Phyllis Edgerly Ring's Blog, page 39
July 13, 2014
We are all affecting the world
More from Christine DeLorey at: http://creativenumerology.wordpress.com/
Gleanings found here and there:
If we open our hearts, we will also find open hearts – it is always mutual.
~ Abbot Leo von Rudloff
A Benedictine Legacy of Peace; The Life of Abbot Leo A. Rudloff
Photo: Lara Kearns
We are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we are so deeply interconnected with one another.
~ Ram Dass
At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done — then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett
July 10, 2014
With our own eyes, and our own hearts
Art by Lisa Congdon from “Whatever You Are, Be a Good One.” Learn more about her work here: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/04/01/whatever-you-are-be-a-good-one-lisa-congdon/
Synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have eyes to see.
~ Carl Jung
Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
~ Albert Einstein
If you desire faith, then you have faith enough.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Would it surprise you to learn that optimism is not a synonym for positivity, nor an opposite of negativity? Optimism transcends both. … Being optimistic ultimately means that an individual expects the best possible outcome from any situation. Such a person’s mindset and heart-set responds to whatever arises in the moment—uplifting or challenging—knowing that within it is a grace, an opportunity for their soul’s evolutionary progress.
Have you caught it yet?
~ Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith
What is the freedom and power of seeing and understanding with our own eyes?
Learn more about the gifts of this divine possibility at:
July 6, 2014
Rest easy, then go with the flow
Photo: David Campbell / http://www.GBCTours.com
This post is dedicated to the memory and work of Joan King, a master investigator of Reality who left this world June 11. As I spontaneously said to one friend, “Her work continues now, on whole N-E-W (non-ego-willed) levels, the ones she loved so much! Here is a soul who, in both science and spirituality, was a bridge-builder as she strove to illuminate the realities of the human nature with which we’re meant to navigate the physical aspects of this life, and our eternal higher nature, through which we have the opportunity to transform ourselves and our world. God speed, Joan. You’re with us every day, we know.
What if the only experiences that make any real impact in life are those in which we’re as completely present to the moment as possible?
And what if these can only happen when we’ve had adequate periods of rest and reflection?
Neuroscientist and author Joan C. King came to that conclusion in her research lab at Tufts University after she discovered that just as every cell in our body needs to function from a nucleus or center, we are also designed to live from some sort of core in order to be healthy and whole.
To do that, we need to function within the timeframe of that core or center, which is the present. If thoughts and awareness are swirling around in what-ifs of the future, or mired in what’s already become part of history, we’ll be disconnected from that ever-present center.
Photo: David Campbell / http://www.GBCTours.com
It doesn’t go away, but our functioning has no access to it. And we sacrifice the greater share of our potential power, King says.
Those of us who pray or meditate know that one of the benefits of these is that they help us get back to that present-time condition of awareness. This is what leads to that “flow” we feel when we’re connected with and functioning from our center, a sensation of showing up in life and seeing a remarkable number of factors appear to simply fall into place.
Many even describe having experiences like these during dire or emergency situations, as though they connect with and go to some quiet inner place and then everything flows from that.
King describes another vital concept that cells model that is part of what enables them to function: they don’t stay “on” all the time. Cells’ life rhythm is cyclical. They experience periods of expending energy for a task, then immediately shift over into a “refractory” period during which they rest and gradually accumulate energy and resources in preparation for their next expenditure.
Photo: David Campbell/ http://www.GBCTours.com
Cells have no choice but to rest, and their innate wisdom abides by this requirement of healthy living.
Humans often skip this part of the cycle, even though it’s as much a part of our design as it is that of our cells, says King. In a culture in which sleep deprivation has become epidemic (and work could rightly be dubbed a state religion) lots of us may be missing the chance to function from our best and deepest resources.
Genuine rest and re-creation (to take that word down to its root parts) allow us to connect with our center effectively. Without these, our access to this greatest source of our natural strength is blocked.
King also notes that without rest cycles, we have little opportunity to use another powerful tool: learning from experience, because the resting phase is the one that gives us the time and space to reflect, the only way we gain the perspective that allows us to learn.
