Tag: resilience

To Possess or Let Flow

The line on a Facebook post went something like this:

“If we would all possess the same truth, we could get along.”

I thought, possess and truth do not belong in the same sentence.

This must be an error!

Does this person want to build a dam for a flowing river?

Stop the wind from blowing?

I rewrote the sentence:

If we go deep within, we find a truth that flows throughout all life.

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.” 

Rainer Maria Rilke

“The river is everywhere.” 

Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

“Humans, chuckled the vampire, so possessive.” 

Gail Carriger, Soulless

For Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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The Final Breath: a short, short story

“William thought of that Sacrament now and felt bad for all the children who were forced to divide their ordinary lives into sins and not-sins so they would have something to say to a cassocked stranger.” 

Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

That is where it all started, she thought, as she lay her head back on the pillow reviewing the course of her life as she struggled to breathe.

She saw herself clearly, first as a young girl, fearful, as she crept closer to a curtain which she would step behind to talk to a man about bad things she did or thought.

She started memorizing in her head, I yelled at Mary, I wanted the doll my sister got for Christmas, and on and on through a litany of events and thoughts from her week wondering if these were good enough sins to tell the priest.

Now, in old age, she realized that this is where she started to divide the world into good and bad, sin and not-sin, black and white, where no middle ground held any merit—a line drawn as if chopped by a cleaver.

As she wept, holding this young girl in her heart, she began to forgive herself for all the ways she judged herself, all the times she shut herself off from her own desires, cut herself off from others out of fear, expressed anger at those who saw events and people from a different perspective. All the ways she stopped herself from fully living her life.

She opened her eyes, felt all the love in her heart, gasped for a final breath, and cried out to anyone who would listen, “I am alive.”

“Hate the sin, love the sinner.” 

Mahatma Gandhi

“He tried to name which of the deadly seven might apply, and when he failed, he decided to append an eighth, regret.” 

Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain

“Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

For Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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Soar Like an Eagle

Today, as I reflect on my week to see what inspires me, I look to my grandson who received the highest Boy Scout award, Eagle Scout. Sev joined Cub Scouts at age 5 and today at age 18 he looks back at hundreds of hours dedicated to learning, serving others, donating time, helping his community, and leading others to develop skills in planning, preparing, and living with vision.

I bow to Sev and other young men and women like him who look to what can appear as a ‘sorry excuse for a world’ and rather than give up in despair, move forward with integrity, kindness, thoughtfulness, and creativity while living from their heart to heal and make whole.

Also at age 5, Sev received his first drum kit. Music fills his world, and he has dedicated many hours of learning and practice in becoming a talented drummer, adding keyboard, guitar, and vocals. He is off to college now and we send him off with love and joy and a greater hope for our world’s future.

“Rise up and adopt an eagle mentality. Challenge yourself to leave environments where people have accepted mediocrity. Surround yourself with people who are going places.” 

Germany Kent

“You can run with turkeys, but it takes greater strength to fly with eagles.” 

Matshona Dhliwayo

“Be an eagle instead of flocking like pigeons. Self-discovery will always be the highest type of knowledge in one’s life.” 

Mwanandeke Kindembo

For Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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The Last Breath

When my baby lay dying,
we called all to our home to meet her,
to hold her, to kiss her goodbye. 
When everyone departed, we lay on our bed 
with baby at rest, spooned between, 
and I slept.
While I was sleeping, she took her last breath, 
swaddled in a yellow rose blanket, 
smelling of powder and lotion. 

When my father lay dying, 
We were called to his side.
We sat, stood around the bed,
told stories, laughed, wiped tears,
and sighed. After a night and a day 
I walked out to rest. 
While I slept, 
he took his last breath. Then we sat 
and waited and remembered as 
his spirit fully left.

When my mother lay dying,
we called all to her home, as we 
sat, cooked, ate, and talked, laughed, 
and cried, for five days and nights. 
At dusk she lay quiet.
Leaving my brother to sit vigil,
I slept. 
She took her last breath.
Seconds later, I was at her side.
We washed her body and adorned 
her with rose petals and oil.

