The beauty of personal development is that it can be utilized in so many ways. Reflections, attitudes, and opinions need only cost a few minutes of thought. Worth more than development of the personal self, is the development of awareness. Resulting in lifting one’s sight to view the horizon, it can strangely enough lead to new ideas and solutions, as a larger picture presents itself.
Now, I realize that some of you don’t know a whole lot about this little Scandinavian country, and even if you do know that it is not the capital of Sweden (believe me. I’ve heard it), you may not know too much about the infrastructure, the situation of the people, or the history.
Theoretically it seems to be that one of the strengths of the EU is the fluidity of labor. Although, it requires adjustment time, it would seem that this has an equalizing effect. EU citizens enjoy greater freedom to move about. They can take their education, trade, and businesses and relocate, operating under the same conditional qualitative terms and currency.
I wonder how people would feel if the country they presently are citizens of, ended up in economic ruin? Would they look at immigration differently, if they themselves were presented with the scenario of having to migrate to support the survival of themselves, and their families?
Filed under: Freedom
Written Friday morning, March 28th
I do not know why I am writing this post. Neither do I know where it belongs. Is it personal development? Is it acceptance, and love? Is it anger or grief? Perhaps all of the above, and perhaps none of the above. It may just slide under the archive label of ‘freedom’ that never gets read. I do not even know how this post will develop, or what it will bring.
I know better. I know better than to engage in discussions that lead nowhere. I forget. I forget to adorn my straight jacket. I forget my limits, and if I could just learn already to duct tape my mouth, life would be so much easier. If I could just remember. If I could finally understand that when I question existing beliefs and attitudes, I become disliked and avoided. If I could just understand and remember that when questioning systems and common practices, I am deemed anti-American, anti-this, and anti-that. Not to mention pro-this-and-that, proclaimed with voices of disapproval. If I could just remember, and finally get it through my thick skull.
It is not from any wish for a fairytale world or unrealistic idealism that drops well up in my eyes as I punch this keyboard, of which I can barely see at this very minute. It is not in any fancy belief that everything should be perfect.
My spouse never knows what he comes home to each day. As he walks through the front door and shouts his greeting, he sometimes risks meeting teary-eyes, although not often. Watery eyes replacing what once was anger about the very same subjects. The tears are not for myself. I know the nooks and crannies of my own grief, and the tears are of another kind. However, he is used to this reality. I convince myself that there is at least human life in our home. He knows that there will be days like this. He has a similar heart.
He lived the same reality during my career as a Nurse. All of the tears that fell. Professional in my duties, yet allowing the gates to open at home, temporarily managing to breathe for a few hours. Ah, but do not take work home with you, they say. It was not humanly possible.
Elderly hands cradled in mine through their final minutes of life, teaches such deep respect for each human. It teaches the delicate fragility of life, and that each has contributed to this world in some way, or another. Sitting in silence stroking masculine hands calloused by years of strife and struggle, opens the heart to empathy. Gently sweeping a washcloth over tiny female hands that have held many a handiwork, tired from a long life of nurturing. Massaging weary feet cold from poor circulation and age, awestruck at the realization of how many miles each pair of feet has walked.
Patient after patient. Day after day. Year after year. How can one not feel in such a human experience? Rich people, poor people, ladies of high society, mayors, businessmen, the homeless, the addicted. All hiding the skeletons of secrets in their personal closets, and none of them saints.
Do not feel this awesomeness of life? How can one not? Turn it off? Impossible.
John Lash knew that there would be days like this. Oh, he never said it in so many words to me, but he knew. One of the remaining true Tai Chi Masters of the world, living ‘over the pond’. A teacher of Tai Chi life philosophy long before mysticism became attached to it. No, not the sport that Westerners have changed to meet cultural purposes. A philosophy encompassing all existence, and the path of living this life. No, I do not practice Tai Chi. I have not attended any such school That is not what it is about. Right before I took my trip up North to my Karuna training, he wrote to me reminding me of the necessity to “wear rough clothing, and carry a jewel in my heart”.
At my Karuna training I was forewarned that there would be days like this. Cultivating the awareness of ‘compassionate action’, and the path of walking this talk is the Karuna trademark. After returning home a book arrived at my doorstep. It was John Lash’s most recent work. He was so excited that I was sent a copy long before publishing. I found it peculiar at the time that the word Karuna was repeatedly used in this work, however I now recognize that his written voice was meant to be of comfort. He knew that there would be days like this. A similar forewarning coming from mentors in all areas of my professional training.
Lash has called me a ‘Tai Chi person’. Patients have also sent choice names my way throughout the years. Understanding that the words came from their situations and frustrations, it was easy to stand there, and ‘take it’. They had to get it out, and they often met me with smiles the very next day. I have been called many things. In my studies, I have met interesting people, and speaking the language of their art or ’school’, they use terms that have not always been easily understood by me. I have been called a ’self-existing wind’ in the jungles of Mexico. I have been called an ‘emotional healer’ by a former mentor overseas.
