wisdom of our elders
Halloween, All Saints Day, Día de los Muertos followed closely by “the big” holidays here in America : Thanksgiving and the Winter Holidays. The economy worldwide is shifting and values are resurfacing that were, only a few years ago, all but obsolete. These things are sending me down paths of traditional teaching and ancient ways of living. Ways which honor our Ancestors and value the wisdom of our Elders. According to recent statistics, our children are and will continue to be less affluent than their parents. Unemployment is higher than it has been since the Great Depression. Folks are generally way more stressed and considerably more depressed. The numbers of us on antidepressant medication is truly alarming. The remedies are so simple and so...
gift of grief
Among other things, groundedness; More than anyone would ever ask for. And a complete experience of the present moment. When my 11 year old tiger cat Willow died on Sunday, I was so enveloped by what was happening that I made no other choices, I thought of nothing else. I didn’t worry about the past or the future. I was in the NOW. I didn’t even try. I was so completely in the pain of having to make the decision about ending her life, that it never occurred to me to try and “be” anywhere else. This is where I am. This is what I am to do now. Nothing is more important than this. I didn’t look for a hierarchy of tasks. I never visited their different levels of importance. I only had one thing to do at this moment, and that was to so completely...
making change easier
There are times when the importance of relationships become crystal clear. My parents just moved across the country and my youngest son is finishing High School and he bought his first car. All of a “sudden”, I am (in a way) no longer the ‘first’ daughter of my parents. (This will be my sister’s job now that my parents will be moving just a few miles from her home.) I am not “needed” as a mother on a daily basis by my children. As a minister, I am called upon to recognize these kinds of passages with ceremonies. Most often and most recognized are naming/christening ceremonies, memorial services and weddings. There are other equally important transitions in one’s life…. others we would do well to...
remembrance
It is one of the “great” moments in our recent history. Most of us have asked and can so clearly recall “Where were you on 9/11?” Everything comes rushing back. The morning, the people you talked to, cried with, the news you watched, the children and loved ones you hugged or called frantically. The way in which the world, as a single, loving, organism bowed heads in horror and disbelief and grief and then, knelt down praying for the families, for the country, for each other and for forgiveness. I cannot to this day “remember” without shedding tears. While there were a few who celebrated this event…. consider again how few there were. Remember that virtually everyone denounced this cruel and misguided act and that...
the cocoon
“There is something in every one of us that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in ourselves. It is the only true guide we will ever have.” - Howard Thurman Human Butterflies, Part II The second stage of answering our soul’s call is entering the cocoon, which is for the caterpillar a literal enclosed space. But for us humans serves to describe the eve of a transition where we turn from outside distractions and influences toward the areas of our life we have been dissatisfied with or fearful of, and have tossed into our mental closet to deal with another day. When that day finally arrives one thing becomes crystal clear: we simply cannot continue to keep living the way we have been. The ache to discover more of who we are and what Life is...
the present
My days are filled not only with the demands of today but with the pressure off all the things I have not done as well. My mind filled to overflowing with daily tasks, past remembrances and future concerns, dreams and…. well, you get the idea. Many are the mornings when I wake, my first thoughts anxious and I already feel “behind”. There is a building pressure: what I “need/want to accomplish” vs. my resistance to doing any of it. Are you familiar with this absurd situation? What is it that is so unattainable about simply being present in the present moment? It is, after all, all that we “have”. We cannot actually live in any other moment and even when we are remembering or “forecasting” we can only do that from/in the present...
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