A Squirrel's Tale

A squirrel's tail: 

squirrels have recently become cherished spiritual teachers to me, since I began filming short nature clips for my YouTube channel they have reached out with all important lessons that I've most certainly needed to learn right now. What I'm learning is to not overlook the familiar, everyday sights that may have seemed to lose their enchantment, becoming ordinary through the routine of their appearance.

squirrels show me that nature is far from ordinary.

and not to overlook a single thing.

the issue was never really squirrels of course, they've always been amazing. It's been my take on the world that has led to my loss of enchantment. I've been looking for a less obvious magic, something grand that leaps directly to the camera - and all the while entirely missing the subtle artistry of a tails language, a playfulness that's found through racing circles with a friend, and the astonished joy of a finding a leaf buried acorn. 

briefly, I'm seeing the world through a squirrel's eyes.

completely re-enchanted.

what I've learned is is patience and to ease my demands placed upon nature. If I simply wait, camera calmly trained upon a squirrel, they'll freely teach me their magic. My role is only to suspend my judgement against the familiar, allowing the most obvious and ordinary things of the world to reveal their essence, their beauty, through their own subtle language. 

...like a squirrel's tail.

~

Peace, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: It Starts Right Now

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To Only Love

To only love:

I'm not a Christian, at least not in the sense that I follow the doctrine of any church or organized system of religion - however, there is a relationship here with Jesus, personal and more meaningful now than when I was member of the Catholic faith. Jesus comes to me as a guide and loving brother, wise, and so patient with his teaching. I am urged over and over again to forgive and to live my life through the grace of love and continuous compassion. 

anything outside of this path no longer really concerns me. 

I am content to only love.

taking the actual teachings of Jesus to heart, no social platform, no theocracy, not a single translator other then my most deepest heart - I simply love to the best that I'm able, dismissing distinctions made by my ego, and surrendering, surrendering, surrendering....every doubtful thought that tells me how impossible it will be to live my life this way. 

I take Jesus at his word - 

loving others

as myself.

no matter how hard it might be 

to sometimes see this.

~

Peace, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: Shown as Love

Also, please visit to buy: Teach Only Love

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Only Lesson

Only lesson: 

I'm not so sure that we're as politically divided as we're led to believe. Yet, it's a contentious elections and sides have been drawn across the social and political aisle. But it seems that if actually talk to each other, a real conversation, we come to find that our differences aren't a barrier at all, they're more of an opportunity to lay aside  our perceived grievances and come to know each other better. 

it's an opportunity to discover who we truly are as well.

of course not everyone will take this as an opportunity to learn about themselves, some will cling to an ego's point of view through any cost, including making entire groups of people, not just wrong, but actually evil. It's with this that they actually condemn themselves. Once that line is crossed they're mind is divided in a chasm that's almost impossible to mend.

yet still, we try.

 and here's the plan....

love each other.

forgive.

it's really that simple.

but not always easy. 

So we have to think of this as a practice, being mindful of our own thoughts and actions, asking ourselves what we're demonstrating to others through our needs. We're teachers, all of us, and students too, at once learning and offering lessons to each other through our every moment together.

what is it we wish to learn?

what are we teaching?

it's that simple.

teach only love. 

for that's the only lesson.

~

Peace, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: The Greatest Commandment

Also, please visit to buy: Teach Only Love

Thank you. 

A Happier Dream

A happier Dream: 

it's now a happier dream, maybe not fully so yet, but unfolding in that direction with each encounter with another and every situation that calls for my surrender. That's enough for me, these little opportunities to extend myself as love and be part of a much larger healing. 

there's no need for a final awakening.

not just yet.

a happy dream is enough. 

and this occurs through my surrender, a complete acceptance of what each moment delivers and to turn it all over to a greater will than my own. This isn't an abdication of power, no, it's a reclaiming of my own true status as a willing son of God. What's surrendered is only the ego's hold, giving up any sense of struggle that this particular moment could be any other way than what's unfolding now. 

thy will be done.

sincerely so.

with this, a happier dream begins, one that still holds challenges, certainly, but now easier to let go of and an abiding faith that I will meet each challenge with love and a smile. That's all it takes for a happier dream, a formula for success, that I'm not entitled to the fruits of my actions, only the present and my ability to respond. 

and with this, my one and only goal -

is love.

