There is a Buddhist story I love and
would like to share with you this week. It is, as the title suggests, about a
group of six blind men and an elephant.
Long ago six
old men lived in a village in India. Each was born blind. The other villagers
loved the old men and kept them away from harm. Since the blind men could not
see the world for themselves, they had to imagine many of its wonders. They
listened carefully to the stories told by travelers to learn what they could
about life outside the village.
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Looking
at the title of my blog for today, some of you might be thinking it looks like
a mathematical formula. Let me see if I can walk us through this mathematical
expression. Metamorphosis is the transformation that occurs in some animals as
they move from one state of being to another, like from a caterpillar to a
butterfly. Over the course of our lives, we have been in the process of our own
transformation, physically and spiritually.
Read moreThe journey to find the
authentic self, the self you were created to be is not always easy. It is as W. Somerset Maugham wrote about like
the razor’s edge. This novel, The Razor’s Edge tells the story of an
American, Larry Darrell, who, traumatized by his experiences as a fighter pilot
in World War I, decides to search for some transcendent meaning in his life. This is the story of a man who refuses to
conform to the ways of the world, rejects conventional life, and searches for
his authentic self. This is the story of one man's
quest for inner peace and enlightenment.
It is the tale of one person’s spiritual journey.
Read moreI have a dear friend, who I may never meet, who lives in
Australia. I love Jane because it seems as if whenever I am thinking about her
I get an email from her. The other day was no different. I was thinking about
what I wanted to share about empowerment and how you can empower yourself, when
up pops an email from Jane. She was at fair where her daughter-in-law had a
booth when she came upon a booth “run by Ben Lee. He is a very famous
Australian musician but resides in the US.” Ben’s booth was about Handmade
Postcard Making: The purpose of this booth was to help “combat spiritual
amnesia. Send yourself an important truth that you forget too often. A friendly
reminder from your Self to your self.” He invited people “to take stock, think
about your truth and what needs some work? Whatever it is, own it. Write it
down. Make a postcard and send it to yourself as a reminder of what you have
decided to let go of.” She thought this sounded like me and something we could
do here at Inspiritual.
Read moreI was once taught that the most dangerous states to live in are
the past and the present. Today is a new day! One thing so many people do is
spend their entire lives beating themselves up for something, which they said
or did or didn’t say or do years ago, but today is a new day. The past is the
past and you cannot go back and change it. What you do have control over is
today, so live it to its fullest, focusing on being the best you that you can
be today.
Read moreA few weeks ago, I received an email
from my friend Jane Patterson, who lives in Australia. I like to say that Jane
is one of the most beautiful spirits I will probably never meet. Jane told me
about a woman, Natalie McComas, who was doing a photographic series called Beautiful in this Skin. According to
Natalie, this series “portrays subjects with dramatic, visible birthmarks and
explores the effects this has had on their lives and psyches. This
series celebrates these unique skin formations whilst also inspiring those, who
may have a similar condition, to feel special and beautiful in their own skin.”
Read moreGo with God, but Go! I wish I could claim the creation of
this statement, but someone I know borrowed the phrase from a nun. There is
nothing wrong with acknowledging that someone no longer needs to be in your
life. Finding the words and the strength within to acknowledge this and act on
can be quite empowering. As a mentor of mine once said, it is not the what, but
the intent behind the what. There are numerous ways to tell people you no
longer desire to have them a part of your present life. You can do so with an
intent of hate or fear or you can do so with an intent of love.
Read moreWe had just finished healing harbor last night. I was
feeling spiritually fulfilled that we had been able to provide healing to so
many people. At the same time, I was physically exhausted, my body ached from
the rain, my eyes itched from my allergies, and every cell in my being just
wanted to crawl into bed. It had been a marvelous and enriching day and then
one of my healing staff said something, which just made the whole day a little
brighter. “I really like your hair like that.” All I could do was take a deep
breath and say was “thank you.” The funny thing was that I have wanted to shave
it all off again, but Zoe has been encouraging me to let it grow.
Read moreThe last few days I have had some
time, maybe too much time, to think about all the injustice in our world and
the inhumane ways we treat each other. In the last few weeks, a number of
people have lost their lives due to urban violence, people have put off needed
surgeries because they cannot afford the deductibles, and this morning the
Supreme Court gutted the Voters Right Act, leaving the door open for
legislation, which would prohibit the rights of all Americans to vote. Each of these acts, as well as others, is
related in that they are all forms of structural violence.
One need not look further then the local television
station, newspaper, or internet provider for examples of physical, emotional,
and mental violence. The one form of violence not discussed is structural
violence.
Read moreSeveral years ago, someone asked me how I came to this space
of compassion for humanity in my life. I remember the question as if it were
yesterday. At first, I was not sure how I was going to answer the question, and
then this simple word floated up from my heart – LIFE.
I once heard LIFE was an acronym for Love Is For Everyone. The
simplicity of that message resonated with me because it was part of what I have
learned my entire life. It was a valuable lesson I learned from my parents who
made room in their hearts for an infant who was looking for a home. My parents
believed that their love, as parents, was for me and for my two brothers who
arrived a few years later. Love is for everyone.
Read moreLast
week, I ended by asking how we use our status in the world to create a more humane world.
