Leadership: Contemplative & Resilient

Did you know that our Pacific coast abounds with restored-from-endangered bald eagles? They ride the currents and soar beside my car as I drive to work on Hwy.101! How about great blue herons in the tidal bays, or white egrets in fields with cattle(just like Jamaica!), sea ducks of all shapes and colors riding & bobbing the bay waters? The bay waters~ impressionist views eternally altering in mood & intensity. Light upon bird and wave,reflection, glorious resilient flight. And here, in the quiet cottage neighborhood, finches and doves, flickers tapping and dashing across your path, near your face....all in love with this beauty as much as we are.

I will go in June to a wonderful symposium in Nova Scotia, learning and sharing with leaders around the globe, in contemplative, compassionate, resilient creativity,~ re-thinking, re-inventing, caring, searching, facilitating positive change...challenging present communities to new, innovative, inclusive pathways for this most diverse & complex world. I am hopeful this experience will advance my Peace Corps community & education training, opening mind and soul to something vibrant, inspiring and so relevant. 
Be inspired;look at this website: aliainstitute.org

What do you see when your eyes take in such skies? Look up, even in the rain and storm. Be blown off course for just a moment. Find resilience: your journey.

 

Absorbing Resilience ~ a childs flight

".....Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly.....an unlimited idea of freedom."  ~ RICHARD BACH (yes, the old 1970 J.L. Seagull)

"The moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest..." ~ RALPH WALDO EMERSON (c. 1870)

A seagull child calls and flies, high on the dune cliffs, where homes more expansive than mine hug the shifting sand and scrub pines - bay windows set towards the sunset. A young girl dances on a deck, waves, flaps and skips ~ calling in an astonishing voice to a small flock of circling gulls.

Gulls swoop, dip, dive and elegantly hold to the air currents, closely calling and wheeling with the child on the cliffside. Far from their usual ocean beach habitat, entranced by this young strangers voice, resounding as their own, perhaps communicating a kinship, a love, a longing, even wonder...the birds slow their normally erratic swift flight, hover and flow with a kind of calm beauty.

I stop my beach walk, directing my gaze to the high perch of this creative one. I turn my back on the rolling waves, the kites, the dogs, the tourists on this unusually busy winter Sunday ~ 
I am entranced with the slow elegance of the seagulls, as they loop over and around the childs head. They are performing for her, and she for them! Count them: six white winged, lazy dancing birds - normally so arrogant, so brazen in their strutting, diving perpetual search for food. Yet here, I witness a beauty, and hold close a new appreciation.

The child calls, sings, skips rope down the length of her deck....she calls with arms raised as if to launch upwards in flight. The gulls circle, soar, float ~ wondering.......

Absorbing resilience, I watch until the child disappears into the home and the gulls at long last return to wandering. I will not forget.

Being "HOME"

"There's a place for us; a time and place for us... Time together with time to spare. Time to learn, time to care." ~ Stephen Sondheim, from lyrics to SOMEWHERE (West Side Story) 

HOME ~  comfort, safe, settled, stability, shelter, familiar, relax, honest, rest....inspires longing, hoping, searching, a natural quest.

homecoming ~ homegrown ~ homeland ~ homeless ~ homemade ~ home place ~ home port ~ homesick ~ homespun ~ homestead ~ home stretch ~ hometown ~ homeward ~ homework ~ home free


To "be at home" in the world ~  is perhaps a common, shared hope, goal ~
To "BE home" for self, family, for friends, community ~ is perhaps a never-ending process which we strive to be comfortable with.
Without our potential sense of resilience, of starting over each morning, of believing in the value of the process, of knowing there is a perpetual place for us in the universe, feeling the truth of our life...even when the search, the process itself continues.....without that sense of resilience, would we be here, now, this moment?


The process of resilience ~ the potential to lead a resilient life ~ feeling "at home" or even "being home" ~ may lie within all of us.
My home is the world, is within the souls of my children and grandchild, within my friends, family, students and colleagues, even strangers as we pass on the beach or in our cars or in the post office and library.
Home is in the center of an old song, a symphony, in the wild abandon of storms, of forest, of sea, of the exquisite, unspeakable beauty of a smile or a flower or a shaft of light through mountainous clouds. 
My place is where I am needed ~ settled, safe, sheltered ~ challenged, concerned, inspired ~ finding the courage to forget myself and give to others. I give unbounded thanks for the opportunity.

