Surrender and Embrace

A fallen Birch Tree embracing and supported by a Pine Tree.  As the day winds down and you close the door to today in your sleep, for a moment, pause and give thanks for those, who like the Pine offer their strength. And with the final inhale of wakefulness, a soft thank you to your heart for Her strength in surrender.


"May you be blessed with a wise and compassionate guide Who can accompany you through the fear and grief Until your heart has wept its way to your true self."  ~John O'Donohue

Eyes to the sky

The sky has been, will always be so translucent and blue. The sun brilliant and fiery orange. They make no excuses nor apologize for their appearance, their life or the gifts they offer and well aware of how often they go unnoticed.


 'Here I am. Here are my gifts. Opened or unopened, they are yours.'  


Do you think today would be different if we could be so giving and accepting as the sky and sun? If we approached ourselves, our partners, children, co-workers and strangers with the same self-acceptance and acceptance of them, no if, and, or fixing, just a blue sky and fiery sun spread over our lives and theirs- how different would it be? . Loving and embracing that our our own hearts, or they may respond as the blackened velvety night sky and luminous white moon. Love without definition. Love abiding. Love that sees only the sky.

Invitation

I must go and remove all the seed from the ground and feeders. The store was out of sunflower seed and I had to buy a mix with berries and fruits. The ants have discovered the banquet and the birds and squirrels can no longer eat. Last night sweltered in the oppressive heat, no air conditioning to cool the body, my head exploded as I tried to make eyes that cannot see, read about ways to display my feathers. I have images but there will be no other hands to do what mine cannot, but I will get what I see. I hung some of my photographs, that make me smile and feel the sacredness of being, in plastic sheet protectors, taking several hours trying to hammer or hold a tiny nail with a hand that will not grasp. I laughed to feel my mother’s shame of not having picture frames.

A litany of ‘have not’ and ‘cannot’? No, each one is an invitation. With a hand that tremors I extend my list to you. The invitation is that your open hand extends yours to me.  Take not my list and withhold your own. Nor will I take yours and in silence keep mine.  It is the exchange, the invitation and offering that heals. Oh yes, the ants may still be there, the feathers remain undisplayed, but the invitation, the offering and acceptance is what transforms the have not and cannot into Life itself. That is the beauty of the souls walking together upon this sweet earth.  Together….to gather. 

In Lak'ech - you are my other me.

I will remember

Towards the end of lap one around the park, I watched the elderly couple get out of their car, carrying a plastic bag and holding hands.  They placed the bag on the picnic table and began to pick up the fallen limbs from the weekend’s winds.  I quickened my pace as I passed them, to see what unfolded next somehow gave strength to my body which did not want to walk.  On lap two I saw a plastic jar of what looked like granola or cereal on the table and watched them as they sat with the birds, the grass and sun eating their breakfast.  I giggled to myself, even their chewing was in sync.  Seeing me, they nodded their heads and smiled, a gift I quickly returned.  Lap three found them sitting, hands folded in their laps, their heads barely turning to see all about them, their bowls, spoons and arms quiet like the morning.  Lap four left me breathless.  I could see her standing before a plastic pan and jug of water on the table.  She was washing their dishes beneath the trees.

And when their last season has passed, will anyone recall and honor the way they sat together and ate their breakfast?  Will anyone remember the sun and wind dancing in their gray hair and upon their weathered faces?  Will anyone stand breathless, save for the sound of a sweet tear falling upon their face, and remember how she gently washed their morning dishes beneath the trees…as he quietly watched her….with a smile?

The face I see

Most of the history written, philosophies, and social sciences come from the western world (Euro-American).  Recently there has been a counter force challenging the exclusive western perception.  For example, IQ tests and even personality tests used to diagnose abnormal behavior are based upon western ideals of normal and average.  One particular western ideal is individualism. You hear it everyday. “Be independent.” “Make your own decisions.” “Stand on your own two feet.” “Pay your own way.” “Follow your heart.”  Think of the pride Americans take in our history of forging out across the unknown lands to settle, populate and tame the wild west.  We are rugged individualists.  That is not the same concept or value held in much of the eastern world.  In the eastern culture, collectivism, or the group is the most important value.  It does not mean that you demean or diminish yourself as an individual but simply that the health of the group (family, community, society, etc.) takes precedence.  The collectivist point of view would not brag about individual accomplishments, would not promote one over the many. 

