The writer and activist Joanna Macy says: "Work with your passion. Work with your pain. Work with what is at hand." And to that, my own heart responds.
For now, more than ever, spiritual warriors are needed to feel the light and love within them and radiate that love to the darkest corners of hearts and souls everywhere.
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.
Lao-Tse
Chinese philosopher
6th century bce
Still your hearts from anger, fear, or hatred. Fill them up with love and peace. Our spirits know who we are, why we chose to be here during these incredibly challenging times.
With life's many challenges ever increasing, how do we find peace in this horribly troubled world, this universal psyche that chooses the negative over the positive, the masculine over the feminine, the warring over the peace making and bridge building?
It must be personal as well as national, universal as well as international. We must care, and care deeply about one another in any and all life forms and we must use our hearts, our energies, and our time to do good, say good, and be good to the best of each moment's ability.
"There are those who give little of the much which they have and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
~On Giving by Kahlil Gibran from The Prophet~
The fires, the floods, the earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, and tornadoes are not only the change and transition that Mother Earth, herself is expressing--as hard for us as it might be to understand.
They can be seen as our planet's release buttons for survival. If there is too much pressure within the Earth, it erupts in volcanoes or crack opens in earthquakes.
If there is too much pressure within us, we may erupt as well. And the damage we may do to others may be just as great emotionally as volcanoes and earthquakes are physically.
If we see Mother Earth as Gaia--a living breathing entity with her trees and plants as her lungs, her incredible beauty as her heart--then Gaia is losing her breath, her natural sustainable growth and energetic flow from decay just as so many of us are losing ours.
Natural connections of mind, body, and spirit through the destructive energies of anxiety, fear, anger, hatred and dis-ease have caused cracks and many of us are stuck in the unhealthy patterns of those cracks. Everything makes us fearful or angry or hating the other.
We are all connected and when we hate the other we increase our own weaknesses of self judgment, low self esteem or low energies of illness, pain, or depression.
But in this process of death and destruction there is still an opening up in our world and our world view. The chance to learn and grow and to transition our world and our hearts and spirits into unity once again.
We are all connected. We are all part of one another. My microscopic atoms are merged with yours like stars in the cosmos. The pain that i feel is my pain, your pain, all pain. The fouled air that I am breathing will become the fouled air and the foul breathing of yours.
When we set off a bomb in one country, its repercussions and loss of awareness and love are felt by all of ours. We are perpetrators and we are victims. The winds of time and change merge into
one and so do we.
There is a purpose onto heaven for all of this. It doesn't have to be ours to understand but there it is. And part of that is the destruction of the old to make space for the new. As challenging and as awful even unbelievable as this may seem.
As someone who is old, this gives me pause. But, I am more than willing to go through whatever I have to in hopes that someday, a heaven on earth can become possible and a newer kinder, more caring and loving world might exist.
"Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended.
"There are those who give little of the much which they have and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
~On Giving by Kahlil Gibran from The Prophet~
The fires, the floods, the earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, and tornadoes are not only the change and transition that Mother Earth, herself is expressing--as hard for us as it might be to understand.
They can be seen as our planet's release buttons for survival. If there is too much pressure within the Earth, it erupts in volcanoes or crack opens in earthquakes.
If there is too much pressure within us, we may erupt as well. And the damage we may do to others may be just as great emotionally as volcanoes and earthquakes are physically.
If we see Mother Earth as Gaia--a living breathing entity with her trees and plants as her lungs, her incredible beauty as her heart--then Gaia is losing her breath, her natural sustainable growth and energetic flow from decay just as so many of us are losing ours.
Natural connections of mind, body, and spirit through the destructive energies of anxiety, fear, anger, hatred and dis-ease have caused cracks and many of us are stuck in the unhealthy patterns of those cracks. Everything makes us fearful or angry or hating the other.
We are all connected and when we hate the other we increase our own weaknesses of self judgment, low self esteem or low energies of illness, pain, or depression.
But in this process of death and destruction there is still an opening up in our world and our world view. The chance to learn and grow and to transition our world and our hearts and spirits into unity once again.
