Phyllis Edgerly Ring's Blog, page 37

Become subtle enough

Photos: David Campbell / http://GBCTours.com

Become subtle enough

To hear a tree breathe.

Succumb to warmth in the heart

Where divine fire glows.

~ John O’Donohue

It [the struggle with evil] makes us strong, patient, helpful men and women. It lets us into the soul of things and teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail.

~ Helen Keller

Photos: David Campbell / http://GBCTours.com

When you live at the periphery of your being, your thoughts are often scattered, pulling you in different directions, and draining your energy. Too much mental activity leads to overload and, oftentimes, burnout.

When you take the time to ‘go within’ each day, by breathing deeply and fully, feeling the ‘space’ inside yourself, and witnessing your thoughts and emotions without judgment, you return to a very natural, deep sense of aliveness, which is actually your true nature; then your thoughts naturally slow down, and simultaneously gain more power and cohesiveness.

Think of the small, choppy waves that dance across the surface of the ocean; these represent your scattered thoughts. Then visualize the huge waves that rise up from underneath, much like the giants the pro surfers ride. Note the difference in power.

~ Jaime Tanna

The divine art of living

Photo courtesy Thomas Tufts

 

Sixty years ago today, during a brief 24-hour lull between two hurricanes, my mother-in-law delivered her first child at the hospital of the Kittery Naval (not to be confused with navel) Shipyard in Maine. (I’d make my own appearance in the world at another Navy hospital in Queens, NY, 15 months later.

The photo to the right, taken on the roof of my husband’s childhood home (one of them, anyway) embodies his spirit, for me. Second from the right, he’s facing the photographer almost completely, in a stance that suggests balance, and ease. I seldom write about him — go out of my way to avoid it, more likely, as a means of respecting both sanctity and privacy.

But on this day that marks six decades of life for him, I’ll go out on a limb (or a peak) and suggest that while he may not always feel balance and ease within himself, (and who of us does?) I can say with certainty that it is his heart’s desire for everyone else.

On one of many journal-writing days, he captured (photo left) some of the feel of that as he contemplated words of writer Anne Lamott’s about being part of the tapestry of life and of relationships and the pathway by which souls learn and grow and evolve.

It reminded me of this: “Heirloom is a compound word, with its roots in heredity + looming. Weaving, writing and painting our stories into the things we create is a way of feeding the Holy in Nature, which has kept us fed and alive. And as we put all of our lostness and longing into the beauty we make, we do so knowing that we may never hope for more than to pass on these heirlooms to the young ones so they may find their way home across the songlines, as we have been found by those who made beautiful things before us. If even one generation is denied their inheritance, the story and the way home may be lost. As it is said in West Africa, ‘When an elder dies, a library burns to the ground.’” ~ Toko-pa

After nearly six decades of my own life, I’m finding more and more each day that the most pervading art form and inheritance we leave in the world may be summed up in the following questions, for which I thank author Ronnie Tomanio — and my husband, for years of willingness to live them together:

At this moment in time, what is the act of service that I am capable of giving that will build up the good in in this relationship?

At this moment in time, what is the act of service that I am capable of receiving that will build up the good in this relationship?




The title of this post is borrowed from that of a wonderful compilation of guidance and reflection about the living of our one wild, precious, sacred gift of a life. Find the book here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Divine-Art-Living-Selections/dp/1931847185/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409243358&sr=8-1&keywords=divine+art+of+living

Learning to fly, again

All Photos: David Campbell

I was discussing the ebb and flow of life with a friend recently. Naturally, a topic like that led to thoughts about the weight of the world’s pain, and the often contrasting lightness of the things a soul feels called, attracted, toward.

The conversation turned up the possibility that sometimes our doing what we do is a kind of imitation of our own past, a habitual need or effort to control what goes on around us to eliminate surprises or feelings of powerlessness. But that doesn’t relieve pain.

At times like these, I’m reminded of a phrase from a prayer I’ve been saying daily. It’s a kind of acknowledgement that I — and others — can feel like a bird struggling to fly again:

” … grant that this broken-winged bird attain a refuge and shelter in Thy divine nest that abideth upon the celestial tree“.

