What do I do?

When I see the unforgivable                                         Do I turn my head away

                                             And think on other things

When I hear the sounds of strife                                   Do  I shut my ears

                                               And listen to the music

When I feel the pain of a thousand burdened hearts     Do I close my eyes

                                              And dance in the darkness

When someone tells me a story                                    Do I hear only what I want to

                                              And  justify justify justify

When the world disappears around me                         Do I smile and laugh

                                             And say It was so good while it lasted

                                                               Or

When I see the unforgivable                                          Do I see what must be seen

                                                      And forgive

When I hear the sounds of strife                                    Do I speak out

                                                 Even if mine is the only voice

When I feel the pain of a thousand burdened hearts      Do I cry

                                                     And offer solace

When someone tells me a story                                      Do I listen deeply

                                            And show them that they are heard

When the world disappears around me                          Do I grieve and mourn

                                                     And let the world go         

                                                         What do I do?

At this time of year when the snow is starting to melt, we get eager for spring. We look forward to the end of the dreary winter and can hardly wait for the snow to melt. Those who are outdoor enthusiasts throw themselves into outdoor snow activities- downhill skiing, cross country skiing, snowshoeing.  They are calculating the number of times they can enjoy the snow before it is gone. The weather is finally amenable to being outside without freezing. The gardeners start to plot the garden, dreaming of this year’s planting and just how soon they can get out into the dirt to muck about. Looking at seed catalogues, starting new seedlings in little paper pots- visions of how they will look in just the right spot. Some  people are already  planning  vacations in exotic places, looking forward to escaping from this place and this time. The year’s seasons rush by all too quickly as we impatiently wait for each one.  Spring, summer, fall, winter. Seasons rush by quickly in a lifetime too. It seems we are babies for a very short time, toddlers for a while, teenagers briefly, 20 something even more briefly, 30’s and 40’s and 50’s and 60’s slip away just as quickly as the passing of the seasons. One day you wake up and realize that anticipating your future has delivered it to you.  The turn of the seasons now has you calculating how many times you ached for the end of winter and the return of spring, how many days and years you spent in waiting for something to happen, for something to change, for something to come and how much of your life you wished away planning for some great moment.  What is it within us that seeks the moments in the future, not recognizing that this moment is a moment worth living.This moment is a great moment. What are you doing right now? Spring is happening  this very moment within yourself. Our life is created by our imaginings. Imagine that this is the moment that you have been waiting for

Everyday someone offers you a kindness. Kindness comes in many forms- someone one thinks of you and remembers you. Someone offers you a Chiclet of gum or holds the elevator door. Someone buys cheesecake for the whole team. Maybe it is simply a smile of understanding at the checkout line. Someone pauses to let you cross the street in a line of heavy traffic. Someone remembers to pay their bills on time or pays for your lunch. Someone notices you and you see them acknowledge you as another human being. They call you up. They offer to help without you having to ask. Kindness originates from an ocean of abundance that we take for granted. The simplest kindness is the favor of another’s company-the grandpa who sits freezing outside the little house for an hour in the snow while the grandson prepares imaginary steaks and vegetables. Kindness is a sharing of love – easily unnoticed, easily unacknowledged and easily forgotten at the first indication of some unkindness. We are quick to add tallies of unkindness to our memory banks but slow to create a memory book of the kindness we have been given each and every day. Today, calculate the number of kindnesses you receive and multiply that by the number of days you have lived. Awesome! Those little inoculations of love  sustain each and every one of us. The kindness we share  merely shadows the kindness of the master gardener – the one who provides our each and every breath. Have a great day! May kindness find you and may you find kindness wherever you look.

Look around you – what do you have in your life that you could be grateful for?  A special friend- did someone remember you on Valentines? Did you have a laugh with someone? Do you have a job that you like or that pays you well? Do parts of your body still work well? Did you see the beautiful sunrise? Did you enjoy a fresh cool glass of water? Did you hear your favorite song on the radio? Did someone test you or email you just wondering how you are? Did you drive on the street without anyone honking their horns? Did a child give you a sweet smile or engage you in the exciting parts of their life- like seeing a magpie flying by. Did someone tell you that they loved you? Is there a favorite cup sitting on your desk? Are you going home to a great home cooked meal?

What did you do that could be considered a blessing to others- did you give a few dollars to the homeless person who asked. Did you cheer up a friend who was down? Did you give someone a break in traffic? Did you smile at someone who was cheered up by you? Did you call a friend who is having a bad stretch? What is the best thing that you can do that would be considered a blessing by you? Have you done it lately?

We are so fortunate to be alive, to be here, to be able to give and receive blessings. Take five minutes each day to remember that!  Count your blessings – one by one.

The smallest snail builds it house as a spiral, the shell turning ever so slowly around and around until the snails little abode is complete.  If you take the time to examine it closely you will discover an exceedingly rare piece of beauty.

Lives are like spirals twisting, twisting, twisting and it is not until they have repeated the pattern a number of times before we notice there are patterns. There are often moments of déjà vu along the way- haven’t I been here before?  Most often we just cry out –why is this happening to me again?? Or why does this keep happening to me? Spirals in life can go up or down, spiraling down into destruction or up into happiness and joy. Our thinking sets the direction in which we go. Negativity draws up further down, positivity draws us up.  We have a choice to focus upward or downward, focusing up shapes our beauty too.  Mostly, we many never notice that our lives are like the spiral, increasing incrementally in the same direction. Just as a pearl is created from a grain of sand, we are being created from the irritations in our life- the irritations are sanding us smooth and each turn of the spiral add a depth to our being that wasn’t there before.

Draw the spiral of your life. What does the picture tell you? Which direction are you travelling?

Is it where you want to go?

