I woke up this morning with Don Williams’ title line of his song reverberating in my head, “I Wouldn’t Want to Live if You Didn’t Love Me”.
The mind worm of the refrain was a likely result of yesterday’s conversation that turned stressful with my daughter, Stacey. We are in Tennessee with her spending time with our immediate family for a couple weeks on our way from Michigan to Florida. Our older grandson’s band had a music gig on Friday evening and we were proud to be Brad’s Gampie and Brad’s Gammie at Hop Springs as Apache Jericho rocked the house.
Brad is the lead vocalist. He has been writing music and performing for years. If you have a premium account with Amazon or Spotify you can shuffle songs by Apache Jericho.
With my fingers on the keyboard now, I am listening to “Essential Grief Education” with Meghan Riordan Jarvis, author of Can Anyone Tell Me? As I hear her speak about the synapses that are ministered to when you use pen or pencil and paper or work with words, I know the value of The Yellow Brick Road to save my sanity.
Thoughts of time spent riding bikes for miles and miles with Fred following the death of my friend, Linda, this summer allows the three key actions suggested by Jarvis to leap onto my page:
1. You need to take a walk. You need to move. EVERYDAY.
2. If you can tolerate connection, do this with with another person. They can walk beside you or behind you or in front of you, but breaking the sense of isolation that occurs with loss ad grief is essential.
3. We can work on the story of what we are telling ourselves about what happened.
Meghan continues to remind us while we might never be grateful our loved one died, we do gain gratitude for gifts and growth that come.
Grievers say there is meaning that comes….
The point of loss of rapport came in conversation around the issue of abortion. This issue has trailed behind me, having begun in the 70’s and 80’s when I was a delegate to Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church — a church that is no longer united.
In my earbuds, Meghan is sharing about the importance of asking grievers, “What’s the secret terror that you have since this loss?”
I witness now a secret terror in my central nervous system: John and I are standing in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., watching white letters scroll across a black screen giving the dates and actions being taken that led from banning a single book to 11 million victims of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany….
Stacey and I had been working on a jigsaw puzzle when yesterday’s rip in rapport took place and she turned and walked out of the room. Perhaps the puzzle itself holds a clue for us. It is a Advent Calendar puzzle, with the pieces of each section in 24 small, numbered, separated, boxes. I am realizing this puzzle does not feel like fun.
Working this puzzle, it doesn’t feel like we are looking at or for the same thing.
Working this puzzle, it doesn’t feel like we are working together.
Working this puzzle, I don’t like the feeling that things have been artificially segregated.
After Stacey showered and got ready for their evening out, she approached me. I am unable to remember that conversation. That happens with grief. We don’t recall when something happened or how it happened, because what happened is distorted.
I do recall answering a question she had earlier asked me about my beliefs about abortion. I told her the issue of abortion isn’t separate for me from other experiences about life and death. If an adult dies and somehow continues to exist — like her own experiences of loved ones speaking to her (her Grandma Smith and the dutch apple pie recipe or her Uncle Jim about not being a dumb ass) how could that be different for an aborted baby?
I was able to express a wondering about how she had become so black and white in her morality and the concern I felt that the divide in the mind might be too wide to bridge; that being the nature of the mind.
I can feel a tightness in my chest as those words appear on the page.
It’s love that makes the world go ’round
And my love for you
Just grows with leaps and bounds
‘Cause, you know just what to do
When the world has turned all blue
And I wouldn’t want to live
If you didn’t love me
I am going to ask her if she is OKAY if we switch to a different puzzle….
“In every age no matter how cruel the oppression carried on by those in power, there have been those who struggled for a different world. I believe this is the genius of humankind, the thing that makes us half Divine — the fact that some human beings can envision a world that has never existed.” – Anne Braden
Anne Braden was a name I did not know, but something about her words resonated deeply in my soul. I share some of that…. envisioning a world that has never existed. I put a lovely THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING sign on the door to our home over 40 years ago. Members of my husband’s family refused to come to our home. Admittedly, it was a stressful happening at 4230 Lincoln Avenue.
