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| Photo by Molly |
This is a piece that I am called to write — and which also includes a diversity of related quotes from the wisdom keepers among us, past and present — not just for whoever may come across my blog, but also for myself. I also need these reminders, these reflections and meditations, these calls into greater healing and wholeness. Because there is no denying that all of us, on a continuum and with no exceptions, we are living in deeply traumatic times. It is my belief that this trauma permeates everything. And because we are all connected and all interrelated — and whether we are aware of it not — we are impacted by and absorb the suffering of humans beings near and far and right alongside our other nonhuman planetary sisters and brothers and the Earth herself.
It is my belief that we all need and benefit from wise, compassionate, and loving support to increasingly embody what we and our world need to heal.
Listed below are some of the areas which spontaneously come to me as I reflect upon taking care of our precious selves and each other as we face and experience the great sorrows unfolding before us. For me, each one of these areas are also interwoven with all the others.
That said, I recognize and honor that no two people will identify and resonate with all that speaks to me. No two lists would be the same. So please, and as always, just take what you like and leave the rest. And, hopefully, you will find something here which does speak to you and which in some way is inspiring, illuminating, and nourishing for your hearts, minds, bodies, spirits, and souls.
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| Photo by Molly |
Self-Care
Without making the time to care for our precious selves, we are at risk of burnout, of turning away from rather than embracing our part of acting on behalf of a highest good for us all. Self-care will be unique to each of us and embodied and practiced differently. And there are countless ways in which we discover and define that which nourishes us — soothes and heals, connects and informs, and brings peace and beauty and balance. May we bring mindfulness and commitment to caring for ourselves in the best ways possible during these difficult times and all times.
"Self-care is never a selfish act - it is only good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others." — Parker Palmer
Rest
How do we rest, take breaks, tend to our bodies, hearts, souls? Rest is an essential part of the care of our soul, to our capacity for deepening resilience, and to our increasing and expanding experience of being fully embodied human beings.
“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.” — May Sarton
"When we let go of our battles and open our hearts to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice." — Jack Kornfield
Community
In isolation we wither and contract. We can become lost to the deeper truths about ourselves and one another. In community we expand, grow, and find grounding upon which to be human. In community we find ourselves mirrored in the faces and hearts of others. And we are transformed, awakened, and held by the diversity of experiences and relationships that we cultivate with others. Within community we find empathy and compassion, mirrors for our strengths and that which needs healing, and new ways of seeing and experiencing our lives and those of others. And through being witnessed and loved, we are empowered to awaken more deeply to the beauty and wholeness of who we are. This is a deeply spiritual process which empowers us to more deeply recognize and experience the sacredness of all life and our interrelationship with all beings.
“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” — Thích Nhất Hạnh
"In reality, there is a single integral community of the Earth that includes all its component members whether human or other than human. In this community every being has its own role to fulfill, its own dignity, its own inner spontaneity. Every being has its own voice. Every being declares itself to the entire universe. Every being enters into communion with other beings." — Thomas Berry
"Community is an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace, the flowing of personal identity and integrity into the world of relationships." — Parker Palmer
"In the absence of this depth of community, the safe container is difficult to find. By default, we become the container ourselves, and when this happens, we cannot drop into the well of grief in which we can fully let go of the sorrows we carry." — Francis Weller
“The obvious choice, then, is to extend our notions of self-interest. For example, it would not occur to me to plead with you, “Don’t saw off your leg. That would be an act of violence.” It wouldn’t occur to me (or to you) because your leg is part of your body. Well, so are the trees in the Amazon rain basin. They are our external lungs. We are beginning to realize that the world is our body." — Joanna Macy
"The natural world is the larger sacred community to which we belong. To be alienated from this community is to become destitute in all that makes us human. To damage this community is to diminish our own existence." — Thomas Berry
Dukkha
Dukkha is a Buddhist term that is translated as "suffering" and reflects that part of the human condition that we will all inevitably experience and which includes emotional, mental, and physical suffering. Sometimes we cope with our pain and suffering in unhelpful ways, such as through addictions, distractions, denial, disassociation, repression, and/or projecting our pain onto others. Or, and if we are so blessed, we cultivate the skills to recognize and allow, embrace and learn from, and unburden and transform the individual and collective sorrows we carry. It is how we meet the challenges and mistaken beliefs, the losses and betrayals, the delusions and ignorance, and the ancestral and cultural traumas that we humans absorb and experience that makes all the difference. There are times when we recognize what we are doing and that we have choices; and there are times that we remain unaware. We cling to the causes of our suffering or we learn to recognize and dismantle the obstacles we've unknowingly built against love. We contract and become brittle and bitter or we expand and grow into ever evolving compassion, wholeness, and love. The blessings emerge and grow to the degree that we are able to consciously choose to open to allowing rather than resisting life as it is. This is a lifelong practice.
