Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
Embracing the Quiet
Wednesday, February 17th, 2021
I have come to terms with doing less and being more. I have written so many things in my head that have not made their way to the page. I have come to terms with spending the past year being in the moment. While I have appreciated seeing or reading about many people being so productive this past year (learning a new skill or cleaning out rooms or closets), I have spent the last 12 months listening and tending to myself.
Instead of keeping busy, I have been quiet. With less meetings, events, baseball games, nights out, vacations, or people to get together with, my schedule became empty—and I chose to not fill it. Rather, I studied the birds out my window. And watched the starlings leave the pine tree when it became invaded by grackles. I watched the cherry trees bloom from the bare branches to large pink flowers. I marveled at the squirrels leaping from tree to tree as the great chase became a daily comedy show. I lingered with my morning coffee enjoying the ever-changing sky. Unable to read novels most of last year, I found myself downloading podcasts and binge-watching television shows. At first, I felt guilty about my inability to read, write, or facilitate (on-line) workshops. And I made the mistake of comparing myself to other people who seemed to be doing so much. Yet, friends shared that they felt just as alone and scared during this time.
I was feeling so much grief about losing people I knew to the virus, working alone in my dining room for hours, staying inside, and the loss of not seeing family and friends. In The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Francis Wheeler writes, “Grief also reveals the undeniably reality of our bond with the world…We need grief in order to heal these traumas and make sense of a world turned upside.”
I needed grief to show me the way out and show the way in. I needed this quiet time to connect me to grace and God. And I needed to embrace the quiet within myself. Am not sure what this time will mean to me years from now or what lessons it will have given me. But I know that I have appreciated the small things, like long walks, songbirds, books, my sister’s homemade meals, and the need to not rush anywhere. For now, the quiet feels like a homecoming. And for today, I am embracing the quiet.
Inner Sunset
Saturday, February 23rd, 2019
Let Love Show You the Way
Monday, February 4th, 2019
Sometimes we just need to listen.
Sometimes we just need the quiet.
Sometimes we just need to reflect.
Sometimes we just need to be alone.
Sometimes we just need to be with by friends.
Sometimes we need to lead.
Sometimes we need to follow.
And sometimes, actually most times, we need to let love show us the way.
Return of the Light
Friday, December 21st, 2018
2018 has been a tough year for me and my family. My dad was ill for most of the year and passed away in September. My sisters and I spent a lot of time with him making sure he had good care and spending every possible moment we could with him. We all miss him terribly and the darkness of the season is felt deep within each of us. We have spent this year nurturing, worrying, grieving, and longing. The darkness of the season has felt long.
And yet, there is a promise of light – a Winter Solstice. There is a reminder that we grow in the darkness. We feel hope in the unknown. And we return to the light. Each day will grow longer, and those long dark nights will grow shorter.
Perhaps we will feel the return of the light. It will take time. We will feel our dad’s light within us – the joy and love and humor he shared with everyone he met. His story, and our story will carry on because we carry him in our hearts. It is the most primordial feeling there is – love. And that love becomes our primordial light.
As Alberto Villoldo shares, “Primordial Light is the creative power of the Universe which is available to us to create beauty in the world, and to heal ourselves and others. But to work with Primordial Light we must remember the way of the luminous warrior. We must live and act fearlessly, know the answer to “Who am I?” and the ways beyond death into infinity.”
The path towards light always begins in the dark. It’s how seeds grow. It’s how we grow.
The Solstice is a reminder that light emerges out of darkness. The most holy darkness is the deepest darkness.
May we fully emerge out the darkness into a greater light for all to feel.
Happy Solstice.
This is dedicated to my beloved sisters, Kathleen and Dawn. They are bright lights in the world.
Echoes of a Grieving Heart
Saturday, October 13th, 2018
Thoughts swirl after grief. None of them seem real or capture the essence of loss. Sometimes I look for words from other people to help give language to the grief that lives inside my heart. One author who captures grief brilliantly is Joan Didion. In her books, The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights, Didion writes about her experiences of grief and the echoes of aches it leaves behind. Each line feels like a deep meditation of the heart.
Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought?
In time of trouble, I had been trained since childhood, read, learn, work it up, go to the literature. Information was control. Given that grief remained the most general of afflictions its literature seemed remarkably spare.
