Category Archives: Inspiration

A Change of Heart

Posted on November 4, 2013 | 3 comments

Heart

 “They invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate countless worlds, and we fall back. Not again! Not this time. The line must be drawn here! This far, no farther! And I will make them pay for what they have done!” 

The quote is from Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Start Trek: First Contact. And me–in my head.

I’ve been stressing lately over the bullying of my friend Margaret, preparing for a battle that seemed winnable but not without casualties. On an internal level, I’ve been meditating, visualizing, and spreading the light for a peaceful resolution. On a rational level, I’ve been promoting a stance of “hope for the best, prepare for the worst.” On a gut level, I let my past override all of my peaceful thoughts and reverted to living in fear. I’d been there, done that and I carry the scars of the bad guys’ wins. I guess that’s why it’s easy for me to shift into defensive mode, but I know that I can’t let my fear consume me. In the midst of my stress, change occurred.

I’ve found that subtle shifts can be surprising. Have you ever noticed that? You find yourself embroiled in some seemingly untenable situation, gird your loins for battle, lock and load your cache of snide and witty comebacks, and walk into the fray loaded for bear only to find Hello Kitty waiting to greet you.

It’s surprising. It’s shocking. It’s disconcerting to say the least after all of the tedious preparations and hard work. You’ve rehearsed exactly what you’re going to say (if he says this, I’ll say that; if she does this, I’ll do that); you are sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are about to meet Godzilla in the flesh and the battle will be to the death–or at the least  to total annihilation on an emotional level. “I will go down fighting!” becomes your mantra echoed by “I can do this!” You are psyched and ready to go to war for your rights and your dignity. Shields up! Set phasers to stun!

And then all of that flies right out the window when you’re greeted not by your mortal enemy but by a kitten with a smile and the shocking words, “Good morning! How can I help you ?”

Crap! Now what? I hadn’t prepared myself for this! Niceness is what I’d secretly hoped for, prayed for, wished for while doing my deep-breathing exercises to relieve the stress in my heart and gut. This is what I’ve wanted all along: civil communication. Margaret and I crossed the battle lines on Friday and were treated with respect and kindness. We came away with a renewed sense of peace and calm.

Apparently, there’s been a change of heart for those people who were determined to make Margaret’s life a living hell, for the people who have bullied and taunted and spread rumors about her for over a year. I don’t know how it happened or when or where or why. But like me, I suspect there are several other people involved in this debacle who are experiencing the same sense of relief I’m feeling. It’s very hard to live a happy life, to maintain thoughts of peace and joy while carrying a big stick. It’s exhausting, actually. Somewhere, someone has decided to lay down the stick, walk away from the battle, and try to live in peace.

The fight to end the bullying may be over for now and as hard as it’s been to deal with,  I’ve been reminded of a few valuable lessons:

  • Standing up for others is always the right thing to do.
  • Peaceful resolutions can happen–even when you least expect them.
  • Finding peace within me sometimes requires conquering old fears by allowing myself to feel the anger and move through and past it.
  • The desire to be “all in” regardless of my fears is sometimes enough to create a shift in me, in my heart and in my own beliefs.

I’m not sure how this works in others or if I’ll ever know what caused the shift, but there has obviously been a change of heart. At least for now. At least for today. My own heart has opened in gratitude for a battle unfought. I am thankful for this day.

I pray it lasts.

 

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Know Choose Be. It’s All About the Love.

Posted on October 24, 2013 | 1 comment

We Are One

 

A friend sent me a video yesterday with the words Know Love. Choose Love. Be Love.  I was having a crappy day, feeling inordinately (for me) emotional and angry, caught up in drama that has taken me from my peaceful place of acceptance to angry self-righteousness.

I’m struggling with my own fears of complacency. How can I stand back and watch someone else, a friend, be brutalized and bullied? How can I watch as carelessness is practiced? I can’t. What rises in me is anger. But what I need to tap into is love. I’m struggling. 