“The truth that many people never understand until it is too late is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer." — Thomas Merton
"We are talking only to ourselves. We are not talking to the rivers, we are not listening to the wind and stars. We have broken the great conversation. By breaking that conversation we have shattered the universe. All the disasters that are happening now are a consequence of that spiritual 'autism.'" — Thomas Berry
"It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn't depend on how long it has been running; a shift in perspective doesn't depend on how long you've held on to the old view. When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn't matter whether its been dark for ten minutes, ten years or ten decades. The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before. Its never too late to take a moment to look." — Sharon Salzberg
"If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down." — Toni Morrison
"The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?" — Jack Kornfield
Healing
I have been on a path for over forty years now of healing, unburdening, and gradually freeing myself from the delusions, addictions, pain and suffering that had been blindly passed on to me by my ancestors and the culture in which we live. The miracles, the great gifts, and the extraordinary treasures which I have been experiencing — and also witnessing in countless others! — make the journey worthwhile beyond measure. Ultimately, along the way there is ever growing and evolving clarity and humility, connection and compassion, joy and peace, wholeness and wisdom and love. This is the sacred journey of becoming who we truly are and recognizing and honoring the sacred with which all of life is imbued. No self-improvement required. Instead there is the hard and priceless work of dismantling the harmful patterns, beliefs, delusions, and behaviors which are often endemic in society and considered "normal." Even "awakening" today is disparaged, as though shedding and trading in our illusions, ignorance, and indoctrination for truth, compassion, and love is something bad and negative. It is not. But it does threaten a tragically normalized status quo that is dependent on our staying disconnected, polarized, and asleep. Just know that there are no pain-free options. It may seem like trying to live our lives without going into the deeper places within our hearts which hold old pain and trauma is the easier path to take. Just know that it is not. The price we pay for living a less than authentic, conscious, and deeply compassionate and loving life is the greatest loss that we humans can experience. The ripples that we create for ourselves and our world — which are directly related to our choices to open our hearts ever more deeply or not — matter. Deeply.
“Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns...We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.” — Tara Brach
"We cannot heal what we cannot feel." — John Bradshaw
"Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know." — Pema Chödrön
"Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you — all of the expectations, all of the beliefs — and becoming who you are." — Rachel Naomi Remen
"Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging." — Joseph Campbell
"You can become your own healer—the special person your vulnerable parts have been waiting for." — Richard Schwartz (https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2024/06/richard-schwartz-love-is-answer-in-this.html)
“By inviting in these experiences of interconnectedness we can enhance our sense of belonging to our world. This mode of being widens and deepens our sense of who we are.” — Joanna Macy
Compassion
When I first began on this path of heart in 1983, and although I didn't realize it, my capacity for compassion was inconsistent, injured, and impaired. There was definitely an ancestral aspect to this with having had a mother who point blank told me that love was not conditional, but had to be "earned." My mother's narcissism was cultivated years earlier as a means to survive a childhood in which both of her parents were not able to provide the empathy and compassion that is an essential need for any child to thrive. And my father had never experienced the compassionate support that he had needed to come out of the closet as a gay man. Added onto this was the culture of having grown up in relatively wealthy communities where image management was expected, required, and everything. Bottom line is that as far back as I can see, there was this being cut off from oneself and all others, this deep seated fear of vulnerability, this pattern of defending one's heart against the trauma of not being seen or accepted or supported, and this learned experience to judge rather than understand, know, and love oneself and others. Recognizing and healing these kinds wounds and deep psychic injuries, having the support we need to gradually undefend our hearts, and opening to the experience of receiving and giving compassion changes everything.
