Why Write?

Writing has been a life theme for me for as long as I can remember, as I expect it is for fellow bloggers and for many who read or follow blogs.  As a blogger for nearly a decade, sometimes I muse about how these posts we create and publish on the web float out and expand into the Blogosphere, like radio waves or the Voyager space probe streaming forth into the endless Cosmos.

Why do we write? Or create music or sing or produce art or communicate in any public domain? One notion I embrace is that we are each vehicles for God expressing Itself and expanding Its love and awareness via the vast diversity and evolution in form and consciousness of Its creations.  

And, why does it matter?  Growing up, through various stages of my education and while producing academic as well as creative writing, I have often asked myself, “What difference does it make?”  This has been sort of a writing mantra for me in fact, a test of the worthiness of whatever I am expressing. 

More recently I have found this self-test has all but disappeared, as gradually I have come to understand how what I express out into the universe or Spirit DOES matter, irrevocably, and it may indeed make a difference. The size of that difference does not matter.  The thought expressed, or love itself, has a life of its own and contributes to the unfolding of Life in its totality.  Maybe just the wavelength of positive intentions matters; who can say?  But as a small voice of God energy or consciousness expressing Itself, it can be of value to the very air we breathe and the social connections we share.

These ideas about how what we express matters no matter the form it takes or whether or not it is “finished” have become clearer to me after losing two excellent friends who passed away within a year of one another a couple years ago. One, whose name I will not share in honor of Native American notions about not speaking the names of those who have moved on, was a writer. She was an excellent writer, with an amazing clarity, humor and wit.  She spent many years working on a book where she was rewriting the story of Scheherazade. She never let me read what she was writing and she transpired before she ever finished or published this work that was so close to her heart.

A few months ago, I had a dream in which I met with my departed friend. She told me that she was going “on a vacation beneath the Grand Canyon, with Sherzi.” Those were her words precisely. When I awoke I thought about it and realized she must have meant Scheherazade!  I would not have conjured up this nickname on my own; this was for me a very clear proof of having communicated with my friend in the afterlife.  Also I looked up Hopi beliefs about under the Grand Canyon and learned (for the first time for me) that Hopi believe there is an area under their Place of Emergence or sipapu in The Grand Canyon that is a passageway to the afterlife.

What stood out for me from this conversation with my departed friend was how the book she had been working on for so many years had indeed mattered!  It exists in a completed form, I now believe, on planes beyond the Physical.  It does not need to have been published ‘out here’ in order to have its influence or to be an expression of divine awareness and love. My writer friend had forged a connection with Sheherazad herself in the process of imagining and writing her revisionist story.

Images are from pixabay.com

So, write on!  Perhaps the very thought streams we weave in the process of creation expand like ripples through the fabric of Reality, in ways we can hardly begin to comprehend with our meager physical senses or mind.  What you think, imagine, dream, believe and express is creative and makes a difference.

May the Blessings Be!

Countering Dystopia, or A Call for Projecting Hope through ‘Better Endings’

[Note to readers: I have cancelled the former post offering an Authors’ book sales and review exchange, because after several days, while there were some “Likes” for the post, no one had submitted their works. So I realized maybe this was not an appropriate approach. If you still would like to avail of that offer you can still Contact me and I will reply to you individually-LW]

I watched a free film via On Demand a few days ago that so absolutely called out for a better endings re-visioning that I realized there is a dystopian science fantasy meme of presumably inevitable global extinction events that might be negatively affecting our collective consciousness.  Annihilation Earth, with Luke Goss, Colin Salmon, Velislov Pavlov, and Marina Sirtis, has appropriately received mainly rotten tomato reviews for a weakly developed plot and thin characters, but I think it is worth taking note of as a clear example of a potentially dangerous fault line in contemporary, secular collective reasoning.

The film opens on a grim disaster scene: much of France including Paris has been annihilated in a momentary conflagration due to, we soon learn, a terrorist’s sabotage of a super-collider being used to generate free and inexhaustible energy.  The rest of the movie flashes back from this scene, periodically announcing the “time to extinction” in hours until the final scene delivers on the forecast: planet Earth implodes from a black hole created by the interaction of a global network of interlinked, sabotaged supercolliders.

