Phyllis Edgerly Ring's Blog, page 29
April 7, 2015
What few put into practice
“Pond”, Lauren Chuslo-Shur
Sometimes, things I stumble across just seem to dance together.
Maybe this is the way Universal Divine Mind waves at me.
This time, the partners are a poem from my friend Ronnie Tomanio,
and long-enduring wisdom from Lao Tzu:
“Morrell Falls 2″, Judy Hughey Wright
The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
~
Nothing in the world
is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
nothing can surpass it.
The soft overcomes the hard;
the gentle overcomes the rigid.
Everyone knows this is true,
but few can put it into practice.
~
Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.
~ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
The Practical Moon
by Ronnie Tomanio
“Sunburst”, Lauren Chuslo-Shur
When was that moment?
The cucumber becoming a pickle moment
When I became … dare I say it out loud …
Practical
The moment when dancing clouds became water vapor
When the heart sun within
Became burning hydrogen without
No longer just two friends
Playing peek-a-boo
I see you
In the sky of blue
All day long
“Make Hay While the Moon Shines”, Lauren Chuslo-Shur
Until the practical moon
That battered, solemn head
Says bedtime
I obey
But I can still dream
Of endless ascendant mornings.
April 5, 2015
What the heart can never understand
Domstrasse, W��rzburg, Germany, May 1945.
My writing world this week is all scenes of rubble and destruction as I pass day by day through the spring of 1945. Such devastation can weigh the heart down flat. I have to remember, as I visit the pages each day, that the subtitle of my work is The Legacies That Outlast War.
And when I turn to the world around us, humanity continues to make war on itself.
I was reminded that the Red Cross exists at all because the first Nobel-Peace Prize winner, Swiss businessman Henry Dunant, was so overcome by emotion at the sight of the unattended wounded on an Italian battlefield that his subsequent efforts led to both the Red Cross and the Geneva Convention.
So, the very first Nobel Prize, which launched a force for good still present in the world today, began with a response of the heart to what, in a sense, it could find no way to reconcile, so it offered itself in service to healing.
Learn more at: https://barrylane.bandcamp.com/track/only-love
All week, my thoughts have turned to all that ‘Abdu’l-Baha said when he visited the U.S. in 1912, that it’s time for a whole world to understand what the Dalai Lama has summarized in this way:
At the end of a talk, the Dalai Lama was asked: “Why didn’t you fight back against the Chinese?”
He looked down, swung his feet just a bit, then looked back up and said with a gentle smile, “Well, war is obsolete, you know “
Then, after a few moments, his face grave, he said, “Of course the mind can rationalize fighting back … but the heart, the heart would never understand.
“Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and the mind, and the war would be inside you.”
And that, indeed, is something the heart will never understand. Perhaps this is what lies at the very heart of the proliferating violence that shocks us so. At its roots is this despairing, hopeless�� battle–one that can never be won, by anyone. What the heart most longs for is to be part of a force for good.
Artist Barry Lane and his daughter Jessie have recorded a sweet reminder of where our real power and possibilities lie, even in a shattered world. Hear the song, “Only Love”, from Force Field for Good: https://barrylane.bandcamp.com/track/only-love
April 1, 2015
Root causes and remedies
Photo: Aletta Reimer Weiss
What underlies the root of all our ills: blind imitation of the past.
The remedy: independent investigation of Reality.
The root cause of prejudice is blind imitation of the past ��� imitation in religion, in racial attitudes, in national bias, in politics.
Imitations of ancestral beliefs have hindered progress for thousands of years. Imitation emphasizes points of disagreement and division among religions, the real foundation of which is oneness.
Imitation obstructs the way to divine knowledge and bounty.
Photo: Aletta Reimer Weiss
So long as the shadows of imitations remain, the oneness of the world of humanity is impossible. As long as imitation persists, humanity will find neither happiness nor rest nor composure. Without true investigation of Reality, the realization of the oneness of religion is also impossible.
HOWEVER - All signs indicate that a sea change in human consciousness is under way. It involves an indwelling attraction beyond and away from blind imitation of the past toward independent investigation of Reality.