"So many of us start along the spiritual path because we are suffering. But you must realize that for real healing to occur, there must first be deep compassion for yourself, especially the parts of yourself you dislike or consider ugly." — Pema Chödrön
"Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human." — Henri Nouwen
“A world without empathy is a world that is dead to others—and if we are dead to others, we are dead to ourselves. The sharing of another’s pain can take us past the narrow canyon of selfish disregard, and even cruelty, and into the larger, more expansive landscape of wisdom and compassion.” — Joan Halifax
“By strengthening our compassion, we give fuel to our courage and determination.” — Joanna Macy
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." — HH Dalai Lama
Beauty
Our culture often provides images and messages about beauty that in reality lead us away from the true experience of beauty. We try to maintain an image that is disassociated from the authenticity, grace, and beauty of who we truly are. We miss the radiance emanating from inside of ourselves and others and our other than human relatives. And we can also be swept up so deeply with the horrors of the world that we are blinded to all the goodness, to the heroes in our midst, to the wonders of Nature and Wild Places, and to all that remains sacred and beautiful in ourselves and our world. This kind of recognition of and reverence for beauty in its many forms is something that I believe is essential to balance, to staying grounded in a turbulent world, and to remembering the larger pictures which nourish and sustain us. It can be difficult but also essential work to truly remember, see, and honor the beauty that inhabits our hearts, other living beings, and our Earth Mother.
"How do we bear the dark realities of the human world, that become more awful and surreal every day? How do we contain our rage, grief, disappointment, and the anxiety of our own powerlessness, without falling into overwhelm? For me, beauty offers a frame, not as a way to avoid the truth, but as a means for containing it. Beauty doesn't provide a solution to anything; but it can serve as a spacious nest, a place of perspective to hold and heal our broken hearts. May it be so." — Chris Jordan
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” — Maya Angelou
Inspiration
Inspiration comes in many forms. All lead back to love.
"You are more than you think you are. There are dimensions of your being and a potential for realization and consciousness that are not included in your concept of yourself. Your life is much deeper and broader than you conceive it to be here. What you are living is but a fractional inkling of what is really within you, what gives you life, breadth, and depth." — Joseph Campbell
"Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world." — Malala Yousafzai
"We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world." — Howard Zinn
"Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world." — Desmond Tutu
“There’s a song that wants to sing itself through us. We just got to be available. Maybe the song that is to be sung through us is the most beautiful requiem for an irreplaceable planet or maybe it’s a song of joyous rebirth as we create a new culture that doesn’t destroy its world. But in any case, there’s absolutely no excuse for our making our passionate love for our world dependent on what we think of its degree of health, whether we think it’s going to go on forever. Those are just thoughts anyway. But this moment you’re alive, so you can just dial up the magic of that at any time.” — Joanna Macy
Gratitude and Grief
For some time now I have had a daily practice which includes allowing and honoring both gratitude and grief. This can be an essential practice born out of love, healing and awakening, consciousness and compassion, authenticity and living wholeheartedly, and a commitment to understanding and alleviating the suffering in our world.
"This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don’t be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, because these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings." — Joanna Macy
“When we love deeply, we mourn deeply; extraordinary grief is an expression of extraordinary love. Grief and love mirror each other; one is not possible without the other.” — Joanne Cacciatore
“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I’ll bend toward cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering. Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible.” — Francis Weller
"Joy is hidden in sorrow and sorrow in joy. If we try to avoid sorrow at all costs, we may never taste joy, and if we are suspicious of ecstasy, agony can never reach us either. Joy and sorrow are the parents of our spiritual growth." — Henri Nouwen
"Love is the root of all joy and sorrow." — Meister Eckhart
"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." — Khalil Gibran
Mindfulness
Opening to the practice of mindfulness in my everyday life has been a radical experience for me after living so many of my younger years disassociated, addicted, and disconnected. The blessings of being increasingly present in our bodies, our hearts, our lives, our world is an extraordinary gift.
