Tag: inspiration

Mother Bear

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

My husband was giddy yesterday, talking about the football games that had happened over the weekend with his officemates. Mondays at the office can be rough, yet my husband seemed to be in a particularly good mood. Football is a unifier. Even if you aren’t a big sports fan, you still usually have “a team” because it is the team of the city where you live, or your city of birth, or the university you attended. You identify with your team and your fellow fans. You feel united with an energy bigger than yourself.

I know that this overwhelming outpouring for the Queen of England, before she is put to rest with Prince Philip, is hard for some people to understand. There is a reason why western civilization has evolved away from monarchies and aristocracies. The Queen herself was essentially a figurehead, yielding not much more than what they call “soft power”, which is more of an influence, than any right to demand. And there are a lot of questions as to whether the monarchy is even necessary, or should be supported, considering its sometimes sordid past.

I believe that the grief which is being shown over the death of Queen Elizabeth, the world over, is an outpouring of the loss of a long-standing, consistent, unflappable, dedicated being whom anyone could claim as their own favorite, if they so chose. In a world so full of change that seems to be happening at the speed of light, a world so full of stark polar opposition in our politics, a world that seems to be questioning and rewriting so many of our long standing traditions, laws, and rituals, we cling to the things that are steadfast. We cling to the people and the things that will be there for us, in some form or other, no matter what else is happening. We cling to football, and “the holidays”, and pizza, and classic movies and ageless songs, and the moon and the stars, and all of the things that have stood the test of time, because these are the things that unite us, and the things that we can mostly agree on (even with playful rivalries). In a world of heightened disagreement and divisiveness, we cling to the things that we can all dedicate ourselves to – we cling to the things that are available to all of us, to claim as our own. We cling to anything that reminds us that despite all of our differences, we all make up one humanity. We cling to the people and the institutions which allow us the shared security and enthusiasm to unite with each other, and to band together over shared loves and losses.

The whole world seems to have lost a symbolic, steadfast grandmother when Queen Elizabeth died. Just like our own grandmothers, she wasn’t perfect. She made mistakes. But she was utterly dedicated and dutiful to her family, to her responsibilities, and to what was required of her. There was no question that the Queen was on the watch, and she wasn’t going to stop, until it was time for her to pass on. I think that so many of us can relate. So many of us have been supported by strong, determined women, who see “their duties” out to the very end, with a steely dedication to do right, by what life has required of them. I mean no disrespect to my male readers here, but in my experience, it comes more naturally for women to fully dedicate themselves to something more than just themselves. Look at nature. No one wants to run into a mother bear. We have lost a universal mother bear. This hollow sadness and almost disbelief which so many of us are feeling about this loss of the longstanding queen – this sadness is something that actually unites us. And that is why we are carrying on our grief, as long as we can. Feeling united feels good, even in times of pain.

Monday-Funday

“In Irish when you talk about emotion, you don’t say “I am sad”, you say “sadness is on me.” “Tá brón orm” I love that because there’s an implication of not identifying yourself with the emotion fully. I am not sad, it’s just, sadness is on me ..” ~ Pádraig Ó Tuama

What a healthy way to look at emotion. The statements, “I am angry,” or “I am sad,” or “I am lonely,” take on too much ownership and identity. We are humans. We experience a myriad of different emotions every single day. One emotion may be more dominant than another for a while, kind of like a smothering blanket, thus, “Sadness is on me.” When you say it like this, you have the power to throw the sadness off of you, when the time is right. You can uncover yourself from the emotion that is lying heavy on you. Sadness is an emotion. You are not sadness. You are a beautiful spark of life, and of being, and of creativity who is capable of experiencing all sorts of emotions, and thoughts, and occurrences. It is good to feel your feelings, but you never want to become your feelings. When you do let your emotions take over the whole of you, it becomes too overwhelming, and it also diminishes your overall being, at the same time.

Janey Mack! Get off the stage! This is way too serious a post for a Monday-Funday, correct?! Here is another good one from the Irish, more in line with our usual Monday fun:

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

picture credit: Big G, Twitter

Even still today, there never seems to be adequate words for this day. There is this beautiful poem though, written in 2001, by a New York journalist named Kevin Powell. This poem is called “September 11th: A Poem,” I think that this poem is fittingly beautiful for a poetry day, here on the blog .

