Sunrise at the Lake

Image of the Poet

“The image of the poet's in the breeze.

Canadian geese are flying above the trees.

A mist is hanging gently on the lake.

My house is very beautiful at [dawn].”

Lou Reed (My House)

I slept just past dawn this morning, and rose to a gorgeous golden sunrise illuminating the mist “hanging gently on the lake.” What a feast for the eyes and the thankful heart. Sometimes we are blessed for no good reason.

There is nothing quite like a beautiful morning to lift the spirits and set the tone for the whole day. I understand Lou Reed's recognition of the “image of the poet” because one is inspired to use poetic words, like “serene,” (Jodi) and “magical” (me). Rebecca points out that the sun has made it only half-way across, that images reflect on one side and not the other, as though the lake is waking up one inch at a time. The whole world outside is one unnameable shade of blue. And inside, my friends and I have a fire crackling in the hearth, and coffee in the cup. What could be better?

We, who live in this world of contradictions and constant tragedy, must take our blessings where we find them. One more reason to be here, now—to appreciate deeply what is right before our eyes, especially when what is right before our eyes is beautiful. Beauty is the language of the soul. It speaks directly to our hearts. And beauty is everywhere if we have eyes to see it.

                                                           In the Spirit,

                                                                Jane

In the hubbub, find...

Serenity

“The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity, but the achievement of serenity within and above it.”

Reinhold Niebuhr

You know, the original Pilgrims, whose holiday we celebrated yesterday, were the most impoverished population ever to live on this continent. They dug more graves than they built houses in their first year here. Yet they found time and energy to give thanks for their blessings, and to share their meal with the native people, without whom none of the Pilgrims would have survived. How did we get from celebrating Thanksgiving as a sacred holiday, to gobbling up our food so we can go shopping?

Such incongruity is troubling to my mind. I know I will never understand it, so my solution is to by-pass the whole thing, and take myself off to the lake. I will commune with the loons—the feathered kind—and the other loons—the female kind, for a few days of serenity while the madness passes. There will always be incongruity, inconsistency, paradox and inexplicable complications in life—kind of like a swirling vortex that if you're caught up in, will pull you straight down. Best to paddle my small boat to a quiet shore and wait for the storm to pass.

If you're a Black Friday fan, bless you, and have fun. If you're not, this is a good day to find a cozy nook, and a good book to read until tomorrow. Allow your serenity to rise above the hubbub and to float gently in your mind.

                                                    In the Spirit,

                                                         Jane

Connecting at the Throat Chakra

Quiet Listening

“Deep listening is a skill that creates a profound connection with other people at the throat chakra and often leads to more compassionate connections at your heart chakra.”

Swami Saradananda (Chakra Meditation)

We humans love to talk. Ever since we gave up communicating by hand signals, and started mouthing off, we've been in love with the sound of our own voices. And it's not just our voice we love, but just sound in general. My friend, Harry, and I meet for coffee every Friday afternoon. We've tried a number of coffee shops around town, and settled on one called The Red Cat. We meet to converse about Spirituality Group, the coming Sunday's topic, and possible sources of information. Some Fridays, it's almost impossible to hear each other speak. There are tables full of college students and people doing business, multiple computers going at every table; in the background, music plays, employees communicate orders to one another, dishes clash, latte machines hiss and a flood of humanity comes and goes. The louder the environment, the louder people talk to be heard above it. Sometimes stepping outside onto the busy city street is a relief.

We who live in cities are simply assaulted by noise—it damages our ears and our hearts. To counter this damage, we need to practice silence for part of every day, and that includes shutting our own mouths. Along with letter writing, one thing that seems to be disappearing from our human interactions is simple listening. We have forgotten that soul connections are formed by deep listening—with the heart, and not just the ears. When we create silence to listen to our own inner voice and to contemplate, we prepare ourselves to interact with others in a thoughtful, meaningful way. We are less likely to talk just to hear our own voices. Silence brings health to our throat chakra, and listening with our full attention, opens the heart chakra.

Today, even in the midst of the holiday rush, let's take some time to be silent. Let's rest our ears and our mouths—maybe even try a few (nice) hand signals! It'll be good for us—for our hearts, and for our relationships.

                                                         In the Spirit,

                                                             Jane

Consider the practice of...

Stillness

“Real profound and voluptuous and delicious entertainment. The real feast that is available within this activity.”

Leonard Cohen (excerpted from The Art of Stillness by Pico Iyer)

I heard a TED talk last weekend by Pico Iyer about his book, The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere. It struck me as an important consideration going into the busy (some would say, insane) holiday season. The idea is to take a few minutes of each day and do absolutely nothing. Don't read, don't meditate, don't make lists, don't listen to music, just sit still and be quiet. This young man, Pico Iyer, is an essayist and novelist, who globe-trots for a living, and has since he was a child. He went to an isolated mountain retreat to find Leonard Cohen, the musician and song writer responsible for so many deeply thoughtful songs in the 1960's and 70's. Cohen's days are now spent in quiet, being still, and he has found it to be a most conducive catalyst for creativity.