My friend wondered whether our part, in relation to what this passage points to, is a matter of following our heart, and keeping that heart connected to what is its Source. A bird, we recognized, flies in accord with the forces that make its flight possible, in spite of what may pose obstacles or threaten to impede that.

When in such a heart-open, flight-focused mode, my companion noted, “I understand that what we do is like a river. It flows and moves, it changes its course according to conditions … I have to flow with it — and I never arrive.

She cited a passage she especially loves:

“I am the royal Falcon, on the arm of the Almighty. I unfold the drooping wings of every broken bird, and start it on its flight.”

“I realize,” she said, “that the unfolding of the wings of this broken bird is from moment to moment. There is not some moment in the past when I was broken, and my wings were unfolded, and that was it. No, moment by moment by moment, my wings are unfolded and I am started on my flight.”

That unfolding, she suggested, brings with it a changing of our perception, an inner knowing that helps us remember that we are never stuck, earthbound, if we don’t choose to be.

A willingness to have our wings “unfolded”, to listen and hear with our heart, seems to awaken and increase our capacity to respond, and to respond differently.

To fly free, again.

 

Cited passages from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh.

You CAN go home

 My thanks to writer Tracey Edgerly Meloni for this glorious journey of a Guest Post. Photo thanks to David Campbell of GBC Tours. While the shots may not be Bordeaux, I think they embody the atmospheric rightness, just the same.

Photo: David Campbell / http://GBCTours.com

You Can Go Home Again

by Tracey Edgerly Meloni

I am driven to return to the far-flung places where I lived so briefly, first as an Army brat and then as a Navy wife. Going back to childhood homes has become a quest, to see if the things I “remember” are my own memories, or if I’ve just heard my parents tell stories so often that I believe I remember them.

Even when dealing with my adult memories, I’ve learned that nothing ever stays the same.  Barbers Point, in Hawaii, felt obscenely festive in the late ‘60s when I waited there alone during Vietnam. It took returning to realize that we “Wanda Warbrides” were working hard to maintain morale. The quarters at Riverview Village in Indian Head, Maryland, where my husband practiced not blowing himself up in EOD training, had vanished like Atlantis when I re-visited.

So I was anxious about going back to Bordeaux, where I began school when my Dad was assigned to the 529th Transportation Depot. I already knew that my childhood home outside Pessac was long gone, and that any American military presence had disappeared from French soil years before – what did I really hope to find?

Photo: David Campbell / http://GBCTours.com

We sailed up the Garonne River, past some of France’s most celebrated Chateaux and vineyards. I squinted at the glorious passing scene, searching for puzzle pieces to trigger memory. Suddenly we were there, gliding up to dock directly in front of the Place de la Bourse and the wonderful 18th century limestone buildings lining the Quai. Our shipboard verandah looked right up the narrow pedestrian Rue Saint Remi, where long ago my parents shared a peculiar little bird for dinner while I munched happily on bread and cheese.

I need not have worried. The memories of a six-year-old are carved in bedrock, and they flooded back as the landscape around me unfolded.

Photo: David Campbell / http://GBCTours.com

From there it was a short mental hop to the school, where all students were divided into two rooms, with only four teachers. I was the sole first grader. The harassed lower-grade teacher looked at me sternly and demanded, “Can you read?” I nodded solemnly. “Good,” she said, “you’re in second grade.” Thus my very first school challenge became fathoming the making of change using American coin references – nickel, dime, penny, quarter – while all we had to practice with was “pretend” Scrip. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we had franks and beans for lunch. Tuesdays and Thursdays featured Franco American spaghetti, all washed down by “vin ordinaire” diluted with fizzy water brought along by French children invited to join us.

Chateau Grand Barrail

I remembered that Bordeaux was my introduction to a less than perfect world. There were mice living in the mattresses at “Tu et You,” the whimsical name applied to our odd little gatehouse by the Frenchwoman and her American officer husband who lived there before us.   Huguetta-the-maid scraped snails off the walls of the well and crushed them under her heel to eat. And, alas, that well was foolishly located downhill from our dubious cesspool, leading to repeated bouts of dysentery for all of us.

