contemplate this…

With all of the crazy hurrying around that this season entails, December is still a time when we pause, even if ever so briefly, to reflect on all that the year has meant to each of us.   It is a time when we can look forward to creating new beginnings in the coming New Year. December is filled with the wonder of imagination…

This month holds a host of meanings for each of us.  In contemplating the last twelve months, I am, reminded how all holidays are not about The Events, the presents, the parties, or even—the memories. When we remove the lovely ornamentation’s from our lives, the Wrapping’s and the Trimmings, we discover the real treasures that we give to each other and in that gift alone, we uncover the true significance of each holiday.   How we give, why we give and how we relate and share who we are is always a presence worth celebrating.

*     *     *    *    *

This time of year we remember who the Grinch’s in our lives are and how we wish for them to be—less-so. We are reminded of a certain baby in a manger and how he grew into a man who had integrity, love, hope and  a peace  that he carried within himself—for all the world. He embodied and recognized in himself the very soul that resides in each one of us.  Perhaps he arrived, simply to remind us of Who We Truly Are. He saw, without doubt, that we all share the same Goodness; the same Love and the same Body…

December also brings (some of us) another kind of man. A burly man who bears a constant smile, rosy cheeks and a colorful red outfit.  While he surprises –some of us with gifts, he is a model of consistent joy, spirit and giving—a beautiful symbol of how we can be for others and ourselves—all year long …

December is a time when we remember, Ebenezer Scrooge and perhaps even the Scrooge in all-of-us (?)  Could we be? Are we? Were we—ever?  Ebenezer reminds us of how fleeting our-time-here- is and how technology is making it even more the quicker. He learned the value of Present Moment and how it could create a nightmare for his future (and ours). He gained immediate insight into the value of life (his and others), one very long, cold and lonely night as he saw clearly how the past and the future collide.  If we want them to collide well— we must pay close attention to how we live in our present…

Ebenezer is our subconscious voice and stopwatch, ticking, ticking, ticking and alerting us to: Wake up! Wake Up! Wake up—before it is too late… For when he did awaken from his past and future, the very next morning he became:  Sharing, Giving & Love.

*     *    *    *    *

It is with humble gratitude that I write these holiday thoughts. At the close of every year my wish for everyone in my life is that we will be blessed with another year together—that the New Year will bring us more living, more love and more Time…

Merry Every Thing

Wonder-filled.

“when you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the

ground from beneath your feet.” ~Stanislaw Lec

Recently, a friend of mine wrote me and asked, “Rosanne, when you have time send me your definition of joy.” I don’t know why but I found the message immediately thought provoking and my mind reeled into an endless list of meanings for what joy is or what it  had the possibility of being.  As with anything, perspective is what gives us value and meaning. What holds deep meaning for one, has little significance for someone else.  Depending on the context and usage of many words, my understanding of joy can apply to other nouns as well….  With the inquiry into what joy is, I found myself with countless definitions! (One better than the next!) Here are some:

• Breathing–without effort (first and formost!)
• Seeing the trust in my children’s eyes whenever we talk about serious things.
• Loving a Someone Special without needing to be loved back! (but knowing you are!)
• Joy =’s freedom from everyone and everything.
• Telling the Truth when everyone else lies.
• Having sex with someone you trust (and love) and then having sex with them again!
• Joy is being comfortable with yourself all the time and knowing that others feel comfortable with you!
• Kissing my pooches cheeks and seeing/hearing their wagging-excitement whenever I am in their field of vision or they hear me coming!
• Joy is the ease of seeing the wonder in all of our days (and being able to turn away from all it is not—wonder-filled.
• It is the enjoyment of another that brings about the loving of them so naturally.
• Elated joy is being someone’s Home Page and not their sidebar…

“To get the full value of joy you must have

someone to divide it with.”  ~ Mark Twain

This Valentine’s Day, maybe we can take a moment to tell someone why we love and enjoy them and let them know that in some way they inspire us, simply (!) and solely because of Who They Are—

Perhaps this Valentine’s Day we will think of who we love and not what and whom we need to possess or control.

This Valentine’s Day we can take the time to acknowledge that the greatest gift of all is that the One(s) we love exist—that they are alive and we are fortunate enough to be a significant part of their Being Here!

Today is a wonderful day to not take for granted and to remember that every day should be treated like this day, for how we love another is a constant, not a once a year event or obligation.

And Remember:

“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of

living is joy enough.”  ~Emily Dickinson

So, when that Clock is about to strike 12 and that noon train is approaching around the bend; the tracks are laden with golden bricks pointing in a Direction and your life is asking you:  Decide, Decide, Decide…who are you going to listen to?  Your heart or your mind?

(only time will tell…)

(that jar of paint was not meant for any-body…)

Dear Michelangelo,

I try to forget you.

But your light shines through

on to

me

every day. everywhere.

Wherever I turn

I find you

There–

(Painting

Me.)

I try to imagine

A-nother…

with their brush

stroking, creating, imagining…

but they are not

you.

They cannot

paint

me

the way you do.

(For they do not, they cannot– see me

through

your

eyes.)