The prohibition of smoking in public places, in places of employment, and in food service establishments (such as restaurants, cafeterias, food courts in shopping malls, and bars) took effect here in Michigan on May 1, 2010, when the Public Health Code was finally amended.
There are many born in this country after 2010 who have no memory of teachers smoking in schools, doctors (and patients and visitors) smoking in hospitals, and patrons, along with cooks and wait staff, smoking in restaurants.
I am profoundly grateful not smoking in public places is seen now as normal.
According to her bibliography on Americans Who Tell The Truth, all of Braden’s activism flowed from a single conviction: she wanted to live in a world “where people were people,” not members of a particular race or class who were treated better or worse because of it.
Recently I have begun to envision radically new ways of choosing governmental leadership. One suggestion was to have a mutually-agreed-upon criteria for civil servants, and any individual who met that vetting and was willing to serve, would toss his or her hat into the ring. There would be no campaigning, no voting, no parties. At a certain date some random process (maybe similar to the way lottery numbers pop into a vacuum tube) would make the selection. Think of the time and money and energy that would become available for important things.
Our leadership would come from a pool of many who are willing and able to live and serve the world in/from servant leadership.
Anne Braden, a Civil Rights Activist and Writer, was born in 1924 and died in 2006. Anne Braden is best known for a single act: In 1954 she helped a Black couple buy a house in an all-white neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky. One hundred years from the day Anne Braden was born, and 70 years from the day Anne Braden helped that Black couple buy a home in an all-white neighborhood of Louisville, it is now normal for people all over this country (not just in Louisville) to buy any home anywhere they want to and can afford to live. Regardless of the color of skin.
When I told a friend about envisioning a new civil leadership selection process, he shared an idea a friend of his came up with years ago: A six-year presidential term, with no reelection option. That person saw this as a potential end to a first term serving primarily as grounds for re-election.
Watching “Love, Power and Liberation” I also learned that when much of the world entered pandemic lockdown in spring 2020, Robyn Maynard, influential author of Policing Black Lives, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, award-winning author, began writing each other letters — a gesture sparked by friendship and solidarity, and by a desire for kinship and connection in a world shattering under the intersecting crises of pandemic, police killings, and climate catastrophe.
Their letters soon grew into a powerful exchange on the subject of where we go from here.heard about a book that was written during the pandemic Rehearsals for Living…. articulating to each other Black and Indigenous perspectives on our unprecedented here and now…. Maynard and Simpson create something new: a vital demand for a different way forward, and a poetic call to dream up new ways of ordering earthly life.
In Love, Power, and Liberation Lama Rod Owens spoke such wisdom and grace. He says we have to mourn what is happening and there has to be a place for joy. That joy has to become a discipline and a practice. He spoke historical truth about many people who have faced real struggle, even genocide, and how there’s been joy in these moments. He says we have to continue to choose the laughter and the joy and we have to choose community. He says we have to reemphasize our dreaming. He says we have to stay true to the dreams that we have about what we want the world to look like.
He shared Emma Goldman’s saying, “If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution.”
All of Braden’s activism flowed from a single conviction: she wanted to live in a world “where people were people,” not members of a particular race or class who were treated better or worse because of it.
Perhaps you and I want to live in a different world.
Perhaps many of us want to live in a different world, a world where people are people, a world where joy and laughter and community are a practice, a world where people are people, not members of a particular race, religion, or political party….
Note* If you are a regular Yellow Brick Road reader you already know I write raw. This post comes with a warning.
The past few days have been busy as preparations for going south have progressed past pre-packing and accelerated to fever pitch. The pre-packing is essential because you never know what is going to come into your life on any given day.
