MOTHER LOVE

"If you have a mother, there is nowhere you are likely to go where a prayer has not already been."
 ~Robert Brault ~

Mother love-

Never undone.

Like the sun

She shines light on her children.

Year in and 

Year out,

Never doubting

Their goodness or gifts-

They're her bliss,

And their happiness

Her purest wish.

I honor and celebrate my mother, and the mother in me as well.

FILLED IN

"Spring leaps into summer." 

~ Terri Guillemets ~

It always happens. Emerging spring is no longer spring, but summer- trees full of leaves and everything filled in and finished budding. We patiently celebrate the daffodils, forsythia, cherries, red buds, and dogwood as they flower in turn. We notice the first shoots of green. And it seems so slow and progressive, and then, almost seemingly overnight, it is done. Spring has sprung and we move forward into the energy of summer, gardens, and shady trees.

The buds of spring have turned to full foliage, and so must I. Life is a perpetual cycle of blossom and growth.

LOVE IS THE ANSWER

"Self-pity is a sinkhole." 

~ Elisabeth Elliot ~

Self-pity and martyrdom are wildly over-rated. They feel like the right thing- we are so burdened! But our relief comes not in complaining to others, but in actively demonstrating love. And if we can do that- show genuine love and feel it too- then our pity will leave on the passing breeze and gratitude and blessing will be restored in us yet again.

Loving others is the best cure I know for self-consuming self-pity.

TOO MUCH INSISTENCE

"Let it be." 

~ The Beatles ~

When we want something too badly, we actually create a block to our being able to receive it. We strangle the energy flow with our urging and our fear; lock it in a strait jacket with our insisting that things be just so.
     But things will be as they are, and the sooner we learn that, and become willing to live with what's possible instead of what we think we must have, the sooner we loosen up the energy that is all stopped up, and allow for the very thing we are hoping for to come to us.

I stop forcing outcomes and enjoy the flowing dance of all possibility.

NO INTERRUPTION

"A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something." 

~ Wilson Mizner ~

As a general rule, we are not great listeners. We hear something that strikes a chord in us, leap into the conversation enthusiastically, and head off running in our own direction, recklessly, not having waited to understand what was really being said. And in this way, we discount others, which is likely not what we intend at all.
     Let's bring awareness to our internal voices but not let them run the show. We can be conscious of the fact that we have the desire to interrupt someone's train of thought, but we don't have to act on it. We may not be as right about what's coming as we think we are, and learn something by listening that we didn't know before.

I am aware of my desire to interrupt others, but listen instead, and wait for my turn to speak.

UNACKNOWLEDGED STUFF

"It is the unspoken words that spoil in the mind." 

~ Margie Piercy ~

In some ways, unacknowledged stuff has as much power over us, and possibly more so, than extreme challenges that we face head-on. There's something invasive to the spirit about remnant hurts from the past that have never been cleared. Like boll weevils in a cotton crop, they spread, and do devastating damage.
     I used to think it was possible to just move on and let by-gones be by-gones and never speak of them again, but I'm not sure I feel that way anymore. To speak of what is left ugly and unresolved in our history is to heal it by properly honoring the fact that it happened. To act as if it never happened at all feels like betrayal and pretense and leaves its own kind of new trauma in present time.

I talk about hurts from the past in order to clear them and take away their sting.

ACCEPTANCE OVER TIME

"The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists." 

~ Japanese Proverb ~

Time changes people and life circumstances- not always, but often. Pain relieves, hardship softens, forgiveness grows, and individuals face each other anew, and see each other anew, and experience each other anew. And sometimes it's proof that lives have grown irreparably apart and what once joined together no longer can, but sometimes all that was broken is smoothed over and healed.
     And in either case, time allows for acceptance and freedom from judgment. We are who we are, we change how we change, and whatever is, is ok- better than ok really, especially when we are able to see with our minds open and a heart full of love.

I accept life circumstances and people as they are and free myself from the pain of resistance and dissatisfaction.