Some more wisdom...

from Olivia Goldsmith's 'Insiders:

Theresa, an inmate who always had a saying or proverb for every situation gives this piece of advice to Jennifer who is getting ready to meet the parole board. She quotes St. Frances: It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. Jennifer asks her who it is that she should pardon, to which Theresa asks, "Who are you pissed at?" That sets Jennifer thinking and as she knocks off one person after another on her fingers she realizes that she is pissed off at herself for having been 'stupid, greedy, and gullible.' Theresa says her advice still applies. That was the beginning of Jennifer's rebirth into a new life. It was when she forgave herself that she found her real self. Jennifer found that prison had really set her free. In her words, 'she knew the most important thing wasn't how much money she made, or how successful her next deal was, or how many people envied and respected her, or how powerful her friends were.' In forgiving herself, and taking responsibility for herself she found she was no longer afraid. 'She didn't need to keep a big apartment, or a large paycheck, or a big wardrobe. She needed to keep her friends, and her freedom.'

Lots to learn......

My Mum...

laid a great deal of store by 'home' - the brick and mortar structure she called home. As a result, when she had to be shifted to an apartment close to where medical facilities would be available, she was always pining for home---this place where my brother had brought her and which had all of her familiar things around was still not home enough--she needed the familiar things to be in the brick structure called home. What grief there was about it...My mother has passed on, but ever since then I have totally rejected this concept of pinning every hope and every dream and every thought on a brick and cement home. I felt good..but I knew I was going against the conventional. But them, this was reinforced while reading Olivia Goldsmith's 'Insiders', where an inmate, a wonderful lady who was in jail for life, decides to sell her home. In her words: 'I had clung to the idea of the house for many years. I my head I redid the perennial beds, thought about painting the hallway.......'. Through the years she realized that her life was where she was and that its quality was far more important. Voicing her wish to sell her home, she felt, was the most liberating moment she had known in many years.

And that's it.....clinging on to a brick-and-mortar home is limiting, and painful not only for yourself but to the family as well....

I like the 'home is where you hang your hat' concept better.......home is just where you are and what you make of it without hanging on to it or drawing your identity from it....

Painful but true...

When people walk away from you, let them go.  Your destiny is never tied to anybody who leaves you.  And it doesn't mean that they are bad people, (or that you are a bad person) it just means that their part in your history is over.

~Unknown

For all those who wonder what happened.......?? why...........?? and for those who blame themselves....

There's much happiness too that gets hidden under these whats and whys and hows.....look out for those.....that happiness will be peaceful and deep...

An absolute must read...

Mister God, This Is Anna by Fynn

It's a book that will set your insides right, confirm what you have believed deep in your heart, and gets you smiling...

There are so many things to quote, but I chose a few, like...

Anna believed that 'each and every individual was issued at birth with various bits of glass labelled 'Good', 'Bad', Nasty', etc., etc. People got into the habit of slipping these bits of glass over their inward eye and seeing things according to the color of the glass.' Anna didn't have any bits of glass ''cos I ain't frightened.'

How? why?

The answer to this is so simple - 'It is simply the ability to move out of the "I'm at the center of all things", and to let someone else (in Anna's case it was Mister God) take over.

At another time she talks about how everyone has a triangle. The triangle means that we have to be responsible. 'We've all got to bear the weight of our own actions. We've all got to be responsible - either now or later. We've got to answer Mister God questions all by ourselves.'

I also love what Old Woody tells her: 'Never let anyone rob you of your right to be complete. The daylight is for the brain and the senses, the darkness is for the heart and the wits - Never be afraid. Your brain may fail you one day, but your heart won't.'

And I simply loved this, because it questions and defies narrow conventional morality, which incidentally is what rules us from the time we are born...It is about going to Church -

'The whole business of going to church filled Anna with suspicion. The idea of collective worship went against her sense of private conversations with Mister God. As for going to church to meet Mister God, that was preposterous. For her the whole thing was transparently simple. You went to church to get the message when you were little. Once you had got it, you went out and did something about it. Keeping on going to church was because you hadn't got the message, or didn't understand it, or it was 'just for swank.''

