Category Archives: Hope

THE END OF A LONG, LONG JOURNEY

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WHEN YOU GET TO THE END OF YOUR HERO’S JOURNEY
YOU CELEBRATE…AND THEN SIGN ON FOR ANOTHER!

November 3, 2014

“We call upon our sisters around the world to be brave–to embrace the strength within themselves and realize their full potential.”  – Malala Yousafzai –

For two hours now I have found really important things to do other than write this blog post. I paid some bills. I sent a birthday card to my beautiful niece in London. I sent some emails off to two school principals asking to interview some of their staff for my book. I responded to some texts and emails. I finished the grocery list. I heated up some of my husband’s delicious curried vegetables for lunch. I did some laundry. I checked my to-do list a half dozen times. I found some chocolate. And ate it. I did a writing exercise after reading the article it was about. That was freaky. I was directed to turn the brightness of my screen down until I couldn’t see the words so that I would focus on the feeling of writing and write faster and not be constantly editing. I toasted a piece of my yummy, homemade gluten free bread. And ate it. I opened my blog page and looked to see who is following me. A bunch of folks I never met. That’s cool.

Okay. So, I want to tell you about this amazing weekend I had. I want to use words that will show you rather than tell you, but the words seem to have scurried down the cracks between the floorboards. Or maybe they curled up in the afghan since its only 63 degrees in here. Typical November day–grey. All the leaves fell down so the trees are bare now. The hillside looks like a charcoal drawing–smudgy lines and streaks of grey and black with a few wispy shades of brown brushed through.

I don’t remember anymore what it felt like when I woke up in the morning as a kid. But since sometime in my mid-teens, with extremely rare exceptions, I have always woken up with a knot in my gut. The older I got, the tighter it got. There have been days when I woke up and it wasn’t there. Those days are so incredible that I remember vividly what it feels like. Buoyant. Light. Happy. Easy. I think the last time I was in New York City.

Over the past nearly 20 years I have been on a journey; a quest I supposeSoulCard 6. I have wanted to experience healing in my body, my mind and my heart. Despite feeling a lot of love in my heart for others I have struggled to allow that love to flow outward to them, afflicted with criticalness and judgment, anger and frustration. I’ve been on this hero’s journey to become Grace, to learn to love, to be a light in the world, to make a difference for good, to be the change I want to see–all the time wrestling with these monsters that rage and storm through me. NO TRESPASSING signs don’t work.  They barge in whenever they feel like it.

I’ve studied positive attitude. I’ve studied how to change by changing habits of mind embedded in old belief structures. I’ve worked at it. I’ve worked hard. To my credit, yes, I’ve grown. I’ve learned things and I’ve dismantled old belief and energy structures that were not healthy and did not serve me or my relationships or my work. At one time in my life frequent depressions would flatten my life completely. I used to say it was as though a Black Hole was constantly orbiting my life. I was aware of its presence at all times, wondering when it would suck me into its fathomless depths yet again. But it has been many years since I’ve even sensed that Blackness, none-the-less become its dinner.

And yet, I have still not known what it is like to wake up naturally exuberant and happy and eager to engage in the activities of the day. I love better and deeper than at any other time in my life, and yet, my inner critic is a brazen loudmouth who never shuts up and feels it his duty to include others in his constant critiques. Particularly husbands.

It has been a long journey. Ever been on a long road trip and have your passengers begin asking, “Are we almost there?” And then, more urgently, “Aren’t we there yet?” It’s the same with these hero’s journeys. (Why do they call them hero’s journeys anyway? They so do not feel like anything remotely heroic!) “GThe Hero's Journeyood God, aren’t I almost there? How much longer? This sure looks familiar, haven’t I been here before? Didn’t I already cover this section? Wait a minute–I do not have to go down inside that, do I? Really? It’s the only way through to the other side? Oh shit. Okay, so I made it through. I’m still alive. I’m on the other side… …So how come I’m still not there yet?! How much further? How much longer? I’m lost. This sucks. I just want to be happy, like, really happy. I just want to be able to do life successfully, to love well, to be light in the world, to do good work. Consistently. I feel like I’m battering on locked gates and kicking at locked doors and trying to find my way through a veil of fog. ARRGGHH!”

