Good morning! Happy May Day! Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit (represents good luck on the first day of any month for superstitious people like me) We have had an eventful weekend. My daughter truly enjoyed herself at her senior prom last night, and today we are bringing home our youngest son from his university for the summer. I haven’t had too much time to focus my mind on writing poetry. My brain seems stuck on “to-do” lists lately. My regular readers know that my blog is all about poetry on Sundays. Poetry is the language of the soul. Poetry is each of our own personal languages. Write yourself a poem today. You won’t regret it. I’ll probably doodle a poem on the way home from the university later this evening. But since I must get on the road soon, here is a poem I found on the internet that marks the merry month of May. May is a special, gentle, kind, warm month, isn’t it? It lovingly marks so many beautiful endings like graduations, and the end of spring, but also exciting, happy beginnings like the delicious, anticipatory start of summer. Here is today’s poem:
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning! Welcome to the lightest, airiest, “okay, now you can breathe out” day of the week! I LOVE Fridays! On Fridays, I list one, or sometimes even a few, of my favorite things. The things in life are what make life interesting, and material, and a tactile, sensory experience. Before I get to my favorite thing for today, I have a little personal story about sea anemone earrings. A while ago, I purchased perhaps the least expensive thing you could ever buy from Scully & Scully, a longstanding, staid, high-end store in New York City, that’s been around since 1934. I think I purchased probably a small set of coasters, or perhaps maybe even just one coaster, but ever since then, I get their catalogs and their online store pops up on my feed. For instance today, some offerings popped up on my Google, showing me a beautiful Meissen tureen for the bargain price of $125,000. (but does it come with free shipping?) Anyway, it’s a fun store to “window shop.” (If you like Herend figurines, they carry the entire line, and some.) The other day, as I was perusing the internet, and Scully & Scully popped up once again, suggesting that I might be interested in a pair of lovely $12,000 sea anemone earrings. They were gorgeous! And so unique! But sea anemone earrings are not what you call everyday wear, and I have two kids in college, and “good earrings” make me nervous because if I lose one, I’ll be sick about it for months, and I am not Kris Kardashian – I don’t have $12,000 to blow on sea anemone earrings, nor would I ever spend $12,000 on sea anemone earrings, because even if I were filthy rich, my ingrained midwestern sensibilities, practicalities and self judgments would intercede firmly and fiercely. But, man oh man, did I want me a pair of sea anemone earrings!! So guess what? I went to eBay, and Mercari, and the like, and I started feverously scrolling for sea anemone earrings and I found a really cute lime green pair made by Betsey Johnson for around $20, and I love them! And if I only wear them three times in my whole life before I lose one, I can live with that fact. And the point of my long winded story?! Go after what you want. Don’t get fixated on “THE one and only particular solution” to anything in life (i.e. job, person, house, college, vacation spot etc.) There are all sorts of “sea anemone earrings” out there, that will please you, and that will suit your particular needs and wants. Be open to what the Universe has to serve! Explore and enjoy!
On that note, I even have another bonus favorite for today, before I get to my real favorite. This is a favorite household tip. (insert my husband and children guffawing – housekeeping has never been my strong suit). If you have a clothes washer that tends to get smelly (ours is one of those. Years of washing six active, sweaty people’s clothes on a daily basis lends to pure stanky smelliness), pour a bottle of Listerine in it and run a cycle. The Listerine kills the bacteria that makes the washer smelly and the smell goes away instantly and you have a fresh, clean washer. I bought a drugstore brand version of mouthwash for $4, ran it in my washer, and it did the trick, after years of wasting money on “magic formulas” made specifically to clean washers which never worked. I found this household tip on one of my days of getting a little lost in clickbait (instead of doing laundry), and it turns out, the tip is a gamechanger. Enjoy!
Finally, here’s my real favorite of the day. I am fortunate to have a wonderful herd of elephants in my life. Actually, I am fortunate enough to have a few herds whom I rely on, when I lose my way. Do you? This is from the website that describes what these beautiful elephant ornaments really mean:
In the wild, female elephants are known as fierce protectors. They literally form a circle around sisters who are hurting or grieving. And often, they will kick dirt up around her to mask the scent of suffering…in turn, keeping her safe from predators.
