Khizr Khan, the Right Messenger at the Right Time

This post first appeared in the Opinion section of The Santa Clarita Gazette, by Andrea Slominski on 8/04/2016

It is possible that the words of a Harvard-educated Muslim immigrant from Pakistan, and his wife, may just save us from ourselves. How fitting, that by sharing their love of America, their reverence for the Constitution, and the insurmountable loss of their son to suicide bombers, that Khizr and Ghazala Khan remind us of the principles that structure our republic, and that have held it together for our brief 240-year history. We are stronger together. Together, Americans have achieved the improbable.

Khizr and Ghazala Khan’s son, Captain Humayun S. M. Khan, was killed by two suicide bombers at a checkpoint north of Baghdad on June 8, 2004. In fact, suspicious of the approaching vehicle, Captain Khan ordered his men to “hit the dirt” and stay back, while he took another 10 steps forward, stopping the car. The two suicide bombers inside detonated their vests, killing Kahn and wounding 10 other U.S. soldiers. That is the definition of a hero. He put the lives of others before his own. He protected his men.

In an interview with “Vocative,” an online news source, Khizir Khan said, “Muslims are American, Muslims are citizens, Muslims participate in the well-being of this country as American citizens. . . . We are proud American citizens. It’s the values (of this country) that brought us here, not our religion. Trump’s position on these issues do not represent those values,” he said.

How ironic and beautiful that a Muslim American Citizen, an immigrant, whose story IS the American Dream, should school Donald Trump on what it means to be an American, what is means to defend the Constitution, and the equal rights it offers all citizens.

Khan continued, speaking of his son, “Values that he learned throughout his life came together and made him a brave American soldier. This country is not strong because of its economic power or military power. This country is strong because of its values, and during this political season, we all need to keep that in mind.”

Yes, we do need to keep that in mind. We also need to remember Mr. Khan’s remarks at the Democratic convention.

“If it was up to Donald Trump, (my son) never would have been in America,” Khizr Khan said. “Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities – women, judges, even his own party leadership. He vows to build walls and ban us from this country. . . . Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America – you will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one. We can’t solve our problems by building walls and sowing division. We are stronger together.”

Boom. Mic Drop.

Read More?
http://www.vocativ.com/259159/the-father-of-a-muslim-war-hero-has-this-to-say-to-donald-trump/

Best Back to School Advice …..

   

Some kids love to go back to school, they have lots of friends and socialize well! They love the ritual of new sneakers and new pencils; they rebound from disappointments and defeats and learn from their mistakes, in class and on the playground. Some kids have a more difficult time. They may be shy, they may not fit in with the crowd, they may be different somehow. . . Some children hate going back to school.

We need to pay attention to our children, we need to be mindful of the ones who don’t fit in; in grade school, middle school, high school, college and beyond.

Children and adolescents who feel isolated and alienated are often lonely, sad and sometimes, angry and volatile. They all grow up. They grow up and very bad things can happen when their mental heath needs are not diagnosed and treated.

We need to make young people’s mental heath a priority, because for some, back to school is Back to Stress, Peer Pressure, Bullying and Performance Anxiety. This desire to fit in with a group doesn’t change as we get older.

If we could cheerlead our community’s mental health with as much gusto as we cheer for our sports teams, club teams and celebrities we would go a long way toward eliminating the kind of violence we have seen so much of the last few years.

Dylann Roof, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church South Carolina, 2015. 9 dead.

Elliot Rodger, UCSB, 2014. 6 dead, 14 injured. Shooter commits suicide.

Adam Lanza- Sandy Hook, 20012. 28 dead. Shooter among the dead.

James E. Holmes-Movie theater screening Aurora, Colorado, 20012.  22 dead, 58 wounded.

Seung-Hui Cho- Virginia Tech, 2007. 32 dead. Shooter commits suicide.

“The FBI found that education environments were the second-largest location grouping for active shooters, totaling 39 incidents at K-12 and institutes of higher education from 2000 to 2013” ( Washington Post).

Maybe if someone—a teacher, a parent, an Aunt or Uncle, or family friend— had intervened; maybe if these shooters had been treated or hospitalized, this terrible legacy would never have begun. Because sometimes, those who didn’t fit in during childhood, grow up to commit atrocities as adults.

