Seed Exchange

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

British writer G. K. Chesterton gave a new perspective on Santa Claus.

What has happened to me has been the very reverse of what appears to be the experience of most of my friends. Instead of dwindling to a point, Santa Claus has grown larger and larger in my life until he fills almost the whole of it. It happened in this way. As a child I was faced with a phenomenon requiring explanation. I hung up at the end of my bed an empty stocking, which in the morning became a full stocking. I had done nothing to produce the things that filled it. I had not worked for them, or made them or helped to make them. I had not even been good–far from it. And the explanation was that a certain being whom people called Santa Claus was benevolently disposed toward me. . . . What we believed was that a certain benevolent agency did give us those toys for nothing. And, as I say, I believe it still. I have merely extended the idea. Then I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking; now I wonder who put the stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and the house on the planet, and the great planet in the void. Once I only thanked Santa Claus for a few dolls and crackers, now, I thank him for stars and street faces and wine and the great sea. Once I thought it delightful and astonishing to find a present so big that it only went halfway into the stocking. Now I am delighted and astonished every morning to find a present so big that it takes two stockings to hold it, and then leaves a great deal outside; it is the large and preposterous present of myself, as to the origin of which I can offer no suggestion except that Santa Claus gave it to me in a fit of peculiarly fantastic goodwill.

An Excerpt from Starlight: Beholding the Christmas Miracle All Year Long by John Shea.

Dear God,
In this one moment I recognize that there is within me a perfect Self:
A Self that is not dysfunctional;
A Self that is not weak but strong;
That is not limited, but unlimited;
That is not small, but huge;
That is not in pain but in peace;
That is not faithless and scared but all-knowing, all loving, and serene and calm, through the grace of God.
I have been playing with the toys of death and weakness.
I have been playing at sickness and playing at addiction.
I have been playing at dysfunction and limitation and war.
I have been playing at hunger and violation of myself and others.
I have been playing with toys that are dangerous.
But I desire to play the games of death no more.
In this moment, I ask You, dear God, to release me from my destructive thinking.
I take up now the mantle of Your magnificence.
Through Your grace, dear God, I am good and innocent and strong and pure, for thus would You have me be.
The love that emanates from Your mind to me, and from my mind to the minds of others, is a power so great. Within its embrace all negativity shall turn to good, all pain to peace, all fear to love.
I invoke Your light.
I receive Your heaven, which replaces hell.
I do not look back.
I do not stop my eyes at the veil of horror that surrounds the world, but rather I extend my vision to the possibilities for love for myself and others.
I step out of my childhood, into my adulthood; out of my weaknesses, into my strengths; out of my fear, into my love; out of my small self, into You.
Dear God, please make me new. Amen.
Illuminata, A Return to Prayer

This article is about creating vision boards. For more information on visions, see here.

A vision board (also called a Treasure Map or a Visual Explorer or Creativity Collage) is typically a poster board on which you paste or collage images that you’ve torn out from various magazines. It’s simple.

The idea behind this is that when you surround yourself with images of who you want to become, what you want to have, where you want to live, or where you want to vacation, your life changes to match those images and those desires.

For instance, before I ever started performing music and I had no idea how I’d ever get a gig, write enough songs, or assemble a press kit, I drew a picture of myself in a bar with people watching me perform (I’m a terrible visual artist, so I actually had to label the people “people!”). And though it wasn’t the only factor in making it happen, I had a calendar full of bar and coffeehouse gigs by the next year.

My drawing was a kind of a vision board. Vision boards do the same thing as my drawing did. They add clarity to your desires, and feeling to your visions. For instance, at the time I did my drawing, I knew I wanted to play in bars and coffeehouses. (I have since left the that circuit, and I’m performing in theatres and at conferences. But in my early twenties, I wanted to play in bars and coffeehouses. I was pretty clear about that!) Taking the time to draw it out, even poorly, made it indelible in my mind.

There are several methods you can use for creating your vision board. I’ve written about each one below. You can choose which one works best for you, depending on where you find yourself on this path of creating your life. (read on for more about vision boarding) Continue Reading »

What makes someone a “good person” or a “bad person”? And how do we know the difference? These may seem like esoteric questions, but the answers have both practical and important ramifications.

In 1977, Penn State football defensive coordinator for 32 years Jerry Sandusky founded the Second Mile, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help troubled youth across the state of Pennsylvania.

Joe Paterno was the head coach of the Penn State football team for 46 years. In addition to having been an excellent football coach, he was also an advocate for his players, with one of the highest graduation rates in the division. He and his wife are philanthropists.

A few weeks ago, Jerry Sandusky was arrested on 40 counts relating to sexual abuse of eight young boys over a 15-year period. A grand jury investigation reported that a graduate student told Paterno in 2002 that he had seen Sandusky anally raping a 10-year-old boy in Penn State football’s shower facilities. Parterno reported the incident to his supervisor but did nothing more.

Are these men good men or bad men? Without a doubt, these men allegedly did bad things: if true, Sandusky’s behavior is obviously reprehensible, and while Paterno fulfilled his legal obligation by reporting it to his supervisor, Pennsylvania state police Commissioner Frank Noonan said, “somebody has to question about what I would consider the moral requirements for a human being that knows of sexual things that are taking place with a child.” He was shocked that the police were not called, as over the years different eye-witnesses came forward to report sexual abuse of various boys. Continue Reading »

As teachers and leaders of communities that promote the development of compassion and mindfulness, we are writing to express our solidarity with the Occupy movement now active in more than 1,900 cities worldwide.

