"Stay Gold"

torrential rain down a screen door with a muted view of a back yard and deck

Day Five Golden Wild Musings with Renee Magnusson Peaceful, Easy Feelings

What has felt golden to me these last few days? I found this to be a harder prompt. Maybe because I was working all those days and today am more fuzzy-minded from being on the cleansing day before a colonoscopy tomorrow. Couple very few calories with the general fuzziness from a turnaround day where I try to get back onto a regular day schedule and I feel sluggish in body and brain. In some respects though, and I am familiar with the high of too few calories from long ago in my teens, I feel more in touch with my body than usual. I’m not using food to numb out or to try to stay awake and more focussed. Nor can I even fall back on diet cola, my old energising stand by, due to the dark dye. So, due to all this, I thought this post would be short, consisting mainly of my tent pegs, my daily haiku. Those little moments of noticing what I’m noticing.

And then there was this:

This morning I had one and a half hour’s sleep after work, then woke up very reluctantly to my alarm. Time for my son-in-law Jonathan’s service. He’s a minister for Unity of Tucson in Arizona, formally a science of mind minister. I like to watch the services live if I can as they make me feel closer to my son Dane (even though Dane rarely watches his husband’s services! Lol) but also because Jonathan usually gives me something to think about and his services are fun, full of song (Jonathan was an actor before becoming a minister) and uplifting. Jonathan started his ministry journey in Toronto which is where he met Dane. When Dane told me he was dating this guy who was a minister in a Centre For Spiritual Living, all my maternal antennae sprung up. Kool Aid came to mind. And the guy’s last name was Zenz! Well, that just couldn’t be right. So I sought Jonathan out and watched his past services online. Meanwhile Dane had never been to one! My mam had recently died at this time and I found that the services and the messages just spoke to me, echoing my own beliefs which had strong but not mainstream. I often watched service after service on my phone late at night sobbing my heart out. When I met Jonathan I was relieved to find that he’s actually very quiet (not the bouncing, energetic persona onstage) and thoughtful and that Zenz is legitimately his last name. 

Dane and Jonathan got married 5 years ago. I have never been to a wedding or any ceremony where there was so much love and joy and pure celebration. Eventually Jonathan left CSL Toronto and moved, in time, back to Tucson, his hometown. He started his own practice there and eventually, while we were down there visiting, landed the position at Unity of Tucson, a bit more God-focused but Jonathan blends the two well. 

Today the guest speaker was Monk Yun Rou (meaning Soft Cloud) who is a Doaist monk. His story was incredible. He was the instigator, purely by accident, of the pay it forward movement by pausing for a second before getting out of his car to have an argument with an obnoxious man behind him in a Florida Starbucks coffee drive through line up. Instead of fighting (which was his initial reaction), Monk got back into his car and offered to pay for the man’s coffee. But the man had ordered breakfast for a whole bunch of people. Monk hesitated but then paid the full amount before getting on with his day. He came back home to a full answering machine and many many messages from people working at Starbucks wanting him to call them. Eventually a national news reporter left a message wanting to interview him. It turned out that the man whose order Monk had paid for, paid for the person behind him. Monk did this at 8am, when he answered the phone from the reporter, it was 3pm and the paying it forward was still going on. We’ve all heard the story. To listen to the originator who teaches tai chi (yay tai chi!) at Jonathan’s church was quite remarkable. Golden in fact.

‘Remember who you are,’ Jonathan says all the time. Monk’s message was also that in remembering who he was (or perhaps even who he wanted to be or not be), he made a ripple that reached out way beyond his initial gesture. ‘Be aware of the interconnectedness of everything,’ he says. A wonderful reminder. We do this best by being our true selves.

‘Stay gold,’ Renee reminds us, ‘What feels golden is what feels true to you…make note of the moments of truth in your life.’ 

Catching Monk’s message, embracing little moments and small things in each day, looking for synchronicities, watching Ru Paul’s Drag Race at work on my downtime at work (Dane suggested it to me and I did watch a couple of episodes with him and Jonathan in Tucson last year. Now I’m watching all 12 episodes chronologically. That show is so addictive!): these have been some of my golden moments these past few days.

Rain streams down windows
branches snap, wind chimes tangle
excitement brews #316

In gold leaves white cat sits 
still as a stone
squirrels chant warnings #317

Wild wayward wind
maple key behind a bell
single-winged toad #318

Thank you for reading. Stay true to you.

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pure white cat sitting in a pile of golden leaves