Thought 21: Capturing Stillness

Someone once said that life is something that happens to you while you are making plans. I am in a bit of a lull at the moment. You know, one of those rare moments when emails aren't coming in; when projects have been temporarily put on a back burner; when friends are busy, or out of town, or not calling - one of those moments. It's not the norm, but the exception and I'm finding that I have to shake myself out of the habit of doing. I should be REVELING in this moment...rolling in it like a dog who just smelled the most amazing thing and wants to be covered in it...so why is it sooo hard to let go of the doing?

I find myself searching for things that will put a demand on me; feeling lost when there isn't something I haven't done...feeling incomplete without, as the poet Robert Frost put it, "having miles to go before I sleep". My heart wants to love this moment, this ceasing of doing. If anything, it comes as a sense of relief, of exhaustive gratitude for a break, yet the drive to make, to create, to push, pull, drive, understand, develop... it pokes at me incessantly. 

This moment of quiet is an opportunity to really connect with the "life" that is happening while I'm usually making plans. It is a time to be still and just be. The sense that I have that things will fall apart somehow if I am not doing, creating, ,making, becoming, is a lie because if I am gone tomorrow, MY world may no longer exist but THE world would continue without my driving it with my efforts. In the same instance I am absolutely positive that my efforts ARE making a difference, otherwise I would not be as committed as I am to contributing in my small way. Perhaps it is not so much my doing that would be missed but my unique perspective that lends dimensionality to the chaos that is the stuff that life is shaped from. 

Like a star in the heavens, we each twinkle for awhile and when that light goes out the totality of light is forever changed...These are the types of thoughts that this moment was made for.

Thought 20: Labor of Love

It's taken me 60 years to rest in my truth - Life should be a labor of Love.

Believe me, I tried it a LOT of different ways:
- Work hard and you get rewards.
- Give, give, give until you absolutely can't or don't have anything more left.
- Plan it and then stick to the plan.
- Don't even try, just let it happen.
- Let others tell you how to live and then at least you have someone to blame.

The years have peeled away the reasons, one by one, showing them for their misguided approach or failed founding principles.

When I was finally empty. When I finally let go. When I stopped thinking so long and doing so hard, Love found its way to my heart. It quietly entered in, and washed over my view of the world. 

It is simple now. It is Love based, and it just is. I don't have to try, I don't have to be anything or do anything. I can if I want to, but that is not the path of Love, it is simply a potential expression of it. When love entered, so did peace.

I still wrestle with my humanness, but it's more of a friendly arm wrestle now rather than a life or death, self or other struggle. 

Love embraces and that is enough.

With Love

Thought 18: Simple Gifts

Give yourself permission to be outrageously kind, irrationally warm, improbably generous and to feel the sheer joy and celebration in doing this.  If a day were to have a theme, this is certainly a great one. I see the benefits of a day spent like this of being very similar to the benefits that Shakespeare speaks about in his quality of mercy speech from Merchant of Venice:

The quality of mercy is not strained; 

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. 

It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

To be twice blessed is a win/win. Remember, a warm heartfelt hug provides the hugger and the huggee with a healthy burst of oxytocin which is a key hormone for promoting trust, bonding, and devotion - key to human connectedness. So every time you hug someone, think of it as your own personal act towards nurturing world peace.

Love and hugs,

Betsy

Thought 19: The Seasons of Our Days

Patterns and rhythms, patterns and rhythms...they play throughout our lives like sunlight playing through the leaves of a tree mottling the ground beneath with light and shadow. The syncopation of life is a story of patterns and rhythms - rising and falling, sustaining then changing - an orchestration of time and space - patterns of light and dark.

It fills our senses. Listen and you can hear it. Look and you can see it. You are immersed in it, cradled in it. One moment you are lifted by it's sweet metered pulse, and the next moment you are driven down by it's relentless pounding beat. It is life. It is equal to the same force that erodes deep canyons; abrading, carving, wearing - exposing the layers that time has deposited. It is the same force that pushed up mountains; tearing, crushing, driving - fiercely reducing granite to rubble and shaping rock like clay.

It is equivalent to the delicate beauty of a butterfly's wings, to the transparent aqua  blue-green of the curl of a wave. It is life. Hear it in the song of a bird. Feel your body move to it in the rhythm of day and night; of youth and old age; of life and death.

