December 2021 – Janis Dehler

Embracing The World

One World: The Heart of Compassion
18 x 24 Acrylic ©Janis Dehler

Walk in kindness toward the Earth and every living being. Without kindness and compassion for all of Mother Nature’s creatures, there can be no true joy, no internal peace, no happiness. Happiness flows from caring for all sentient beings as if they were your own family, because in essence they are. We are all connected to each other and to the Earth.
Sylvia Dolson, Joy of Bears

One love, one heart, one destiny.
Bob Marley

This week we walk into 2022. Whereas we might have floated into the year, or danced, cheered, or slept into it, this year as the last, Covid is at the gate taking tickets. He is a wily character, and we prepare ourselves as we wait to walk through. We have our tools as we each choose: our mask, our vaccinations, our booster, we keep at a distance, we dare not let down our guard. We thought we were done with him, but he is persistent having found a way to recreate himself. He is a living force in our world.

We do not want to start a new year in fear; it does not serve us well and creates an energy around us that is suspicious, paranoid, and hypervigilant. It creates our future. While Covid may be our future for some time to come, we need to find within ourselves a sense of peace with life as it is and an awareness of the world around us that breeds joy, compassion, kindness, and respect for all.

Growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, I was educated both in the church and in school to understand human as the master of the world, dominant to all living creatures as well as nature. There was nothing we could not do, create, or envision. All the world was our playground, and we left our trash everywhere. Then our playground moved into space, and we littered the heavens with our debris. We caged animals, destroyed indigenous families, tore asunder mother earth.

In the year 2000, I created and offered a retreat on the paradigm of a creation myth envisioning and understanding that each creature tells us something about the All, God, Universal Consciousness; there is an energy or spirit that permeates everything, every rock, water, tree, wind, fire, every human, plant life, and animal; we live in an interdependent universe, the All, Spirit, God, expressing itself through creation, through us and all.

As I review this retreat today, it seems so simple and innocent back then, lovely concepts to meditate on and attempt to be aware of as we walk the earth. Now on the cusp of 2022, we understand these concepts as vital to our survival. To save the world we must remove ourselves from the place of control and power at the top to be one with, truly understanding and living interdependence with all life, with Universal Mind, energy, Spirit. The fishes and the seas and the birds and the air, and all plant and animal life will live very well without us, but we will not survive a moment without them.

The arms depicted in the image above are collective arms, not the arms of one benevolent being but the arms of every one of us bringing through and living out love, compassion, kindness, and forgiveness. There is much suffering in this vast world. There is also generosity, kindness, and giving hearts. As I sit with this image and recall everything on earth including the children, the abuser, the farmer planting the seed, the developer burning the rain forest, the warrior saving lives, and the dictator killing for greed, I acknowledge that I must accept every bit of life as one energy force being lived out through each unique personality. Personalities that have become distorted in their development, some lost in greed, fear, or addiction, and others who live gently, filled with light and love, and a wide array in between. Life on earth is a vast field of differences.

I can begin to feel overwhelmed when I stretch these thoughts out further and further. Then, I realize that as I return to the core, my breath, the seed of these vast thoughts, I remember, it is all one web of pulsing energy. Active love that is either circulated and transformed or impeded and halted. It is simply me and you being love, allowing flow in and through us, or becoming rigid in our pain, fear, or hate, and stopping the flow within and without.

In showing care in our day, responding with action when needed, understanding, listening, truly listening, every one of us could in this way do much in acknowledging and upholding animal life, the vegetation, those we do not like or even despise, as well as those we know and care for; we will then actively embrace the world together, in community. This is not easy work. It takes courage, conscious living, and will. There are many days when we fall short but we wake up the next day ready for another challenge.

This we can claim: we are not the master but part of; we are not dominant but interdependent; the laws of the universe are meant to be lived with, engaged with, brought into relationship to.

As we step into 2022, we walk with courage, allowing joy, peace, and love to enter our hearts and radiate out to all life. Our pleas for help are answered in varied ways and it is up to us to respond, each in our unique way. We live creation. We watch for the ways we are being lifted so that we might live our best lives. We open to the energy of the universe, dance with it, play in it, create in it.

May life’s blessings shower upon us, may all love surround us, may our hearts be filled with peace. May we all live through the core of our humanity as embodied spirit.

Happy New Year! ¡Feliz año nuevo! bonne année!

frohes neues Jahr! с новым годом! Shanah Tovah!

saehae bok mani bada! Buon anno! Szczęśliwego nowego roku!