Connect with Joan King’s work at:
http://www.cellular-wisdom.com/cwbooks_series.html
The spirit of Joan’s life is captured in her family’s request in lieu of flowers – that those who wish to honor her pay kindness forward to three other individuals.
Some of her own words about the lovely legacy she’s left for us:
“The cellular wisdom series of books is not a declaration of dogma, but rather is a vehicle for me to share my insights about the teachings of our cells and our bodies about how to thrive in our lives as individuals and in relationship, from intimate to corporate to community to planetary. My books are intended to stimulate you to explore and uncover your own insights.” ~ Joan C. King
July 3, 2014
For whom the bell did not toll
A wonderful resource about Ona Judge.
Though she spent the greater part of her life in my home state of New Hampshire, Ona Judge lived literally in the shadow the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia – without one morsel of the freedom it has come to represent.
Now the Liberty Bell itself has a history full of irony. When it first arrived from where it had been cast in London and was hung outside the Pennsylvania State House to test its sound, it cracked at the stroke of its own clapper, a rather inauspicious sign. Tradition maintains that it was tolled in 1774 to declare the inauguration of the First Continental Congress. Abolitionist newspaperman William Lloyd Garrison coined the name “Liberty Bell” to describe it when it was used as a symbol in an 1839 pamphlet produced by the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Although the bell had been recast after it cracked, a second crack occurred that required it to be repaired yet again in 1846. Perhaps days later, the bell was rung for several hours in honor of George Washington’s birthday. It was during that time that a crack advanced from the top of the repaired crack to the crown, and the bell was rendered unusable. 
A venerable part of the nation’s history all the same, the bell was removed from its tower in 1852 and displayed to the public in a variety of locations, the most recent, and presumably final, the Liberty Bell Center pavilion in Philadelphia, just south of where George Washington had lived in the 1790s. At that time, this home was the equivalent of the White House, which had yet to be built in what was then the wilderness of the future District of Columbia.
During the design and construction of the bell’s display pavilion, planners discovered that the site was adjacent to the living quarters of black people who’d been enslaved – ones owned by the “Father of Our Country.” And, it turned out, visitors to the Liberty Bell were accessing the bell by walking directly over the quarters where the home’s slaves had been housed.
Among those enslaved servants was Ona Judge, hopefully a figure who will one day have name-recognition for every American school child, well beyond the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Hers is a tale of how a black woman challenged and bested her “master,” who also happened to be the leader of the nation.
“Born into” the slave-holdings of Martha Washington, Ona had become a famous face herself, one often seen at the many grand events Martha hosted, and which Ona’s arduous workdays made possible. At the age of 15, Ona had already had one wrenching parting from all of those she knew and loved when she was one of seven slaves to leave Mount Vernon and accompany the First Family to its new Philadelphia executive residence.
Small surprise that, when Martha announced her intention a few years later to bestow Ona as a wedding gift upon her granddaughter, Ona, whose trustworthiness and good service facilitated her coming and going freely in Philadelphia, simply walked out the front door while the family was eating dinner. Uneventful as it was, this escape would have brought severe penalties had she been caught.
Heaven knows what pluck and resourcefulness helped her get all the way to Portsmouth, NH, where she was promptly recognized on the street by the daughter of Senator John Langdon, as the Langdons knew the Washingtons very well. Ironically, although in covert ways, it would be Langdon who would help Ona keep her freedom by ensuring she had sufficient warning whenever Washington’s appointed agents came to find her.
Excellent info. about Ona Judge and history of her times: http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2014/01/threads-of-memory-1-portsmouth-star-for.html
Ona made a life for herself as a free black, even as she knew that slave-hunters could appear at any time to seize her, along with any children she might have, and she’d have no recourse at all. “Mistress of her needle,” as Washington himself had called her, she found a work as a seamstress and married a Black sailor, Jack Staines, and the couple had three children.
Some years later, after his retirement from the Presidency, Washington – no doubt at the chiding insistence of an outraged Martha, said to be the stronger personality of the two – dispatched yet another hunter, his nephew, Burwell Bassett, Jr., to try and fetch Ona back. One again, John Langdon’s intervention helped warn her in advance.
