Tag: peace

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.

For the People

Howard Zinn is one of my heroes. History professor and political activist, he is the author of the groundbreaking A People’s History of the United States, published in 1980. For me, it was a welcome antidote to old textbooks that interpreted events through the eyes of those with power, money, and status. It is truly a “people’s history.” Zinn’s brilliant retelling includes the hidden histories and viewpoints of so many of those left out of traditional history books: Native Americans, African Americans, immigrants, women, civil rights and antiwar activists, striking workers. It has profoundly affected countless individuals over the decades (and was even mentioned in the film Good Will Hunting).

Now there is a new Zinn biography by Dave Zirin: The People’s Historian, The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn. Howard died in 2010 at the age of 87, still actively speaking and teaching, often touring with Zirin who assisted him as on-stage interviewer. I didn’t realize how much I missed Howard Zinn until I read this biography. His presence leaps from the page and engages you, just as he did as a teacher, speaker, and writer throughout his life. The magic of Howard Zinn was in the living legacy of his thinking and activism, which has inspired generation after generation of students in the classroom as well as those who read his books or heard him speak in person.

I heard Howard “live” several times in Boston and Western Massachusetts. His teaching background at Spelman College and Boston University, as well as his civil rights and antiwar activism, made him an outstanding anecdotal speaker. His comments were both incisive and informative, telling history from his own life as well as the lives of so many excluded from the accepted American narrative. He was not dogmatic. It was basic human sharing, which included positive, hopeful descriptions of those who stood up for their rights. I came away from his talks moved and encouraged about the possibilities for change and true freedom in this country. As did so many others. My partner Anne decided to use A People’s History to engage and inspire her students in a 1980s program for former high school dropouts (it worked!).

Howard Zinn is present within the hearts and minds of all those whose lives he touched in and out of the classroom. His dedication to person-to-person, non-hierarchical involvement in community and in all parts of life inspired the same in others. His words and understated sense of humor made the so-called impossible seem not only possible but the only “sensible” path. Read Dave Zirin’s biography to learn about (or be reminded of) the courageous, compassionate life of Howard Zinn. His voice, consistently “for the people,” is one we need to hear again and again, especially at this time in human history.
——————
• Another excellent book by Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. There is also a documentary about him by the same title (narrated by Matt Damon). Ask for his books in libraries and bookstores if you don’t see them so that they continue to be available.

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.

Growing Up Walden

One of my father’s favorite books was Walden by Henry David Thoreau. He loved Thoreau’s immersion in the natural world and his emphasis on a simple life. Recently, when I was watching a PBS documentary on Thoreau and his time living alone in the woods at Walden Pond, I remembered my childhood in Illinois and how my dad had created his own version of Walden on the five acres where my parents built a house nine years before I was born. The land had a number of old oak trees and a couple of streams running through it but was otherwise mainly open fields. By the time I was a young child playing there, my dad and mom had planted shade trees, evergreens, bushes, vegetable and flower gardens, a fruit orchard, and berry patches. The vibrant beauty of Nature surrounded me every day. Without realizing it, I was growing up immersed in Walden consciousness.

“Simplify, simplify, simplify,” my dad would often quote Thoreau. No wonder I inherited an aversion to complications and clutter—and a love of Nature’s beautiful simplicity. When I read Walden in college, it all came together for me. Thoreau’s writing, as well as that of other Transcendentalists like Emerson, aligned with my heart and soul. Thoreau’s small wooden cabin in the forest by Walden Pond seemed to call to me. A number of years later, I moved to Massachusetts, and Walden became a special sanctuary for me where I often walked the trails and gazed at the trees, water, and sky. In any season, it radiated peace and tranquility. It was as if Thoreau’s solitary spirit watched over and protected it.

When my parents flew from Chicago to Boston to visit me, two dear friends drove us out to Walden so that my dad could see it in person. It was a special moment for all of us because we knew how greatly he admired Thoreau and his philosophy. My father continued to plant mini-Waldens in other Illinois locations where my parents lived in later years. And I too have created “Waldens” in the various backyards (or porches) of houses where I have had an apartment.

Currently, my partner Anne and I live in a condo which faces a woods thick with deciduous trees and evergreens. Bird song fills the air when I open our deck doors at sunrise, and we hear spring peepers or summer crickets trilling after dark. Walden once again synchronistically surrounds me, the perfect circle of a lifetime. Early in my life, I learned that the wonders of the Earth are ever-present; every day I see them wherever I live. I am deeply grateful to Thoreau, my dad, and all those magical years of “growing up Walden.”
————
Artwork above: “Thoreau’s View,” by Anne Katzeff

Deep Dive or Distraction?

More and more these days, I find myself seeking empty space, deeper stillness within me and outside me. There are so many distractions in our lives now: news updates, emails, texts, apps, ads, online videos and articles, mental lists, busy streets, crowded stores. It can be a real challenge to find a place of silence and solitude where the mind and heart can be at rest. A sanctuary for the spirit.

Perhaps the key is to carry that sanctuary within. I don’t have to “seek” if it’s always inside me. And the more awareness I have of my own inner stillness, the more I experience it everywhere. Every sound can be a meditation bell calling me to quiet Presence. Every breath a softening into silence.

So my spiritual “practice” now involves asking the inner questions: “Does this take me deeper?” “Does it touch my heart and soul?” If not, it’s probably a distraction that it’s best to acknowledge and then let go of. Perhaps a hundred times a day. But with every letting go, I release with greater ease and go deeper. Deeper into nothing…

What is there to say about nothingness, within which eternity lies? We were there before we were born, and we’ll be there again after death. Actually we are there now too, but we are not fully aware of it. On a spiritual path, we gradually open our consciousness to the fullness of nothing, the depth and sacredness of it. As we grow older, we may realize there really is no separation, and in doing so feel a desire to consciously experience it completely within our lifetime: Emptiness and fullness as One. Oneness as all.

The poet William Blake expressed this seeming dichotomy perfectly: “To see the world in a grain of sand/And a heaven in a wild flower/To hold infinity in the palm of your hand/And eternity in an hour.” Maybe the poets and sages are the wayshowers here. In addition to the small children and wise elders who see oneness without a word spoken.

 All this is within each of us, in this present moment. Empty your hands and your mind, and stand alone with nothing but silent spirit surrounding you and within you. On the other side of distraction is the deepest experience possible of All That Is. This is heaven on Earth; this is everything, everywhere; before, during, and after life. Nothing in all its fullness.