Tag: open heart

The Changing, Yet Familiar, Landscape

I was born in Illinois and grew up in a rural area where farms, cornfields, and scattered houses dotted the landscape. My parents built their home on five acres in the countryside, not far from a small town where I subsequently went to school. My daily life was spent mainly outdoors, playing among the trees, fields, orchards, and gardens my dad planted. It was a small paradise, which I still hold in my heart and have gravitated toward in other places and other landscapes over the years.

As an adult, I’ve lived in or near urban areas (mainly Boston and San Francisco). I’ve loved the convenience and ease of living where I could walk everywhere or take public transportation. Neighborhoods with small gardened spaces and trees around the buildings or houses. Corner stores. But it has been the parks and nature sanctuaries where I have spent much of my time. That was the balance for me, a place to live where I could walk as well as visit natural settings. Easy access to buses, trains, and an airport where I could travel to other places in the world. The towns and yards changed over the years, west and east coasts, but each one seemed to fit my life at the time. Even a few years in Florida recently provided an entirely different experience of Nature.

After moving back to the Boston area three years ago, Anne and I began to look for an affordable place to live, in the midst of rising rents. That meant living further away from the city. We eventually found a place we love, but it has meant an adjustment in how we live our daily lives. There are no neighborhoods or corner stores like those we were used to. Instead, an almost rural landscape stretches around the small group of condos where we live: woods, fields, small houses, roads, and occasional shopping plazas. There is a town about a 50-minute walk away with a train to Boston and Cambridge (which I greatly appreciate!). We are grateful for so much here (birds in the trees outside our windows, open skies clearly visible, quiet), but the walkability factor has required us to let go of previous parameters and expectations.

In doing so, suddenly, one morning I was reminded of my own childhood home. We lived in the country, a rural area not that different (except for the cornfields!) from where we live now. School buses took me in town to school. My parents drove to local markets, etc. Trees surrounded our house. Have I come full circle, returning to a distantly familiar landscape, one I have to accustom myself to but that from that perspective becomes newly interesting?

Life is full of surprises and replays and new beginnings that remind us of past experiences. Everything is both old and brand new in our lives. There is nothing on Earth that has not been lived before in some form or another, and yet at the same time every experience feels like a new discovery. We have lived many lives, within this one and among those in the expansive past of the planet. Often that sense of deja vu touches our hearts deeply and opens us to possibility and a fresh outlook on daily life.

That is where I am now. I am living changes, centered in a new present. Simultaneously, I am being reminded of the rich and diverse past I have already lived. In the distance, a train whistle evokes both past and present-moment awareness. Landscapes shift throughout our lifetimes, and within that motion is the purpose of every life: soul expansion and recognition of our commonality in all experiences and all lifetimes. In that, we realize that every moment, every landscape, is a gift of grace.

This Is Life, Now

In a conversation with my doctor at my annual physical, we talked about various things, including the current state of the world and how people are reacting. We agreed that in order to get through these tumultuous times, individuals don’t need prescriptions or palliatives, distractions or diversions. This is just the way life is now. It is what we are experiencing on Earth as our species and planet evolve. And there is more change to come. Within change is hope, possibility. If I focus on accepting each moment and envision the light ahead of me and within me, hope opens up in my heart. Peace becomes tangible. I can feel it and glimpse it in the world.

That seems to be the wisest perspective for me, as I negotiate my day-to-day life through change after change. My feelings are unpredictable, not necessarily tied to a specific event. I’ve thought perhaps it is post-traumatic stress, after surviving breast cancer, three years of a pandemic, the passing of dear friends, as well as the ongoing challenge of a country (and a world) at war with itself. Or, more immediately, it could be tied to the fact that Anne and I are in the midst of a move between two towns, each very different from the other. Our third move in five years. We are trying to get our bearings, feeling our way. Not everything is cohesive or understandable. It’s a mix.

For instance, across from the building where we live are thick woods on adjacent land. From our deck we can see blue jays and robins in the trees and stunning blue skies above. Each morning the view is lovely, the sky and clouds ever-changing. Our neighbors are friendly and welcoming, one bringing us homemade pumpkin bread the day we moved in. Meanwhile, down the road is a pistol and rifle club where we can hear gunfire in the distance if we are outdoors. A few yard signs advocate stopping a state bill that would tighten restrictions on gun possession and sales. Unsettling, to say the least.