Although Ona died a ward of the state in her own home in 1848, having outlived her children, the citizens in her small community of Greenland, NH, cared about her enough to help keep her stocked with essentials. Her life as a free woman was unquestionably more difficult, in terms of material comforts than it would have been had she stayed with the Washingtons.
More than once, she was asked how she could relinquish the “silks and satins” of that “fine way of life” she had known for inevitable poverty. Her reply: “I am free, and have, I trust, been made a child of God by the means.”
It seems it was richness in spirit she was after, and the real freedom the Liberty Bell had come to symbolize: the ability to read and learn, to worship as she chose; and to spend the hours of her time as she, herself, determined to.
I wonder how history will come to view and redefine the kind of liberty that’s been symbolized by a bell that lost its voice, and a woman who found hers, and sounded the bell of her own freedom?
Adapted from Life at First Sight: Finding the Divine in the Details: http://www.amazon.com/Life-First-Sight-Finding-Details-ebook/dp/B00B5MR9B0/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=
July 1, 2014
Blueberry muffins, anyone?
For those of you reading Snow Fence Road who tell me it’s made you hungry for blueberry muffins, here’s a terrific-sounding recipe.
It’s one I bet could easily be adapted to use a flour other than wheat, if that’s your preference.
My thanks to Maine author Susan Poulin for sharing this information from the Catching Health blog of Maine food and health writer Diane Atwood. 
In the spirit of “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”, find this yummy way to enjoy these antioxidant-rich little treasures from nature at:
And if you haven’t already spent some time in Maine with Snow Fence Road, discovering just how many unexpected developments one bucket of berries can lead to, you can learn more about the book here:
http://phyllisedgerlyring.wordpress.com/make-a-beginning-and-all-will-come-right/
June 30, 2014
A more tender, shaky kind of place
Painting: Judy Wright
Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong.
At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.
~ Pema Chödrön
An attitude of gratitude comes from an understanding that we may all have problems, but we don’t have all the problems.
Painting: Judy Wright
~ Yehuda Berg
We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity.
Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.
~ Paulo Coelho
June 26, 2014
Why inspiration longs to become service
Painting: Laura Moore Watercolours
When we translate the spiritual inspiration we receive into a genuine act of service, our motivation is most likely one of improving our relationships.
But something far deeper also transpires, though it may initially go unnoticed. We are bringing out from the latent state of potentiality our true self and purpose.
Painting: Laura Moore Watercolours
The genuine acts of service that we have exchanged with another person in this world form the eternal part of our relationship that transcends this material world. The material gifts we exchange with love ones will return to dust, but the love we show them will last forever.
What is the connection between relationships and the concept of investigating our own reality? The personal investigation of one’s reality is an abstract endeavor and it can be difficult to assess progress.
However, the more successful we are in uncovering our true self, the better the decisions we will make regarding our lives and the people in them, which translates into healthier and happier relationships. This will provide us with tangible evidence that we are making progress on the path of service and self-discovery.
To live to our highest potential, it seems that we need to come into awareness of our true selves and also to establish a balance between our being and our doing that is rooted in our truest purpose.
Co-authors Ron Tomanio, Diane Iverson and Phyllis Ring explore these and related themes in With Thine Own Eyes: Why Imitate the Past When We Can Investigate Reality? published by George Ronald Publisher.
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
June 23, 2014
Nature’s pathway to the heart
Ladyslippers by the pair
During the weeks I spent in Europe this spring, I got reacquainted with the power of the natural world to quiet my mind so that my heart will be able to hear anything at all.
For I have found that the voice that guides and assists it is soft and subtle, and drowned out by the din of life and the world. I have to make an effort to turn away from the chaos if I hope to hear this companion.
Because of the wide-open nature of so many settings in Germany, the sky is a constantly-changing panorama that I found myself stopping to watch like a movie, and there was always something on the horizon I set out on a long walk simply to see up-close.
Turtles, future tense
Ironically, more often than not I never made it there because I was waylaid by something magnificent along the way: the slant of the light on a field; the shape of a lone tree in the midst of hectares of rolling hills; one small, stunning blossom on a branch that brushed me as I walked past, like a woods creature trying to get my attention.