Of course, the plotline pits the West against all Middle Eastern nations who are not included in the otherwise global boon of free energy and the elimination of any need for fossil fuels.  But aside from basic story weaknesses including the notion that only two scientists would together have unique and total access to programming and safeguarding the supercolliders such that compromising them could allow a sole terrorist to hack and sabotage the entire supercollider infrastructure, the main problem I see is in the lack of any awareness of potential protective agency of a spiritual—or resilient human idealist—nature. 

We are given to believe, in this and similar dystopian visions that are growing in popularity these days, that we—all species in fact, because of our human frailities—are completely at the mercy and whim of all-powerful bad guys ‘out there’ (or, in here, in our home communities) who will godlessly inflict death and cataclysmic destruction if they either plan ahead maliciously or simply wake up on the wrong side of bed one day and decide to wreak havoc. We are helpless, this cultural meme or cognitive schema tells us, in combatting or surviving evil if we just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now of course, yes, there are good grounds for this general malaise in light of the scourge of mass killing sprees and recently yet another brutal genocide playing out on our news media daily and horrifically on the ground in Ukraine.  And such chaotic killings do appear to be random and unavoidable by good people.  But I want to appeal to our deeper potentials for agency, spiritual awareness, and hope.  

There are always survivors, those who testify about following a nudge to stay home or take a different route on an otherwise fatal day.  Parents and loved ones who are bereaved find ways to make their lost loved ones’ lives meaningful by publicly advocating for change in the policies and laws that have fueled such horrendous acts as mass killing sprees.

 Yes, it is a battle so long as we are on this earth plane, between the forces of Light and of darkness. Yet we are more than our bodies and there is more to Life and to reality, that bullets can never silence.  Individually we have agency and collectively, too, so far as our elected officials are willing to serve the greater whole instead of their own seats of power or financial security.  Individually we can pay attention to our own inner guidance. Pay attention, and act according to your highest awareness. Even if it does not save your body, it provides a deeper connection with a greater good.

Just before the ‘fateful’ end of the B-movie Annihilation Earth, The scientist about to make a wrong decision to turn off the supercollider network despite his dying colleague telling him that doing such will result in a black hole event, his wife and two young children are standing behind him.  In my better endings re-visioning of the awful conclusion shown, his young daughter stops her father in the middle of his typing in the authorization code to turn off the colliders.

                “No, Dad! Stop, now!”

                “But Sarah, dear, this is the only way to fix this.”

                “No, you are wrong. Stop this, now!”

                “Why do you say this?”

                “There are three people with me inside, Daddy. A woman and two men from somewhere else. They are beautiful, full of light and love! They asked me to tell you, please Stop! This is not the right way!”

                David (the scientist-father, Luke Goss) pauses. He looks across at his superior, Paxton (Marina Sirtis), whose anger flashes:

                “Do it now, David!”

                David’s fingers on the computer keyboard press backspace several times, deleting the passcode he had been entering. It was like they had a mind of their own.  His friend Raja (Colin Salmon) would know best, he dimly realized. He was wrong to have ever doubted him. And Sarah, such a dear…

                After pausing, David could now discern on the screens that had been showing the growing global conflagration, that it was beginning to abate. Just as Raja had advised, the system had a self-correcting mechanism.  Earth would not be annihilated; after much damage, survival was imminent. Life would continue; people would rebuild, species survive! Perhaps, even, a lesson would finally be learned…

images are from pixabay.com

                So, there you have it.  There is always a ‘better endings’ scenario, if we will but turn our hearts and ears to Spirit; to the highest, not the lowest, in one another!

The Color of Love

A friend recently posted a prompt for her writing group after sharing a picture of military humvees in DC.  She asked, “What is the color of love?”

Here is my my meager response:

The Color of Love

Love is green: a walk in verdant woods, freshly mown grass;

Love is yellow: Sun’s golden rays, wedding rings;

Love is blue: clear sky vistas, soulful music;

Love is also red: beating hearts, lifeblood;

 

 

Love is lavendar: lilac blooms, early sunrise hopes;

Love is black: solace in the darkness, night before dawn.

Love is white: hospital care, a blank page.

images are from pixabay.com

Love is all the colors of the spectrum:

Unity in diversity, melodic harmony, joy.

Love is Light, and Sound; the very essence of Life:

Divine Breath, all the hues and call

of Creation.

Grist for the Mill

Because I derive a great deal of happiness through service, this month I am contemplating how best to proceed with the potential of service in my early semiretirement life. So far, about a year and a half in, I am quite active day to day. Teaching online and prepping a new course for the Spring, assuming an outreach role with my spiritual organization regionally, contributing as a member at large to my neighborhood housing association board, caring for my beautiful dog Sophie and cat Emily, writing, blogging, being active with family and friends, providing for the household and my home family; in short, I am very happy!