Bordeaux also was my introduction to an exciting world. My mother insisted that we learn to speak the language wherever we were, and I learned terrible gutter French from orphaned children I befriended along the waterfront. I used it to order wonderful marzipan candies shaped like vegetables in the marketplace. With my mother, I would order meat from the butcher with the horse’s head over the door, not realizing until years later what it was. And I spent what seemed like hours debating which pastries to select at our favorite patisserie.

On my recent return, I let the memories rule. I erased the hideous architectural monstrosities growing up among Bordeaux’ gracious historic buildings and concentrated on the soaring spire of St. Michel’s church. I stayed away from horsemeat and had lunch in Chateau Grand Barrail, a highly acclaimed hotel once built to house the mistress of a nobleman. And I went back to the site of the Officer’s Club where Christmas dinner was served to everyone in those divided mess trays, with gravy on your pie.

What did I hope to find? Just my memories, but I got much more. I got reacquainted with my early self, made sturdy by my Brats experience.

Not only can you go “home” again – you really should.

Writer Tracey Edgerly Meloni won first prize in Ingenue Magazine’s short-story contest when she was 14 and just kept on writing. Her most recent award is a first place in feature writing from the Virginia Press Association. Formerly press secretary to three California Congressmen and Virginia’s senior Senator, she contributes regularly to several magazines, writing about food, health, the arts, and travel.

 

Snow Fence giveaway

A reminder that Clean Romance Reviews is offering a giveaway bundle for Snow Fence Road this week (chocolate, too, weather permitting. :) ) Learn more about it in the caption for one of the prizes, pictured below.

And more very welcome words I’m grateful to share:

When a reader and reviewer understands a writer’s deepest intentions for a work, it’s a big gift.

My deepest thanks to Goodreads reviewer Stella for such response:

Stella‘s review

bookshelves: 5-stars, contemporary, favorites, good-message, small-town-romance, standalones, 2014-04
Read in April, 2014


Ms. Phyllis E. Ring I saw what you did there, and I loved it! ;-)

Enter to win these vintage-design Swarovski-crystal earrings from NH artist Diane Kirkup and a book/gifts bundle at http://www.cleanromancereviews.com/2014/08/giveaway-snow-fenced-road-and-purple.html. Contest ends Aug. 27.

This story is so good but so good I call it DE-TOX. It reminds me of SWEET GUM TREE, another super cute and heartwarming story. If you’re looking forward to a break from those insta-love/insta-lust bilateral MC’s so common in our favorite ‘modern’ stories – this is YOUR BOOK. I fell in love with all characters Main and Secondary. The writing style is involving, captivating… poetic. I missed reading a story where I would wait a hundred pages for a mere brush of lips between the MC. And I don’t say it in a bad way. Everything in this story is so well-balanced and well-paced that things happen WHEN they are supposed to. Read it in one sit. DEFINITELY RECOMMEND IT.

Snow Fence Road

A village on the coast of Maine holds painful secrets – the kind only the miracle of new love can heal.

More about the book at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DDVB106/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00DDVB106&linkCode=as2&tag=leaofthetre-20″>Snow Fence Road<

The journey from mind to heart

“Colorado Moon” by Judy Hughey Wright

 

Perhaps the most subtle and most difficult transition for us to make is to move from the use and understanding of human traits by the human nature to the employing of divine qualities by our spiritual nature. This has been described as the longest journey — from the mind to the heart.

The human nature, using the limited vision of the rational mind, doesn’t have the capacity to perceive divinity and easily makes the mistake of believing that we, ourselves, are the source of such spiritually motivated actions as generosity, mercy and justice. This misconception leads inevitably to arrogance, the hallmark of the ego, and we cannot approach God with what is essentially the exact opposite of the attribute that is required for this — humility.

“Bright Spot” by Judy Hughey Wright

In his book Love, Power and Justice author William Hatcher notes that “we are the only creatures of God who have the capacity to be aware of our dependency on God”.