Two or three miles away, the public library has an excellent educational display about books now banned in the U.S., including The Color Purple, Beloved, To Kill a Mockingbird, and books with LGBTQ content. Many libraries and bookstores in Massachusetts and elsewhere have such displays and encourage people to buy and read these books, which are often literature classics. In addition, a number of cities (like ours, thankfully) have passed ordinances in support of the LGBTQ community. All of this is life now, for us.

The other morning on my daily walk, I encountered a woman, also walking, who began to talk to me in Chinese about all the weeds and plants at the edge of the woods, breaking off leaves and pantomiming rubbing them against her skin. “For healing?” I asked. She nodded and continued her explanations, not seeming to mind that I didn’t know Chinese. I listened for several minutes until she finished, and as she turned to walk away, I thanked her for sharing her knowledge. This too is life now: strangers speaking to each other in different languages, not fully understanding but listening just the same.

Could it be that my entire consciousness, as well as our global consciousness, is experiencing a major shift of Earth-quake proportions? Everything is changing, and nothing will remain the same, including how we perceive and how we listen, who we think we are and how we think. We may continue to face challenges and fear-based events, but if we look up at the heavens and in each other’s eyes, we can find inspiration, strength, and the courage to continue. All I can do is wake each morning with an open heart and peacefully surrender to my soul’s life journey and what the day brings. This is my life, now. This is our life now.

Lost and Found

This morning I am looking out my window at green and gold woods, blue skies, and white clouds. Blue jays fly from oak tree to oak tree, gathering acorns for the winter; a red-tailed hawk circles overhead. The sound of crickets fills the air, day and night. I live now on the opposite side of Boston from where I lived two months ago. A move from northwest to southeast of the city, one we had pondered for a while, not sure exactly where but knowing it was time, because of rising rents.

So now the trees and sky I viewed in the summer are completely different, leaves changing color in the autumn, sun setting sooner. Our lives change in just these ways. One day we call one place home; the next it is a memory, and we live elsewhere. A memory, though, that tugs at my heart in this moment, separated from an area that was familiar for so many years (40+). Within that frame, I sometimes feel “lost.”

We don’t detach so easily from a place felt at our core as home. We carry the ache within us, even as we step decidedly on a new path. I greatly loved the town I lived in, my favorite “home” from all the years of living coast to coast in various cities and towns. I was one with Nature there in a way I hadn’t been since my childhood in the Illinois countryside. I gardened daily (hands in the earth, flowers all around) and walked in beautiful sanctuaries like Mt. Auburn Cemetery, where the seasons, animals, and birds dance through the year with a vividness and light beyond description.

So what do you do if you feel lost? Do you try to be found, or try to find—yourself? Words and language can sometimes trick us into believing there is something missing in our lives. Perhaps it’s not about losing and finding but just about being. Fully present, fully alive. If I think I am lost, I look for what is missing, when actually everything is always present all the time! Home is in my heart if I recognize it there.

So here I am, gazing out at a forested landscape. The sky and clouds are stunning. My heart may not feel completely one with what my eyes see—yet. It takes time to find and feel connection, with people and with places. So I wait patiently, with a mix of feelings, knowing that all it takes is a single moment of shining brilliance to fall in love with what you are seeing and experiencing.

These are the moments we live for. And they always come at the most unexpected times. You can’t orchestrate them or wish them into being. You can only repeatedly remind yourself to remain open and that no matter what you are doing or not doing, or where you are, your soul is at home and experiences the miracle of living spirit everywhere. Even now, the blue jays are calling, their silhouettes bright among the trees….

Miracle Earth

Stop for a minute and consider where you are. You, along with billions of other living beings, live on a planet that rotates around a giant ball of fire at exactly the distance that allows for life to occur on it. Other planets circling the same fiery ball are not positioned so that life as we know it can be sustained. On Earth, the greens of the land and the blues of the oceans arise from the perfect blending of temperature and light. The lengths of the days and nights and the seasonal changes unfold seamlessly. That in itself is a miracle. Each day we take morning, afternoon, and night for granted. We take the warmth of the sun for granted. We take the air that we breathe for granted. Yet all of it is miraculous.

