Author Archive
Safety
Finding safety amid a society that is burgeoning with rapidly escalating violence, financial instability, impinging personal freedoms and a growing sense of overall unease, is challenging to say the least.
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.” Benjamin Franklin
Stories of days gone by, when homes were seldom locked and children could play outside, in parks and walk safely to and from school are just that…stories of a time long past.
“We can’t solve modern problems by going back in time. Retreating to the safety of the familiar is an understandable response, but God has called us to a life of faith. And faith requires us to face the unknown while trusting him completely.” ~Charles Swindoll
However you personally define ‘God’, faith in your belief system is an essential component of safety.
“Security is mostly a superstition, it does not exist in nature, nor do children as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” ~Helen Keller
“We must respect the past, and must trust the present, if we wish to provide for the safety of the future.” ~Joseph Joubert
The myth of safety and security is becoming a powerful presence in daily living. Sanctuary is found in the depth and breadth of the spiritual path.
Blessings!
Bend
…flex, turn, exert, curve, subdue. From Anglo-Saxon, bendan, ‘bend and bind are radically the same word.’
The ability to bend, physically, emotionally and spiritually significantly contributes to overall health, inner peace and to living an authentic life.
“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.” ~Albert Camus
Balance is vital to bending and binding. Bend too far, or not far enough, will cause breakage. Bind too tightly or not tightly enough will result in injury, illness and failure to thrive. This balance is achieved through experience, self-awareness and the rigorous work of staying in the ‘process’.
“I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical and legal bounds through the skillful use of words – and to thereby spin, side step, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape, To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions.” ~Sidney Poitier
Self-deception is part of the human experience. The ‘shadow’ side of our persona. Acknowledging to ourselves that, at times we lie, frees us from the capture of the shadow; allowing and inspiring authentic growth toward mental and spiritual health.
“When we’re looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, is able to bend and, most of all, embraces us for our strengths and struggles.” ~Brene Brown
This week I invite you to look at your capacity to bend. Are you bending too little, too much, or not at all. Are you finding balance, physically, emotionally, intellectual and spiritually?
“Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.” ~Helen Keller
Blessings!!
Options
The word ‘option’ has both French and Latin roots. ‘Opt’ is from Latin optare meaning to choose, to select, to wish for or desire. Conventionally, it is the ‘power or the right to choose’.
A plethora of options are available to us across the broad spectrum of every day concerns and long-term planning strategies.
“It is such an uncertain universe out there that you have to create what I call ‘real’ options and develop capabilities that will enable you to deal with an environment that will change anyway.” ~Anand Mahindra
‘Power and right’ to choose can be quite overwhelming when we acknowledge how much choice we have. There is little control over external forces and events, yet the power to choose how we respond to these events shapes our future in positive or negative ways.
Making choices from our internal process is more complex. It is a struggle to grow, to find the authentic self; to balance action and allowing. And, like the effects of external events, the options we choose also shape our future in negative or positive ways.
“Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options…. Then accept the consequences.” ~Eckhart Tolle
“It’s not only moving that creates new starting points. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective, an opening of the mind, an intentional pause and reset, or a new route to start to see new options and new possibilities.” ~Kristin Armstrong
Exercising our options is empowering. Learning from the consequences of our choices is wisdom.
“We have to choose every day to be active participants. To wake up in the morning and choose this life and make something of it is an incredible thing. Not many living creatures have that option. We have so many opportunities and options – it’s a huge burden, but it is also the most freeing part of our lives.” ~Brie Larson
Just passed, the Autumnal Equinox is an opportunity to evaluate your power to choose the future you desire.
Blessings!
Atone
The Cambridge Dictionary defines ‘atone’ as “to do something that shows you are sorry for something bad that you did or for something that you failed to do.”
The origin of the word is “at one – to make or become united or reconciled; to be in harmony, agree, be in accordance.”
Wednesday is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, when devout practitioners take this opportunity to review their past year, with a focus on misdeeds or offenses they may have committed. Not eating for twenty-four hours serves as a symbolic ritual of purification, and the day is spent in somber prayer. Many participants take this opportunity to visit with others and make amends.