And yet, we are the same. This is what we do. This is who we are. And this is who we are meant to be for each other. We all have elephants in our lives. Sometimes we are the ones in the middle, and sometimes we’re on the outside kicking up dirt with fierce, fierce love. But the circle remains.
The ornaments are as lovely as their sentiments. You can buy your herds some here as a way of letting them know how much you love and appreciate them:
And that is it for this Friday! Thank you for being one of my herds, dear readers! I hope that I have helped you in times that I have not been hurting and grieving, but feeling strong and positive. You have always surrounded me in times that I need it, and for that I am forever grateful. Have a wonderful weekend!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
What has you imprisoned? Now you may scoff and say, “Nothing has me imprisoned. I am a free thinker from a free country.” But, if we are honest with ourselves, we all have the things in our lives that imprison us. And usually, we don’t even realize this fact until usually some life crisis or a big change in our lives happen that makes us do a whole lot more self examination than we typically take the time to do, on a daily basis. (This is the hidden blessing of crises. Crises make us get really real with our own selves, if we want to rise out of our crises, like a phoenix from the fire. Otherwise we just succumb to difficulties and wonder “why me?”)
What is imprisoning you? Your financial obligations? Your lifestyle? Your daily habits or even addictions? Your need to please others? Your concern about image and what other people think about you? Your religious/political beliefs that may have been imposed upon you as a child – have you ever really examined these beliefs to see if they really are truly your own beliefs? Your sense of duty? Do your fears about the future, or your regrets about the past imprison you, keeping you frozen and catatonic? Your need to be “right”? Your beliefs about “others” and what they think and do? What about your beliefs about yourself, do they imprison you by making you stay in a certain “mold”, a mold that maybe you never intentionally created, but was fitted for you by someone else, or even by society?
What has you imprisoned? Where do you feel free in your life, and where do you feel stuck? Are the choices which you are making in your life, truly the right ones for you? You are the key, to get out of the prisons of your own making. We all have prisons that we have created for ourselves, and we all have the keys to get out of them. However, it is impossible to escape from a prison that you don’t admit that you are in, in the first place. Don’t be your own jailer. Make the changes in your life, that you need and want to make. These changes are your keys out of prison. Self awareness and courage will bring you to the ability to make changes, which will ultimately bring you to your freedom – your freedom to be the ultimate expression of your own true self.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I’ve been a little down the last couple of weeks. I was involved in a fender bender that seems to be taking on a life of its own, I’m feeling a lot of bittersweetness with all of the endings my youngest child is experiencing at the end of her senior year of high school, and there have been some dark and sad events occurring in our extended family. In short, my normal, everyday cheerfulness has felt a little more forced than it usually does. I’ve even gotten a little cynical, wondering if people are even kind anymore. But then, the Universe worked its magic (as it always does, look for the messages – they are always there):
This morning, after quickly scanning the news headlines, which helped to create an even sicker pit in my stomach, I started scrolling through Twitter and I happened upon a Tweet where a woman remembered and recounted a kindness that had happened to her on the NYC subway. It was late at night, she had just gotten on to the train, realizing that in her haste, she had dropped her keys which were connected to her wallet. A stranger, seeing this happen, quickly grabbed the keys and the wallet and hurled them on to the train, which landed right next to her, just as the doors to the subway were closing. She said that she thinks of this stranger and his quick thinking/acting and kindness often. This post has started an amazing thread that you can check out at the Tweeter’s Twitter handle (@amandamull). Amanda posted her story less than a day ago and already it has over 1000 comments, connected to it, telling similar stories of wonderful kindnesses strangers had done for other people. People talked about people going out of their way to return wallets, men who protected vulnerable young women, people going out of their way to show people directions, while being lost in foreign countries, people helping pregnant women stay steady, people paying for things or giving things away with smiles on their faces, people helping turtles flip over and cross busy roads, etc. One story that really brought a lump in my throat, was of a woman who had just found out that her three-year old child was diagnosed with leukemia. She was sitting on a bench outside of a concert hall crying. A teenager, who was attending the concert, saw her crying, and sat down on the bench with her, and for at least 10 minutes, cried with her. What I gleaned from this thread, is that it doesn’t take much to make a difference in a person’s life – a difference that they never forget. One man, David Lyall, wrote this:
“I grew up in NYC. One day I was walking to school, maybe I was 12, my Dad had died a couple of years before, life was dark and I was depressed, and I looked over my shoulder and saw a young woman smiling an encouraging smile at me from the back of a bus.”