There is a strong connection between our thoughts and our hearts. While I’ve wallowed in my stress these past few days, I’ve felt the erratic beating of my heart. My sleep patterns are off; I don’t feel hungry; I’ve become unproductive. Letting myself think about striking out against injustice has left me discombobulated rather than energized; fearful rather than loving; angry rather than compassionate. By letting my thoughts take shape in anger, my body has followed their lead, taking me straight to a place of chaos. I have internalized those dark feelings and they are kicking up a storm of confusion within me. I know that I’ve reached an untenable place when meditation becomes a chore rather than a respite.

I watched the video this morning and it validated my thoughts about my own feelings of unrest and disconnection, my own fluttering heart and the thoughts that cause the flutter. The music and images opened a door for me, a tiny crack that I might slip through to find myself again.

I hope you’ll find the time to watch and that somewhere within you will come to a point of resonance and peace. Come join me. We can struggle through to peace and happiness together.

We are one.

 

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Doing the Right Thing for the Right Reason

Posted on October 22, 2013 | 3 comments
From Pinterest with no credit attached.

From Pinterest with no credit attached.

I’ve been struggling lately with the idea that “Something has to be done!” in several sectors of my life.  

I truly believe that We Are One,  that we are linked through an unconscious something that allows us to tap into each other’s thoughts and needs, to feel each other’s human-ness and/or spirituality. I’ve felt that something with my children often. I feel it with friends every great once in a while when I get a sudden urge to call or email them–at four in the morning.

Some people might call it compassion, our human ability to feel for others. Or empathy when we are able to experience someone’s pain and make it our own. Some people might call it a waste of time, a fruitless action, or a pointless endeavor. Some people might call it love.

Whatever you want to call it, it is time we all start taking responsibility for each other. I’m not talking about taking the blame or the credit. I’m not talking about building a commune to house each and every soul (although it wouldn’t be a bad idea to recognize that we already live in one). I’m talking about taking action to stop the bullying and the bullshit. I’m talking about calling people on their careless actions. I’m saying enough is enough.

The last three years of my life have been spent writing fiction. I’ve been quite prolific and successful, garnering my own sense of satisfaction. My next book and newspaper article and magazine story will be non-fiction. It is a story of neglect and needless pain, a story of ridiculous action and more ridiculous non-action, of lives damaged and destroyed, of loss and injustice and juris-imprudence. The names will not be changed to protect the innocent. The story will not be filtered or white-washed or cast in a rosy glow. “It is what it is” is an apt description.

I’d like to say that I’m rocking the boat, making waves, or ruffling feathers but I’m not, really. My new intention is to sink the boat; to drop the pebble into the ocean that causes the tsunami; to pull out the feathers one by one and then make chicken soup with the bones.

For those of you who ask me from time to time what I’m writing about, from now on, this will be what I’m writing about. There’s more than one story to tell, more than one life involved, and more than one person willing to come forward to talk.

I’ll still be writing novels and short stories and allowing my muse to take me where it will. But sometimes you just have to do the right thing for the right reason. With love and honor and respect, of course. Let’s just call it Right Action.

BTW: If anyone knows who the artist is for the above photo, please let me know. I’d love to give credit where credit is due.

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Silence

Posted on October 15, 2013 | 2 comments

Grey sky with trees 01

Silence

Unnerving silence.

The house is quiet this morning. No whining dogs. No banging trashcans. No voices drifting over the back fence. It’s eerily quiet really, the kind of silence that would propel a sci-fi-minded writer into the realms of zombie apocalypse.

Tree branches are shifting in a soft breeze, but I can’t hear the wind. Even the birds are silent, huddled in their nests, resting, waiting. Normally, I can hear trucks on the highway, the squeal of brakes; the bell ringing first period from the school up the road. This morning, there is nothing but silence under a grey sky that stretches as far as the eye can see. No blue. No clouds. Just grey.

The world feels muffled, cut off from the normal creak of its axis. As I write, there are no cars whizzing by my window, no walkers, no joggers, no one.

Silence.

Unnerving silence.

It’s time to begin again, to write a new story, to create a new life.  It’s time to fill the silence with song.

