I Take It Back

Well, I may let a cosmetician thread my eyebrows.  Got a hair cut and (ahem!) color today.  I look fabulous except for the eyebrows.  Too thick.  Too dark.  Don't match my hair.  Yikes.

Is this even spiritually relevant?  I think so.  I let you know.

I'm fickle.  I'm freckled.  I'm graying and I have wrinkles.  Attractive.  Right?  Right!  All of the above is attractive.  I'm whole.  Period.  And everything counts.  All of the neurosis, all of the profundity, my youth, and my aging.  All of the projects I start and don't finish.  All of my accomplishments.  My understanding and my misunderstanding.   The way I love and when I do not love.

Accepting myself as I am without judgment is my practice.  Being playful is my practice.  Letting go.

So today, when I went to the salon for a hair cut, I thought I might let the gray show, just get highlights of blond.  When I told the stylist, she raised a questioning eyebrow. Maybe not, I thought.

Two things happen:  1) I tell myself the story that there are certain ways of being in the world that are "holier" than others like not wearing makeup or letting my hair be natural, not dyed.  You know the look:  like a yogi, clean, dressed in all white, shining from the inside out.  2)  I get confused.  I think, If I don't wear makeup, wear 100% cotton all-white clothes, eat healthfully, say the right mantra, and let my hair go natural, I'll be holier, more whole, less contrived.

This thinking means that I have attached APPEARANCES to the Holy and its manifestation.  If appearances made one Holy-Whole, white organic cotton would be flying off the racks!  People would be texting each other:  now trending-white organic cotton!  We'd be having burn parties for colorful clothes, chanting in circles around the fire, our bliss unable to be contained.

Unfortunately, it's not that easy to get bliss.  Let's face it, being fully human is innately paradoxical.  Besides, it was the "shining from within" that really attracted me anyway.

The trick is the "without judgment" part.    Can I embrace myself as I am with all my perceived fallacies and limitations and love myself completely anyway?  If I do, I'll shine from within. Only then, can I do the same for you, for the planet.

I dyed my hair.  I may have my eyebrows threaded (assuming it's not painful!).  I might even eat sugar and let an occasional explicative slip (last night they flew out of my mouth like fireworks after I stepped through a spider web and thought it had landed in my hair!).

I am no less holy-whole for it.  Because I AM NOT MY BODY.  I AM NOT MY MIND.  I AM NOT THE JUDGE.  None of us are.  I may be a mirror for you.  I may be your greatest teacher because of  who I am and how I live.  You may learn acceptance and forgiveness because of me.  Who knows?

In the meantime, I get to do what I want to do as long as it does no harm of which I am aware.  I have decided, again.  I will change my mind often and with great conviction.  So there.