I think my greatest act of love today was a small gift of love I gave my older daughter. She had been away for the weekend at a teen retreat through our church. She loves this trip. Teens from all over the region get together for a weekend and communicate from their hearts and are surrounded in love and peace. They participate in outdoor activities, do a talent show and have heart to heart discussions in groups. She always comes home glowing.
Then the post rally low hits. She’s a teenager, so that could be very dramatic, not to mention that she was tired from the weekend. She was feeling low knowing that she would go to school the next day and not be surrounded by all that love, all that acceptance. I can see how that transition could be difficult. I empathized but also gave her a slightly different way to look at it.
We talked about intention. I told her that I have found intention to be a powerful thing. She had a choice, she could continue to focus on the feeling of the low and missing the warmth of rally and that would be ok. However, we also talked about the idea of changing her intention from the inevitability of the low to one of taking all the love she is feeling and bringing it with her to school tomorrow. Now, she doesn’t have to approach it the same way they did this weekend and go around hugging everyone in the hallways, but she could bring that love with her and simply be that love tomorrow at school. That love doesn’t have to disappear right? It could continue to be shared. I mean just think about if all the kids that were at that retreat went to their various schools tomorrow and just let that love quietly shine from them. Think of the ripples of love that would make all over the region. It seems to me that it doesn’t necessarily take a great, dramatic act of love to share love, but perhaps instead the greatest act of love is simply to be the presence of love.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 9
I missed a day. I think maybe I didn’t write about yesterday because it’s a little more difficult to write about. It requires a bit more revealing of myself than I would like, but I made a pledge.
I’m a very empathetic person, and that may be an understatement. There are times when it feels as though I can feel other people’s feelings with and for them. There are times when I feel called to allow collective emotions from humanity in general to move through me, sometimes in words, sometimes in tears. I think that allowing, that movement, helps the energies to shift, even a little bit, which I’m grateful to be able to do. Sometimes though it’s very difficult, like when I did the writing about the Holocaust that I posted on this blog a couple years ago. I know it is my practice of peace that now allows me to be able to move through this process as gently as possible. That practice of peace has helped me to know there is a connection to peace within myself which is always present, always accessible. I worked with a visual of it for a long time, an anchor. The anchor was very solidly planted in peace and there is a long and very strong anchor line that connects to my heart. It was a visual reminder for me that helped me return to that place of peace again and again. It helped because it reminded me that I was never disconnected from that peace; there would be times when I couldn’t remember it, couldn’t feel it, but never a time when that anchor wasn’t there. All I had to do was remember the connection and I could begin to feel the peace flow again.
Yesterday was a day when it was difficult to remember my anchor of peace. The emotions and energy that were moving through me were a real challenge to stay disconnected from, they centered on the pain of violence we do to each other. The process is much easier when I remember not to allow the emotions to become my emotions, my energy. Sometimes though the feelings associated with the energy are so intense that it is difficult not to empathize and feel them. That is when I really need the memory of that anchor. Yesterday it took me a while to remember, to feel that peace again, to remember that there is love in the world. Yet, when I did feel it again, I was incredibly grateful for the path of peace I have been traveling, because otherwise it might have taken me much longer to remember.
I’m grateful in another way too. After all, the reason that I made this pledge was because I could feel a shift happening, a shift toward a new way of being in the world, that baby new Earth that I could feel. I suppose it’s no surprise that there might be what feels like turmoil during a transformation like that, and in the midst of that turmoil it is a wonderful thing to remember that I can always return to the memory of Peace and choose to live from there.
I’m a very empathetic person, and that may be an understatement. There are times when it feels as though I can feel other people’s feelings with and for them. There are times when I feel called to allow collective emotions from humanity in general to move through me, sometimes in words, sometimes in tears. I think that allowing, that movement, helps the energies to shift, even a little bit, which I’m grateful to be able to do. Sometimes though it’s very difficult, like when I did the writing about the Holocaust that I posted on this blog a couple years ago. I know it is my practice of peace that now allows me to be able to move through this process as gently as possible. That practice of peace has helped me to know there is a connection to peace within myself which is always present, always accessible. I worked with a visual of it for a long time, an anchor. The anchor was very solidly planted in peace and there is a long and very strong anchor line that connects to my heart. It was a visual reminder for me that helped me return to that place of peace again and again. It helped because it reminded me that I was never disconnected from that peace; there would be times when I couldn’t remember it, couldn’t feel it, but never a time when that anchor wasn’t there. All I had to do was remember the connection and I could begin to feel the peace flow again.
