Tao Te Ching #14
Look, and it can't be seen.
Listen, and it can't be heard.
Reach, and it can't be grasped.
Above, it isn't bright.
Below, it isn't dark.
Seamless, unnameable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.
Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can't know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.
If we consider the source of our wisdom as the source of being, wow, that opens up all the stops.
It may mean slowing down and breathing into your center.
It may mean, accepting and flowing with the life force inside your body.
It may mean temporarily letting go of control :)
It may mean finding your voice.
It may mean speaking from authentic experience.
It may mean you are a wise woman, before you get old.
be close to your wisdom today,
jenn
Friday, November 16, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
What if a woman listened to herself?
"What if woman allowed herself to listen once again to her own sensitivities? To listen to the ways in which she is unhappy? What if she allowed herself to trust what her tears are trying to tell her?
No, not this way, No your life has no meaning lived this way. No…No…slow down, rest. Fill the kettle slowly. Listen! as the water in its slender stream flows down to fill the waiting kettle.
A woman age 55 speaks of her struggle:
Oh the time, the endless pressure of time Even when I have a whole day, I still can’t get to my own things – I don’t even know what they are…
I vacuum, do the bookkeeping, always production-oriented…the endless realm of keeping busy…when I was young, my mother always expected us to keep busy…she couldn’t imagine my need to have time for myself…if one of her daughters would be a bit quiet or inward one day, she would right away immediately accuse us of being lazy and gives us a task to do.
In my dreams there is a quiet chamber, an inner corridor for which I’m always searching and can never quite get to…a quiet, dark place…where I’m allowed to just sit…alone …and be still.
What if a woman were to allow herself to trust her own unhappiness and to make life changes – that would allow time and place for her to experience her life as it lives itself out slowly, moment by moment? To allow herself time and place to be present to her own burning fire, the water springing from the rock of her own experience…to allow herself to leave behind the jet plane, the express lane, and simply to be, there, for a moment, present to her own life?
What if a woman trusted her own tears enough to listen to them, to make real changes in her individual schedule, and to see if those changes spread to her office, her committee, her religious group?
What if she trusted her anger, her irritation, her illness, even her depression, as signs that her own life was calling to her?
What if a woman allowed herself to leave a mode of doing that does not nourish her, that actively makes her unhappy? What if it were not so difficult? If her upbringing had not sought to teach her to be dutiful, moral, caring, giving, helpful, productive and loving…at all times...to all others.
….it is often finally a woman’s own pain and sadness that make her change her life. Finally, it is impossible to deny her feelings any longer."
taken from Circle of Stones, Judith Duerk, Woman’s Journey to Herself
No, not this way, No your life has no meaning lived this way. No…No…slow down, rest. Fill the kettle slowly. Listen! as the water in its slender stream flows down to fill the waiting kettle.
A woman age 55 speaks of her struggle:
Oh the time, the endless pressure of time Even when I have a whole day, I still can’t get to my own things – I don’t even know what they are…
I vacuum, do the bookkeeping, always production-oriented…the endless realm of keeping busy…when I was young, my mother always expected us to keep busy…she couldn’t imagine my need to have time for myself…if one of her daughters would be a bit quiet or inward one day, she would right away immediately accuse us of being lazy and gives us a task to do.
In my dreams there is a quiet chamber, an inner corridor for which I’m always searching and can never quite get to…a quiet, dark place…where I’m allowed to just sit…alone …and be still.
What if a woman were to allow herself to trust her own unhappiness and to make life changes – that would allow time and place for her to experience her life as it lives itself out slowly, moment by moment? To allow herself time and place to be present to her own burning fire, the water springing from the rock of her own experience…to allow herself to leave behind the jet plane, the express lane, and simply to be, there, for a moment, present to her own life?
What if a woman trusted her own tears enough to listen to them, to make real changes in her individual schedule, and to see if those changes spread to her office, her committee, her religious group?
What if she trusted her anger, her irritation, her illness, even her depression, as signs that her own life was calling to her?