"Mindfulness means moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness. It is cultivated by refining our capacity to pay attention, intentionally, in the present moment, and then sustaining that attention over time as best we can. In the process, we become more in touch with our life as it is unfolding." — Jon Kabat-Zinn
"Mindfulness allows us to watch our thoughts, see how one thought leads to the next, decide if we're heading down an unhealthy path, and, if so, let go and change directions." — Sharon Salzberg
"Mindfulness is a pause — the space between stimulus and response: that's where choice lies." — Tara Brach
"The universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects to be exploited. Everything has its own voice. Thunder and lightening and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees — all these have voices, and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly related." — Thomas Berry
"Creation is moving towards us; life is moving towards us all the time. We back away, but life keeps pushing toward us. Why not step forward and greet it?" — Joan Halifax
"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." — Carl Jung
"Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it's important is that, fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn't just ourselves that we're discovering. We're discovering the universe." — Pema Chödrön
Staying Informed
"I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." — Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." ― Albert Einstein
"Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world." ― Paulo Freire
"The most violent element in society is ignorance." — Emma Goldman
"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." ― Carl Jung
Random Acts of Kindness
There are truly countless ways in which we can extend ourselves to others in caring and kindness. Of course, if we are holding onto beliefs which withhold enduring kindness from ourselves, then it will be more difficult to practice kindness with others. That said, as we open and increasingly see through the eyes of our hearts, a profound transformation occurs. This has certainly been my experience. And, as an example, in this moment I reflect on how radically different my responses are today to human beings standing on street corners with their little signs asking for help. Years ago I used to turn away and choose to not recognize their suffering and trauma. Over time, as I embraced and healed more and more of the trauma that I carried, the fog I had unknowingly been in gradually lifted. And I could see and understand that it is trauma that has brought my fellow human beings to these corners seeking help. Sure, there are those who say don't give them anything because they'll just go buy drugs. And I respond with the knowing that it may be the drugs and alcohol which — yes, may be slowly killing them — and it is likely their addictions which are also keeping them alive by numbing unbearable pain, shame, and loss. So I have been empowered to leave my old judging mind behind and instead extend my hand with a granola bar and $1 or more to every single human being who I can reach who is standing on a street corner anywhere. It doesn't matter their age or gender or what their signs say. And, where possible, I seek eyes to look into — which allows me to communicate with the deepest compassion and caring that I see you and you matter. This is just one example of my evolution related to the endless possibilities that are grounded in the practice of kindness towards ourselves and other living beings.
"My religion is very simple- my religion is kindness." — the Dalai Lama
"Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul." — Rachel Naomi Remen
"We don’t set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people’s hearts." ― Pema Chödrön
“Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world.” — Joanna Macy
Not Turning Away
To not turn away is courageous. We humans will only be able to recognize the pain and trauma of others, and be moved to act in some way alleviate that pain, if we are first grounded in practices which open and strengthen our connection with our own hearts. If we are carrying layers of unaddressed ancestral and cultural trauma, our capacity to truly care about the suffering of others will inevitably be impaired or severed. We will not see in others what we are blinded to within ourselves. Yet nothing could be more crucial today than embodying the courage, empathy, integrity, resilience, compassion and profound caring for the injustices that are rampant in our society and beyond. What I have come to recognize over time is how deeply interconnected our own healing journeys are with the healing and transformation of our world. It matters deeply where we fall on the continuum with ignorance, disconnection, and delusions on the one end and consciousness, compassion, and love on the other.
Courage
May we humans be increasingly grounded in spiritual journeys which nourish our capacity for and practice of courage. May we be committed in an ongoing way to seeking and going to the places in our hearts and our world that are new, frightening, empowering, and illuminating. May clarity, connectedness, compassion, wisdom and love evolve and grow within us ― all of which requires courage.
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.” ― Maya Angelou
"Action creates its own courage and courage is as contagious as fear. You must do the thing you think you cannot do." ― Eleanor Roosevelt
Refrain from Dehumanizing Anyone
Anytime that we engage in labeling individuals or groups of human beings as less than human and "evil" — and that the solution to ridding ourselves of "evil" is to label, banish, oppress, deport, hate, exterminate, or commit any form of violence against those human beings — we are engaging in the exact dehumanization that justifies, condones, is complicit with, and supports beliefs, delusions, and actions that are inherently evil. We become that which we tragically project onto others. The language and actions that perpetuate dehumanization — rather than create peace, connection, compassion, clarity, caring, and love — are sometimes blatant and sometimes subtle. In these deeply traumatic times, it can be common to hear the labeling of those who are seen as causing great harm as "idiots", "morons", "illegals", and other names which justify the dehumanization and hatred of this Other. We can experience getting locked into justifying hatred of human beings rather than their actions. And this is where looking deeper into the root causes of all forms of violence is essential. An example is researching the horrific abuse that Donald Trump experienced as a child. Narcissism is always rooted in the early abuse and neglect that gives rise to self-loathing. And where did my mother's pain and trauma originate from — whose severe narcissism played large roles in both my father's death at 60 and my twin brother's suicide two years later at age 26? People who commit monstrous acts simply do not just fall from the sky. First there was deep trauma that was experienced as tiny vulnerable children. This is where we need to go, this deeper territory and understanding that holds the wisdom of our hearts. Again and again and again. In this process, we do not justify or condone or excuse any form of abuse, injustice, and violence committed other human beings. But we do become empowered to not return the violence of dehumanization with more of the same. We cannot cause harm to anyone unless we first in some way dehumanize them. This is a huge life lesson. It certainly has been for me.