Might it be, as my mother said to me on this ugly, sinful day,

That the world is on its last go-round?

Hijacked wild birds strip the sky of its innocent morning breath

Steel towers crumple like playing cards on an uneven metal table

Unrehearsed screams we dare not hear leap from windows

Into the open, bottomless palms of God

I cannot stand to watch life reduce

Itself to powdery dust and soot lathering the devil’s inflamed mouth

But I am fixated on the television anyhow:

Is this what slavery was like?

Is this what the holocaust was like?

Is this what famine is like?

Is this what war is like?

Is this how you felt, dear mother, when King and the two Kennedys were killed?

I want to stitch up the sky, deny humans the right to fly

Cry until my tears have washed hatred

From the mildewed underarms of history

And I want to say to the firemen

Ah, yes, the firemen:

Your husband, your father, your brother, your uncle, your friend

Thank you for speeding to the end of

Your time and thank you for showing us that

Courage is a soul so unselfish it would

Scale a collapsing building to liberate a stranger

Even as your blood relatives wonder if you are alive — 

From the remains of this madness

I detect a heartbeat called life

From the remains of this madness

I smell an aroma called love

From the remains of this madness

I embrace a body called humanity

From the remains of this madness

I construct a dream called hope

From the remains of this madness

I will ride the wings of the deceased

Into the clouds, scribble their names on the sun

Erect a memorial to the moon, chant the blues

For New York City, then resurrect a world

Where a new-born rose will jut through the broken concrete.

Pot of Gold

I’m sorry to be delayed with today’s post. I had a “slumber party” at the beach with one of my best friends from college and I just got home. We have known each other since we were 18 years old. There is something very special and unique to lifelong friendships. We have shared a lifetime of getting to know each and every version of each other, as we have moved through the different stages of adulthood. So we delight in the growth in each other stemming from our lifetime experiences, and yet we also hold sacred the foundation of love and connection that we first felt when we were young ladies, meeting each other, and sensing that spark of kindred spirits.

We both are going through some major changes with our families growing up and having to make decisions about our next moves in our lives. We both have different stresses happening in our lives, yet we are hopeful and excited about the future and the unknowns which lie ahead before us. We were fortunate to wake up to a giant rainbow, glistening and shining over the water. A man at the pool remarked loudly about going out to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I looked over at my loyal lifetime friend, and I thought about how we first met each other at our wonderful university, and we had so many fun, shared experiences there. I thought about the lovely, lively evening which we had just spent together, getting caught up on each other’s lives. And I thought about both of our incredible husbands (whom we both also met in a college) and our beautiful children and families, and our amazing, mutually shared group of lifelong friends, and I thought to myself, “We already have our huge, gleaming pots of gold. How lucky we are! How truly lucky!”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Friday’s Majesty

Credit: Gregorio Catarino, Twitter Photographer of Queen Elizabeth, age 10, in July of 1936 was Lisa Sheridan

RIP – Queen Elizabeth II

“I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”

When we judge people, we often forget that we all started out the same, as innocent little children, new to this world and to this living experience. No matter what anyone thinks of the British royals, or of the monarchy, no one can deny Queen Elizabeth’s unwavering commitment to her duties, carried out with a deliberate dignified stoicism, from childhood on. It is difficult not to respect people who are wholly devoted to something bigger than themselves, for their entire lives. It is only when these people pass on, that their constancy and loyalty is fully and truly appreciated.

Happy Friday, friends!! On Fridays, I discuss favorites. Life is an experience and there are so many wonderful things to experience in a lifetime. My favorite for today is Karen Nimmo who is a clinical psychologist and writer from New Zealand. She has so many practical, no-nonsense self-help tips in her articles, her 4-minute therapy sessions on Facebook, and in her books. I always glean helpful wisdom whenever I take the time to read one of her articles or to watch one of her short videos (plus I delight in listening to her wonderful Kiwi accent). Her blog on medium can be found here: https://medium.com/on-the-couch And her Facebook videos can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/KarenNimmoPsychology (I see that she has already posted a video about grieving people whom you don’t even know, such as for Queen Elizabeth)

Have a wonderful, restoring weekend, friends!!!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

If You . . .