~

Peace, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: Breath and Posture

Also, please visit to buy: Happy Days

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A Small Willingness

A small willingness: 

it comes down to being willing, just a small willingness to surrender to something greater than myself and then to allow the will of God to take over. What I'm asking for here is a better plan than mine alone, knowing that my ego has lead me too far away from God and that now I'm willing to return. The word God, at least for the sake of this prose, is synonymous with love, it stands for peacefulness itself, holiness, and even this is just a choice description. 

God is the actuality of my surrender.

reality.

so with this, there's a willingness now, small, just the slightest urge to give myself away and experience a far larger love then the ego now allows. It's a greater reality than I see right now. But I'm willing to see it, and this small willingness creates a void in which a holiness rushes in, filling me with love, a peace beyond understanding...the reality of God.

 and all it took was a small willingness to surrender. 

~

Peace, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: Answer to My Every Prayer

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A Single Line

A Single Line: 

sometimes I'm struck by a single line or statement, a succinct teaching that sums up years of study and self-reflection to the point that I need go no further in my practice. These are just the right pointers that bring me to a deep understanding, intuitively knowing that I've stumbled upon an all important truth. There's such a line in Lesson 8 from A Course in Miracles, and I'm sure I've read it many times before through decades worth of reviews - but in this particular moment, for whatever reasons, it resonated as it never had before, delivering me to a profound silence, a pause of my every thought: 

from Lesson 8

the one truly whole thought that one can have about the past is that it's not here.

that was it, and it was enough to briefly stop my world, causing everything, past and future, to disappear for what can only be called a holy instant. All that remained was the present, just a moment untouched by any sense of time. Of course thoughts soon returned to analyze the whole affair, adding terms to clarify it as an experience, marveling at the after effects that still lingered. 

it seems I'd stumbled upon a knowing of a truth.

this actually happens quite often, especially with contemplative reading, slowing allowing just the right words to reach me, not so much a study as absorbing an ancient wisdom that was simply waiting s here for me all along. The rest of Lesson 8 is equally profound, with the following line bringing the point clearly home - that to thing about the past at all is therefore to thing upon an illusion. This is why I continuously study the Course, it's not to learn, but to remember the things I already know yet have somehow slightly forgotten, brushed aside through the ego's wish to know more than what this teaching offers.

sometimes though, with just a single line...

it's all that needed for my return. 

~

Peace, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: Happy Learner

Also, please visit to buy: Stillness Speaks

Thank you. 

Amor Fati

Amor fati: 

amor fati, translated from Latin as love your fate, and made best known by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It's a valuable concept to explore, to cultivate, as it asks us to live our lives with a certain enthusiasm for all that happens - even, or perhaps especially, the most difficult aspect that occur. This, of course, is a more elaborate philosophy explained in full, but the simplicity and beauty of amor fati is found within each moment.

this is it.

whatever's happening now...

it's the only thing happening that can occur.

this isn't mere resignation, nor blind acceptance without hope for change. It's much more powerful, indeed granting our enthusiasm the ability to transform every experience as necessary by it's appearance. It's with this that we become capable of transcending survival and arriving into the realm of possibility, enlightened even, as we're now in the very seat of power.

this moment...being all we have.

and greeted fully with the absolute love -

of being exactly as we are,

right now.

~

Peace, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: Tall Order

Also, please visit to buy: The Joyous Science

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Tall Order

Tall order:

it's often asked, why should I forgive? 

and the answer is always...

to be free.

that's it really, it's not about being a bigger or better person than the one who hurt us, it's not spiritual bypassing for a quick does of feeling a special way. Forgiveness is seeing through the illusion that we are vulnerable to the attacks of others, seeing innocence in lace of harm, and living our lives free of any attachments that bind us to a hurtful situation. 

it seems like a tall order.

except it's already exactly how we are, invulnerable to hurt and harm, free of grievances and resentments, innocent through our original state of being. But we've forgotten this, we've become small in our exclusive identification with ego, and every attack thought and word seem to give us great concern. 

forgiveness returns us to our original largeness. 

reminding us that we're free.

 with this -we're able to offer only love, because that's all we have to give. 

and the world is instantly forgiven. 

