Each Moment the Sky is Different

There was a magenta strip of sky the other morning, with shades of purple intermingling the incoming blue. How is it that we are given such majesty?

Each moment the sky is different.  I marvel at the gift of witness, the gift of wisdom, that impermanence is the way of form, and beauty is the eternity within it.

There are times when we ache for the law of impermanence to get on with changing the circumstance.  There are times when we ache with the loss of impermanence as something changes too quickly.  But within the aches of comings and goings there is the knowledge that life has welcomed us into the dance.

There is beauty to behold.  There is love to dare.  There is eternity within.  Blessings be.

Blue Notes in Holiday Cheer

Holidays are ritual signposts in our life journey.  We mark our years by them.  Holidays are also cultural imperatives, and in December, you just plain can’t avoid them.  The  dominant message in Western Culture  as we walk the streets, or tune into the media, or shop for food is give, give, give, buy, buy , buy, party , party, party, joy, joy, joy….We are also called, within this urging to celebrate (and spend money doing it) to find our own strength for goodwill, peace and justice in the world.

The holidays can be a strain for those struggling to find that inner strength – a struggle for those without the comfort of friends or family – a struggle for those who have lost their ability to hope, or feel free, or find their stride.  When loss is heavy within us, we might sense that something is missing in our formula for joy, whether it be the loss of a loved one or a relationship, a broken marriage, or perhaps a sense of the lack of a place that feels like home, or a change in one’s physical ability or financial security.

The holidays hit hard on those who do not feel like celebrating – for those who do not feel the miracle of life, but rather the sense that life is long and arduous.  We can feel isolated when we do not find the rhythm of joy about us.  Things just cannot be the same – the way they were.

And you know what?  Loss is the end of the world as we know it.  Every moment is, in fact.  Grief is not about finding our way back to what was, it’s about finding our inborn strength to adjust to a new way of being and a more expansive way of seeing.

I love  J.K. Rowling’s rendering of “thestrals” in the Harry Potter series.  A person can only see thestrals if they have seen death.  We may think we’ve gone a bit crazy when we see things differently, until we meet another who truly understands.

So if your heart is heavy entering into this holiday season give it credence and find someone who understands.  Lighten your heart a bit with the company of another, either in person, in reading, in loving communities or a counselor.  Give yourself room – all of you – and joy, perhaps in tiny measures this year, will find a way, now and then, to emerge. 

Know you are loved.

Thanks Giving

Some years ago, I officiated a wedding in the couple’s backyard.  They had been together for awhile, already sharing a household.  They wanted to celebrate and affirm their life-long partnership with a marriage ceremony in the witness of their immediate families.  There is some acreage of woods directly behind their house.  The witnessing community and couple were facing those woods, 15 yards away from the patio.  The intensity of emotion and joy was palpable.  During the giving of rings, a deer ventured forth from the woods to see what was going on.  The deer approached this group of people and watched for a moment, then it went on back into the woods.  The couple had never witnessed this before -- the deer was actually checking out what was going on.  The timing was perfect, the upstaging poignant, and I incorporated the deer in the following prayer, since, after all, it was listening too.  I have no doubt that the deer sensed something important was happening, an aura of gratitude for life, I think.  A moment of grace.

If we speak aloud our gratitude or share in silence our thankfulness, we create an energy about us: a hopeful, compelling energy.  A moment of Grace. 

In the business of lives, we need to discipline ourselves to find moments of togetherness and of thankfulness in our lives, because it makes a difference, not only within our outlooks, but in the substance of our living and the energy we convey.

Thanksgiving is around the corner and the complexities of extended family living come into play.  Reminders of the disparity of those with plenty and those with none are also in the forefront of many minds.   In whatever situation we may find ourselves, whatever struggles we are in, whatever opportunities we enjoy, it is important to foster our thankfulness, to speak it aloud and share it in silence.  It is what generates hope and strength in our lives and moves us to cherish life in others.

As “Grace” may be requested at Thanksgiving dinner, and it may be an awkward moment, I offer two simple ones.  The first  was offered by close friends: “We love bread.  We love butter.  But most of all, we love each other.”  The other is one that emerged from our home ritual, which I gladly pass on to you: “Let us be thankful for the food before us, the love between us and the life ahead of us.”

Any intentional moment of cherishing community and/or claiming gratitude invites grace in.  May such moments happen for and with you  all year round.

Let Your Arrogance Go

Words by 14^th century mystic poet Kabir:

…you know the sprout is hidden inside the seed.

We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.

Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.

The blue sky opens out farther and farther,

The daily sense of failure goes away,

The damage I have to myself fades,

A million suns come forward with light,

When I sit firmly in that world.

(translated by Robert Bly. As listed in Coming to Our Senses, Jan Kabat-Zinn, p.481)

Interdependence

When sauteing some sausage one day, I began to connect all the aspects that brought me there to that moment.  The industry, the artistry, the sacrifice, the learning from countless people in irretrievable ways.  Someone invented the stove I was cooking on, others manufactured it, still another hooked it up.  Someone prepared the sausage for the market, and others grew the peppers and onions.  Miles were driven to bring these ingredients to me, from fields, through factories, onto grocery shelves and then home. 

Someone figured out that rice can be boiled with a hint of saffron to create a desired taste which I easily prepare.  How many failed cooking attempts were there before the combination was known?  How much time spent till I could find its beauty in 25 minutes?  How many people fell ill -- even died -- of trichanosis, until we learned that sausage had to be cooked, and made it possible for me to safely prepare it for my family?  How many others risked their lives to create the technology of streamlining propane into cooking stoves?

The pots, the cutting board, the counter, the lights, the utensils..each gifts of knowledge and skill that have come into the abundance of my life.  And what about the sun, without which none of this and none of us would survive.  How about the earth, the rain, the wind, the air....

Our lives are plentiful beyond imagining and linked beyond detection.  May we honor the interdependent miracle of the the moments we have on earth.

Ego says...

Ego says that my thoughts are the most important.

                Soul waits for me to reconsider.

Ego says I am on my own and must fend for myself.

                Soul waits for me to reawaken connections.

Ego says I must be who I am.

                Soul agrees.

Ego asks, “who am I?”

                Soul replies, “ Loved”

Hope

I was sent this marvelous poem today:

Hope

 It hovers in dark corners
 before the lights are turned on,
 it shakes sleep from its eyes
 and drops from mushroom gills,
 it explodes in the starry heads
 of dandelions turned sages,
 it sticks to the wings of green angels
 that sail from the tops of maples.

 It sprouts in each occluded eye
 of the many-eyed potato,
 it lives in each earthworm segment
 surviving cruelty,
 it is the motion that runs the tail of a dog,
 it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
 of the child that has just been born.

 It is the singular gift
 we cannot destroy in ourselves,
 the argument that refutes death,
 the genius that invents the future,
 all we know of God.

 It is the serum which makes us swear
 not to betray one another;
 it is in this poem, trying to speak.

 ~ Lisel Mueller ~
 (Alive Together: New and Selected Poems)