Category Archives: spirituality

Half Life

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We likely all know the trope of whether a half-filled glass of water is half full or half empty. In truth, the glass is completely full: half water and half air. Both are vital to our survival. 

Like the cycles of the moon, our lives are said to wax and wane. Coming into my seventh decade, I am by force of nature inarguably waning, and yet my life is full to overflowing. As the cycle continues, I am quite curious as to where I will find myself at my own next new moon. 

whole moon half-hidden

wax and wane like hide and seek

steadfast in the sky

For dVerse prompt: Haibun Monday ~ Mezza Luna

Weekend Wildcard (Flashback #2: Brushing off my Faith)

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WILDCARD liftingThis is my second time of re-posting from a no longer active blog I started in 2012. The blog was my way of working through a rather severe episode of depression.

My purpose in revisiting the “old” me is — I guess — the same as it was then, to remind myself and any others who care to read, to:

claim the positive energy that is available to each of us for our own benefit and for the benefit of others.

This entry was posted on July 13, 2012:

Brushing Off My Faith

While we can control a lot of things in our lives — probably a lot more than our depressed minds allow us to believe — there are certain things that will play out for us however they will, with very little input potential from us.

So what do we do? Sit there and be the victim? Stick our heads in the sand and hope the problem goes away? Mindlessly bash away at the problem with futile “solutions” that don’t really solve anything? I don’t know about you, but those have been my top go-to responses. How’s that working for me? Not very well, thanks for asking.

Since my last mental melt down (maybe not the proper medical terminology, but you get the gist), I have been unable to return to my job. Bills are mounting up and prospects for work that I can do in the future without relapsing back into “melt down” mode seem few and far between at the moment. I don’t consider myself handicapped by depression, but I am extremely cautious about the choices I will need to make moving forward.

Buddha smallThe big question for me is: what am I going to do about these concerns? Obviously worrying about them, ignoring them, or trying to bull my way through some desperate stop-gap measure isn’t going to help. So I am choosing to turn to another resource: faith.

That doesn’t mean that I have dusted off my Sunday School shoes, or that I let someone dunk me underwater in a lake somewhere. Not that those would be bad scenarios per se, it’s just not what I am talking about at this moment. I guess I am talking about what some might consider that “mumbo jumbo” kind of faith. Putting my situation out there into the Universe and trusting that things happen for a reason. I am here for a reason. I am in the situation I am in for a reason, and there is some (Divine, if you will) plan to all of this.

I don’t know the plan. That would take all the fun out of it, I suppose. I hear the Universe has a rather quirky sense of humor that way. But I am willing to trust that there is something bigger than me and that that “something” has my back. Something’s gotta give eventually, and my part in this is to be ready, receptive and proactive when opportunity comes my way.

A tall order, to say the least. It’s all too tempting to rehash every negative thing that has ever happened in my life and say, “See? Nothing ever works out for me. Why should this situation be any different?” But what does that line of thinking get me? Nothing good, for sure.

I am fortunate that I still have some wiggle room. There is still a roof over my head. And maybe that makes this whole faith thing a lot easier to swallow. My inner naysayer is telling me to just wait and see how I feel about all this Universe stuff once my back is really to the wall. That’s my typical depressed person thought, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And sometimes the naysayer is right. Time will tell.

In the meantime, I have a choice in how I respond to my situation, and I am choosing to trust, to put my faith in an outcome that I cannot see at this point. I will do the leg work once I figure out what that is. I don’t expect anything to be handed down to me from the clouds.

We’ll see… a great experiment. If it fails, I guess my naysayer can say it told me so. But if it succeeds… ah, there’s the faith!

All my best,
Maggie

tenacity

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Sometimes growth isn’t about new beginnings and fresh starts.
Sometimes it’s about perseverance through tough times,
when stagnation would be so much easier;
giving up easier still.

Sometimes growth comes with refusing to wilt.

growth4

The Daily Post weekly photo challenge: Growth

down to earth

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heaven on earth 2

When I am grounded in Mother
winged creatures fly above
sonorous bugles herald nearby wildlife
countless stars shimmer in the midnight sky
breezes whisper age old wisdoms
cleansing water renews my soul
and my skin is warmed by a sun that has
watched over me since the beginning of
my time.