My brother at one time expressed the view that there are “producers” and then there are “servants” and that the former are inherently ‘better’ than the latter. I disagreed then, since teaching is my primary profession and teaching is most definitely a service role, and I love it! Now I see that service is a product in its own right. Service is a productive activity, not only supportive, and being supportive is a good thing too. It is not only about helping others, though I am happy to be of service in whatever capacity I can for another. It is about sharing from the foundation of accumulated knowledge and acquiring some measure of wisdom in the process; it is about giving, and giving back, to Life Itself, with love and gratitude.

Learning to be of greater service day by day provides grist for the mill, fuel for the dynamic expression of energetic outflow. That sounds rather lofty, yet simply expresses a dedicated sense of purpose. We breathe in and breathe out, every breath a divine energy of life. To receive and to give forth at least in equal proportion maintains balance, connection, and provides a grateful contribution to the Whole.

images are from pixabay.com

The Room of Requirement

Last Sunday around 1:30 AM I discovered a “room of requirement,” right here in my new home! Immediately I recognized this was a waking dream confirming my emerging insight this month, that Love Matters (answering my monthly question: “How Can/ Does Love Really Matter After All?”).

I was in bed with my two pets Sophie (a Shorkie dog) and Emily (my orange tabby cat), looking forward to a restful sleep after being up late the night before.  Sophie started barking; I listened and heard a ‘drip, drip, drip, coming from the living room. It was raining outside, and when I got up to check it out I found my sliding porch door had sprung a leak, endangering the new wood flooring!

My first effort to plug the hole was to use a roll of “magic tape” I found in a kitchen drawer. This prevented the drip temporarily, but I knew it would not hold up through the night.  I live about 30 minutes from the nearest store that would be open 24 hours and have sealing materials and I did not wish to go out.

I went into the guest bathroom to use the toilet while asking inwardly, what could I do? For the first time ever, suddenly I noticed a door behind the bathroom door that I had never seen or been told about. It was a linen closet. Inside were not only extra towels but also a large red emergency kit. In the kit was an unopened package containing a roll of “absolute waterproof tape”!

I recognized this immediately as a gift of love from Spirit/ the Universe (call It what you wish!) in my time of need. This reminded me of the Room of Requirement from the Harry Potter saga.

The Absolute Waterproof tape worked to seal off my interior leak through the night. In the morning then I went to a store and came back to seal the sliding door both outside and inside. Mission accomplished.

images are from pixabay.com

So What’s Love Got to Do With It/ How Can Love Matter? I believe “Soul Exists Because God (/the Universe…) Loves IT.”  In times of need, when you ask, even with the smallest of need as also with the greatest, It CAN embrace you and bring real solutions or balm for your anguish.  Sometimes, as I have found, we just need to be open to ACCEPT the love that Spirit brings in the Moment.

As my Better Endings story for this month of April 2019 then, I simply acknowledge:

Love Matters!

Because of this, I am okay, no matter what, wherever I am and whatever circumstances or conditions I encounter. Gratitude for all good things received and trust in the goodness of Spirit can lift our hearts to soar with the angels and is ever with us in times of need.

I welcome YOUR Story and Comments!

What Then?

“They went from world to world,

and each time they lost the world they left, 

lost it in time dilation, their friends

getting old and dying while they were in NAFAL flight.

If there were a way to live in their own time,

and yet move among the worlds,

they wanted to try it. …

(Ursula LeGuin, “The Shubies’ Story”)

I envisioned. Wrote, edited,published, prepared for the Big Move, left… to live my dream, Now! Arrived at one place, then searched for the next. Found it. A refuge for me and my pet family. Moving, again.

But, why all this? Or as W. B. Yeats once asked:

“What Then?”

His chosen comrades thought at school
He must grow a famous man;
He thought the same and lived by rule,
All his twenties crammed with toil;
‘What then?’ sang Plato’s ghost.  ‘What then?’

Everything he wrote was read,
After certain years he won
Sufficient money for his need,
Friends that have been friends indeed;
‘What then?’ sang Plato’s ghost.  ‘ What then?’

All his happier dreams came true –
A small old house, wife, daughter, son,
Grounds where plum and cabbage grew,
poets and Wits about him drew;
‘What then.?’ sang Plato’s ghost.  ‘What then?’