It is impermanent. It will not last, or ever be the same as it was sometime in the past. It is an amazing, powerful, delicate, creative gift that will ultimately end in your demise. It is Life.

I choose to love it. I choose to be grateful for it. I choose to make the most of it. I choose to live what time I have, as brilliantly as I can. I choose to celebrate myself and others on this wonderful journey. So here's to life! May we all live long and prosper.

Thought 17: Bits and Pieces That Come Together

I am walking along the beach, my feet grounded deep in the sand, my head in the azure, sun-drenched sky, and my body and spirit are connecting each to the other - a prism of joy, happiness and gratitude. I walk balanced between sand and sky - between earth and heaven, and the ocean sings to me. Its voice rising and falling, its waves flashing as it forms its language, unintelligible to the human ear but so enchanting. My heart dances with the waves, my rhythms become one with those of the wind and sea. I turn to see my footprints in the sand of where I have been, soon swept clean and erased by the water's ebb and flow. They are forgotten as I I look ahead, down the beach, at the stretch of bright white sand that teases me to continue my walk. This is the landing strip for my soul. I follow the sea birds as they dive and sweep, dart and call. I sit for awhile on the top of a dune, watching the wind move through the sea grass, stirring it into motion, rustling as it passes through the grass and trails off down the beach in small spirals of sand. This world of sea, and sand, and sun, is intoxicating, and I drink until I can't possibly take in any more. This day is a gift like no other, and I look forward to saying the same thing...tomorrow...and the next day...and the next...


This is my life, as I've always dreamed of it. I love my cottage by the sea "Coeur de la Mer". It is an indoor statement of light and water and sand so that it mirrors a sunny day at the beach. Piece by piece I found exactly what fit. Yard sales, estate sales, friends knowing just the piece. The interior is a lovely orchestration of gestures of art and love, in furniture and wood, in fabric and paint. Put your ear to this cottage and you can hear the ocean. Step out on the deck and feel the sea breeze as it pushes the hammock and the seat swing. Everything designed for comfort, designed to move, to give to hold, to nurture to welcome, it is all so familiar. White washed canvas artfully brushed with shades of sea greens and blues, of shell pinks and peaches, beautifully worn in just the right places. And all acquiesces to the expanse of white sand and dunes that is the beach. I have planted beach roses leading down the path to the beach. They remind me of days in Rhode Island ... but no rocky beach here, no. The harshness of the New England shore has been replaced by white beach and Atlantic swells. I love it so much that I can't see leaving yet. Other places will wait. I want to enjoy this while I have it. Impermanence is such that I want to roll in it like a dog in something that smells amazing - I want it all over me. If I leave I want to carry the smell with me.

Thought 16: Connecting in Meaningful Ways 30 Day Challenge

So much of what we cling to doesn't exist. It may have existed in the past, but it doesn't now; or it may exist in the future, but it hasn't happened yet. The place and time where we can actually create something is TODAY...NOW.  It is important to remember and learn from the past. It is important to have a vision for the future, but once you have all that, don't hold on so blindly and so tightly that you miss the opportunity to bring the ART that is you...the creative force that is you, into today...into this moment. Being mindful of NOW is truly the only way that you can change the world, and like the butterfly effect, it is the small gestures, the kindnesses, the thoughtfulness, the forgiving heart that will move you to that vision of tomorrow, however it finally unfolds.

There is nothing more destructive than measuring yourself against others. Why would you do that? Unless their path is EXACTLY yours, which I can promise you it isn't, you are setting yourself up for a difficult time and an unhappy ending. YOU provide your best point of measurement and comparison for you. Where might you improve, what might you do differently, what is your highest good and what might be the next step in moving towards that. LEARN from other people's stories, but don't try to become them - your story is far too valuable and needed - keep writing it!

With Love,
Betsy

Thought 15: Connecting in Meaningful Ways 30 Day Challenge

What if something were to happen where we all started seeing each other in this way? What if we each became acutely aware of how important we all are, in our own way, to each other and  to this spinning crust of earth in space? If the earth could speak, she would say this very thing to us. Why do we find it so hard to see this in each other? There is no us and them, there is only us.

With Love,
Betsy