Clarissa Pinkola Estés: The Fiery Light That Sees and Knows

Having a lover/friend who regards you as a living growing criatura, being, just as much as the tree from the ground, or a ficus in the house, or a rose garden out in the side yard... having a lover and friends who look at you as a true living breathing entity, one that is human but made of very fine and moist and magical things as well... a lover and friends who support the ciatura in you... these are the people you are looking for. They will be the friends of your soul for life. Mindful choosing of friends and lovers, not to mention teachers, is critical to remaining conscious, remaining intuitive, remaining in charge of the fiery light that sees and knows. 

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: 

Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

Clarissa Pinkola Estés: Working With the Stories Of Our LIves

I hope you will go out and let stories, 

that is life, happen to you, and that you will 

work with these stories... water them with your 

blood and tears and your laughter 

till they bloom, till you yourself 

burst into bloom.
 

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés,  

From Women Who Run With the Wolves: 

Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

Thích Nhất Hạnh: Nourishing Awareness

Thích Nhất Hạnh has long been among my treasured teachers. May each of us seek and connect with those who nourish and awaken our minds, hearts, and souls and support us on our ongoing journeys into greater wholeness, compassion, wisdom, and love. It is vital, I believe, to peel back the layers of our ignorance, apathy, and unconsciousness and grow our hearts big enough to embrace the suffering within ourselves and others. In allowing our hearts to break open, we grow in caring and the ways in which we act compassionately. In looking at this piece by Thích Nhất Hạnh and nourishing our conscious awareness about the great tragedy of this preventable hunger and poverty, it also needs to be acknowledged that one in four American children live in poverty. It isn't just those "others out there" who suffer. By nourishing this ever deepening awareness within ourselves, we are empowered to increasingly open to what our part is in the healing and awakening of our world. — Molly

When people sit down to dinner and look at our plate filled with fragrant and appetizing food, we can nourish our awareness of the bitter pain of people who suffer from hunger. Every day, 40,000 children die as a result of hunger and malnutrition. Every day! Such a figure shocks us every time we hear it. Looking deeply at our plate, we can "see" Mother Earth, the farm workers, and the tragedy of hunger and malnutrition.

We who live in North America and Europe are accustomed to eating grains and other foods imported from the Third World, such as coffee from Columbia, chocolate from Ghana, or fragrant rice from Thailand. We must be aware that children in these countries, except those from rich families, never see such fine products. They eat inferior foods, while the finer products are put aside for export in order to bring in foreign exchange. There are even some parents who, because they do not have the means to feed their children, resort to selling their children to be servants to families who have enough to eat. 

Before each meal, we can join our palms in mindfulness and think about the children who do not have enough to eat. Doing so will help us maintain mindfulness of our good fortune, and perhaps one day we will find ways to do something to help change the system of injustice that exists in the world. In many refugee families, before each meal, a child holds up his bowl of rice and says something like this: "Today, on the table, there are many delicious foods. I am grateful to be here with my family enjoying these wonderful dishes. I know there are many children less fortunate , who are very hungry." Being a refugee he knows, for example, that most Thai children never see the kind of fine rice grown in Thailand that he is about to eat. It is difficult to explain to children in the "overdeveloped" nations that not all children in the world have such beautiful and nourishing food. Awareness of this fact alone can help us overcome many of our own psychological pains. Eventually our contemplations can help us to see how to assist those who need our help so much.

  —Thích Nhất Hạnh

From Peace Is Every Step: The Path of

Mindfulness in Everyday Life 

Joanna Macy: When We Align Ourselves With the Well-Being Of Our World

Joanna Macy has long been among my treasured teachers. May we all seek and connect with those who nourish and awaken our minds, hearts, and souls and support us on our ongoing journeys into greater wholeness, awareness, compassion, wisdom, and love. — Molly

Arne Naess introduced the term 'ecological self' to describe the wider sense of identity that arises when our self interest includes the natural world. When we include the natural world, we are brought into a much larger story of who and what we are. Recognizing ourselves as part of the living body of Earth opens us to a greater source of strength. The expression 'act your age' takes on a different meaning when we see ourselves as part of an amazing flow of life that started on this planet more than 3-1/2 billion years ago. We come from an unbroken lineage that has survived through five mass extinctions. Life has a powerful creative energy and manifests a powerful desire to continue. When we align ourselves with the well-being of our world, we allow that desire and creative energy to act through us...

