Somewhere , I think on Facebook, I posted some very esoteric stuff that I said made sense to me. It was about the make-up of the universe and the relationship between thought and matter. (Just to be clear, I also love reading junk magazines about Angelina and Brad).
It made sense to me.
The following quotes come from Joseph Campbell, my personal St Joseph.
These quotes feel true to me, a much stronger statement than making sense. They are from
A Joseph Campbell Companion. Both center around 'growing awareness'.
More from Joseph:
One has to go beyond
the pairs of opposites
to find the real source.
Think with me. Play with me.
I am impatient and eager to do more with my book I PRAY ANYWAY: Devotions for the Ambivalent. I haven't even done a formal press release. I got sidetracked with building a website which by the time mine is done will probably be obsolete. I want one place where all my writing can be gathered. So all is good--anyway. Check out the splash page which is up until the entire website is ready-- readjoyce.com or joycewilsonsanford.com Fun to come
But, I want to do readings with lots of discussion. The last one I did we ended up talking about how awkward it was to talk about prayer. We were blown away by how differently we each prayed. We even talked about times when we think something divine was going on or when we were sure God had spoken to each of us. We laughed a lot.
So I am in a getting ready phase of work.
I want to do online workshops about Prayer--why we pray, why we don't, how we pray, new ways of praying, new ideas about science and energy and prayer and new movements in relation. That kind of workshop.
And I want to do an ANYWAY kind of workshop. What do you do--anyway? What do you wish you would do--anyway? When is 'anyway' a good thing and when not? That kind of workshop.
I made a decision when I began doing this work (writing three blogs, a book and counseling people, that first priority would be my health, then family, then experiences I'd better hurry up and have and then work--with the Divine guiding it all.
So, I breathe and look at my glorious Mexican flowers all around me and I press on, letting it all unroll with less push from me
I
I talk a lot about the need, my need, for silence and solitude.
(and a cup of coffee in a red mug)
It is the easiest way for me to allow for sacred to find me.
It is my welcome mat.
There is a third element that resets my thermostat of craziness in our hyper-active culture of achievement which is to literally slow down. Literally, as in on your way to the bath room.
I like to move fast and get things done. I come from a family of women who could multi-task at top speed while laughing and talking. The five sisters and cousins were called The White Tornadoes after some cleaning detergent that worked miracles.
But when I am overwhelmed by tasks and competing priorities (which is the worst) I walk slowly. It feels nuts and then good. I'll walk slowly to the laundry. I'll move slowly opening and paying bills. I go five times slower.
And so I love the Buddhist of a walking meditation. It's often done in a circle with others but there are other patterns that are used as well. A patterned path helps. The point is to become grounded in 'now' which is a nice place to live. If doing it alone,define your path. Then walk. One step at a time. Feel the bottom of your foot meet the ground. Feel and see where you are.
Do not take the next step til you feel this kind of now freedom. Here is the secret.
There Is No Hurry. You have the luxury of slow.
I did a day long walking meditation under the guidance of Pema Chodrun, a woman Buddhist monk.
She noted how the women in the group fell into this easily and laughed saying, 'It's because busy women, mothers and working women are yearning for the 'here and now' and their hunger makes it easy."
So add slowness to silence and solitude to your welcome mat for the divine
Gratitude is 'in'. The topic is in most magazines almost weekly. There are books about and
journals supporting gratitude to be bought. Many a guru-ish person teaches the vibratory
benefit of gratitude.
I dig it. (That was fun to say--some ancient life as jazz musician appeared) So—I dig compassion on all its levels. As a kind of movement it makes me curious.
Most of my grandchildren don't say 'grace' but they do sing a gratefulness song that honors the Earth.
I know others who express gratitude with their teeth clenched thinking of it as a cosmic positive thinking duty that will 'manifest' what they are wanting.
And then there is my husband's kind of gratitude which is appreciation, capital A. We call him The Great Appreciator as he expounds on a building's beauty, a rock, a shadow, a flower.
The mystery begins to enter when stuck by the fact of being alive on this planet with moments of beauty and grandeur, we are awed and struck with the gift of it all.
