Tag: love

Clear the Fear!

I’ve become increasingly aware of how fear rules the airwaves and the collective mindset these days. So many people are terrified of “others,” as well as all that they can’t control in their lives. The media (both programming and advertising) feeds on and amplifies those fears. The mainstream news focuses on war, shootings, political fighting, disasters. Crime-solving drama series, filled with violence and gun battles, proliferate. Drug companies advertise medications to treat various conditions (including anxiety and depression), at the same time listing dangerous potential drug side effects (stroke, suicidal thoughts…). Interspersed among all the rest are promos for films with horror or terror themes. The ads alone can give you nightmares! 

These frightening images and stories stick to our brains and fill us with fear and hopelessness. Isn’t it time to turn our backs on this noisy onslaught of negativity and look to our own hearts for a more positive way to live life? Turn off the TV and computer, put down your cell phone, and take a walk outside in a park or nature sanctuary. Find your inner balance among the trees and flowers. Listen to birdsong and the sweet silence that surrounds you. Look at the sky, morning, noon, or night, for inspiration and a deep sense of something greater guiding the universe. 

What if the cosmos unfolds independently of our longing for control? What if it’s on its own trajectory? A vast, constantly changing kaleidoscope of colors and light, an infinite matrix within which our souls live diverse human lives on Earth. What if everything we see and experience is part of a divinely orchestrated pattern that we have yet to fully perceive? Human life may be our entry point to wisdom and awareness as we pass through fear, recognizing it for the illusion it is, and step into the “peace beyond understanding” described by the great sages throughout time. Perhaps we are on exactly the right path to finally see the love and light that has always lived within all of us.

Granted these are intense times with many challenges, including public and private tragedies, but don’t let fear freeze you and make you incapable of standing up for the integrity of your own life and life itself. Remember that ancient wise teachers have foreseen this era of tumultuous transition and rebirth. We are not here to destroy ourselves or one another. We are here to recognize fully the blessing that each of us is—and the blessing that our Earth home is. Feel connection with your neighbors. Beneath the surface of all the turmoil and headlines that seem to crowd our daily lives, something else is occurring: the emergence of love instead of hate, cohesion instead of friction, open hands instead of closed fists. It won’t happen overnight, but it’s closer than you think.

This afternoon I turned away from my computer and walked outdoors just as the sun was slipping toward the horizon. I paused as a dragonfly landed on my foot and moved its wings silently, reflecting the light. In a tree nearby, a chickadee was calling “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” as it made its way through the branches. Bluejays flew from oak tree to oak tree, gathering acorns for the winter. Moments like these center my heart in the spacious stillness of all Being everywhere. Any lingering fears of the day fall away, and I am reminded once again that Life is bringing me, and every one of us, Home. Free and clear.

Life as Drama…and Serenity

There are times when life feels like those famous drama masks that denote comedy and tragedy in theatrical productions. One mask is smiling, the other crying. On any given day, I can experience both laughter and tears, joy and sorrow. Sometimes both simultaneously. Each year brings new ways that life unfolds in all its dramatic diversity. Yet, underneath it all runs a balancing stream of serenity.

When I was growing up in the Midwest, I remember wondering, a bit fearfully, about the meaning of life as I looked up at the vast star-filled night sky. I wanted to be 9 years old forever, safely reading books in the branches of my favorite climbing tree. But I also wanted to travel the world. My life unfolded in ways that included both those ways of being, as well as extended spiritual exploration.

I continued to be an avid reader (and later a writer and editor) as well as a lover of Nature. I traveled extensively, swimming with wild dolphins in Costa Rica, whales in Hawaii; hiking Machu Picchu in Peru, the Alps in Switzerland. Vision quests in Montana and spiritual ceremonies with Maya elders at sacred sites in Guatemala. Over time, I came to realize that every bit of it was part of my soul’s journey for this lifetime, finding equilibrium among inner and outer experiences.

Growing older has brought unexpected challenges (e.g., breast cancer survivor), but ultimately these have taught me patience, acceptance, and resilience, day by day. Sadness about the passing of family members and friends, as well as apprehension about my own eventual death, are also part of aging. Still, simultaneously, my life is filled with so much joy and love: good friends, old and new, and my dear partner, Anne, with whom I’ve shared 43 years (!) of wonderful life adventures. Each morning we open the door to sunlight over the treetops and birds singing (robins, cardinals, song sparrows, goldfinches). Who could not feel grateful for blessings such as these?

I’ve learned that whether you are crying or laughing, 9 or 90, there is always some beauty to be found in the world (in spite of political conflict or personal pain)—in Nature and in the loving kindness of friends and strangers alike. At any time, I can set aside the tearful mask and pick up the smiling one; let go of worry and embrace trust. Each moment holds all of life. Sometimes we need to cry and release sorrow. But we also need to laugh and find the sweetness of life. And make our way to the inclusive space of neutrality and peace that lives within.

The soul is timeless, not attached to the human framework of hours/minutes; it is beyond circumstance and action/reaction. In our souls we are pure Presence, and we know we are infinite. The temporary form we inhabit while on Earth has experiences while the eternal soul observes everything. Eventually, it all blends together as One. Any separation is an illusion that we realize as we transition, or if we are fortunate, at moments of awakened awareness while we are still in physical form.

With each second that passes, with each precious breath we take, we can open our heart of hearts to a soul vision that will guide our lives to the serenity within the drama. We are here in our human lives to do just that. It is what is meant by Peace on Earth.