Let’s be mindful not just of ourselves, but of one another, for yes, when it comes to mental health, we are each other’s keepers.

University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) students from various sororities hug outside a sorority house where two women were killed in the Isla Vista neighborhood of Santa Barbara, California May 27, 2014. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson (UNITED STATES – Tags: CRIME LAW EDUCATION)

More info   http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/29/has-there-been-one-school-shooting-per-week-since-sandy-hook/

 

Danger! Deep water—rip tides—dangerous surf

 

  

What is it in your life that you keep pushing back under every time it surfaces?

The greatest accomplishments, the sweetest victories and even the pinnacles of success cannot be reached, thoroughly experienced and enjoyed without “Knowing Thyself.”

What good is it to be wealthy if you are alone and unloved? Where is the fulfillment of your gifts to the world if you are struggling everyday when you know you have so much to give?

We all have submerged wishes, desire, fears and faults.

If we are brave enough to take the journey into the deep

If we are brave enough to swim with them and give them a voice

If we are brave enough to face our deepest-selves, our own brokenness, and mortality

Then fear dissolves. Then real growth, movement, and fulfillment are possible.

You cannot say yes to the adventure and no to the dragons, they are the same thing.

 

Grieving is a beautiful and complicated thing.

Late in the evening on August 18th, I lost a dear friend. She had suffered a difficult previous six months with hospitalization, surgery, and rehabilitation. And, as I had found out the night before she passed, a very difficult life. Her children, a few good friends and I talked that night before… we shared a meal and memories of her through the years. I found out so many things I had not known about her. She spent her childhood with an abusive, “crazy” mother, living in the deep South; a difficult place for a free-spirited young girl to grow up. She suffered an abusive marriage from which she kidnaped her own children to escape. There’s more, including rape, the death of a child, escape into alcohol and drugs, a second divorce and still more. The terrible laundry list goes on, but that is not the point.

The soul has an inner capacity to rise from the ashes, that is as life-affirming as the smell of rain after a long drought. The woman I knew was my mentor and spiritual teacher, a woman of love and values, who never once complained to me about her life, what had happened to her and her family, or what had been inflicted upon her. Amazing in retrospect. She was a strong woman, with a strong personality. The woman I knew and studied with for fifteen years had a meaningful life and she was loved.

Though I had known her for about thirty years, we did not spend as much time together in the last ten. She had moved in with her son and his big family and I was busy raising my own. She was moving from 65 through to 75 and I was moving from 47 through to 57. She began to suffer from dementia in the last five years of her life. Her son would follow her in his car when she was driving, as her memory seem to be failing, to be sure she could find her way home. She was unable to remember who had called and who she needed to call, so she would write it down. Then she would lose the paper.

This was the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around. Her mind was so strong. I knew her in her prime. She had a fantastic mind. For her to lose that intellectual edge must have been horror filled. To look up, out the windshield and not know where you are, to be truly lost; Terrifying.

The sadness I feel at her loss, is not about her dying. Well, part of it is, but I believe that consciousness lives after death. I don’t know what form it’s in, or how, but I know in deep places that it does. Love is the only thing that is eternal. In the end, she was suffering, her body was done; it was time for her to go.

My sadness is for how difficult her life was, for how much she had suffered and how she had weathered so much abuse and betrayal, in her personal life, her family life, and her spiritual life. My sadness is in recalling what she had been in my life, and what life itself, through aging had taken from her. What life, if we are privileged enough to live to a ripe old age, will do to all of us.

My sadness is for all the words of love and forgiveness left unsaid. For the “thank you for all that you have taught me, showed me, given me-s”, left unsaid. For her grandchildren who won’t have their grandmother at any graduation. For her un-celebrated 76th birthday. For relationships that now can never be healed, unless by grace and forgiveness from within the wounded, who remain.

My sadness is for how we rush through life and the everyday banal moments, that we will treasure so deeply one day, pass unnoticed. Moments, that even for those without dementia or Alzheimer’s, most of us will struggle valiantly to recall. The sweet memories of my adult children as babies, the memories of my parents, now gone, and my childhood all swirl together in my soul, spiraling out behind me, like a trail of star dust, as I move forward into the unknown future.