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Rose-Colored Glasses

Posted on October 3, 2013 | 2 comments

 Pink morning

A pink haze hangs over my day today. I awoke in darkness, too early really to get up and begin my day but too achy to stay in bed. I puttered around the house in the dark, making coffee, reminding the dogs not to bark as they scooted out the back door for a quick run along the fence to smell for visitors who’d come in the night. While I was in Scotland in July, an opossum found its way under the fence and was corned by a frightened and shaky Bella, a mid-sized black lab who was unprepared for a snarling, equally frightened wild animal. Both escaped unscathed, but Bella sniffs tentatively each morning, excited I think but still a little afraid of what she might find in her own backyard.

It’s been a week since my return from California. The red-eye flew me into Atlanta, arriving just at the break of dawn. After three and half hours on a small, cramped plane, I was tired and bleary-eyed, ready to get home, ready to sleep, already missing my family in California. There was a pink cast over Hartsfield Airport as I recall, a morning much like this one, early light in pinks and oranges hovering and then dissipating in a clear blue sky.

I feel bewitched by the pink haze that caught my attention earlier, as I shooed the dogs back into the house; I am besotted with the brilliant colors that, lasting only mere moments, seemed to permeate my house and my soul. I feel as though I’m wearing rose-colored glasses as I contemplate a new project, a new story and speculate on the potential and possibility of change.

There is joy in viewing the world through a prism of color, through rose-colored glasses that both soften and illuminate the moment. That moment is gone now.

The sun is shining, the sky is a deep blue and the world is as it should be on a warm October day in Florida. Contemplation continues.

Pink morning 02

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Sometimes it IS a Matter of Life and Death

Posted on September 10, 2013 | 6 comments

I’d forgotten what it feels like to contemplate death, to hold a life in my hands and be forced to make a decision between life and death. It’s a terrible feeling.

I lay awake Sunday night contemplating what I would do if faced with that decision on Monday, if the vet said Sophie’s little problem was life threatening or life ending, if I had to give the thumbs up or thumbs down.

I feel so stuck sometimes with the responsibility of three dogs hanging over my head, preventing me from traveling at will, holding me back from being carefree and spontaneous. It makes me crazy when I’m in the throes of a story that moves through my mind faster than I can get the words on paper only to have to stop fifteen times to let the dogs out and in and out and in and in and out, to check on the mad barking and the door rattling and the incessant cat/squirrel/butterfly chase in the backyard. It makes me crazy! (I know, I said that already. But it makes me crazy!)

I think to myself, Never again! No more dogs! And I fantasize what my life will be like when my days are free to roam at my leisure without having to rush home; when I can get up in the morning when I want to rather than at the insistence of a dog who’s spotted a gecko on the screen door; when I can walk barefoot through my kitchen late at night without stepping in puddles of slobber or whirling eddies of dog hair that pile up between twice-daily sweeps. But to get to that day, I will have to go through three deaths and the weight of that is more than I can bear.

When faced with the prospect of actually losing one of my tormentors, I find that I am a puddle of goo just waiting to happen.

dog and butterfly

Dog and Butterfly (click link for 3LeggedDogInk)

There are so many aspects to consider when making life’s tough decisions. Sometimes it feels like we can’t go on living with whatever little inconvenience is stuck in our craw, when a splinter turns into a stake through the heart, all melodrama and hyperbole. But sometimes it is a matter of life and death and every thought you’ve ever thunk falls away. Every life is precious and beautiful and worth living to its fullest. Even if it is only to chase one more monarch through the honeysuckle or pounce on a lizard in the moonlight.

I discovered yesterday that when push comes to shove, there is only life. One day, the alternative will present itself and the time will be right. For now, for Sophie–and for me–life is the only way to go.

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Letting Go of the Outcome

Posted on September 6, 2013 | 2 comments
Into the Vortex by Issi Noho

Into the Vortex by Issi Noho

One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned as a human being, regardless of how I identify myself at any given moment–mother, wife, employee, or writer–is learning to let go of outcomes. Any outcome. For me, my passion is always invested in whatever task I tackle, sometimes greatly and in large, blinding quantities and sometimes in a perfunctory way that may seem to carry just a smidge of caring light, a limn around the edges. I put my heart and soul in my work, my blood, sweat, and tears and pray that it is good enough, right enough, or just enough.

And then there’s that little voice in my head that says, “Finish what you start!” which means to me that I must follow through to the bitter end whatever task I begin and the finish has always been tied intimately with the outcome. How did the project turn out? Am I happy with the outcome? Does it fit the model of expectation? More importantly, does the outcome reflect well on me and my efforts and does everybody else like it?

