My next birthday doesn’t look like a milestone on the calendar, no zero or five at the end of it, but it has tremendous significance to me and my family. My dad died the day before his fifty-second birthday, and as I approach it a lot of emotions are stirring.
I felt a strong connection with my dad: he was the calm in the storm, my personal encyclopaedia, and my scout leader. He introduced us to beauty in many forms by taking us rock hounding, gallery hopping and antique sale hunting. He didn’t have a formal education past high school, but his thirst for knowledge kept him pursuing new endeavours. He started off as a builder; became a stock broker after his first heart attack; and was a property manager, a mortgage broker and a real estate appraiser before becoming an officer of the Ontario Rent Review Commission – the only non-lawyer at the time to have been offered the appointment. At his passing, Gerald Irwin Mandel was so well respected in his job he’d been elevated to the post of Appeals Commissioner.
My dad also had a lot of hobbies. He was a skilled woodworker, enjoyed learning about computers and bonsai plants, and even wrote a song on the vibes. To say he was curious would be an understatement.
It is said the good die young, and I can’t think of a better death than my dad’s. He was dancing at the wedding of his friend’s daughter’s, went to bed, and passed away shortly thereafter. I’ll never forget the funeral and the rabbi telling us Moses also died on his birthday. This left me with a sense of completeness: a sense that his was a life well lived.
So here I am, twenty-six years later: half my life with my dad, half without. There was a tendency for me to measure my life to his, compare our accomplishments, but I don’t think that is useful anymore. Instead, I prefer to look at the foundation he, my mother and my other ancestors set and ask: have I added to it? My grandparents came to this country with nothing and created financial security; my parents had financial security and provided us with an education. I have tried to take that knowledge and transform it into shared wisdom, and whether I succeed or not, only time and my actions will tell.
My dad, like Moses, wasn’t perfect, and I find myself imperfect in similar ways. Life has thrown me some interesting curves perhaps in order to face parallel challenges and maybe find redemption for us both. We all, in our gut, seek to transcend our mistakes and find that place of freedom. I recently stumbled upon this excerpt while reading The House of Mirth (1905) by Edith Wharton.
“My idea of success is personal freedom.”
“Freedom? Freedom from worries?”
“From everything – from money, from poverty, from ease and anxiety, from all the material accidents. To keep a kind of republic of the spirit – that’s what I call success.”
“...There was no one...to tell me about the republic of the spirit.”
“There never is –it’s a country one has to find the way to one’s self.”
“But I should never have found my way there if you hadn’t told me.”
“Ah, there are sign posts –but one has to know how to read them.”
In taking us to galleries, museums, and nature trails, by continuing to pursue his education, by refining his craft as a woodworker, by providing for his family, and by being a just arbitrator my dad familiarized us with the landscape. The Republic of the Spirit for me is where people live in harmony with the land and with each other; where there are no wants; where there is only being curious, creative, and compassionate. My dad didn’t teach us this; he showed us.
The title for The House of Mirth, came from Ecclesiastes 7:4: The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. I must be wise because I have such sadness in my heart: sadness that the sign posts have been so obscured and sadness that my dad is no longer here to talk to about these things.
Along the trail, the strongest two hikers are at the front and the back of the pack thus assuring the whole group gets to its destination safely. My dad died at age 52 and my grandmother died very close to her 104th birthday (26 x 2 = 52 x 2 = 104 hmm). Am I here to lead the way or to follow and help others along? I don’t know what my fate will be but what I do know is - I miss my dad.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Monday, December 14, 2009
GOODNESS AND MERCY
And so we drove to the airport where I was immediately turned away. I was quite surprised because looking back, I had travelled numerous times with the same lapsed passport. I guess the crackdown in the spring was now in full effect and there were no longer any discretionary calls. The attendant suggested I go to the passport office and try to get an extension like a previous customer had done. In the parking lot, my husband lost patience with a driver and I reminded him, if we wanted goodness and mercy to happen to us, we had to give it to others. He recognized I was right and calmed down. In the passport office we were greeted by a friendly security guard and sent to a wonderful young man who told us extensions were no longer available. The next option was to take a picture and reapply. After a few more harrowing obstacles and many, many hours, we were on the plane headed south. Good things happen to good people.
