Spiritual Practice is an Amazing Path

I spent the weekend in retreat. This was a mindfulness retreat. At the same time it was more than that. It was a great weekend  of disidentifying from the angst  that many of us have been consumed with for sometime now then identifying with The Beauty of Being.

 For months, I had been learning to live alone. This is the first time in my life when I actually have the whole day and the whole night to myself.

 Each day I  am learning to enjoy being myself.  I step out into the world cautiously, determined to  lose what  I might, as a psychologist, call The Social Anxiety Disorder. I have always had it, but there have been times when it did not call the shots. Mostly, these days, I prefer to refer to this "subpersonality" as The Fierce Introvert or The Radical Solitary, which, socially speaking, is a much healthier perspective of one's presence in the world.

 At the retreat, I awakened to the reality that I really am enjoying being a solitary when inside my own home. I asked myself, "If I step into the world on a regular basis, what keeps me so anxious?"  I do fear having nothing to offer and have been known to avoid at all costs, feeling powerless, rejected, helpless, at a loss for how to respond to suffering --- and the list goes on. It's not like paranoia. It's not  The Victim nor The Saboteur . I simply want to be a Relevant Presence in the world, a woman on the path of freedom balanced with responsibility.

 I have much to offer. I have created boundaries that are healthy. I know that I would like to be of service in my community. I know that I would like to participate in being a voice among the many who want to continue to see progress in this nation in this world. The only problem is how I feel about myself . I need to be the one who wants to be me in the world just as I am.

Yes, it has nothing to do with whether or not somebody wants me in their life or in their project or at their social gathering. It is simply about willing  to be a Relevant Presence in the world - both flaws and gifts.

This struggle  comes to the forefront at this time, intensely and unavoidably due, initially to the trauma in my personal life this past year, but today to the national economic and political crisis especially. I am wondering how I can stay focused on the resurgence of the masses of people who are standing up for a healthy social vehicle while the old one is dying hard and dangerous with a fierce vengeance!

A meditative council walks with me:
 - An ancient insight I like to repeat over and over is, "To be alive is a miracle!"
- The ancient culture which repaired cracked bowls with gold,
- The totally peaceful Women's March on January 21, 2017 where over a billion people both men and women of all ages walked together, announcing the presence of the emerging age of a compassionate civilization, determined that we will live on a healthy planet.

Most importantly,  is an  image of a safe place, created in Higher Self,  through which to experience the world while I am in it.  My safe place has green grass on the banks of Lake Champlain and the sun is setting in a colorful sky over the lake and where walking barefoot is a joyous playful pastime. I have been there, sustained in Spirit and can imagine being there everywhere I go. I may have to paint it on a canvas to remind me that the world is safe and being here is a comfortable risk beckoning, ever welcoming.

We have only just begun, folks. Pointing out what is wrong is going nowhere. Time is come to BE the new reality. We are both the old and the new.

Is your safe place in your Soul created and ready to carry with you as the new social vehicle emerges with you fully part of its creation?

Fate of a Past which No Longer Serves

First I ate all the holidays' leftover food and was sick with "the grip" for a day or two. The unhealthy contents of the leftovers are among many I will no loner be eating.

Then I purged my closets of ALL the clothes which no longer serve who I am today and are uncomfortable. I loved everything I put in the two huge bags which got placed in the second hand drop off up on the corner.

Sweaters which I love, too heavy for even  the coldest weather in Florida, were boxed and mailed north.

Books - storage bins full - will find their way to the library and from there probably will be tossed anyway. I thought about opening a new age book store or browsing room, and may yet. In the meantime, they are in storage. All of them, except maybe Saviors of God  by Nikos Katsinzakis and a couple of others out of print,  are available on line and any information I need  is easily googled.

My home itself is almost streamlined, but has a way to go to eliminate doubles and triples. A yard sale should solve that problem. I even cancelled the tv service because I don't need it at all.

I do have one of all I need to accommodate increasing age related ailings and failings.

Almost everything is up to date or repaired. Going up and down the stairs will someday be a challenge, but not yet, so for now it serves its purposes - more privacy and good exercise.

Outside, the grounds are now manageable, all that I can not do myself,  or cause discomfort to maintain,  has been replaced, mostly by Zen spots. I can afford to pay someone to mow the lawn and trim the trees.