I am of an age, where my sadness at the brevity of life, what I miss and missed are all only half an inkling away from conscious thought. Each rose smells sweeter, each jasmine tea more fragrant, each hug is more meaningful, each argument and sharp word more dangerous, as we each approach our own death, that will spiral us out into pure consciousness.

I still have so many goals and dreams for my life. I just finished a Master’s Degree and am going on for my Ph.D. I want to use what I have learned to help others live mindful, bountiful, love-filled lives. I also don’t want to be distracted from the life that is right in front of me, teeming within me and chaotically unfolding in the world. I find I am a vessel with plenty of room left for filling. The more love you pour out the more you can receive, the bounty is endless. Try to love everyone, say everything, forgive it all, every day. I’m working on it.

My sadness is the eternal fruit of wisdom growing, as my spiral widens.

“It’s important to live life with the experience, and therefore the knowledge, of its mystery and of your own mystery. This gives life a new radiance, a new harmony, a new splendor. Thinking in mythological terms helps to put you in accord with the inevitables of this vale of tears. You learn to recognize the positive values in what appear to be the negative moments and aspects of your life. The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.”

Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth

If you haven’t read any Joseph Campbell, check out The Power of Myth, it’s a wonderful easy read, very inspiring! Take a look here!     The Power of Myth

50 Shades of Grey, or how sexuality dominates our lives, literally.

SEX. Sex sells, sex traps, sex creates, sex liberates.

Sex is all around us, unless you happen to live in a conservative Muslim country. (Even there, where women are entirely covered, I would venture a guess that sex is on the mind.) The hijab, the burqa, and all the other garments are meant to conceal a woman’s image, face, body and gender from from any men other than her husband. It’s very existence makes one “imagine” what is underneath. This alone must give rise to sexual thoughts. What is hidden is mysterious and desirable.

Here in the West nothing is hidden and nothing is mysterious; we attempt to make everything desirable. Why? So you will buy something, consume something. We are shameless about the use of sexual imagery in advertising. We use it to sell everything from hamburgers, to bras and panties, from cars to cigarettes. But what does that mean, shameless? The Oxford English dictionary defines shames as:

1. The painful emotion arising from the consciousness of something dishonouring, ridiculous, or indecorous in one’s own conduct or circumstances (or in those of others whose honour or disgrace one regards as one’s own), or of being in a situation which offends one’s sense of modesty or decency.

Is shame the same as embarrassment? The Oxford English dictionary defines embarrassment as we understand it usually in common term as:

1. Intense emotional or social discomfort caused by an awkward situation or by an awareness that one’s own or another’s words or actions are inappropriate or compromising, or that they reveal inadequacy or foolishness; awkwardness, self-consciousness. (Now the usual sense.)Freq. associated with particular bodily reactions, and expressed in terms of e.g. blushing (cf. quots. 1863,1947), squirming (cf. quot. 1911), or wincing (cf. quot. 2008) with embarrassment. Typically distinguished from shame in being caused by something that is socially awkward or inappropriate rather than morally wrong or debasing.

The shame is the corruption of sexual intimacy. We are shameless, or Madison Avenue is shameless, or our engine that drives vapid consumerism is shameless, because it has cultivated no collective consciousness. It would have to acknowledge a conscious self-awareness in order for there to be an instance in which which a painful emotion might arise and be transformed. But is that really true? Do all the “Mad Men” & Women executives in the advertising agencies have no idea that their campaigns effect how women and girls view themselves? Sure they do, they just don’t care. Why? It’s all about money.  They will not own the conscious awareness that exploiting women and girls as sexual objects to sell a hamburger, or a bra, is in the long-run, detrimental to our culture, our country and the world. Giving credit where credit is due, there are some brands that are trying to counteract this destructive trend, Dove soap, for example.