"The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.” — James Baldwin
"Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated." — Martin Luther King, Jr.
“When I am sharply judgmental of any other person, it’s because I sense or see reflected in them some aspect of myself that I don’t want to acknowledge.” – Gabor Maté
Circle of Caring, Connection, and Compassion
May our circles of caring and compassion evolve to exclude no one. As we come to recognize and feel into the truth of our sacred interbeing with all of life, who then can we harm? Our human and other than human planetary family are all our relatives. Awakening to this sacred truth changes everything. Our profound caring for all of life then evolves and expands to include all of our sacred relations.
“If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.” –Pema Chödrön
"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." — Albert Einstein
"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together." — Chief Seattle
“It is no longer appropriate to think only in terms of even my nation or my country, let alone my village. If we are to overcome the problems we face, we need what I have called a sense of universal responsibility rooted in love and kindness for our human brothers and sisters. In our present state of affairs, the very survival of humankind depends on people developing concern for the whole of humanity, not just their own community or nation. The reality of our situation impels us to act and think more clearly. Narrow-mindedness and self-centered thinking may have served us well in the past, but today will only lead to disaster. We can overcome such attitudes through the combination of education and training.” — Joanna Macy
"The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing ... Only when our feet learn once again how to walk in a sacred manner, and our hearts hear the real music of creation, can we bring the world back into balance." — Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Cherish the Blessings We Do Have
In these times, we can sometimes lose sight of the blessings we have while we are witness to such profound suffering, injustice, and violence experienced by others. There is so much to hold. So much. And underneath all the trauma and turbulence is our capacity to experience and remember gratitude, beauty, joy, peace, love, and all that is sacred.
"If you go deeper and deeper into your own heart, you'll be living in a world with less fear, isolation and loneliness." — Sharon Salzberg
"The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are." — Carl Jung
“The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing. And the deepest part of our separateness from creation lies in our forgetfulness of its sacred nature, which is also our own sacred nature." — Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
"It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that's what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower is to bloom." — Alice Walker
"If you learn to respond as if it’s the first day in your life and the very last day, then you will have spent this day very well." — David Steindl-Rast
Pursue and Speak the Truth
It can be a long, frightening, humbling, and courageous journey — this shedding of our indoctrination, illusions, and ignorance. And, as I have learned on my own journey, disillusionment is an essential part of shedding our illusions and attachments to that which is not grounded in truth. In our culture we are surrounded by and immersed in distractions, disinformation, polarizing propaganda, and relentless messages which disempower and disconnect. Therefore, pursuing and speaking the truth is an essential part of the healing and transformation of ourselves and our world.
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth is revolutionary." — George Orwell
"But I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is... to tell the truth." — Howard Zinn
"Go where the silence is and say something." — Amy Goodman
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Activism
Wise ones often say that activism is the antidote to despair. And that has certainly been my experience. There is such a great need for those of us who are not mired in trauma and violence need to do our part, whatever that is, in joining in solidarity with the national and universal struggle for justice, truth, sustainability, peace, and love. No act on behalf of a higher good for us all is too small. We are all needed, all in this together. Another world is possible. And regardless of outcome, we simply need to do the right thing — which is always rooted in love.
"People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do." — Dorothy Day
"Activism is my rent for living on the planet." — Alice Walker
Authenticity
May more and more of us increasingly ground ourselves in paths of heart which free us from the shackles of our delusions and empower us to evolve and grow into the sacred wholeness and beauty of who we truly are.
