“Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.” – Frank Herbert

Another Door Opens While One Begins to Close …

Today was BIG! It was a day that I’ve reflected on many hours … a day I’ve talk about with my trusted spiritual partner many more hours … a day I’ve read about to better understand, and diagramed and planned and projected. I’ve done all those things and in the moment of today … the moment where all the preparation came together in one instant of communication … the moment where I announced my intentions to retire … it came down to one very simple thing: Being together with people you love and respect, and telling them you are moving on.

It was hard. Very hard yet very important. They were the first to know … my choice as a way to pay respect to this “family” I belong to daily … this “Tribe” I was gathered with in this moment. This Tribe … this group of people which has my deepest respect and admiration … this fellowship I’ve spent the past 2+ years with daily … these people did things they never had done before, and did them superbly. Daily they each stepped forward, acquired new skills and abilities, and demonstrated their commitment to excellence, collaboration, and teamwork.

Yes, I had to tell them I was moving on. There were some tears … some genuine but forced congratulations … some shared moments expressing feelings and gratitude … and there was a sense of loss shared among all of us in the room. They are my team … my Tribe … my friends, comrades, and family who have walked together with me over these past 2+ years engaging so many challenges of technology.

And me … privileged to walk among them … now walks toward a new life and challenge. Today was hard leaving this wonderful team but doing so moves me in the direction my heart yearns to go. Today I opened a new door and began to step through it into the unknown. And as I did, an old, familiar door began to close. The closing of a chapter of my life that gave me such incredible richness … which taught me that its people that create the feelings that fill your heart with joy, and sharing life’s adventures with such people makes life well worth the price of admission.

So my new adventure begins … my Tribe changes … and life moves on. Change … more change … and even more hidden ahead in the shadows of the future. Change … the heartbeat of life …

Opening the Door into Feelings …

As I sit, I listen. I listen to music that draws emotions from within me. Emotions that bring feelings. I linger yet do not remain for there are other melodies that bring an even richer palette of feelings from within. It is what music does for me … opens doors … stimulates visions … brings forth feelings … helps me make choices. It enables me to be the feelings man I am becoming … it enables me to touch pockets of my past and open myself for inspection … inspections using the feelings as the means of exploration. An interesting process … but one I sincerely want and replicate often now. For I wish deeply to be a man of deep, rich feelings.

And I move toward moments … ever closer to important life moments where my feelings will be touched and torched. It signals my movement in a direction touching my soul … it illuminates the path I’m meant to travel … it tells me I am indeed alive and on a journey. Feeling deeply means I am deeply alive … it is now my formula for life and for living.

So … this is my morning.

“You’ll never find peace of mind until you listen to your heart.” – George Michael

An Aligned and Peaceful Heart …

A wonderful weekend spent with a loved one and finished with hiking, reflection, and a hug. A wonderful blend of together and alone time … a formula in harmony with my soul. My mind is aligned and my heart is in peaceful space this morning. The wonderfully rich weekend, finishing with a heavy splash of exercise and nature has done me well. I begin a significant week strong, centered, and filled with kindness and peace. It feels very good!

When in such a state I feel so deeply. Everything I see, touch, or imagine has extraordinary depth. The feelings that result create a craving for more … create this sense that I must go deeper … want to go deeper … feel more intensely … experience every nuance my interactions with my worldly experience can offer. Cravings for feelings … connection … depth … more … an interesting and exciting way to live moments as I journey through my life.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” – Heraclitus

Observing the Subtleties While Taking Steps …

An early moment to reflect and I see that I remain in change while moving towards even more.  Each day offers progression … days linked to days, each describing the feelings created while considering what this moment holds and what approaching changes may bring.  It is a process of feeling excitement then letting go so that expectations do not cloud what will naturally occur.  Each day offers different views and clarity, and in my life’s dawn I see a significant moment rising … one that will close some doors while opening fresh, new and exciting ones.  All moments of change … change that once frightened but now excite.  Strung together, they are the road map of the journey I am now walking.  A chronicle of a life moving into transition.

