Step powerfully into the shift and changes this Fall season by becoming a happy camper. If you’ve ever gone camping you know it’s not all sunshine and roses. In fact camping can be very difficult. It can challenge the ego because we are so used to our creature comforts and abilities. Camping challenges our minds to step outside of the ordinary way we see things and challenges us to step into seeing with other senses that aren’t connected to the physical and to find the joy in doing so.
When I went camping for the first time about 5 years ago it was an immersion trip. I went in hardcore. I tented and bathed in the cold stream. My only creature comfort was the air mattress that I bought with me. Literally that was like my landing pad. If you’ve ever slept on an air mattress then you know it’s no bed and so even that became my opportunity to heal and reveal a greater truth; Happiness doesn't depend on the circumstances.
During the night the temperatures dropped to below 40 and I was only partially prepared for it. In the night sometimes it rained and the water puddled up in the corners of my tent, while the sides were wet with dew and dripped if I touched it. We woke early in the morning to the beating of the drum in preparation to enter the sweat lodge. Four thirty the drummer made her rounds led by the moon light and a small lantern. This camping trip was no regular camping trip it was a Spiritual adventure.
We are Souls, Spiritual Beings having a human experience and this human experience is our spiritual adventure. Just like my camping trip sometimes getting up early in the middle of what feels like the night in the freezing cold is a part of the program. Maybe your freezing cold is the office, maybe your middle of the night is the relatives arriving for Thanksgiving dinner and you are the host. Perhaps your cold splash in the stream is the daily activities that you must preform in order to make things work in your life. Whatever it is, when we stop complaining and start expressing gratitude we can experience a shift in consciousness, a shift in the way we experience our life.
If Earth is our campground and the Spirit is our natural home, how many ways do we expect the creature comforts of home in this three dimensional world? While camping on the earth we can become happy regardless of whether we are camping in a tent or a trailer. Our happiness doesn’t depend on circumstances. We carry this happiness within us. We cultivate it like I did in the sweat lodge. We develop a daily spiritual practice starting with an attitude of gratitude, we connect with community and we do our part to advance the whole.
What we think of things becomes internal to how we experience them and what we focus on plants the seeds of what will grow. Learning to become a happy camper is about setting up your tent in the garden of gratitude and bathing in the stream of love. Every day make it your duty, your honor and your privilege to find and focus on the GoOD. Train your mind to do what you want and not the habits that it hold. Happy camping!
Love,