There are many examples of people and organizations who have spoken out against this damaging trend. The female image of unattainable beauty and physical perfection sets up all women for failure. The damage to the psyche of the feminine is deep and ugly. All of this debasement of our very natures leads to a few damaging mind sets-

1. Women as objectified sexual objects. Check out this article, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-leo/five-trends-the-advertisi_b_149354.html

2. The removal of the sexual act from the context of a loving, supportive, mutually beneficial relationship.

What is wrong with sex? Nothing! What is wrong with wanting to enjoy sexual pleasure? Nothing! It’s all in the context. The Human body is magnificent.  So, let’s liberate sex and sexual relationships, the desire for sex, and the need to be and feel desirable, from a sales technique. ” If you wear this bra, all men will find you as beautiful and desirable as a Victoria’s Secret model.” “If you eat a huge hamburger while sitting on a car with a hose shooting forth water like ejaculate, you will be desirable and men will lust after you and want you.” This is where we have gone horribly wrong. By commodifying sexual attraction and the sex act itself, we belittle it, invert it and corrupt it.

Sexuality and it’s expression is natural. As a concept, that is true. Perhaps a little Romantic, but true at it’s core. However, in the living of it, it is no where near that simple.

The release of the film 50 Shades of Grey, is causing quite a stir. Have I seen it? No. Will I go see it? No. I am not eager to support a film that glorifies an abusive relationship on any level. I’m not talking about what two consenting adults like to do together in the bedroom, I’m talking about psychological abuse. Again, there is plenty written already on the pros and cons of this film. And yet the “bruh-ha-ha”, it has caused, brings again to the forefront the struggle of women in our society to have pride, self worth and agency, of any kind.

Why has sex become this HUGE THING in our collective consciousness? Maybe it has always been so. If we think about the beginnings of human kind, primitive man and woman lived in time of survival of the fittest. Anthropologists disagree about the finer points of human societal development. Did women band together and make demands of the men? Did they withhold sex for the food from successful hunts? Did men fight to assert primacy over one another for their females? Was the urge to protect ones young, (in males), the  pattern of nature protecting its gene pool? I’m not sure when the family unit as we know it evolved but much of the moralistic and shame thinking regarding the sexual act of intercourse came from religion. Here in the land of Judeo-Christian founding fathers, sex was/is looked on as a sin outside of marriage and sometimes even as a sin in marriage, unless for the sake of procreation. Masturbation, a sin. Same sex relations, a sin. Multiple partners a sin.

On the other side of the spectrum we have the Buddhist and Hindu traditions of Tantra. The studying and practice of the sacred tradition of sexual union as a way to evolve spiritually and transcend the lower worlds of karma and illusion. There have been great texts written on this tradition. Lady of the Lotus Born is one. There have been great Bodhisattvas and Buddhas who have transcended through this path.

Could these two cultural ideals of sexuality be any further apart?

Could the time have come for us to look at our sexuality differently? Is it time to evolve again? Primitive man evolved into societal groups, tribes and peoples. Each of these cultures comes with its own mythology, with rituals, and rich histories of cultural identity. Each culture with its mythologically prescribed rules, taming sexuality. Perhaps this time it is our consciousness that must evolve. We must out grow the idea that sexuality and sex between consenting individuals is “something dishonouring, ridiculous, or indecorous in one’s own conduct.”

Our ideas of human sexuality, it’s expression and the container of marriage are due for an upgrade. Let’s take sex out of the dark closet of sin and honor it for the beautiful union it is. If sexual relationships are undertaken with mutual respect, safe practices,  kindness and attentiveness to the needs of the partner, with love and compassion, we might make a great leap forward. That which is burdened with guilt would be set free. Is it possible to have multiple partners, to love more than one person in a lifetime?  Perhaps we could explore different models of life, commitment and love? Could we have more than one commitment at a time, i.e. one to whom you bind yourself to have children and raise them, and others who fill unmet needs for companionship, love, or camaraderie, without all the guilt? Could we build a new set of relationship structures that free the ” guilty pleasures of sex” from thousands of year old constructs of traditional marriage?

By freeing sex and love from religion, we free ourselves from the hidden, dangerous, forbidden, and sinful perspective. What would happen to human sexuality when all this guilt is lifted? That which is no longer forbidden loses much of its fear and guilt. What is freely given cannot be stolen and cannot not be hidden.