Emotions Churn This Morning …

I arise deeply submerged in emotion. It’s heavy, thick, but tempered with tenderness. I arose, returned to bed, and then arose again three times before finally achieving my goal of walking out and beginning my morning rituals.

Music plays and each note within it sounds as if it comes from a deep cave, a cave resting far within my heart. I feel like I’m hearing sounds missed before … notes noticed because earlier visits were at the surface skimming past too fast to reach in and touch the depths within me. It feels like my time has slowed, stopped enough to allow this new kind of visit to be explored and flavored.

Each day now is touching me differently. While within change I approach an even greater change. Yesterday offered many touch points sparking feelings about my new life ahead. All seemed to open various doors to deeper feelings now beginning to churn as I ready myself to step into something truly big … cast in symbolism … representative of so much of my past paradigm, scripting, and programming. I’m not sure I’ve clearly seen its significance until now. I’m not sure I’ve notice how much is hung onto this approaching set of moments. I’m beginning to sense that these simple acts … steps I begin taking soon towards a transition … are huge and have roots extending deep within me, far deeper than I’ve realized because they are carrying away the last remaining debris from what once was me but is no longer. At least that is how it “feels” this morning.

And I look out across my room … the landscape before me as I compose tucked up in my nest … and I again see the complexity hiding the simple life I desire. “Things” and “stuff” … all collected while dancing to older life music. It reveals to me that this morning’s theme is “moving away from the old” … and I feel it more than see it on this Thursday morning. It is strong … powerful … and speaking with a loud voice within me. An interesting, growing sense as I move each finger and use its dance to help uncover what I’m feeling inside. Writing … such a useful, powerful, and sensitive tool for me. How different than what I ever imagined while living as the earlier “me” before the new “Me” was discovered.

So I will enter this day filled with user gatherings, team meetings, lunch with a close friend, talk of backpacking, and dance this evening. I enter this day changing … morphing … shifting now in ever increasing ways as a transitional set of events moves me in significant ways. My life is such a delightfully elegant dance … filled with such soothing music … allowing me these precious moments to see what beauty my life can create … allowing me moments to experience feelings that fill my heart to overflowing.

I walk … I journey … I listen to my inner music and follow my inner compass … and in return I am granted the gift of witnessing my evolution into a new Me. It is a wonderful birth … a “becoming” … and I am the seed now sending fresh roots out to draw new nourishment from a new world seen in new ways.

It is a fine morning indeed.

“A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown.” – Dennis Waitley

And on the horizon? Simply more change …

I arose in reflective space, and coffee, music, and my own inner feelings have placed me on a perch overlooking the dawn of my future. The universe is moving … I feel it … and more is now beginning to churn on increasing fronts. I sense that events are converging … about to bring me simultaneous, significant changes that will require me to seek and stand in peaceful places within me in order to navigate.   Yes … sensations creating an inner voice of caution and “be ready” for the trip will be wild but “doable”.

And of course … I have no control over what occurs, only control of how I respond (not react). And of course … there will be lessons … lessons to refresh my inner self of what life is truly about and the importance of recognizing that each day is precious and must be lived in joyful fullness.

And there will be time spent in complexity … time spent there rather than in simplicity … seeking simplicity and the resulting peace and joy … all messages churning within me this morning as this week unfolds. And I move towards work … and I move towards nature … and I move towards my heart and feelings … and I move towards life and the peace within me. All is churning … tumbling … seeking its point of equilibrium. And I move along with it … riding … looking for the resting point. Letting go of what is or may be … working to simply “be” and allow things to be revealed while seeking simplicity so that the messages can be heard by this life traveler.

On this day … this Tuesday at the end of March … life is moments … and each is precious … and each must be lived as it was our last. And as I move deeper into the currents of change I know the lesson being learned. It is to settle back, lean into the present and allow momentum and intentions to create what will be. My work is to remove complexity so that I hear and see, and act in a way to open my future to opportunities … to walk in kindness with intention while opening my heart to possibilities. It is all a recipe for revealing the life ahead of me. A life offering constant and meaningful change.