Xīnnián hǎo! šťastný nový rok! hauʻoli makahiki hou

Naya saal mubaarak ho!

And to all, peace, happiness, good will.

Darkness Into Light

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King Jr

The darkness declares the glory of light.
T.S. Elliot

December is a busy month of celebrations with many focused on the arrival of light. It is not by accident that these holy events take place in the darkest days of the year. Hanukkah is known as the Festival of Lights. Bodhi Day celebrates the day Siddhartha Gautama achieved enlightenment. Solstice or Yule is a pagan celebration on the shortest day of the year celebrating the return of the sun and is a festival of rebirth. Christmas is a day of honoring the birth of Jesus the Christ. In John 8:12, we read that Jesus referred to himself in these words, “I am the light of the world.”

We all know what we would consider a dark time, individually or collectively. Times when we have lost our way, said goodbye to a loved one through death or betrayal, lived through battle in war, devastating illness, and any condition when we feel separated from our inner life. We have learned to fear the dark as a place where we can get hijacked by disturbing thoughts, lack of hope, painful memories, or a feeling of emptiness. As children we grew fearful when the lights were turned off. Not trusting the dark, we saw monsters in the corner; what was once our favorite yellow toy truck now is an animal waiting to pounce. When we cannot see, we do not know how to orient ourselves. Our imagination grows wild. In our fear we don’t think to wonder what it is we are really seeing. We want light. We want what we perceive as truth, reality.

Life cannot survive without light and the smallest of seeds cannot germinate deep in the soil without the rich moist darkness surrounding it. We will not die from lack of sunlight, but prolonged lack of light will bring us to illness which will then take our life. These are references to light from an external source, the sun, or a light bulb but what this season is really reminding us of is the light within each of us. A light that has gotten clouded over, diminished, or forgotten. It is what Jesus spoke of in proclaiming himself ‘the light of the world’. Here he is speaking of the internal light that so radiates from him he becomes a guiding principle available to all, a source of spiritual light. Buddha also found that light source as have the rare few who continue to guide us and help us find our way.

As adults we can still fear the dark for many reasons. Trauma, despairing thoughts, layers of insecurity and doubt, and all the conditioning we have learned that keeps us from our true self. All the mental junk mail that arrives daily and that we have not filtered out, over time creating a perception of self and of the world that does not serve us well.

If we cannot live without external sunlight, how do we survive in our soul’s journey without awakening to the light within? Meditation and contemplative prayer are avenues to that light. When first learning to sit in meditation or contemplative prayer with eyes closed, we can feel anxious about what we might find. What is supposed to happen? In the inner dark and quiet we experience the jumbled thoughts of our mind, the lack of direction, the desire to be done now, the impatience for light and the opening of our eyes. We are outer referenced and want the light to be on.

The more we practice the more we learn to trust the inner darkness, the quiet, and the workings of the mind. If we bring curiosity, we see the shadow self, all the personality aspects of self we don’t want to admit to or don’t recognize in consciousness, but in themselves are keys to our healing soul, and in recognition and patience open an avenue to the light. This is a common truth for all no matter our political or religious or social beliefs. The billionaire as well as the one living on the street. Our hate and discrimination will not light our way. Light is found in our hearts of love, our compassion, care, and kindness.

In the early 80’s, I was asked to preach during advent, the waiting time before Christmas. It was three years after a dark time in my life, the death of my infant daughter and my continuing struggle with health issues. I was asked to share how I found light in the darkness, what brought me forward, gave me hope in this advent of my life. Simply put, it was light. I consciously chose light, hope, love, and compassion. It has taken me years to understand those words more fully as I continue to live into that choice; I continue to learn and to understand. Like the seed deep within the moist dark humus, we can only grow into our fullness or languish and die. There are not a lot of options.

In that darkness, I learned more about who I am. I looked closely at what was needed to help me to grow— the dung that we place on the garden for the natural nutrients. This is not clean, tidy work; it is digging, weeding, nurturing, pruning with honesty and courage. Choice is not made on one day and then see what happens; choice for light and love is made daily, becomes a discipline, a practice. An embodiment of courage. But in that moment of choice, it also felt natural, an ‘of course’ moment that I had to trust and see where it led me. In doing so we begin to recognize, even briefly, this light in each other. The inner light becoming as important as the outer.