“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.” — Brené Brown
“Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God. It is this spot of grace that issues peace. Psychologists call this spot the Psyche, Theologians call it the Soul, Jung calls it the Seat of the Unconscious, Hindu masters call it Atman, Buddhists call it Dharma, Rilke calls it Inwardness, Sufis call it Qalb, and Jesus calls it the Center of our Love.” — Mark Nepo
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” — e.e. cummings
Alchemy
It's now been three decades since a clinical supervisor where I was employed at that time looked at me and said, "Molly, you are an alchemist." She knew some of the deeper aspects of my story and was illuminating something for me that I did not yet understand. Today I am conscious in my deepest being of the profound blessings of cultivating the gifts of the alchemist. What this experience can bring to us is the consciousness that our suffering is not just about suffering. Instead, there are strengths and wisdom and a depth of compassion and love that we can claim exactly by going into the depths of where we have been wounded in our lives and healing, unburdening, and transforming our deepest pain and trauma. This is the invitation for all of us who are able to do this sacred work — claim and embody the treasures that are buried in the darkness. I believe this to be essential to the healing and transformation of us both as individuals and collectively. All of our struggles, addictions, diagnoses, old patterns and triggers, and the ways that we have experienced trauma and loss can ultimately be used as trailheads to what needs to be embraced, learned from, and claimed as pathways on our spiritual journeys to deepening our capacity for love.
"Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not, 'How can we hide our wounds?' so we don't have to be embarrassed, but 'How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?' When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers." — Henri Nouwen
"Only by discovering alchemy have I clearly understood that the Unconscious is a process and that ego's rapport with the Unconscious and its contents initiate an evolution, more precisely, a real metamorphosis of the psyche." — Carl Jung
“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”―
"Encountering sufferings will definitely contribute to the elevation of your spiritual practice, provided you are able to transform calamity and misfortune into the path." ― HH Dalai Lama
Peace
May we humans increasingly commit ourselves to the ever deepening and evolving sacred work of cultivating peace within ourselves and our world. May our hearts remain open. May we know the beauty of our own true nature. May we be healed. May we be at peace.
"When we hold on to our opinions with aggression, no matter how valid our cause, we are simply adding more aggression to the planet, and violence and pain increase. Cultivating nonaggression is cultivating peace." — Pema Chödrön
"We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come." ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, from Living Buddha, Living Christ
"So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications." — Pema Chödrön
"The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one." — Toni Morrison
"True refuge is that which allows us to be at home, at peace, to discover true happiness. The only thing that can give us true refuge is the awareness and love that is intrinsic to who we are. Ultimately, it's our own true nature." — Tara Brach
Equanimity
Spiritual Practices
- Embrace, heal, unburden, and transform pain and trauma
- Expand my circle of compassion and caring
- Honor all my relations and the sacred interrelationship and value of all beings
- Recognize truth, shed what is harmful, and live with greater authenticity
- Evolve and deepen my capacity for consciousness, compassion, wisdom, and Love
- Live my life as a prayer
- Do no harm
- Embody the vow to work to alleviate the suffering within myself, my beloveds, and the world we all share.
“Spiritual teachers’ words are (in the traditional Buddhist metaphor) fingers pointing at the moon; if you watch the finger, you can’t see the moon.” — Stephen Mitchell’s translation of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching
"You can think of spiritual practice as a kind of spiritual re-parenting ... You're offering yourself the two qualities that make up good parenting: understanding - seeing yourself for who you truly are - and relating to what you see with unconditional love." — Tara Brach
"Spiritual practice is not just sitting and meditation. Practice is looking, thinking, touching, drinking, eating and talking. Every act, every breath, and every step can be practice and can help us to become more ourselves." — Thích Nhất Hạnh
"We can bring our spiritual practice into the streets, into our communities, when we see each realm as a temple, as a place to discover that which is sacred." —Jack Kornfield
"I feel that the essence of spiritual practice is your attitude toward others. When you have a pure, sincere motivation, then you have right attitude toward others based on kindness, compassion, love and respect." — HH Dalai Lama
"There isn't anything except your own life that can be used as ground for your spiritual practice. Spiritual practice is your life, twenty-four hours a day." — Pema Chödrön
"We have in us a divine spark that you can see. It's a Light that shines in the human being. It's our direct access to truth, our direct access to God. The purpose of all the spiritual practices that exist are to awaken that sparkto give it life, to give it energy, so that it can transform you. One of the energies that comes from that spark is Love." — Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
"Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart." — Rumi
"Love is the answer in the inner world just as it is in the outer world." — Richard Schwartz
"The more we love, the more real we become." — Stephen Levine
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| Photo by Molly -Kuan Yin, Buddhist Bodhisattva and Goddess of Compassion |
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