My Heartsongs

Patience seems hard to come by in our multitasking hurry hurry world, hiding in the bamboozle of “out of my way, I’m up to important things”. Subtle at first as it plays peek a boo with my awareness, encouraging me with hints of a different way of being. If rushing is a form of violence against self and others then is patience an antidote?

I was recently on a friend's podcast: Create to Heal Podcast is about life, leadership, and conversations from the heart. Each episode, we explore what creativity and healing mean to our invited guest. Enjoy!

We have many end of life options these days, but we can make conscious choices only if we are willing to get more comfortable with our own mortality. So how do we do that?

The wind supports me in rattling my own cage, pulls me out of circling the wagons of illusion with rationalization & self- protection, often with the ends justify the means as a mantra. I'm summoned to examine those nooks and crannies where I might have made rationality a god, at the expense of my vitality. Its wild and crazy nature refuses to condemn my passionate primitive energies to an underground existence—the life I live and the one I have forgotten. It urges me to welcome fathomless darkness and sidereal silence.

Seems like perhaps we need a category of PRTSD, Pre- traumatic stress disorder, given the abundant opportunities for anxiety around anticipated trauma from shootings or emerging climate change disasters. Although it sounds a bit big brother-ish, why not allow schools to monitor facebook & other social media posts, especially by young males? We check their drawers and lockers for guns and drugs, isn’t that part of the monitoring function of adults with young people?

How wide the divide between the NRA and the average gun owner. I suggest seven areas which not all gun owners will agree with, but many of them do.

Here is a short important link I encourage you to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8DP3ssCfLY Time for some effective initiatives!

All those save the planet signs and especially the energy of young people engaged in this issue are inspiring but the reality is that the planet would be fine without us: it is the humans that need the saving energy. I’ve often said that the human species is in its adolescence: full of both creative and destructive potential. This next decade will clearly bring a series of defining moments as to which path we choose: survival vs suicide. And the quality of life in terms of future survival is very much dependent on our current-day choices. How wide the divide between climate science and our collective ability to take action!

How wide the divide between how I see myself and others perceive me; how wide the divide in terms of what a society purports to be and the reality; how wide the divide between science and truth/reality, between health care for the rich vs the poor?

Beyond abstaining from false, divisive, and harsh speech, as well as idle chatter, Right speech seeks to see between the words to the deeper silence of what is really going on. It involves what Rumi terms “Close both eyes to see with the other eye.” It’s a wholesome intention to use words not as weapons but as skillful messengers. Words to build connection rather than alienation, yet grounded in my truth.

Robert Graves, known for his 1929 memoir, Goodbye to All That, detailing his horrific WW I experiences, defined love as “a recognition of another person’s integrity and truth in a way that makes both of you light up when you recognize the quality in the other.” Mystery, wonder, the amazing the unexpected and the incredible, all belong to this world, and love offers up ample helpings of each of these qualities. I believe love is strengthened by three essential practices: affectionate acceptance, benevolent boundaries & conscious communication.