It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 21st, 2010 and is filed under Fractals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 02nd, 2010 and is filed under Aging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, April 26th, 2010 and is filed under Living in Harmony. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, March 29th, 2010 and is filed under Connection with Others. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 09th, 2010 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, March 01st, 2010 and is filed under Laughter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 and is filed under Create Happiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010 and is filed under Gifts of the Heart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 and is filed under Needing One Another. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 31st, 2009 and is filed under Inner light. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 12th, 2009 and is filed under Practicing Peace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 and is filed under Listening to Your Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 and is filed under Thanks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 05th, 2009 and is filed under Compassion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 and is filed under Wholeness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, March 02nd, 2009 and is filed under Imperfection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, February 02nd, 2009 and is filed under Fear & Hope. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, January 19th, 2009 and is filed under Everyday Graces. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, January 05th, 2009 and is filed under Peace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 and is filed under Light. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 and is filed under Advent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 and is filed under Grateful. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 and is filed under Connection with Others. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 and is filed under Core Message. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, October 20th, 2008 and is filed under Love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2008 and is filed under Champion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 and is filed under staying on Life's Course. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 and is filed under Seeking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 and is filed under Faith & Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, August 04th, 2008 and is filed under More to be Revealed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 and is filed under Life- Assembly Required. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 and is filed under God In the Ordinary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, July 07th, 2008 and is filed under Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 01st, 2008 and is filed under Balance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 and is filed under Rituals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 and is filed under Father's Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, June 09th, 2008 and is filed under Life Story, Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, June 02nd, 2008 and is filed under Reflections, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 and is filed under Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 and is filed under Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 03rd, 2008 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 03rd, 2008 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 03rd, 2008 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”

From a practical standpoint it’s hard to renew life without stepping out of the patterns that are in place.  My Dad’s wife died nine years ago, and for years he seemed stuck in patterns of a life they shared.  His house remained virtually unchanged, her clothes and personal items were still in closets and draws, her hobbies and creative materials remained packed in other closets.  Her dried flower arrangements collected dust and finally to fall apart. 

His connection to her memory extended to all of her things.  Slowly he began asking me if I wanted some of her clothing, not thinking about the fact that I couldn’t possibly fit into a size 6.  At first I declined politely, and then as his offer was repeated again and again, I realized that he was trying to build momentum and move forward.  He needed to empty out, and as one of his friends said to him, “make this house your home again.”  It hardly mattered what I did with her things, I just needed to take them and help him let go of the past.

Over this same period of time his vision deteriorated significantly, and nothing looked as it had before anyway.  I am guessing that this actually made it easier for him.  Now he is redecorating room by room, and rather than using the same dark, sophisticated color palette Diana was so fond of, he is choosing lighter, brighter colors that feel good to him.  He is trusting his own judgment and preferences rather than relying on what he remembers of her impeccable taste.  He has installed recessed lights to further illuminate his house and make it easier for him to continue living there.  He has come through a very long dark night.

            His journey has been an inspiration to me and I would suggest that these long winter nights can be used to remind ourselves of the need to reflect deeply and deliberately put life seeds under the soil to begin germinating.  John Keats, the English poet, called “soul-making”, a kind of alchemy that moulds us into richer personalities and transforms our life experiences into deeper and ways of living.  This process might include activities like using our intellect to reflect on and give meaning to everyday experiences, reading, listening to music, having deep conversations with friends, and pursuing deep and satisfying pleasures.  We must feed our souls.  This is what Journeys does twice a month, but I think we also need to find our individual ways to fortify ourselves. 

We know that winter comes every year.  It is nature’s time for storing energy in the seeds of new growth, unseen and unheralded, until new life burst forth confirming once again the continuation of life as well as the potential for meaning and vitality in our lives.      

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 and is filed under Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

It feels good to have a period of time when I can get off my workaholic treadmill and just spend time with me.  How do I feel about my life?  Is it as joyful and fun as I want?  Am I receiving and giving as much love as I want?  Does the way I spend my days still have meaning or do I need to shift course and find inspired ways to create a new job, a way to retire, or perhaps a whole new life style?  Am I aging well or do I need to take better care of myself?  Do I spend enough time with my kids, my Dad, my friends?  Do I need to strengthen those relationships by touching them with words of love and acts of friendship? 