Most of us have neither the inclination, nor the resources, to simply go and sit on a mountain top for the rest of our lives, but we could, if we chose, work some stillness into our day. Our lives, at least in America, are frenetic enough to separate us from ourselves—body, mind and spirit going in opposite directions. I can't tell you how often I ask someone, “What did you do today?” and they have to stop and assess, “What did I do today?” as though they had not been there at all. As though someone else had borrowed their body for the day and they have no idea what was done with it.

Iyer advises this: “One could start just by taking a few minutes out of every day to sit quietly and do nothing, letting what moves one rise to the surface. One could take a few days out of every season to go on retreat or enjoy a long walk in the wilderness, recalling what lies deeper than the moment or the self.” Doesn't that sound good? Doesn't it sound possible? Just a little bit of “nothingness” each day would make the pace of the holidays so much more tolerable. Let's give it a try.

                                                    In the Spirit,

                                                         Jane

Thankful for...

Family Ties

“Like branches on a tree, we may grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one.” Anonymous

In a couple of days, families will gather to celebrate our only purely American holiday—Thanksgiving. For many of us, it is a feast without parallel—turkey, dressing, vegetable casseroles, cranberry sauce, etc, etc. We will come together with people we see infrequently, perhaps only on this day each year, and we will feel the deep-rooted bond of family. Many of us love our family beyond all else, and thrive in the company of kin. And then, there are those of us who don't so much thrive as hive; who have scars and lacerations from years of family trials and tribulation. We, too, come together with family, but out of obligation rather than love. It is on these occasions that we feel our losses most acutely.

George Burns once quipped, “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” For many of us, this is closer to truth than comedy. There is an unusual conundrum we enter into with our kith and kin; we both love, and sometimes, hate them. Maybe hate is too strong a word, but some of us have difficulty being in their presence for very long without gnawing off our tongues, or screaming. We try to keep our visits short and focused on the holiday and the things we have in common—that being our gene pool, and perhaps, little else. I say these things, not to spoil your holiday, but to state the truth of it. Some of us owe our very lives to people we love, but don't always like.

This Thanksgiving, what I wish for everyone, is to pull up the memory of the good things; the values taught and lessons learned, the kindness shown, the common traits between our relatives and us. We share their very blood and bone, their brain cells and breath. Let us rejoice in our likeness, minimize our difference, and give thanks for family one and all.

                                                      In the Spirit,

                                                           Jane

Just a mustard seed...

Faith

“Faith is the deep want of the soul. We have faculties for the spiritual, as truly as for the outward world...” William Henry Channing

We talked in the Spirituality Group yesterday about the difficulties of tamping down anxiety about all the “wrong” that is going on in the world, and in our personal lives. We spoke about where we believe we “should” be, and how we are not there. We use our peers as a template against which we measure our own worth. It's interesting, isn't it, that we humans compare ourselves to others, and not just to some others, but to those whom we perceive to be charging ahead, living life as it “ought” to be lived. Doesn't matter what age we are, young, or old, or middle aged—we all use the same yardstick.

So what does faith have to do with it? I would say, everything. A person who is deeply faithful lives his own life as it unfolds, trusting that he is where he should be, even if it is not glamorous or “successful.” Our idealized view, the one we constantly stress about, is like a ladder with only a top rung. How on earth will we ever climb up there without those bottom rungs? And then, there is the question of whose ladder are we trying to climb anyway? Is it our own?

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.” All we need to do today is take that first step, trusting that the second step will be there when we're ready. This is your life. Just live it. Trust that life itself will fill in the blanks as you go.

                                                              In the Spirit,

                                                                  Jane

The Power of Enduring

Endurance

“Endurance is patience concentrated.” Thomas Carlyle

This week, the Spirituality Group has been looking into the practice of perseverance. In my mind, endurance is critical to perseverance. It is the spirit of not giving up in the face of difficulty; of holding back when the fear inside you says to cut and run. Enduring, when the job is hard, when it is exhausting and mind numbing, is a test of one's ability to persevere. I think of all the care givers in Africa, who are nursing people with Ebola. They know that their patients may or may not live, that they themselves may contract the virus, but they do not turn away. That's endurance at work.

I think of the young people protesting in China, in Ferguson, MO, in Thailand, in Washington, DC, and in many places around the world. They know their ability to persevere, and to exercise forbearance in the use of violence, is critical to their success in changing the status quo. It was Virgil who said: “Every calamity is to be overcome by endurance.” Right here in Birmingham, young people endured the assault of police dogs and fire hoses to turn the tide in the Civil Rights movement. Endurance is how Mahatma Gandhi led India out of colonial rule.