Ginnette Paris, Ph.D, a practicing psychotherapist, wrote in a paper that she delivered to The Dallas conference on “Marriage, Intimacy and Freedom,”  “. . . one of the things wrong with our marriage—myth besides its psychology and its sociology, is its theology: one yin, one yang, and one God! It blurs the conscience. It is responsible for the fact that we ask of one man, or one woman, to be all, to be perfect, impeccable. . . .” In her papers she proposes three sacraments of relationship. “One, an intimate ritual, no contract, no witness, a private celebration of the eternal union of two bodies in lovemaking. A ritual as renewable as the sacrament of communion.”

The second,  a public ceremony with contractual obligations and legal agreements. ” . . . a sacrament that would unite . . . mother and father, forever linked to the child that is being conceived. Thus it would be clear that the making of a child is a lifelong commitment for which there is no divorce. And it would also be made clear that procreation implies the union of two families, two clans, two branches of ancestors that become forever part of the same family tree.”

Her third sacrament. ” It would clarify not only matters such as inheritances, family names, property titles, insurance benefits, scope and limit of the partners mutual financial responsibilities, but would also address the more profound aspect of the king and queen metaphor: that of the sharing of powers between two partners of equal strength and abilities in building their financial empire.

I for one am all for these kinds of marriage. It eliminates adultery. Leaving it to the partners to decide the boundaries of their relationships. It takes sex and sexual relationships out of the hands of the church , who reduced them to unnatural, of the devil, full of sin, temptation and the resulting guilt.

These ideas, radical as they may sound, still do not solve the problem of the images of women in the media and the cultural beliefs that tell us we are not enough, just as we are. But…. changing our deeply rooted, inverted and shaming notions of sexuality, relationship and marriage, will go along way to transforming our collective consciousness about each other and ourselves. I think that’s a great start.

(Photo:Kandariya Mahadev Temple, India)

 

If you’re interested in , check out my other blog, featuring my non-traditional business.   https://renewurbeauty.wordpress.com

Darkest before the dawn…

It is the longest night of the year. Literally and figuratively.

As a nation, we are experiencing a national, dark night of the soul.

In a time like this— when corporations are people, and their influence in the electoral process has taken political representation away from the people, empowering the biggest money donors and their agendas, leaving citizens without a voice,

in a time like this— when 41% of the world’s wealth is in the hands 1% of the people and “a new report released by the World Economic Forum, ranks rising inequality as the top trend facing the globe in 2015 ” (1), and the poor are getting poorer,

in a time like this— when racism and inequality have their smoldering embers fanned into roaring flames across the country, due in part to the deaths of three black men Treyvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of three white men, and when one jury and two grand juries neither convict, nor indict the white neighborhood watchman nor white police officers for the deaths of the three men,

in a time like this— when citizens in cities across the country demonstrate against racism and police brutality, when medical students at Columbia, Brown and Yale Universities stage die-ins to protest racism and police brutality, and congressional staffers walk out of their jobs to stage a silent protest against the same, on the capitol steps with their hands raised,

in a time like this—when protests turned violent in Ferguson and businesses were destroyed, fires were set, and a peaceful protest in Berkley was turned into a melee by a splinter group of masked looters, smashing windows, looting stores and injuring police officers,

in a time like this—when two police officers were gunned down while sitting in their car on duty in NYC by a black man, who shot his girlfriend and was on a hunting expedition for white police officers to even the score,

in a time like this—when there has been a 31% increase of the deaths of police officers on the job from the same time last year and “Firearms were used in 69 percent of the nation’s murders, 40 percent of robberies, and 21.6 percent of aggravated assaults.” (2)

in a time like this—”The highest number of arrests were for drug abuse violations (estimated at 1,501,043, … and… there were an estimated 79,770 rapes (legacy definition) reported to law enforcement.”(ibid)

in a time like this—we have to stop. On this, darkest, longest night of the year, we need stop to look deep within ourselves an Americans, beyond race, gender, sexual orientation and political affiliation to our common humanity.

In a time like this we have to ask, what are we doing to each other? We have to find a way to turn down the rhetoric and get the the heart of these difficult, vital issues and work together to find real solutions if we are to survive as families, neighborhoods, cities, a society, a nation and a species.