We live in the web of life in reciprocity with other people, other creatures, and the Earth, recognizing that they are part of us and we are part of them...

What we see here is how personal well-being, community well-being, and planetary well-being re linked to the way we view our self. The extreme individualism of our culture is harmful to all three levels. To promote the recovery of our world and the healing of our communities, while also leading lives that are rich and satisfying, we need to embody a larger story of who and what we are...

This perspective invites a greater sense of possibility...

When we see with new eyes, we discover a different way of perceiving and experiencing power.

— Joanna Macy 

Marshall Rosenberg: If We Change Ourselves, We Can Change the World

The work of Marshall Rosenberg is powerful, illuminating, and transformative. It is my belief that there is a great need to cultivate new ways of relating and communicating, new identities and belief systems, and new value systems based in a model of understanding, empathy, respect, and partnership. I envision a time when more and more of us are recognizing this need and assuming responsibility for our part in cultivating peace within ourselves and this beautiful world we share. — Molly

  

What I Want In My Life Is Compassion, A Flow Between Myself and Others Based On a Mutual Giving From the Heart

Life-alienating communication both stems from and supports hierarchical or domination societies, where large populations are controlled by a small number of individuals to those individuals, own benefit. It would be in the interest of kings, czars, nobles, and so forth that the masses be educated in a way that renders them slavelike in mentality. The language of wrongness, should, and have to is perfectly suited for this purpose: the more people are trained to think in terms of moralistic judgments that imply wrongness and badness, the more they are being trained to look outside themselves—to outside authorities—for the definition of what constitutes right, wrong, good, and bad. When we are in contact with our feelings and needs, we humans no longer make good slaves and underlings.

What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.

All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.

We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.

Every criticism, judgment, diagnosis, and expression of anger is the tragic expression of an unmet need. 

Now, with regard to the people who have done things we call "terrorism," I'm confident they have been expressing their pain in many different ways for thirty years or more. Instead of our empathically receiving it when they expressed it in much gentler ways -- they were trying to tell us how hurt they felt that some of their most sacred needs were not being respected by the way we were trying to meet our economic and military needs -- they got progressively more agitated. Finally, they got so agitated that it took horrible form.

As we’ve seen, all criticism, attack, insults, and judgments vanish when we focus attention on hearing the feelings and needs behind a message. The more we practice in this way, the more we realize a simple truth: behind all those messages we’ve allowed ourselves to be intimidated by are just individuals with unmet needs appealing to us to contribute to their well-being. When we receive messages with this awareness, we never feel dehumanized by what others have to say to us. We only feel dehumanized when we get trapped in derogatory images of other people or thoughts of wrongness about ourselves.

As author and mythologist Joseph Campbell suggested, "'What will they think of me?' must be put aside for bliss." We begin to feel this bliss when messages previously experienced as critical or blaming begin to be seen for the gifts they are: opportunities to give to people who are in pain.” 

At the core of all anger is a need that is not being fulfilled.

... As is often the case, these groups were more skilled in analyzing the perceived wrongness of others than in clearly expressing their own needs.

My theory is that we get depressed because we’re not getting what we want, and we’re not getting what we want because we have never been taught to get what we want. Instead, we’ve been taught to be good little boys and girls and good mothers and fathers. If we’re going to be one of those good things, better get used to being depressed. Depression is the reward we get for being “good.” But, if you want to feel better, I’d like you to clarify what you would like people to do to make life more wonderful for you.