“You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others – that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.” ~Eric Hoffer
Yom Kippur is a day of reflection, honest self-observation, followed by sincere prayer that one may both give and receive forgiveness.
“True atonement isn’t the periodic shaving of karmic stubble via confessional; it requires deep, truthful change. It means doing the hardest thing of all: not making the same stupid mistake again.” ~Ben Dolnick
“Karma means that all actions have consequences. Grace means that in a moment of atonement – taking responsibility, making amends, asking for forgiveness – all karma is burned.” ~Marianne Williamson
“Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.” ~Ted Chiang
Whatever your faith, I invite you to take a moment to reflect and to be at one.
Recovery
Recovery occurs in many areas of the human experience. It’s aim is to get back something that has been lost.
Regaining physical health after illness or injury can be recovering from a cold or a sprained ankle, to more serious issues like traumatic injury and life-threatening illness.
Retrieving a healthy life from the power of addiction. Recovering from mild to severe emotional trauma and abuse. Struggling to regain economic prosperity after strong down turns, be they personal or collective.
In many situations, like natural disasters, the recovery process involves physical, emotional, economic and spiritual hard work.
“While natural disasters capture headlines and national attention for a short-term, the work of recovery and rebuilding is long-term.” ~Sylvia Matthews Burwell
Recovery is a process, not an event. It requires courage, faith, discipline, acceptance, creativity, and a will to survive.
“The goal of spiritual practice is full recovery, and the only thing you need to recover from is a fractured sense of self.” ~Marianne Wiilliamson
It is important to recognize that in recovery, rest is essential. To keep our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual batteries full we must have peaceful interludes.
“We are all drowning in data. We all need moments of recovery. For me, that includes not going right to my phone when I wake up in the morning.” ~Cathy Engelbert
I invite you this week, to bring full conscious awareness to your rest and recovery.
Understanding
Understanding is both intellectual comprehension and sympathetic awareness.
Our ability to learn, to understand computer basics, fundamental theoretical concepts, or basic body mechanics, for example, is essential to our overall well-being and success.
So too, the capacity for understanding the human condition is critical to our survival and prosperity.
“Tolerance, compromise, understanding, acceptance, patience – I want those all to be very sharp tools in my shed.” ~Ceelo Green
Learning acceptance of social, cultural, religious and racial differences requires the cultivation of empathy and effective communication. The maturation of both of these qualities cannot be achieved without expanding horizons of knowledge and development of refined communication skills, which then allow for an abundance of understanding.
“Those who improve with age embrace the power of personal growth and personal achievement and begin to replace youth with wisdom, innocence with understanding, and lack of purpose with self-actualization.” ~Bo Bennett
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” ~Carl Jung
Developing understanding takes patience, a tolerance for ambiguity and the willingness to put ourselves in the shoes of another. This takes courage and a commitment to sit with our discomfort.
“Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious.” ~Phillip Brooks
“Our uniqueness, our individuality, and our life experience molds us into fascinating beings – I hope we can embrace that. I pray we may all challenge ourselves to delve into the deepest resources of our hearts to cultivate an atmosphere of understanding, acceptance, tolerance and compassion. We are all in this together,” ~Linda Thompson
“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” ~Albert Einstein
With so many planets in retrograde, it is an optimum time for enhancing understanding.
Blessings!
Steadfast
To be steadfast is to be unwavering, solid, loyal, dependable, strong, faithful, and resolute. These attributes apply across a broad spectrum of life; including the collective and communal activities of day to day living, as well as it’s personal and interpersonal processes.
“Remember that in every single case in history the process of adaptation has been one of exceeding slowness. Do not look for the impossible, but do not let your path deviate from the quiet and steadfast insistence on full opportunities for your powers.” ~Franz Boas
Without the capacity for steadfastness we stand on unstable ground. Making decisions, making commitments, living an authentic life drifts into a fog of unattainability.
