A new day dawns
Like a new page in the book of our life.
What words will grace our page today?
Photo by Beth
Tag: Reflection
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Remembering Toni Morrison
Today at the Unitarian Universalist Church, we watched this video on Toni Morrison, the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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The Birds have Vanished
The birds have vanished into the sky and now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. –Li Po
Happy 😊 weekend
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Duck, Duck, Goose
I stopped in Alabama today to enjoy the water and ended up with an entire greeting committee! 😊
Geese can fly especially high and symbolize the connection between heaven and earth, linking the ways in which we can unite our spiritual lives with the earthly and ordinary aspects of ourselves. They represent being both grounded and spiritual.
Geese symbolize strong attachment to family. They are very protective and will defend their family and territory, making them excellent guardians.
The saying “wild goose chase” comes from the fact that they are very difficult to capture.
The goose symbolizes fidelity and devotion, many times mating for life.
Being met by geese today reminds me of the message: “…you may be ready to take on the responsibilities of raising a family or committing yourself to a long-term partnership…” or, symbolizes the provision of “…a stable environment to act as a crucible for your creativity.”
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
Excerpt from “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
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The Courage of the Seed
The seeds of hopes and dreams are planted in our heart and mind where we nurture and tend their growth, day by day.
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Use your Past
by Beth Haley
In looking at common thinking on the topic of our past, I see the same messages over and over:
Leave the past behind
Don’t allow your past to limit your life
Don’t be controlled by your past
Don’t allow your past backstory to define you
Make peace with your past
Heal your past
How to move on
Leave your past in the past
These are all great, but I was looking for something different. I didn’t know what, but in the middle of this search, I came across a new message I did not expect. Perhaps not new so much as, approaching the topic of our past from a different angle.
Aditya Jaykumar Iyer says it like this: “Use your circumstances and your childhood memories to your advantage.”
We can accept the past, heal, and move on. However, we can also use it.
I have often thought about the memories and circumstances of the past and wondered what it was all about. What was the point? Yet those memories, liked or unliked, make up our story.
It seems that we often work for a separation from the past to start out new…? We want a divorce from what was. We segregate these memories or these circumstances (the past) and say, “You stay in the trash pile. You don’t benefit me anymore. Or, you never benefitted me at all. All I want to do is move on.”
But, what do you find when you analyze your life story so far… you might find that many things from the past have prepared you for this exact moment in time… that your voice is needed at this time, because you have something to say that no one else can say. Because there is only one you and no one else has your exact story.
After all, what is only half a story? If your story started today, you’d lose a lot of the background that made you who you are in the first place. What makes your voice unique? What have been the disadvantages and advantages that make you who you are? Your story, comes from your entire life, not just part of it, not from only the parts that you liked, but from the whole picture.
In working to move forward and step into new things, its funny, but:
“Life has a way of bringing us back a full circle.”
When outside influences want you to adhere to the status quo or to a certain standard, what is it about you, that brings you back to your own voice? If you revisit experiences you’ve had, you may find clues that were always there, pointing you in the direction of your path now.
“A path is not a straight line. It’s a cycle.”
Life has seasons. It changes and grows, twists and turns, but all of your experiences combined is where the depth of your story and the strength of your individual voice comes from.
Aditya Jaykumar Iyer may have been talking about careers, but I really liked this message applied to the overall topic of “Our Past”.
Allowing. Acceptance. These are struggle words for me. I always want to resist the things I haven’t liked or don’t like now. But I’m being encouraged more and more to allow and accept and use what was and is, to move forward.
Your past doesn’t have to be segregated, it can be sourced and used.
BH2019
I can also see in this message (allowing it and using it) the true meaning of: Make peace with your past.
Source:
Life lessons I’ve learned after doing 300 podcast episodes: Part 1
by Aditya Jaykumar Iyer -
I am my Breath
by Beth Haley
How many times do we think of who we are by what we have?
I am my bank account.
I am my house.
I am my corvette (I’d be a corvette).
I am what I’m wearing.
I am my bills.