It is the spiritual nature that possesses the capacity to recognize that the amazing virtues of love, mercy, kindness originate with God and that we are privileged to use these infinite attributes that God has placed within us in infinite combinations to enhance our lives. We can remember now, when someone thanks us for being kind or merciful, to acknowledge in our heart the divine source of kindness or mercy. In this way we can grow in humility,  and carry in our awareness the source of these qualities and thus draw closer to that source.

The animal and human nature each ask the same question in all our interactions with the world: “Do I eat it or does it eat me?” The human nature wears better clothes and couches the same question in more sophisticated language, such as, “Do I win or do you win?” or “Who controls who in this relationship?”

The spiritual nature always asks the same question, no matter in what world it happens to reside: “What do I need to do to ‘approach the Divine’?” Or perhaps more specifically: “What act of service do I need to give or receive in order to ‘approach the Divine’?”

 

Excerpted from With Thine Own Eyes: Why Imitate the Past When We Can Investigate Reality?

http://www.amazon.com/Thine-Own-Eyes-Imitate-Investigate-ebook/dp/B00I1JPC7I/ref=la_B00IS9LEZA_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404764134&sr=1-4

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following the way to wholeness

Six years ago today, I experienced an unexpected eruption in my world. I then returned home to discover that a bid I’d made on eBay had won a portrait of an individual whose story I’d wind up following in these subsequent years.

I’d been writing for about a quarter of a century and had no awareness of the very definite, very surprising path that day’s turn of events was launching. That new stage was about to reveal that, more than being what I do, writing itself is something that acts upon me, strengthening a sense of connection with my own wholeness, and with that of others.

My role — my responsibility — is to listen and watch for these revelations, rather than attempting to impose ideas or plans of my own on what unfolds as a story — or anything else.

Along the way, I’ve been thankful to discover that this is also a kinder and generally more effective approach to living, daily — as in one of them at a time. This has brought a very different relationship with time, one more fluid and expansive.

“Glacier Falls” by Judy Hughey Wright.

Writers often notice how during generative times in their work, their experience of energy is a flow that can seem almost like dreaming — a soaring over great expanses until suddenly, we’re compelled to stop and rest wings whose strength trails off for a while.

Then a cycle of recharging, refilling, becomes needful. We encounter that juncture of the energetic difference between being inspired to do, until we reach a point of having, and then remembering, often through a kind of fatigue, that within this cycle we need to be “re-sourced” from what it is that reinforces our being.

Writer Penney Peirce offers a helpful model of this inner cycle in her book, The Intuitive Way. She describes how, moving from a centered place of being, and receiving what comes to meet us there, we are inspired toward doing, and this takes shape in action that eventually leads to achieving or having. We may then begin to notice a fading, a weakening of the wings, so to speak, that is the reminder that it’s time to do what our very cells know they must: rest, recharge, and be restored again to a state of being that’s ready for the next cycle. Ready to receive. Cells do not restore themselves after they expend their energy, but are restored by something beyond themselves. Cells seem to know innately the wisdom of returning to their fullest being through the “re-sourcing” of what truly sustains them.

So often today, the world and its suggestions can make it very easy to get caught in just one segment of this cycle Penney Peirce describes – stuck on a repeating, depleting loop of constantly attempting to do and have. In fact, collective consciousness (which, so often, actually seems more UNconscious)  offers more reinforcement to do this than to comply with the requirements of that cycle of inner wisdom.

However, waiting for me each and every day is a choice point:

I can accommodate the demands and insistence of the world.

Or I can turn toward the more trustworthy and sustaining one — a world without end, referenced so long ago, by Ones who saw it, and invite us toward it.

The fact that writing and creative exploration are so inextricably woven with it — are, in fact, the very path to it — is one of the sweetest graces I’ve yet discovered.

 

Giveaway, with Gratitude

 

Thanks so much to Jennifer at Clean Romance Reviews for hosting a book/gift bundle giveaway for Snow Fence Road that continues through Aug. 28. (Details with photo, below.)