During this season of light, we are reminded. We celebrate. We take stock of where we have come in life. Feel gratitude for life’s blessings and the connection to spirit, the All. To whatever being we have chosen as our guide, our guru, our reflection of what can be, we celebrate the birth of the light of the world, in our hearts, in our very being. We celebrate the return of light in our days. We honor and bow to those who have achieved this rare human occurrence.

May the darkness of these days increase our awareness of all the light there is to see.

Holiday blessings to all.

A Journey of a Forgiving Heart

The mind selects, enhances, and betrays; happenings fade from memory; people forget one another and, in the end, all that remains is the journey of the soul, those rare moments of spiritual revelation.
Isabel Allende from Paula

To understand the judging mind, we need to touch it with a forgiving heart.
Jack Kornfield

Warning to those who have witnessed a violent act and have been subsequently traumatized.

The idea of “happenings fading from memory” and “forgetting one another” at first glance might scare us as we all watch the continually rising rate of dementia as we age, however, looking at these statements from a day to day living viewpoint, I believe we can also consider the propensity for forgetfulness in our thinking selves a boon of our ever-changing brain.

We are all bombarded daily with rampant and random thoughts, those that are judging others, painful memories, resentments, judgement toward ourselves, fears, angers; the mind can be exhausting. With a holiday season and for many of us in all manner of beliefs and traditions, these thoughts might be more burdensome, including the loss of loved ones, depression, anxiety, and lost dreams.

Pestered by the smallest incident of who did not clean out the dryer filter last to a painful experience in childhood that has not been resolved and won’t leave us in peace, our mind selects today’s winner of the mental lottery and runs with it in a circle of exhaustion, upheaval, and self-criticism. The more we fight our thinking the more persistent it becomes. The body and mind are one, hence the body is also aroused in our mental circles with our nervous system responding in increasing heart rate, breathing, and muscular tension. What a blessing it would be to live in this day without dwelling in the past in old hurts that drain our energy or to not lose ourselves in worry for a future that is not yet written but leaves us stuck in inaction.

Many times, we feel helpless with the running of our thoughts; I know I have. One moment stands out for me as a time when I could pull together all the years of meditating and education in mindfulness and other techniques for calming the mind/body that I had learned and tried to practice. It was a cold January morning when a call came letting me know that my colleague, Sarah, had been murdered during the night by her husband. There were enough details gleaned leaving me feeling sickened, shocked, and unmoored—this did not fit my known sense of reality. The event was traumatizing in its gory details with much left to my imagination.

Hanging up the phone, I felt stunned and off balance. Where a moment ago, I knew exactly what I was doing, I now felt like I needed direction. My sister was visiting, and we had a full day planned regarding care for our youngest sister. While a part of me needed time to process this information, I also knew that I did not want it to take over my mental state and consume me as we had a long drive with a long day ahead of us and had to be leaving soon.

I took a few moments to sit quietly and review the information from the call. Saying a blessing prayer for my colleague and her husband and young son, I then visualized all those in my department who would also be hearing this story. I allowed myself to feel the pain and the shock and asked that I and all be held in love as we journeyed through our important duties in this day. I acknowledged to myself that there was nothing more I could do and whatever was happening now for her, and her family, was in the care of other hands. Then, rising from my chair, with my sister in tow, we entered the tasks at hand.

As we drove, I began to watch my mind. An image would come of my colleague, then the murder, and her little boy. Then, I would try to shut it off. No. I do not want to see this. But that never works. The more we say no, the more persistent a memory or a thought becomes. The next time the thought of her arose, I watched it and saw that it began to take me down a road, one that was always seen in my mind to be at my right, and one that I had been following, but not now. When I caught myself beginning on this path, I acknowledged the thought with non-judgement, saying, “Okay, I see you, and now I am thinking of Sarah at work.” I pictured her doing or saying something that brought a smile to my heart and face and then I proceeded to bring myself back to the moment with my breath or in looking around at the world around me.

This is and was hard work. I kept at it throughout the day and into the night and the next day as the thoughts of the trauma continued to rise. The energy for working with this came from knowing that I knew enough of the story and dwelling on it did not offer me any new insight. I was not shutting off my care for her or the reality of this tragedy but working to open my heart to the whole of her life, all the while caring for myself. I was giving my body the time and the trust it needed to calm and to settle as the mind worked to claim its center once again, thus allowing the autonomic nervous system the time it needed to understand it was not needed for fright or flight and I could now breathe, rest, and feel peace.

My experience showed me a way to be compassionate and kind to myself and my thoughts. This story was tragic, shocking, and challenging to work with, and there were many more days and events that followed when I needed to use my will to care for myself. Over time, the mental images I struggled with receded to a fading memory replaced with a recollection of a beautiful woman’s life as I knew her.