In Maryland, there was so much kindness and generosity in the air we were all rewarded by waking up to a miraculous white Christmas. That night, after a day filled with such joy, I turned to my husband and told him if I’d died right then, I’d die a happy person. He understood.
I think all religions have some version of Karma or the Golden Rule. It seems to be a universal truth: you get what you give. I don’t think there is a God keeping track of what we do, judging us to be worthy of this or that, but rather a vibration of love we give off that connects us to a web of like-hearted folk. Greedy, childish people who can often be heard saying ‘I want’ never seem to have any luck, while those who lend a hand even when it’s inconvenient find their driveways plowed on return from more travels to a family funeral. Good things happen to good people.
It’s very difficult to give up the ego, to give up thinking we are alone in the world and have to look out for our own best interests. We are bombarded with that message all the time from advertisers and even some religious and political leaders.
It’s like there are parallel universes here on earth, the hell of those who are anxious and needy, and the heaven of those who are at peace with whatever their circumstances may be. The funny thing is these two worlds have nothing to do with one’s physical reality, what health or wealth one has or doesn’t have, but rather with what one is a part of: a family, a community, the universe. When we feel a part of something, are interdependent, we know our needs will be taken care of.
On the flight south, I began thinking of the words ‘goodness and mercy’. They seemed familiar but I couldn’t place them – ‘may goodness and mercy follow you all the days of your life’? It wasn’t until we were at a funeral a few days later where Psalm 23 was a chosen reading that my answer came. When I change a few words, it had even more resonance for me.
Love is my shepherd; I shall not want.
It maketh me to lie down in green pastures; It leadeth me beside still waters.
It restoreth my soul; It guideth me in straight paths for its sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Love is with me; Its rod and its staff, they comfort me.
It preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
It hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;
And I shall dwell in the house of Love for ever.
Wishing you all a season of goodness and mercy - wherever the branches of your family tree may lead you.
Marci
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
PRESENCE
A friend sent me a link to a YouTube site titled The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D. It was a short documentary about what some scientists who were privileged to be allowed access to the Hubble telescope saw when they pointed it to where there appeared to be absolutely nothing.
In time, the computer that was attached to the telescope began to pick up images, and before long, they found that within the nothingness were several million more galaxies. Astonished, they tried the experiment again, this time pointing to the distant blackness in their newly viewed field. Once again, when they closely looked into the nothingness, they found even more millions of galaxies. This makes me wonder if there is such a thing as nothingness, such thing as absence.
Einstein, I believe, said cold is the absence of heat. There are no measurements for cold, only measurements of heat – British Thermal Units. So cold is a measurement of the absence of heat, but no matter how cold things get, even -75 degrees Celsius, there is still a presence of heat in the most infinitesimal measurement. Einstein has also been said to have added that fear is the absence of love, so that even the most evil person has at least a minuscule element of love present.
This would suggest there is absolutely, always some sort of presence everywhere at all times. So what is this presence? God? Love? Peace? I don’t know, but if I was to analyze it…I could no longer feel it. Thinking, it seems, veils it. When I breathe slowly and relax, there it is again. Breathing connects me to it, and thinking disconnects me from it. How curious. It’s like the relaxed breath is the drawbridge to this Presence.
If Presence is in the spaces, is there really nothing, no thing? Maybe, therefore, Presence is not a thing, it has no form; it is formless. The word Buddha is made up of two symbols - no and man: no man, no thing, no form: formless. Where there is nothing, there is Presence and since it is no thing, it must be a state of being: Being Present.
Is Buddha ‘no man’ because that which he is (formless) is also in all mankind? If that formless Presence is everywhere, even in the spaces between the far off galaxies, isn’t he and me and all things at the same time? The formless is in all forms? Hmmm.