A smile, friends. A smile. How easy it is to give away a smile, and yet how much it can mean to someone! A smile.
Deep into this wonderful Twitter thread, I saw this exchange:
“nothing gets you high like an anonymous act of kindness
Giving and getting”
The people who were recounting their stories were not just on the receiving end of benevolence. People proudly wrote about kind and generous deeds that they had done for others. This reminded me of the time that I’ll never forget, when my late father-in-law framed a thank you letter that he had received from a stranded young woman, whose car tire, he had stopped and changed. He was so proud of his act and the beautiful note which she had written to him. He sheepishly said, “See, I’m not such a bad guy.”
When you go to read this growing thread on Twitter, I’ll forewarn you that there are a few stories of ungratefulness and haughtiness and nastiness, but overwhelmingly, the stories being told and remembered and recounted, are feel-good stories, the kind of stories that make you want to live by the mantra, “Be the reason someone believes in good people.”
I have to say that reading these stories made me remember countless kindnesses shown to me along the way, as well as many times which I can proudly boast of me or one of my family members doing benevolent acts for others. Right now, I am filled with more positive, loving energy than I have felt in weeks. It’s a wonderful feeling.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
We had a nice weekend. I read two interesting books, and my husband took two long bike rides on his favorite trails, and we planted a couple of new flowers in our garden and did some mulching together, among other things. One of the books that I read this weekend was about the Japanese concept of “ikigai”, which roughly means living in the flow, with a sense of passion and purpose. We lived a lot of our own “ikigai” this weekend, and I hope to put even more of my ikigai, into the week ahead.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“So, in an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. And in an age of distraction, noting is so luxurious as paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.” – Pico Lyer
I know that I may have some long-time, loyal, everyday readers, who might be a little bit concerned about me right now. I understand. I pride myself on consistency. I am late writing this post because my host server, Bluehost, was experiencing “Gateway” problems all morning. (don’t ask me what that means, I’m a writer and certainly not a technical one) And I can’t complain. I can count on one hand how many times Bluehost has caused me issues on being able to get on to my WordPress blog site to write my daily blog. In my experience, Bluehost has always been reliable and consistent. I can’t complain. Nothing and no one is completely without fault in this world. C‘est la vie!
So, in the meantime, I have been deliciously lounging outside by my pool, reading a wonderful book, while every 45 minutes or so, coming into the house to see if I could finally log on to say “hi.” I have been living Pico Lyer’s quote above, this morning, and it has been exhilarating and luxurious, and in my case, probably also “urgent.” I have been living more distracted and disconnected lately, than I usually like to go about living my life, and I have suffered some consequences for this lack of attention to the present. Perhaps, even Bluehost knew to force the issue, to make me take a pause.
I hope that you all didn’t go immediately to “the negative” in your minds wondering why I didn’t post. I only write this because unfortunately, this is something that I have the tendency to do. A good friend of mine took her elderly dog to the vet this week, and I didn’t hear back from her when I texted, asking how the appointment went. I’m ashamed to admit that I immediately envisioned the worst possible scenario, and I was already comforting/hugging her in my mind. Well, what really happened is that she changed her cell phone provider and her texts weren’t coming through. Her wonderful, longtime fur companion is just fine! And so am I.
Have a luxurious, exhilarating, urgent “sit still” with me today, if you can. It will do us all a world of good, which ultimately, makes for a good world.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
The last few days I have been processing old “stuff”. We all have this “stuff” – aggravations, hurts, pains, annoyances, disappointments, outrages, etc. from the past that poke up their ugly heads out of nowhere, like moles out of holes. It is annoying when this happens, because usually, you forget that you still have this “stuff” lying around in your psyche, until something happens that screams, “Do something with your “stuff”!!! Your “stuff’s” still here!!!” And then, you emotionally react and you start playing “Whac-a-mole” as the “stuff” pops up all over the place, taunting you, and making you feel completely out of your mind.