Aha! There it is! My feelings about the outcome are tied directly to everybody else, to their ideas and thoughts and needs and expectations. We learn early on that every action makes an impact, every action must have a consequence, and so we do our thing, whatever our thing is, and wait for the response, for the vibrational impact, for the consequences, good or bad, relating to our action. We wait for the outcome in order to gauge where and how and when to take the next step. We are flummoxed if the response, in any form, never comes.

Writing is one of those endeavors that begs to be tied to an outcome. I am a writer, therefore, I write. The natural outcome should be that people read what I write and then make an informed decision based on a million tiny personal factors as to whether or not they like what I’ve written. This is how our society works. Create, display, sell, and repeat. The outcome comes at the end of the process when we are judged and deemed worthy or lacking by ourselves and others (mostly others) and despite our passion and joy, decide whether or not sales dictate a repeat of the process. Success is judged by the outcome of the effort, not by the joy, experience, education, and passion derived from the process itself.

I used to believe the fairy tale. I used to think that unless I got a book deal the first time around, I was a failure; unless I mimicked the efforts and the process of others that I was doing it wrong. And then one day I woke up and realized that it is the process of writing, of allowing those voices and images in my head to take control and tell their story that is my way of living–without tying myself forever and ever to some superficial gauge of success, to an outcome. I can do what I love to do and let go of the fantasy and expectation of what is supposed to happen next. Like a child, a story is born, shaped by life experience to the best of my ability, and then released into the world to make its own way.

My son at sixteen understood letting go of the outcome. When I expressed disappointment at the choices he was making for his life, he reminded me that it would be impossible for him to live up to the dream of him that I carried in my head. He could never live up to my expectations but he could live up to his own and his own were pretty daunting.

For me, letting go of the outcome means living in the moment–every moment. My life in this moment is full and rich and exciting and calm, peaceful and good and blessed. To continue along this path, I have only to embrace the next moment and the next in its turn, and forget about the outcome because there’s never an end. Moment by moment our lives unfold and we are simply riding the current to our next passionate surprise.

I also believe in Karma. But that’s a discussion for another day.

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Beneath the Mask

Posted on September 5, 2013 | Leave a comment

My soon-to-be-daughter-in-law Amy is a very smart woman. She and my son have embarked on a new journey, a new life out in California and I am constantly thrilled and surprised by the changes and revelations they are experiencing. Whether it’s the climate, the people, the culture, or the vortex that vibrates along the fault lines beneath the earth, the potential for enlightenment seems to shimmer like a mist of potential on the west coast. I’ve felt it; I’ve dreamed about it. And I envy them the transformative essence in which they have immersed themselves.

Transformation is a sneaky little bugger, accumulating layer by layer until a new idea saturates and dissolves an old idea. It also springs forth in one epiphanic moment, changing the way you think and feel about life. Amy had one such moment yesterday:

“People think they know someone. . . everyone isn’t privy to a person’s heart and does not know exactly who someone is and does not honestly know that the person they think is so honest and moral and true would cut their throat or stab them in the back and it does not matter how long you actually do [know them], they may not be who you think, that smile could be fake and they could be dark on the inside.”

A thought provoking idea to say the least. Then, the following quote was shared on my timeline by another friend this morning:

 “The heart of a human being is no different from the soul of heaven and earth. In your practice always keep in your thoughts the interaction of heaven and earth, water and fire, yin and yang.” Morihei Ueshiba

So, the idea of dark and light and duality seems to be theme of the day which is appropriate and timely for me.  I’ve been reading The Four Agreements Companion Book. I don’t know which rock I was under when The Four Agreements originally came out, but I missed its debut.  (I just checked the publication date–July 1997–so that particular rock was located in Santa Fe and is better known as the Eastern Classics master’s program at St. John’s College.) It’s only been in the past couple of weeks that the book revealed itself to me. (And I do mean revealed. I believe that messages come to you when you’re ready and obviously, I must be ready.) I saw the author, Don Miguel Ruiz being interviewed on TV over the weekend and became intrigued. And then I found his next book, The Four Agreements Companion Book published in 2000, quietly waiting for me as I browsed the shelves at Goodwill a couple of days ago.