“To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.” – Leonard Bernstein

I work in technology … a member of a special team … a tribe … comprised of connected, caring, and extremely competent and creative comrades.  Yesterday greatness occurred within this tribe. After many intense and challenging weeks we launched a major upgrade to software used to provide services to the community we serve.  It was all a complex dance … moving to ever changing music while learning new steps in the moment.  And the dance was a tribal dance where each individual brings to the table the best they can offer, and their best is blended organically in the moment based upon connection, collaboration, and communication built upon caring for the greater good.

The moment of “going live” reflected so much … the culmination of many weeks of increasingly intense work.  And you could feel the moment … feel the collective mixture of tension, fatigue, and excitement in everyone on my team including me.  It was a moment … a very special moment … shared with very special people.  A moment to be remembered as I continue walking my journey into tomorrow.  And I am grateful … very grateful … for the gift given me.

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” – Cesare Pavese

“Elegance is achieved when all that is superfluous has been discarded and the human being discovers simplicity and concentration: the simpler and more sober the posture, the more beautiful it will be.” – Paulo Coelho

When resting in clarity, I see people … humans … Me … as essentially simplistic creatures.  We (I) feel and react; desire warmth when cold and cool when warm; require food, water, and shelter during the years of life; and thrive when given dignity, kindness, and love.  It is an important formula, and when incomplete life encounters disruptions, pain, and fear.

However, when in such rare clarity I also begin to see the numerous layers of complexity we humans (Me) lay atop this essential simplicity.  Layer upon layer is added over time … sometimes within a very narrow window of time … where each layer moves us farther and farther away from our simplistic self.  Some layers are given us when we feel powerless and forced to accept them.  Some layers are taken on in search of releases from fears and discomfort.  Some layers are taken on unconsciously as we live day-by-day in confusion and struggle.  Regardless of the reason, these layers are added and create distance from the inner peace always available from our essential, simplistic self.

Each layer is of our own choosing even when we feel victimized by the result. Though found to be true, accepting and owning that condition challenges us at times.  However uncomfortable, as one begins to detect, then see these layers it is a gift for it then allows us to begin removing them … gradually working our way to regaining our essential simplicity.  For in the simplicity is found peace, and each step back towards our essential simplicity feels better than the moment farther away.  The detecting then removing of layers is the journey … the journey towards self-discovery, understanding, and eventually inner harmony.

I am on my journey back to my simplicity.  Each step is one of seeing … then working to remove layers of complexity put there by me as I lived my earlier and present life.  I now remove more than I add, which gives me hope that the feelings I sense mean I am coming closer to my essential self … my essential simplicity.  Yes … the journey gives me hope so I continue taking more and more steps … leaving a trail of discarded layers along the road I travel.  My intention … once again embrace my essential simplicity.

“It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.” – Alan Cohen

I continue my “drift” through transitional space from old to unknown. The feelings are intense and ever so rich. I look and I listen for clues and signs of direction … and I truly know I am on a journey where intentions will allow the Universe to offer a vision into the next steps … offer an event that will nudge me forward. My job … to listen, watch, and remain open to change.

I now hear clearly … see clearly … and sense the need to step into the adventure of change. It is time … time for a significant shift in my life, one that needs my action in order to open the door into a new future. It is time … signs and signals become clearer each day that even though the future is not totally defined a change must come. To remain stagnant in current conditions is to continue to feel myself erode away the light that drives my passion and joy. So it is time.

My intention is to move in love and kindness as all seek a new place … a place reflecting the settling of the tides as new adjustments are made due to change. I am ready to take the steps … to act … and to open this new door that will reveal even more new doors. Another dance? Yes … with some steps mastered and some totally unknown. But I keep dancing … take steps as I learn unfamiliar moves knowing that change will be my friend and deliver me closer to my purpose and passion. It is time …trust … trust.