Category: Spiritual

Past and Present, Here and Now

I heard recently that one of my best friends from high school, Lyn, died a few months ago. I had not seen her for years, but so many memories of our teenage selves resurfaced. We laughed so much together, and yet she is gone now. At least her physical form is. I know her spirit continues somewhere in the great cosmos, but I am also aware of her absence, the end of this particular lifetime. Which of course reminds me of the lifetimes of all those I have known and loved in my life, past and present—and how quickly time passes, in retrospect. At 14, you have an entire life ahead of you. At 60 or 70, you wonder how the years went by so fast. When old friends or family members transition, it makes you appreciate those who are still alive even more. Your love and gratitude intensifies.

Last night, I lay awake thinking of my life partner, Anne, and the 42 years we have spent together. What I felt most deeply was that her love for me is one of the greatest gifts of my life. In joy or sadness, she is always there with me. I told her that this morning, with tears in my eyes. More and more now, she and I appreciate our love and the moments that make up our days and years together. Traveling the world or staying at home. Laughing or crying. All of it is such a miracle: that we found each other and have stayed together for decades. We “wake each morning with gratitude in our hearts for another day together” (our wedding vows, 2014).

And this is the yin and yang of life: grief and joy; love and loss; beginnings and endings, as well as what holds them all together, not opposites but rather one whole experience that stretches beyond past and present to infinity. And perhaps infinity is our “future perfect,” not a verb tense but beingness without parameters. It lives within our consciousness, indescribable in human language but informing all of life. We exist in the now and then, but our souls are forever.

These are the thoughts and feelings that come to me as I remember my friend’s life and look at my own life as a whole. We are so much more than we think we are, because the mind is limited in its perceptions. The soul, on the other hand, is limitless. It has no grief or fear about life and death or infinity because it is infinity. Deep within, we can feel a connection to that wise soul essence, which guides us through our human lives. Even as I grieve the loss of a lifetime friendship or celebrate a lifelong love, I am also touching the threads of a cosmic tapestry that is eternal. From that soul-full place arises peace and a trust in the perfection of All That Is, here and now, forever.

The Eyes of Infinity

On a few occasions in my life, I have experienced a shift in vision that allowed me to view the entire universe moving as one, every single detail connected to the whole in a symphony of synchronicity. The clouds, the cars, the leaves, the birds, the people walking by, all danced together, and I too was a part of the dance. It was extraordinary, breath-taking, life-changing. And that infinite vision has remained inside me ever since. Sometimes I wish I could evoke it consciously in my outer experience. Lately it has occurred to me that perhaps those moments arise from open-hearted soul awareness.

In the past, it felt like divine intervention, a magic wand waved—yet if God is everywhere and everything, then s/he is within my own consciousness, my own soul, continuously waving wands. The more consciously aware I am of this, the more I experience the world around me as magic, as wonder. When I remind myself that the sounds of noisy leaf-blowers and melodious crickets arise from the same Source and the golden sunrise and the evening shadows are reflections of one another, then I too become one with what I see and hear.

I was born with the Eyes of Infinity. You were too. This ever-changing and ever-constant vision includes the living breathing Earth and the cosmos that cradles it. What I see and what I don’t. No separation. When my heart opens wide enough to allow this ultimate oneness, then the music of the spheres takes physical form and dances all around me. The entire universe waltzes and rocks and break-dances. I feel the movement inside me and as far as my eyes can see and my ears can hear.

That happened to me before when fear about a health diagnosis cracked my habitual ways of experiencing life wide open, and I saw God dancing in the world before me. Today I felt all of it again as I looked skyward and consciously opened to that vision. You don’t have to wait for miracles. Actually, there are nothing but miracles all around you if you look and listen with the Eyes and Ears of Infinity. You are always in conversation with God!

This is what I’m learning, what I am being shown every day now as I lovingly choose the awareness arising from my soul. Beyond inner and outer, future and past, life and death; beyond every polarity ever invented to explain this world. When you and I open our eyes and hearts simultaneously, when we center ourselves in soul awareness, this is what we experience—infinitely.

Equinox Reflections

The Spring Equinox has just passed. It is lighter longer now, day by day. Every night, the sound of the spring peepers in the nearby woods fills the air. The buds of the forsythia, magnolia, and cherry trees are slowly swelling in size and turning yellow and pink. The witch hazel is in bloom, as are a few daffodils and crocuses. Red-winged blackbirds have returned, with their noisy ringing calls. The temperatures are warming, and there is promise in the air. Spring always lifts my spirits. Possibility reawakened. Life is hard, yes, but it is also beautiful.

This is the view I hold in my heart each morning. It helps me face the parts of life that aren’t so positive these days: so many people hating one another everywhere. Hatred is completely contrary to the human spirit, which sees “family,” not “enemy,” in the world. How do we keep that compassionate loving core alive now?

For me, it’s those tiny frogs and flower buds that give me hope. The spring bird migration, which I look forward to all year, also brings me joy and a sunny outlook each April and May morning as more and more birds arrive. Those extraordinary small winged beings who fly thousands of miles from Central and South America to raise families in North America. What a miracle each one of them is, their songs so beautiful and varied. The wood thrush’s song alone is worth a trip to the woods just to hear it. Ethereal, flute-like, pure magic. And the colorful warblers, orioles, tanagers, flycatchers, bluebirds, catbirds, and hummingbirds. Enough sights and sounds to fill you with gladness for a lifetime.

In spite of everything, there is beauty in our lives on this blue planet floating in space. So I continue to open my eyes each morning and smile as I look at the light from the rising sun on the trees outside my window. The cardinal is singing his cheery notes, as are the robins, goldfinches, and song sparrows. Humans may argue, fight, and judge one another, but the birds will continue to sing, as the flowers and trees reach upward with all their life force to the heavens above. Each one is a reflection of your own peaceful soul. Open your heart and allow the vibrant life force within you to expand with gratitude and love. 

