Nothing Is Wasted

Thought for the day!

 "When you're a writer or an artist, nothing is wasted. Even the most painful and difficult experience in life can be recycled into material for a project, and it's the artist's job to be awake, aware, and opportunistic. This attitude might sound a bit cold and calculating, but it's not. Quite the opposite. Art, when it comes from dark and difficult places, gives us a means to fully feel out most powerful human emotions and transform our suffering into something meaningful."

 Ruth Ozeki, from an article in Shambala Sun Magazine.

Healing the Wound of Forgetting

Forgetting in the moment to feel compassion
                                       to quell the anger
                                       to put aside the  frustration,
                                       the judgment and inferiority of
                                       another

                 but then to see people in community
smiling, laughing, clapping, praying, adoring,
communing with one another
                  with their eyes, voice and touch
                  and then
  to be one with them in the sharing of a meal
  - that's healing the wound of forgetting.

A thought on our guides

I've noticed for years that I get bunches of great input and chatter from my own universe when I'm on a long drive. That's one of the many reasons I love to drive so much! I always figured it was simply the solitude, the enforced mental downtime, with enough of my attention taken up by driving to allow my mind to wander.

One thing I've done for many years, at least since 1998 or so, is a protection ritual. When I'm on a long drive like that, I say/think/broadcast something like "I call in my guides, my guardians, my ancestors, anyone who is with me on this journey, to help me arrive safely at my destination," and I envision roses at every corner of my car. When I left for Florida, for the very first time I added "my characters" to that list. I had no idea why I did that.

After both of our calls and thinking a bit differently about my own guides, I'm feeling differently about why I get so much input on my trips. I quite clearly ask them for it, don't I???

Peace.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I don't want to describe the movie I was talking about last night in too much detail. A big part of the pleasure of it is the way the story reveals itself. I'll say it involves the option to have part of your memory erased and the consequences that could bring. What it brought to my mind last night was whether forgetting would be a wound or healing in that case. I have very strong feeling about that, and I'd love to hear what others think. The IMDB page is here, though you might want to wait until after you watch the movie if you plan to. Spoilers for certain! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/

The title comes from this passage by Alexander Pope:
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

Another story along that line is very much up my nerdy sci-fi alley. It was an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, by far my favorite incarnation in that universe. The computerized doctor had a very traumatic experience, and the humans decided to help him by erasing the memory. The memory kept surfacing no matter what they did. In the end, the humans sat with the doctor while he worked through the memory and dealt with the feelings that came from it. I last saw that episode about 15 years ago, and it has stayed with me very clearly ever since. I do love the way good sci-fi and fantasy use such incredible settings and characters to explore the most human of emotions.

Peace.

Last night I dreamed I was in Tibet!
I don't remember anything else. It was a lovely dream.

Barbara's Drawing: True Self Knows...

By Barbara Agalia

Healing the wound of forgetting…

I humbly admit I am not very experienced or very good at blogging, so hopefully this post will work! I'd love to see other writing as well.

Kari:

This feels to me like a wound we need, like the wound of severing the umbilical cord. We leave the fullness and the most safe and connected we will ever be in a physical body when that cord is severed. We do talk of people never cutting the cord for a reason. We must sever that tie, at least to some extent, before we can ever live a life of our own. I’ve seen that in my own family, my father’s mother seemed to want her sons tied to her in a very unhealthy way, and my mother-in-law used to as well. My mother’s father would have preferred we all live under his roof all of the time where he could keep an eye on us every single minute and we would never, ever get hurt. Thank the gods my mother rejected that world view! My father certainly was caught up in that suffocating cord for most of his life. I know one of the hardest things he ever had to go through was having her live with him during the last two years of his life, then having her die in his house. On the other hand, some of the conversations I had with him during that time made it so obvious that he was seeing her clearly for the first time in his life, and in many ways he was finally seeing himself as separate from her. I truly believe going through that difficult time with her, finally severing that cord that she never wanted him to cut, was the wound that let him truly be his own man for the last year of his life. I also believe that growing like that allowed him to have the will and ability to choose the time of his own death in the beautiful and graceful way he did. He not only was his own person after going through that terrible wound, but I believe a part of him knew my brother and I were our own people enough to survive losing him. He was right. It was still one of the hardest wounds in my life, AND despite what their own parents tried to do, he and my mother raised us to be our own individual selves and to survive that wound and the many others that come throughout our lives. So if forgetting is that wound, I can see that only through that wound are we able to truly live our lives and learn and grow and know what it is to be human. Living our lives, finding out who we are and who we were meant to be, is the process of healing that wound. We must first suffer the wound to ever have the chance to take that journey.

Question:

Question:

Now I am wondering if the
thought in God's mind is
actually the I that always
was.

I Am

Saturday, January 26, 2013

I Am

Now - Yesterday as a matter of fact 
I had an aha moment.

I existed before time.

How, I don't know.