We are particularly inspired by the nonviolent tactics of this movement, its methods of self-governance and its emergent communities founded in open communication (general assemblies, the human microphone, the inclusion of diverse voices, etc). These encampments are fertile ground for seeing our inherent wisdom and our capacity for awakening. We encourage all teachers, leaders, sanghas and communities that pursue awakening to join with these inspiring activists, if they have not already done so, in working to end the extreme inequalities of wealth and power that cause so much suffering and devastation for human society and for the ecosystems of Earth.

This movement has given voice to a near-universal frustration with the economic and political disenfranchisement of so many. It offers a needed counterbalance to a system that saps the life energy of the overwhelming majority — the so-called 99 percent — generating vast profits for a tiny handful, without maximizing the true potential for widespread wealth creation in our society. While our practice challenges us to cultivate compassion for 100 percent of human beings without villifying an “enemy,” our practice also calls on us to confront a system that causes such clear harm and imbalance. Continue Reading »

Early in October Deepak Chopra visited the Occupy Wall Street gathering in Zuccotti Park, New York, and led the following meditation. His words were spoken without amplification and spread through the crowd via the human megaphone.

I just want to do a two minute meditation, or even less. Put your hand on your heart and just ask yourself internally what kind of world do I want to live in? And listen. Do it now. And now ask yourself how can I make that happen? How can I make that happen from a place of love, compassion, joy and equanimity? Simple anger will only perpetuate what already is out there. It was created by greed and fear. We have to go beyond that, and come from a place of compassion, centered equanimity and creativity. Once again, ask yourself, how can I be the change that I want to see in the world? Thank you.

For more of Cheryl’s articles, please visit her blog.

In his lovely volume called The House of Belonging (Many Rivers Press, 1997), wiseman and poet David Whyte says, “…anything or anyone/ that does not bring you alive/ is too small for you.”*

Could it be that grief has become too small for me? That’s what it feels like. Which is astonishing, really, because for at least three years it has felt much too large. The sheer, random power of grief has overwhelmed me, sometimes for days or weeks at a time, rendering me unable to move with any sort of clarity or purpose other than trying hard not to expire on the spot.

But things are different now. I do not dread the occasional rush of tears that flood out of nowhere. In fact, I almost welcome them as a sign that I have encountered a deep truth about the inner workings of my heart, mind, and soul. Eyes welling up has become a sure response to beauty, and a catch in my throat means that I am receptive to the poignancy of life itself.

These are all good omens that point to a new life dawning out of loss. I am grateful to see them because I am not by nature a sad person. While I have tried not to rush through grief’s ineluctable process, I am very happy to recognize a bit of the old me resurfacing.

Of course, I will never again be the “old me.” How could I? The tapestry of my being will forever contain the golden threads of my late husband’s love, woven through with grey threads of death and crimson threads of unspeakable heartbreak. But it is not a tight weave. There are holes where rays of yellow sunshine break through and the cool, blue breeze of hope wafts in, calling me to a new life that is just beginning to glimmer with creative possibility. (read on for more about grief and change) Continue Reading »

What often happens when we first start trying to live authentically is that we hear from the people, whom we’ve trained to believe we are always going to do what we’ve always done.  So, for example, if you’ve trained the boss to believe you can always get everything done yesterday with absolute perfection, then when you suddenly stop doing that, the boss is likely to wonder what the heck is going on. And if he’s particularly bully-ish, he might come stomping in your office to confront you with your newfound laziness. Or, if you’ve always played the Victim and suddenly start making your own decisions and taking charge of your own life, your Rescuer is likely to feel displaced and want to turn you into a Victim again. If you’ve always accepted the blame and felt guilty and responsible for others, those others are likely to wonder what you are up to when they can no longer hold you accountable for their choices.

What can you do about this? Well, it helps soften the blow a bit if you give people a heads-up before you start drastically changing your interactions with them. You might tell your boss that you’ve come to realize that you are really overstressed and that you are going to have to back up and reassess the amount of work you are doing. You know that you’ve always had this unspoken agreement that you would carry most of the load, but you need to rethink this and you’d like his or her help. Most bosses will consider this to be an issue that could have some legal ramifications and try to support you. But others will not–in which case you may need to consider looking into other options for a job. If you find another job, however, you will need to take care not to unconsciously set up the same dynamic with the new boss.

If it is a closer relationship a sit down conversation might be in order-one in which you explain what changes you are making and why, and again ask for support. Many relationships will be able to accommodate the shifts, with some complaining and continued boundary making.  But some will not accommodate and will demand–through either verbal or nonverbal means–that you change back. At that point, you may need to reassess the value of this relationship in your life and create whatever new parameters you may need, up to and including, a total abandonment of the relationship.

But there’s another consequence we need to consider to becoming authentic.  We may also experience uncomfortable feelings. For example, if guilt has been your primary motivator for most of your exchanges with others, when you stop doing those things you’ve done for guilt, then guilt is going to speak up loud and clear. The fact is that people who manage their lives by guilt, i.e., people with a Scapegoat identity, have been caving to guilt in order to keep from feeling even more guilt. And just like an addict who caves to the cravings for years, when he stops caving, the cravings start screaming. Likewise, the guilt will start screaming if you’ve always caved to it before. Continue Reading »