Yesterday was a day when it was difficult to remember my anchor of peace. The emotions and energy that were moving through me were a real challenge to stay disconnected from, they centered on the pain of violence we do to each other. The process is much easier when I remember not to allow the emotions to become my emotions, my energy. Sometimes though the feelings associated with the energy are so intense that it is difficult not to empathize and feel them. That is when I really need the memory of that anchor. Yesterday it took me a while to remember, to feel that peace again, to remember that there is love in the world. Yet, when I did feel it again, I was incredibly grateful for the path of peace I have been traveling, because otherwise it might have taken me much longer to remember.
I’m grateful in another way too. After all, the reason that I made this pledge was because I could feel a shift happening, a shift toward a new way of being in the world, that baby new Earth that I could feel. I suppose it’s no surprise that there might be what feels like turmoil during a transformation like that, and in the midst of that turmoil it is a wonderful thing to remember that I can always return to the memory of Peace and choose to live from there.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 8
It seems my peace practices begin each morning on my walks. That shouldn’t surprise me really since my walks are a form of meditation for me. As I was walking this morning, I crossed the street and noticed a variety of allen wrenches in the road. They were spread around as if they fell off the back of truck and had scattered. Most of them were where a car would park along the side of the street but a few were in the main part of the road. My heart nudged me to pick them up, but my brain said, “Well they aren’t really in the street and they aren’t sharp, it will be fine.” So I kept walking. I got as far as the sidewalk when a car drove by. I heard the clink of metal hitting the pavement as a tire drove over one of the wrenches. “Sigh,” says my head, because now it knows I will heed my heart as I should have done in the first place. So I turned around and picked up every wrench I could find and put them in a neat pile on the curb in case anyone came back looking for them. As I picked them up I knew that some of them really could have punctured a tire if they turned up as a car drove over them.
As I walked away I thought of a story my daughters and I listened to recently, Ella Enchanted. (It’s nothing like the movie by the way.) Part of the story talks about big magic and little magic and how you have to be careful of big magic because you never know how it will change things. For instance, if you changed the weather one day it could impact crops and people could starve when you thought you were just making it sunny for your party. Today was just little magic. Either way I don’t always know how my magic or choices for peace and love will impact others. I’m ok with not knowing because the part that I do know is that every choice for peace and love creates more peace and love in some small way. My heart already knew that and that’s enough knowing for me.
As I walked away I thought of a story my daughters and I listened to recently, Ella Enchanted. (It’s nothing like the movie by the way.) Part of the story talks about big magic and little magic and how you have to be careful of big magic because you never know how it will change things. For instance, if you changed the weather one day it could impact crops and people could starve when you thought you were just making it sunny for your party. Today was just little magic. Either way I don’t always know how my magic or choices for peace and love will impact others. I’m ok with not knowing because the part that I do know is that every choice for peace and love creates more peace and love in some small way. My heart already knew that and that’s enough knowing for me.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 7
There is a majestic tree that I sometimes pass on my morning walks. Its strength, height and beauty always catch my attention. This morning it caught my attention for another reason.
The leaves on it have just begun to turn a little yellow on the edges. As I was approaching it today, the sun was still rising, so the light was illuminating the tree from below. When I looked up it was as if every single leaf on that tree was lit up! It stopped me in my tracks it was so beautiful! So great was her beauty that I was barely cognizant of the approaching cars as I began crossing the street. I’m sure the drivers thought I was crazy walking around with my eyes to the sky but I couldn’t help it. Each leaf a shining light. It was truly glorious!
I was grinning like a fool as I walked beneath her and raised my face to absorb the glow. As I paused, bathed in her light I thought, each leaf lit, each life lit. There they stood, peacefully radiating their light into the world, and from my perspective, making my world better for their light. I continued on, peacefully radiating my light into the world. I’m sure I didn’t stop anyone in their tracks like she did, but I did let my light shine.
The leaves on it have just begun to turn a little yellow on the edges. As I was approaching it today, the sun was still rising, so the light was illuminating the tree from below. When I looked up it was as if every single leaf on that tree was lit up! It stopped me in my tracks it was so beautiful! So great was her beauty that I was barely cognizant of the approaching cars as I began crossing the street. I’m sure the drivers thought I was crazy walking around with my eyes to the sky but I couldn’t help it. Each leaf a shining light. It was truly glorious!