The work is done,’ grown old he thought,
‘According to my boyish plan;
Let the fools rage, I swerved in naught,
Something to perfection brought’;
But louder sang that ghost, ‘What then?’

I once posed a similar or perhaps it was the same question to a Philosopher, my college mentor, Dr Antoinette Patterson in Buffalo, NY.  I was glum that day.

“So, what?”

I asked Toni in her office, there for an independent study session on a topic we had agreed to, the ‘philosophy of Silence’. 

“Take out a pencil and a piece of paper, and write down

two words and a question mark:

So   What ?   Your assignment by next week

is to answer that question.”

Bemused by my mentor’s response to what I thought was a futile question, I went off to seek for answers.  I read an essay by Emerson called “The Transparent Eyeball” and many poems and essays about silence, thinking somehow that must connect. Who was I beyond my embodied personality; what was Life beyond the day to day back and forth of conversations and classes?

When I went back to Toni’s office for our session that next Wednesday, she was waiting for me. After I shared about what I had been reading and journaling about, having not really answered the question at all, she took me to a far corner of her office where she had set up a card table with a large, empty sheet of sketch paper she had laid across it. She had me write “WH-” words on every corner of the page:

What? 

Why?                                            Where?

When?

Dr. P. then used a pencil to draw connections between these WH- words, allowing the  lines of connection to intersect at the center of the page where she drew a blank circle and wrote in that space one word:

W  H  A  N

There before us on the page was our answer to the proverbial question.

So What?

Whan.

In that moment in that office on that one day, nothing seemed clearer than that one discovery: the answer to every question about meaning or purpose, about Why/ Where/ When/ What resolves to a singular unity: WHAN!

As we discussed what is WHAN, I realized it meant not to worry about Why? or what Matters. Life IS, therefore life is meaningful of Itself alone; and no amount of thinking or wishing or proving or disproving would ever have any effect upon that which simply IS. Whan! and so Life flows forth and I must with it, wherever It may lead.

images are from pixabay.com

So this is my monthly Better Endings life question to answer for myself this February:

What Then?

I sense this is the natural follow-up question to the discovery of Whan!

I welcome YOUR Story and Comments. I encourage you to form a personal monthly question to explore with your dreams and contemplation this month.

Daily Miracles

For this final post about our monthly theme of Spirituality as a Life Theme, I’d like to express gratitude for those daily miracles that happened just two days ago and indicated to me the ever-present protection and guidance of Spirit.

I drove to New Jersey then took a subway train to Manhattan for lunch with my wonderful, excellent literary agent (pinch!), then back again in time to give my dog Sophie her dinner and insulin. All day I noticed the miraculous workings of this tandem relationship with Spirit.

Once while driving I was nearly in what would have been a terrible accident. I pulled into the left lane but a car was already there, in my blind spot! For a dangerous, long moment we shared the same lane. I was able to fold back unto the right lane just a fragment of time before the worst would have occurred. It felt like there was a force field separating our two vehicles just to the perfect degree to allow us to adjust and correct the situation.

At the subway station in Journal Square, Jersey City, I had only a short time left to reach Manhattan in time for my meeting, and all of the spaces in the parking structure were taken. I drove around three times and came to the realization I would need to exit the parking garage and try my luck outside in the mayhem of the over-crowded street parking, which would make it nearly impossible to stay on schedule. Instead, as I was ruefully leaving the parking structure, just one parking space, just wide enough for my car to fit into, miraculously appeared. I had been driving around hoping for someone to leave, and no one had left, I was sure!

Once in New York, hailing a cab was no ordeal at all; both going to and returning from the restaurant across from Central Park a taxi pulled over immediately.

Lunch went splendidly as always with this amazing, brilliant soul who sees and inspires the value of my writing. She gave good advice and guidance about promoting my new book, Your Life Path (see right panel or click here to order), telling me I need to promote the book in every blog post (😊). We also talked about my next book which is in progress.

images are from pixabay.com

Then the return trip was smooth, bringing me home—thanks to the excellent voice guidance of Siri on my phone—just in time for my Sophie to receive her meal and insulin in a timely manner. Once while I was booking it homeward a squirrel found itself in my lane and s/he literally high-tailed it—now I understand that phrase. Its tail fluffed high as it scooted quickly out of danger, so quickly that it looked like a gentle hand of Spirit must have cupped it from behind and given a needed push! Usually squirrels tend to slow down when confused in such a situation, so again I was grateful for the intervention.