As Jack Kornfield states, judging comes in many ways. There are stories and images created in our minds around any event. The ones we tend to cling to come when someone slights us, or when we feel we have not done enough for another, or we have felt misunderstood, or we witness an event, or experience trauma, and on and on. Some are quickly let go of, others linger, coming forward when we are not focused, or we get triggered by something we see or do or hear. It happens equally in our grief stories and our love stories. We replay and recreate and every time we do, we develop a new version of the narrative.

I chose to free this narrative with my heart. Being mindful of the suffering mind of the spouse who acted out his own troubled thoughts. Allowing my heart to open to the young boy left without a mother and father, to the broader hurting families and coworkers. I chose to care for myself as well knowing that I have a challenging time clearing visual images. Choice is essential in working with our mind. We all have the power to choose and we either forget or do not believe this as a viable option.

When we get to the end of life, the detail stories and the list of grievances will not be important, fading from memory, forgotten in the truth of the moment, enveloped in the lifelong task of letting go. The path we trekked, those we met along the way, the kindnesses shown, the compassion developed, the care for each other, from birth to death, is the journey of the soul. That is what we will be taking with us. This is what we are preparing for in the cleaning, the clearing, and the polishing of the heart, all that happens in the rare moments of spiritual revelation.

Where The Heart Calls Home

Out on the road are millennials, couples, women, and men who are each solo traveling, families who are home schooling. There are many seniors…living full time on the road.

I believe wherever dreams dwell, the heart calls home.
Dodinsky

Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you.
Parker Palmer

Recently there was a program on our local public radio station about guilty pleasures, defined as something one enjoys regardless of it being seen as unusual or weird. Being attracted to unusual and weird, I had to think what I would offer as my guilty pleasure. Then it came to me, Nomads. #Van life. #Social Science Project. That is what it is for me, a study in human nature, in peoples’ ways of living, of creating home. Not the sticks and bricks type home but the home on wheels.

In many ways it is a natural for me as I feel captivated by homes in all styles and locations. I find it fascinating to see how people make home, what is important for them to include to feel safe, grounded, and in beauty. Having lived in 17 homes, I understand the resilience it requires, the creativity, and the trust that one places in these walls that might have seen generations before me.

I also love travel and, owning a travel trailer, I have some experience making a small space feel comfortable and stable. What I don’t know is what it feels like to live in my car, a small van, or an RV (Recreational Vehicle) full time and in many cases, alone. This I find intriguing. Not that I desire this lifestyle for myself, but I enjoy the captivating and inspiring questions of who chooses this type of home, what brings a person to this choice, what encourages a person in this living arrangement, what is a person giving up and what are they gaining, in what way is the aspect of the spiritual engaged in this person’s life, where is community, who do they count on.

So where does a person go to research and study this interesting topic? YouTube. Of course. Where I can get lost in time and preoccupation. Many of us have seen the movie Nomadland but If I want to add to my growing list of who is doing what, where, and how, I go to CheapRvLivin, or Glorious Life on Wheels. Both Bob Wells and Carol offer short interviews with people they meet on the road. Each one interviewed is unique and sometimes their situation is eye popping, concerning, or simply well done.

Then there are individual channels like, Lady Bugout, Ad-van-tures Over 50, The Dawn of Van Life, Life Simplified by Mai, and Carolyn’s RV Life, to name a few. These vlogs give personal experiences on a day-to-day basis of the life the individual is living and what changes they have made to their setups. The challenges as well as the joys of living on the road.

Out on the road are millennials, couples, women, and men who are each solo traveling, families who are home schooling. There are many seniors, ones who are out for adventure and those who are trying to stay afloat on Social Security. Some who are ill. Some who have been evicted from home. It was estimated a couple of years ago that there are over a million people living full time on the road. In that estimation, they were counting all types of RV’s not cars and vans, so the number has grown.

I see women and men older than my 71 years with declining health and finances, losing most of their money to a health issue, or rising rent and facing eviction, and who are now facing the daunting question of how and where to live. Many are found on the street while others prepare and head for their vehicle.

What I have learned:

I hear a firm statement from each person that they do not consider themselves homeless; even the ones living in a compact car. Each one has created a different home, one where they can feel secure, afford, and feel a sense of freedom. I see pride in their interviews as they show what they have created either from a build or a no build, using materials from their former home to create a space to sleep, store food and water, prepare food, and ways to keep clean.