Sometimes we need to feel the pain. Feel it to the core of our being, let it take us to the very depths of our soul

Find a way to sink into the pain

Just like a wave on the lake

Let it possess you, wash over you wash through you

Because you have loved much, the pain will be much

Feel it.  Know it. Don’t hide from it.

This is the pain of my losing, of my loss

This is my pain- a special pain

The pain of losing my – my child my husband, my wife, my brother, my sister, my parent

It is all pain rolled into one enormous crushing annihilating pain

Go with it to the depths of your being —ride with it

Let the pain embrace you, kiss you, fill you up and then let it go again.

It cannot consume you.

Accept the gift it brings you and say thank you

It cannot break you

Let it possess you , wash over you, wash through you.

Let it bring you to the calm place that is left when a storm passes by, the quiet peaceful place.

Here Now

Listen to the sounds around you.

Look at the colors, name them one by one.

Feel the place where you sit.

Reach out your hand and feel what is there right beside you.

Listen to the thump thump thump of your own heart  beating beating beating  steady sure

Breathe in. Breathe out. In Out In Out

Let the wave of pain wash over you and feel it being  followed by a wave of love.

Love that is never lost , never forgotten

Let the love possess you, wash over you and through you. Let the love fill you up.

Let the pain be transformed. The enormous pain is enormous love.

Such great pain, such great love.

We often forget that everything happens in a cycle. Everything is born, rises and falls. The cycle of life is repeated in everything over and over again. But sometimes the cycle is so long that we come to believe that it really won’t end this time. Things are brand new, fresh, lively. Over time they lose their freshness, get used up, end up old and are replaced. Nothing escapes the cycle- not humans, animals, plants or objects we have created. The world itself breaks down and rebuilds itself in continual motion. Economy is built and based on the breakdown of goods; without the creation and development of new things the economy would eventually collapse. The cycle endlessly repeats itself over and over again.
If we remind ourselves that what we have or what we are doing is time limited and short term, maybe we could finally appreciate what we have when we have it. That new item you just purchased which will soon be something old, the new baby who rapidly ages into an old man or woman; the new job, the new car, —absolutely everything will disintegrate before you. That person you despise or can’t stand, the one you love more than anything- both are fated for the same destiny as are you. How would the value your life increase, knowing that it might be gone in a short time. What would you do differently? How would you treat others if you realized that their cycle was on the wane?
The answer is gratitude. We must have gratitude for what is right now. Look around you. What do you have in your life right this moment that you aren’t appreciating enough? There will come a time when you do not have this. Knowing that it will all be gone in but a short minute we can make a commitment and set an intention to enjoy what we have and to truly appreciate all that is for the short time we have it. What or who in your life could you invest with a little more appreciation? Include yourself. You are who you are only for this short day- tomorrow you will be someone new. Appreciate yourself for what you have done and who you have become and if there are some parts that you just cannot love- let them go and love the rest.

Have you gone walking in the forest and noticed a tree that is mis shaped?

One that starts out straight and then has a u shape before it starts on a straight upward growth again.  I wonder what happened to that tree. It seems as if another tree must have fallen on it and held it down while it was trying to grow. Sometimes people do that to each other; they hold each other Down or try to keep the other from growing. We all have our own DNA pattern to fulfill yet we believe that all of us should somehow be just the same as everyone else.

When we think other people are straying too far from our ideal expectations we try to rein them in, hold them down. Yet everyone has a destiny and no amount of holding them down is going to work. Just like the tree, they might be a little misshaped but they are still bound to grow. I love the u shaped tree. It shapes a message for all of us. Be u.

One thing that every garden needs is weeding. You planted some productive plants neatly in tidy rows and before you know where they come from, there are lots and lots of unwanted weeds rearing their pretty little heads and choking out the plants you are carefully nurturing. Sometimes it doesn’t take very long-it seems you turn your back for a moment, look around and they are –full sprung. We need watchfulness and determination to keep ahead of them and we need to recognize them as weeds. Sometime we realize too late that we have actually been watering  the weeds while we were admiring how nicely our garden is looking.

Weeding in one’s home has become a popular topic these days –decluttering, downsizing, simplifying- there is a blog or a book about it. Our stuff becomes like the weeds, multiplying until it threatens to engulf us.  It can be almost anything that  slyly takes more and more of our time and attention until we are unable to move because we are surrounded by it. We need to recognize the weeds in our life- what is consuming our life-  television, accumulation of material goods, collections, innocent things that  slowly and unceasingly grow until they choke the life out of us. We need to weed out the important so we can see what is important.

Our thoughts need a tremendous amount of weeding. Negativity, judgment, frustrations, envy,  greed, fear and competition are some of the weed thoughts that grow in us all under the cover of rational and logical thought. They say people think 30000 thoughts in one day. What percent of these are weed thoughts and what percent choke out and overcome the productive thoughts? How much time do we spend weeding our thought garden? And how much time do we spend planting  or replanting healthy productive ones?

Weeding is no doubt a chore, but ignoring the job or not seeing the weeds or looking the other way or pretending that our garden has no weeds has consequences. Every garden needs to be weeded, carefully, consistently and often. Weeding results in a produce filled garden, a beautiful life and a loving spirit.

Control

If one believed that

I can control life

I can control the weather.

I can control the rising of the sun.

I can control the world markets.

One would assume that these are the thoughts of a mad person

If one believed that

I can control my life

I can control my breathing, my body, my health

I can control myself

I can control my spending, eating, drinking……

I can control my work environment

I can control others

I can control my partner, my spouse my children, my pets…

One might assume that this is normal and that this is possible                                                       because so many others believe it too.

If one believed that I can control my attitude
I can control my own thoughts
I can control myself. I am in control.                                                                                         

One might assume that this is true and blame those who cannot control themselves.

 Do we have control? Can we control anything? If we have no control who does?