It is not in achievement, nor in violence, that the human soul flourishes. It is in peaceful endurance. That is where we see the divine spark of God exercised in the world. George F. Kennon said, “Heroism is endurance for one moment more.” And one moment more, and then one more...

                                                           In the Spirit,

                                                               Jane

Chance Meetings

Angels Unaware

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather then luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.

William Henry Channing

You know how certain events in your life leave an indelible imprint—sometimes even small, seemingly unimportant events? Well, I may have told this story before, and if I have, you have my permission to hit the delete button, but it sticks in my mind like super glue.

When my first child was just a babe, and I was still hormonally crazy (my excuse), I took a very part-time consulting job developing training programs for day-care workers who had kids with special needs in their classes. I found a woman close by, who kept a handful of children in her home, who agreed to take care of Jake a few hours per week. I dropped him off one morning in a heated rush to get to work, where there were other adults, and no burp cloths or dirty diapers; my one escape from the constant demands of new motherhood. Backing out of the long gravel driveway of the woman's house, I cut too quickly and dropped one front tire into the ditch that invariably runs in front of country houses.

So, I'm hanging there in my car, crying, being hormonal and all, when this beat-up blue pick-up truck lumbers up the driveway and stops in front of me. Out climbs a man who looks like a squat lumberjack; long frizzy black hair, long beard, bib-overalls, half-tied work boots, and a stance like Paul Bunyan about to chop down a giant redwood. He slowly sized up the situation, then walked to my window and looked in at my red, wet face. He said, “Put yer car in reverse, but don't do nothin' till I tell ya.” I obeyed. He jumped into the ditch, and picked up the front of my car (God's truth, y'all), and nodded. I slowly backed out, with him holding up the front tire all the way to the road. When he came back to the window, I profusely thanked him, blubbering about trying to get to work, etc. He said simply, “It don't never pay to git in a hurry, ma'am.”

That was all. I never learned his name, nor how he happened along on that morning, never saw him again at the baby-sitter's house. But that day, he was my savior, an angel unaware in bib overalls. Obviously, I have never forgotten him, or his kindness. Spirit breaks through unbidden, and without warning. It takes all forms, and can be found in that which is as common as dirt. Once it has touched us, we will never be the same again, and we will never forget.

                                                     In the Spirit,

                                                         Jane

Breathe into it...

Relieving Stress

You may fool yourself some of the time, you may fool others some of the time. But you can never fool your body. It is the most sensitive barometer of your inner world.”

Barbara L. Hall

Most of us treat our body like a conveyor belt—it moves us from place to place, works like a mule, and is made of steel rollers. It's purpose is to carry out whatever instructions our brain dreams up without getting tired or needing anything more than a little oil when it creaks and groans, or, God forbid, slows down. We work it tirelessly, feed it ravenously, and drive it endlessly. What we don't do very much is let it rest, turn it off, give it a break. And then we're shocked when it breaks down.

The body is a mirror of our inner landscape. When we're emotionally out of kilter, we feel it in our joints, in our spine, in our back muscles, in our gut. Most of us have certain areas of the body that chronically give us problems, or are the first place to hurt when we're overly stressed. We unconsciously tighten the muscles around this area to make it hurt less—but that tightening means we have less range, less fluidity, and, consequently, more pain. In essence, our armoring behavior becomes the source of our pain rather than the solution.

Our bodies are more than conveyor belts, more than clothes racks, or a means to an end. They are living, breathing organisms with needs and wants of their own—good food, clean water, sunshine, rest, enough exercise to keep them lubricated, but not so much that it produces micro-tears in the muscles and tendons. Mostly, they need our simple awareness.

Right now, feel where in your body you're holding tension, breathe into it, and let it go. Every ten minutes, check again, and see if that same area is tight. My guess is, you will find it holding tension every time you check in. This is your problem area. Bring your awareness to it, breathe, and feel it relax. If you do this enough, over time you will notice an improvement—in your body and in your level of stress.

                                                              In the Spirit,

                                                                 Jane

Preparation for Thanksgiving

Thankfulness

A grateful heart is the beginning of greatness. It is an expression of humility. It is a foundation for the development of such virtues as prayer, faith, courage, contentment, happiness, love and well-being.

James E. Faust

We will, next week, celebrate Thanksgiving in the USA. This is a good time to contemplate gratitude as a spiritual practice. I understand that there are situations and circumstances in this world where gratitude is not the first thing that comes to mind when one opens one's eyes in the morning. There are times in the life of each and every one of us when thankfulness is hard to come by—but that should not stop us from trying. Not in the interest of appearing pious, but in the interest of feeling content.

In my mind, gratitude and humility are kindred spirits. It is difficult to separate them. Humility of the honest sort, is a source of grounding; it brings us home to our selves. In the words of Thomas Merton, “Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.” I'm not talking about false humility here; the kind that says, “I'm not worthy,” or, “I'm just here to serve.” That is actually ego dressed up in sheep's clothing. I'm talking about an honest appraisal of oneself, an understanding of one's strengths and weaknesses, of one's light and darkness. Once there, we can approach gratitude with sincerity.