So once again, what is this Presence? Can I possibly know something so vast? I can feel it. I can sense it. I can even trust it, but I’m not sure if I have the language to truly comprehend it. The language I do have helps me put some pieces of the puzzle together so I can get a sense of what is occurring. Being a detective, one looks for patterns and since I am a writer, I look for patterns in words - wanting: long for, sympathy: empathy, pretty: beautiful, comfort: ease, studied: wise, thinking: knowing. At first glance the pairs of words appear to have similar meanings. However, after a closer look, the first of the pair is about the form and the second is about the formless. Wanting, sympathy, pretty, comfort, studied, and thinking, are all about things a person does. Long for, empathy, beautiful, ease, wise, and knowing, all come from Presence, from being. It would appear that being leads to a deeper place than doing. Being a responsible parent or a responsible homeowner will lead to doing certain tasks. The doing comes from the being. If you do the things parents should do, will you be a good parent? Can you do caring? It seems to me there would be something missing, some intangible, formless presence.
Maybe people feel alone, rejected or inadequate because they aren’t connected to the Presence: they feel an absence of the Presence. But since the Presence is always there, they just have to open to it, let down the drawbridge, and breathe to connect.
This no-thing pattern of life seems to be all around us, within us, beyond us. Even the digital world, and its language based on a series of 0’s and 1’s, reflects this. The formless and the form are eternally linked, and when we stop thinking, stop doing, and open to it we feel the same awe, the same oneness in our inner space as those scientists who saw into the nothingness in outer space.
“It's absolutely mind-blowing if you stop to think about it, that by looking at a patch of sky that appears to have nothing in it, and you stare at it long enough, you see an image full of galaxies.”
- Tony Darnell
To view the video go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAVjF_7ensg&feature=channel
In time, the computer that was attached to the telescope began to pick up images, and before long, they found that within the nothingness were several million more galaxies. Astonished, they tried the experiment again, this time pointing to the distant blackness in their newly viewed field. Once again, when they closely looked into the nothingness, they found even more millions of galaxies. This makes me wonder if there is such a thing as nothingness, such thing as absence.
Einstein, I believe, said cold is the absence of heat. There are no measurements for cold, only measurements of heat – British Thermal Units. So cold is a measurement of the absence of heat, but no matter how cold things get, even -75 degrees Celsius, there is still a presence of heat in the most infinitesimal measurement. Einstein has also been said to have added that fear is the absence of love, so that even the most evil person has at least a minuscule element of love present.
This would suggest there is absolutely, always some sort of presence everywhere at all times. So what is this presence? God? Love? Peace? I don’t know, but if I was to analyze it…I could no longer feel it. Thinking, it seems, veils it. When I breathe slowly and relax, there it is again. Breathing connects me to it, and thinking disconnects me from it. How curious. It’s like the relaxed breath is the drawbridge to this Presence.
If Presence is in the spaces, is there really nothing, no thing? Maybe, therefore, Presence is not a thing, it has no form; it is formless. The word Buddha is made up of two symbols - no and man: no man, no thing, no form: formless. Where there is nothing, there is Presence and since it is no thing, it must be a state of being: Being Present.
Is Buddha ‘no man’ because that which he is (formless) is also in all mankind? If that formless Presence is everywhere, even in the spaces between the far off galaxies, isn’t he and me and all things at the same time? The formless is in all forms? Hmmm.
So once again, what is this Presence? Can I possibly know something so vast? I can feel it. I can sense it. I can even trust it, but I’m not sure if I have the language to truly comprehend it. The language I do have helps me put some pieces of the puzzle together so I can get a sense of what is occurring. Being a detective, one looks for patterns and since I am a writer, I look for patterns in words - wanting: long for, sympathy: empathy, pretty: beautiful, comfort: ease, studied: wise, thinking: knowing. At first glance the pairs of words appear to have similar meanings. However, after a closer look, the first of the pair is about the form and the second is about the formless. Wanting, sympathy, pretty, comfort, studied, and thinking, are all about things a person does. Long for, empathy, beautiful, ease, wise, and knowing, all come from Presence, from being. It would appear that being leads to a deeper place than doing. Being a responsible parent or a responsible homeowner will lead to doing certain tasks. The doing comes from the being. If you do the things parents should do, will you be a good parent? Can you do caring? It seems to me there would be something missing, some intangible, formless presence.
Maybe people feel alone, rejected or inadequate because they aren’t connected to the Presence: they feel an absence of the Presence. But since the Presence is always there, they just have to open to it, let down the drawbridge, and breathe to connect.
This no-thing pattern of life seems to be all around us, within us, beyond us. Even the digital world, and its language based on a series of 0’s and 1’s, reflects this. The formless and the form are eternally linked, and when we stop thinking, stop doing, and open to it we feel the same awe, the same oneness in our inner space as those scientists who saw into the nothingness in outer space.