Yeah, that’s a hero’s journey.  Maybe it got that name because if you manage somehow to stick with it until you actually do come to the end of it, however battered and bruised, the very fact you didn’t give up makes you a hero of some kind.Beyond the Door

Okay. Last weekend. While I was sleeping, I guess, I came to the end of it. I arrived. I finally made it through the locked door into another world. I don’t know why. I don’t know how. I don’t know why on Saturday and not last year or ten years ago or not until March 15th next year. It was now. I woke up and I could feel it in my body–something had shifted. It would be like having a pounding migraine headache for 3 weeks and suddenly waking up and it’s gone. Completely gone. It was like the morning I woke up years ago and I knew the Black Hole was gone. I just knew. And it was. And it never came back.

I feel light in my body. The knots and edginess are gone. The energy of those around me no longer feels like I’m trying to tolerate someone running their fingernails down a chalkboard. The thought of “work” no longer feels like an order to climb a mountain dragging a broken leg. Even thinking of the pile of bills for which there is no money elicits rising excitement to see how on earth this will all work out!

Whatever the blockages to the flow of Divine energy through my physical and emotional body have been, they aren’t there now. I feel love, warm and vibrant inside me. Flows of LoveI feel that love flowing through me and from me. I feel sorrow for the pain I have caused others–and oh, how clearly I can see it now that I don’t feel that knee-jerk egotistical defensiveness! I’m looking full in the face the ways that my self-absorption, selfishness, and especially all my fears have harmed others, but though I feel some grief and regret, I no longer feel worthless. Instead I feel renewed responsibility to do better. And I feel like I have the energy to do so.

The beauty in the world around me and in the people around me fills me up with happy joy! I marvel that so many people in the world wake up this way every day. I marvel at what we could all achieve in our lives and how much more loving a world this would be if we could all be free from the bondage of Fear that poisons and taints every aspect of our lives. Fear is the Dark Destroyer–the Dark Consciousness–the Father of Lies and Illusion.

I am free. For those of you who are also free–you are blessed. For those of you who wrestle monsters in the dark, don’t give up. Don’t give up. And hold fast the thought that even if you cannot see or feel it, there is a loving Presence that is with you, always.

All Through the Night
Sleep my child and peace attend theeThe Guardian
All through the night
Guardian angels God will send thee
All through the night

Soft the drowsy hours are creeping
Hill and vale in slumber steeping
I my loving watch am keeping
All through the night

While the moon her watch is keeping
All through the night
While the weary world is sleeping
All through the night

O’er thy spirit gently stealing
Visions of delight revealing
Breathes a pure and holy feeling
All through the night

Photos courtesy of David Jensen, Northern Visions Media
Soul Card images from Soul Cards 2 by Deborah Koff-Chapin of Touch Drawing

A FALL OF DIAMONDS

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A FALL OF DIAMONDS

October 31, 2014

Bottle green she runs relentlessly at the shelf of cobblestones and the slabs of boulders. She falls back white and frothy, scrabbling at the pebbled beach, the stones rolling and bouncing. Along the slabs and towers of boulders she takes a run and heaves herself high into the air–ten, fifteen, sometimes more than twenty feet.  She falls back, a shower of sun-drenched diamonds filling up the grooves and gullies.  Exhilarated she bounces off the waves retreating from the shoreline and others coming in for their run. Like swaggering boys chest bumping, like two antler tangled stags, the waves collide and throw more diamonds into the sky. And the cobblestones roar and the waters crash and the diamonds fall.

Waves inside me roll and crash, battering the boundaries beyond which I cannot go–I cannot touch–I cannot control. Fear collides with compassion and all is reeling and roaring and colliding on the surface of my consciousness–throwing diamonds in the sky.  But deeper down, under the posturing and the macho chest bumping, the tumbling and twisting, I detect a  stillness. Below the chaos there is peace.

Perhaps in this now I can be happy.  In this now, and in the next now, stringing them together like buttons and beads on a thread, I might find many things for which I am grateful and awestruck, I might dare to believe that all will be well.  Once the chaos on the surface settles down what remains behind might be different than it was before–rearranged.  But maybe the changes will not be about loss, or destruction.  They could just as well be another way to see.  Something new to experience.

The Sea just rolled in a 20 foot jumper, showering me with diamonds even here below the tree where I thought it safe and dry. “Come and play!” she roars.

GUERRILLA GARDENING

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A POCKET FULL OF SUNLIGHT

September 29, 2014

I was reading a Facebook announcement posted by my son-in-law for a guerrilla gardening event he is holding at the library where he works.  I remember how much fun he had last Spring when he got a group of enthusiastic youth from the community together and made a pile of seed bombs and then went out through the neighborhoods “bombing” all kinds of unlikely places to make them IMG_6854beautiful this summer.  Now they are going to go around the town planting spring bulbs and other things that will bloom come the spring.  I love the concept.  We’re encouraging our youth to sneak around–or go boldly in broad daylight–doing small things that nurture beauty and life and respect for the spaces where we live and work rather than defacing and uglifying them.  