“When I had no place to live and I had no place go to sleep-and I did sleep in the Metro-I held steadfast to the fact that I had a dream, a reason why I’m doing this…that it was bigger than this moment.” ~Jeremy Scott
Self-actualization demands us to be steadfast. Achieving a harmonious and balanced life requires commitment, faith and resolute determination.
“I have a very steadfast tendency to parent myself, to monitor my development into the person I want to be. I’ve tried to keep the corruption minimal.” ~Fiona Apple
“Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.” ~Euripides
This week I invite you to to continue walking the steadfast path in the pursuit of golden character.
Blessings!
Tapestry
Tapestry is hand woven practical art created for centuries on every continent. Placed on castle walls in winter for insulation and decoration. In the Middle Ages tapestry emerged as coats of arms and symbolic weavings. Persian and Navajo rugs are a form of utilitarian tapestry which are greatly prized.
Every day, every year, every decade we are weaving the tapestry of our lives. Richly resplendent, deeply muted threads interwoven throughout depth and breadth of the human experience create unique individual and collective patterns.
“The mind is like a richly woven tapestry in which the colors are distilled from the experiences of the senses, and the design drawn from the convolutions of the intellect.” ~Carson McCullers
“Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.” Richard P. Feynman
The tapestry of life is like a personal metaphor. It is both a conscious and unconscious weaving.
“My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue, an everlasting vision of the ever changing view.” ~Carole King
“We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone…and whatever happens is the of the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weaving of individual form one to another that creates something.” ~Sandra Day O’Conner
What kind of life tapestry are you weaving?
Blessings!
Dreams
Everyone dreams; and we all have dreams. There is a difference.
Freud called dreams, “….the royal road to the unconscious.” Jung’s work on dreams and dream interpretation greatly expanded the realm of exploring and understanding the dream world.
“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” ~Oprah Winfrey
Herein lies the difference. Living your dreams, pursuing your dreams requires faith, courage, tenacity, self-confidence, and the strength to move beyond repeated failures and discouragements.
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” ~Harriet Tubman
“I couldn’t find the sports car of my dreams, so I built it myself.” ~Ferdinand Porsche
The dreams of childhood are so often swallowed by the demands of adulthood. So often the regimentation and rigors of singular and societal survival drown the aspirations and fulfillment of dreams.
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” ~Les Brown
“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible to do.” ~Pope John XXIII
The Declaration of Independence enacted as law that all people have an equal and unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of their own happiness. It does NOT define lifestyle or happiness.
The American Dream arose from these principles. By working hard, one can become successful, have a nice home, two kids, and plenty of money. Obviously much has changed. Yet, the realization of dreams is still possible.
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” ~Walt Disney
“Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.” ~Khalil Gibran
What dreams are you pursuing?
Blessings.
Calamity
…is distress, ‘an event causing great harm or loss and affliction’, misfortune, disaster.
“Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.” ~Joseph Addison
Calamity is on my mind, embedding itself in my experience as devastating wildfires voraciously rage throughout the west, flash flooding is driving people from their homes in the east. Hundreds of innocent children remain separated from their parents and held in the equivalent of internment camps.
It is an odd juxtaposition for me. Returning home Saturday from a beautiful wedding, sharing and celebrating it’s joyous promise and then seeing the ghastly specter of billowing smoke from the Lake County fires to the north, and the vastness of the burnt ridge tops and hillsides of last October’s calamitous Tubbs fire directly before me, was difficult.
“Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves.” ~William Davenaut
As so many of you know, my ‘go to’ is faith. To reduce my cognitive dissonance, I pray.
“Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity.” ~Samuel Richardson
I am clearly an optimist. But my optimism rises and is supported by faith. As Winston Churchill is widely quoted, a “great purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants.”
“He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.” ~Harry Emerson Fosdick
These are surely trying times. The world is experiencing great upheavals; the earth itself is crying calamity. Yet, there are those brilliant moments of hope, joy, love, compassion, understanding and faith. Hold fast to them!
Blessings!