~

Peace, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: A Small One

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A Small One

A small one: 

it's not our job to change the world. As well, our role isn't to seek any changes from others, not from anyone really, no one. All responsibility for a better world lies solely within our mind - and of course this is the last place we ever we look to, always seeming like our hardest option. 

yet it's the only hope we have.

we are the salvation of the world. 

each of us.

yes, that's a bold claim, to be the salvation of the world is a heavy and awesome responsibility. That's why we start with a miracle, a small one, simple asking for another way to view the world. No one else might even notice the changes that occur, how we're now turning inwards for guidance and insight, no longer making such bold demands as to how we feel others should respond to us. 

what we're asking for here, the miracle that's requested...

is just a shift in our perception.

and then we live our life from there. 

a miracle, yes.

but a small one really.

and all we have to do is ask.

~

Peace, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: A Better World

Also, please visit to buy: Happiness Now

Thank you.

One by One

One by one: 

it's a healing lesson, as instructed by lesson 68 of A Course in Miracles, love holds no grievances and I take this fully to heart, one by one, as often as they still appear - 

each grievance let go to the light of love.

of course it's not quite so easy. 

there's still a part of me that seeks to hold mt every petty resentment as a means to justify the world I've created. Yet at the same time it's clear to me now that indeed, only love is real, and that the conditions I've created for an unloving world exist solely through my own projections. 

it's a world of my creation. 

and so too, it's my responsibility for it's healing.

letting go of each grievance,

one by one,

as often as they still appear.

until I see a world...

where only love is real. 

~

Peace, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: Our Addictions

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Remembering

Remembering: 

we're not asked to bypass any experience, there's no sweeping our wounds under a rug of forgiveness and claiming that we're healed. Forgiveness is feeling our every hurt so deeply that we finally ask for the healing we deserve, one that we've long denied ourselves. 

we're now ready to let go.

that's the important first step, asking for the means of our salvation.

and being ready to receive.

what's being asked for is to simply see things another way, not past our wounds, but all the way through them to the point of our original innocence. It's a place that's shared together, where all of us most truly belong. This is where we see the projection of guilt and betrayal, no longer seeking to blame and only wishing to be healed. 

it's home.

our original innocence.

and we all reside here.

there's no way to arrive here, it's not a destination. So we're not asking for directions, just for the obscuring clouds of painful memories to part long enough for our clear vision to return. That's it, the entirety of forgiveness - seeing our innocence once more.

clearly so.

remembering that we all belong here...

and that others have forgotten.

~

Peace, Eric

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: A Tender Act

Also, please visit to buy: Seek, Not to Love

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Krishna's Counsel

Krishna's counsel:

taking Krishna's wise counsel to heart right now, as best as I'm able, as he told Arjuna that he only has the right to his actions but never to the outcome, results always being in the hands of God. For me, it's the joy of being in nature, camera in hand, and capturing whatever it is that life offers me to film. I rely solely on what's presented, no editing or added music, only what's given.

and then I share. 

there's so little in my control here that it would be ridiculous to truly care about the results that follow. Yet, of course, I sometimes do, often to be quite honest. With the intent of earning a modest income through my own creative effort, and often being reminded of the difficulties of this endeavor - I find myself thinking of certain results, of views and likes, more than I care to admit too. 

it's a numbers game after all. 

so I'm reminded of  Krishna's counsel, the Bhagavad Gita is wisdom that never lets me down - and I allow myself to surrender. None of this is in my hands, I don't control what nature offers, nor the circumstances that bring me any object or event to film. I depend upon the whims of grace and nature, they direct me towards the exact place where I'm meant to be. 

why not trust life even further? 

allowing just the right people to find my work, trusting that the fruits of my effort belong to others now, my own work being released and done.

surrendered.

to greater hands than my own. 

~

Peace, Eric 

To read more from Headless Now, please visit: Along the Way

Also, please visit to buy: The Bhagavad Gita

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