The test of any spiritual practice is maintaining it in the face of adversity or advantage. We are easily thrown off balance by either. Our humility is challenged when we find ourselves in a winning position, and our gratefulness is at risk when we are losing. The goal is to treat both circumstances as equal, neither good nor bad, but as opportunities to practice. It's not easy.

As we head into Thanksgiving week, take some time to assess: What am I most grateful for today, and how might I better practice humility?

                                                        In the Spirit,

                                                              Jane

The Merits of Determination

Persistence

As long as we are persistent in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom. It happens in its own time.

Dennis Waitley

Here are some statistics for you: Thomas Edison had 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at making a light bulb before succeeding. As a young man, Abraham Lincoln went to war a Captain, and returned a Private. Winston Churchill repeated a grade in elementary school. Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old, and could not read until he was seven. Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he succeeded. Steve Jobs was rejected by both Atari and Hewlett-Packard for making a personal computer. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Failure is a great motivator for success.

When you want something so badly you can taste it, don't let a little failure take it from you. Whatever makes your heart burn with desire, whatever keeps you awake nights because of excitement, whatever you can clearly see in your head if not just yet in your hands—go after that tenaciously. It is your soul's calling.

Dale Carnegie said that “flaming enthusiasm” combined with a modicum of “horse sense” will always succeed in the end. If there is something you dearly want to do, find a way to do it. You don't have to throw out your current means of support, nor life as you know it, but don't give up on your dreams no matter what. Destiny calls to us from birth 'til death, in ways we don't always recognize; it speaks the language of longing, of yearning. It operates in chance encounters, in perspiration and patience, in persistence and purposefulness. As you are searching for it, it is also searching for you. Don't give up. Eventually you will find each other.

                                               In the Spirit,

                                                    Jane

Don't Shield the Canyon

Perseverance

“Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms, you would never see the true beauty of their carvings.”

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Nelson Mandela said, “It always seems impossible until it's done.” He knew a thing or two about perseverance. Sometimes in life, we run into things that seem overwhelming. We feel as though there is no possibility of getting through them, much less achieving something in the process. Often, we give up before knowing just how close we were to success. Many of us suffer from apathy; we throw up our hands and say, “Forget it! It's not worth it!” I am guilty of that myself—of seeing a hill so steep, I just turn around and go home, back to the safety of sameness.

But perseverance has a way of paying off. If we adjust our view, narrow the scope, and see only a first step, and then a second, then a third, we very well may cover the distance. If a task, or a cause, seems more than any one person can accomplish in a lifetime, then take one step, and hand off the baton to someone else who can take one step. Monumental change has occurred in this way—not because of the efforts of a single human being, but because of a long line of individuals taking one critical step at a time.

So many great souls have emphasized that we must not let defeat stop us, but use it as an opportunity to find out what we are made of, to get in touch with the steel in our bones. Perseverance will teach you how to rise from defeat, and show you the wind-carved beauty of your own soul.

                                                             In the Spirit,

                                                                   Jane

Charting the Course

Discernment

One of the first things we learn from our teachers is discernment: the ability to tell truth from fiction, to know when we have lost our center and how to find it again. Discernment is also one of the last things we learn, when we feel our paths diverge and we must separate from our mentors in order to stay true to ourselves.

Anne Hill (The Baby and the Bathwater)

Separating from a beloved mentor is one of the most difficult passages in human life. We may know in our heart of hearts that we need to go our separate way, but we are torn by loyalty and guilt toward someone who has shown us the way through dark times and light, who has taught us how to navigate treacherous waters and gentle streams. Discernment of when the time is right, and courage to do the deed are hard to come by. This is true for all deep and soul-bound relationships. Sometimes, we need not so much to rend the connection, as to redefine it.

Truth is, if we have well and truly done our work, we sometimes reach a plateau at which we need a different kind of teacher to take us to the next level. Or, it may be that we need to get out and test our own wings for a while and see where they take us. A wise mentor will discern this, too, and will say, “I think you're ready to fly on your own for now.” Part of being an adult is making this difficult decision.

I think we all need teachers, and for every life transition, there is someone who steps up as guide. If you ask, you will find them. There is a Buddhist proverb that states, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” I've found this to be true, though I've sometimes been surprised by who the “teacher” turned out to be.

Is it time to chart your own course? Have you asked for guidance? Trust in your own process of discernment and be spiritually prepared to take the helm. The ride can be rough, but exhilarating.

                                                                In the Spirit,

                                                                     Jane

Living a Yeasty Life

Saying Yes

We can say yes to the whole life we are living. Yes to our friendships, to our parenting, to our physical appearance, to our personality, to our work, to our spiritual path.