When my sister lay dying, 
I slept in my bed,
then awakened from a phone call 
to rush to her side after she drew 
her last breath. I sat with tears, 
spoke to her spirit as memories of 
her sweetness and her challenges 
washed over me— the joy, the delight, 
the losses that formed her life.

Now, I wonder, 
will I wake before I die?

“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly. What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.”

Marcus Aurelius

“If you are living every experience fully, then death doesn’t take anything from you. There’s nothing to take because you’re already fulfilled. That’s why the wise being is always ready to die.”

Seneca

“Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to ‘die before you die’ and find that there is no death.” 

Eckhart Tolle

For Ongoing resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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In This House

That house I used to live in,
the one that eluded me
as things do when you try to forget,
or simply don’t remember,
felt lacking, uncertain,
incomplete, like—
What’s in that closet?

Such a jumble,
I could not tell you.
I did not seem to be
a part of it, nor it to me,
yet it’s where life happened:
birth and death, joy, and sadness,
memories made for a lifetime,
the joy of children and delight.

Today, in this house, I breathe, 
feel comfort and recognize each corner—
each room in accord.
This house I now live in feels whole,
part of a creation, mine, and 
not mine. Like the earth places 
where I feel I belong, as I 
merely travel through.

“On this sacred path of Radical Acceptance, rather than striving for perfection, we discover how to love ourselves into wholeness.”

Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance

“We all have a sacred calling that has very little to do with what we accomplish in this world. It is the calling of the sacred — the quiet pull of an implicit wholeness within each of us that awaits our conscious recognition.”

John J. Prendergast, The Deep Heart, Our Portal to Presence
 

“By psychological work we are changed. In spiritual work we are revealed: we manifest our inner wholeness in conscious daily life.”

David Richo, How to be an Adult: A Handbook on Psychological and Spiritual Integration

For Ongoing Resoure List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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WHEN DYING IS ANNOUNCED

Dark clouds hover,
breezes shift,
sun’s rays ease 
while rabbit skitters
to protection.

In the unexpected,
tensions rise,
plans change,
we scurry when 
we thought we 
could rest, thinking
this day 
would last 
forever.

The announcement comes,
our brains slow, 
numb in thought:
to do, to think,
to plan, to support,
to be present, as
a loved one navigates,
through rocky terrain.

A child’s laughter
wakes us into now,
not when or if, but
the present, filled
with love and compassion,
and we realize
the sun never went anywhere,
was merely hidden 
behind a dark cloud that, true
to its nature, drifts.

Losses felt,
not in a moment but
in the movement of time,
and change, and then
through the laughter of children, 
we move, we live, we love.

“What we see, and like to see, is cure and change. But what we do not see and do not want to see is care, the participation in the pain, the solidarity in the suffering, the sharing in the experience of brokenness.”

HENRI NOWEN

“It is a serious thing to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.”

Mary Oliver

“Always hold fast to the present. Every situation, indeed every moment, is of infinite value, for it is the representative of a whole eternity.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Click the link below for resource list.

Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

KINDNESS

The news reads of  
cluster bombs
and record heat 
of all time
and I attend 
a party for a
Ukrainian family
who are now here 
safe from war 
over there, while
I got stuck on 
cluster bombs 
with my heart
clenched like a 
fist pumping
“Enough! Enough!
Enough!”
Then night brings
a dream 
with me standing
in a field with
one friend on
my left 
the other 
up ahead on
my right and
the question,
What is most important now? 
One friend says
this and that 
and the other
and the one up 
ahead says,
“Kindness.”
I look from 
one to the other
not wanting to 
offend in choosing 
but I know and raise
my arms and yell
“KINDNESS”, and 
with a thumbs up I
run through the
golden grass in
the hot sun
to a lone tree
and lay my body down 
with my back 
on the moist 
cool soil
bringing me to 
breath and to
peace as the 
shade brings
balance of 
kindness to 
this hot and
wild earth.

“One who lives in accordance with nature does not go against the way of things. He moves in harmony with the present moment, always knowing the truth of just what to do.”

8th Verse of the Tao Te Ching, trans. by Dr. Wayne Dyer

“We can be sure that the greatest hope for maintaining equilibrium in the face of any situation rests within ourselves.”