Yesterday morning as I was text checking on one of my niece-god-daughters who had back surgery on Monday in Grand Rapids, I learned that another niece-god-daughter is navigating a nasty respiratory thing in Eau Claire. I sent her some information that might be useful, including a link about acupressure points and the recipe for a red raspberry tea respiratory remedy. In ours local honey and red raspberry tea is a staple, but not so in all households. Just home from getting my teeth cleaned, I saw her response accepting my offer to bring her the necessary ingredients.
I prepared the refrigerator for departure weeks ago. I wiped out the drawers, washed off the shelves, and lined everything with clean paper toweling. Next Thursday morning I will quickly put stuff into coolers and gather the paper towels and the fridge will be pristine when we return in April. Some things you can do early, while others can only be done at the last minute.
I am a multi-tasker and have been needing/wanting to practice using a hands-free headset when I am driving. So, I hooked the headset up and headed toward Eau Claire. You see, I had heard from friends I have been wanting/needing to catch up with that they would be in the car driving back to Indianapolis from Florida and would welcome a phone chat. I am so appreciative of their patience and willingness to coach me a few things. Thank you, Tim! One thing led to another but following their stop for lunch and several interruptions here, I finally settled into my mother’s glider rocker and with their loving presence and kindness dared to speak the deep truths of hurting hearts which inhabit a household with diverse views in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election.
John and I have a long history…. You know from my previous post that I stopped voting 1n 1992. In 2008, John was painting protest signs in our basement that read: Obama is an Idiot. He would hold those words high with other angry people in the parking lot of our court house.
My discomfort was not about political positions, or issues I knew very little about.
My discomfort (then and now) was (and is) about values that spring from deep within my soul.
As I told my friends yesterday, it seems ludicrous to wish elected officials who you did not vote for to fail — a lot like being in a boat with someone you don’t agree with and shooting a hole in the bottom of the boat. Even if the elected individual was not your personal choice, isn’t it clear to you that your best interest is for him or her to do well during the term?
With the voting coming in pretty close to a 50 percent split, could’t that mean almost half of our country’s citizens might blindly spend the next four years hoping our Presidential leadership is abysmal?
Friends, no matter who shoots the hole in the bottom, isn’t it clear that we are all needed to bale water and paddle to shore…. We are all in that same boat!
Today’s quote from Aaron:
One does feel hemmed in by the earthsuit at times. It feels unworkable. Nothing is as easy as it should be. And somewhere beyond the conscious mind are our real memories of the ease of moving in the light body, of the joy of being fully present with that light. Of course it feels claustrophobic. Can it become a deeper reminder of who you are? And instead of into deeper fear, can it lead you into an appreciation of the perfectness of the journey and that even the depression, the fear, the anger, are gifts to help you learn love and compassion and acceptance?
As I told my niece yesterday, I swear by that remedy of red raspberry tea with local honey and fresh lemon. I have used lemon juice when I didn’t have fresh lemon. I’m thinking that is not a deal breaker. There is something in local honey that stimulates the immune system and the combination really addresses the respiratory system.
Red raspberry leaf tea is known to be a good source of various vitamins, including vitamin C, vitamin E and vitamin A. These vitamins are essential for maintaining overall health and supporting the immune system.
This remedy is not a good choice for women in third trimester because it also starts labor! That’s what we used with Stacey when we were trying to get her to deliver Adam while I was with them there in Tennessee back in 1995. Because of the way it interacts with estrogen, also not advisable with women who have endometriosis.
Even the best remedies come with a caution.
In the 1970’s, the underwear company, Fruit of the Loom, had lost market share and was on the verge of bankruptcy when an independent entrepreneur, Larry Weiss, came up with the idea of kids underwear covered with cartoon characters. Fruit of the Loom bought Underoos™.
It was an idea from outside the inside that launched lasting success.
From the Metta Sutta, the Buddha’s Words on Kindness:
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
I am making a public confession: I stopped voting 32 years ago. I thought I was doing that to be able to be a neutral witness to the differences and preferences in the world. A few days ago I had a profound sense I actually stopped voting because I had stopped trusting in my ability to choose wisely. You see, I had voted for Bill Clinton.
