Tag: politics

  • The True Meaning of Home

    The other evening we were talking about our favorite childhood book/s. Mine was The Boxcar Children. It is a story about four orphaned siblings who must find a way to fend for themselves or risk being separated.The children have a grandfather they have never met, but they are afraid he is mean because he did not seem to like their mother. An abandoned boxcar, near a stream, is luxury compared to sleeping inside a hay stack all day! Working odd-jobs, the children use hard work to cultivate self-reliance until they must seek medical care for Violet, at risk of losing their independence.

    After much process and some candid conversation with my dharma sister physician friend, Stacey decided to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine while she was here. It was convenient. She, admittedly, still had some reservations.

    As she was waiting for her shot she said, “The first person who thanks me for getting the shot is going to piss me off.”

    “Then let me be the first so you get it out of the way. Thank you.” We both cried and hugged.

    When she sat down to go over the paperwork, I said to the woman, “She is doing this for her mother.”

    The woman glanced at me, “Are you her mother?” When I said I was, she turned back to Stacey and confessed, “I did it for my dad.”

    I am not exactly sure why Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny were so memorable, or why I can still FEEL the safety of their boxcar. The relief they expressed upon discovery of a safe place to call home was familiar to me as a child. Having grown up with an alcoholic father, I know that feeling of longing for a home in the core of my being.

    Although I loved to go visit friends, overnights often turned into feelings of homesickness. I sometimes feel that even as an adult.

    One website addressed “cosmic” and “Lemurian” homesickness: Sometimes you feel trapped in your life, in your body, separated by your skin from the truth of the world and the people around you. Lonely and disconnected. You gaze skyward, knowing home must be up there, somewhere. You long for the feeling of your soul’s most familiar surroundings.

    Yes, that is the longing I had during the time Covid (and politics, and religion….) created the feeling of homesickness.

    Wynn, from Brentwood Bay, British Columbia, in Grade 5, wrote about home so clearly.

    Home means an enjoyable, happy place where you can live, laugh and learn. It’s somewhere where you are loved, respected, and cared for. When you look at it from the outside, home is just a house. A building. Maybe a yard. But on the inside, it’s a lot more than wood and bricks. The saying “Home is where the heart is” says it all.

    Home is also where your memories lie. Home is where I got my head stuck under the couch. Home is where I fell in the goldfish pond. I remember sleeping in the playhouse, falling down the stairs and climbing up the apple tree. Without memories, most people wouldn’t be the people that they are today.

    Just like memories, home is also where your hopes and dreams are.

  • Pondering Becoming a Pundit

    “You’re braver than you believe,
    stronger than you seem
    and smarter than you think.”
    ~ Christopher Robin

    A precious friend told me about 45 years ago that I should be a political pundit. According to Wikipedia, a pundit is a person who offers to mass media their opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically political analysis, the social sciences, technology or sport) on which they are knowledgeable (or can at least appear to be knowledgeable), or considered a scholar in said area.

    Having watched the 2020 Presidential debates, I began the day today by asking for a revelation of truth about all of this.

    From my journal:

    V:
    How would you articulate what you already see?

    D:
    1. Whomever is elected, we will still have some navigating to do.
    2. Whomever is elected, we can choose peace.
    3. Whomever is elected, we can continue mean-spiritedness.
    4. Whomever is elected, the need to tap into the well of wisdom remains.

    V:
    There is nothing more you need to see.

    My soul longs to hear leaders courageous enough to speak the truth to a collective courageous enough to recognize truth when they hear it: “I know uncertainty can be unpleasant. While we want definitive answers to what we will do and what we will encounter, the truth is, we don’t yet know. I can promise you I will remind myself over and over that we access more wisdom and creativity in unity than in divisiveness. I assure you I aspire to have the humility to ask those who see things differently to help me see what brought them to their conclusion so we can gain wisdom together. It is without a doubt that I would be lying to make campaign promises to you beyond these truths….”

    Perhaps we would do well to make Stephen Covey’s 1989 book,7 Habits of Highly Effective People, compulsory in all education forums. You might appreciate a summary of the 7 Habits.

    Habit 1: Be Proactive® …
    Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind® …
    Habit 3: Put First Things First® …
    Habit 4: Think Win-Win® …
    Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood® …
    Habit 6: Synergize® …
    Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw®

    For the theme of today’s blog, lets focus on Habit # 6:

    Innovate and problem solve with those who have a different point of view. To put it simply, synergy means “two heads are better than one.” Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. But it doesn’t just happen on its own.