What if a woman allowed herself to leave a mode of doing that does not nourish her, that actively makes her unhappy? What if it were not so difficult? If her upbringing had not sought to teach her to be dutiful, moral, caring, giving, helpful, productive and loving…at all times...to all others.
….it is often finally a woman’s own pain and sadness that make her change her life. Finally, it is impossible to deny her feelings any longer."
taken from Circle of Stones, Judith Duerk, Woman’s Journey to Herself
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Tao Te Ching Wisdom for the day
#45
True perfection seems imperfect,
yet it is perfectly itself.
True fullness seems empty,
yet it is fully present.
True straightness seems crooked.
True wisdom seems foolish.
ture art seems artless.
The Master allows things to happen.
She shapes events as they come.
She steps out of the way
and lets the Tao speak for itself.
another excerpt says,
Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
Forcing a project to completion
you ruin what was almost ripe.
Therefore the Master takes action
by letting things take their course
....and,
Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
Is it just my imagination, or is everything I'm reading today in the Tao Te Ching aimed at inviting me to let go, let things take their course, stop worrying, controlling, obsessing, striving, pushing too hard, going too fast?
step out of the way.....
So the wisdom of the day would be that. Let yourself go with the flow, and stop paddling up stream. It's a lot easier to let the boat follow the river. Row if you must, but you will advance more quickly when you let go to the river's current.
Life is a current. I can ride the waves of my life, being buoyant, being still in the center, and letting the ups and downs come. It takes a focus on what is real, what is permanent, to allow myself to not get upset by the changes, by what is impermanent.
If I look back a year ago today, I was unsure of the future, I was hoping things would change more quickly. Then boom, a few months later we had heard of a new house on the water, I applied to teach at the women's centre, life and the river kept flowing. Now we are renovating, and I am teaching. If I look towards the future, it is still uncertain, i.e. I have no way of knowing for sure what is coming.
But I am starting to trust the flow.
nameste,
musemother
True perfection seems imperfect,
yet it is perfectly itself.
True fullness seems empty,
yet it is fully present.
True straightness seems crooked.
True wisdom seems foolish.
ture art seems artless.
The Master allows things to happen.
She shapes events as they come.
She steps out of the way
and lets the Tao speak for itself.
another excerpt says,
Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
Forcing a project to completion
you ruin what was almost ripe.
Therefore the Master takes action
by letting things take their course
....and,
Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
Is it just my imagination, or is everything I'm reading today in the Tao Te Ching aimed at inviting me to let go, let things take their course, stop worrying, controlling, obsessing, striving, pushing too hard, going too fast?
step out of the way.....
So the wisdom of the day would be that. Let yourself go with the flow, and stop paddling up stream. It's a lot easier to let the boat follow the river. Row if you must, but you will advance more quickly when you let go to the river's current.
Life is a current. I can ride the waves of my life, being buoyant, being still in the center, and letting the ups and downs come. It takes a focus on what is real, what is permanent, to allow myself to not get upset by the changes, by what is impermanent.
If I look back a year ago today, I was unsure of the future, I was hoping things would change more quickly. Then boom, a few months later we had heard of a new house on the water, I applied to teach at the women's centre, life and the river kept flowing. Now we are renovating, and I am teaching. If I look towards the future, it is still uncertain, i.e. I have no way of knowing for sure what is coming.
But I am starting to trust the flow.
nameste,
musemother
Monday, September 24, 2007
Moon LIght
Have you looked up at the moon lately?
Last night at sunset I went for a walk in the wide soccer field behind my house. The setting sun was filling the western sky with pink and gold, while in the east a partially full moon was rising, slung low in a grey sky with a luminous haze circling it.
It felt very healing to look at the moon, and I wondered why I don't get outside more often in the evening to watch it.
It felt good to know that letting the moon light touch me, its rays on me, could actually influence the state of harmony with my inner feminine essence.
Watch the moon ladies and gents. It's going into full bloom this week on Wednesday. It does not promote panic or madness, that's an old anti-womanist scare tactic from the Inquisition days.
