Oxymoronic Bumpersticker

Chiro-sister & I were joking about this:


Namaste' means "The divine in me honours the divine in you." Have you seen those people with their peace stickers driving anything but peacefully? Perhaps you've even been on the receiving end of a non-peaceful hand gesture. You know; the angry peace activists. Well. We call this the Namaste Asshole Syndrome. And I've created the perfect bumpersticker. It reminds me of the mother I heard YELLING at her 3-year-old daughter: "BE NICE!" Oxymoron.

One Man Come

"Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Peace

, The above quote is lifted from a more personal vs. global ideal. However, the microcosm reflects the macrocosm. We war with ourselves and each other in our families or we take it into the global village. It seems the world is getting smaller and smaller as travel gets faster and the internet is everywhere. We are so connected--except we are not. Not where it really matters. I was thinking about this yesterday when I was on the phone AGAIN with my internet people because I couldn't get online. I was getting a bit impatient and then I took a breath. I stopped thinking about myself & I thought about this kid on the other end of the phone: doing his job, trying to help me. He has a family. He has people he loves and who love him. In short, he's a fellow human being doing his best, as I believe most of us are.

I would hazard a guess that there will be lots of articles and specials on TV marking today's anniversary. There is no easy answer, but I do know this: when we feel peace within, we carry it into the world.

The Gift of Presence

"When you're in that place of presence, there are no magic words." ~John Morgan

I reminded John yesterday that he said this to me in a conversation--prolly when he was expounding on the virtues of Eckhart Tolle. "Oh, really? I did?" He didn't remember. He must've said it while in that place. I've been reading Radical Forgiveness--it really is v. radical. I fell asleep after I'd read this:

"Don't pray for peace. Pray to feel peace. That's the most creative prayer you can make. Peace is the strongest power on earth, and it is certainly called for at this time. When we can feel peace in our hearts, we will know Love and our world will reflect it."

So I fell asleep praying to feel peace and extending that prayer to my friends who have lost a beloved family member. I woke at 4 a.m. feeling that place of presence, absolute peace. Warm and cozy, listening to the snores of Remi at the foot of my bed. It is rare that I don't wake up with the To Do List in my head. Nothing from the past, no worries of the future, just the present. What a gift.

Happy Getmas

If my brother wrote a comic strip, it would be Brewster Rocket: Space Guy. When his 4 year-old daughter runs up to me with the Vulcan hand-sign and says, "Live long and prosper," you understand why I'd make that leap. Anyway, in the comic strip, Christmas is called "Getmas," aptly describing the state of our consumeristic society of stuff-getting. Oooh, nice alliteration....

There are all sorts of FW's and articles and pleas to remember the reason-for-the-season, in the midst of all the frantic gift-giving/getting. So I won't repeat it here. What I will say is prolly going to sound...like I've entered an older generation that longs for simpler days. Not quite the horse 'n' buggy era, BUT...

[Cue music and put on Granny Voice]

When I was a young girl, I wasn't raised with Santa. Mum never told me a fat guy in a red suit was going to leave gifts for me or my sibs. Now, we did celebrate and have a tree with the lights, but we got the "spirit-of-Christmas" talk. One of my favourite memories is Mum waking me up to take me to my first Christmas Eve mass. The whole experience of it--intangible and lovely...the car ride there looking at the lights and the beautiful songs and the stained glass windows. BEAUTIFUL.

In kindergarten I had a conversation with a friend and she was explaining all about Santa. Really? I asked. But I was skeptical because she was also the one who told me Jesus gave us scabs--not randomly, of course, but when you get a scrape or a cut. My dad, who knew everything when I was in kindergarten, explained that scab-making was left to the innate intelligence of my body. So you see, I didn't buy into the Santa Thing, and I thought that Jesus prolly had more important things to do than give me scabs when I needed them.

I have a picture of one Christmas with my stepson where he is sitting in front of a MOUNTAIN of STUFF. Stuff that I would spend the next year cleaning off his floor and gradually throwing away. Happy Getmas. It was the guilt of divorce and the competition between two wounded parents that contributed to this frenzied gift opening where it was almost like a race to see what was next.

So we came up with the Jesus Christmas Rule of Three Gifts. This is how it goes: Jesus got three gifts. Are you saying you're better than Jesus? All right, then. What do you really want? It eliminated the stocking STUFFers and the superfluous. And they weren't deprived--they still had grandma & grandpa, aunts & uncles from both sides of the family. Plenty of more stuff to clean up for the next year. Pah-lenty.

On this first day of Christmas,
and the eleven more to follow into a new year,
I wish you all the gifts of the Spirit of Christmas:
loving kindness, compassion and hope for better times.
Wherever you are in this world,
wherever you are in your world,
I wish you PEACE.
The kind that passeth all understanding.
'Tis the season to open hearts
to receive the greatest gifts of Spirit
the kind that are wrapped in God's LOVE.

Merry Getmas. And Merry Christmas, too. :-) H.

How Long Do You Plan on Being a Hermit?

Some people have asked. It's not indefinite, this retreat into the wilderness. It's where I need to be for NOW. I can stay in the present moment, out here in Nature. Hmmm...almost sounds sort of Eckhart Tolle, don't you think? haha

But look where I'm living! The road I'm on is so BEAUTIFUL.

[BTW, this is where I saw my first bear!]

I was listening to John's Self Image CD last night and he has a line in there about going to a place where you feel peaceful. I used to imagine another place outside myself, like my labyrinth in WV or walking along a beach. I used to meditate A LOT just to get that sense of inner peace because I was in a much more stressful environment. And as celebrated cell-biologist Bruce Lipton says in Chapter 2 of his BRILLIANT book, The Biology of Belief: It's the Environment, Stupid. Your environment affects your health, your behaviour, your feelings. Change your environment, change your life. Which is what I've done.

And being out here in Nature...is nurturing.

[Science geek reference] haha

What I feel is that peace is where I am. Now. In this moment. And when I venture back out into the world, I trust that I will be able to keep that place of peace within me wherever I go.