For Anna, to love Mister God was to love all creatures...all.............
------'with all of me' (now there is the catch, wouldn't you say?)

We would do well to remember...

that in actual fact no one has any right over another.....

We do not have any right over anyone - not over our children, or spouse, or friends, or anyone...

By extension, we would also do very well to remember that no one has any right over us either. We unthinkingly give others a right over us or try to establish our right over others.....and this has only one ending - grief....for we are all persons in our own rights....we have been created so.

We can make relationships - create them.....of liking/love or hate (which is the shortest path to self-destruction)...of friendships, of husbands or wives, or any other....but these we are making and therefore those are of choice......

The relationship with our children falls into place when we remember Gibran's words that children are Life's gift to us....and looking after our children is a divine duty which is complete in itself.

Relationships do not give one rights over the other....never....

By their nature, there are spaces in relationships, so while relationships have claims, they must never invade that very private space each person has around her/him, or they will destroy the relationship...simply because a relationship has been chosen/made/created.......

Rights, relationships, all these go on to prove that each of us has a duty towards ourselves....and if we don't understand this, life will teach it to us anyway....

I wrote about...

the Howrah station, Calcutta. You'll find it here:

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/the-facade.html

People fascinate me.....when I look at a person I keep wondering what is going on in their minds and hearts. Especially women. What are they thinking? What secret griefs or dreams do they have hidden deep in their heart? What feelings do they stifle in the name of sacrifice and which settles as a weight in their souls? What flights of imagination fill their sighs? What are the cards life has dealt them and how are they coping with them? What is that pain deep in their eyes? What resonances do they keep veiled within them?

If by any chance...

you find yourself in a position to help anyone, never ever think that the help you give automatically allows you a right over that person...

Thing is, freedom is something that we all - every single person no matter what position or place we have in society - treasure and guard with all our might. There are many, many of us who may not have any obvious freedom - but we all have the freedom of our spirit and soul - that is something noone can ever ever take away from us.

Should we find someone who we can help - by all means help...help all the way....but then leave it there......and allow that person to regain the freedom of his/her spirit...never - ever - ever let that person feel beholden to you in any way...ever....for by that much you take away-destroy that person's freedom of spirit and that is something no person will or can forgive-----even the most downtrodden of people will not forgive t

So, so true...

True care isn’t always about lecturing or giving advice. True care is giving people the space to go through their own process, and realize when it is time to change.

I came across this in my Kabbalah meditation. I would add one more line to this:

And to just be around to hold their hand or hug them whenever they need it....

It is not easy to change. Change happens when someone who loves you believes in you enough to help you through the process you believe you need to go through--you know you have to go through----unobtrusively but ever present, and who will love you enough to fill your heart in those moments when you don't love yourself...

A few thoughts...

on retirement...

No matter how much we say that we are looking forward to days when there is no alarm to tug us out of bed, lots of time to do all that we want, the first year or so are rather hard, it seems to me. It is difficult there is no doubt about it, to adjust to the no-rush hours after the always-rush hours. I've seen this to be actually hurtful, in a couple of people, as in, a kind of reverse happens. Not knowing what to do with all this time that is suddenly available can be crippling, unless one is prepared - and yet, it is not possible to have a fool-proof plan in place...Having a hobby helps in the transition between working life and retirement, because that forms a kind of link, a continuous chain, as it were, between the two phases. Doing 'all that I've wanted to do' with a vengeance doesn't work out. Sleeping in (with a vengeance), reading (with a vengeance), watching movies or the tv (with a vengeance), travelling (with a vengeance)......whatever...done with a vengeance, as if making up for lost time never works out. It only succeeds in hurting the mind and wounding the spirit so that the soul is always restless and loses its peace.

One also has to cope with the barrage of feelings that suddenly flood the mind, unbidden.

More and more I'm tending to believe that whether we wish to do it or not, it would be wise to give the inevitable last phase of life some thought...

There is no doubt - it is not easy.