Part 1, Chapter 1:

Human suffering begins with domestication.

During the process of domestication, we form an image of perfection in order to try to be good enough. We create an image of how we should be in order to be accepted by everybody, but we don’t fit that image.

(He had me at hello.)

We create an image of ourselves in our own minds and then we fashion from the raw clay that is our being a mask that represents that image. We look and act and feel to meet the needs of our own expectations of perfection. We hide who we are. We get comfortable with the mask and learn to manipulate it according to circumstance, situation, and comfort level. But our masks are not who we are or what we are or even what we would truly like to be. Our masks are our perfect or imperfect representations of what and who we think we should be.

Amy’s timely revelation becomes a profoundly intuitive truism as we go along our merry way trying to understand ourselves and others. Even with the underlying idea that we are one, we are not able to discern the heart of the individual, hiding behind a mask of civility and perfection that has been fashioned to cultural and societal standards. I would like to see the world work together not to get to the heart of the individual but to create a safe space where masks aren’t necessary, where everyone is free to be who and what we are in all of our glorious spiritual humanity.

Amy responded to a comment I made regarding the light and dark in each of us. She referred to the unknowable in all of us: “. . . they put on a false face to everyone and sometimes even to themselves.”

See? I told you Amy is a very smart woman!

My Wish for You Today!

Let Peace Begin with Me

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“We Have to Project a Positive Future”

Posted on August 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

Yesterday, I felt inundated by questions and dark thoughts about why the world is the way it is. My stock answer, the one I tell myself over and over is, “It is what it is,” whatever it is. This is a dichotomy of thought on my part as I also tell myself that it is possible to change my own situation, circumstances, feelings and thoughts just by thinking positively, by not letting the shadows of what might be overtake the light of what is. I can make the shift from negative to positive. I can bring positive love and light into my life by being love and light, by sharing the good and putting less focus on the not-so-good.

I also believe that when we have questions, even those internal little niggling thoughts, answers present themselves. It’s up to us to look and listen, to be still. If we ask (even silently), we shall receive.

So, with the thoughts of yesterday still whirling around in my mind, questions about how we can possibly make the world a better, safer, lighter, more loving place bouncing and pinging, I found this video on my Facebook news feed. It’s from a site called The Master Shift.

John Lennon was not my favorite Beetle. In fact, he lost me when he slipped into what I called his “Give Peace a Chance” phase. I was young and silly and had no idea what that was all about. I’ve changed since then. I’ve grown a little in my thinking and I realize that Lennon, like so many others who were able to hone in on something real and tangible while the rest of us were in denial, while presenting an image of a hippy-dippy lifestyle that was suspect in my eyes, was looking and listening and finding answers that make sense for all of us.

This video is long by today’s standards of seven second bytes but it’s worth a look and a listen. You may have heard it all before; it may not bring instantaneous meaning to you or answer your questions, but it was there for me this morning to shine a little light on my own questions and I want to share it with you.

Lennon 02Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Just for Fun!

You make a difference

 

 

 

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Speechless

Posted on August 27, 2013 | 1 comment

LaManchaColorweb

This morning, while floundering for something to write about, swallowing my desire to rant about the negativity that seems to be spreading like an unchecked virus around me, a song came to mind: The Impossible Dream. I have fond memories of Man of LaMancha. My brother went to see the musical in high school and came home inspired. He gathered our friends, handed out roles, taught us the words, and we re-enacted various scenes from the play. That memory of my brother standing in our backyard belting out this song is still my go-to when it feels like negativity is winning.

As to the negativity? When this is the best advice a woman can offer young girls in finding their place in the world, I am profoundly saddened: “The world we live in is a twisted and broken place.” I have no words to describe how wrong this feels to me.

So, I offer you this little bit of nostalgia and hope. You can find it on YouTube but it won’t compare to the wonderful memory I have in my head.

The Impossible Dream

Music by Mitch Leigh and Lyrics by Joe Darion

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight for the right, without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true, to this glorious quest
That my heart will lie will lie peaceful and calm,
when I’m laid to my rest.
And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach the unreachable star.

One last thought for today:

Stars

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