Overall, there is a repeated statement of feeling more connected with other people now while living on the road, different than in their sticks and bricks home that they left. Whether a senior or a young person starts the journey because they find they are just sitting within walls and still have dreams to pursue, or because they are forced out, there is an across the board feeling that they now know so many more people, and have a community that helps them learn, repair, and find resources. For some, living a life of travel with their own accommodations brings them closer to family who live throughout the country, and whom they can now visit.

Beauty is being found in nature. When asked if they would ever go back to a sticks and bricks home, the answer is a clear, “No. Just look around here. How could I give all this up to go back and live within walls? I was lonely there. Out here I have only found kindness.” Many state that while they are alone, they do not feel lonely.

Living like this is hard work. There is always something to repair. There can be dangers and the learning curve can be big. When I hear the young one’s state this, I wonder how the elders are making it. Resilience, determination, and being able to ask for help, play a big role here. Those who make it long term state the importance of asking for help.

We take ourselves with us wherever we go and by this, I mean our joys and our sorrows, our regrets, and our successes. Geography does not offer a cure, but it might offer the space and change needed to heal.

People can make and keep their own home on wheels with just their Social Security income.

After a period of living on the road, some try to buy remote land giving them a place to anchor. The general rule is one needs to move every two weeks, even on free BLM land (Bureau of Land Management). Some make it in this fashion for 10 years and more, others find the constant moving too much.

Most often I hear, “I had a vision of doing this.” I always wanted to travel and now I can every day.” “This is where I want to be.”

Recently, I watched a video of those we would consider truly homeless in Oakland, California. These are very different images, all manner of vans, cars, motorhomes, trailers, tents, and cardboard structures creating a home, all surrounded by garbage strewn about. The interview of one gentleman who has lived here for about 15 years revealed that while a few are addicted to some form of drug, most of those living here are lawyers, tradesmen, doctors, businesspeople, homemakers, those who survive a life changing circumstance, with many moving here with a good paying job but unable to afford the first and last rent down payment which is required to rent an apartment. Some that cannot afford the current going rate of $3,000.00 per month for an efficiency apartment, meaning you need $6,000 for the down payment. These are the folks too young to receive a social security check. Those who are working cannot make enough to afford rent. There are those who are not working as their life is too unstable to get hired.

Here the need for focus and determination is paramount to moving on. It took the gentleman interviewed 15 years of persistence to finally procure an apartment for himself with assistance to keep him living there. At one time he and his wife were serving meals to homeless, now he was the one needing support. In the video, what looked like a shambles of pain and hopelessness to the viewer was community for this man, a place where people were helping each other out and helping each other to get out.

This was not the sense of freedom I experienced in the voices of those fleeing the cities for the desert, those who have the bare means to buy gas and move on, or those who find jobs along the way, or those who have the skills to work remotely while living in their van. These were very different images with each one tugging at my heart in different ways. Some of these folks will not move on. Some will struggle beyond my sense of what it is to be human. Some will lose hope and many more will find a way to move forward. While there are stories of those lacking a sticks and bricks home that are shocking and disturbing, there are also stories of those creating a new idea of home that are uplifting and inspiring.

For all of us, the future is found in this moment. It all starts with the heart/mind, the vision, the dream, the possibility of something more. The woman facing eviction after losing her job begins to search within herself for what she can do to live with less than $1,000 a month. It is more than survival; it is being able to open to a future where one can breathe with ease. Something settles into her heart, it is nurtured, and it grows, creativity is freed, and then the will is activated allowing her to move forward. She studies carefully what others have done and thinks, “I can do this.” She creates home in her minivan carefully thinking of how she will sleep and eat. She feels pride, contentment, and fear as she moves into the unknown. Then the fear resides as she becomes more confident, meets others, creates community. For now, she has home, is home. Created from within. Creating a new future.

Having known challenging and adverse situations in my life, I feel fortunate in not having to face the choice of how to physically survive and having a stable home with the joys of travel when I choose. Whether one has chosen the nomad life out of adventure or was pushed to create an alternative home, I find much to admire and learn from their experiences.

I don’t know where this trend is headed but beyond what it is saying about our US economy, it seems to be telling us something about our intrinsic connection to nature, living small, living day to day, living with resilience, a feeling of possibility, and the need for our own space within the work of creating community, relying on community, and supporting community in whatever way it appears for us. It is not only survival training in body, mind, and spirit it is a model for resilience and adaptability through the creative spirit.