The Only True Hope

I confess to recently having looked into the mirror and noticing a drooping of my jowls, deep crevasses of a frown on both sides of my mouth. More accurately, not frowning, just the absence of laughter and smiles.

This past Sunday, I was Zoom host for Remembering Wholeness, a once-a-month event with Barbara Brodsky channeling darshan with “The Mother.”

Darshan is a reciprocal experience of meeting with a holy or revered person or diety which results in the human viewer’s receiving a blessing. The person just before me to receive darshan had been told, “To be is your gift of the world. There is nothing at all selfish about just being for some period of time and letting yourself feel energetically restored. If you have a beautiful fountain, water must come into the basin or the fountain cannot continue to send out its beautiful movement. Fill the basin — with pure, radiant water.”

In much of the world, this is the season for giving gifts. But to be able to give a gift, there must also be those to receive. Most of us are familiar with the lyrics of the song about the little drummer boy.

I played my best for him
Pa rum pum pum pum,
Rum pum pum pum,
Rum pum pum pum

Then he smiled at me
Pa rum pum pum pum
Me and my drum

I was the last to receive a blessing from The Mother.

To Debra:

And this last topic is a little less precise for you. You do take time to restore, but I think after you’ve taken some and you think, “I’ve already had my restoration and its time for me to flow out again.”

Please stop thinking about in and out. The water comes into the basin of the fountain so it can go out. When it goes out it lands in the perimeter of the basin, flows into the center, then out. And it just keeps recirculating.

Sometimes you’re more in one phase, sometimes more in the other. For you it would be good to try to find where the balance is. And remember that the basin is never empty, because it is not only you that fills it, but everything around you fills it.

The gifts that you give to the world… I’ve enjoyed through Barbara reading your blog. It’s very beautiful. This is a gift to everyone. You’re hosting an event like this. This is a gift to everyone.

Now to whatever degree it’s useful, focus on, “What do you need in order to be more fully nourished? And how can you invite that into yourself, knowing that it will recycle back out? … but in this moment, what will suit me in order for the fountain to be full and ready to pour out again of light?”

This flowing of water into the basin so it is ready to pour out again brings to mind the ebb and flow of light on our planet.

It has been a challenging autumn. August 30 we tested positive for Covid. September 24 John’s brother, Jerry, passed. The week of Thanksgiving, our 55-year old niece had a brain bleed. Since the first of November John has had an extremely painful sciatica flare. But the December full moon has come and gone. Known as the “cold moon” by the Mohawk people, this full moon occurs just a few days shy of December 21, the winter solstice.

Humans have honored the significance of the winter solstice for a very, very long time. The ancient Monument of Newgrange is a 5200 year old megalithic structure built in precise alignment with the rising sun over the solstice each winter. Built around 3200 BC, that means it is 600 years older than the Pyramids at Giza, and 1,000 years older than Stonehenge.

“What do you need in order to be more fully nourished? And how can you invite that into yourself, knowing that it will recycle back out?”

I need to remember that spring always follows winter.

I need to remember that water comes into the basin of the fountain so it can go out.

I need to remember that, as Stephen Spender so beautifully expressed, “The only true hope for civilization — the conviction of the individual that his inner life can affect outward events.”

I need to remember the face of our great-grandson, Jackson, when his G-ma took him to visit Santa.

I need to remember that when my eyes fill with wonder and my heart with love or joy, I do not betray my concerns for the world — I nourish my capacity to attend to them.

From my keyboard to yours, Merry Christmas everyone….