Now, I’ve mentioned many times that I am a fire sign. I have an ugly temper. So my “Whac-a-mole” hammer goes at lightning speed and with great force. I go all out, when dealing with my “stuff” and my poor, dear, trusted loved ones get to hear all about my “Whac-a-mole” adventures, with all of my “stuff”, until their patience runs thin and they are ready to “whac-a-me.” And I don’t blame them. I just hope that they realize by now, that this is what I do. I stare down my “stuff” when it makes its appearance. I get angry, sad, frustrated, indignant and I yell and I scream and I talk and I cry and I text and I rant and I try to make of sense of it all, as I hammer down all of the “stuff” popping up all over the place. I exert my fire energy heartily. But, of course, we all know what fire does. Fire burns things. Quickly. So instead of me keeping on with chasing down and hammering away at all of my “stuff”, in order to push it into the underground, pretty soon my fire energy ramps up and it starts to burn my “stuff” all away, and I still smolder for a little bit, until all of the “stuff” is burned away clean. And then I feel better again. I feel more even keel and in control. I feel clean and clear. Certainly, I am not naïve to think that “my stuff” is all gone. There is a lot of “stuff” living under the surface holes, this I know. Once you have lived for over fifty years, “stuff” accumulates. I just hope that I have burned away some of my “stuff” for good this time. And I am grateful for the kindness and the love and the empathy and the patience and the forgiveness that my loved ones have shown me throughout the process. Their example helps me to give that kindness, love, empathy, patience, and forgiveness to others, and to myself, from their beautiful examples of love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“You’ve gotta stop expecting honesty from those who lie to themselves. They can’t give you what they don’t give themselves.” – Inner Practioner, Twitter
The best liars whom I have ever known, I don’t think for the most part even mean to be malicious. I truly believe that these people believe most of the yarns that they spin. The best liars whom I have ever known tend to live in their own little worlds. Their fantasies are their realities. And they love the attention that their fantasies bring to them, like an audience to a magical show.
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” This English proverb says it all. The people who lie to us want to believe their lies, because they, too, desperately want to believe their own lies. And we all get caught up in the excitement and the drama of it all. It’s fun to fall into the wardrobe and enjoy a little bit of Narnia fantasy world where everything is perfect and exactly how we all want it to be. But coming back to reality, can be a hard fall for those of us who face truths, live in the truth, and who want to make the most of the “what’s what” in life.
In today’s world, it is hard to know what to believe. There is so much information coming at us, at every level, and all of it seems to be tainted and slanted by opinions and perceptions and agendas. I was a marketing major in college and it was always preached to us, that when it comes to marketing and selling anything, “Perception isreality.” That is why there are often beautiful people in car commercials. Our perception becomes that if we drive “such and such” car, we become one of the beautiful people.
It is really hard to drive in the truth to someone who has no desire to hear it. This is always a frustrating experience, isn’t it? And even more upsetting experiences, are those “a-ha” moments when you realize a truth about something or someone that you have been denying to yourself. When you finally face how something is, versus how you want it to be, this is nothing short of a gut punch. But then you are liberated. It is the pure truth, that the truth will set you free. When you face the truth, the decisions you make become based in the reality of a situation, and therefore you can get concrete results and answers, versus more tied up and tangled into the never-ending, ever-growing ball of yarn of lies and deceit. When you start living the truth, you trust yourself. You become your own best friend and mentor and then you are able to steer clear of other people’s fantasies. Or at the very least, you are able to admit to yourself that you are indulging in a little bit of delusion for a moment, which deep in your core, you know is in fact, a fantasy or even an out-and-out a lie.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I’m back!!! I hope that you had a “wonderful” weekend with whatever “wonderful” looks and feels like to you.
Over the weekend, I read an article about a therapist, who is transgender herself, who is concerned that young children and teens are making the choice to change their gender, too early, and not as thoughtfully and carefully as she thinks is healthy, having done the change herself. She is concerned that “transgender” is currently becoming a little “trendy”. She said that constantly she says to her patients, “When in doubt, doubt.“
I like that statement: “When in doubt, doubt.” It’s a good reminder to get quiet and listen to that still small voice inside that speaks to us, if we are willing to hear it. When in you are in a quandary, doing nothing is doing something, and doing nothing might be the wisest choice for the moment in question. Trust yourself. Trust your instincts. Trust that still small voice.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