What it promotes is beauty, self-awareness, and getting in touch with your natural energies. Women may have participated in orgiastic rites at the full moon that caused the Church to worry about people switching to paganism (it looked like too much fun probably)!
Let's find our selves in our cycles and keep in touch with the moon. She, he, it....does it matter if it's a lady in the moon or not? The moon's cycle is aligned with women's cycles, and it doesn't hurt to let a little moon light shine on you.
Enjoy!
musemother
Last night at sunset I went for a walk in the wide soccer field behind my house. The setting sun was filling the western sky with pink and gold, while in the east a partially full moon was rising, slung low in a grey sky with a luminous haze circling it.
It felt very healing to look at the moon, and I wondered why I don't get outside more often in the evening to watch it.
It felt good to know that letting the moon light touch me, its rays on me, could actually influence the state of harmony with my inner feminine essence.
Watch the moon ladies and gents. It's going into full bloom this week on Wednesday. It does not promote panic or madness, that's an old anti-womanist scare tactic from the Inquisition days.
What it promotes is beauty, self-awareness, and getting in touch with your natural energies. Women may have participated in orgiastic rites at the full moon that caused the Church to worry about people switching to paganism (it looked like too much fun probably)!
Let's find our selves in our cycles and keep in touch with the moon. She, he, it....does it matter if it's a lady in the moon or not? The moon's cycle is aligned with women's cycles, and it doesn't hurt to let a little moon light shine on you.
Enjoy!
musemother
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Inner Wisdom and a higher power
Wisdom for women begins with learning to connect with our own inner wisdom. For too long we have been told what to believe, what to feel, what is ok to feel or think. The authorities we listen to have usually been male, either scientists or religious leaders, the 'keepers of truths'.
For some of us, it's a radical concept, to find our own connection to spirit within, and yet more and more of us are experiencing that connection.
Whether you believe in a guardian angel or the universal spirit, a mother goddess or divine synchronicity, guidance is available if we are open to receiving it. In my yoga class every morning, we make an intention for what we need to receive through our practice that day. it's a powerful way to ground yourself in the here and now, manifest what you need. Some very popular books are going the rounds right now, explaining that what we think and what we attract to us are connected, ie The Secret.
"When you sincerely invite in the sacred (your inner guidance or spirit) to assist you with your life, you are granting permission for your life to change." Dr. Christiane Northrup, Woman's Bodies, Women's Wisdom."
For many women, getting past the male image of God is important to their new understanding of their spirituality, so they focus on a 'sexually affirming image of power and beauty', ie a mother god.
Perhaps this is a way of reimagining the divine spark as living in our own female body, and undoing centuries of abuse stemming from Eve and the apple. Women need to know that a female body and its sexuality are brimming with creative spirit, brimming with love and goodness. We need to reconnect with sexuality as spirituality, instead of splitting the two. Spirit's highest expression, for me, is the creation of a human body, and that begins with conception or sex.
So, let's reclaim our connection with our bodies, and celebrate the gift of being a woman. Someone once said, if you want to increase your blessings, then start counting them. I begin with the prayer of thanks for being born a woman.
nameste,
musemother
For some of us, it's a radical concept, to find our own connection to spirit within, and yet more and more of us are experiencing that connection.
Whether you believe in a guardian angel or the universal spirit, a mother goddess or divine synchronicity, guidance is available if we are open to receiving it. In my yoga class every morning, we make an intention for what we need to receive through our practice that day. it's a powerful way to ground yourself in the here and now, manifest what you need. Some very popular books are going the rounds right now, explaining that what we think and what we attract to us are connected, ie The Secret.
"When you sincerely invite in the sacred (your inner guidance or spirit) to assist you with your life, you are granting permission for your life to change." Dr. Christiane Northrup, Woman's Bodies, Women's Wisdom."
For many women, getting past the male image of God is important to their new understanding of their spirituality, so they focus on a 'sexually affirming image of power and beauty', ie a mother god.