I cannot

imagine

anyone but

you

C o l o r i n g

me…

I Know the touch of your brush;

I know your stretch of color;

I understand—your imagination;

I know your thoughts

and the very

idea of

y o u

has become

the very essence

of

me.

To forget you?

How- could- I?

For you are me

and I am

you.

You have merely painted me in the

colors of your-self. I have merely

acknowledged and

a c c e p t e d–

the master-

piece of

us…

with love,

Your Sistine Chapel

So, when that Clock is about to strike 12 and that noon train is approaching around the bend; the tracks are laden with golden bricks pointing in a Direction and your life is asking you:  Decide, Decide, Decide…who are you going to listen to?  Your heart or your mind?

(only time will tell…)

“If nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterflies.”

Author Unknown

January is coming to a quick close as we forge ahead into the New Year with the anticipation of Spring! The first month of the year, is the month where we have no choice but to move on from an old year into a new one.  It can be a wonderful time and opportunity for tossing old things out, clearing our way free from the past and removing ourselves from destructive relationships.  The New Year is about change.  When we have a positive outlook on life, we can see the world as the magical Spinning Ball that it is and how it can give us an enormous amount of joy and wonder.  Buddha had once said, “if you see the world as a defiled world that is what your world will be.” So how we see our surroundings is vital to our well being.

The New Year is open to wonder, hope and miracles.  If we pay attention we will see and experience the wonder around us with each passing month, rather than focusing on the horror of media or the horror that might even be going on in our personal worlds.

Whenever I talk to just about anyone with regard to change, I hear a resounding and definitive, “I hate change!” Even if that change implies a better and happier course for one’s life, there still seems to be resistance.  (I had a conversation with a lovely woman a few weeks ago who could not bring herself to part with an old, worn out wallet!)  Sometimes I wonder if the apprehension to any modification in our lives is merely an intellectual state of inertia and once that is conquered, the body, mind and heart does not resist the natural course of forward motion…Perhaps the fear of change originated from the illusions of our childhoods, religious anxiety and the trappings of our outdated belief systems, coupled with unhealthy psychological entrainment.  Some of us are unknowingly held hostage to our memories, whether they are good memories or not.  We hang on to photographs, we buy into the over marketing of holidays and the material world, as if the material world guarantees us something “reliable”.  In ways we become the frozen, yet lovely majestic image inside of our favorite snow-globe(s) and we preserve and protect our menageries as if they are the sustenance to our lives.  We hope and pray that nothing will “break” for if something does, some part of our lives will undoubtedly unravel, thus change is imminent.  We are seldom prepared for any disruption to our routine.

He who rejects change is the architect of decay.  The only institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. –Harold Wilson

Without change there can be no growth, yet even the simplest changes can feel unnerving.   On a more challenging level, when change occurs in our personal world or professional world, something breaks or needs shifting, we realize time and again that we cannot control or prevent the moving forward of life.  It will move and we can either go with it, kicking and screaming all the way, or (!) we can take a deep breath and go with the current of it rather than resist.    Buddha also said to look at things as if they are already broken as he saw everything as impermanent.

Eventually, the treasured snow globe shatters into innumerable pieces, as do many marriages and careers.  Life is not life if it is not moving forward, yet with the craziness of our daily schedules, we are unaware of what is constantly transforming inside of us and around us.  If we take the time to notice, we will come to understand how every aspect of our life shifts, every moment and sometimes in the discomfort of adjustment we need to uproot ourselves, either emotionally, physically or both.  We shutter at the thought of losing our jobs or changing our career paths.   Moving to another home and even leaving old, stagnant and dysfunctional relationships can be exciting, when these changes are our choices.  Of course, few of us move without some apprehension, yet we feel excited at the prospects of new adventures and experiences, when the decisions are our choice. When change does not feel as though it is our choice and our comfort zones are infringed upon, fear and anxiety become the roadblocks to the path of brighter and happier days.

At some point, if we do not take the leap and face the unpleasant situations in our lives, we will not move forward.  We will remain stuck, just like the image in our favorite snow globe.  Perhaps there is some beauty to that world, but do we really want to make our home inside of a frozen world that does not really exist? (Any world that is not in motion is a world that belongs to the—past.) Why do more of us hold on to things and relationships that have long been broken or that no longer work?  Why do we stay in loveless relationships, constantly trying to fix the Unfixable?  These answers are as individual as the individuals involved and only we who depart and move on to uncharted waters can see clearly, The Whys of our pasts.  Sometimes we cling to the familiar out of habit or we resist letting go and moving on, until a force higher and mightier than our little will—moves us (!) albeit against our will.

*     *     *     *     *

For a decade now, the song, Ch-ch-Changes, by David Bowie has prodded me, guided me, and serenaded me all the way to and through the many horrible and liberating stages of, divorce.  One morning I awoke to the song, and the lyrical line, “so I turned myself to face me…” and I found the song rewinding itself in my mind the entire day.  If we are honest and hold the glance with ourselves long enough to address our fears, we might just hear Bowie (or our ourselves…) continue serenading us with, “I still don’t know what I was waiting for…” as we enthusiastically run for the hills, leaving our past behind us.   Suddenly we become the very changes and possibilities that represent our—new lives.

