Change is in the air

For those who wonder why everything seems to be going into bursting destruction and change this year, 2008 is the year of Shiva. If you wonder who Shiva is, read this. Shiva is part of the Hindu holy trinity, and is the third God (not in ranking of importance though): Brahma is the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva has the honor of being the Destroyer. Pretty scary deity for some, when he walks around with his necklace made of human skulls and his blue skin.

All in all, Shiva is the best deity around, I feel. It definitely took a tall blue-skinned violent God to kick me strong in the butt and get me to move ahead in my Life. I felt so sure about the need to leave my job and life as an investment banker, and yet... You know you are burying yourself in a life of seemingly plenty, but even the money does not help make it feel bearable anymore. And yet it seems impossible to have the balls to put an end to it all. Start anew and be who you are destined to be. And I made it. I guess a lot of things made that possible, first of all people: Imperfect Husband, Perfect Guru (who is interestingly called Shiva as well), and an intuition that I should trust the Universe.

And I can't believe how good it feels. Not only has the Universe brought me all I needed since then, job, money, house... but it really feels good to wake up in the morning and not feel like you have a stone in the stomach cause you have to go to work, which you hate, and you must leave home, which you love. It never really stroke me as that simple, but the key to being happy is really to do more of the things that we like, and less of those we don't. The big big sticking point is, though, that years, decades, centuries of catholic and protestant rambling on this world (and I believe I can safely extent that statement to other monotheist religions) have raised guilt, suffering and misery to the altar of worship, and most of our friends in this Life feel unsafe and guilty when they actually are at ease, in love, happy and content. Well, after roughly 20 odd years of denying my true nature and 10 more forcing myself down a path that I had been convinced was my own, I decided to throw my foot down onto the Earth, shatter the chains and live in the Truth. Was not easy, but fully worth the while. And once you are there, you wonder why you did not do it before. It was not meant to be, probably too early, but still. So many moments of misery, of despair, so many pounds accumulated through drinking and eating to fill a bottomless well...

And then I want to scream. I AM GAY. I AM NOT PERFECT. I AM IN LOVE. I HATED THIS LIFE OF PRETENSE. I AM A GREAT SOUL. I AM A DESERVING HUSBAND, SON, FRIEND, BROTHER. I AM THE DIVINE. I AM THE LIGHT. I AM WHO I AM. I AM.

I have so much anger, and so much compassion all at once. Two cohabiting contradicting sides of the same thing, in a very tight body (though I have much skin to house a few more people).

Life is such a gift. Don't deny the possibility of changing to upgrade your daily experience, even if that means destroying the present every night before you go to bed, to create a new present as you wake up in the morning. I love that amazing sentence by Paul Ortega, which he shared with us in LA last summer: 'Don’t wait until you are in horrible circumstances to display bigness, consciousness and spanda. Do that every day in your Life.'

Time to go and hugs my imperfect dogs, and show them the love.

Shanti OM.

IY