Living and Loving
Recently I wrote a poem titled ‘Longing’ that was inspired by an exchange with a dear friend that left me feeling less than valued, wondering if I should have, or could have, done something differently in our past to allow for a more pleasant current exchange.
Sitting heart-to-heart with another precious friend a week or so later, I was stunned to have her say to me, “You are more invested in saving my marriage than I am.”
Later, as I was writing in my journal, some clarity came about all of this, inspired in part by the Thought for Today from Deep Spring Center.
You as a world are inviting conflict but then not doing the needed practice with it, so you must invite it again and again. You are like the child in school doing endless multiplication table drills; they are unpleasant but you have not studied the tables, and will not, so the teacher repeats the drills. Your inattention calls forth the repetition. If you wish the drills to cease, learn the tables.
~ Aaron
The “D” stands for Debra, and the “V” stands for the voice of wisdom I call Holy Spirit, from my journal entry:
D: I know the truth that ‘wherever you go, there you are.’ If she is so easily offended because he yelled at her, she will encounter that energy again. It is today’s quotation from Aaron about calling difficulties to us over and over to learn what we need to know.
V: If you had a lesson you are still learning that expresses itself in the ‘Longing’ poem, what might that lesson be?
D: Take nothing personally. I am not responsible for another person’s emotional state.
Note—As I wrote these words on to the journal page, I could feel something leaving my energy!
V: What else?
D: Wonderings are a symptom of not being present moment where I can gently say, “Oh, this is that old habit energy. I know you. Come, sit, have tea. I’ve been expecting you.” *
V: Tell all who know. They all know. Love, Holy Spirit
A very wonderful message on an Easter morning.
Going right along with that, was the quotation, “When humanity awakens, it will move beyond time,” which came from the Brahma Kumaris with this image:
*This is a reference to the stories of Milarepa (c. 1052 – c. 1135 CE), one of Tibet’s most famous yogis and poets.
I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly,
acutely miserable…but through it all
I still know quite certainly that
just to be alive is a grand thing.
Agatha Christie
Visit Gratefulness.org/
This week’s news out of Paris was shocking, and of all times to have it be Holy Week for humanity to experience such a devastating loss of such history and magnificence and relevance and beauty. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame destroyed by fire.
Reminding ourselves of impermanence at times like this, we could/should read all of my blog posts rolled into one message. The message essentially is Agatha Christie’s: Just to be alive is a grand thing.
We might start with Does the tree still live in your heart? and Tree of Hope.
Then move back to Hey, Ma Durga. The following quotation is from that:
“My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came in this earth, I was the same. As a little girl, I was the same. I grew into womanhood, but I was still the same. When the family In which I had been born made arrangements to have this body married, I was the same… And, in front of you now, I am the same. Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change around me in the hall of eternity, I shall be the same.”
Nothing—NO THING—lasts forever. We know that, and yet we deal with loss as though it is some sort of personal punishment.
Yes, it is loss. Yes, it is sad. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, it is painful.
But we do not have to suffer.
We suffer because of our subtle judgment, the way we tell the story in our own heart and mind. Today’s Thought for Today from Deep Spring Meditation Center explains that well.
Subtle judgment is caught up in the story that contracts and says,
‘I’m not good at this’ or,
‘I should be able to do it better.’
I might look at it and say,
‘I can do it better.’
That’s not a judgment.
I know I CAN do it better.
Can you feel the difference?
‘I should be able to do it better.’ Tightness, tension.
‘I can do it better,’ is a relaxed and spacious perception.
~ Aaron
I have been dealing with Comcast this week, updating router, cable box, and DVR. It took me five trips to the store, and many hours on the phone to finally get everything working. Right in the middle of all of that frustration (and I was feeling frustrated!), I knew nothing that was happening was eternal.
Whatever is happening, watch the stories you tell yourself about what is happening.
Make this a truly HOLY WEEK. Give up suffering….