It is then that I know I have
descended into
heaven.

heaven on earth

The Daily Post’s daily one-word prompt: Descend

Loud Noises

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lawn mower

The lawn mower rattles disconcertingly as I push it into the tall grass of my back yard. A vague image crosses my mind of the mower blade coming loose and hurling treacherously into space like errant nunchucks, and I remind myself to check under the mower deck once the machine cools down and make sure everything is secure.

I’ve always enjoyed mowing. Perhaps it’s the smell of fresh-cut grass, or maybe the instant gratification of transforming a ragged landscape swath by swath into a uniform carpet, literally right beneath my feet. And while I am averse to loud noises, the engine’s sound actually buffers me from the aural intrusions of other human activity.

I can be in my own world as I follow the pattern of circling the perimeter of the yard and working in an ever-tightening spiral until there is no more uncut grass. My mind disengages yet remains alert, and in that alertness I catch a slight movement to my left. A western scrub jay is perched on a branch just beyond my property line.

scrub jay

Blue and white with a soft grey chest, scrub jays are among the prettier birds that frequent my back yard. Known for their intelligence and their raucous, grating call, scrub jays are a mixed bag as far as cohabiters go. That’s okay with me, though. I’m a mixed bag, too.

To the right of the jay and closer in, a black crow rests on my reed fence. I’m surprised I didn’t notice the crow right away; it’s only ten feet from where I’m standing, and looks the size of a well fed cat. Shiny black eyes stare at me. I stare back. Politely, of course.

Crows – just like the jays — are highly intelligent and highly raucous. They have excellent facial recognition skills, and long memories – so long that a memory can be passed down generationally such that offspring can also “recognize” a face and know if it’s friend or foe without ever having seen the face before. As I do not want to be perpetually blacklisted amongst the crow population, I try to maintain good relations with the local murder (the term for a flock of crows). Hopefully my friendly overtures have paid off. This colossal crow could probably cart me away if it were so inclined.

crow

The scrub jay flits away as I approach, but the crow stands its ground. I take my first pass with the mower and look behind to see that the crow has dropped to the ground to survey my handiwork. Perhaps the mower and I have uncovered some tasty morsels in the lawn.

The crow stays close but keeps relocating, from the lawn to the wall that demarcates the eastern border of my property, then to perch in the tree by the back deck. It doesn’t dislodge until I am within ten feet of it.

It would appear that I was not meant to escape to my internal landscape today. I will allow my erudite feathered companion to share my mental space just as we share our physical space.

With my mowing completed, I push the machine into a shaded spot and move to the deck to rest beneath the now crow-deficient tree. So much for communing with the birds.

crow story

Maybe the crow wasn’t there to facilitate my “crow whisperer” aspirations. Maybe it was there to tell me to shut the damn mower off, so it could escape the intrusion of human activity just as I try to do. The thought hurts, but I can respect that. And I will try to comply as best I can.

I rise to head indoors, a bit deflated that my whole “I am one with the animals” fantasy has been trounced. A shadow crosses over the deck where I am standing and I turn just in time to see the crow, flying low straight over me as if to acknowledge my respect and say, “thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I whisper. “You’re most certainly welcome.”

crow2

The Daily Post one-word prompt: Exposed

Wish No More

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puzzle1

it's a puzzle how
the picture comes together
one piece at a time

I used to have a lot of wishes.

I wished to be independently wealthy, to be a published author or a renowned artist (or both!). I wished for perfect health, for spiritual enlightenment. I wished for a simple life, free from stressors and from having to compromise my values for the sake of “getting along” or being a “team player.”

And a lot of my wishes have come true, maybe not in the ways I imagined, but in ways that have left me pretty satisfied with how my life looks today. And those wishes that didn’t come true… the funny thing is, I don’t really wish for them anymore.

puzzle

My life falls into place one piece at a time. Like a puzzle. I don’t know where the next piece will come from, or what it will look like, or where it will fit. Often I don’t even recognize that some experience is a part of the puzzle. I try to trust the process. I don’t always succeed, but I try.

Beyond myself, I have fears for the future of humanity and of the Earth. But no amount of wishing will help that. Determination, action, self-discipline, clarity of values, patience, education, hope, selflessness… perhaps my wish is that we all develop those traits which will help us piece together a saner, sustainable future.

Let’s piece together peace. Together.

Peace.

The Daily Post photo challenge: Wish