“It's absolutely mind-blowing if you stop to think about it, that by looking at a patch of sky that appears to have nothing in it, and you stare at it long enough, you see an image full of galaxies.”
- Tony Darnell
To view the video go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAVjF_7ensg&feature=channel
Friday, October 9, 2009
The Beauty of Purity
The wind is blowing, the waves are crashing against the rocky shore, and I can’t help but think of the recent trip we took to Newfoundland: lots of wind and lots of crashing waves there. There was also lots of friendliness, lots of entertainment, lots of beauty and lots of hardship, and I couldn’t help but sense the latter had something to do with the former. Our trip started in St. John’s, from where my husband and I picked up a rented RV. We came across rainbows and full moons, community dinner theatre and fine crafts, colourful boats and colourful people, and that was only day four. Next there were historical re-enactments and fine meals, fossils and fjords and by day seven, I was exhausted, overwhelmed by all the beauty.
And then we discovered the village of Trinity and its surroundings. Its charms so captivated us we stayed and immersed ourselves in the treasures that unfolded before us: a Ragged Beauty boat trip, hidden coves, soaring eagles, moments of splendorous solitude, handcrafted gifts, and a concert by The Once in an intimate church setting. It was there I learned that beyond beauty, beyond grief, beyond every spent emotion, was magic! When we exhausted ourselves by fully feeling our feelings, when we allowed ourselves to be totally naked and humbled, all lives harmonized in a breathtaking chorus of joy – an ode that was truly magnificent.
A comfortable, easy life may be what we think we want, but what we long for is that feeling of being so nakedly alive. My work now is to keep growing in my capacity to love, keep growing in my ability to be light and vulnerable. If I can allow myself to be as stripped naked as those rounded rocks, I’ll find the bliss for which I yearn. Oh, what courage that will take.
Thankfully, there are guides to show us the way. I can’t help but think of the outpouring of love when Senator Edward Kennedy passed away. The stories revealed a privileged man who was pounded by harsh winds and battering waves, and instead of becoming broken and crusty, he stood strong and humble through the cleansing and became a great man honoured by both associates and opposition. That’s true power.
Peace... beauty... courage... love: close your eyes and they all feel the same: relaxed... patient... knowing... powerful: solid as a rock.
It seems like the more stuff we let go the more powerful we become. The more we lose, the more we gain. Maybe songs should celebrate broken hearts and not mourn them. Gated communities and guarded hearts: why would we protect ourselves from becoming more fully alive? How did the stories go so terribly wrong? Perhaps it’s time for a new myth.
The winds of change are blowing.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
GENTLY LEAPING...
I went for a walk out back and paused on a ridge overlooking a place we named ‘Treasure Island’. Two grasshoppers crossed my path so I bent over to observe them. The close one stayed perfectly still while the farther one hopped and stopped, hopped and stopped. Upon taking a step closer to understand what it was busy with, a white tail deer popped up from the grass and bolted off. What a gift – to be that close to a deer, to be that free to enjoy nature, to be fully alive on a warm, sunny day!
When I got back home, I checked the meaning of the animal totems online (http://www.linsdomain.com/totems.htm). Grasshopper was about moving on hunches and taking the leap forward. This was what it said about the spirit of a deer:
Deer teaches us to use the power of gentleness
to touch the hearts and minds of
wounded beings who are in our lives.
Don't push towards change in others,
rather gently nudge them in the right direction
with the love that comes from a Deer totem.
When a Deer totem shows up in your life,
a new innocence and freshness is about to be awakened.
There is going to be a gentle lure of new adventures.
There will be an opportunity to express the gentle love
that will open new doors for you.
Filled with the beauty of motherhood, my summer provided an abundance of opportunities to experience gentle love. From the visits with my grandchildren, to the birth of the loons, to the mothering of the mothers and the songs of my classmates, my cup ranneth over and I was abuzz with love’s harmonies.
What a wonderful shift from the harshness I was more familiar with. Looking back, I realized I had perceived the world as a harsh place where gentle things occasionally happened. Now I truly knew the world as a gentle place where harshness sometimes occurred. This too was the way it was in nature, where the bees suckled from blossoms, the birds flitted from tree to tree, and the waters meandered through fens.