Tara Brach, Ph.D. (Radical Acceptance)

Tara Brach tells the story of Zen teacher Ed Brown, founder the Greens Restaurant in San Francisco. He had grown up eating Pillsbury biscuits, and had tried numerous recipes in his attempts to reproduce them from scratch. But no matter what he tried, what ingredients or variations, he could not produce biscuits that replicated that perfect roundness and rise, that taste he remembered. After much frustration, he finally had a moment of clarity: He had been so focused on trying to make Pillsbury canned biscuits, he hadn't truly tasted his own except to deem them “not right.” When he actually tasted his own creation, he realized that, “They were wheaty, flaky, buttery, 'sunny, earthy, real' (Rilke). They were incomparably alive, present, vibrant—in fact much more satisfying than any memory.” (Brown)

Sometimes, we are so focused on what is “not right” in our lives that we miss entirely what is right. We feel that life is insufficient simply because we compare it to something deemed “perfect.” What we miss in that scenario is our true life, with all its messy, dirty, earthy, yeasty realness. Its ups and downs, its highs and lows, its imperfections are exactly what makes it precious and both unique and common. Saying yes to the life you have is a major step in radical acceptance. It brings contentment. Breaking the habits of a lifetime take time and patience. We don't change our focus on perfection over night. But step-by-step, one day at a time, we can say an unconditional yes to our own life, and then step into it with our whole being.

                                                         In the Spirit,

                                                              Jane

All Beings Suffer

Universal Pain

Overcome any bitterness that may have come

because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain

that was entrusted to you.

Like the Mother of the World,

who carries the pain of the world in her heart,

each one of us is part of her heart,

and therefore endowed

with a certain measure of cosmic pain.

Sufi Teaching

Have you ever known someone who was a truly good person, whose life just fell apart around them? I have. Watching their sorrow made me wonder, “What on earth has this person done to deserve this kind of suffering?” The answer is, 'nothing'. There is so much we cannot know about the great mystery of life. News clips from the Ebola zone in West Africa, with hollow-eyed little children in the streets, having lost their entire family to the disease, simply make me cry. They don't deserve to live without a mother. No one does. Part of life on planet earth is difficult to bear.

Pain is a part of our experience as sentient beings. When we lose someone, or something we love, it hurts. We also suffer when we see others in pain, even strangers. Our hearts open up, and we share their grief. It is the spark of God within us to feel empathy; we can put ourselves in their shoes and know how we would feel in the same situation. Sharing the pain of others is a precious human quality; we don't want to lose it, even though it causes us suffering.

Somehow, understanding that life holds much joy and much sorrow diminishes the harshness of it. If we expect some suffering, we are not so devastated by it. It comes back to acceptance of reality, of life on its own terms. This is how it is...and this is enough.

                                                                 In the Spirit,

                                                                     Jane

Lifting the veil of...

Illusion

Imagine a drop of water falls out of the sky over the ocean. While the drop is falling, it is an individual drop with unique characteristics—a weight, density, shape, and color all its own. There is no drop like it in the world until it hits the water. When it hits the ocean, in less than a second, it loses all individuality as all its atoms are dispersed throughout the ocean. Does the drop still exist? Yes and no. No it doesn't exist as an individual drop, but the molecules of the drop are still present in the larger ocean...there is no distinction between the drop and the ocean.

Gerald R. McDermott (The Baker Pocket Guide to World Religions)

In the Hindu religion there is only one essence in the universe and that is Brahman, that which we in the West call God. All the individual people, plants, animals, fish, insects, water, elements, planets, stars, galaxies, everything that we can name, exists within the vast oneness of Brahman. To see otherwise is to experience Maya, the human perception of separation. It is a veil over our eyes that keeps us from experiencing wholeness.

It was announced yesterday that the Montgomery County Board of Education in Maryland would no longer refer to the December break as “Christmas Holidays,” but as “Winter Break.” Likewise, they will no longer reference Christian holidays (Christmas, Easter) only in the school calendar. Nothing else changes. The scheduled breaks are still the same; the number of days remain the same, the only thing that changes is the title of the break. The system acknowledged that there is enough diversity in its student population to warrant the change. I think it extremely courageous for this school system to take one step toward acknowledging that we are not, and actually have never been, a one-religion country. We are one country in which all religions exist.

The veil of Maya clouds our vision. It encourages us to put all things into hierarchies of importance, and to separate ourselves accordingly. It affects us in ways both large and small. Rejection of all religions but one's own is one manifestation of Maya. Underneath ideology, we are all human beings, we are all drops in the vast ocean of God.

                                                         In the Spirit,

                                                              Jane

Sharing the road.

Acceptance

“The keys to patience are acceptance and faith. Accept things as they are, and look realistically at the world around you. Have faith in yourself and in the direction you have chosen.”