Francis J. Braceland

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”

Dalai Lama

Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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What Resonates with you? Join in mindful dialogue.

The Veil Between Worlds

After my mother’s death,

days after the veil between
worlds once again closed,
leaving me to the details
of a life stopped in motion,
I enter her home, 

	see the desk with her pen
	lying on the green blotter,
	next to a stack of unpaid bills 
        ready for her signature.
	I look toward the kitchen

as she left it, a jumble of paper recipes,
notes she made for groceries, reminders,
all waiting for her return—her hand, in the 
making of caramel rolls or an apple pie. 
I walk down the hall

	past the family photos, the ancestors
	long buried in clay soil
	back on the 40 acre “Heartbreak Farm”
	as it was later called.
	I enter her bedroom, 

see the rose colored walls, 
move into her private bathroom,
open a drawer, and that is when
a tear drops, and with an
intake of breath 

	and release, the tears flow.
	I hold her toothbrush, then touch
	the earrings resting on the stone counter—
	the intimate details of a life.
	I smell her in this space, not 

a flowery presence, more of powder—
a scent of living, cleansing, of hope, and
one I want to cling to like the scent on the 
yellow blanket that became a shroud, when
I held my week-old daughter,

	and carried her back to the hospital
	as she died in my arms.
	A scent I then wanted to embrace, 
	until the day I
	set it down and believed in

my one next step of living.


(Image from artist collection)

“Love is in the sensual details.” 

Lebo Grand

“In a relationship the details are everything because they remind you – just when you need to be reminded the most – why you fell in love with someone in the first place.” 

Mike Gayle, His ‘N’ Hers

“Life is not a plot; it’s in the details.” 

Jodi Picoult, Vanishing Acts

Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

  • The Gene Keys: Emracing Your Higher Purpose by Riuchard Rudd
  • Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Inform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
  • A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
  • Energy Speaks: Messages from Spirit on Living, Loving, and Awakening by Lee Harris
  • Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create an New One by Dr. Joe Dispenza
  • The Women by Kristin Hannah
  • Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe by Brian Thomas Swimme
  • The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz
  • Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
  • God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, by Mirabai Starr
  • The Four Agreements: A Toltec Book of Wisdom by Don Miguel Ruiz
  • Mindfulness and Grief by Heather Stang
  • How We Live Is How We Die by Pema Chödron
  • The Bhagavad Gita, Translated by Eknath Easwaran
  • St Francis of Assisi: Brother of Creation by Mirabai Starr
  • Wild Wisdom Edited by Neil Douglas-Klotz
  • Earth Prayers From Around The World, Ed by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon
  • The Tao of Relationships by Ray Grigg
  • Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue
  • Unconditional Love and Forgiveness by Edith R. Stauffer, Ph.D.
  • Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance by Joseph M. Marshall III
  • Art & Fear by David Bayless & Ted Orland
  • Quantum-Touch by Richard Gordon
  • The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Persons Path Through Depression by Eric Maisel, PhD
  • The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
  • Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris
  • Forever Ours: Real Stories of Immortality and Living by Janis Amatuzio
  • Personal Power Through Awareness by Sanaya Roman
  • Violence & Compassion by His Holiness the Dahlai Lama
  • Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hanh
  • Devotions by Mary Oliver
  • To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue
  • Meditations From the Mat by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison
  • The House of Belonging: poems by David Whyte
  • Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
  • The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
  • Soul an Archaeology Edited by Phil Cousineau
  • A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield
  • Listening Point by Sigurd Olson
  • I Sit Listening to the Wind by Judith Duerk
  • Dancing Moons by Nancy Wood
  • The Soul of Rumi, Translations by Coleman Barks
  • Keep Going by Joseph M. Marshall III
  • Arriving at your own Door by Jon Kabat-Zinn
  • The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
  • The Hidden Secrets of Water by Paolo Consigli
  • Conquest of Mind by Eknath Easwaran
  • Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
  • Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
  • I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) by Brene Brown
  • Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron
  • When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
  • On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
  • Unattended Sorrow by Stephen Levine
  • Joy in Loving, Mother Theresa
  • The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
  • Let Your LIfe Speak by Parker Palmer
  • Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh
  • The Essence of the Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran
  • Welcoming the Unwelcome by Pema Chodron
  • Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  • Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through The Ways Of Animals by Jamie Sams and David Carson