Watching my infant grandsons with their mothers was quite magical. When hair was pulled by an untamed hand or when a toy was abruptly taken, the mothers were firmly but tenderly there to coach and comfort them through the hurt. And when beds were unfamiliar and routines were broken, the mothers, and fathers too, were firmly but tenderly there to coach and comfort the young boys through the tension.
Coach and comfort, coach and comfort: there is a rhythm there that is curiously familiar. Coach and comfort, hop and stop, on and off, digital world, day and night, push and relax. Push and relax is the heart muscle’s song over and over and over again. Push and relax, push blood and relax: that pattern is everywhere.
Perhaps it’s not so surprising that mothers and hearts are so closely linked. They keep us alive, on so many different levels. At the heart of life, the rhythm is always there waiting patiently for us to join in. Too much push and there is exhaustion. Too much relax and there is apathy. How fortunate my grandchildren are to have parents with the patience to help them find and establish this rhythm.
Apparently this is where my opportunity lies as well: helping people become aware of the groove and then gently nudging them into it. When I teach creative writing this fall, the beats will be called complication and resolution. All stories are a series of ascending complications and resolutions about how characters face the fear in their lives.
We’re drawn to stories and music because they open doors to our inner world that we’re not usually aware of. That place beyond thinking that is simply knowing, knowing we are all part of one rhythm, one life. The myths and four part harmonies that gather us in so we can get past the words to the tone that brings us all together synchronize us to our true nature, to the one true nature of life itself: that gently whispering amen.
And when we fully relax, and leap into that gentle sound, what a gift!
When I got back home, I checked the meaning of the animal totems online (http://www.linsdomain.com/totems.htm). Grasshopper was about moving on hunches and taking the leap forward. This was what it said about the spirit of a deer:
Deer teaches us to use the power of gentleness
to touch the hearts and minds of
wounded beings who are in our lives.
Don't push towards change in others,
rather gently nudge them in the right direction
with the love that comes from a Deer totem.
When a Deer totem shows up in your life,
a new innocence and freshness is about to be awakened.
There is going to be a gentle lure of new adventures.
There will be an opportunity to express the gentle love
that will open new doors for you.
Filled with the beauty of motherhood, my summer provided an abundance of opportunities to experience gentle love. From the visits with my grandchildren, to the birth of the loons, to the mothering of the mothers and the songs of my classmates, my cup ranneth over and I was abuzz with love’s harmonies.
What a wonderful shift from the harshness I was more familiar with. Looking back, I realized I had perceived the world as a harsh place where gentle things occasionally happened. Now I truly knew the world as a gentle place where harshness sometimes occurred. This too was the way it was in nature, where the bees suckled from blossoms, the birds flitted from tree to tree, and the waters meandered through fens.
Watching my infant grandsons with their mothers was quite magical. When hair was pulled by an untamed hand or when a toy was abruptly taken, the mothers were firmly but tenderly there to coach and comfort them through the hurt. And when beds were unfamiliar and routines were broken, the mothers, and fathers too, were firmly but tenderly there to coach and comfort the young boys through the tension.
Coach and comfort, coach and comfort: there is a rhythm there that is curiously familiar. Coach and comfort, hop and stop, on and off, digital world, day and night, push and relax. Push and relax is the heart muscle’s song over and over and over again. Push and relax, push blood and relax: that pattern is everywhere.
Perhaps it’s not so surprising that mothers and hearts are so closely linked. They keep us alive, on so many different levels. At the heart of life, the rhythm is always there waiting patiently for us to join in. Too much push and there is exhaustion. Too much relax and there is apathy. How fortunate my grandchildren are to have parents with the patience to help them find and establish this rhythm.
Apparently this is where my opportunity lies as well: helping people become aware of the groove and then gently nudging them into it. When I teach creative writing this fall, the beats will be called complication and resolution. All stories are a series of ascending complications and resolutions about how characters face the fear in their lives.
We’re drawn to stories and music because they open doors to our inner world that we’re not usually aware of. That place beyond thinking that is simply knowing, knowing we are all part of one rhythm, one life. The myths and four part harmonies that gather us in so we can get past the words to the tone that brings us all together synchronize us to our true nature, to the one true nature of life itself: that gently whispering amen.