We have some really big issues to solve together if our children and their children’s children are going to be able to thrive. How can we ever hope to solve global warming, environmental pollution, world hunger, genocide, war, nuclear threats, find cures for diseases like Ebola, Cancer and AIDS if we can’t sit down at the table and respect one another?

We have to craft a modern day Round Table, where everyone can be heard, and progress can be made. We have to stop listening to pundits argue on the various news channels as they inflame the issues further. Eric Deggan wrote for NPR on the news coverage of recent months,

” . . .Trying to talk about systemic racial issues during a crisis is always much harder. Real progress on racial issues happens when people thoughtfully consider perspectives different from their own — and that’s much tougher in a crisis.. . . In truth, this study is the starting point of a conversation that should include the effects of poverty, urban gangs, aggressive drug enforcement and more. But when people are trying to make a point, such detailed discussion is often left behind. Cable news has sped up the path from news reporting to punditry with disastrous results.” (3)

We have to find a way to talk to each other. People need to have confidence in law enforcement. The officers need to be just in their dealings with citizens and they need to know that the people have a stake in their well being also. One hand has to help the other.

Please, please stop the blood shed. As Mahatma Ghandi, a leader in non violent revolution once said, ” A eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”  There is no way through the darkness but to move forward together, toward a new dawn. We have defeated dangerous enemies together in the past, let’s defeat the enemies within together and save our children and our future.

1.http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/11/08/with-41-of-global-wealth-in-the-hands-of-less-than-1-elites-and-citizens-agree-inequality-is-a-top-priority/

2. http://www.crimeinamerica.net/2014/09/06/56-percent-increase-in-police-officer-firearm-related-deaths/

3. http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/12/06/368713550/four-lessons-from-the-medias-conflicted-coverage-of-race

Childhood Magic, what was it? Can we have it again? I believe we can.

There was a post yesterday (10/31/14) on the Facebook Page “Humans of New York” where a gentleman was describing the loss of childhood wonder he said, “My happiest moments were way back in childhood. Everything was magical back then. All children are in a constant state of awe and everything is fantastic to them, but then the magical feeling dissipates and reality creeps in.”  the interviewer asked “When was the last time you felt that magical feeling?”
“Ha! Not since I’ve been an adult, that’s for sure.”

What happens to all that wonder and to the thrill of discovery?

First, I would like to mention that not everyone had a happy, wonder-filled childhood. Those of us who were fortunate enough to experience it, have wonderful memories of those times.

Whether or not you had a happy childhood the everyday stresses of living, paying the bills, going to work, and having little time for oneself can all add up to exhaustion and disillusionment. I think there are three prime drivers of misery in our culture— competition, acquisition and consumption.

As a society we are told that we need more, better, faster, shinier, newer, and better everything. What we have–should never, ever—be enough. We have to buy the newest model and if we don’t have the cash we should buy it on credit. Now.

We want everything immediately, and if we have to wait for it, or put some effort into getting it, it’s not worth it. We spend much of our time on devices, plugged in to the internet, computer, phone, I pad, gaming systems, televisions, entertainment on demand, Net Flicks, and on and on. Even blogging…..like now.

Don’t get me wrong, I use technology every day and I am grateful for the opportunities it provides me to learn, grow and connect with the world. However, like too much of any good thing, it can sap the life out of you. For those of us 50 or over, we did not grow up with the internet, cell phones, cable TV, gaming systems or personal computers.

What was it about childhood that was so wondrous? It was EXPERIENCES, NOT THINGS.

I would like to offer three concepts for reactivation of experiences of joy and wonder for your consideration.

Imagination, Communication and the Natural World. Have you seen the FB/ You Tube video of the little girl running in her first rain? If you haven’t take a look   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxmmvHsDeuI

This is the wonder of childhood. Maybe we think we are too old for nature firsts, but give it a try. You’ve already seen rain, but when was the last time you purposefully took a walk in the rain, with out an umbrella…..? Go to a park and lie under a tree and took at the canopy and the sky, listen to your favorite music-or just listen to the wind and the sounds around you. Breathe in the scents of fresh cut grass, or central park after a rain, or piney woods, the beach, or a rose. Leave your phone at home, or turn it off if you must bring it!