When I sit inside for too long, hunched over a screen of some sort, my view narrows to a piteously small scope that has no room for wonder or miracles, in part because it doesn’t know what they even are.
The mind — the human nature — is here to solve basic problems of practical life. Period. It will always bog down without exercise, both physical and spiritual, and life couldn’t have made this easier to attain. All I have to do is go outside, under the sky.
Delicate neighbors
“Nature in its essence is the embodiment of My Name, the Maker, the Creator,” Baha’i writings remind, adding that it also offers many signs for souls that wish to discern them.
“Nature is God’s Will and is its expression in and through the contingent world. It is a dispensation of Providence ordained by the Ordainer, the All-Wise.”
My special thanks to Nelson Ashberger for the use of these photos, some of the signs he encountered on one of his own recent sojourns in the natural world.
June 20, 2014
Blooming like there’s no tomorrow
Photo: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DKirkupDesigns
A wee garden of Summer Solstice ponderings:
Love makes your soul crawl out of its hiding place. ~ Zora Neale Hurston
Nature does nothing in vain. ~ Aristotle
The widest thing in the universe is not space, it is the potential capacity of the human heart. ~ A.W. Tozer
Photo: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DKirkupDesigns
The time of your transformation is at hand. It is always at hand. It is not a question of whether you “have what it takes,” but of whether you take what you have—and then use it. Take the gifts you have—they are plenteous—and share them with all the world. Apply them to the challenge at hand. Use them and give them in your life as if there’s no tomorrow. Cultivate the desire to do this. If you have the desire, you will have what it takes—precisely because desire is what it takes. ~ Neale Donald Walsch
The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
June 17, 2014
The road of love and healing
The years teach much which the days never knew.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
This week, as I head to Maine, the setting for Snow Fence Road, it’s hard to believe a whole year has passed since it was published.
After years of writing nonfiction, I turned to novels when I realized how much I longed to explore what I believe are the primary needs of our times: healing and the increase of love. Stories are the best means I know to reveal the ways in which lives that grow more conscious about giving and receiving become pathways to an atmosphere in which peace can emerge.
When kind readers say that Snow Fence Road feels like an actual visit to small-town Maine, I’m grateful. As a once rootless military kid, I’ve found that place always becomes a living part of story, for me. I especially value small-town life, because it remains human-scale, which allows us to experience the kind of community that teaches us about the universe of our own heart.
I’m very grateful to Kerry McQuisten, my publisher at Black Lyon Publishing, for making room for a “romance” that’s so utterly unlike most of what is categorized that way today. It’s simply a love story about having to be human when, simultaneously, in reality, we are also so very much more.
A lot of current fiction focuses on current realities, with their resulting pain, savagery, horror, and incessant, insistent fear. Or, they dig into the past to continue mining these same things. So few, I find, look at the power and role of that much-avoided gift — our emotions — to offer us a path toward the kinder possibilities that are grounded in our truest strengths. I believe it is those very attributes that emanate from the God-given nobility in which we are created that hold all of the beauty and meaning that can exalt our lives. If we choose to value them.
Snow Fence Road aims at more emotional and spiritual themes because in the many wounded hearts I’ve encountered, no amount of physical attraction or infatuation ever healed or helped them, but the power of real love did. Real, lasting love requires accepting — and sharing — vulnerability, which I believe is the only human experience to which the term “intimacy” rightfully applies. Everything else strikes me as cheap, and rather desperate, imitation, fueled by our unwillingness to come to know and accept the gift of who we truly are, and the unanswered pain that results from how much we still long for it.
When people ask me now, “Why do you write?” I’ve found the answer in the same reason I get up each day: for the increase and advance of the one thing that lasts: the love that brings us home to our own hearts. It’s a process that began one morning a long time ago when I began to love and listen to people I will never meet, but who became as real for me as the pages on which their story is printed now.
Find more about Snow Fence Road at: http://phyllisedgerlyring.wordpress.com/make-a-beginning-and-all-will-come-right/