Don’t mix up that which is habitual with that which is natural. 

To practice the process of conflict resolution, we must completely abandon the goal of getting people to do what we want. 

Peace cannot be built on the foundations of fear.

Blaming and punishing others are superficial expressions of anger.

Two Questions That Reveal the Limitations of Punishment Two questions help us see why we are unlikely to get what we want by using punishment to change people’s behavior. The first question is: What do I want this person to do that’s different from what he or she is currently doing? If we ask only this first question, punishment may seem effective, because the threat or exercise of punitive force may well influence someone’s behavior. However, with the second question, it becomes evident that punishment isn’t likely to work: What do I want this person’s reasons to be for doing what I’m asking? 

When we understand the needs that motivate our own and other's behavior, we have no enemies.

Peace requires something far more difficult than revenge or merely turning the other cheek; it requires empathizing with the fears and unmet needs that provide the impetus for people to attack each other. Being aware of these feelings and needs, people lose their desire to attack back because they can see the human ignorance leading to these attacks; instead, their goal becomes providing the empathic connection and education that will enable them to transcend their violence and engage in cooperative relationships.

Everyone clings to their history with a vengeance, because it anchors their identity. So when Marshall advocated peaceful talk, he was advocating a new identity at the same time. He fully realized this fact. As he states about Nonviolent Communication and the role of the mediator in this new third edition, “We’re trying to live a different value system while we are asking for things to change."

Let’s shine the light of consciousness on places where we can hope to find what we are seeking. 

"This world is what we have made of it. If it is ruthless today it is because we have made it ruthless by our attitudes. If we change ourselves we can change the world, and changing ourselves begins with changing our language and methods of communication. I highly recommend reading this book and applying the Nonviolent Communication process it teaches. It is a significant first step toward changing our communication and creating a compassionate world." — Arun Gandhi (In his review of Nonviolent Communication.) 

 ― Marshall B. Rosenberg

Most quotes are from Nonviolent Communication: 

A Language of Life: Life Changing Tools 

For Healthy Relationships 

Please go here for more information:

https://www.cnvc.org/about/marshall-rosenberg.html 

Sam Keen: The More You Become a Connoisseur Of Gratitude

The more you become a connoisseur of gratitude, the less you are a victim of resentment, depression, and despair. Gratitude will act as an elixir that will gradually dissolve the hard shell of your ego—your need to possess and control—and transform you into a generous being. The sense of gratitude produces true spiritual alchemy, makes us magnanimous — large souled. 

— Sam Keen

Ruth Bebermeyer: Words Are Windows (or They're Walls)

May we all work to increasingly recognize the inner and outer walls we build, often unknowingly or with justification, and use this mindful awareness as the opportunity to stop and make new choices which add to the peace within ourselves and our world rather than the harm and suffering. I have found that mindfulness of my harsh inner critic and judging mind offers me that exact opportunity I need to transform these obstacles, these walls I build, into the consciousness, empathy, and compassion needed to continuously grow into the greater wholeness that is present within myself. This part of of ourselves that is Awake is always there. May we connect more and more deeply with the windows of awareness, compassion, healing, wisdom, and love that are so needed. Bless us all, no exceptions. — Molly

 

 

Words Are Windows (or They’re Walls)

 

I feel so sentenced by your words
I feel so judged and sent away
Before I go I got to know
Is that what you mean to say?

Before I rise to my defense,
Before I speak in hurt or fear,
Before I build that wall of words,
Tell me, did I really hear?

Words are windows, or they’re walls,
They sentence us, or set us free.
When I speak and when I hear,
Let the love light shine through me.

There are things I need to say,
Things that mean so much to me,
If my words don’t make me clear,
Will you help me to be free?

If I seemed to put you down,
If you felt I didn’t care,
Try to listen through my words
To the feelings that we share.

— Ruth Bebermeyer

From the book NonViolent Communication:

A Language of Life