nothing changes everything more than these three words.
perhaps we face our own death in much the same way we face our own life.
she is an amazing woman...a sister, angel, queen, goddess, and teacher in my life. and i watch her respond to these words with the same strength, humor, courage, wisdom, and grace that she has lived every experience that precedes this one.
her facing death now pulls me more deeply into the present moment, brings me greater awareness of the value of everything and the importance of living the love we are gifted.
how is it we spend so much of our lives pretending we will never hear words such as these. or that somehow this is so far in the future as to have none effect on how we live now.
how can we be so foolish as to waste anything.
especially the people in our lives.
photo posted with the permission of artist graham jeffery
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
you have cancer
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
prayer in katrina's wake
to my sisters and brothers who have lost loved ones, health, homes, livelihoods, and for some, everything you own:
i know you can't see me or hear me but my heart weeps for you. i cannot imagine the depth of what you suffer now. i wish i could offer you a hand, a hug, clean clothes, a meal, or a room. i wish i could be with you now to offer my support.
i am sorry this happened to you. i am sorry for your suffering; i am sorry for your pain. you are our beautiful south and you are part of the beauty and strength of us all. we grieve for you.
i pray for your comfort and recovery. i wish for you strength for your next steps, guidance for your path, courage for your future, and abiding faith as you regain your balance. i will pray for you every day. and i will give through every available means to contribute to your new beginning.
be blessed. and please know you are loved...
photography by diana christine
privilege
a few weeks ago, quite by accident*, i received an email intended for another, an email containing a survey on “privilege.” not being the intended receiver, i was not required to answer the questions, but for my own curiosity i perused the survey’s contents.
the survey sought opinions on what one considers to be a life of privilege. the email was not a religious sermon, not a spiritual parable, not even a philosophy lesson, but was instead a business correspondence, and yet after my reading and forever since, i have come to understand much of the breadth of my own life of privilege (though i cannot truly comprehend its scope).
prior to this reading i had believed i held no experience with “privilege” because i had, after all, started with very humble beginnings and i continue to work hard to make my own way. i mistakenly had believed because i “earn” my own way i do not have a life of privilege. and yet, the very fact i have a job puts me in a position of privilege. the fact i have a comfortable position and one with healthy benefits puts me in a position of greater privilege.
i did not have the benefit of a formal education, neither one provided for me nor one earned on my own, and i have felt “disadvantaged” for this. but i am smart and clever and strong, and my ability to become accomplished in spite of lacking formal education is itself a position of privilege. intelligence is a gift and a privilege.
born an american citizen, i began with a level of privilege, a considerable one. just by living in the same country as mine or one similar, you too participate in some kind of privilege. being middle class, being a white woman, these give me incredible privilege i have barely been aware of. even with limited income, having limitless opportunities grants me privilege. living in circumstances that support a life of confidence and faith is a privilege. my incredible good health, though requiring my committed discipline, grants me significant privilege. family, friends, community…these bring a life of privilege.
how casually i live with advantages and call them merited. how easy it is to accept my privileges and believe them to be deserved. how easily i accept my gifts and view them as my rights. to consume a thing without seeing its gift is devastation.
may i ever deepen my appreciation for the gifts of the universe, may i increase my willingness to share with others, and may i enlarge my compassion for the world around me.
photography by diana christine
*for those who don’t know me well, let it be known i believe there is no such thing as an accident…
Monday, August 29, 2005
life's definition
life is filled with myriad moments, many of them various flavors and differing tunes. each blog posting is a bit like a photograph, a snapshot of a given moment different from the one that precedes and the one that follows. life captured in a blog is limited to the moments chosen for subjects of posting. what i plan for posting can suddenly be changed by a moment that follows.
what i planned for today has suddenly been changed.
within the past few hours i have learned two people dear to me are gravely ill. a cousin, the closest one to me. and a sister, who feels like a twin. and this sister most dear to me has been pronounced with cancer of a most serious kind.
what else could i possibly write about that matters to me now.
it is at a time such as this i am reminded the only truth of life is in the people we love and how we express that love to each other.
oh the jostling and the fumbling and the struggling in a relationship, the frustrations and the pain. the sometimes anguish. the many times difficulties.
but the growing and the learning and the laughter and the joy and the fulfillment and the pleasure and the gift of being able to receive and to give.
our life is defined by what we love. who we love. and how we love.
let me love deeply and honestly and consciously.
at any given moment, let me be committed to and faithful to that which i love.
let me be pure and holy and generous to those who love me.
for the people in my life are my truest reflections and my richest gifts...
photo posted with the loving permission of artist marc goldring
Sunday, August 28, 2005
mama mia!
it was just after dawn this morning that i stepped out for my daily walk. as i passed sleeping households i thought of all the pajama-clad bodies lingering in their beds inside. isn't this what weekend mornings are for...
i turned a corner and suddenly saw an old italian woman walking down her steps toward me, her face breaking into a smile as she watched me approach. she opened her arms wide and seemed so pleased to see me. i wondered if she thought i was someone she once knew. she was wearing a dress and rolled stockings even this early in the morning. she seemed so pleased to see me i felt i simply must cross the street and say hello.
she put her arms around me and i returned her embrace. "what have you been doing?" she asked. "working," i replied.