    “If the person you are talking to
    doesn’t appear to be listening,
    be patient.
    It may simply be that
    he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”
    ~ Winnie the Pooh

    In 2004, Covey published The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. It seems most fitting for us now:

    The crucial challenge of our world today is this: to find our voice and inspire others to find theirs. It is what Covey calls the 8th Habit. The 8th Habit is the answer to the soul’s yearning for greatness, the organization’s imperative for significance and superior results, and humanity’s search for its “voice.”

    “A little consideration,
    a little thought for others,
    makes all the difference.”
    —Eeyore

    * Special thanks to Winnie the Pooh and friends for the powerful pundit points!

  • Red and Blue

    I love color, and I am also fascinated by shapes. In my next life I might like to study sacred geometry. This image came up when I searched “What color does blue and red make?”

    My question about what color you get by mixing red and blue resulted from a recent post-puzzling conversation with two dear friends.

    Here is the photo of Linda and me with our completed puzzle, snapped by our hostess:

    Linda found it incomprehensible that neither Kathy nor I know which US party is represented by red, and which US party is blue!

    Our conversation had begun with questions about what I had learned at the recent Dharma Path Intensive. An inner journey is not easy to explain. When the word ‘politics’ came up, I said I could recall having heard Abraham Hicks say, “Politics is just outside of the vortex.”

    The next question was, “What is the vortex?”

    I was now trying to speak Buddhism, Abraham Hicks, and DebraESE. For this blog post, I will add some WilberESE to the mix!

    Maybe the questions about mixing the colors of red and blue might make things a bit more clear. The answer seems to depend if you are referring to pigment or light. Commonly people think about pigment. Mixing blue and red pigment, would result in purple or violet.

    However, if you are referring to light, which is additive color, mixing red and blue light produces magenta. Yikes….

    I found this reference to magenta online. It comes from Integral Theory (levels of consciousness) by Ken Wilber: Magenta Altitude tends to be the home of egocentric drives, a magical worldview, and impulsiveness. It is expressed through magic/animism, kin-spirits, and such. Young children primarily operate with a magenta worldview. Magenta in any line of development is fundamental, or ‘square one’ for any and all new tasks. Magenta emotions and cognition can be seen driving cultural phenomena.

    I am working with a few others to develop a blog called Words of Light, where the teachings of Aaron (as channeled by Barbara Brodsky) will be made available. This is a snip from one blog entry:

    The whole Earth is in process of growing through from the lowest level of consciousness, which has a very heavy vibrational frequency, to a higher and higher and higher consciousness. Just as you cannot rush the 2-year-old into the next level of consciousness, but must allow gradual transition, you cannot rush the Earth and the sentient life upon the Earth.

    But, just as your willingness to explain to the 2-year-old even though he doesn’t yet understand—to hold the door open to the next level of consciousness—is vital to his shifting into that higher level of consciousness, so your willingness to hold the door open is essential to the shift in consciousness in the Earth….

    We were all two. We were all teens.

    Also in that post, Aaron makes it clear that the levels of consciousness are not like floors in a building. They are more like intersecting planes. When lower levels of consciousness arise in us (Aaron says this happens in all of us), by being able now to see it for what it is, you do not get caught up in those early beliefs.

    Think of an election, not as two forces in opposition to each other, but really the higher consciousness inviting the lower consciousness.

    Higher consciousness is making the clear statement, “You cannot stay hidden there in such early childhood consciousness. You must move out.”

    Now this has my mind going to Wilber’s Turquoise Attitude…. Turquoise is a mature integral view, one that sees not only healthy hierarchy but also the various quadrants of human knowledge, expression, and inquiry (at the minimum: I, we, and it). Turquoise is the first to begin to integrate Spirit as a living force in the world (manifested through any or all of the 3 Faces of God: “I”—e.g. the “No self” or “witness” of Buddhism; “we/thou”—e.g. the “great other” of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, etc.; or “it”—e.g. the “Web of Life” as seen in Taoism, Pantheism, etc.).

    Perhaps I should do a search asking what two colors make turquoise….

  • Rob Swartz

    Sacred Stories

    While in a client session, she suggested a soul purpose reading with Rob Swartz, a man she had just spent the week with on retreat.

    Her client said, “Rob Swartz! I just listed to his podcast!”

    While she had met Rob at the retreat, she did not know about the podcast.

    Rob’s podcast is l-o-n-g, but you will probably find it worth every second, as it is touching on everything from politics to suicide to atheism. What a gift!

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.