Author: listeningtomylife7

I spent much of my career in education, serving in several capacities in the public schools.  I was a teacher, counselor, sex-equity coordinator, introducing and implementing Title IX, and principal. I left a tenured position and started my own business as an educational consultant in organizational change.  At 55 I stopped everything and followed Spirit’s whispers which lead me into a deep spiritual healing. I share my healing journey in my new memoir, "Listening to My Life." It is available on Amazon in both print and e-book format.  I am  a spiritual director living in Tacoma, WA, and continue to enjoy hiking, gardening, traveling , and reading. 

Simple Abundance

by listeningtomylife7, posted in compassion, spirituality, Uncategorized

It was 25 years ago that I was introduced to Sarah Ban Breathnach, book Simple Abundance: A DayBook of Comfort and Joy. It was the perfect book for me at that

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time in my life. After spending a year with her daily meditations, this book found a home on my crowded bookshelf.

This December crept up on me and I began thinking about the busyness, chaos, family and friends the holiday season brings. It also is a time to hunker in as the days grow short. A time to be still and listen to Spirit’s movement in our souls. It is hard to balance these two seemingly opposing views. As I pondered how to honor both in my life, I thought about Simple Abundance,and the six qualities she shares in her book to bring peace and happiness. Below is an excerpt from this lovely book.

“These are the six threads of abundant living which, when woven together, produce a tapestry of contentment that wraps us in inner peace, well-being, happiness, and a sense of security . First there is gratitude. When we do a mental and spiritual inventory of all that we have, we realize that we are very rich indeed. Gratitude gives way to simplicity–the desire to clear out, pare down, and realize the essentials of what we need to live truly well. Simplicity brings with it order, both internally and externally. A sense of order in our life brings us harmony. Harmony provides us with the inner peace we need to appreciate the beauty that surrounds us each day, and beauty opens us joy.”                        

What wonderful words to reflect upon and determine where they are in our lives. My advent will be spent with these words–gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty, and joy. What powerful qualities to integrate into my life on a daily basis. I am taking each word and asking myself, “How do I live out this word?” “What are the challenges and gifts this quality poses?”

I invite each of you to spend time in quiet stillness and ponder the power of these essential principles in your own life. May your holidays be filled with an abundance of gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty, and joy.

Reside in Gratitude

by listeningtomylife7, posted in nature, spirituality, Uncategorized

DPPP_0093.jpegThe Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.          

I return to this poem to remind myself to rest in the grace of the world.  This past week has been very tumultuous for me. After a week of impeachment hearings and the Democratic debate I am exhausted. It’s been a week of deep sadness as the great divide in our country seems to deepen. Each side seems to harden their position regarding President Trump’s impeachment hearings. How can we begin to bridge the gap and become one country again?

I woke this morning and knew I had a choice.  I could stay angry and grief-stricken or I could choose to reside in gratitude.  As I returned to gratitude, I felt my whole body unwind.  I looked around my home and realized how much I had to be grateful for.  My friends, my clients who entrust me with their stories, my garden, the birds that grace my feeders, the seven miles of nature trails out my back gate, and so much more.  These bring me joy and take me out of the anger and grief. Nature brings me back to my center.

I will not bury my head in the sand. I’ll continue to take action when I feel others are being unjustly treated, but I choose not to linger there.  I choose to return to gratitude, joy, and hope.

May you choose to reside in gratitude for your health and well-being. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving remembering all that you have to be grateful for in your life.

This is an updated version of my Thanksgiving post from last year.

Plant Communication

by listeningtomylife7, posted in communication, compassion, nature, spirituality, Uncategorized

IMG_1004I have always been fascinated with the thought of plants communicating with each other and us. Thanks to quantum physics we have moved from a reductionist look at life to the reality of our interconnectedness with all living beings human and non human. There are three stories that have always touched me that demonstrate the communication of plants.

The first is one that happened back in the late 1990’s. It is about a young woman named Julia Butterfly Hill, who took up residence in a 1,500 year-old redwood tree for 738 days to protect it from Pacific Lumber Company. Pacific Lumber had been hired to down this entire grove of redwoods. Julia was supported by a group of activists who set up a pully system to send her food, etc., as she was able to send down waste. She affectionately named the tree Luna. Pacific Lumber Company tried all kinds of legal maneuvers to get her out of the tree. Finally out of frustration they decided to take all the trees around her and leave her and the tree. As soon as the chainsaws started, Julia said that Luna began emitting sap, not just a little, but amazing quantities pouring over her and her platform. Luna had not emitted any sap in the days of living in her shelter. Julia was convinced that Luna was crying for her partners in the grove. Was Luna crying? No one can know for sure. I choose to believe she was, as she began to witness the destruction of her family.