I have also been implied a traitor by my own countrymen. ‘Unpatriotic’ is the word. This has probably been the most hurtful. In these situations I bite back a burning urge to ask the question of who has done the defining and dares entitle themselves so highly as to label me, when I wish no labels?
I seek the larger picture and greater wisdom, and along that path certain truths have revealed themselves. To explore wisdom demands questioning conventional beliefs, throwing the chains of conditioning, and examining everything from all angles, and all levels. It demands respecting all life, and all beating hearts, whether they be the philanthropist, or the thief. It means feeling from the core the strife of others, lest we forget and pass judgement. It means expansion of awareness, ready to accept answers that rub against the grain of one’s conditioning. It is by no means an easy quest, and emotions will sometimes resist at the forks in the road.
I have no fancy words, and eloquent sentences that can do justice to what I feel on days like this.
I walked outside for a few moments earlier this morning. Angry at myself for letting things get to me. Attempting to regain balance in my teeter-tottering. Almost instantly I caught an image floating through my mind. A parade of people. I stood on the sideline watching, in complete awareness that I at any time, could join the parade. Would it not be so much easier? I certainly know how to do it.
I just couldn’t. I let the parade pass me by. It has taken me so long to get to where I am, and the path ahead even longer than I have thus far travelled. How could I ever go back? I can’t.
I wandered back inside my office determined to begin the day anew, if only a mental possibility. I was met with a little story that contagiously created a smile, and a sigh of relief. I once read this passage somewhere, but I cannot remember where it comes from. Anyone wishing to know can contact the writer that provided that smile on my face. His name as we know it is Travis Morgan . I am not doing the passage justice by not providing proper citation.
It goes like this.
“A Zen Master lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, while he was away, a thief sneaked into the hut only to find there was nothing in it to steal. The Zen Master returned and found him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.” The thief was bewildered, but he took the clothes and ran away. The Master sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, ” I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”
Editing note, Monday March 31st:
Just yesterday a post caught my eye in my feed. Travis Morgan has created a most incredible piece about a part of history which he deems, ‘”One of man’s biggest failures in judgement ever” (ref. Travis Morgan). He created a signature inkblot design to accompany his soundscape composition entitled;
Hiroshima 08:15 August 6 1945
I am not asking nicely. I am begging you all to take a couple of minutes to see and hear this work of expression.
Opening image; http://www.sanantonio.gov/
Image of John Lash; ©John Lash
Discussion has always been a central activity in our home. In these election times, it has become even more so, as I’m sure it is for many of you. We usually end up discussing the nature of people, and core beliefs. I was asked a while back to answer a few questions for another blog, and much of the discussion was centered around the concept of fear. It didn’t take long before I began to contemplate this in relationship to the election, the positions of the candidates, and what people seem to want.
People wish to retain their rights, and rightly so. Yet, I often wonder if rights are taken to such lengths that the consequences prove an inconsistency between what people say they truly desire, and what they end up with as longterm results.
If how I got from point to point here seems confusing, let me exemplify. Consider for a moment the staggering number of handguns stashed in the many homes around the country as a result of the common law right. It is not a light matter as people feel very strongly about their weapons, and the situations in which they feel they should be allowed to use them.
There is a law here in Texas that gives people permission to use force if someone should place their foot in your driveway. Not long ago, a man caught two thieves breaking into his neighbor’s home. This was a huge headliner, so I’m confident that many know of the case. This man called the police, whereby the dispatcher pleaded with the man to remain in his home until the police arrived. The man disregarded this, and eventually went out, and shot the two unarmed men in the backs while they were running away. Let it be stated that I do not condone the crime of the thieves.
Yet, if I place myself in the shoes of the officers that were dispatched, I would believe that one of the worst scenarios for them to engage in, would be a hot-headed crossfire situation. I may be wrong, but it must be a situation that is extremely difficult in which to take command. Crossfire was not the situation in the exemplified case, however, I do believe that it is an everyday reality for police officers around the country.
People have the need for security, and everyone will of course, describe this differently. Some need more security than others. Some people are more fearful than others, and some are downright more territorial than others. Yet, the need for security is a universal human need, and it needs to be satisfied. We all attempt to satisfy it in various ways.
What keeps churning in my mind is the fact that society wishes for the police to protect its citizens. Yet, we tend to approve of measures that co-create dangerous environments in which the police are expected to work. In other words, people feel that they are creating security, yet do they choose the best solutions in the desire for a safer society? Will we as individuals and society as a whole, be safer when everyone has a handgun under their bed?
As is so often the case, I usually end up with more questions than answers.
Give it a fire up vote.