Go for a hike, sit on the top of a hill and just be there. We have to stop rushing around and take time to look at the sunset, the stars. Make a plan, go somewhere you can be away from city lights and spend a night star gazing. There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on planet Earth!!!! Look up from your daily grind and contemplate that one for a while! How it all came to be and the enormity of the expanse of the universe should give you at least a twinkle of the wonder of the unknown and the unanswerable questions about life and our place in it. It is an adult equivalent to ” Daddy where is up? Why is the sky blue? Where do we go when we die?”

You see, a sense of wonder is, I think, one of scale and experience. When you were a child, everything was new. But each day as you grew, each experience you had the day before was no longer new, but known. The opportunity to have new experiences did not go away…. we just got distracted by daily life. School and formal learning became the path to new discoveries, while most often, imagination was relegated to a lesser function. Re-activate your imagination. Do it by yourself, with your kids, with your grandkids. Do something creative. It doesn’t matter what. The arts, music, writing, pretend, dress-up, and so on….choose one.

There are new experiences of the psyche, the soul, the cosmos, that we have no definitive answers for. Pondering the meaning of the entire world in a flower, as the Buddah did, or all life in a mustard seed as Jesus did…will stretch your wonder capacity.

We are enslaved to the maintenance of the physical body, our homes, our bills, or food, our transportation, health care and on and on. Even Plato long ago said,

“Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth, and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in it’s service.”

Whether you agree with Plato or not, if we didn’t feel the need to compete with our neighbors and co workers, for a better house or car, or salary…if we didn’t need to always acquire the newest gadget, if we didn’t participate in a overly consumptive, disposable society, maybe we would have a little more time to cultivate our unexplored human potential. If we can say what we have materially, is enough…maybe we would have more time and mental energy to contemplate the beauty of natural world and life itself. A marine biologist in Maui, Hawaii told me, that humpback whales from around the globe begin the year with different song, and by the end of the migration, all the whales sing the same song, even if the pods have never met. That sparks wonder in me.

If it was our parents and families that gave us the safe loving environment to have the wonder filled experiences of our childhoods, who will do that for us now? We must hold that space for each other, person to person. Connect with people, face to face, get off your devices and truly communicate. Spend time together, conversations will take you places you never expected. You will help yourself and others along the way. Listen. Be present.

Here’s to you finding Wonder and Joyful moments in your adult lives!

xxoo Andrea

Photos

http://gallsource.com/nature-wallpaper/night-sky-tree-universe-hd-pictures.html

See the Northern Lights

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Today, now, for one day I can do anything.

Ah, ha! I have had an “ah, ha” moment and I wanted to share it with you in the hope that it may help you too!

It may sound simple and I’m sure you have heard it before…but I just got

“One day at a time.”

Have you really heard it, really deeply? I just did and I plan to hold on to the resounding peal of freedom it has brought to my thinking. No, I did not go to a meeting, no I do not belong to AA or OA or NA, though they all got it a long time ago, if they work their program.

Ok, let’s get to it. I have a really busy life with its fair share of stress, ranging from teenagers, my grad school demands, paying bills, relationships, and on and on. I’m no different than many modern parents and yet……I kept circling back in my mind, trying to wrestle solutions forward into my life, that don’t need to be achieved TODAY.

Even while working on one issue, I would be positing all the possible solutions to my problems, my kids problems, my family problems my financial challenges, health problems and more, all at the same time, jumping from one to the other trying to chart the best course of action in all cases. I want to help my family and myself get the most out of life and have the best experiences possible. Every mother does, well most mothers do, well I do.

I don’t know what angel whispered in my ear to change course, but this former path left me exhausted and stressed and worried, always worried. Actually, I think it was last weekend with my family. Due to a number of long circumstances that I won’t bore you with, I realized that I had to make some changes in my life. If I don’t want back pain the most pro-active thing I can do is lose weight and get in better shape. If my back doesn’t have to support so much weight, it may feel better and if my abs do half the work, that may help too. Sounds simple until…… you realize, “Oh God, I have to go on a diet.” I love food and wine…………….. Dang it.

