giving love
It often strikes me that our present-day culture is upside down in terms of values and some understandings. I was recently reading an article in a Buddhist magazine about relationship which reminded me of the wisdom of the native people I have been graced with knowing. The article suggested we have been focusing on procuring love and not enough on giving love in our search for fulfillment. What if we turn that upside down and hone instead our heart muscles- out ability to love. When we fulfill the needs for love for others, we expand ourselves and our hearts. Expansion versus the contraction...
Read MoreThe Glorious Dissolving
The Glorious Dissolving Side by side laying with my love in the sand we absorb the heat and courage for a final swim in the cold clear blue lake in early October. The shocking elation of immersion in the living waters is worth the numb fingertips. Once welcomed in, my soul awakens as if she’d been asleep and did not know it. Later, I grieve the end of summers last gift The stealth of night slowly converges around the edges of day. And then it is November. Walking in the park, little drops of ecstasy alight on me in the cool air transmitting the splendor of autumn magnificence. And...
Read Morefacing the darkness
I dreamt the other night that I held in my hand a bright true blue light. At the center was a globe of white surrounded by a thin rim of gold- yellow. The light trembled and radiated in my hand. I felt its healing force and in that force was an inexhaustible, vital, irrepressible joy. We cannot bring light into the darkness unless we approach the darkness and look at it. We cannot escape our own darkness or the darkness in the world. Facing and transforming our darkness with light brings growth, liberation and, yes, joy. Our growth and our hope is to bring the light to the darkness. I mean...
Read MoreBeyond the superficial
Seems like fate now. My first work was with older adults. And I trained as a hospice volunteer in my early twenties. Later, I was hired as a mental health counselor working with elders. Initially when I started visiting people in nursing homes I was depressed. Nursing homes are a sad facsimile of home. These institutions dressed up as shabby homes are rife with tragedy, decline, loneliness, fading beauty and gathering weakness. It was a lot to carry in my heart. Still, in some cases these places hid the hidden gems of compassion and community. I like, most of us, was brainwashed by this...
Read MoreDream healing
Dreams are potent guides, teachers and a healing modality. Recently, I assisted Dr Ed Tick at a dream workshop. In ancient Greece there were dream healing practices at elaborate temples with specific protocols to assist people in gaining guidance and healing from a dream. There is so much available to us for enriching our lives and many ways to heal. The synchronicities in the room of dreamers amazed each of us. When we can drop our egos for the sake of a deeper searching of the psyche (soul) we see the ways that we are profoundly interconnected. We are connected to one another as well with...
Read MoreAlleviating loneliness
We live in an era of loneliness. Suicides have gone up 30% over the last 30 years. Why is this? Studies suggest we have overemphasized self-reliance and underrecognized our need to connect, to bond which is primary to every living being. Let us remember the richness we are a part of. How do alleviate loneliness? In part, the solution lies in a change in our way of thinking about the fundamentals of life. We are profoundly interconnected with one another as well as with the earth. We are not merely self-serving aggressive beings out for ourselves as the patriarchal brand of the sciences...
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