And when we fully relax, and leap into that gentle sound, what a gift!
HEART SONGS
A few days later, my heart sunk when I realized there was only one chick left. It was so sad. It was so very sad, it choked me up.
Feeling feelings. This is rather new to me. I tried for a long time to avoid them because I didn’t know how to deal with them; they overwhelmed me. But then we read Townhouse by Trish Cohen in our book group and there was this character who was agoraphobic and got dizzy when he went outside. A young neighbour finally asked him, so what’s the worst that would happen if you got dizzy? He thought a while and then said he’d fall down. Was that so bad? I remembered that scene when I was feeling sad about something and decided to not turn it off but to actually just feel it anyway. What was the worst that could happen? I’d cry? I’d cry a lot? And so I did. I pulled the car into a parking lot and let out the suffering. I just let it out, and out, and out. And I survived. I can’t even remember now what the grief was, so I guess the tears washed it away.
As a young child, I learned to hold my emotions in. My father had a weak heart, and I believed he would die if I was too expressive, so I numbed my emotions with food. The concept of emotional intelligence was decades away from being understood as was the knowing that it was best to relate rather than react in difficult situations. Growing up, numbing and being physically active were the tools I had to cope.
As a result, I had learned to think in terms of black and white: people were either angels or demons. Things were either good or bad, up or down, hot or cold. In music, which was also an escape, songs were either in major or minor keys – happy or sad.
In the choral singing class, we were introduced to a number of songs and since it was level 1 and we only had a week together, they were kept fairly simple. Onawa’s Waltz, Honey Don’t Cry, and J’entends le Moulin were fun rounds in two to four parts that were entertaining, as were the songs with two parts each having different words. What I noticed though, when we sang harmonies, three groups singing the same words but different notes, there was a richness created that was transcendent. Somehow we were separate and together at the same time.
In the song Honey Don’t Cry, Beverley Glenn-Copeland wrote: Honey don’t cry, baby don’t cry we all get together in the by and by, that’s what the soul dreams of. Honey don’t dry, baby don’t cry, we all come together in the by and by, pulled to the heart of love. ‘Get together’ and ‘come together’: so subtly yet significantly different in meaning. Getting together was about all the individuals being in the same place, but coming together was about joining open hands and hearts. Emotions had to be free to express themselves for this to happen. Before my big cry in the parking lot, I could only get together. Now I could come together: relate, harmonize. Feeling pain wasn’t so bad; it brought me closer to those I held dear and made my back a comforting and reachable place.
Black or white: angels or demons. Maybe we’re more like the loons - both black and white – coming together as best we can to raise our families.
"HAPPY JUICE"
From May 2005 to April 2007 I wrote a column in this paper. At first it was titled Trundling Along the White Trail, then it became Scampering Along..., and then finally it was Dancing Along.... Three years of personal essays, I thought, was enough but apparently not. There’s a longing for reflective writing, both in me and the readership, so I am picking up where I left off, as best as I can.
The next transformation, I had predicted, was to be Flying Along the White Trail because it implied an achieved sense of freedom. But I didn’t feel quite there yet. Then last week, completely depleted of energy by bronchitis, I was reading something and the word ‘emptying’ stuck in my mind. I skimmed the next few lines then came to: Because we have let everything go, and are preparing to start very new with a very clean slate... This really struck home. Perhaps this cold was an opportunity to stop and look at what else needed to be emptied. In order to fly, one must lighten up, let go of all that no longer serves. If I truly wanted to fly, I had to give up any of those old emotions that kept me feeling separate or inadequate. I could no longer afford to look back at what could have been or should have been. Those thoughts were like chains, keeping me heavy, keeping me down and draining my energy.
The focus I now realized had to be on creating happiness. I now saw that creating happiness was the fuel for flight, and if I could keep my focus on it, I’d be soaring. Of course it wasn’t just about creating happiness for me alone, but rather taking on the persona of Sorceress of Happiness and generating it all around. (What a fine image, hahaha!)
