Keeping the Dream

I don’t listen to the radio often, and I watch television even less. But when I’m in the car with my daughter, sometimes we’ll turn on the radio, and if it decides to work, we listen to some music. I’m not impressed. But I found a program I like listening to. It’s John Tesh “Intelligence for Your Life”. The music is your standard music, but it’s what he shares in between that’s uplifting, challenging and interesting.

Just the other day, I happened across his blog. This morning (I had to subscribe), I received his blog post, entitled “Having a Greater Impact on the Lives of Others” (in its entirety) in my inbox.

The message is the reminder to “start living outside of yourself”. But what really jumped out at me was this quote.

You can’t wait to get all your needs met before you notice the needs of others.

You know, I think I’ve been doing that – waiting to get my needs met. That somewhere along the road being a single mom and homeschooling my child, I’ve developed a kind of tunnel vision called survival.

Which is important, especially when you have a child, but there’s got to be more than that. And I think the growing frustration I’ve been feeling and the constant feeling of exhaustion comes not only from physical and emotional stress, but from feeling constricted.

Because I haven’t been writing or singing or recording. And I can’t remember the last vigil I sang at, and when I don’t allow myself to create and share in that creation, I die – slowly. Imperceptibly, perhaps, but steadily.

It’s not just a question of time, although that is a factor. And it’s not just about money, although being able to take care of yourself and your child is no small matter. But if I wait for all those things to be just so, then I may wind up waiting forever.

I’ve been away, from myself, from my art. I see the difference I make when I sing at vigils. I feel the difference in me. It’s been too long since I’ve brought my creativity to that healing place, to the hearts those songs were meant to touch.

And if I’m going to be homeschooling my child, if I’m going to be teaching her anything, I want it to be to live an authentic life. And there is nothing more real than to let the love flow in and through you in the way you were designed to.

It would be foolish…and selfish not to.

You know, so many wars are fought because of boundary disputes. Most of them are ridiculous, especially when you consider the cost of so many lives. But boundaries are important to people, and I have found that the not acknowledging of them is the cause of so many ills and conflicts.

We are so fond of talking about being ego-less and how the ego, or the belief in it, is the cause of so much if not all the sorrow in the world. The irony that a good number of people who espouse this view are, also, among those who harbor the biggest egos is not lost to me…but that’s the subject of another post.

Where narcissism is concerned, it’s the loss of boundaries, the refusal to see you as a separate person from them that is the sickness and the cause of suffering. It’s the stuff that makes the subtle assaults of emotional and psychological abuse possible, the little killings that happen a word at a time.

No separation and being one with everyone (aka the parent) is death to the children of narcissistic parents. To be a healthy human being, you have to have a strong sense of where you end and another person ends. We aren’t given that in a house full of mirrors that narcissists build.

Boundaries are good. They are necessary to good mental health. But these are the boundaries that we carry in our psyche and self awareness. The lines we arbitrarily draw in the sand…well, that’s a different matter.

They are useful only in as much as they serve humanity. But when they are used to justify the taking of lives, it’s a tragedy.

These are some of my favorite moments. There’s no humidity in the air. A soft cool breeze and a warm summer sun. I can hear birds singing in the background to leaves gently brushed by moving air. Life is everywhere and the feeling of hope is palpable.

My youngest daughter, nephew, and oldest grandson through marriage celebrated my grandson’s birthday yesterday with a sleepover, after a great party at Tumbletown. I enjoyed bouncing on the trampoline with one of the young guests. We pretended we were birds and I stretched out my shawl like great wings.

I love the feeling of flying. When I was a child it was on swings or sitting in the highest branches of the tree.

Now, I fly on the wings of hope. Even when they tire, they can lift me to great heights when I stop struggling and trust the currents to glide me.

Sometimes there’s just not that much to hold on to. Maybe that’s the time to let go.