How about disabilities:
I am disabled, instead of: I have a disability.
I am a Social Phobic, instead of: I have social anxiety.
I am my loss, instead of: I have experienced loss.
I am what I lack, instead of: I am grateful for what I have.
Dr. Alberto Villoldo, who devoted 25 years to studying the healing practices of the Amazon and Andean shamans, starts his mornings with this ancient shamanic breathing practice:
Inhaling, he says, “I am”.
Exhaling, he says, “My breath.”
In, “I am.”
Out, “My breath.”
The concept is that we start our life in this world with a breath. And at our last moment, we will leave this world with a final breath.
Paraphrased:
… when you take your last breath, at the very end of your life, you’re not going to be saying, “I am my bank account, I am disabled, I am my body, I am my job, I am my family, I am my name… No, you can go, “I am my breath,” and you will follow that last breath out…
“This is my practice,” says Villoldo.
“Otherwise I wake up in the morning and I go, “I am my to-do list, I am my emails that I haven’t responded to, and I am this problem that is going on right now””… when none of those things are who I am, although they may be what I have… “you can cultivate that identification with that part of you that will continue beyond this moment, and it can be tremendously liberating.”
I may not have that Corvette, but I also wont be paying the insurance on it either!
I hear my father’s words whenever he would see something really expensive, “That’s some nice debt!” It was a way of teaching us that what we have, we also need to be willing to pay the price for. And sometimes the price isn’t worth it.
I’d still be a corvette.
So who are you really?
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Inhale: “I am.”
Exhale: “Not a Corvette.”
Sigh. I digress.
Inhale: “I am.”
Exhale: “My Breath”
Inhale: “I am.”
Exhale: “My Breath”
Could I be a charger instead?
I listened to Dr. Villoldo speak on the podcast: My Seven Chakras, “How to Grow a New Body Using Shamanic Healing and Nutrition” with Dr. Alberto Villoldo
Corvette wish from angelic@pixabay
Charger dream from oktagon1@pixabay
Header Photo from johnhain@pixabay
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Balance
In times past, the Goddess was seen as a Trinity: the maiden or virgin, the mother, and the crone.
The virgin belonged to herself and was owned by no one. Sometimes she dedicated herself to spiritual service, belonging to a higher call, rather than to earthly attachments.
The mother was in touch with her creative powers, whether creating new life, art, creatively nurturing her environment, or by fulfilling many other roles out in the world.
The crone represented the wisdom of age.
Both women and men can connect to Goddess. To women, the Goddess represented their inner-self and the nurturing, receptive power within them. The crone represented not only wisdom, but also how all phases of life are sacred. To men, the Goddess represented a connection to female aspects within themselves.
We each have our own unique balance of male and female strengths within us. This balance is not one that can be dictated by others. Our true nature is inherent within us. When we accept our true self, it is, or becomes an instinctive knowing.
We were not born to be carbon copies that meet societal expectations. We each have our own distinct balance of male and female which makes us whole.
What male or female strengths do you have within yourself?
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Origami
by Beth Haley
From this blank square of paper, the zen question, “Who am I?” becomes, “What am I?”
This seemingly simple art can fold and unfold into many layers of meaning.
The end result is, not necessarily, as important as the process of creating. If we are mindful throughout this creative endeavor, we may each see something different.
“All things are given life and form.”
Religion in Chinese Garments by
The square is the uncarved block (Pu is a Chinese word meaning “unworked wood”). The Taoist meaning of Pu is: perception without prejudice and without the distinctions of right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, good or bad, black or white.
This square of paper is my uncarved block.
Transformation
Fold after fold. Crease and un-crease; a new creation is coming into being. Just like we can take the old lines and creases of our life and transform them into something new.
Memory
The paper has memory; it remembers its past lines. They are like scars on the soul. They may heal, but once there, those lines remain.
Self examination
We can unfold (turn back time), and remember our past. Then, make new creases and story lines to form a new shape, outlook, new picture, or a new present and future.
Haley 2019
Pilgrimage Studio 