Insights – Melannie Thomas

Archive for the ‘Finding Your Center’ Category

So many ways to be moving; change a position, take an action; be emotionally/spiritually moved; leaving one place for another, literally or metaphorically.

I am excited to announce that ‘Insights’ is moving!  Beginning October 1, 2015 my office will located in a small professional complex at 2841 Cleveland Ave. #11, Santa Rosa CA, 95403.  My phone number will remain unchanged, 707-887-8485.

My current office is being converted to residential housing; a far more compatible use in this W. Steele Lane neighborhood.

The new ‘digs’ have an excellent security system, are energetically peaceful, quiet, and aesthetically pleasing.

Looking forward to working with you in this lovely space.

This Wednesday marks the coming of fall.  Sunday there will be a total Lunar Eclipse.  A time to finish the harvest and begin preparation for winter.  If predictions are realized, this will be a powerful El Nino winter.

For many of us in Lake, Napa, and Sonoma Counties, it will also mark a time of profound loss.  There will be much to do in the coming months and years.  The people of Lake County are a rugged, independent bunch.  They will rise like the Phoenix from the ashes.

There are many ways to help with the recovery effort.  Redwood Credit Union has a donation fund with a 100% going to benefit Lake County residents.  The Red Cross, on the front line everywhere, is always in need of our support.  And there are several sites accepting help for the many animals that need vet care, food (as many fields were lost) and homes.  As well as efforts to connect missing pets with owners.

Firefighters, several of whom lost their homes to the conflagration, deserve our support and immense gratitude.  Especially those on the front line at the beginning, who were faced with really difficult decisions.

Thank you all for your prayers, concerns, sympathies and support during this difficult time.

The last 24 hours have been difficult.  Prayer and concern, constant companions throughout Sunday.  By evening family and friends were reported safe.  Many are now homeless; fleeing the ravenous flames with just the clothes on their backs.  The losses are dumb-founding and mind-numbing.

Land so near and dear to my heart and memory, has been devastated by the ‘worst tragedy Lake County has ever seen’.  It is not over.  The threat is on-going as this fire remains wholly uncontained, wholly unpredictable, and wholly dangerous.

An immense debt of gratitude to the firefighters; emergency personnel; people of Calistoga; the Red Cross; Ranchers who opened their barns and pastures to the many displaced horses; and those who rescued wandering, disoriented pets, and now begin the search to re-unite them with their families.

In crisis is opportunity.  The opportunity to practice altruism; the opportunity to discover the depths of one’s  faith; the opportunity for deeper bonding and understanding between family, friends and strangers alike.   The crisis will pass, but the challenge of recovery remains a formidable task.

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation.  We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly.  We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

~Aristotle

“To me, the irony if this involvement with size, as I observed earlier, is the unwillingness or inability of so many Americans to identify themselves with something as vast as the United States.  Bigger cars, bigger parking lots, bigger corporate structures, bigger farms, bigger drug stores, bigger supermarkets, bigger motion-picture screens.  The tangible and the functional expand, while the intangible and the beautiful shrink.  Left to wither is the national purpose, national educational needs, literature, theater, and our critical faculties.  The national dialogue is gradually being lost in a froth of misleading self-congratulation and cliche.  National needs and interests are slowly being submerged by the national preoccupation with the irrelevant.”

~J. William Fullbright

So many are struggling in our current economy.  Recovery clearly appears to be  favoring those in the top financial tier, including Corporations which are now considered ‘persons’ (http://www.npr.org).   I think I might like to be considered a Corporation, with all the perks and benefits allowed (www.washingtonpost.com).

This quote by Confucius is an insightful look at the reality we share. “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of.  In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.”

“Forgiveness is not a moral issue.  It is an energy dynamic….  Forgiveness means that you do not carry the baggage of an experience.  When you choose not to forgive, the experience that you do not forgive sticks with you.  When you choose not to forgive, it is like agreeing to wear dark, gruesome sunglasses that distort everything, and it is you who are forced every day to look at life through those contaminated lenses because you have chosen to keep them.”

~Gary Zukav, The Seat of the Soul

If you can’t forgive, you open your garden to receive the seeds of bitterness.  I invite you to reflect on the power of forgiveness.

The definitions of different I like are: distinct, unusual and special.  We are all unique.  Like fingerprints, no two exactly alike.  The conflict as it appears to me is between the desire to belong and the longing to be authentic, to express our true self.  Accomplishing this harmony within creates successful social harmony without.

I like being different.  I like being special.  I am pretty comfortable most of the time being unusual.  I accept being who I am.  But I never stop working to grow, to mature.

I like this quote from the remarkably diverse talent, Johnny Depp.

“If there’s any message to my work, it is ultimately that it’s OK to be different, that it’s good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.”

This week I invite you to celebrate your different self.

We all experience pain in many ways.  It is part of being human.  There are a plethora of remedies to help us manage pain.  Some more effective than others.  When suffering is chronic, intractable or intensely psycho-spiritual, management is often challenging beyond comprehension.

I came across this quote recently, and I find myself in strong resonance with its message. I felt compelled to share it with you.

“Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”   ~Joseph Campbell

“The moon does not fight.  It attacks no one.  It does not worry.  It does not try to crush others.  It keeps its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences.  What other body could pull an entire ocean from shore to shore?  The moon is faithful to its nature and its power is never diminished.”

~Ming-Dao Deng, Everyday Tao: Living with Balance and Harmony

Friday July 31 we will enjoy a Blue Moon, which occurs when there are two full moons in one month.  I invite you to reflect on  the moon’s magic.