I was grinning like a fool as I walked beneath her and raised my face to absorb the glow. As I paused, bathed in her light I thought, each leaf lit, each life lit. There they stood, peacefully radiating their light into the world, and from my perspective, making my world better for their light. I continued on, peacefully radiating my light into the world. I’m sure I didn’t stop anyone in their tracks like she did, but I did let my light shine.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 6
I was reminded today that practicing peace for a new Earth means practicing peace towards all inhabitants of Earth, not just humans; even enormous, hairy spiders!
In general I am a great friend of the creatures of Earth, especially birds. I was just having a conversation with my daughter the other day about how I can’t stand to kill bugs, despite the large quantity of fruit flies that have taken up residence in our kitchen. My daughters know this already because they have watched me capture bugs and release them back outside. For me it really is part of my practice of peace, because truly I don’t think killing anything is peaceful. I find it a real challenge in the summer in my mosquito infested yard, and if I do react and swat at one I feel badly afterward. I still have a memory from my childhood of an afternoon when I was playing outside and there was a colony of ants climbing up the trunk of a birch tree in our yard. I remember killing many of them with a stick - why I’m not quite sure other than I was a child and saw ants as pests. However, I also remember afterward thinking of it from their perspective as the great ant massacre and feeling badly about the ants who were left alive and had lost their family. I didn’t see it as a lesson in peace at the time, but I felt so badly about it that I remember it to this day.
Peace toward all the creatures of Earth has been on my mind this week because of the robin I wrote about the other day, the snake I saw flattened in the road on my walk yesterday and the many squirrels I’ve seen dead on the roads lately. They helped me remember that the truth is it’s not just our planet. We share it with many others. It is their space as much as it is ours. Some of their species evolved long before ours. Yet it seems we don’t always share the space peacefully, but rather see them as intruders in our space.
That’s the way I saw the enormous, hairy spider in my bathroom this morning. Spiders are one creature that I don’t exactly like to be in close proximity to, though I do like the lessons spiders can teach. Today I remembered my lessons of living in peace and sharing space as I ran as fast and as peacefully as I could out of the bathroom. Perhaps as I practice more, next time I will only walk quickly away, grateful for a chance to share the space of peace.
In general I am a great friend of the creatures of Earth, especially birds. I was just having a conversation with my daughter the other day about how I can’t stand to kill bugs, despite the large quantity of fruit flies that have taken up residence in our kitchen. My daughters know this already because they have watched me capture bugs and release them back outside. For me it really is part of my practice of peace, because truly I don’t think killing anything is peaceful. I find it a real challenge in the summer in my mosquito infested yard, and if I do react and swat at one I feel badly afterward. I still have a memory from my childhood of an afternoon when I was playing outside and there was a colony of ants climbing up the trunk of a birch tree in our yard. I remember killing many of them with a stick - why I’m not quite sure other than I was a child and saw ants as pests. However, I also remember afterward thinking of it from their perspective as the great ant massacre and feeling badly about the ants who were left alive and had lost their family. I didn’t see it as a lesson in peace at the time, but I felt so badly about it that I remember it to this day.
Peace toward all the creatures of Earth has been on my mind this week because of the robin I wrote about the other day, the snake I saw flattened in the road on my walk yesterday and the many squirrels I’ve seen dead on the roads lately. They helped me remember that the truth is it’s not just our planet. We share it with many others. It is their space as much as it is ours. Some of their species evolved long before ours. Yet it seems we don’t always share the space peacefully, but rather see them as intruders in our space.
That’s the way I saw the enormous, hairy spider in my bathroom this morning. Spiders are one creature that I don’t exactly like to be in close proximity to, though I do like the lessons spiders can teach. Today I remembered my lessons of living in peace and sharing space as I ran as fast and as peacefully as I could out of the bathroom. Perhaps as I practice more, next time I will only walk quickly away, grateful for a chance to share the space of peace.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 5
Today I’m working hard on peace; only not in a way I anticipated. I am working with the understanding that inner peace is not the same thing as being peaceful towards yourself. I’m certain that one must be peaceful towards oneself in order to really have inner peace, but I just never thought about it that way before. Somehow I had separated out the spiritual journey of peace from the physical aspect of peace, of treating the vessel peacefully.