So, home safely, I was reminded of the quote I was going to be posting as the full post today. It is about the subtle nature of Spirit or the Universe, the Force; whatever you choose to know It as. Paul Twitchell wrote that Spirit is:

“…that thread, so fine as to be invisible yet so strong as to be unbreakable, that binds together all beings in all planes, and beyond time into eternity.”

I welcome YOUR Story and Comments!

The Force of Spirit

Spirituality is one of my core Life Themes. All of my life it has been a motivating force to my thoughts, questioning, and adventures.

Spirituality brings depth to any experience. It frames experience as gifts and as lessons to grow by.  It provides guidance and protection as a source of inner guidance. It illuminates the meaning and purpose of life events and relationships. It nourishes and supports one, always.

To map the Theme of Spirituality over the life course can be revealing. One of my earliest “shaping events” based on what I would come to understand as Spiritual was that when I was around 7 or 8 I recognized a “blue man” in my conscious awareness. Somewhat like an invisible friend, the Blue Man was with me always, in my thoughts as well as my actions. I could pose questions to him and he would help me understand things generally. Because of him, I for awhile believed that all adults, not just him, could read my thoughts and knew everything about me; I even thought animals, though choosing not to speak, could do the same.

I remember as well when I was around twelve I stayed home from school one day. I was shy and for some reason wanted to avoid going in that day, though really I was only “faking” being ill. For some reason that day my mother was angry with me; I do not remember why but I do recall feeling guilty, perhaps for malingering. I went to my room an wrote in my diary. I remember writing a lot, painfully confronting that maybe the Devil had sent me to this world, but even so I chose instead to be a vehicle for God! When I discovered this little diary several decades later and found that diary entry I was surprised; the entire entry was about one sentence long! But that was a Turning Point for me. From then forth I have always sought to be a positive agent to be of spiritual value in the world.

images are from pixabay.com

What about YOU? What are some early ‘shaping events’ involving spirituality in your life? How have these affected your sojourn through life to Now? What lessons do you take forward from these?

I welcome your story and comments!

 

 

IDEALISM in Action: Go Broncos!

 

Okay so I’m a sports fan of the Broncos football team, who just last night won the 50^th Superbowl! Sometimes I volunteer at the Broncos stadium for a fundraising service that my spiritual group conducts there gathering staff laundry shirts after the games, so I get to see some of the insides of the organization and its supporters and, I can report, the spirit of the Broncos organization is positive and contagiously so! I have never heard a negative remark in over 7 years from staff at the stadium, and the fans are supercharged with the forward looking, goal-oriented energy of the team and its managers and owners.

Last night, watching the Big Game as the Denver Broncos’ “Orange Crush Defense” and  its talented Offense as well once again managed to upset a major contender to win the National (World) title,  I found myself thinking about how the Broncos team energy embodies the IDEALIST Archetype quite directly, both in individuals and in the collective body of the team. In fact, the amazing collaborative effort of this dynamic team exemplifies the most positive values of the IDEALIST Archetype Ally in us all. It is goal-oriented but also team-oriented. It serves the whole, not just the selfish individual. I noticed in the post-game interviews how every Bronco and Bronco manager or owner interviewed after the game gave credit to others than themselves.  The quarterback, Peyton Manning, credited the Defensive players, who themselves credited Manning and the coaches. The coaches credited all the players and the managers and owners, and John Elway, a former Broncos Superbowl quarterback and now a general manager for the team, credited the owner, Pat Bowlen.  All realized how the synchrony of the WHOLE allowed each individual to rise to the challenge and perform as they needed to attain, literally, the collective trophy.

On the other side, I saw that as the game progressed, the quarterback of the opposing team grew gradually more and more apparently despondent and withdrawn. Before the game he had paraded about the stadium dressed in gold athletic shoes and a gold Superman costume (cape included!) After the game, he covered his head and walked off the stage after a few short replies to questions. I guess the Broncos brought Kryptonite to this quarterback; here we see if anything the Shadow Idealist: frustrated for not having achieved the Ideal. Well, better luck next time maybe!

images from pixabay.com

May the Balance of the Force Be With You

                               

When Star Wars first emerged in 1977, I was there. I crossed the city of Buffalo twelve times on my little yellow Puch moped to see that first installment. I could very much relate to the idea of the Force as Spirit then, and I still do. The continuing saga of Star Wars including Episode VII, which I saw in 3D at an IMAX theatre on the first day it came out last week, continues to develop the theme of the Force but they have emphasized the notion of “bringing balance to the Force” with the characters of Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader) and now his dark, worrisome grandson, Kylo Ren. Thus the story continually pits the Light Side against the Dark Side of the Force, as if this dualistic jostling can ever bring true Balance or peace. No, they cancel each other out but they can never bring a genuine, lasting Balance. So, what does?