And fragile. We are repeatedly counseled to care for this Earth with tenderness, as if she were our Mother. As she is. Without her (and Father Sun), we would not exist. This small blue and green marble in the midst of millions of galaxies and universes is unique. A tiny cell in the cosmos. An expression of universal consciousness, as are each of us who live here. Is this not a miracle to keep us in awe for the rest of our days here on Earth?

Sometimes I imagine myself floating among the stars, multiverses stretching in every direction beyond my ability to even fully conceive of them. I picture myself part of an infinite tapestry of light and beingness. Eternity unleashed. Such an imagined vision used to frighten me—and at times still does. Yet, more and more, I feel the miraculous beauty of it, and I am filled with peace. Peace beyond understanding or definition. I experienced such boundless peace in the recovery room after breast cancer surgery two years ago; I felt myself held by a Presence that both calmed and comforted me.  Ever since, it seems not that far away. If I allow that awareness to arise from soul memory, then everything shines with that grace, that divine peace, that miracle. There is nothing else.

If you open your heart wide enough (or it is cracked open by circumstance), you will be gifted with your own version of the miraculous, and it will never leave you. Each one of us on this planet is destined to receive this wonder: an entire universe present in every seemingly small detail of our expansive, infinitely unfolding lives.

And you don’t have to go through surgery to experience it! Take a walk through the spring woods, look up at the starry night sky, watch the brilliant colors of a sunset, or share a sacred moment of connection with a loved one. It’s all there, right before you. Spirit finds you at just the right moment in your life and opens the door wide. You were born on planet Earth to be part of the miracle.

A Perfect Life

Growing up in middle America in the 1950s and 60s (as I did), the standard for perfection was: husband, wife, children, house with a picket fence, good job, money in the bank. We were taught to aspire to that, to see it not only as perfect, but “normal.” In addition, the silent subtext was: white, heterosexual, Christian. Anything outside those tight parameters was viewed as suspect, not a perfect American-dream life.

What if you don’t fall into any of those descriptions? What if you don’t want any of those things? What if that version of “normal” feels untrue or excluding? In the late 1960s and 70s, individuals began to break through those stereotypes and claim different versions of perfect. Normal became an outdated concept, and diversity took its place. Diversity in race, religion (or none), nationality, gender, sexual preference, physical ability, age, job descriptions. Male/female stereotypes and roles began to change. Same-sex, gender-fluid, and mixed-race couples were able to live more open lives as political movements affected attitudes and expectations. Many people chose not to marry or have children at all.

New options appeared, but a number of deeply ingrained viewpoints remained. There is much yet to be transformed within our social structures. Nevertheless, change is still occurring; hearts are opening to kindness and inclusion. We are gradually bridging into a more expansive, loving future. In the meantime, how do we view our lives? What is “perfect” in the context of the world we currently live in? Maybe that is an idea, a goal, that needs to be redefined—or disappear entirely. Perhaps perfection as we have always viewed it is an illusion that only keeps us dissatisfied and looking outward for happiness and peace of mind.

Perhaps “perfect as is” is a more useful perspective— being human exactly as we are. Instead of looking at ourselves and life events and asking “What’s wrong with me?” or “Why is this happening to me?” we can view every situation as part of our soul plan, all with a purposeful design, which may not reveal itself immediately. Trust is necessary. Our minds think we know what’s best, based on what we’ve been told all our lives, but our hearts often know better. And our souls know that we were born to live the exact life we are living. Ever expanding, ever evolving.

When I look at my life that way, judgment and comparison fall away. I am not aspiring to change how everything is unfolding in order to meet some preconceived idea. Over the years, I have learned to surrender to the flow of each day’s events and to any feelings that arise. Whatever is before me and within me is what I’m meant to experience. The spiritual journey I have been on for many years has shown me that my soul is the source of my life’s direction and when I am guided by its wisdom, I am centered in inner peace and calm. If we listen, each of our souls directs us wisely. Your life is perfect as is.