Epiphany

EPIPHANY ~ revelation, awareness, opening, new insight, "a moment of sudden, intuitive understanding"(Webster's)......12 days after Christ's birth, a time of giving in the spirit of the Wise Men...can not epiphany be a constant state of being, of spiritual giving?


~ Know this is truth, this moment, life, time.
~ Know you are here. this way, beloved and for a purpose.
~ Know, feel, believe in your wealth of spirit, the gifts of another new day.

Always wake with a grateful heart. If not, search your life, in truth and integrity, for a reason to be in gratitude, some measure of grace allowed.

Resilient Life ~ 
the journey....a newness of spirit; a fresh, brand new dimension of self:
I woke New Year's Day 2012 to the early news: I added "grandmother" to my being, my identity! At 61, this is not a surprise, no amazing addition ~ yet, a glowing shift in spiritual dimension occurred, a new life full of possibility inspired and altered our world.



We live to love and to find love, to be loved and to give love.
Resilience requires acceptance, embracing even, of that ever-shifting paradigm~ elusive state ~
Shadowy, then enlightened; tender, then exuberant; awake/alert, then quiet, simple,clear.
Faith upholds us, every one of us, even those who doubt ~

Are we not born with an innate faith in the light and dark of the world, the pull of gravity securing us and all there is? Aren't we possessed of the awareness & unassuming knowledge of something beyond that knowledge,something we may never know/understand ~ just be aware of?

Resilience believes, accepts, glories in the unknown. Resilient life absorbs energy in order to multiply it and release it ~ To hold it would stagnate the capability of being resilient. Our mere tuning to the vibration of the air we breathe signifies and validates our very being.
We - all living things - are brave and strong, at some amazing point ~
Look carefully: How, when are you, have you, been there -in your unknowing, believing resilience?
Epiphany ~ a gift forever available.

New Year Illuminated

 

Light of suns and moons, early morning hope of a new day, a new and shining year. Arise and walk. Look up and listen. Be blessed.

Observe how the land and sea unite with sky to paint reflections of a new day.

Know,believe in the gift of this moment, this miracle, which we are given over and over again, an inseparable portion of our hearts.

We must be the change we wish to see in the world.

~ GANDHI~

Remain true and essential: these words, this mantra. Let this new year bring a settling, an acceptance of the glory of diversity, the connection of all life. 

Offering Gifts

"It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you...every time you smile at your brother and offer him your hand." 
                              ~ Mother Teresa

The only true gift is a portion of thyself.
                            ~ R. W. Emerson

  Peace to all ~                                            

Resilience ~ The Process of Giving & Receiving Energy

"Let the waters settle. 
You will see stars and moon mirrored in your Being."  ~ RUMI

Resilience: the process of giving and receiving energy, an ability/capability to navigate in adversity. In psychology: a process, not a character trait. In physics: potential energy, elasticity, absorbs energy but has give.

Is resilience a radiance, a process involving radiating out and around and through? Resilience is a glowing energizing process of giving back ~ to the universe, to self.

A time of giving is once again upon us. How we wish it might be perpetual rather than temporal, if we could just save it, energize it, capture the resilience, the radiance of giving. A time of spirit, faith...a time of reconnecting with whomever or whatever is of importance & meaning to us. The gifts, the connections, the immediate pressing care, are always and forever there, here, inside, waiting.

Look up! There is always light, resilient, endless light ~ in some form or value, always ~ somewhere, up there, within our sight, if we look.

LIGHT: something which makes vision possible ~ Webster's Dictionary

How much has been forever written about light, vision, illumination..both physical and spiritual...strengthening, nurturing, a source of resilience? Many write of light: the meaning, the need, the clarity, the intuition, the differences, the connections, the constancy ~ consistent unconditional light of stars, sun, moon, God. Light is my story - my strength & journey, my learning & giving, my inspiration & intuition. "Write", something prods me, ever within this process, upon this journey.

Why words? Why do we even need words to describe, when we can walk out the door, go find these visions, experiences, chances, changes, LIFE? Anywhere, in urban, field, forest, neighborhoods, streets, beaches, there is light waiting. 

So ~ Open the door. Go. Find. Be. Leave the door ~ See light, hear sound, feel wind. Know spirit, self, universe.
You can.
A journey of resilience involves being brave. It just is. You are. 
That's not something to celebrate, be proud of or even explain. It just happens somewhere, sometime, somehow - in the midst of the resilience-without awareness, you are brave.
You only ever know this in hindsight - or through the exclamations of others. Suddenly, clearly ~ you extend yourself, you move into the light, you ARE the process, the journey.

Be well, all ~ S StJ