Even if the reason for my stopping voting may have not been what I thought it was, there has been a lot gleaned in these decades of living as an apolitical person. The definition of apolitical means politically neutral; without political attitudes, content, or bias. I might add, “in as much as is humanly possible.”
I stopped watching or reading news.
I stopped engaging in arguments about view.
I stopped thinking there was a better or worse way, a right or wrong candidate and I watched the great divide that happens in the world of thought as it occurs without benefit of the depth of heart that understands wholesome and unwholesome as situational, not as concrete absolutes.
We want things to be absolute.
We want to know if we make the “right” choice only good will come.
We want freedom from pain.
As I first woke during the wee hours of the morning the map showing the election results included Wisconsin and Michigan among the few states that had not yet been completely tabulated. The next time I looked, Michigan was still undeclared but Wisconsin was red and Donald Trump had been declared the winner of the election.
That map…. seeing so much red and so little blue. It has only been in the past few months that I knew which political party was red and which was blue. I had to use a mnemonic device to recall that the Republican party is represented by red (R-R).
The color of the states does not tell the entire truth. The numbers of voters listed (at 9:23 am EST) was 71 million people voting red and 66 million people voting blue. Thinking about that brought to mind the color purple. Purple paint consists of red to blue paint at a ratio 3:4.
I looked up the symbolic meanings of the color purple on a website called Very Well Mind:
People often describe the color purple as mysterious, spiritual, and imaginative.
Purple is also thought to represent wisdom and spirituality, as though a rare and mysterious nature perhaps causes it to seem connected to the unknown, supernatural, and divine.
Different shades of purple have different spiritual meanings. For instance, light purples are associated with light-hearted, romantic energies, while darker shades can represent sadness and frustration. In some parts of Europe, purple is associated with death and mourning.
In the U.S., the Purple Heart is among the highest honors for bravery in military service. The award, originally called the Badge of Military Merit, was created in 1782 by George Washington to give to soldiers for commendable action. The color represents courage and bravery.
My prayer is for the 71 million people who feel like they won today to realize that they have relatives and friends and neighbors who voted blue — people they love and respect — who desperately need their compassion and kindness and wisdom.
And for the 66 million people who feel like they lost today to realize that they have relatives and friends and neighbors who voted red — people they love and respect — who need their compassion and kindness and wisdom.
As I was lying there pondering purple, the first stanza in the song Storms Never Last, by Waylon Jennings came to mind:
Storms never last, do they, babe?
Bad times all pass with the winds
Your hand in mine stills the thunder
And you make the sun want to shine
I know there is mounting concern that we are all being manipulated by bots and trolls so that we do not see things the same way because we do not see (and hear) the same things. If that is really happening, and it likely is, it is dangerous.
Regardless, we are each capable of realizing that no perspective is capable of seeing everything clearly and the more sure I am that I know how it really is the more dangerous I am to myself and the world.
Think about the history of our nation related to slavery.
Think about the history of our planet related to the Holocaust.
Think about the history of your connections with your relatives, friends, and neighbors who voted a different color than you. What might he or she see or hear or think or feel that adds to your own wisdom and kindness and compassion?
Please, brothers and sisters of the red and blue, remember that our flag is red, white, and blue. Perhaps another post on the spiritual meaning of the color white will be forthcoming, but for now, I am dreaming of the color purple….
Dare to live with me in an apolitical world. A world in which we care about one another and navigate challenges without political attitudes, content, or bias — in as much as is humanly possible — a world that is already filled with purple hearts.
On October 17, 2024, a dharma sister sent an email sharing about a free on Youtube documentary titled “Living in the Time of Dying” a film by Michael Shaw that is 53 minutes and 31 seconds on the ‘how then shall we live’ about the climate crisis, but also about so much more.