Perhaps this is a way of reimagining the divine spark as living in our own female body, and undoing centuries of abuse stemming from Eve and the apple. Women need to know that a female body and its sexuality are brimming with creative spirit, brimming with love and goodness. We need to reconnect with sexuality as spirituality, instead of splitting the two. Spirit's highest expression, for me, is the creation of a human body, and that begins with conception or sex.
So, let's reclaim our connection with our bodies, and celebrate the gift of being a woman. Someone once said, if you want to increase your blessings, then start counting them. I begin with the prayer of thanks for being born a woman.
nameste,
musemother
Monday, September 3, 2007
The Tao of Menopause #2
Tao Te Ching, #3
If you over esteem great men
people become powerless.
If you over esteem poessessions,
people begin to steal.
The Master leads
by emptying people's minds
and filling their cores,
by weakening their ambition
and toughening their resolve.
He helps people lose everything
they know, everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think they know.
Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.
Well, empty nesters and menopausal women with an urge to empty their closets, will relate to the Tao entry above. At least, in my case, after twenty years of reading books, writing essays and poetry, attempting to 'fit' in a literary world, and after much soul searching and confusion about 'what's next', I have finally come face to face with the fact that most of what is 'literary' bores me. My mind can use some emptying, as well as my closets. There is too much 'stuff' in my 5 bedroom house, weighing me down. There is too much thinking in my mind keeping me away from feeling my core. I create confusion when I think I know too much, anyway. Clutter.
Lao Tsu says the solution is to practice 'not-doing'. Stephen Mitchell, in the preface to his translation of this gem of wisdom, says 'not-doing' does not mean doing nothing, but losing oneself in the flow of doing, the way an artist loses himself in his work, or a dancer in the dance. The mind is tricky in that it creates separation between the heart and what we are 'doing', self-doubt, self-criticism, negative thinking keep us removed from the feeling of 'flow' or core. If I align myself with what I have learned to focus on inside, the feeling of the heart, the separation is removed.
I want to pay attention to the real desire of the heart, my thirst for self-knowledge, of the longing for peace felt deep in the belly. My ambition may become weak on the outside, for accumulation of objects, cars, possessions, for recognition and fame, for keeping up with the neighbours. I may decide to empty my house of extraneous furniture and belongings and call the Sally Ann to come do a big pick-up. But how to empty the mind of its forgotten clutter of concepts?
Only in the recognition of my thirst for self-love, for harmony, can I find my real ambition: to appreciate the curcumstances of my life (gratitude), and flow with trust in the rightness of what life presents every day. To learn how to flow peacefully from home time to work time to supper prep time to teen chauffering time, without feeling squeezed inside because there is no 'me' time.
Finding pleasure in taking care of my needs, sitting in silence daily, listening closely to my emotions, to finding balance, to grounding in and accepting Life: in my ambition to become a human being, not a human doing.
Heart to Heart.
Everything will fall into place.
If you over esteem great men
people become powerless.
If you over esteem poessessions,
people begin to steal.
The Master leads
by emptying people's minds
and filling their cores,
by weakening their ambition
and toughening their resolve.
He helps people lose everything
they know, everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think they know.
Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.
Well, empty nesters and menopausal women with an urge to empty their closets, will relate to the Tao entry above. At least, in my case, after twenty years of reading books, writing essays and poetry, attempting to 'fit' in a literary world, and after much soul searching and confusion about 'what's next', I have finally come face to face with the fact that most of what is 'literary' bores me. My mind can use some emptying, as well as my closets. There is too much 'stuff' in my 5 bedroom house, weighing me down. There is too much thinking in my mind keeping me away from feeling my core. I create confusion when I think I know too much, anyway. Clutter.