On My Way Through…

“Maybe all we really are is spirit, the spark that draws people to us, the trail we leave behind.”
—Steve Thomas, Spirits Passing Through

In the past couple of years, several friends of mine have passed to the other side, the inevitable destination we call death. In grieving their loss and in contemplating my own future transition, I’ve felt myself coming into a different awareness of living and dying: less specific, more undefined and free-flowing, without parameters. We know so little of what life and death actually are. We think of them as a beginning and an end, but that’s a mental construct. What if there is only Presence, which never begins or ends; it just is? What if humanity itself is one Spirit, made up of sparks that together constitute life on Earth?

I remember my deceased friends as the spirit they embodied in their human forms: dancer/poet, musician/painter, sculptor, political activist. Yet now, they feel greater than those particular creative expressions, more inclusive of all consciousness, within and beyond their individual lifetimes. The longer I live, on my way through the human experience, the more I too feel greater than my physical form and its expressions. I am a writer, but what I write comes through me not from me. And the love I feel for my friends and for my life has no beginning or end. There is an infinite Presence that permeates everything and everyone and stretches to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, and beyond.

I guess what I’m trying to describe is soul, which is at the core of all human beingness and makes itself known through the heart. When I love my life partner, a close friend, a beautiful poem, or a bird singing at dawn, my soul’s presence moves through me into the world. It becomes one with all I see and hear. Soul defies description, yet it fills the world with light endlessly. Our souls came to Earth to be embodied light, to individuate oneness for a lifespan and then flow back into the One.

Perhaps the longer we live, the more we touch on moments of awareness that stretch beyond habitual parameters and open us completely to the universe. Actually, we are the universe, all of it. The universe lives as our souls throughout life, death, and eternity. We know this fully when we die, but that wisdom is within us now. And our life experiences bring it forth. As my life unfolds, the door to infinity opens wider and becomes more welcoming, less frightening. I can see myself and every one of us as infinite spirits of Presence, on our way through, together….
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Note: Thank you to my good friend Steve Thomas for the wonderful quote from his CD Spirits Passing Through.


There Is No “Other”

Humans have invented all kinds of concepts and labels to distance themselves from one another and convince themselves they are somehow special or better. We view the world through artificial lenses such as race, religion, species, gender, sexual preference, age, nationality, politics; we see “other” everywhere we look. And, historically, not others to be accepted and embraced, but others to be avoided or ostracized, often to the point of war and genocide. Underneath it all is fear: fear of survival, fear that we, and our belief systems, will die while others survive. Ultimately, it’s denial of the impermanence of life. 

Throughout the decades, people have built statues, monuments, roads, bridges, and starred sidewalks, all with human names, to create the illusion of permanence, immortality. We get lost in identification with our own physical form and attachment to all the transitory forms that surround us. The human mind wants to believe it can make a permanent impression on the world and somehow survive the life/death trajectory. Everything seen as “other” becomes a threat to that desperate survival need.  Yet, we are all going to die eventually. No exceptions. Neither fame, wealth, nor power will keep the door from closing. Mother Earth herself may not survive in her present form. The universe is eternally fluid, and at the soul level so are we.

Sooner or later, we all return to the same infinite energy source from which we emerged. This Source goes by many names: Spirit, Soul, God, Light, Infinite Consciousness. Within it, there is no “other.” There is nothing but seamless Presence, Oneness. And actually, that Oneness is what exists here on Earth as well, behind the veil of form. Perhaps we came here, in these particular lifetimes, to realize that and fully live it now, as all differences become obviously insubstantial and dissolve everywhere around us. We begin to see that we will leave this life without any part of our physical form, including opinions, beliefs, likes/dislikes. In that awareness, there is no separation or polarity. When the illusion of “other” falls away, compassion and love emerge, and the full light of Source energy shines through us all.

This is the journey for every one of us alive at this time. To stop looking at others as wrong or right, better or less, likable or unlikable, but instead just another human version of ourselves, trying to understand life and mortality. To be fully human is to accept it all and let it all go—into the infinite Presence that makes up all things. There is no “other”; there is only each and all of us, together as One.

Finding Softness in a Hard World

We are constantly bombarded these days with images of violence, conflict, fear, and hatred, whether on the news or in films and TV shows. Varied voices surround us, advocating anger and defiance or peace and compassion—or all simultaneously. Each voice belongs to a human being wearing an identity costume that hides their vulnerability. As individuals and as a people, we are in distress. The world seems on the brink of destruction. Yet in the midst of it all, there are also voices that remind us that this is a transformative transitional time, foretold in ancient cultures. We are not here to perish but to prevail, as spirit, as light.

Sound like a fairy tale? A fabricated distraction that feeds inertia? I don’t think it is. Perhaps belief in a greater purpose to life and living will be what gives us strength and stamina to continue to live love and hope in a world divided into fragmented sectors of adversity and suffering. Birth pains bring new life into being. Thunderstorms and floods are often followed by rainbows and clear air. Not everything is as it appears on the surface. A hard shell covers a soft center.

If we choose soft instead of hard in every situation, we engage the softest part of us, the heart. And the heart, through which the soul is expressed, is also the strongest survival tool we have. The greatest sages through the ages spoke of the wisdom and power of loving-kindness. In the face of life or death, be loving, be kind. Ask, “Can I help you?” One small gesture or word, amplified, can shift the consciousness of a planet. This is why we came here. Not for the easy ride or the simple tasks, but for the challenge of speaking the softest words and offering the gentlest touch in times of fear or trauma.

On any given day, we have that choice, we have that soul responsibility. When the entire world feels harsh and unfeeling, remember the power of your heart and soul and the reason why you (and all of us) were born.