That I was only beginning the process of mourning did not occur to me. Until now, I had only been able to grieve, not mourn. Grief was passive. Grief happened. Mourning, the act of dealing with grief, required attention.
Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death.
You have to pick the places you don’t walk away from.
To my beloved dad—I miss you everyday.
From Struggle to Strength
Thursday, May 10th, 2018
This poem was submitted as part of National Poetry month. It is written by 15-year-old, George Ferguson. It fits into all that Toning the OM represents: mind and body meeting inner strength and possibility. I love how much George listened and learned from his own physical struggles and chose to rise up from them. His inner struggles led him to deep insights about himself. Congratulations George!
As a unique, young individual
with just the strangest issues,
physical abilities included,
from the incapability of using limbs
to being unable to keep my head screwed on my body,
led to classes,
led to lectures,
led to lessons;
bowling occurred first,
where my arms were twigs,
where they could snap at any moment,
while the ball flung from left gutter to the right,
going backwards at certain points,
and this was only part one of the project,
with my legs being the next step,
which strolled me to a path of dancing,
Irish step dancing,
where even though I had contained zero talent,
had no way of making my legs become pencils,
the people accepted me,
not only for my Irish roots,
but having a passion for wanting to become stronger than Ali,
wanting to become better than Flatley,
and that’s where the third step entered,
with my noggin latched into place,
different kinds of social issues on both ends on the spectrum,
where it became an incredible struggle,
that therapy landed right into my lap,
and even with the flaws,
the challenges,
the obstacles,
the maturity in me has risen,
and life has been a machine since the early days.
© This poem is the property of George Ferguson and permission to publish has been given by his family.
OM Project
Wednesday, April 12th, 2017
We all have rhythm – really, we do! We can connect to various vibrations and rhythms that surround us. An easy place to start is in our own bodies. We can place a hand on our hearts and listen to the rhythm. We can follow the breath and see where that takes us. We can drive on a highway and feel the grooves under our wheels. I even follow the rhythm of a large fire engine outside my window by listening to the siren and making it a song.
What if we took time each day to find our own personal rhythm, our OM?
What would happen if we each listened to our most profound sound living in and through us?
Perhaps just by connecting with our personal OM, we could relate to those around us in new ways. We could connect hearts first and minds second. We could connect on deeper levels, beyond the surface conversations. We could know each other through rhythm rather than rhetoric. We would meet each other with purpose rather than puffery. We could drop judgment and choose acceptance. We could release anger and open to patience acceptance.
With our personal rhythm comes our potential. It’s living inside of us. Step out of limitation and into possibility. Listen to the OM flowing through you.
Are you willing to expand the maximum capacity of your heart?
Illumination
Wednesday, April 5th, 2017
Frozen earth
Faithless
Sitting in the dark
Abiding
Light rises
Notice
Buds blooming
Sunshine
Eyes opening
Awareness
Touching the sky
Hope
Waiting for me
Abundance
Making space for Beauty
Transformation
Nature mulching
Believe
Growth is possible
Spring
Look Again – A Poem by Mary Oliver
Thursday, December 19th, 2013
What you have never noticed about the toad, probably,
is that his tongue is attached not to the back of his mouth but
the front-how far it extends
when the fly hesitates on a near-enough leaf! Or that
his front feet, which are sometimes padded, hold three nimble
digits — had anyone
a piano small enough I think the toad could learn
to play something, a little Mozart maybe, inside
the cool cellar of the sandy hill — and if
the eyes bulge they have gold rims,
and if the smile is wide it never fails,
and the warts, the delicate uplifts of dust-colored skin, are
neither random nor suggestive of dolor, but rather are little streams of jewelry, in patterns of espousal and pleasure,
running up and down their crooked backs, sweet and alive in the sun.
─Mary Oliver
Seeing Through the Eyes of the Divine
Tuesday, December 17th, 2013
“What you seek is seeking you.” ~Rumi
In this moment, we are both (extra)ordinary and exceptional. In every moment, we are love. When we forget, all we need to do is breathe. Breathe ourselves back to self-love. Follow your breath and let it lead you – home to yourself.
If you really listen, you can hear the universe singing to you…you are loved. And so you are.
I am the one I have been waiting for – I am the one I have been seeking. And I am the one who I have been learning from all along.