Ralph Marston

The Spirituality Group is focusing on acceptance this week. Each of us is supposed to do some research about the topic, as well as put it into practice, and into our meditation. We came to this choice because the word “tolerance” is thrown about so much lately, and we've decided collectively that it's not such a good word. When I put an image to tolerance, I see someone holding their nose while disposing of a dead rat. Being tolerant is not acceptance in the same way that pity is not the same as sympathy.

According to the pioneering psychologist, Albert Ellis, “Acceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you can accept everybody just because they're alive and human.” Acceptance implies non-judgment. We may see things differently, but each of us has the human right to our own world view. That right ends only when it becomes destructive to others. Acceptance is reality based. This is how it is—not necessarily how I want it to be. When we deal with the world as it is, we then have the option of changing ourselves in relationship to it. In the words of actor, Michael J. Fox, “Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is, and there's got to be a way through it.”

I have many lessons to learn about acceptance. More, I think, than I can possibly achieve in one lifetime. But, I am on the way, and I hope that you and I share the road.

                                                     In the Spirit,

                                                          Jane

Recalibrating

A Sacred Pause

“Enough. These few words are enough.

If not these words, this breath.

If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to the life

we have refused

again and again

until now.

Until now.”

David Whyte

At the first of the month, rent on our booths is due at the Bama Flea. We cannot pick up our checks for the previous month's earnings until we pay rent for the coming month. When we picked up checks for this month, we received a three page announcement of what will be expected of us for the holiday months. In addition to cleaning our booths and removing any inventory that has been there for a year, we were informed it would now be mandatory for every dealer (there are 400 booths) to subscribe to the mall's internet service at a cost of $4.00 per month, and furthermore we were to provide food for the holiday open house, contribute a gift certificate, and be there to work. Suddenly, I felt like an employee in a sweat shop, rather than someone who contributes monthly to the income of the owners.

After thinking about this for a week, I realized that it wasn't so much the things I was being told to do, but it was the tone of the request. It came across as a dictate, and my response was to rebel against an authority figure. I had time to think about a response before delivering it. That's relatively new for me—as I've said before, I inherited my father's Irish temper. That pause allowed me to go back this week and explain my feelings to the manager in civil terms. I lodged a complaint, but not by blowing the doors off the place.

A pause is necessary in learning to navigate the world in a civilized manner. It gives us time to remove the powder from the fuse, and empty out the dynamite of our long-term, challenging behaviors. And we all have them. Whether we are that person who always caves-in and then harbors deep-seated resentment, or the person who pouts for lengthy periods to punish everyone who's ever crossed them, or the fire-brand who “gets even” in some malevolent manner, we all have life-long coping strategies that are not always healthy. Taking a moment, a breath, a sacred pause for recalibrating, will make life far less stressful for us and for others.

                                                 In the Spirit,

                                                      Jane

The Challenge of...

Self-Acceptance

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” Carl Rogers

There is an interesting story in psychologist Tara Brach's book, Radical Acceptance, about a white tiger who lived for many years at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. At first the tiger was kept in a traditional 12-12 foot cage of concrete and iron. She paced back and forth and back and forth all day. Then the zoo pulled together the money to build a spacious enclosure, a natural habitat for the white tiger. When they introduced her to it, she ran to one corner and began pacing back and forth in an area exactly the same size as her old cage. This she did for the rest of her life.

Change is hard for white tigers and for human beings. If we grew up in a family that was chaotic, or didn't quite measure up to the expectations of the tribe or community, then we have a small enclosure. We have a hard time breaking out of old habits of internalized oppression, and opening ourselves to the expansiveness of self-acceptance. There is another recounting in Brach's book about a group of Buddhist teachers and psychologists who invited the Dalai Lama join them in dialogue. One psychologist asked him what could be done about self-hatred. The Dalai Lama had no concept of such a thing, so they explained that the condition is not uncommon in the West. He was greatly perplexed that anyone would feel that way about themselves, saying, "everybody has Buddha nature."

It is important to overcome self-judgement for many reasons, not the least of which is that we will be happier people, and we will raise happier children. When we accept ourselves as we are, we are more likely to accept others as they are. We insure our own peace of mind when we take ourselves off the hook of judgement. It was fear that forced the white tiger to pace all her life, and it is fear that keeps us from accepting ourselves and others. When you feel afraid today, remember that everyone has Buddha nature.

                                             In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane

Wrongdoing and Rightdoing

Field of Soul

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I'll meet your there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn't make any sense.”

Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

When the Dalai Lama was here in Birmingham, he talked about “oneness.” He spoke of all the means we employ to see ourselves as separate, and to compare ourselves to others. He said quite emphatically, “We are all the same!” We are not different on any level that truly matters. His words got me wondering whether that's what we are here to learn—that this simple truth, “we are all the same,” is the meaning of life. Not just to think it, or to speak it, but to realize it soul-deep, and live from that place. The things that separate us—race, religion, wealth, gender, tribe, ideology—are superficial. Underneath all that, we are exactly the same.