I once went to a conference in Canada near Banfft. I arrived in the dark at night (and almost fainted when what I thought was a statue of an Elk moved toward me as I headed to my room. In the morning, I saw warning signs for randy Elk. Commonplace as in "let the Elk do their thing. Make room. Oh that we could be as tolerant for one another!) Anyway, I stepped from my room and looked up and there were the Canadian Rockies surrounding me. I fell to my knees. I didn't decide to fall. I fell to my knees holding my brief case. I was in awe and wonder and covered in gratitude.
Hmmmm. All kinds of gratitude. All needed.
Here's what ran through my mind this morning.
Gratitude as a practice has become a placeholder for God, the Divine, whatever uncorrupted word you want to use.
Once again, I speak from the middle. It's where I live in my faith continuum. Gratitude remains after the theologies of the world have squeezed the juice out of religion making it unpalatable. It's respectable. It feels right and good. Attach gratitude to humility and there is prayer. There is prayer. Thank Goodness for it.
I sit here and laugh as I am grateful for gratitude. And I am. May the trend grow and evolve as we are.
John O'Donohue is my go to for comfort of all kinds.
He was an Irish poet and author most famous for his book Anam Cara: A Book fo Celtic Wisdom
My favorite book of his is To Bless the Space Between Us
It is a book of blessings that he wrote in fresh touching language.
Here is a smattering to start your week.
Blessing for:
Retirement
Have the courage for a new approach totem
Allow it to slow until you find freedom
To draw alongside the mystery you hold
And befriend your own beauty of soul
Breakup of Relationship
Love can seldom end clean
This is the time to be slow
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes
Leadership
May you have a mind that loves frontiers
So that you can evoke the bright fields
That lie beyond he view of the regular eye
May your have good friends
To mirror your blind spots
May leadership be for you
A true adventure of growth
For One Who Is Exhausted
You have been forced to enter empty time
The desire that drove has relinquished
There is nothing to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.
An Offering
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And was my heart on fear no more
These are just snippets.
Check out this book.
It has a blessing and a comfort for all occasions, most rather unique like: For the Artist at the start of Day,
For an addict, For Suffering, For Loneliness, For the Time of a Necessary Decision.
Try John O'Donahue. He lives on my bedside table
How odd that the Academy Awards had more love and connection or the kind we want to see and need to have than any political speech we saw and heard last year.
Then again, it's not odd. Art matters. Creating matters.
Helping us see what we don't see.
Helping us feel what normally we would not
And guess what else encouraged me?
The ads
Love sells
Inclusion sells
Global love sells
These admirers and companies are not dumb
They are "on trend"
Hate is
But love is attracting people.
That's the good news that is happening in response to world wide craziness.
Love has become a product.
And I'm just fine with that. May it become history's biggest fad (at first) and then like Kleenex become universal.
I was at the first wedding of one of our five adult kids. The event was
loaded with land mines. Former spouses my husband and I had avoided
for years would be prominent. We had just met the extended family our son was
going to join. There were people devoted to science who were evangelical Atheists
and another crew of Fundamental Christians.
It was a lavish week-end event. We enclosed in an campground with cabins all closely connected.
Stuff ensued. I ended up having a massage next to my former husbands wife. No walls.
(California!) My massage guy kept asking why my muscles were so tight!! My husband had to use the bathroom and didn't want to go back to our cabin. He walks into what he thinks is our son's room and there taking naps is his ex-wife and husband. Everyone (as in everyone) called me by David's former wife's name because her's began with a 'J'. People mistook my daughter to be my now husband's and his former wife's because she looked like that tribe. You get the idea.
So--It was my turn to speak at the Rehearsal dinner. It was dusk, the swimming pool was filled with floating candles. The overly careful non-denominational, more like group therapist, officiant had tuned out, exhausted by everyone holding their breath to get through the evening.
And so I said, "It looks to me like we are in need of love that stretches. This couple unites us. They are loved by all of us. They can get pieces of love like a jig-saw puzzle they have to put together or we can stretch that love to include all of the differences of opinion, all the past hurts, all the political disagreements and be a large circle of love and support. AND have a good time. May our kids pick the best from all of us and forgive the rest." What followed was the largest group sigh I have ever heard and the party began.
We need that kind of stretchy love now. You don't love and then stretch. That's easy. We have to stretch into love before we actually love and understand that it hurts like any other stretch and makes us sore after---and stronger.
(PS--my outfit was prettier than any other ex-wife there!!)
