How to cool your jets

 "The best way to live life is as a soul, dancing in and out."

All you can do is dance.  The best way to spread joy is to lead by example.  Dance yourself, and slowly, surely, people will pick up on your energy.  Consciousness is contagious.

Dancing in sand.  with an orange. and an oil refinery...

Try it, someplace alone with a person.  Even alone with your ___ in bed.  Whatever you may call a significant other or just a person that happens to be laying next to you a random morning you don't quite recall...

Breathe mindfully, slowly.  The rhythm of your breath is contagious.  I've seen it.  I've made it happen myself.  I've allowed it to happen between myself and strangers, homeless, people who don't speak a lick of english but understand the higher language of energy. 

We can be present together.  And understand that we are sharing the air in this moment together, right now.  And that's all there is to it.  No need to be afraid of it.  No need to repress it, or run from it, asking ourselves, "I wonder what they're thinking." Or "I wonder where they got their hair done.  I don't like their shoes.  They are old lady librarian shoes.  I better pull out my phone.  This is weird.  Check email.  Oh, living social deal, wine and pizza, sweet.  Distraction distraction."

What a lovely little game we've fallen into.  This thinking in circles.  All we do is think, we deserve to pause for a bit and listen to the soundtrack.  Step out of it.

Ram Dass' core theme, Be Here Now...also the title of a lovely secular text embraced by free spirits all over.

Skills of redirection to the present is a  great tool.  When you're talking with so and so about blah blahblah often times you're living in the past, future, 70s, your mom's back porch, your bathtub...  Elsewhere talk.
Redirect the conversation to the here and now.  Ram Dass talks about making strawberry jam in the kitchen with his father, who was just rambling on and on with his miseries of past wives, his kids that don't call, loneliness, etc.  He had created a storyline and a leading role for himself as a miserable dude, and all RD said referred to making jam.  "Are bubbles supposed to rise to the top like this?"

Redirect the energy to the body.  The present.  What you are doing here and now.

I'll often run into people in the midst of errands downtown.  I really pay attention to how they're walking.  What they're carrying, in their hands, on the shoulders, on their bodies, in their heads--the eyes tell more than anything they could say.

a self portrait of sorts

I can tell this cat's stressed--neck forward, shoulders slumped.  Not really breathing in the stomach.  Tight belly and midsection.  Not alive in the hips, the feet, the toes. 
"Yo yo what's up," I say.
Spewing, "Oh my god...(exhales)....fje;ajea;fjelajfel;ajghresgjrsj" (Insert random errands, names, places, dogs, etc.)
"Me too, lets do it together.  Where you headed?"
And we walk together.
Breathing together.
Grabbing a coffee together.
Small talk, enjoying the sun, stopping for free samples of beer and wine at the beer shop.  Stopping for coffee.  All on the way to sign papers. 
Trudge through filling in blanks with dates, signatures.
Washing dishes, getting cat food, scooping cat shit, etc.

Nothing else to do but bask in each moment--each place we go, the sounds, smells, feelings of places, colours, energies of people, dogs, trees, cars, etc.  How lovely it is we are able to call things our responsibilities sometimes.  And then sometimes not.