The email came while I was on retreat, and then Stacey was here for a fast-paced week, and then preparations to go south for the winter began in earnest. This morning I have watched this beautiful documentary that breaks my heart. Now fingers to the keyboard, I am feeling perfect timing of watching on this evening before the polarized U.S. Presidential election. I think if you will watch it you would agree that the parallels are obvious.
Stan Rushworth is a teacher of Native American Literature, and the author of Sam Woods: American Healing (Station Hill Press, New York 1992), Going to Water: The Journal of Beginning Rain (Talking Leaves Press, Freedom, CA 2014), and Diaspora’s Children (Hand To Hand Publishing, Topanga, CA 2020). Stan says, “This is the end of life as we know it…. This is something that native people have been dealing with since the colonists came…. We have a sacred obligation of how to be in these times.”
“You’ve got to be okay in the uncertainty and the emotional difficulty. We’ve got to be okay ourselves and with each other. That’s okay. That’s normal to be confused and to feel pain in this context. And learn how to hold each other in that and in that calmer way.” ~ Professor Jem Bendell
Lyrics in “Boogie Street” by Leonard Cohen:
So come, my friends, be not afraid
We are so lightly here
It is in love that we are made
In love we disappear
This theme of perspective continues to escalate. Not just in personal ways, but within the collective.
This morning about 6 o’clock I was awakened by a “poke” on my left shoulder. It was a somatic poke. A physical sensation. The kind of experience where you would swear an actual person was there doing the poking.
John and I had a very awkward time yesterday. I was talking to him about disinformation and what makes people vulnerable to disinformation. His initial position was to say how the other side does that too. I’ve heard him say that many, many times and I just respond, “Two wrongs don’t make a right. It doesn’t matter if everyone’s doing it, if it’s not something that’s wholesome, we have the freewill choice to abandon the unwholesome and cultivate the wholesome.”
I was able to gain a beautiful insight after I finally asked him if anything I shared with him had invited him at all to a greater openness to question his own view. He told me no and I felt really deflated, somewhat hopeless with sadness. Then I realized his attachment to view and everyone’s attachment to view might be okay.
Earlier in the day, Sheilana’s words had spoken so clearly about how it is that people have view saying, “And the thing is that if you’re in that same position that I’m in, noticing the very same thing I’m noticing, we’re going to notice two different things. We won’t notice the same, not necessarily notice the same part of it.”
And here is the key, “It is a chore to remind myself that everything is perfect just like it is, that because I want it to be some way, doesn’t mean that it’s ever going to be that. Because everybody else wants it to be their way too, and that just doesn’t work. So how is it that we come into a space where we’re comfortable with what is? And we’ve talked about it many times in the past, about how we can help make a change by being in that space of comfort with what is, instead of wanting it to be different.”
Comfort with what is….
The truth of this came to be evident to me during the decades I worked with a lot of people who were navigating health challenges. Resisting the pain, fighting the necessity of giving recovering some time, not wanting it to be the way it is right now actually can prolong the process. For sure, it heightens the suffering.
This morning I was able to see yesterday’s process as progress.
Twelve years ago, in 2012, the gap in understanding between John and me was cavernous. That was just three presidential elections ago.
One of the guys on the Tuesday morning meditation was speaking about Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America, a book by Barbara McQuade, an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017. Disinformation is not just misinformation. Disinformation is designed to evoke a strong emotional response nurturing perspectives with more extreme views, making it difficult and sometimes impossible to find common ground with others.
Perhaps Sheilana is saying that the only common ground is comfort with what is.
Some years ago, Barbara Brodsky shared this image of two ladders. The ladders are the same height, but the distance between the steps was ginormous. The person had not yet gotten off the ground on the other ladder, but the person was already near the top of the ladder with the smaller steps.
Perhaps we have ease and success and comfort with with what is: smaller steps!
John Lennon said, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
Gratitude is not a mere word;
it is not a mere concept.
It is the living breath
of your real existence on earth.
~ Sri Chinmoy
Claudia and I drove to Holly the day before the retreat started so we did not have the several hours of travel and unpacking and settling in all before noon on opening day. Awake early the next morning, I wrote in my journal:
D: What is the meaning of my being here?
