I want my life to look like. Every. Day.
       I am filled by a burning passion to make that so.
       I am overwhelmed with the gratitude that it has happened but once.
          

©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful

Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful
For I see through you
Into the depths of your own sacred flame
I nurture your desire to express that flame
In all its ways
I cherish your vulnerability
As you let me see you for who you truly are
We create the fertile ground for true connection
Your own unique light shines so bright that it illuminates me
You are
Your Own Kind of Beautiful
You are
My Kind of Beautiful

©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.