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Relating to All Beings how might you increase your awareness of the interbeing and interrelatedness of all life, seen and unseen?
You are Connected
You are already a part of all that is. You are connected! Your presence is an integral part of all life. Everything is interconnected to everything else.
Weaving Life Together
This morning I heard about a woman who recently died. I met this woman only once or twice in my life. She was a librarian and an author. When I met her she told me about a book she was writing and of her need for an illustrator, someone who could draw caricatures, cartoons that brought lightness and fun to the characters of her story. I happened to have a friend who does that. I told her about the friend and then asked the friend to contact her directly to see if this "chance" meeting might lead to something of a collaboration between them. It did! They worked on this project and together published the book! Interconnectedness!
Bowing to the Beauty of Life
Another time I was enjoying a winter reteat at a hermitage. I loved it there in the winter because nature was active and easily observed. The birds coming to the feeder outside my window were delightful. I sat down and decided to paint the image of their acitivity. As I finished the painting, it seemed there was something more to experience, that somehow the whole picture was not finished. In that moment, a beautiful doe came to the feeder. She was just a few feet from where I was sitting in my rocking chair, sipping tea and gazing at my painting and the window. I felt such an incredible awe and wonder in response to her presence and her beauty that I started thanking her for it, and the amazing thing to me then was that she noticed me, too. She bowed to me in the style of the namaste bow, as though she were acknowledging that the spark of the divine within her recognized the love in my heart and said "yes." I just sat in awe. I knew it wouldn't last long and I asked for a goodbye from her before she left. That was coming from my own doubt that this connection was somehow really happening. And yes, she heard it and she bowed deeply to me one more time before she gracefully danced off toward the woods.
Recognizing & Responding through Our Connections
We are connected. We affect one another. We need each other integrally as a celebration of all that each of us brings to the whole of Life. Together, we effect what is in our world today. We have the invitation to love and honor and celebrate it all. We carry the delicate balance of life both within us and between us. The incredible organism that makes up any living creature is reflected in the organism of the whole cosmic system of life.
Honoring the Relationships in Your Life how might you honor, celebrate and bring gratefulness to the relationships you share with others?
What is "Honor"?
Honoring and connecting? We don't use that word, "honor" too much any more. We think of it in the traditional wedding vows where two people proclaim their willingness to love, honor and cherish each other. We see an expression of it in medals of honor given to soldiers who have courageously fulfilled a noble cause often involving life and freedom. Communities honor people for the deeds they offer in significant service to people, place and values. What do we do on a small scale, in our day to day lives to honor our relationships? What does the word, "honor" mean? Webster's dictionary says to honor is "to regard or treat with esteem, or respect; to revere; to dignify or raise to distinction."
An Invitation to Noticing
I hear that definition as an invitation and a choice one might consider in noticing the people in our lives we relate to, whether they be family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, acquaintances or the friendly faces we see from place to place whose names we may not even know. What about the people who are strangers, or even those we sometimes may consider as enemies? Can we also honor them? I wonder how honoring affects the delicate balance of life and contributes to the need for peace and respect in our world when faced with differences or conflicts?
Honoring All?
I wonder what happens to make our world feel unsafe at times? My guess is that is becomes unsafe when people forget to honor the life energy that abides within each of us as something wonderful, awesome and in fact, miraculous and mysterious. Something to be celebrated. Perhaps, when a person acts violently, he or she might not have ever experienced what it is like to feel honored. Instead, anger and sadness give energy to seeking a scapegoat or someone to blame for the unmet feelings and needs. If only...if only, each of us could find ways to be honored and to honor the life in others, the world might feel safe and offer peace and celebrate the precious essence of life itself. The responsibility points to our interrelatedness. We are not alone. Together we respond to one another and to the needs of all the inhabitants and resources of the earth, as our shared dwelling place. How might we be more creative and compassionate in our intentions and our actions to honor, respect and regard life itself?
Honoring Our Relationships, Honoring This One, That One, Everyone!
People have a need to be honored, respected, esteemed, recognized and valued for who they are, simply as human beings, but more importantly, as relatives--people we are in relationship with, people we are related to, people who share the interrelatedness of living on this earth together, people with common human needs.
Envisioning Transformation via Honor
I wonder how life might change if each of us took a moment each day to honor at least one other person with whom we are in relationship? I'd love to hear from you about the many different kinds of strategies you discover for honoring, Who are the people, where are the places, which are the creatuers or what are the values within yourself that you choose to honor?
how might you welcome change and invite transformation into the relationships you share with others?
How Do You Feel When Change is Knocking at the Door?
Does the idea of change evoke a visceral response in your body? Do you squirm when you think about how quickly life changes often when you least expect it? How do you meet interruptions which change the flow of your day?
Seasons Show Us Change
Change is constant. A static life is a dead life. Aliveness is about the currents of change, movements within the flow of our days, our rhythms, our seasons and our cycles. There is some sense of ongoingness that is found in meeting the seasons and recognizing and celebrating how nature changes as each one comes and goes.