And my big thanks to Nicole of Ariesgirl Book Reviews for her very thoughtful words about the book:

“Snow Fence Road is a short, sweet and power-packing book. Readers will be riding an emotional rollercoaster, while turning each page as they try to figure out each twist and turn. One thing that the author focuses on is that tragedy, while devastating, could lead towards unanticipated opportunities.“

Your can see the entire Aug. 10 review, and more of Nicole’s thoughts on books, at: http://ariesgrlreview.com.

Enter to win these vintage-design Swarovski-crystal earrings from NH artist Diane Kirkup and a book/gifts bundle at http://www.cleanromancereviews.com/2014/08/giveaway-snow-fenced-road-and-purple.html. Contest ends Aug. 28.

Snow Fence Road

A village on the coast of Maine holds painful secrets – the kind only the miracle of new love can heal.

More about the book at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DDVB106/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00DDVB106&linkCode=as2&tag=leaofthetre-20″>Snow Fence Road<

Eulogy for a tree of Life

 

“Greens” by digital artist Lauren Chuslo-Shur

Last week, I spent time with the big, old, now-dead ash tree, a towering skeleton in our yard, its bark sloughing off in sheets.

If ever there was a physical metaphor for vanquished life, embodied sorrow, this was it.

Yet how deceiving appearances can be. There was so much more here.

Since it would be gone by the time we returned a few days later, I wanted to make my goodbyes, express my appreciation.

Photo: Nelson Ashberger

For all of those years of shade, all of the homes it has provided for so many living things. For how its leaves have nourished the soil, and for not once creating any damage to property, or others, despite the great number of intense storms it has endured; the weight of snow and ice it has borne.

Yes, my petty thoughts noted, it was difficult to grow tomatoes out there under all that shade.

But the blessings this relation of ours from the plant kingdom have showered are not only numerous but, more humbling, so often taken for granted, day by day.

In a way, as the stage of its death has played out over a span of time, it feels that there is sadness and grief, former burdens carried by hearts like mine, that this decades-long companion is bearing away with it when the workers and their equipment take it down and haul it away.

Even its final act is service: heat for our neighbors in some future wintry days.

I read recently that the denizens of the natural world, the trees and their brothers, streams and their sisters, all expend their energy to offer up what benefits others, yet never make use of it themselves.

This reality is the most timeless of the gifts my Ash brother leaves behind him.

 

 

 

A leaf in the wind

 

Most grateful today to share the words of Guest Writer Esther Bradley DeTally:

Photo: David Campbell / http://GBCTours.com

Forgiveness

By Esther Bradley-DeTally

To everything but anguish the mind will soon adjust … ~ Roger White

 

Photo: David Campbell / http://GBCTours.com

After a great wound no feeling comes

A white hot pain settles upon you

You stand in the fire of agony shivering

“Forgive them Father, they know not what they do,”

is a whispered voice, wrapped in cumulus clouds,

Tributaries of feeling blocked, the heart a mere stump

Enough, enough, enough

Photo: David Campbell / http://GBCTours.com

The well-intentioned speak of forgiveness skippingly on the tongue

Turn the other cheek produces a yellow, curled up feeling within

You’ve turned the other cheek so much, you have whiplash, and

your chiropractor is upping his fees.

You are so done

Chumped out by the world

Sick of greed lurch on the planet

Numb to the scalding rhetoric of gossip,

absolute abandonment of your Lord’s teaching

on mercy, on love Thy neighbor,

Photo: David Campbell / http://GBCTours.com

Dormancy is a tickling feeling

You feel your dormancy and know despite

Not wanting to, you are coming to life

It’s a crucible this world, and you have

Gone through the white heat of change

Ignorance and love will not cohabit within

You cast away the purple bruise of resentment

Which led you to the heart of your journey.

Your crucible.

You will no longer resent

You will not forget

Never forget

But, you are a leaf in the wind

Of the Will of your Lord

And you will love again.

Copyright © Esther Bradley-DeTally

Writer Esther Bradley-DeTally teaches writing and traveled from Moscow to Siberia, and to Ukraine, then returned with her husband to live in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, and Minsk, Belarus. 

She is the author of Without a Net: A Sojourn in Russia and You Carry the Heavy Stuff.

Her blog can be found at: http://SorryGnat.wordpress.com .