I have a tendency to push myself and take on a lot. I have gotten much better over the years at saying no to at least some things I’m asked to do, in order to honor myself and the time I need with family or the need for down time. Well, let me clarify that, I’ve gotten better at saying no to others, but not so good at saying no to myself. I’m learning that clearly today as I’m feeling quite exhausted, but hadn’t honored that feeling enough over the past week to allow for much renewal time.
Now how does that contribute to the peace in the world, you may ask? Simple I would say. If I can’t honor myself, how can I truly honor another? If I can’t be peaceful toward myself, how will I truly be peaceful toward you? For me, peace is a practice and that practice begins with me and moves out from there. Right now I am really feeling the knowing that it doesn’t only begin with practice of inner spiritual peace, but also with the practice of inner physical peace through rest, renewal time and making nourishing choices about what I put into my body in the form of food and drink. In honor of that harmony of physical and spiritual peace and so I can better offer that peace to the world tomorrow, I will post this and go rest!
I have a tendency to push myself and take on a lot. I have gotten much better over the years at saying no to at least some things I’m asked to do, in order to honor myself and the time I need with family or the need for down time. Well, let me clarify that, I’ve gotten better at saying no to others, but not so good at saying no to myself. I’m learning that clearly today as I’m feeling quite exhausted, but hadn’t honored that feeling enough over the past week to allow for much renewal time.
Now how does that contribute to the peace in the world, you may ask? Simple I would say. If I can’t honor myself, how can I truly honor another? If I can’t be peaceful toward myself, how will I truly be peaceful toward you? For me, peace is a practice and that practice begins with me and moves out from there. Right now I am really feeling the knowing that it doesn’t only begin with practice of inner spiritual peace, but also with the practice of inner physical peace through rest, renewal time and making nourishing choices about what I put into my body in the form of food and drink. In honor of that harmony of physical and spiritual peace and so I can better offer that peace to the world tomorrow, I will post this and go rest!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 4
Love was a theme throughout the day today. This year in particular I have been reminded again and again how precious life is. Today seemed full of those reminders. I found out that a friend’s Mother passed away. Really I prefer the idea of transitioning to another form of energy, but that is irrelevant when compared with the loss and grief her family is feeling. Yet, my friend and her family were by their Mother’s side when she surrendered this life. What an amazing and yet difficult gift for them all. To be able to be there, in love and to honor her as she leaves is a wonderful thing, even if it doesn’t necessarily feel wonderful in the midst of it. We have a tendency to have an aversion to the dying and death and yet to hold someone in your heart with love and to send them off onto the next part of their journey with that love surrounding them, what could be more loving than that? So I was glad to hear that my friend had been by her Mother’s side, glad for them both.
I am letting it serve as a reminder to me to appreciate each moment with the people I love, with the warmth of the sun, with the song of the birds, with the laughter of children, with a gentle breeze, with the purr of a cat, with connection to all my human family. Even though I do make a conscious effort to be present in the moment, being human, I don’t always succeed. When my daughters come home from school am I focused on what they are saying the minute they come in and want to share? Not always, sometimes I’m working and only half listening. Do I take a moment to hear the birds when I awake in the morning, or am I too grumpy that the alarm went off so soon? Do I treasure each moment with the people I love? I will be more aware of it now, hopefully. And I don’t mean to get so lost in the appreciation that I’m still not being present, but just the awareness that the simple act of being present with another is a way of appreciating them and the gift of that moment. My heart sometimes reminds me of opportunities I’ve missed with a gentle ache that says, pay attention. I hope to lessen the potentially greater aches of having missed precious moments by heeding the smaller nudges now.
I am letting it serve as a reminder to me to appreciate each moment with the people I love, with the warmth of the sun, with the song of the birds, with the laughter of children, with a gentle breeze, with the purr of a cat, with connection to all my human family. Even though I do make a conscious effort to be present in the moment, being human, I don’t always succeed. When my daughters come home from school am I focused on what they are saying the minute they come in and want to share? Not always, sometimes I’m working and only half listening. Do I take a moment to hear the birds when I awake in the morning, or am I too grumpy that the alarm went off so soon? Do I treasure each moment with the people I love? I will be more aware of it now, hopefully. And I don’t mean to get so lost in the appreciation that I’m still not being present, but just the awareness that the simple act of being present with another is a way of appreciating them and the gift of that moment. My heart sometimes reminds me of opportunities I’ve missed with a gentle ache that says, pay attention. I hope to lessen the potentially greater aches of having missed precious moments by heeding the smaller nudges now.
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