It is not necessary to change.  Survival is not mandatory. — W. Ewards Deming

Compromises often represent many marriages and survival is at the root of countless relationships, personal and professional. (I think we all can agree with this.) We are on this planet to survive—Darwin was right and whether one stays married or one gets divorced, changes jobs or simply decides to redefine their lives and move across the globe, perspectives of survival is different for each of us.  Some of us just exist and don’t know that there can be more to—life.   After the shortly lived honeymoon period with many marriages some of us hide behind the Lie for decades.  I don’t know how many couples actually believe in the love- in- marriage-part, after they are married… Others become adventurers who brave the unknown terrain (without a map to guide them) of divorce and who see divorce as a “practical” path of survival. For many of us, divorce is our means of keeping ourselves alive.  We crawl away from that which we no longer believe in; that which has no integrity and that which has no love.  (but maybe it has a house or two!)

*     *     *     *     *

For several years now I have listened to individuals who have taken that leap from marital woes to personal independence and all agree that there is more to the art of living than mere survival.  If we are embroiled in our past, our hours and our days can feel like a slow death in decades of quick sand.  (When we take the leap of divorce, all other shifts in life seem easier to accept.)   Departing a loveless and indifferent marriage allows one to emotionally prosper, which is a far greater quality of life than mere surviving physically. The Property Settlement Agreement may leave one with “less-to-possess”, however, sometimes less is more when we are no longer stuck in the stagnation of our lives:  the weight that has been lifted is simply an idea and illusion of something we believed existed.

When we adjust our lives in accordance with change we understand that happiness does not necessarily come with the attachment of another.   Remember: this is your life (!) so proceed with awareness and feel alive! Don’t hand your life over to anyone else! There is no second chance for your time here and to know your one opportunity might be wasted will be a horrible thing to know.

We would rather be ruined than changed; We would rather die in our dread

than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.  — W.H. Auden

There is a way out of this travesty, I see individuals do not take The Way Out. Rather they remain In It, stuck in: escapism. Some of us cling to the illusion of fantasy, T.V., history, religion,  work, Santa’s holiday, (technology is one of the greatest forms of escapism, especially for our young…) and all of the propaganda that goes along with society.  We all know better, but some of us still look the other way and “stay”. We stay in the quagmire of our muddled minds and our unhappy lives and we pray and hope that our neighbors, friends and country club goers don’t notice that our lives are as horrible and misereable as theirs! On some level we escape and in a tragic way we know we do not, not really. What many of us do with our lives is:  sleep-through-it.  We Novocain ourselves from birth till death, all in the name of guilt and suffering.  (depressing but true) It is no wonder Buddhism is the antithesis to every aspect of our western culture. It is the only religion I know of to date that promotes the alleviation of suffering, guilt and the hurting or judging of any living being.

*     *     *     *    *

Yet (!) there is hope!  In one miraculous instant of experiencing the feeling of Alive, joy becomes the possibility of a new life.  In the fleetingness of a sacred moment, we alone, can create miracles.

Joy equips us with the necessary tools to extricate ourselves from toxic relationships of all kinds.  If we follow the relationships and heritages that promote only joy and abandons all suffering, good and healthy relationships will find us from personal to professional.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”  Author unknown, commonly mis-attributed to Charles Darwin (ironically)

Much of this life becomes habit based on a carefully crafted, organized and extremely repressed prototype. When we remove ourselves from the noise of our surroundings, even for a few quiet moments every day, we can separate the real from the folly—the unimportant frivolities of life.  In this quietude  we can get to the core of life that really gives life its meaning.  In the silence of our minds we notice, ever so delicately (and privately) that thing in one’s heart that one does not, cannot create, but is just there. There is some-thing that defies religion and society and all belief systems.  I am not talking about the idea of love we think we have for someone; I am referring to that joy one finds in another—that same joy one finds in life itself.  When you find that happiness inside of yourself, you know you will always be safe, no matter the turns your moving-forward-life takes you. You pause. You go—again—forward!   You arrive at a place, a real place inside of you and you see and feel somehow, some way, even if you do not know how, everything will workout as it should.   When we embrace change we no longer feel that we might fall off that Spinning, Magical Ball we call, earth.  Rather, we realize that we are as much a part of the world as it is us—we are safe.

And if things don’t go as planned? When change devastates?  Silver linings in our lives are always perceptions we can choose to see as miracles.  What is horrible today is a gift tomorrow; all we have to do is change how we see the horrible…

I see. I feel. I look above and around and I am surrounded by the magic of that great, big, wonder-filled, Spinning, Magical Ball we are all a part of.  We change with the hours, days and years, as they pass, but don’t look back, don’t try to find what no longer is, just keep moving and know: “time may change us but we can not trace time…”

So, when that Clock is about to strike 12 and that noon train is approaching around the bend; the tracks are laden with golden bricks pointing in a Direction and your life is asking you:  Decide, Decide, Decide…who are you going to listen to?  Your heart or your mind?

Will you change your life’s path?

(only time will tell…)