There is great cause for hope and faith, confidence and happy determination.
Excerpted from With Thine Own Eyes: Why Imitate the Past When We Can Investigate Reality?
Find the book at: http://www.amazon.com/With-Thine-Own-Eyes-Investigate-ebook/dp/B00I1JPC7I/ref=pd_sim_kstore_11?ie=UTF8&refRID=0TQC490J7FVBRTJWM70H
Also available in print version from: http://www.bahairesources.com/with-thine-own-eyes.html
March 29, 2015
The echo of contemplation
Photo: http://www.wertheimerportal.de/
The inner call that births beginnings is our enduring reminder that it���s never too late, that the new always awaits us.
The young tree of my life was planted in a culture constrained by many limiting beliefs. It believes there is not enough for everyone, that having is being, and that age is an ending. It believes that it owns space, and place, and most often feels owned by time.
Friends from cultures close to the natural world remind that truly, it���s the reverse. Whatever we may think, we are one with space, ���owned by it���, as it were. But in the matter of time, the invention of our minds, we are free to take ownership, and choose.
Photo: Nelson Ashberger
In reflecting about space, and how to direct one���s time, artist Mark Tobey said:
���The dimension that counts for the creative person is the space he creates within himself. This inner space is closer to the infinite than the other, and it is the privilege of the balanced mind… and the search for an equilibrium is essential���to be as aware of inner space as he is of outer space.���
And where is that balance to be found? In what longs for us to hear it, and to become the ear with which it is heard, as the kind visionary knew:
Photo: Lauren Chuslo-Shur
���Contemplation is also the response to a call: a call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being: for we ourselves are words of His. But we are words that are meant to respond to Him, to answer to Him, to echo Him, and even in some way to contain Him and signify Him. Contemplation is this echo. We ourselves become His echo and His answer. It is as if in creating us God asked a question and in awakening us to contemplation He answered the question, so that the contemplative is at the same time, question and answer.”
~ Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
March 26, 2015
The courage to relinquish certainties
Gleanings found here and there:
Painting, “Movement”, Diane Kirkup
Relinquish what is without. Cultivate what is within. Live for your centre, not your senses.
~ Tao te Ching, Lao Tzu
Painting, “Movement”, Diane Kirkup / https://www.etsy.com/shop/DKirkupDesigns
��
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
~ Erich Fromm
There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”���� ~ Carl Jung
March 23, 2015
Each day holds glimpses of heaven
Photo: Cary Enoch
Many aspects of life these days bring a sharp edge that slices into our vulnerable hearts the way paper cuts snag us as if they’ve been lying in wait. Yet, as one friend points out, they happen because we make contact with something.
“Can’t we just try to be kind, to ease up? Can’t we just let love in?” another friend fairly gasped in despair one day recently when the onslaught of news about utterly savage things seemed too much to bear.
The simplest answer is, absolutely we can. Things can all feel so overwhelming, our small, human selves quite powerless, or overpowered — yet the real power we have has been deposited securely in a place that’s always safe from any sort of harm. And its use is designed to be easy and uncomplicated.
Photo: Aletta Reimer Weiss
One experience that my friend Ronnie received in his work with brain-injured folks continues to bring this home to me, to really penetrate my heart with the truth of it, as the years go by.
In the day program for the clients with whom he works, activities are held in a large community building shared by several service organizations.
One day, an adult client who had been hit by a car as a child was being fed his lunch by his caregiver in the building’s cafeteria. Food was dripping down his chin onto his bib, and he was in no position to clean his own face, or even ask for it to be cleaned. Other than one arm that seems to have a life of its own, he has little control over his own body.
But he has total control over his own heart, Ronnie says.
He’d become the friend of a group of 3-year-olds who attend a pre-school in the same building. Each day, after they finished their lunch, they’d crowd around their friend’s wheelchair and tell him all about their day. They weren’t the least bit bothered by the fact that he is unable to answer them, or that bits of food fall off his bib onto the floor. After all, they often have the same problem.
On this particular day, as Ronnie watched this little group, he suddenly spotted one of those glimpses of heaven we get to see, if we’re paying attention. The small, enthusiastic voices were regaling the young man in the wheelchair, and he was sitting quietly, as he has no choice but to do.