With these thoughts in mind, I watched the comedian Dana Carvey do a monologue and in it he talked about ‘happy juice’, and I thought, wow! that’s a perfect way to describe the fuel. I taught Reiki and Chi Kung and tried to explain the Eastern concept of chi, ki or prana but nothing really captured the essence the way happy juice does. Picture walking down the street: those who have a good flow of happy juice are light on their feet and easy to smile, while those whose happy juice channels are blocked are heavy and dour and seem off in some parallel universe. Their souls seem to keep repeating the same old struggles and wrong-doings over and over again like a skipping record. They can’t get past the dreaded words or events that victimized them so are before us but not really there – no happy juice, no happiness.
Since the word emptying made its mark in my psyche a few days ago, I keep referring to it when unpleasantries occur. I don’t hold onto resentments or anger, with myself or others, I deal with them as quickly as possible so I can get the happy juice flowing again: empty grief, fill up with happy juice. If I am to fly, to be the Sorceress of Happiness, it is essential to forgive and accept. I must remember: “We’re all on a path, and each place on that path is honourable.”
I feel like I’m in sync with the world as I write this because as I sit on the dock on this gorgeous morning, birds of all kinds are coming to greet me. Blue heron swooped around, loon popped up and turkey hawk glided past. What a wonderful feeling. Hey maybe that’s why black fly and mosquito keep nibbling at me, they’re helping me shift my focus, reminding me to stop looking back and stay present. Create happiness now and the happy juice will flow. So here I am again, exploring life and writing about it. And this makes me happy.
This new title, White Trail, is simple and empty of embellishments. There are no limitations or expectations; there’s just a place to start from and return to. No baggage required.
The next transformation, I had predicted, was to be Flying Along the White Trail because it implied an achieved sense of freedom. But I didn’t feel quite there yet. Then last week, completely depleted of energy by bronchitis, I was reading something and the word ‘emptying’ stuck in my mind. I skimmed the next few lines then came to: Because we have let everything go, and are preparing to start very new with a very clean slate... This really struck home. Perhaps this cold was an opportunity to stop and look at what else needed to be emptied. In order to fly, one must lighten up, let go of all that no longer serves. If I truly wanted to fly, I had to give up any of those old emotions that kept me feeling separate or inadequate. I could no longer afford to look back at what could have been or should have been. Those thoughts were like chains, keeping me heavy, keeping me down and draining my energy.
The focus I now realized had to be on creating happiness. I now saw that creating happiness was the fuel for flight, and if I could keep my focus on it, I’d be soaring. Of course it wasn’t just about creating happiness for me alone, but rather taking on the persona of Sorceress of Happiness and generating it all around. (What a fine image, hahaha!)
With these thoughts in mind, I watched the comedian Dana Carvey do a monologue and in it he talked about ‘happy juice’, and I thought, wow! that’s a perfect way to describe the fuel. I taught Reiki and Chi Kung and tried to explain the Eastern concept of chi, ki or prana but nothing really captured the essence the way happy juice does. Picture walking down the street: those who have a good flow of happy juice are light on their feet and easy to smile, while those whose happy juice channels are blocked are heavy and dour and seem off in some parallel universe. Their souls seem to keep repeating the same old struggles and wrong-doings over and over again like a skipping record. They can’t get past the dreaded words or events that victimized them so are before us but not really there – no happy juice, no happiness.
Since the word emptying made its mark in my psyche a few days ago, I keep referring to it when unpleasantries occur. I don’t hold onto resentments or anger, with myself or others, I deal with them as quickly as possible so I can get the happy juice flowing again: empty grief, fill up with happy juice. If I am to fly, to be the Sorceress of Happiness, it is essential to forgive and accept. I must remember: “We’re all on a path, and each place on that path is honourable.”
I feel like I’m in sync with the world as I write this because as I sit on the dock on this gorgeous morning, birds of all kinds are coming to greet me. Blue heron swooped around, loon popped up and turkey hawk glided past. What a wonderful feeling. Hey maybe that’s why black fly and mosquito keep nibbling at me, they’re helping me shift my focus, reminding me to stop looking back and stay present. Create happiness now and the happy juice will flow. So here I am again, exploring life and writing about it. And this makes me happy.
This new title, White Trail, is simple and empty of embellishments. There are no limitations or expectations; there’s just a place to start from and return to. No baggage required.
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