I always thought I was born in time.
but
I, Doris, was born in time.

Before being born -
I always knew I was a thought in God's mind

As Doris I realize -
The I always was.

I am not my thoughts.
I am not my feelings.
I am not my emotions.

I look out of these eyes and I see.
I am the silent I within.
I am the see-er.
I am the witness.

When I go into the quiet
I look out of this face.

Now -
When I go into the quiet
I can become the sky.

When I go into the quiet
I am the stars.

When I go into the quiet
I am the I am.

Now -
I can do this in spurts
I can do this in glimpses.
I can do this in breaths.

It sort of stuns me.
That it actually happens
 and Now it creates a lot more questions in my life.

Anyway I am sharing my aha moment.

seeeeee ya
dorisssss

Freedom in my Writing

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Freedom in my Writing

Thomas Keating says,

Contemplative prayer gives us the
grace to be detached in our desires.
That means that our desires must be
freed from the motivation of the
false self.
Then we can lead the
spiritual life in any state of life as
normal human beings.

Doris says,

Detached in our desires - hmm
Detached in my writing - double hmmm

Then we can lead the spiritual life
in any state of life (life of a writer) as
normal human beings.

That's a great objective.

-----------------------------------
Before I read what Father Keating
said I was trying to figure out how to be
detached in our desires (mine) -  well, then u
might as well desire nothing is what I
thought - well, then that was not so
inviting - how do u figure this - do I
give up writing and just pursue being -
well, that makes no sense for me either.

But to be detached in my desire to be a
writer - that's worth pondering.
or -
to be detached from what I write that
is also an invitation for me to absorb.

Doris asks:  If u are doing something
can u be detached from it?

And further - if u are writing something
can u be freed from the motivation of
the false self?
 
Opps, Father Keating says Contemplative
prayer gives us the grace to be detached
in our desires.  - That means that our desires
must be freed from the motivation of the
false self

The Inner Observer

The bridge between
the stream of consciousness
(the river)
and the
boats that go floating by on the river.
(thoughts.)
Not there to judge, or to fix things,
just there to observe.

Cynthia Bourgeault:  Even more
strongly, its purpose is to bring u
into a state of unconditional presence,
so that u not only believe but know
that no physical or emotional state
has the power to knock you out of
presence.
,

A God of Hurt

Friday, January 4, 2013

A God of Hurt

It was a little girl's cry,
spoken in a little girl's voice,
"Don't Hurt Me."

I had been doing my c.p.
(centering prayer)
when I realized there was
as Father Keating would
say an Unloading of the Unconscious.


My thoughts had wandered off to
why can't I easily offer myself and
my actions to doing God's will in
my daily life.

the reply -

Well, because God is a God of Hurt,
and left to His devices he would certainly
send me trials of hurt - trials that I couldn't handle.

I heard a little girl's voice cry out,
my little girl voice cry out,
"Don't Hurt Me."

Well, there it was
the God of Hurt.
He was out to get me.
He was out to hurt me.
 It was inevitable.

If I did God's will -
Sure, he might send me good things but -
well, he  might send me an incurable disease like cancer;
or he might cause me financial ruin, like make me broke,
or he might make me unhappy in love,
he could even hurt those close to me,
and send me some other horrible calamity -


and then I'd have to rise to the situation and become a better person -
well, no, I don't think so.  I'm not up to that.

I think I'd rather do my own will
and take a chance of being happy my way

because certainly I'm not going to wish a catastrophe on me, right?
Wrong.

A God of Hurt
Wow
With all my other definitions of God,
God of Mercy
God of Love
God of Compassion
along
with all these God's
there is my God
my little girl God
A God of Hurt.

Something to think about Doris.

O My Soul

The Hermitage

Thursday, January 3, 2013

O My Soul

O My Soul

Every day a delight
I can't wait to wake in
the morning
to be with u

I look forward to our communion
I seek u out in the hiddenness of my being

I know ur there.
Like a playful friend u elude me
But I like a true warrior - play the game

U hide.
I seek.

I find u
U laugh.

I laugh with u.
Knowing that the pursuit is the dance

Then we sit
The two of us in silence
Knowing that our pinkies touch -
in childish endeavor

To weave a memory
of the unknowable, unthinkable, unseeable

O My Soul
bring me to the depths of ur being so that I may catch
a glimpse of thine memory

A M E N

o my soul

Posted by Doris

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

o my soul
i need to start writing again,
but i don't know what to
write.

sacred sounds surround me
wistful looks pursue me

o' my soul rest a moment
for the journey begins

at times tiring
but
o' my soul
what an adventure
pure delight
each morning brings
a newness, a beginning
that only u can greet

each day is its own
no one else's

no one can share the climb

no one can breathe ur air
it is for u alone to traverse

but a quick furtive look
reveals -
wait -
there is a companion
hidden and silent within

the recesses of ur heart.


waiting
waiting
ever hesitiating
for ur breath
your soul invite

A M E N