How do we, consciously or unconsciously, contribute to the inhumanity in the
world? How do we try to avoid and deny responsibility for our place in creating
a more humane world for all of humanity?
We
have this tendency in our culture to blame people for not having achieved as
much or done as well as others. We see things at an individual level and rarely
look at the systemic forces that make it more difficult for some to achieve or
have access to what seems within the grasp of others. Rather than be willing to
critically look at these issues and the ways they are embedded within larger
institutions and systems of injustice and inequality, people tend to try to get
off the hook by denying and/or minimizing the situation or blaming the
situation on the “victim.”
Read moreFor
the last 26 weeks, I have been working my way through the alphabet one letter
at a time. It was not until I went to sit down and write again this week that I
realized there are no letters after Z. Blogging my way through the alphabet had
been challenging in some ways, especially towards the end of the alphabet,
however, since being done I realized I had become conditioned to focusing on words
associated with letters. This week, I moved back to the thoughts that have been
floating around in my brain.
As
I was working on my piece on humanity for this month’s newsletter, I found
myself frustrated because I wanted to talk about some of that which has
contributed to the inhumanity in the world. Over the next few weeks, I am going
to continue to reflect on humanity and inhumanity and ask we each reflect on
how we can be more humane in our lives with regard to the issues raised.
Read moreI was sitting enjoying a cup of tea
excited about how I had made it through to the letter Y. I was entering the last
week, thinking just one more letter, and I will have made it through the entire
alphabet one week and one letter at a time, A through Z. I was thinking about words
that begin with the letter Z and after looking through my dictionary decided, Z
was going to be for Zealous. I closed my eyes, rolled over and went to sleep
prepared for a good night’s sleep and some amazing dreams.
Upon waking up in the morning, I was
greeted by an email from a friend with an early morning meandering on her word
for the day. You got it her word for the day was Zealous. I laughed and told
her I was going to use her meandering in my last reflection of the alphabet. This
is what she wrote:
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So much of
the suffering we experience in our lives comes because we can compare ourselves
to someone other then ourselves. You are you. I am me. Comparing myself to you
is like comparing apples to oranges. They are both wonderful in their own right
and just as they are. Each of them brings their own gifts to the table of
fruits. So starting today, honor yourself. Honor the person you are. Who you
know yourself to be may be different from who others know you to be and that is
ok. How others see you is about them. Honor yourself for who you are.
Read moreWe have
finally reached the last three letters of the alphabet, X, Y, and Z. there are
probably less words beginning with the letter X then any other letter in the
alphabet. However, the word, which seemed to grasp my attention this week, was
xenophobia: According to the Merriam Webster dictionary,
xenophobia is “the fear
and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign.”
Read moreIf V is for Victim, then W is for Warrior and warriors are
not victims. When I first heard the word warrior I had this image of somebody
doing battle, at war against an enemy and it was not an image I wanted to
embrace. Warrior, as defined by Toltec Wisdom, is a Toltec who is “fighting for
freedom from her own domestication and social conditioning. She is free from
needing to link her self-worth to the beliefs, thoughts, and wishes of her
fellow human, free to be happy no matter what happens in life.”
Being a warrior, from this perspective is about embodying the five agreements,
detaching from those things, ideas, beliefs, and people who constrain our
happiness, obscure our clarity, and live as parasites in our mind, body, and
soul.
Read moreAnybody who knows me knows I hate playing the victim, but I
cannot talk about my W word for next week, Warrior, without talking about the V
word for this week, Victim. In case, you were wondering, no I am not going to
tell you what X, Y, or Z are going to be. You will have to wait for those weeks
to come.
It is easy for most people to think about a situation or
experience where they wanted to blame someone for what happened to them or the
abuse they experienced. What we feel regarding those situations and experiences
is real. However, at the same time, choosing to stay in that space of reliving
the situation or experience can be self-abusive.
Read moreMerriam and Webster’s dictionary
defines uncomfortable as “causing or feeling slight pain or physical discomfort.”
Some people when thinking about what makes them uncomfortable think about things
they wear. Things such as shoes may start feeling comfortable when first put on,
however by the end of the day, you can be so ready to slide your feet out of
them and slip into something far more comfortable. Sometimes after eating a filling
meal, the waistband on our clothes can make you wish you were wearing something
stretchable because it is beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. My female
friends will tell you that one of the most uncomfortable things they wear is a
bra and many cannot wait to get home and take that off as soon as possible.
Read moreThere are two sources of spiritual toxins in our lives:
internal and external. It is easy to understand how internal toxic cleanup is a
process. We can understand that stalking, as I wrote about last week, is a
process whereby our inner jaguar preys out the internal toxins, or parasites as
don Miguel Ruiz would refer to them, and ruthlessly remove them. We then go
back and seek to understand the roots of how that toxin came in and remove our
attachment to it.
Read moreMost of us when we hear the word, stalking think of someone who is constantly watching us, following or harassing us, making
us feel afraid or unsafe. Those of you who know me well enough, know this is
not the type of thing I generally blog about and you would be right. You also
probably know that I tend to take words that have “negative” connotations to
them and looking at them from a completely different perspective. So today, I want
to talk about stalking as a healthy and transformative thing we can do for and
to ourselves and not others.
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