Note the resemblance to Jedi Master Yoda!

I want to say here that the Force as I know it, and as many of you do who practice active contemplation, prayer or deep meditation, is not inherently dualistic. We can understand It as trinary: embodying the Light, the Dark, and the NEUTRAL force emanations of Spirit. The Light and Dark are only energetic expressions of that Neutral force operating within the limited worlds of Duality.

To answer power with power,

the Jedi way this is not.

In this war, a danger there is,

of losing who we are. – Yoda

Note the difference between Jedi Knights and Jedi Masters.  Jedi Knights “fight for the Good;” they serve the Light Side of the Force as versus Siths, who serve the Dark Emperor and their own selfish desires. But true, tempered Jedi Masters generally exhibit Detachment and acceptance in the face of conflict. They might fight if they are called upon to defend some worthy cause in the worlds of duality, but they have their Home in Divine Love or in the Heart of Spirit Itself.

To connect with Spirit you need only find Your Center and hold your awareness Here. Do not be pulled to the right or to the left, “right” or “wrong,” up or down, or in any Outer direction that is dependent on external pressures. Find your genuine, core spiritual nature within and operate from this Soul perspective. It will not steer you wrong if you Listen closely to what your Heart—which could take the form of an inner or an outer, tried and trusted spiritual Guide—advises, and act accordingly.

The Jedi Masters represent an Elder Leader archetype form that I wish to celebrate and invite you to cultivate this month. What is your own ELDER LEADER nature? When does it emerge in you in its most balanced form?  Invite your ELDER LEADER to reveal Its WAY to you this month of January, as January is the astrological month associated with Capricorn and the Elder Leader Archetype Ally.

images from pixabay.com

Remember, the FORCE IS with you, always! May it inform your Way!

Time Heals All Wounds

Is Time really a Healer? What wisdom does this age-old adage impart?  Time heals by allowing you to readjust or to establish a new set of conditions that have changed in some manner after an event that might have felt wounding: harmful or grievous or disastrous even, “back then” when the change first occurred.

Time brings us around some major bend in our Life Path that ultimately can result in “better endings.”

But, how? I am reminded of Garth Brooks’ song lyrics to “Unanswered Prayers” :
“Unanswered Prayers”

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/garthbrooks/

unansweredprayers.html

Just the other night at a hometown football game

My wife and I ran into my old high school flame

And as I introduced them the past came back to me

And I couldn’t help but think of the way things used to be

She was the one that I’d wanted for all times

And each night I’d spend prayin’ that God would make her mine

And if he’d only grant me this wish I wished back then

I’d never ask for anything again

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers

Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs

That just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care

Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

She wasn’t quite the angel that I remembered in my dreams

And I could tell that time had changed me

In her eyes too it seemed

We tried to talk about the old days

There wasn’t much we could recall

I guess the Lord knows what he’s doin’ after all

And as she walked away and I looked at my wife

And then and there I thanked the good Lord

For the gifts in my life

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers

Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs

That just because he may not answer doesn’t mean he don’t care

Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered

Some of God’s greatest gifts are all too often unanswered…

Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

So… thank heaven for some of our unanswered prayers, or for any condition in our life that changes unexpectedly, often undesirably.  Change can lead us down unanticipated pathways that can produce surprising benefits ‘down the road,’ and so often we cannot tell from here and now where that unexpected change could lead to!

For example, we might lose a job we have been feeling stuck in for some time but would not have sought to change but for being laid off or “moved along.” Yet this sudden change might prompt us to move to a new location where eventually we might meet the love of our life or develop talents we had been neglecting.

Spirit or the “universe” may ‘know’ better than we do with our minds what path is our true destination. So listen closely to your heart when change comes calling; perhaps it is calling you Home!