The second story comes out of the University of Arizona. Its science department was doing research on plant life in the desert. Again, this was the late 1990’s. What they found truly surprised them and started them on a completely new path of research. The Arizona desert is filled with wild pigs called Javalenas, or commonly known as Collard Peccary. They observed that as a Javalena was eating the berries from one shurb, the shrubs surrounding this one were being left alone by the other pigs. As they researched this phenomenon they discovered that the shrub being attacked sent out distress messages to the plants through its root system warning them of disaster. Receiving the message, the plants developed thorns preventing the pigs from eating their berries.

The last study study is the findings that trees talk to each other. Scientists have found they communicate via pheromones, hormone like compounds that are wafted on the breeze. When one tree is being attacked by insects, gypsy months, or beetles it sends out distress signals. The downward trees catch the drift, sensing those few molecules of alarm. This gives them time to manufacture defensive chemicals benefitting the entire grove.

Plant life survives through unity and communication, protecting each other from harm.  We humans do the same thing. It seems hard to believe at this time of deep divide. I

IMG_1012know that if I were stranded on the freeway a majority of those passing would stop and help. They wouldn’t ask my political allegiance. I write this post as a reminder to me, as well as others, that we do stick together in times of crisis. Our country seems so divided, flamed by hate-filled rhetoric, that it sometimes feels there is no hope. I return to the simple belief in kindness. I see it every day when I pay attention.

May we pay attention to acts of kindness we receive and give each day. This is our way of caring for each other, maintaining hope in a world that seems to have gone array. We need it more than ever at this time in history.

Transitions

by listeningtomylife7, posted in change, nature, spirituality, Uncategorized

IMG_1126Life is a balance of holding on and letting go. Rumi

What better time to write about transitions then when fall is slowly turning to winter. I’ve always used the seasons as a way to look at my own growth. In fall I love walking in the crisp air and seeing the vivid colors that tell me fall is in its prime. I watch the leaves let go and fall to the ground, and ask myself “What do I need to let go of.” I mourn the slow loss of my roses, dahlias, and other summer plants. I watch them die away, going dormant, preparing for the rest winter offers for renewal. I ask myself, “What is dying within me?” “What wants to be birthed?” These are questions of transition. Questions many of us ask, and often want quick answers.  I turn to Rainer Maria Rilke’s quote reminding me to be patient:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

It is often hard for me to “live the question.” I let the questions free float as I do walking meditations. I make space for the answers by slowing down and listening to what comes forth.

May you find the time to be patient and “Live the Questions” of your life.

 

An Epidemic of Loneliness

by listeningtomylife7, posted in change, spirituality, Uncategorized

The Worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.   Mark Twainbacklit-bench-lonely-1280162

A sense of separateness comes from feeling disconnected from community, families, friends, and our own selves. Lion’s Roar, a bimonthly magazine recently had a full section on loneliness.  The introduction showed the number of research studies that are currently being done on loneliness. There are commissions on loneliness and campaigns to end loneliness. The United Kingdom  has a Ministry for Loneliness. Loneliness is a hugh societal issue. We are connected to our phones, computers, and virtual relationships, but no longer look each other in the eye or have actual conversations.

One author recommended completing the sentence; Loneliness is a child….  Without consciously thinking of my own childhood I finished the sentence with the first thought that came to my mind. My sentence stated, “Loneliness is a child, in the midst of a family,  feeling not seen nor heard–feeling invisible.” After writing this I realized this was my childhood. Much of my adult life has been spent yearning to be seen. I also know that I often feel more lonely in groups of people then by myself. I invite you to complete the sentence without forethought. Write what pops up for you.  Write the sentence several times. An interesting exercise to give yourself insight to when you feel lonely.

Natalie Goldberg wrote a piece in this section sharing her sense of loneliness. She states, “Loneliness has followed me all my life……but no one every dared mention the dreaded word loneliness or utter its experience. Did only I feel it? That’s what loneliness is, believing you are alone in the whole world.” Loneliness is something we don’t talk about with others. We often believe we are the only one that feels lonely.

Martha Beck states, “Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.” It is when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to share our sense of loneliness with another that we begin to feel connected. Taking time to be alone helps us get to know who we are beneath the cultural norms that say we need to do more, have more, be more. Solitude gives us the silence needed to let go of what is not working for us.

May you find time in your days for quiet heartfelt conversations and the stillness silence brings so you may get below the layers of societal expectations.

photo credit, Jeswin Thomas