Lao Tsu says the solution is to practice 'not-doing'. Stephen Mitchell, in the preface to his translation of this gem of wisdom, says 'not-doing' does not mean doing nothing, but losing oneself in the flow of doing, the way an artist loses himself in his work, or a dancer in the dance. The mind is tricky in that it creates separation between the heart and what we are 'doing', self-doubt, self-criticism, negative thinking keep us removed from the feeling of 'flow' or core. If I align myself with what I have learned to focus on inside, the feeling of the heart, the separation is removed.
I want to pay attention to the real desire of the heart, my thirst for self-knowledge, of the longing for peace felt deep in the belly. My ambition may become weak on the outside, for accumulation of objects, cars, possessions, for recognition and fame, for keeping up with the neighbours. I may decide to empty my house of extraneous furniture and belongings and call the Sally Ann to come do a big pick-up. But how to empty the mind of its forgotten clutter of concepts?
Only in the recognition of my thirst for self-love, for harmony, can I find my real ambition: to appreciate the curcumstances of my life (gratitude), and flow with trust in the rightness of what life presents every day. To learn how to flow peacefully from home time to work time to supper prep time to teen chauffering time, without feeling squeezed inside because there is no 'me' time.
Finding pleasure in taking care of my needs, sitting in silence daily, listening closely to my emotions, to finding balance, to grounding in and accepting Life: in my ambition to become a human being, not a human doing.
Heart to Heart.
Everything will fall into place.
Monday, August 27, 2007
The Tao of Menopause
The Tao of Menopause is where I am going to comment on readings of the Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tsu, something I have been reading for a couple of years, at random. The translation I work from is Stephen Mitchell's, and I love its simple poetic flavour.
67
Some say that my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And to those who put it into practice,
this loftiness has roots that go deep.
I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.
Three little things, yes, and so difficult for me to achieve! It seems I started out with simplicity, with wanting nothing but the basics, living close to the source, and as I grew into a child, and then an adult, 'wanting' things, desiring recognition and achievements, gathering and accumulating relationships, furniture, clothing, art, books, children, persian carpets, a bigger house....the simplicity escaped. Patience has never been one of my virtues, and compassion, I thought, was for the weak and needy.
Oh but the wisdom life brings: in menopause the motto for me has been simplify! unload! empty out closets, give away houseplants, make do with less. Too much clutter, too many remote controls, too much stuff, too much confusion, makes me long for simplicity.
Patience I will work on, God, but give it to me quickly!
Compassion for myself.....learning this one out of 'no choice'. A broken leg, a sadness in the soul, a feeling of bug soup meltdown in the chrysalis....menopausal midlife change brought me challenges, health wise and emotion-wise, that have helped me learn compassion. It means "to suffer with" someone. As we learn from our own suffering, so we can be com-passionate with someone else's sufferings.
The nonsense Lao Tsu teaches comes with life experience, is more than mere words.
Its roots go deep.
Feeling is believing,
musemother
67
Some say that my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And to those who put it into practice,
this loftiness has roots that go deep.
I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.
Three little things, yes, and so difficult for me to achieve! It seems I started out with simplicity, with wanting nothing but the basics, living close to the source, and as I grew into a child, and then an adult, 'wanting' things, desiring recognition and achievements, gathering and accumulating relationships, furniture, clothing, art, books, children, persian carpets, a bigger house....the simplicity escaped. Patience has never been one of my virtues, and compassion, I thought, was for the weak and needy.
Oh but the wisdom life brings: in menopause the motto for me has been simplify! unload! empty out closets, give away houseplants, make do with less. Too much clutter, too many remote controls, too much stuff, too much confusion, makes me long for simplicity.
Patience I will work on, God, but give it to me quickly!
Compassion for myself.....learning this one out of 'no choice'. A broken leg, a sadness in the soul, a feeling of bug soup meltdown in the chrysalis....menopausal midlife change brought me challenges, health wise and emotion-wise, that have helped me learn compassion. It means "to suffer with" someone. As we learn from our own suffering, so we can be com-passionate with someone else's sufferings.
The nonsense Lao Tsu teaches comes with life experience, is more than mere words.
Its roots go deep.
Feeling is believing,
musemother
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