If we are to embrace our oneness, we must begin with self-acceptance. Some of us have an inner saboteur, who points out all our shortcomings, berates us when we make a mistake, and expounds on how much we lack. And, that bad-boy is just as hard on everyone else. It is the critical voice inside your head, and he is an equal-opportunity kind of guy. He needs to be silenced. We humans make mistakes, we have shortcomings, we sometimes screw up—it goes with the territory. It's enough to say, “Uh-oh, I made a mistake!” and get on with correcting it.

Self-acceptance is hard for some of us because we know we've hurt a lot of people, and not lived up to our own expectations. But, if we let that regret color our every move, we will never overcome. If you live long enough, you will hurt others, and you will be hurt by others. It is one of the things that makes us alike. Forgiveness is the solution all around—forgive yourself, and forgive them and move on. The grass is green in that field beyond wrondoing and rightdoing, and our souls long to lie down.

                                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                                        Jane

Put on your running shoes!

Holiday Sprint

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is to high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”

Fredrich Nietzsche

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about celebratory and non-celebratory people. We are now into the sprint of back-to-back holidays. We humans barely have time to digest the candy from Halloween before the turkey and dressing are upon us, and then there's all that shopping and cooking to do for Christmas, or Hanukkah, or, in some Islamic countries, Mawlid. There will be guests, and parties, and street parades, and food, and decorating, and cleaning up after all of it. Celebratory people love it, they get to change the decorations three times in just over a month! It's great! For we, who are non-celebratory types, this is easily the most difficult and stressful time of the year. We just want to curl up in a ball and sleep for a month or two.

Last night, I dreamed about a friend who was feeling overwhelmed by all she had on her plate; she cried about not being able to do it, and lamented that she didn't how she could possibly get out of her obligations. But, let me tell you, we “non-celebs” can decide not to get caught up in the frenzy, and now is the time to make our plan. We can decide which events we will attend or host in the next two months, and we can hatch our excuses for all the others. It's permissible. Nowhere does it say that you have a life-long obligation to celebrate holidays with your tribe—this is not a contractual arrangement in which you will be dragged into a court of law and jailed for saying, “No!”

We can think of ways to shop that WE enjoy. Personally, I like antique malls and flea markets, because they have a little bit of everything at discounted prices. Or, if we're handy, we can make some gifts. I like to sew, so I make bags of different sorts. I also like to give non-essentials like flowers, or make soup for distribution. Whatever suits YOUR fancy, and YOUR means, is exactly what you should do. Do what gives you joy, and the joy will be felt in your gift. Take ownership of yourself. Decide now that, while you love your tribe, you choose not to be overwhelmed by them.

                                                       In the Spirit,

                                                            Jane

"Go and be fruitful."

Fruitful Negativity

“Negation is the mind's first freedom, yet a negative habit is fruitful only so long as we exert ourselves to overcome it, adapt it to our needs; once acquired it can imprison us.”

Emile Cioran

If you are a parent, do you remember at what age your child first said, “No!” Pretty early—before the first birthday for sure. It may have been said by pulling away, by kicking and screaming, by blocking you with their hands, but we humans learn how to deny access pretty darn quick—long before we learn to say, “Yes!”

As a species, we are much better at describing what we don't like than what we do. We are better equipped to criticize than praise. And, we are apt to see one bad aspect of a person's behavior as indicative of his/her inherent nature. Rather than look at the whole person and see what we don't like about them as simply part of a complex character, we are biased toward the negative. I can't say why this is so, but it is almost universal, and the effect is a planet that is skewed away from the positive.

Here is a daily practice I learned of recently: At the end of the day, before you fall asleep, think back over your day and recall (1) when you've felt fear, (2) when you've been dishonest with yourself or another, (3) when your ego has gotten the best of you, and you've acted in ways you aren't proud of, (4) when you've felt resentment, and, finally, and most importantly, (5) when you have felt gratitude, and for what. It's a simple ten minute exercise that will, over time, shift your level of awareness from without to within, from negative to positive. It is one way to make negativity fruitful.

                                                       In the Spirit,

                                                             Jane

"Take your oars out of the water."

Pray and Trust

“Relinquishing control is the ultimate challenge for the Spiritual Warrior.”

Ralph H. Blum (The Book of Runes)

Yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with a friend over lunch. This young woman is a former student; one who took her studies very seriously and has furthered them at every opportunity, studying regularly at Esalen Institute in California. She was given this piece of advice by one of the “old-timers” at the Institute, “You are very gifted, but you have to take your oars out of the water!” This is a lesson most of us struggle with every day—we want so much to direct our own lives, and at the same time be in deep relationship to Spirit. We can't have it both ways. Trust is the lesson.