Difficulties are Dynamic Faces of Change
We encounter difficulties in relationships. They, too, are not static, but rather dynamic invitations that call for creative response that meets the stress of the moment with consciousness and humility and a willingness to open to what is coming toward us in that moment. What an incredible gift of life change is. Can it be as wonder-filled and amazing as the transformation of the caterpillar moving into the cocoon and emerging as a butterfly? How beautiful that transformation is when we witness it!
Listening for the Messengers of Change
Metamorphosis is a lovely word for change. Transformation, too, points to a shift in form. We witness the change of matter in nature and in the aging process of our bodies, our growing children or grandchildren, and in the goodbyes we say to aging parents whose lives meet death. Yet, inwardly, change is also a constant in our souls, as emotions move in and through us as messengers calling for our attentiveness. And, when we learn to truly listen to their callings, we meet ourselves. We come to know ourselves better and we deepen our awareness of the significant needs and values that they are drawing attention to.
Welcoming the Wisdom of the Heart
We are seekers, too. We seek change. We long for change and transformation in ourselves and our world. Seeking and longing, we recognize an energy that calls to our hearts. Our hearts know how to respond to stress, to change, to the invitation for growth. How are we listening for their wisdom?
Meeting Life
Transformation is life. How are you meeting the vitality of life right now? What is alive in you?
I am sitting in a cold office space. I meet the cold by choosing to turn on a small heater. I feel warm and open in the moment. I have the intention to express what is alive in me in an open and authentic way. In the middle of writing, the phone may ring and I respond to it in the way that feels right in that moment. Being willing to respond and pausing to touch in with myself to ask what feels right in this moment are a part of the flow I am intending to live in my life today. Still, I get annoyed by interruptions. Sometimes, I answer that phone with joy and sometimes, I choose to tend to what I am doing in the moment. I strive toward becoming more and more open to meeting the interruption, the stressor, the agitation, the view that something is imposing itself on me. These resistances are one thing I can learn to meet within me. With each moment I open to and willingly meet the interruption or the resistance to it by dropping my evaluation of what it may or may not be, I change, I meet transformation flowing in and through me.
Greeting Interruptions as the Sacred Flow of Life
Miriam Therese Winter once wrote "A Psalm About Interruptions." I enjoy the wisdom she shares in this acknowledgment of interruptions. She asks if the interruption is the Holy One, the Beloved Other who is present in the whirlwind or in the voice of calm. Life interrupts us "calling us to do something or go somewhere or be someone beyond our anticipation." She says "Love always interrupts us, calling us out of self-pity or doubt or the residue of ancient guilt or present expectation." She concludes her psalm with a commitment to seek that Beloved Other, the Holy One in the whirlwind and in the listening for the voice that speaks in the silence. I thank her for the pondering. I trust that the Beloved Other is you and me and honoring our presence is a call to respond to the ever-constant flow of interruptions as Life meets and greets us, welcoming us to grow and develop, to live and love all that is, to honor all that comes knocking at the door of our hearts...
Conscious & Compassionate Practices
The Mindfulness of Reverence
Mindfulness is a quality of focus. Reverence is an energy of love evoking awe and deep respect. Practice the mindfulness of reverence as you reflect upon how you are connected to Life itself. Take a moment to consider all the people, places, creatures and things that you are in relationship with. Create a list of your relations and each time you think of one with reverece, awe and respect, write down what it is about that person, place, creature or thing that stirs this resoponse in you. Offer gratitude in your heart. If you choose, share an offering of gratitude in person the next time you encounter that person, place or thing. Create a moment in your relatedness to share the wonder.
The Warmth of Love Warmth is a sensation. Love is an energy of life and an expression of the heart. Practice the warmth of love as you consider strategies for honoring the relationships in your life. Remember that this honoring also includes you and the relationships you have with your body, soul and spirit. Consider three strategies that honor your love for your body, for your soul and for your spirit. Likewise, consider three strategies that honor the body of the earth, the soul of a friend, and the spirit of a family member or friend. Once you have the strategies in mind, act upon them and feel the love.
The Intentionality of Connection Intention is a direction for your actions, a conscious focus for the will. Connection is a meeting between yourself and others, or between various parts of yourself. Practice the intentionality of connection as you meet the next interruption in your day. Choose to meet and greet it as though it were a messenger with very important information for you. Let the presence of the interruption call you to presence and to connection by giving your heart over to it with attentiveness and deep listening for what is present in body, soul, and spirit, both within you and within the other during your encounter.Heart-Centered Communication
Communicating from your heart is an active way of responding to self and to others with the warmth of a compassionate heart and the wisdom of conscious awareness. It is an intentional practice of bringing the compassionate presence and energy of empathy abiding within you to every meeting. Practice communicating in this way when you meet a difficulty in a relationship. Perhaps, a friend did not have time for you when you needed it. Can you recognize the need of that friend and the choice to choose something else? Can you see that that particular firend is only one way for you to be met in the moment? Can you pause to ask your heart what it is you needed from the friend? Once you recognize your need, what strategies might you consider to meet that need differently in this moment?
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