We are all connected. We are all part of one another. My microscopic atoms are merged with yours like stars in the cosmos. The pain that i feel is my pain, your pain, all pain. The fouled air that I am breathing will become the fouled air and the foul breathing of yours.
When we set off a bomb in one country, its repercussions and loss of awareness and love are felt by all of ours. We are perpetrators and we are victims. The winds of time and change merge into
one and so do we.
There is a purpose onto heaven for all of this. It doesn't have to be ours to understand but there it is. And part of that is the destruction of the old to make space for the new. As challenging and as awful even unbelievable as this may seem.
As someone who is old, this gives me pause. But, I am more than willing to go through whatever I have to in hopes that someday, a heaven on earth can become possible and a newer kinder, more caring and loving world might exist.
"Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended.
Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”
L. R. Knost
L. R. Knost
To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it,a little more poetry to it,a little more dance to it.
~Osho
~Osho
How do we choose to feel peace, make peace, be peace in our own hearts? It starts with each of us as individuals, each moment of every single day.
Life is truly challenging for many, many people in this world now.
My own beloved oldest daughter was diagnosed with an already advanced, very aggressive, and unusually challenging form of cancer.
She is a remarkable and fierce spiritual warrior and she has withstood non-stop treatments without respite for a year and a half since diagnosis. She fills up my heart with her steadfast determination and fortitude amidst unbelievably challenging conditions.
I hold her always in my highest heart and spirit and I pray for deep inner and outer healing and strength, with all the love and light and healing powers of all of the highest angels of the most divine powers of God by any holy name.
"Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day
the blueprint of your life would begin to glow on earth,
illuminating all the faces and voices
that would arrive to invite your soul to growth.
Praised be your father and mother,who loved you before you were,
and trusted to call you here with no idea who you would be.
Blessed be those who have loved you into becoming who you were meant to be,
blessed be those who have crossed your life
with dark gifts of hurt and loss that have helped to school your mind in the art of disappointment.
When desolation surrounded you,
blessed be those who looked for you
and found you, their kind hands urgent to open a blue window
in the gray wall formed around you.
Blessed be the gifts you never notice,
your health, eyes to behold the world,
thoughts to counte-nance the unknown,
memory to harvest vanished days, your heart to feel the world’s waves,your breath to breathe the nourishment of distance made intimate by earth.
On this echoing-day of your birth,
may you open the gift of solitude in order to receive your soul;
enter the generosity of silence to hear your hidden heart; know the serenity of still-ness to be enfolded anew by the miracle of your being.'
John O'Donohue,
To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
I am active in my own unique ways of trying to work with this incredibly challenging time in our lives, our changing country, nation, and world.
I focus on doing all I can to make it through them with spiritual thoughts, prayers, and deeds to create a place where we can not only survive turbulent times but prepare ourselves for the many challenging days and years ahead.
I am active in my own unique ways of trying to work with this incredibly challenging time in our lives, our changing country, nation, and world.
I focus on doing all I can to make it through them with spiritual thoughts, prayers, and deeds to create a place where we can not only survive turbulent times but prepare ourselves for the many challenging days and years ahead.
I focus on staying centered, filling my heart with gratitude for the gift of every day with my family--my three children, their partners, and my five beloved grandchildren.
I know in my heart of hearts that I have been waiting for this time to come.
We Were Made For These Times
By Clarissa Pinkola Estes
"Refuse to fall down.
If you cannot refuse to fall down,
refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down
lift your heart toward heaven
and like a hungry beggar,
ask that it be filled,
and it will be filled.
You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep you
from lifting your heart
toward heaven —
only you.
It is in the midst of misery
that so much becomes clear.
The one who says nothing good
came of this,
is not yet listening.
refuse to fall down"
~Clarissa Pinkola Estés~
Excerpted from The Faithful Gardener: A
Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die
Peace in our hearts creates peace in our world. And that is our soul's purpose..to create this peace by doing and being what we are called to do, and to be.
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about."
Rumi
Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands as she shares her imaginative, magical, and healing journey from Alaska to Oregon. Creating, designing, sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting from my heart and with my hands.