V: You, My Dear, give whatever meaning that is given. Think about this in relationship to what is called “divisiveness” in your country today.
D: It is staggering and humbling.
V: It does appear clearly that.
When folks arrived at the Maryville Retreat Center on Monday, October 14 2024, I had not expected to shed so many joyful tears. I wrote on the white board: The joy of reunion brought to mind the way it is spoken of the joy when we are reunited with loved ones “in heaven.”
Very unusual opening words by Aaron, “We are not here for meditation — we are here for sangha.”
At the Tuesday morning sitting I realized when I had to re-string my mala last winter one bead was put out of place. As I held that bead in my hand, my heart was so open! I thought about the tradition of making a deliberate mistake. Quiltmakers, Navajo Indians, even carpenters are aware of and use this idea. One source even says that the errors included are the same for a particular artist – sort of like a maker’s mark.
When our small group met with the teachers I shared how complete I felt in our coming together, as if I had died at that moment I would have known I had done absolutely everything I came into this incarnation to do.
Maryville has a wonderful chapel, with a peaked roof above the altar, skylights, and huge windows looking out onto the serene setting. Stained glass words line the seam between the walls and the ceiling. Each word seemed to invite complete states of being like peace, joy, hope, and love….
I spent quite a bit of time in that space, once using it as a walking meditation. Afterwards I wrote in my journal:
V: To whom do you pray, Dear One?
D: To the center of Life.
V: And what is this center of Life? It is much like the center of an onion. There is “no” thing there that is other than. This is a profound truth.
The theme of reunion kept coming forth as a sweet fragrance. I meditated on the cellular memory of the on-going joy my sister, Janis, and I celebrate every moment of our lives now. This closeness and preciousness is the result of our having a profound loss of rapport and connection that lasted a significant amount of time.
So grateful for the gifts of sitting in group meditation, chanting with other’s voices and feeling the harmonies, and having time dedicated to Noble Silence.
The first six words from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” Act two, Scene 1, the Forest of Arden, spoke volumes: Sweet are the uses of adversity…. And as John Lennon said, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
Home from the retreat now, the simple gift of our being together remains most salient for me.
I leave for Holly, Michigan, where I will attend a silent meditation retreat titled “Remembering our Awakened Essence” with Barbara Brodsky and John Orr from Deep Spring Center for Meditation, and sangha sisters and brothers from all over the world. The retreat will be held at The Maryville Retreat Center. This week Barbara’s husband, Hal, had a heart attack and has been hospitalized, receiving a pacemaker. Many know Hal previously had a gravely serious stroke and has been being cared for in their home since Covid. John Orr lives in Alexander, North Carolina, very near Asheville, where hurricane Helene has left his area with roads out, power down, and horrific destruction.
There is a lot going on.
This is not my first rodeo. I have been to MANY week-long silent retreats with this group, but due to the pandemic it has been five years (October 2019 being the last) since I attended a residential retreat. I definitely feel like a newbie. And a lot of rain and cool is forecast. Likely not going to be easy distraction by walking the beautiful campus.
Plus, there is a lot going on this week.
1. John will be staying alone for the first time since he had open heart surgery and the TIA from noon Sunday until Stacey arrives Thursday late afternoon.
2. Our neighbor (Joe) is having heart valve surgery on Wednesday.
3. Friends are navigating the losses and messes following Hurricane Milton.
4. Our friend (Molly) is having a pacemaker.
5. Our friend (Nancy) is turning 80.
6. My long-time client and friend (Jane) is experiencing colon bleeding that cannot be surgically repaired. It is a complication from radiation therapy.
7. Our country is approaching a Presidential Election that has amplified differences of opinions without highlighting the truth that we are interconnected.
In the busyness of preparations for going on retreat, I took time yesterday to watch a video of Tara Brach with Dan Harris. Here are a few nuggets I am taking with me, and since you will be going with me in my heart, from “Timeless Heart Wisdom for our Times.”