"doing what?" she asked. "writing, mostly," i answered. she beamed at me.
"where do you live?" she asked, and it was apparent she was not mistaking me for anyone else. she was simply delighted to be meeting me now on this early morning. i pointed to my street and told her i lived across from the school.
"do you live here?" i indicated the house and steps i watched her come down. "no" she responded, and instead pointed to a house on the other side of the street. "i am just helping my neighbors" and she explained that she was busy picking up her neighbors' morning newspapers and putting them on their top steps so they would not have to run out to their yards. "ah, how lovely of you to help" i replied.
"you are walking?" she questioned. "yes, i do this every morning. walking three miles or four" i answered her.
"mama mia!" she exclaimed. she grabbed my elbow and squeezed me hard. "mama mia! you be careful!" i said i would.
i continued my walk and returned to my writing but her beaming face and her tender care have kept me warm all day...
breathe out
it's all in the breathing out...
several years ago i read a book on meditation that helped me develop my practice, a book that taught me not to worry about how much or how many breaths i take in, but simply choose my pace in how i breathe out. until then i generally ended up hyperventilating whenever i attempted a breathing practice. from this reading i learned to choose how i want to breathe by pacing my breaths out, and my breathing in would respond according to what my body needs. it worked for me and i never hyperventilated again.
in my august 23 post "keep walking" i wrote of having to remind myself to breathe out during a stressful walk. during the days that followed i've been increasing my speed as i walk in my early hours, consciously and deliberately pacing how i breathe. while i walk i think maybe this breathing lesson crosses through the rest of my life. maybe it is all about what i put out. after all, what i breathe out goes into the universe and the universe is what i breathe in.
what i love, what i want, what i seek, it's all in what i am putting out...
photo posted with the gracious permission of artist graham jeffery
Saturday, August 27, 2005
pure gold
graham's golden tree photograph was taken two years ago at a place called coombe park; the park was once the gardens to coombe abbey, which dates back to the 11th century. the abbey is still there but it’s a hotel now, a very expensive hotel. the gardens were landscaped a couple of hundred years ago by the famous landscaper lancelot ‘capability’ brown.
post script 8/30/2005: graham says this about the tree, "i was there this morning, at coombe park, but I didn’t get as far as the tree. i should tell it of its fame. it’s good to talk to trees. best regards, graham."
indeed, it is good for us to talk to trees...
Friday, August 26, 2005
synchronicity continued
i will be giving a speech in chicago next month.
i will be giving a wonderful motivational speech as the featured keynote for a conference of several hundred business people in an industry i have never touched with a language i don't speak.
i have wondered where to begin and how to start.
but the Universe has gifted me far more than i could have designed.
the company hiring me is in jacksonville, florida. the conference will be held in an elegant hotel in chicago in rooms that overlook the water. of all the hotels in all the cities across this country, the company chose for the event to be held in chicago.
i know only one person who lives in chicago, a man my age, a cousin i grew up with in ohio.
i called him on the telephone.
this cousin happens to be the only person i know in the business that equals that of the conference i will address. he started his business five years ago, a burgeoning, blossoming company that now houses three corporations. and his largest customer is the company in jacksonville that hired me to speak in chicago.
the Universe has gifted me an inside look at the industry and a coach for the language, and has provided me a real-life model for illustrations of success. God is lovely.
synchronicity is Divine.
used with the loving permission of photographer marc goldring
Thursday, August 25, 2005
harsh judgments
during the past 14 days i lost another six pounds. this was not without beautiful effort and celebrated achievement. i have reached a new plateau.
i have sometimes been faithful to a fitness program (but while eating ferociously) and have other times been dedicated to a diet (but while neglecting to work out). now, finally, i have stepped into this space of merging my fitness program with a committed nutrition plan. i am becoming whole. and i am losing weight. i have 8 1/4 pounds more to lose but i know all i have to do is continue the path i am on. this is not a diet but is a way of living that will continue for all my days. i love my morning mileage and my evenings with my weights. and in the days after labor day i will start swim lessons* with a personal coach in early morning hours (at six a.m., no less!). i could not be more pleased.
but back to the newly lost six pounds, which brings to eighteen pounds my weight loss since year before last. suddenly in my morning walks men are honking as they drive by and i cannot help but think of the difference a few pounds make in the eyes of the world. i think of the harshness with which i have believed men to judge me.
and i think of how i have viewed my own self.
while it might be true that men, perhaps even many men, have judged me harshly in light of a magazine's cover...
it may also be true...
that i have been harshest of all...
~ ~ ~
*i simply must give thanks for this wonderful new gift. a man called my office, having heard i long to become a swimmer, and offered his best staff to me, gave me v.i.p status, and granted me an employee's discount. this is a beautiful gift from the Universe...