A Morning Symphony


The morning is filled with bird song
	as I sit in my prayer space 
unburdening myself on paper,
	reading to fill myself with spiritual text
then, emptying in meditation

as the symphony filters into my senses.
	A gentle backdrop in the cool morning air
with flutters of breeze moving the leaves here and there.
	Now, stillness — what I seek within as the mind chatters.
Sounds drift on clouds; I let them pass 

until a cocophony of thoughts fills my mind, again.

“Mind can hear a song sung by heart 
when no sound is heard by the ears.” 

Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut

“The sound of silence is many times louder than the sound of words.” 

Mzee Byron Moseni Kabamba

“Shut up, she tells her monkey mind. Please shut up, you picker of nits, presser of bruises, counter of losses, fearer of failures, collector of grievances future and past.” 

Leni Zumas, Red Clock
  • The Gene Keys: Emracing Your Higher Purpose by Riuchard Rudd
  • Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Inform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
  • A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
  • Energy Speaks: Messages from Spirit on Living, Loving, and Awakening by Lee Harris
  • Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create an New One by Dr. Joe Dispenza
  • The Women by Kristin Hannah
  • Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe by Brian Thomas Swimme
  • The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz
  • Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
  • God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, by Mirabai Starr
  • The Four Agreements: A Toltec Book of Wisdom by Don Miguel Ruiz
  • Mindfulness and Grief by Heather Stang
  • How We Live Is How We Die by Pema Chödron
  • The Bhagavad Gita, Translated by Eknath Easwaran
  • St Francis of Assisi: Brother of Creation by Mirabai Starr
  • Wild Wisdom Edited by Neil Douglas-Klotz
  • Earth Prayers From Around The World, Ed by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon
  • The Tao of Relationships by Ray Grigg
  • Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue
  • Unconditional Love and Forgiveness by Edith R. Stauffer, Ph.D.
  • Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance by Joseph M. Marshall III
  • Art & Fear by David Bayless & Ted Orland
  • Quantum-Touch by Richard Gordon
  • The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Persons Path Through Depression by Eric Maisel, PhD
  • The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
  • Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris
  • Forever Ours: Real Stories of Immortality and Living by Janis Amatuzio
  • Personal Power Through Awareness by Sanaya Roman
  • Violence & Compassion by His Holiness the Dahlai Lama
  • Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hanh
  • Devotions by Mary Oliver
  • To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue
  • Meditations From the Mat by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison
  • The House of Belonging: poems by David Whyte
  • Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
  • The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
  • Soul an Archaeology Edited by Phil Cousineau
  • A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield
  • Listening Point by Sigurd Olson
  • I Sit Listening to the Wind by Judith Duerk
  • Dancing Moons by Nancy Wood
  • The Soul of Rumi, Translations by Coleman Barks
  • Keep Going by Joseph M. Marshall III
  • Arriving at your own Door by Jon Kabat-Zinn
  • The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
  • The Hidden Secrets of Water by Paolo Consigli
  • Conquest of Mind by Eknath Easwaran
  • Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
  • Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
  • I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) by Brene Brown
  • Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron
  • When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
  • On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
  • Unattended Sorrow by Stephen Levine
  • Joy in Loving, Mother Theresa
  • The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
  • Let Your LIfe Speak by Parker Palmer
  • Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh
  • The Essence of the Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran
  • Welcoming the Unwelcome by Pema Chodron
  • Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  • Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through The Ways Of Animals by Jamie Sams and David Carson

Art Exhibition

Runs through August 31, 2023

The One World series of paintings and written reflections in poetry and prose depict the inner images of the artist from early 2020 through 2022 — the start of the pandemic through the George Floyd murder, civil unrest, political upheaval, and the war in Ukraine.

All art works are for sale as well as greeting cards made from the images. Please contact me for more information on purchase.

The gallery is open most M-F from 9-3 but call Wisdom Ways for further times during evenings and weekends. 651-696-2794