Teachers All Around
March 13, 2015
Photo by Tom Pierson
What if there are teachers all around us?
Everyday?
Ann Lamott reminds us that perhaps for the time we have here, we are enrolled in what she refers to as ” Earth School”.
Everyday.
Perhaps some teachers are more apparent than others, but I am wondering if that has more to do with my awareness and willingness to notice rather than the teacher’s willingness to appear. Read the rest of this entry »
Plugging Away
October 28, 2014
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work; you don’t give up.” – Ann Lamott (Bird By Bird)
It is so easy to get derailed.
One day it seems that I know what I want, where I’m going and how to get there. Finish that manuscript. Knock on the door that is beckoning. Make that scary phone call. Take a deep breath. Trust that voice within that ALWAYS knows what to do next. Read the rest of this entry »
Night Vision
October 6, 2011
There are times, when darkness is all there is. When I hold my weary hand up in front of my face, there is nothing there…no light, no hope, no relief. I panic. I want there to be light. I want an answer, a reprieve, a savior. I hate the feeling of being immobilized and stopped. I have stuff to do, things to get accomplished, people to serve and lives to save. I cannot afford to waste my time in the dark, accomplishing nothing. And yet…there it is. It wraps around me like thick fog on a San Francisco morning. No matter how hard I strain to see through it, nothing changes….
So I have no choice but to give in, surrender to the stillness of it all. Waiting for light, knowing I cannot hurry it. Do I feel helpless? Yes! Then I start to feel acceptance; really what else is there when you cannot change what is. I cannot force the sun to come up it does what it does of it’s own accord. I must wait. While I am waiting, can I rest? Can I rest enough to gather energy for what is ahead? Certain animals hypernate…maybe that’s what this is. Maybe allowing for this time of inactivity I am insuring my strength for what surely is to come. My willingness to sit in the dark is my offering to the light that is inevitable.
Soldiering On
April 12, 2011
Once upon a time, not long ago, a trial of unmeasurable proportion descended upon my people. A spirit of darkness over came and defeated one of the clans most treasured. Unfathomable despair ensued. So great was the pain that it lay waste each loved one as they stood guard hoping to fight the encroaching evil.
Soon, each suffered…each felt despair that could not be overcome. As one who championed those that mattered most, i too fell into deep despair. For I could not battle this darkness and claim victory.
From my hiding place of shame I could catch glimpses of the ones who suffered. There seemed to be moments when the darkness that had claimed them subsided. The moments were few, but each day there seemed to be more. Were my most treasured finding the strength to resist total annihilation? Was there unfamiliar magic secretly and mysteriously waging battle? Were there strategies being employed that i did not understand?
Days, months, years passed as the spirit of darkness seemed to be losing its’ destructive grip of hopelessness. Light entered through cracks and crevices. Those who mattered most slowly gathered strength and as they did, their determination to claim their own victory grew. Without fanfare the darkness was driven out with light; bright and radiant.
According to the 18th verse of the Tao, we as guardians of those most sacred are to “let go” and trust that they will do what is best for them.
We are to understand that guardian means; protecting each one’s natural ability to discover their own lighted path out of the darkness.
Matters That Matter ® 