It occurs to me that this is a great metaphor for another type of guerrilla gardening that every single one of us can do every day.  Every morning fill up your pockets with sunlight and plant seeds of Light and Love through out the day.  Good idea?  

As we move from moment to moment through our day we are radiating energetic frequencies.  These energy frequencies will have a lower or higher vibration depending on our thoughts, attitudes and intentions reflected in our emotions and amplified by our words and actions.  Spiritual teachers have been telling us for centuries that this energy we emit shapes our experiences and impacts the world around us.  Now science is demonstrating the physical truth of this.  

An entire community of people might believe that it would be far better to have lovely green spaces throughout the city than to leave them empty, full of trash and weeds, or to cover them up with dirty concrete.  But, someone has to go out and actually plant the seeds.  A group of kids need to throw seed bombs into the vacant lots instead of trash and plant bulbs along the   fences instead of spray painting ugly words.  Groups of us have to go out with rakes and shovels and trash bags and heal the areas that have been beat up.  We each need to choose to discard our trash in the trash can instead of dumping it in parks and on lawns and public sidewalks.  We have to do stuff.

An entire community of people might believe that it is better to love than hate.  Better to encourage others than to criticize them.  Better to be kind than to bully.  But, it is one thing to talk about it, another to live this way.  This is when I am reminded yet again that each waking moment of my day I am actually choosing how to be in my world.  Every day stories make the rounds about persons practicing Random Acts of Kindness, or doing gratitude challenges, or bringing people together to create peaceful solutions to conflict.  More and more of us are choosing to take up the tools we need to clean up and heal the spaces inside us that have been beat up and are ugly and smelly, to plant seeds of Light within our own hearts, and then in our environments and within our families.  We have to do stuff.

It is not easy work.  Old habits of mind are stubborn.  It is difficult to remember that our emotions are a result of our thinking not the other way round.  Our egos are highly skilled at defending us from every perceived threat; this does not always work in our favor.  Fear is sneaky and leaks in wherever it finds a crack or crevice unattended.  Most fear is not the healthy stuff, but the paralyzing ooze from the Dark Side.  

Yes, I like the idea of filling my pockets each morning with seeds of Light and planting them every chance I get throughout my day.   It is a good metaphor to help me when Fear spins out her silky lies, or the hackles on my Ego rise.  Slip my hand in my pocket and pull out a seed of Light–truth, love, gratitude, faith…plant it.  Move on.  It won’t blossom overnight.  Like the vacant lots where those excited kids threw their seed bombs, it will take some time before the seedling breaks the soil, stretches to the light, grows leaves and buds, IMG_8674Proof Sheet  and finally opens to full flower.  But this is where it begins.  There will be no harvest without the seed.  But with each seed there is hope for us and for our world, a promise that we can indeed create a world of beauty and love.  

Go ahead.  Fill up your pockets with sunlight or starlight.  Do some guerrilla gardening today.  Plant seeds of light and love.  

 

EXHALING

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September 26, 2014

EXHALING

I take a deep breath, hold it in for a second or three and let it slowly out, a balloon collapsing inside me. I turn the corners of my mouth upwards in a smile. I suppose it looks like a smile. The knot in my solar plexus stops tightening.

IMG_2602I nudge myself. Okay, okay—yes, the sun is shining through the dining-room windows lighting up the giant jade and the spider plant and all the other green growing things that share this space with me.  The prayer plant has opened wide and turned itself toward that light. The living-room has filled up with a rosy glow and through the windows there I see the maples flaming across the street.

IMG_2616

Deep breath in, hold, slowly exhale. The knot inside loosens a bit. I turn the corners of my mouth upwards again as I notice they have slipped back into a tight-lipped line, matching the tightness in my eyes. Softening, softening.

I take a long pull on my green smoothie. I taste apple and mango and banana. It is thick and sweet and dark green with spinach and kale and chard and powdered greens. Next to me is another glass filled with cool water. I hear the shower running in the bathroom. I hear the dishwasher swashing in the kitchen. I think of women who are trudging blocks or miles this morning to fill a dirty bucket with water to bring home to their children so they can have a little to drink, a little with which to cook their meal, a little in which to wash.

Unpaid bills stare at me from across the desk. There is no money today with which to pay them.

I inhale the crisp autumn air of early morning. I exhale the last of the knot in my gut.

I am cutting brilliant chrysanthemums from my garden.  IMG_2607

My eyes are smiling.