The most compelling and sacred work of these times is bridging divides.
Unless we are seeking the well-being of all we are going to end up in some way perpetuating the suffering of our times.
The Zen Masters say the most important thing is remembering the most important thing.
Ours is a relational universe of aliveness that we’re inextricably a part of that’s influencing us that we are influencing that we are to pay attention to that in a way that is not abstract.
The felt sense of that changes everything.
It is probably obvious some of the reasons why I am nervous about turning off my phone and not checking for calls or texts or emails.
It is also probably obvious why this is the perfect week for a silent meditation retreat….
Last evening we had dinner with two long-time friends. One friend lost her winter home on Pine Island two years ago to Hurricane Ian. As Hurricane Milton is crossing the Gulf of Mexico right now barrelling toward Florida we have friends who are year-round on the island. It felt good for us to gather here in our tiny house and enjoy hearty soup and savory salads. And fresh-baked bread.
The other friend and I will be attending a residential retreat all of next week. She said the retreat comes at an ideal time for her as she is so wrapped up in the political stuff and global conditions.
This morning I sent both of them the opening words of our Florida meditation group who meets online each Tuesday afternoon at 1:00 pm EST. The leader hosted this gathering in her home on Pine Island for several decades until she moved into a senior living center on the mainland. At the time of yesterday’s Zoom gathering, she was there in her apartment.
Her opening words were salve…. “It is a different feeling when I feel that if I don’t like what’s going on right now, I can change it. But the reality is that all I can do about that is change my attitude about it. I can’t necessarily change what’s actually happening. So it’s sort of humbling to sit here in this same space, but it looks much differently because, you know, all the windows are covered up, the doors are covered up. You can’t see out. There isn’t anybody out there to see anyway. So it’s quite a different reality.”
Three of us online with her sat in our homes here in Michigan.
One other friend online with us told us she was staying on Pine Island in the home of friends. The same home and the same friends with whom this friend survived Hurricane Ian two years ago. This friend’s home had been destroyed in Matlacha.
This morning I wake to a text message from another friend who had spent a day with us on Pine Island before Hurricane Ian. He was sending a photo and this message, “With all that is going on in Florida sending you one of my guardian orbs.”
Perfectly round orbs appearing in photos are often interpreted as signs of harmony and purity, believed to represent balanced energy and the presence of a peaceful spirit. Some see them as guardians or guides. They are thought to be evidence of the presence of our departed loved ones who are watching over us.
A while later this morning as I opened email the loving messages continued.
The world is a creation of our mind. Everything we experience happens in the mind. So there is no need to look outside. Everything is happening right here in our own minds. ~ The Daily Tejaniya
Gain and loss, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, light and dark—these are seeming opposites. But nothing is truly an opposite but always part of everything else. What would joy be without sorrow? How would you recognize joy? How would you recognize the light if there were no sense of darkness? How would you know spaciousness if there were never contraction? But we must recognize the distinction between ultimate reality and those mundane objects that arise from conditions and pass away. Reflect on the beauty of light and love as ultimate realities, and how darkness and contraction arise out of conditions and pass away. ~ Aaron
The opening words for our meditation time continued: “And although I know that this particular building, as you know, I’m on the sixth floor, which is the top floor, it’s poured concrete. So all the floors are concrete that’s twelve inches thick, and the walls are not quite that thick, but the outside walls are. Maybe it’s eight inches on the walls. And so it would have to be a really tremendous storm to take any of it out. And I just know that that’s not forthcoming. I don’t think we’ll really even know that it happened. And it will happen between tomorrow, between bedtime and midnight. So they say. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and I said, you know, you and I have had a nice long association in this lifetime, and if you never hear from me again, just know that I love you. And it threw her a bit for me to say that. And I was very conscious of what I was saying, because that’s always true. It’s not just because there’s a storm. It’s true for all of us today, right now. However, our lives usually are focused in a different direction. Thank goodness.”
