Soul Sunday

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

Good morning. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. (and believe it or not, you like poetry. Soul Sunday is a popular day on the blog. “Shakespeare’s a poet and doesn’t know it.” 😉 ) Today, let yourself live from your heart and from your soul. Give your analyzing mind a break. It’s Sunday. Follow your heart today. See where it leads you. A poem is a good way to start this. Here is my poem for the day:

Amalgamation”

If I could take a gift from each of my decades,

to carry me into this new year of my life,

I would take the determined tree climbing of my childhood,

the breezy presumption of health and beauty of my twenties,

the wild rebelliousness and pride and confidence of my thirties,

the rugged, steely, determined resilience of my forties,

And I would dose all of these attributes with care and love,

And transform all of them into the best version of me yet.

An amazing amalgamation of a life experienced openly from the heart.

Name It

There is so much to a name. Ask any “Karen” these days. These poor ladies share a name with a viral meme associated with being an entitled, narcissistic, middle-aged b%tch. When Hurricane Elsa came through a couple of weeks ago, I was honestly relieved by the name. Who doesn’t love Elsa from Disney’s Frozen? I felt instantly safe, knowing that she would not be a very destructive storm. I think that we should be extremely careful to name all hurricanes only with names that have nice connotations. On just one website, I perused a list of 89 names that all have the meaning of “soft, kind and gentle”. Names like Aura, Angel, Clem, Emmie, and Feather are all good choices for names of hurricanes and tropical storms. Don’t ever be alarmed if they ever name a hurricane “Gungun”. Apparently that name actually means “one who is soft and warm”.

When Hurricane Irma came through, I knew that it was going to be horrible, just by its name. Supposedly, way back in my family history on my mother’s side, there was an old, immodest, crass distant cousin named “Irma” who always sat in a bold and brazen and indecent manner. So, if we little girls were ever caught sitting in an unflattering, shameless position, we were called “Irma.” I literally shuddered when I heard about the storm named, “Hurricane Irma”. And sure enough, it proved to be a doozy.

William Shakespeare seemed to think that we place too much importance on names:

Name Quotes - BrainyQuote

Dale Carnegie disagreed:

Name Quotes #20: Joffrey, Germaine, Gust | Name quotes, Business  motivational quotes, Country music quotes

I like Auden’s take on names. A name is just a very small part of the essence of any unique entity on this Earth:

They Represent Our Identity: Quotes About Names - EnkiQuotes

When someone says your name, you recognize it, but everyone is saying it in a slightly different tone, accent, and with different feelings attached to your name, because of what you mean (or don’t mean) to them, in their lives. Your name isn’t just one thing. It is a convenient way for people to label “you”, but the “you” that comes to every person and circumstance in your life is completely unique, because of their own distinct perspectives of you, and the isolated experiences and relationship that they have with you. So, in that sense, your name really means an infinite number of people. Ironically, the only part of you that is truly authentic and timeless and changeless, is your nameless and peaceful Awareness that you bring to every person and every situation and every experience that you ever engage in, during your entire lifetime.

Do you like your name? Are names important? Do you any pet names for yourself?

I have a name for you, my dear friends and readers. I call you “Cherished.”

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

The King’s Crown

“My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.” – William Shakespeare

This is such an unusual time in life – a time when the “usual” is soon to be going by the wayside. My husband and I talked to our eldest son last night and he is considering offers within his company, in all different cities. His world is expanding significantly. I signed our youngest child up for Driver’s Education. Once a child gets their license to drive, drifting away from the nest becomes inevitable. I know, I’ve experienced this three times before. Our next to youngest child just committed to his college of choice for the fall. Our second son plans to stay at his university this summer, to continue earning credits and grades that will help him to enter into medical school. In short, my job of “corralling the kiddos” is soon to be going completely by the wayside. My husband and I have made our primary focus to be on the joint efforts of raising our family for almost 23 years now. The funny thing is that now, what seems to be all of the sudden, space is opening up for us, to take all of our lives, in all different directions.

My husband and I opted to do some updates and renovations on our current home, but we do it with some hesitation and reservation. Is this where we plan to live for a while? Our housing choices have always been made within the narrow confines of the areas that connected good public schools with a reasonable commute to my husband’s work. When your confines are removed, the choices almost become overwhelming.

To be honest, I’m having a really hard time figuring out what I want to do next, in so many aspects. I have been meditating on the next stage, my second half of adulting for a while now, and no real clear-cut answers are appearing. I’ve heard that when you don’t know what you want, doing nothing is a choice and often, doing nothing is a good option for the time being. I suspect being uncomfortable with the choice of doing nothing and making no real changes, feels uncomfortable for a lot of us. From little on, we are taught to strive, to achieve, to work towards our goals and to accomplish them. But, what if you are unsure of your goals? What if you don’t know what to strive for?

I got to thinking that not knowing what your goals are, may mean that you are content. “Content” often feels like a bad word, especially to us Americans. Society seems to tell us that you should always be aspiring to accomplish new heights, yet all of the best selling self-help books and podcasts on the market, seems to be aimed at helping people to find inner peace and calm, acceptance and contentedness with “what is.” Even Shakespeare knew that contentedness (an inside job) was so hard to achieve that even the wealthiest, most fortunate and powerful people of the times, the kings, often could not achieve contentedness.

When I was contemplating my new found “freedom” opening up to me in the very near future, a thought popped into my head. It was so strong that I had to write it down. This is what I wrote:

“Maybe I don’t know what I want because what I want, is what I have . . .”

Perhaps what I wrote is the definition of contentedness. According to Shakespeare, contentedness is the elusive treasure of kings. Perhaps the answer is to bask in that feeling of contentedness for a while. When the next big move is meant to happen for me, I’ll know what to do. In the meantime, I’ll just be content to be content.

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” – coolnsmart.com

The Art of Living

This was a tough weekend.  It put my emotions over the top this morning, to open the news and see the picture of Sully, President George H. W. Bush’s service dog sleeping by his casket.  RIP – President Bush, a true American patriot.  It does warm my heart to picture President Bush and Barbara Bush and their precious daughter, reunited.

Losing a pet is so tough because they are such a part of your daily routine.  Lacey loved to sleep under my desk, by my feet, while I wrote.  I loved the feel of her warm fur on my bare feet, while I was writing.  Please excuse my writing for a while until I find my footing again.  I lost a little bit of my heart and soul yesterday.  I know that you are not supposed to have favorites and as an animal lover, I have had the privilege of sharing my life with many wonderful pets over the years, but Lacey was very special to me.  She and I shared a unique bond.  She was my favorite and I am heartsick.

I was reading that grieving tends to bring up a lot of your other unresolved grief.  By middle age, unfortunately a lot of us have a fairly big pile of unresolved grief, as most of us have not perfected the skill of accepting our sadness and allowing ourselves to move through it.  Maybe each new grief should be looked at as a chance to resolve old pains and to smooth down some oozing scabs on the heart. These scabs can then be made to be less fresh and vulnerable, and turned to smoother, fainter scars.

Shakespeare said, “A light heart lives long.”  I imagine a heart with some mostly healed scars is lighter and beats easier, than a heart with oozing, gaping wounds and dark, crusty scabs.  I plan to look at this time of grieving as a chance to make my heart lighter by working through my pain, so that my unresolved wounds can turn to fainter scars and my heart can feel light again.

“All the art of living lies in the fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” – Havelock Ellis