“Beautiful People Here” (parking lot attendant, Denver Coliseum, Mar. 22, 2014)

As I sit to write an introductory post for a Better Endings week about Spirituality, I am in a bleacher seat at the Denver Coliseum, attending the Denver March Powwow. One of the largest Native American powwow venues in the country, people from many tribal communities and many other backgrounds come to Powwow, in part, to recharge their spiritual batteries.

Grand Entry. Drumming circles surround the gymnasium that fills with dancers in regalia from all age groups and genders, creating a Spiral, the Sacred Circle of Life. Feathers, colors, blankets, shawls, buckskin, moccasins, beads, VOICES, and RHYTHM: the heartbeat of the Earth, vibrancy of Spirit. Grandmothers enter: “Keepers of Mother Earth”.

The last time I was here, two years ago, I came with Juanita, who enjoyed telling people, “I am only 92!”  She hadn’t been to the Denver Powwow for many years but in her youth, in 1954 (my birth year), Juanita interviewed all  Native American families in Colorado Springs for a city history book, and she gained many friends. Here at the Powwow Juanita told me she could see and hear the voices of the elders who had passed Beyond, still attending Powwow.

Juanita passed herself, just two weeks after Powwow. Ke:shhi (‘Hello”, in Zuni), Juanita. K’ettsanishhi do’ andewadu (‘May you go happily’).

Spirituality is Universal. No single religion or philosophy has a monopoly on Divine Love or Truth.

***

As I stand in line now for the one frybread stand (in a line that may take over an hour to arrive there), I invite YOU this week to write or to somehow express what Spirituality means, to you, or about how Spirituality has helped you. I will save all Comments to this effect and post them together on Thursday along with re-blogs on the topic which I also invite you to send.

Spirituality is a Better Ending in and of Itself. In whatever form you “Hook Up” and “Tune In” to Spirit, and whatever you may name It and the Divine, we will celebrate the Pulse of Life, Divine Love and awareness all this week at Better Endings.

As a lover of Rumi, who lived and breathed the universality of spirituality, I share from his poetic illumination:

WORD FOG

Words, even if they come from the soul, hide the soul,

as fog rising off the sea covers the sea,

the coast, the fish, the pearls.

It is noble work to build coherent philosophical discourses

but they do not block out the sun of truth.

See God’s qualities as an ocean.

The world is foam on the purity of that.

Brush it away and look through the alphabet to essence,

as you do the hair covering your beloved’s eyes.

Here is the mystery:

This intricate, astonishing world is proof

of God’s presence even as it covers the beauty.

One flake from the wall of a gold mine

does not give much idea what it is like

when the sun shines down inside

and turns the air and the workers golden.

 – (Rumi: The Big Red Book, Coleman Barks, transl.:149-150)

At a Crossroads?

This week’s Better Endings topic is better choices. Choices are opportunities to steer your ship more consciously in the direction of…your choice! They are crossroads, bridges between one state of affairs and potentially another. Therefore our choices are golden keys we can use to open new doors, to enter new vistas of experience and change; or, not.

I love the final scene of Castaway. (Well, okay, that’s after I got over the fact that Chuck had to let go of Kelly; and that she never finished her Ph.D..) After surviving his 5 year ordeal of being marooned and barely surviving, Chuck is shown to be at a literal crossroads along a dusty Western road. He is free–if not in another sense potentially adrift or stranded again–; free to start a new life in any direction he might choose. But then Spirit or the universe offers a sign: the same picture of angel wings that he had used to make the “sail” by means of which he had escaped his captivity on the island. Chuck senses intuitively that this sign indicates the right direction for him to follow, because it reveals synchronicity, events lining up in an unpredictably ‘connected’ way.

This week’s life mapping activity lines up well with our topic of better choices. Among all of the 12 or so significant life events you wrote down last week (or could this week; see last week’s Life Mapping Activity in the Category archives to catch up), some of these influential, shaping moments were more “critical” than others, right? Your Critical Life Events  (CLE’s) are those that have been so extremely impactful in your life that you might feel you were not quite the same person even, before and after that event or situation occurred. Critical events of that magnitude are your life’s Turning Points. They are real chapter turners.

So this week we will focus on Turning Point sorts of opportunities for making “better choices”. How have you typically approached the major choices and transitions in your life? Have some of the most critical events in your life so far felt like they were beyond your own control? How does choice factor in with those circumstances, in retrospect? How much choice do you have, really, in various kinds of situations, and how can you make the very best choices possible so that, now, if you choose!, you can begin to align your choices with your conscious intention to manifest Better Endings?