These are on going questions and concerns, which may not have solutions by the time winter finally ends.  In fact, when I think of the phrase, “the dark night of the soul” I am reminded of a few events in my life of sufficient magnitude to really rock my world.  I had lost my way so completely that I couldn’t love anymore; not my self or anyone else.  What I still remember is an intense longing for understanding.  How could I have let this happen?  How could I have been so trusting, so naïve, so willing to comprise me?  I needed to connect with the God in me on a much deeper level, and find that place where I could look at my self with the cold eye of truth and a compassionate heart.  I needed to be able to see myself in the broader context of my whole life, not just that situation.  

I did not like feeling like a victim.  Most of you have heard me talk about the professional association I had with another vet, that fractured in a way that I found very painful and threatening.  It was right about this time that I first read some of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  Hicks spoke a language that really resonated within me when she talked about the kind of energy flow and field that we all live in and that connects all of us to each other and to Source Energy.  Hicks said that whatever was showing up in your life was a reflection of the kind of energy you have been putting out there.  Thoughts are also energy and I had been thinking all kinds of negative things about my associate, even before she left.  I had even started to verbalize my doubts about her to people I trusted.  I was talking about how uncomfortable things had become, that I found I no longer trusted her, that she had become very non-communicative even secretive, and that some of the staff was starting to follow suite.

If you are listening to this and wondering, well then why didn’t you let her go, or why didn’t you take control of the situation, or even, with that kind of energy how could you be surprised by what happened?  I can tell you that in my darkest moments I asked all of those questions.  And I realized that I knew the answer.  I was afraid.  I was so waded up in fear that not only would my associated leave, but that my beautiful, new hospital would not be able to withstand that, and what I had spent 10 years building would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at that possibility. 

But when I got really honest I had to admit that I was sort of fearful from the moment we move into the new hospital.  It just felt too big.  I thought I needed my associate to be able to succeed.  I had lost my belief in my ability to sustain not just the hospital, but to sustain me.

When my associate finally did leave abruptly, I felt like a tiny ship on a huge ocean, full of tremendous waves and no land in sight; so alone, so small, so vulnerable. And yet as I continued to press through each day I began to rediscover how much I really enjoyed working as a solo practitioner, without the distraction of what others might be doing. I realized that I was really much more comfortable working with small staff.  I was reconnecting with the part of me that could hold myself and others in the vibration of love for no matter what was happening externally.  So ultimately this difficult time became transformative, but as with any process it takes as much time as it takes.

In the biblical story of Jonah, he survives being swallowed up by a whale.  He finds himself in total darkness, totally unfamiliar surroundings, and unsure of what will happen next.  He can not resist his situation or liberate himself, so he simply waits in the belly of the whale for his future to unfold.

I can only imagine what the ancients thought upon hearing this story.  Surely they must have related to how disoriented Jonah would have been, how vulnerable he must have felt wondering if everything he knew of life might be gone forever, and that he was being transported in the belly of that whale on a journey of unknown length and destination.  What a great metaphor this is for the dark nights we all face from time to time.

When you find yourself in darkness you instinctively become more reliant on senses other than vision.  You may have a heightened sense of intuition, hearing or sense of touch.  Time and the linear sequences which are essential components in the story of our lives become difficult if not impossible to distinguish.  You wait for illumination and the only real anchor you have is you.

The whale’s belly is of course a kind of womb, a place for new growth and transformation.  Some versions of the story have Jonah losing all his hair from the heat of the belly, a sign of profound transformation, like the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of the sacred.

The whale belly has also been referred to as sunyata or fruitful emptiness; a space for something to be born into, a place to question, to wonder, to wait for inspiration as you transform your understanding of life and of yourself.  And for that reason, a prayer which praises the darkness makes sense to me because I want the transformation to proceed and for the metamorphosis of the self to continue.  Thomas Moore wrote that, “We need to be born again and again further into our humanity, discovering in increasingly sophisticated ways what it means to be a person in a community of persons.”  And he wrote that, “How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference.”