If you ever struggle with feeling like you are not doing “enough”, remember that you are just one tiny little cell of an immense, intricate ever-growing living organism. Do your own cellular function and know that it is enough. Know that your life is an important function to the life of the whole world, just as any tiny cell, helps to support the life of a whole body. Just one human body contains 37.2 trillion living cells.

If you ever struggle with gratitude, think about what Steve Jobs wrote above. Be thankful for all of the other “cells”, past and present and future, who have helped to co-create the life you have lived, the life you are currently living, and the life that you will live tomorrow. You will quickly become overwhelmed with immeasurable gratitude. You will be awestruck.

If you are struggling with anger, fear, frustration, resentment, indignity, try to step out of your own little “cell” for a moment, and see the bigger picture. Perspective often cures and frees the darkest of emotions. Steve Jobs died about a year after he wrote this poignant email to himself.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

A Little Romantic Story

I am an eavesdropper. My regular readers know this. I understand that I shouldn’t do it, but certain stories are too compelling to shut my ears. And honestly, I got the sense that these people wanted their story to be told. Their story sounded like a Nicholas Sparks book-and-then-movie, in the making.

As we were leaving our flight, I overheard a spritely, older couple talking to the flight attendant. The couple had flown to a mountainous area to go back to a spot which had been enticingly romantic to them, when they were first dating many, many years ago. The couple (now in their early seventies) felt that if they had waited any longer to do this trip, they might not have the physical fortitude to achieve this special journey.

When the couple were young and newly in love, they carved their initials into a beautiful little rock, and then they buried this particular rock in a certain spot, high up in the mountains. The couple had taken this specific journey, just this past weekend, far, far away from home, to see if their precious rock, which they had buried a long time ago, still existed. And yes!!! Miraculously, this adorable couple were able to find the exact spot (remember that they buried this rock years before GPS technology existed), and they unearthed their lovely, little rock that had marked the beginning of the foundation of their shared lives. The rock was just as they had left it, with their shared initials still clearly marked in the stone. The couple decided to bring the rock back home with them, but they told the flight attendant that they were very careful to get the coordinates of the spot where they had buried the rock, because they wanted their children to put their ashes, at that same exact spot, when they die. Then they laughed mischievously, saying that their kids would probably be in their seventies, themselves, and having to make that same difficult hike which the couple had just completed, by the time it was time to put their parents’ ashes to rest, in the spot in the mountains where the enduring story of this couple’s shared love, and the life of their family, all began.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Invitation

Good morning. This is travel home day, so I don’t have a long time to write like I usually have on Tuesdays. That is the beauty of travel, it opens up your inner and outer landscapes, but it also makes you appreciate the wonders and comforts of home.

More than many times on this trip, I felt thankful. I felt thankful for full flights, and for being on crowded shuttle busses, and I felt thankful for waiting in long lines at national sites. I felt thankful for crowds, and I am not one who generally likes crowds. I mostly felt thankful that we all felt safe to be fully alive again, after the scourge of the pandemic. There are silver linings to everything, and these silver linings are often painted by a brushful of gratitude.

I typically save poems that I like for Sundays, but I will share this one today, so that you don’t feel cheated by a short blog post. It was by the elevators in one of the places we stayed in this weekend. I think that it is a lovely, soulful poem.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday-Funday

Yesterday, my husband and I decided to do some hiking. We approached a trailhead marked “Black Diamond” which meant steep and difficult. A fit, sprite woman, in adorable hiking regalia, who appeared to be in her sixties came down from the trail.

“Was it strenuous?” I asked her.

“Well, that depends on your age and your joints. You see I’m 90, so I have to take it a little more slowly.”

“WHAT?!? You’re 90?! Wow, I am looking at aging goals right here!” I exclaimed wondrously.

“The key is to keep moving,” she said. “Just keep moving.” She then smiled proudly and jauntily headed down to her car at the foot of the mountain.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

When I travel, I enjoy seeing historic buildings and unusual terrain. I love partaking in different kinds of food and celebrations. I get inspired by clothing styles which are unique to an area. I am amazed at all of the landscapes and creatures which are different than what I am used to seeing. I love experiencing an overall ambience that is entirely unique to itself. I suppose I would say I like to get to know the rhythm and the poetry of where I am staying. Every place has its perfect poetry embedded in its DNA. Here is a poem which was left on a card at one of the lovely places we have stayed in on this current trip. It was meant for Soul Sunday, the day devoted to poetry on the blog.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.