In the 12-Step vernacular, it is “Let go and let God.” We carry so much fear inside—fear that we will fail, fear that we are kidding ourselves, and everyone else knows it. We fear being so caught up in our own “mission” that others will abandon us and we will be sad and alone. Trust is hard to come by in a dysfunctional world, especially during fallow times, when we don't know where we're headed or what comes next.

For me, trust has developed over time, and not because it comes naturally to me. When we spend the first half of our lifetime trying to control everything, and finally realize, after banging our heads against that wall for decades, that we control almost nothing, trust gets easier. It's not the “Whatever!” kind of trust, but the “What now?” kind. One thing ends and there's a pause of not-knowing. While we wait for what comes next, we can spin our wheels in panic and flap around like the proverbial headless chicken, or we can pray and trust. I've done both, and I can assure you, pray and trust is the better option. Today, try taking your oars out of the water, and just see where the flow of life takes you.

                                                            In the Spirit,

                                                                Jane

Express Yourself!

Simple Creativity

“There is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and it will be lost.”

Martha Graham

Think of the cave paintings in France, and the Aboriginal art of Australia, the petroglyphs of the Native American tribes. Think about the weaving of the Central Americans and the rugs of the Middle Eastern people. The beads and lavishly painted fabrics from Africa, or the sand mandalas from India and Nepal. How impoverished our lives would be without these expressions of humanity from every sector of the globe. When we see them, we know right away where they originated. Too often we think that art has to be presentable, and good enough to hang on a wall, but that's not its purpose most of the time. Its purpose is to express oneself in a medium other than speech.

Creativity is the most genuine expression of self that we have at our disposal. One woman in our church did a collage of the newspaper clippings from Ferguson, MO, in the middle is the figure of a woman with Michael Brown's mother's face. It kicks you in the gut when you see it. It's not meant to be pretty. It is a unique image of shared pain and compassion.

There's a little clip on NPR of Martha Stewart saying, “There are dreamers, who go and buy; and there are doers, who go and make...” Both are expressions of creativity. Whether your medium is paint, or fabric, or arranging a room, or filling a bowl with fruit for the center piece on your table, creativity is an essential expression of soul. When we make time and space for creativity in our busy lives, we will be more centered, more grounded and better able to live authentically in every other area.

                                                           In the Spirit,

                                                                Jane

The Thoughts of...

One Citizen

“Let us never forget that government is not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not the President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

I would be remiss if I did not write about American democracy today, after the mid-term elections yesterday. If my polling place was any indication, people came out in unexpectedly high numbers, which is usually a sign of either excitement or disgust—in most cases, the latter.

As a citizen, I am weary of the nastiness of politics today. I've heard that it started in earnest when Gary Hart was caught in salacious circumstances in 1987, and has ramped up every election cycle since. I'm here to say, it needs to stop. For one thing, the American people have no pride in a democracy that has sunk to the lowest common denominator. Who in their right mind would want to run for office knowing that they will be eviscerated on television and in print for months or even years, whether or not the information spewed forth contains one iota of truth. What we end up with is representatives who are obviously not in their right mind.

It is we the people who are to blame for the wrongs in our government. Those elected are a reflection of us. We put them there, we gave them power to govern, and we are living with the results of our own decisions. When we become thoughtful and open-minded people, we will elect thoughtful and open-minded representatives. As long as we are reactive, angry, and dare I say, ignorant of the facts, we will elect people who are angry, reactive and short sighted. We are them—they are us.

God is not going to save us from this, no matter how much, or in what way, we invoke God's help. Any God worth praying to is as disgusted as we are. This is our mess. Let's clean it up.

                                                   In the Spirit,

                                                       Jane

This is the path...

Follow the Light

“Following the light, we left the Old World.”

Christopher Columbus

For me, the only grace of Day Light Savings Time is that it is light when I wake up. There is something about starting one's day in darkness that simply doesn't bode well. We, who follow a spiritual path, regardless of which path, are oriented to light. It feels safe and uplifting.

Light has many meanings, in literature and in religion. First and foremost, it stands for knowledge, for “enlightenment,” for making one's way out of the darkness of ignorance into the light of understanding. In religion, light is associated with the presence of God—from the burning bush of Moses, to the pillar of fire that led the Hebrew people through the desert, to Jesus' words, “I am the light of the world.” In every religion, from Taoism to Wicca and everything in between, candles are lit to represent that which is sacred.

The 27^th verse of the Tao Te Ching, speaks of the sage who takes care of all men and abandons no one; who takes care of all things, and abandons nothing, saying, “This is called 'following the light.'” The importance of instruction and learning cannot be overstated. More than that, however, it is a charge to lead, leaving no one behind. Those who follow the light, who do everything in their power to overcome the darkness within themselves, and in the world, lead by their very nature. They contribute to, and become, the light. Leaving the Old World, also means leaving behind the darkness and setting one's compass toward the light.

                                                            In the Spirit,

                                                                Jane