A very inadequate summary, my apologies.  But can you see how the two perspectives would write different histories, develop different philosophies and define normal differently? Even spiritually, can you see how their world view would differ from the western view? If the east –west concept is too vague, consider the rural farming communities of old built on cooperation of neighbors and embraced within an extended family of support.  Their individual survival, what was important, was the survival of all, together, a community.  Compare that view to a large metropolitian city like New York where most feel like a stranger to the other million or so people.  No nuclear families.  If you have more I must have less. Competitive and individualistic.

Is one view right or wrong? Is one healthy and one sick? Maybe we should just say they both are right and melt them into a stew of indicollectivism.  And where the hell am I going with such a pondering? The scientific Human Genome Project set out to map all the human genomes to map our evolutionary, biological and comparative history.  So far, they have identified only 25,000 or so unique genomes – they were expecting much more.  Of those 25,000 do you know we only have 300 that are unique from those of a mouse?  We are all so similar to all of life and yet we are so different.  Differences can be modified but the differences remain, perhaps even sacred to all of life.

When I say I love you or when I say you are my other me – who are you?  You have been shaped by your family. You have been shaped by your community, religion, school and experiences or even the color of your skin.  You are a repository of collective images, labels, definitions and perceptions of right and wrong, normal and not, good and evil, cans and cannots.  But you are also the individual I see, the individual I love, the person standing in front of me. And within that repository you have made choices that in many ways reshaped the collective influence, making you, you.  The you standing before me, holding my hand or my heart, may be the mouse in you, the collective and shared you.  Tomorrow, you may be the 300 genomes, shaped by your choices that make you uniquely human and an individual.  Both are you. It’s not that you bring your “baggage” or wounds, you simply bring who you are.  It is not a “take it or leave it” attitude, we all have rough edges we would like to soften and habits we know we need to change.  But it begins with acceptance.  It begins with the wonder and amazement as the “you” unfolds before me. So many layers. So much to discover.  Your vulnerability to let me see, so humbling.

My point? I chuckle, yes, sometimes I do think too much.  To say I love you or to embrace you are my other me means my heart reaches out to all of you, today, this moment, the face that you gift to me.  And in that embrace, that joining as one, we create a symphony not a solo, dialogue not a soliloquy, two yet one, and we expand, together, beyond what we were before the embrace.  In learning how to love myself I expand the love I can give to you.  You are my other me. You are not me. Like holding hands, it is more comfortable and warm when right holds left, awkward when left holds left or right holds right. But when the two hands slip and fold together, a link is created that makes them one.  You are my other me. You are my teacher. You are the telescope that opens up the universe or the submarine beneath the oceans opening up such a vast diverse universe.  You are the one hand slipped warmly into mine.

Here I am

So why did I create this space, where none, one, some or many may see?  When I walk in nature, through the wind, mud, sand, waves, sun, clouds, moonlight, trees, beaches, mountains and mesas, I see beauty, wholeness, unselfishness, compassion, nurture, symmetry, cooperation and rebirth.  I see gentle and destructive power but neither is arbitrary or acts from greed.  I hear symphonies of rustling leaves and grasses and the timpani of ocean waves, energetic and vibrating life against my heart.  And I ask myself why my life would be different and empty of the same?  Perhaps you too have believed yourself excluded.  If so, this space is for me, this space is for you, a daily reminder to hear the whisper of inclusion, beauty, life, love, persistence and renewal. Snippets and ponderings, mostly ramblings, as I try to learn, heal, grow and live with my heart opened to life.  Not there yet.  Some days I’m not even sure I have begun the journey.  This space is like my little line in the sand, a flag, a lighthouse or even a starting line.  When one of us should stumble, fall to our knees in disbelieving despair, we will know there is at least one other voice, joined with nature’s eternal promise, reaching out gentle hands and whispering, “It is so.” Time to affirm the healing.