And then, in the next unexpected moment, he raised that sometimes wayward arm. There was, no doubt, some concern among the adult onlookers, as he waved it around. Then, it settled softly on a little girl’s shoulder, like a broken-winged bird.
She smiled up at him, and he smiled down at her.
Life is made up of moments, and some of those moments are pure heaven, Ronnie says. But you need to look carefully for them because sometimes they happen in a crowded lunchroom and if you are always looking up, or down, or somewhere else distractedly, you just might miss them.
Fortunately, he adds, life is very generous with the portions of these it dishes out ��� a veritable feast, no matter what harsh winds blow or dark clouds roll over our heads. These are the gifts waiting for us to exchange, and not a single day will withhold them from us.
Adapted from Life at First Sight: Finding the Divine in the Details:
March 20, 2015
The whole sky to fly in
Spring flowers remind us to be happy. It���s as though God treasured this invitation in each one,
then spread them abundantly about the landscape to ensure we wouldn���t miss it.
Photo: Saffron Moser
Spring and flowers and happiness all dwell together in a snapshot scene from a long-ago Equinox.
As I packed up our Toyota for the Naw-R��z (New Year, for Baha’is) party that night, I opened the car door to find our small son sitting in the backseat so surrounded by a mass of daffodils that I could barely see him. To ensure that the flowers traveled safely, my husband gave him the task of holding them and it was the first time he’d seen these harbingers of spring.
It���s hard to remember which was bigger, or brighter — that explosion of golden blooms, or his huge grin as he clutched his precious cargo. That smile was about the only part of him I could see.
Photo: Saffron Moser
This scene had prophecy in it. Today, our son grows hundreds of thousands of plants and sends them out into the wide world.
As I remember that day on this spring morning nearly 30 years later, with the sounds of wild geese flying over the house, I feel a soft sadness brush against me, rather the way a dog or cat might.
Such feelings seem the inevitable outcome of simply living through the decades, a necessary component of the blessing of life, the contrast between happy memories and wistful ones, wintry days and brilliant spring sunshine, dark and light.
Photo: Kathy Gilman
When we pause to reflect, it’s so often the contrast we come to see and recall. As one character in my recent work says, when confronted with the passage — and wages — of�� time:
“Didn’t it all turn out differently than we expected?
Didn’t it once seem there would be the whole sky to fly in?”
It did, no doubt for all of us. It’s not what we thought, or perhaps planned or expected.
And yet, like the flowers and other plants that bloom and reappear so faithfully around us each year, there is fresh beauty and possibility in each new day. Even in the cells of the moments that make them up.
Photo: Saffron Moser
No, it’s never what we thought, because it’s so very much bigger. When we look. And see. It really is the whole sky, and it will come to meet us when we stop hurling ourselves against it.
In their essence, daffodils, like so many spring flowers, remind us to be happy. It���s as though God treasured this special invitation in each one and then spread them abundantly about the landscape to make sure we wouldn���t miss it.
May each new springtime remind us we are truly unlimited�� beings, however earthly our journey often seems.
March 17, 2015
The universe folded within us
Image: Jane E. Harper
I���m delighted to share this guest post from author Jane E. Harper.
Jane���s The Universe Within Us, an inviting synthesis of science, religion, and personal experience, offers n-e-w (non-ego wrought) insight and perspective about our place and purpose in the universe.
It invites ��� and makes an excellent case for — the understanding that every human being possesses a spiritual nature. What we recognize and choose to do in relation to that is at the very core of life.
From Author Jane E Harper:
��
Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny form
when within thee the universe is folded?*
Within you
is that which binds every atom in your body together.
ATTRACTION
Within you
is that which divides cells, turns food into energy, and grows.
AUGMENTATION
Within you
is that which is aware of its environment and learns.
PERCEPTION, EMOTION, INTELLIGENCE
Image: Jane E. Harper
These powers are nested, one within the other. The power of attraction makes possible the power of augmentation. The powers of attraction and augmentation make possible the powers of perception, emotion and intelligence.