I had made a list of all the readings, papers and projects I had to prepare by the end of the grad quarter. It was long. But I thought, well I can only get done in a day what I can get done, the rest will roll over into tomorrow, which when I get there- will be that today….or now.

This was leading to what I’m studying in Grad School- the Eternal Now… that all we have is Now, the past is gone the future doesn’t exist. Simple, you say. Yes of course all we have is now…. but really think about it. Today is now. I can do anything for one day. Today.

I can do, or follow up and take care of what must be done Today.

I can go to the gym for One day.

I can eat healthy food for One day.

I can do my reading for One day.

WOW. By breaking it all down, ALL OF IT into One day, today, now… I can focus on what must be done today. What doesn’t have to be done today, or the problem that can’t be solved today (because law school is in the fall, tuition is in the fall, the deadlines for scholarships are not TODAY) those will fall to another day, another today, but not now.

This realization has magically transformed my thinking. It doesn’t mean that I won’t spend some productive time planning or thinking about the future, but I will spend more time in the now and focus on each day as it is and with what can be done.

I can do anything for one day, after all one day is a very short time to be on a nutritional and exercise plan.  I am going to seriously work on taking life one day at a time, and live in the now. Every day I wake up and say, I can go to the gym for one day, today is only one day . Get the idea?

A thousand pounds of worry and “what if” just dropped off my back, won’t you join me?

xxoo

Andrea

You don’t know ’till you try…

Feast or famine seems to be the mantra for many of us over the past five years. Who knew that surviving the recession, family in tact, a bit battle worn no doubt- but still standing, would be sure to become a life achievement? It wasn’t one that I would have consciously chosen, that’s for sure!

“Oh please, may we have the Pu Pu Platter for five, complete with sweet and sour layoffs, one order of  spicy curry mortgage- dipped in and out of default, and stacks and stacks of those crispy-fried unpaid bills.  Oh, and hold the health insurance. One more thing, does that come with rice?”

My husband and I knew when he was laid of by Citibank, two weeks before Christmas, that no one was going to save us. No one but the ultra rich (neither of our families) was going to survive this unscathed. We had to figure something out, and quickly. Unemployment wouldn’t even cover our utilities and groceries.

One idea led to another and we started a cookie company, yes from our home kitchen, yes with a secret family recipe. Everyone helped that year, (if they wanted anything under the tree.) It was an eye opener for our suburban California kids and an exercise in not-so-controlled panic for the grown-ups. We worked together as a family, not perfectly, not quietly, not smoothly, and often not happily, but we did it. We made it though.  Over 5 years we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps, and this past Christmas we shipped our last order.

We decided it was time to stop working two jobs each and enjoy a little more of Life. I want to relish what is left of the time our kids will be living under our roof. It was a great decision. Over the past five years we had no idea from day to day, making cookies, jams, and more, if we would make it to the next mortgage payment, but we did.  We are grateful. We didn’t know if we could do it, but we had to try. There was nothing else.

I now know that the last five years of struggle, will be one of the many momentous life experiences  that transforms into a great story at the dinner table 10 years later. Everyone will have their own version and it will be very funny, despite the tough lessons learned. We still love to laugh together.

I am happy to say that once again we are all trying new things. College, Law School prep, first love, independence, grad school, new careers and more. You never know till you try.

The power of memory…

For a New England girl, it seems we really don’t have a Winter here in Southern California. The News is predicting a huge blizzard for New England and part of me is longing for that late night walk on a country lane that my brother and his family will take around 11pm. The wind will be howling, but beneath the street lamps, the world will be transformed into a magical     “Narnia” – like a wonderland. Tall pines, heavy laden with comforters of snow, piled branch upon branch will watch over streets blanketed with snow drifts. Our laughter bubbles from steaming breath, peals and shrieks provoked by snowballs hitting their mark; or entire branches of snow sprung upon the innocent by the energetic mischief of youth, all sound muffled by scarves, hoods, and wind. Virgin stretches of glistening white road, imagine anything is possible. For a moment time stands still, literally frozen, a beautiful, crystalline memory.