I must admit, that all the physical changes I have made were driven by Psyche, rather than a rational, thought out list of what is needed in order to move into the future, continuing this journey to Self.

Psyche's methodology consists of an emerging thought, triggered by a message from something I was reading or watching or a conversation.  A conscious awareness grows within me related to a desire to make a similar change. For example, a friend said she had just cleared her closets. I thought about my own closets and how I had considered that so many times recently. I considered the pros and cons before resolving to clean out my closets.

In the same spirit of shedding old baggage, I saw a movie in which friendships ended because they were toxic to this woman who had a new lease on life. Finally, I encountered the presence of  mold growing in the closets. By this motivating awareness, I chose a time and soon all the clothes which represented selves I no longer was or needed, were  in bags and out of my life.

I have all I need to stand present to life as it is now in 2017.  None of it really material,  I understand the meaning of physical surroundings in my life.  I know I could live without any of what I have accumulated. What I may need is available in many different forms.

More and more I am drawn to that which sustains  the presence of the Divine and my ability to continue the journey in this realm.

Most beautiful in this place, in these clothes I have kept, is the possibility of acknowledging the highest good and understanding the real motivation for the action of others.  The grievous suffering we experience in our disappointment with and inability to control outcomes burns to ashes eventually.

 The blessings bestowed in grieving's place, like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, calls out for our leadership in systems transformation, of ourselves and of society.

 All is gone which no longer serves a real need. A new vision begins to form, a new strategy, a new approach to bringing into being a new way, as Gandhi put it,  to BE the change you want to see.

I am not perfect. I slip and fall into an obsolete self often. I get to feeling lonely in this place whuch is not the well worn past. But, I am determined to be relevant and so I continue the journey.

 Are you willing to be the change you want to see alive in the world today?

Love -In Any Language

 A group of residents of a local facility met with my colleague and I for an initial meeting toward creating a segment of an upcoming talent show. The intent is to glean from their memories, the rich slices of life they can share, weaving it into a story that is their Story.

These women, all there just to observe, had powerful images to share in response to my colleague's questions.

 From our sharing, it was revealed that the activities aide, my colleague, and the administrator have roots in the same small city in Indiana. We learned that two of the women have the same middle name - Joy - which both had been called all their lives. I learned that I was the oldest one there!!

One of the women is a full Cherokee, is very skilled at making dream catchers, Spirit doors, etc. and will be presenting  Cherokee dancing with her sister soon. This woman is very well acquainted with Cherokee tradition and was born in the original Cherokee settlement in Kentucky. (She is also very good at sharing the pain from stories passed on to her, still alive in her young heart, of the Trail of Tears.

Needless to say, people are eager for their stories to be heard.

My colleague and I are going to shed any procedures we might have available to follow. Instead, we will arrive each week with an open heart, ask more questions, and watch while their willingness to participate grows.

I was addressed by the commonality we all share as women. Men, are of course welcome, but seem to be scarce at the moment. It may be they traditionally have a tendency to maintain their independence longer, until they are much less able to be communicative.

Being invited to share one's life is rare. As one woman said today, no one in her whole life has even given a hoot about the loving memories she might share.She added that almost all she has shared is her problems and even that was like talking to herself.

They got a laugh out of my telling a story about a friend who wouldn't let her husband take me to pick up my car that was in the shop. It is a ten minute drive  and wouldn't be a half hour out of his life. She said he had an appointment. Because I would have had to go out of my way to avoid it, I went by their house on the way to a yard sale (in my golf cart) and back an hour and a half later, I  ran in to another friend at the sale who agreed to take me. The friend's husband's  car was there when I went by and when I came back and again when I came home an hour after, driving my car.

I shared how I felt and a couple of the women joined in with humorous  remarks about getting revenge.

I then related my conclusion on the whole affair. People are people and if I love who I am where I am, I accept other people's behavior. I do not know their reasons for why they act as they do. I accept it and that, I propose is love - in any language.

This is a posting of love among people. I know that for years, there was a movement to wash it out and hang it on the line to dry, but these days, I am finding that the unconditional aspect of love, is of the utmost importance.

What is the love story you have to tell?