We are a curious species, but I love the human race. For all our foibles, we can be so magnificent…and often in ways we least suspect. If we only slowed down enough to see…

No matter how often I find myself speeding through life, frantically trying to get this done or that done or accomplish this or succeed in that, I always find myself coming back here.

Right smack dab in the present moment.

I’m reading Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh, and was struck by a passage in Chapter Four. I love this analogy. It is what inspired my book, “Little Yellow Pear Tomatoes”.

Thich Nhat Hanh is addressing non-elements, using paper as an example. The clouds, sun, forest, logger, wheat that fed the logger, the logger’s father are all non-paper elements. If you remove them, the paper is empty.

Empty of what? he asks.

Empty of a separate self. It has been made by all the non-self elements, non-paper elements, and if all these non-paper elements are taken out, it is truly empty, empty of an independent self. Empty, in this sense, means that the paper is full of everything, the entire cosmos. The presence of this tiny sheet of paper proves the presence of the whole cosmos.

Emptiness that means emptiness of an individual through the fullness of everything. This made me just sit back and think about our western conception of what nirvana or attaining that state of emptiness means. Culturally, this is not a very attractive form of “heaven”. I mean who wants to be nothing? To the western way of thinking, this equates with annihilation – ceasing to exist.

But in the Buddhist way of thinking, emptiness is actually “more”. I think it’s the equivalent of the dying of the seed to become the wheat. Only, we’ve come to believe or hope it means the salvation and glorification of the seed into a better seed in a happier pot.

How many gifts from other cultures do we…does any culture miss that cannot accept them through the filters of our own confined understanding? And to what depth of understanding can something “foreign” have on our understanding of the teachings of our own teachers?

One of the most amazing videos and personal testimonies I have ever seen.

Woke up early this morning. This is not unusual, but I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I started my day with prayer.

My spirituality is so important to me, and yet, somehow I find that I have let my conscious practice of it slip away. I would get up, do some quick “clearing of the mind” morning pages, and then maybe be silent for a minute of two, before rushing off to meet the day.

And though I’d stop to think every now and then about my connection with Spirit throughout the day, it was always on the fly.

So this morning I landed. I took the time to just stop and give myself the space to really go within, to let myself stop and enter the silence and feel the presence of God.

I need that. The pressure and stress has really seemed to be rising, and I feel very hard pressed to meet all my obligations or to be there for the people who seem to need me.

But I am learning. I’m learning to carve space out for me. I’m learning to let go. I’m learning to trust in the process to a much deeper degree.

It’s funny, but in the midst of a very stressful last week, I received an email out of the blue from someone from the other side of this country, who spoke words of encouragement to me and just happened to be someone who has made it her life’s work to advocate in the very area I was struggling with. A total stranger, a gift of insight and support.

This morning slowed me down enough to ponder the wonder of this synchronicity and allowed me to relish this feeling of being loved.

Quiet moments can do that. But you have to let yourself have them. They are not forced upon you, for even if you are bedridden, you can still race miles away from where you are.

Quiet moments are a state of mind. When your environment matches up with your quiet state of mind, so much the better. That’s why I like early morning hours, but you can carry that state around with you.

That’s the challenge, I think. Even more than what’s on your plate, the challenge is what’s in your head. Thoughts of peace, feelings of trust or chaos?

This morning, I choose peace.

(This is a repost, but the sentiments and well wishes are very much in the present moment. Blessings – Demian~DreamSinger)

I have a multi-cultural background, and I cherish the traditions and gifts that my Asian, French and Native American ancestry brings to me. The one thing that has been consistent throughout all my years and through various explorations of different beliefs and faiths, is this image of the newborn babe in the deepest of winter.

The hope this brings to me, the powerful message of life when nothing seems like it could grow speaks to me on my healing journey.

It is with this universal message for those who celebrate this season for religious reasons and for those who don’t, that I would like to offer this song, as a prayer, to you and to the world.

With many blessings,
Demian,
~DreamSinger

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By Brother David Steindl-Rast from Gratefulness.org