And as we settled into the stillness, these assurances were spoken: “Yes, this is comforting, and all of you are comforting. And I know that there are many others that are also. And hopefully they have found a place where they can express their own comfort. So if everyone is ready, shall we go into our meditation? So taking a couple of deep breaths, and just feel the breath as it fills our lungs. And exhale. And then with the next breath, fill the lungs as much as they were, and then add a little bit more. And I ask Spirit to be with us, the higher selves of each of us, to guide and protect us, acknowledging that that’s what they are doing all the time. And then as we take that deep breath, and a little more, know that every time we do this, we are a little more of who we are. I don’t know that it’s possible, well, let me put it some other way. I accept the possibility that when we take all we can that we are, and then we add a little more, that there will always be a little more. In the evolution of humanity, of life on this planet, I can imagine there’s always a little more. And it’s not necessarily definable, not something that we can describe. And yet there’s a sense within each of us that knows there’s a little more. So as we go into the silence today, into the uncertainty of how nature will conclude this day, we set an intention to be a little more.”
May all beings find an end to stress and suffering. May all beings know peace.
As I slide the drape back from the window this morning the sky to the west is very dark.
I have been initiating conversation about the upcoming Presidential Election with John. For decades we have not spoken of such things, but it seems vital to be able to speak openly with others about things we see differently without fear and anger and denial.
I was coming in off the porch when John was heading down the hall on his way to coffee with the guys at Roger’s. He asked what I was doing and I told him I had gone out and tried to get a photo of the western sky that was so black.
My phone rang. It was John and I had a sense before I answered why he was calling, “If you look out the front window you will see the rainbow.”
The sky has always been observed by humans. The earliest recorded meaning given to the rainbow is as a symbol of hope. For Christians and Hebrews, it appeared as proof of a covenant between God and all living creatures in the book of Genesis. The significance of a rainbow was also found in Chinese, Egyptian and Native American history.
Sharing with a dear friend a bit later, I could see the rainbow as it related to this being a time of truly releasing disappointment around unmet expectations. For my friend, it was a dinner she wanted to prepare as a special gift for us. She considered it awful. It was very easy for me to see that her criticism was part of the pattern of judging the manifestation without looking at the loving intention.
Our conversation led me to disappointment related to Holistic Alliance which we closed in 2005. She was able to say, “I think you are not looking at it clearly. I remember the joy I felt when I would walk through that door. And all of the people we helped. We were so ahead of our times….”
We were both able bear witness to the amazing gifts that were given and the incredible love behind them. Richard (of NLP fame) Bandler would say that disappointment requires adequate pre-planning.
I begin hearing the lyrics to the song Good Intentions, as it was sung by Randy Travis: “And I hear tell the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But mama my intentions were the best.”
It depends where you look for information on issues like “open boarders” or “secure borders.” Or the “criminalization” or “decriminalization” of abortion. Even things like ethics or the lack-thereof in industry related to insurance or pharmaceuticals or financial management. It is a lot easier to talk about the problem/s than it is to sit with the insecurity of the overwhelming complexity of it all.
Last evening as we played cards with Fred and his friend, Kay, I tried to express to John my view on a play he was choosing to make. He could not (or would not) see it the way I wanted him to, and he made the play as he wanted to make it. As it turned out, it likely cost us that hand.
Often life is referred to as a game. The quote “Life is too important to be taken seriously” is attributed to Oscar Wilde. The quote is a paradox, as it seems contradictory at first. Wilde’s suggestion is that the more important something is, the more important it is not to take it seriously.
Elbert Hubbard also said, “Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”
After Tuesday, November 5, 2024, someone’s favored candidate will have lost and someone else’s favorite candidate will have won.
Will you see disappointment or good intentions? Is it true that we can only see clearly when we see both? That it depends where you look?
Praying we not miss the rainbows that come with the dark clouds.
“Mama my intentions were the best”…. Praying we learn to be able to say this with honesty and confidence.
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