SEEDS IN THE WIND

"Que sera sera."

~Spanish Proverb ~

 

When we express our ideas, share our vision, give the gift of ourselves to others, it is like scattering seeds in the wind. Who knows where they might land and what may grow from them? That is not for us to know, or even to hope. We release the seeds and leave it to God to find the fertile ground.

I share my perspective and my passion with the world and leave it to powers greater than myself to cause an effect.

THE END OR THE BEGINNING?

"All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses. And to die is far different from what anyone supposed, and luckier."

 ~Walt Whitman ~

Where do the dead go? Wherever it is, they leave their flesh and bones behind them. The body remains but the spirit is long gone... on to better things and greater glories I have no doubt; to the bright light of unconditional love everlasting and the suffering free zone.
    We tend to avoid the topic of death as a rule. It makes us squirrelly. Perhaps we believe that by avoidance we can escape it somehow.
     The Buddhist mindset suggests that we should spend regular time preparing ourselves for it, becoming familiar and comfortable with its implications and seeming finality. They believe that death is our greatest opportunity for evolution and that we would be well served to approach it with care and curiosity and respect.
     For my part, I find death sweetly sad: the end of physical pain and the great loss of contact all tangled up together. I celebrate the freedom of those who have been released from human bondage, and weep hot tears for all of us who remain.

I make peace with the reality of death.

IN LOVING MEMORY OF STUART RAKOFF

"Good night, sweet prince. May flights of angels sing you to your rest."

 ~William Shakespeare ~

 

My friend, Stuart, died this morning. He left us all with a final message that love and honesty are what matter the most, and it was a powerful message. I am quite sure that Stuart died peacefully, and I am quite sure that he was surrounded and enveloped by love on all sides.

     And while I am grateful that his suffering has ended after months of piecemeal deterioration from ALS, I am sad to lose contact with his particularly Stuart kind of spirit. He had a twinkle about him right to the end, and a lively sense of humor. Highly intelligent, protector of those less fortunate, lover of good food and art and music and culture, Stuart was clever and compassionate, bright-eyed, and always up for an adventure.
     I watched him travel his own kind of journey from sarcasm to anger to pure raw love, and that's where his tale ends: beautiful, tragic, inspiring, and absolutely real. I will miss him deeply.

RIP Stuart Rakoff

 

In honor of Stuart, let's courageously and resolutely express our love.

GO FOR IT!

"To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself."

~Soren Kierkegaard ~

 

It's so easy to second-guess ourselves. We have a plan, an idea, an inspiration, and then as soon as we begin to act on it we are filled with doubt. "Who am I kidding?" we think. We are suddenly gripped with the thought that perhaps our great idea is actually a terrible idea. And maybe we even feel a kind of hot internal shame.

     But we must silence these doubts and objections and push on. Maybe our critical voices come from our parents, or our friends from long ago, or our own inner judge, but they are old tapes and they cannot help us if we want to evolve. We have to be willing to take a risk and then take another. If we fail, we will not do so without having learned something, and if we succeed, what glory!

I am willing to take a risk and make my life an adventure.

SELF-CONSUMPTION

"People who are all wrapped up in themselves make very small packages."

~Ben Franklin~

It's so easy to become self-consumed with our unrequited wants and our fears and our ailments and our limited thinking. We forget to consider our situation from the outside and how blessed we may actually be- what others might give to have some small bit of whatever we may be taking for granted. We whine. We complain. We spend endless hours trying to figure out what to do and what we want and what we're not getting and how we are being wronged.

     Let's get out of ourselves and contribute to the greater good. Let's think about what we have to give and how we can be of service, about how our existence might positively effect the quality of someone else's day, or life. Let's give and then give some more and the give more again. 

Let's live life on purpose and do right by others and stop self-pitying our energy away.

I understand that doing right by others I do right by myself.

LIFE

"The best way out is through."

~ Robert Frost ~

We have a tendency to be overly dramatic. We make big deals out of things that are not really big deals. They are more likely unresolved situations and loose ends, fear of the unknown and the simple but never-ending busyness of life happening. In time, everything is made sense of and everything understood. We get through things, whether we freak out about them or not. But if we chose not to freak out, then we have a better time of it, and so do those around us.

I stay calm and centered no matter what comes my way, and keep my focus on the next right thing.

NEW YEAR'S DAY

"Every man should be born again on the first day of January.  Start with a fresh page.  Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past." 

~Henry Ward Beecher ~

January 1st has come around again and here we are, facing a fresh page and an empty slate. We are somehow free today, and newly so. We have an opportunity to approach everything differently in our lives if we choose to. We can change our habits, our attitudes, and our perspective in order to live better lives and have more satisfying days, or we can continue on with the status quo if that is our choice. Of course, the truth is that we can change anything and everything in our lives at any time, but there's something about New Year's Day.

    Today begins a cycle, whether we honor it or not. So the question is, what are we going to set in motion?

I set down my intentions for 2014 and commit to the forward momentum of this new cycle in my life.