Remember Your Heart

How do we live through difficulties and challenges with our life spirit intact? The current political landscape is full of such extreme divisiveness and hatred, both nationally and globally, that it is hard to feel optimistic about the future. Almost daily my heart is filled with sadness, and peace on Earth seems like a lost dream. Recently, as I sat staring out the window at a cloudy winter landscape, I sensed similar cloudiness within me. I realized then that I had felt exactly the same way in the late 1960s when the Vietnam War was at its height, and fiery race riots raged in Detroit, Newark, Watts, and other cities. The world seemed to be in hopeless conflict, and I couldn’t see how basic human rights, justice, equality, and peace could ever come to be.

Many others of my generation felt similarly, and it was the birth of movements for nonviolent social change and the possibilities they held that helped us survive. Civil rights workers and peace activists, flower children and feminists, began to grow in numbers (yes, I was among them). The vision we held for a more loving and harmonious planet moved us forward, our hands and hearts joined. Music, speeches, marches. Hope lived in collective actions by thousands against war, racism, sexism, homophobia, and environmental destruction. Over the years, gradual but significant changes took place, even nationally. The end to the Vietnam War. The first African American President and first woman Vice President; a more diverse Congress. Women’s health rights. Voting rights. Martin Luther King Jr. Day; Earth Day. Legalization of gay marriage. Rainbow flags across the country seemed to symbolize the possibility of a diverse and inclusive future for all.

 Yet systemic racism and injustice, misogyny, anti-Semitism, hatred of immigrants, transphobia/homophobia, and the rise of the 1% economic elite continued to grow and become stronger. Right up to the present, when it all burst out into high-profile predominance with the current elected (and non-elected) government and its single-minded focus on power and money. Decades of social change are being battered and broken. Once again I/we are facing hopelessness.

At times like this, we need to remember what lifted our spirits and helped us through in the past. The positive energy that inspired us and encouraged us to continue. In books, articles, speeches, songs, films, meetings, demonstrations—in hundreds of places across the country and around the world, we have been sustained by our individual and collective voices of hope for human freedom, equality, compassion, and love. This is our Survival Kit for Troubled Times.

This past week,  I watched two classic Frank Capra films from the 1930s: You Can’t Take It With You and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Both films are quintessential Capra: average citizens pitted against ruthless wealthy businessmen and unscrupulous politicians. They struggle against seemingly impossible odds and yet in the end, “we the people” prevail. Each film is a hopeful vision as well as a cautionary tale. One with relevance today. How many times over the years have people been called to stand up and refuse to relinquish the dream of a just and free world, a heart-centered humanity? Sometimes it seems like a horrible replay that we don’t want to relive, but we came to Earth for exactly this. With each generation, there is a shift, a further awakening into recognizing the basic oneness of everyone and everything, even in the midst of our differences.

We have to remind ourselves that possibility lives within impossibility. In her book A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit writes about groups and communities of caring, support, and mutual aid that have spontaneously arisen within disasters, both natural and human-made. As unlikely as it may seem, when everything falls apart, humans often turn to one another with kindness and generosity and build connections anew within great loss. Such stories belong in our Survival Kits, along with memories of our own strength and resilience, our own optimism in the face of pessimism. Maybe “hell” will begin to recede as our human hearts reach out to each other with hope and resolve. As my friend Heather recently said, “Remember your heart.” Everything we need is within us and among us.

My Parents’ Voices

Spirit lives everywhere, beyond time and space, life and death. It lives in present-moment awareness and in memory. It lives in the voices of loved ones who may no longer be living, reaching out and touching our hearts across the years. Every time it snows, for instance, I hear my mother reciting the first lines of James Russell Lowell’s poem, “The First Snowfall,” as she did at every new snowfall throughout my childhood: “The snow had begun in the gloaming,/And busily all the night/Had been heaping field and highway/With a silence deep and white.”

She was with me early yesterday morning as the snow fell in its silent beauty. With such simplicity, she taught me to love both Nature and poetry. And an added surprising gift: when I looked up James Russell Lowell online, I found that he is buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, my favorite spiritual/nature sanctuary in nearby Cambridge. The threads of Spirit were woven from my Illinois childhood to the magical hours I have spent walking through Mt. Auburn in quiet wonder among the trees, listening to birdsong.

I also have a vivid memory of my dad in later years sitting in his armchair and reciting these lines from William Blake, his voice breaking with emotion: “To see the World in a grain of sand,/And a Heaven in a wildflower,/Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,/And Eternity in an hour.” Those few deeply poignant lines embody for me all of life. And it was my father who first shared them with me, moved to tears by their beauty (as I am now). My parents are both with me, vivid and alive in these treasured poems and the accompanying memories of their voices and their presence.

Thus are we moved through our lives, touched by moments of connection with those we love and who love us. Touched by the natural world around us in all its magnificence. And spirit lives within each of those moments. It carries us forward through loss and pain, even when we feel most lost and alone. Suddenly the sun falls on your face as you walk in shadow, or a friend makes you smile in spite of sadness. Life is all of this. Spirit lives in your tears and your laughter. In each moment we hold it all within us, the memory and the vision before us now.

When we remind ourselves to keep our hearts open, it all flows seamlessly as one beautiful unfolding. I have not lost anything or anyone; it all lives in the spirit of life of which I am a part. A remembered voice or shared moment is a tap on the shoulder by Spirit so that we do not lose our way, and we realize fully how much a part of the universal intricately woven tapestry we are. Nothing and no one is lost. We live in the eternal “I Am.” Infinite consciousness forever expanding and filling our lives with spirit.