But I am not done!
From these powers springs another power, unique to the human being.
Within you
is that which contemplates the world and unlocks its hidden secrets.
You solve problems.
INTELLECT
There is yet more!
Within you
is that which turns your focus of concern away from yourself.
You solve problems for others.
VIRTUE
caring ��� forgiveness ��� tolerance ��� love ��� service ��� wonder ��� perseverance ��� respect ��� creativity ��� detachment ��� faith ��� courtesy ��� reliability ��� justice ��� mercy ��� sacrifice ��� assertiveness ��� loyalty ��� friendliness ��� openness ��� thankfulness ��� truthfulness
This puny form is the ground in which all these capacities are cultivated and bear fruit, its highest yield — your virtuous qualities.
Within you every quality of the universe is folded.
Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny form
when within thee the universe is folded?
_____
*Quote attributed to the Imam Al��, the Prophet Muhammad���s appointed successor, as quoted in Bah�����u���ll��h���s The Seven Valleys, p. 34.
Learn more about Jane and her book, The Universe Within Us at http://janeeharper.com.
March 15, 2015
Allowing room for solutions
Kloster Bronnbach – Photo: http://Wertheimer-Portal.de
I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.������ ~ Henry David Thoreau
Photo: Kathy Gilman
Your life situation may be full of problems ��� most life situations are ��� but find out if you have any problem at this moment. Not tomorrow or in ten minutes, but now.
Do you have a problem now?�� When you are full of problems, there is no room for anything new to enter, no room for a solution. So whenever you can, make some room, create some space, so that you find the life underneath your life situation.������ ~ Eckhart Tolle
Photo: Nelson Ashberger
��
No matter how it seems out there, humanity IS evolving from war-like competitiveness to peaceful and loving connectedness and CO-existence.
��� the chaos we are experiencing in the outer world is nothing more than our own resistance to freedom and peace.
And notice that the deeper ���resistance to change��� digs in its heels, the more irrational it becomes.
~ Christine DeLorey
March 13, 2015
The ear wherewith he heareth
Painting: “River of Life”, Diane Kirkup
The word ���relinquish��� has a special attraction for me whenever it appears in prayers and passages of inspiration. In this month of fasting that has become a reprieve, as well as a “season of restraint”,�� I’m noticing how interrelated both restraint and relinquishment can be.
Synonyms for the first include words and phrases like ���self-control��� and ���self-discipline���, as well as ���moderation���. (As in moderating one’s self toward balance?)
One description for restraint that really appeals to me is “self-possession���. Might that be true possession, of one’s truest self?
Painting: “Waves” by Diane Kirkup
Where restraint seems like a condition that arises from my taking responsibility for my self and actions, ���relinquish��� means to surrender or hand over. This almost makes the two sound like some sort of opposites — or maybe complementary partners.
Surrender and handing over can be very tall orders, of course. But there are two other synonyms that sound like accessible first steps in that process: ���let go by��� and ���let pass���.
What I now hear in the possibility of relinquishment is an invitation to freedom ��� from the erroneous notions and occasional tyranny of my own thoughts. Not the thoughts I experience when engaged in focused, constructive effort, but the ones that spin round and round, either in the past or in the presumed future. They usually suggest unhelpful things and never, ever, take me anywhere new. Noise, some might call them.
Something well worth restraining or moderating.
Image: Kathy Gilman
How? By choosing what meditators know is an always-available option: letting thoughts go by as they arise, like the clouds, the weather. Not identifying with them, or defining myself by them. Choosing instead to spend my time, and attention, in what inspires and uplifts me — claiming the resources that scattered thoughts so often consume and using them for something better. ��
In a book called The Seven Valleys, Baha’u’llah wrote, “A servant is drawn unto Me in prayer until I answer him; and when I have answered him, I become the ear wherewith he heareth … “
When I relinquish something lesser for something greater, I seem to catch the sweet notes of that greater kind of hearing.
As insistent as my thoughts can be, when I���m willing to relinquish them, what appears in place of them feels positively eternal.��
Adapted from Life at First Sight: Finding the Divine in the Details:
