The Wednesday Word is: ENERGY

Energy. A force within each of us and of us. It is the strength and vitality of all things. It is the force, strong or subtle, which aids humans in sustaining physical and mental activity.

You know what energy feels like and looks like, though we might think we cannot. You feel your heart beat and the breath enter and exit your body. If you didn’t, you are paying attention now. The mental agility it takes to read and process these words contains energy. When we experience a child’s boundless charisma, we witness energy. When someone shows up in a ‘mood’ we experience their energy before they even say one word.

Energy is powerful. It is a force we too often take for granted and seem to not understand how to harness it, get more of it or settle it. However, we have more control over our energy than we think. Sometimes it just takes sitting with it, meditating on it and tuning in to your personal environment and the environment around you. You know what feels good. Do more of that. You know what feels icky. Find ways to balance the energy so you can not allow the icky to affect you negatively. You can still retain a lesson from a negative experience without retaining the negative energy within the experience. It’s perfect harmony, if we learn how to fund the balance.

Nature is a great neutralizer. Balance can come from a shower, sitting and listening to the rain, dipping your toes in a stream or watching the ocean waves move, rhythmically carrying away our burdens and bringing renewed energy back to us, with each crest and roll. Ocean waves carry, neutrally charged water of mother earth up to the shore, bringing with it, life. And as that wave rolls away, it takes with it, the worries, transgressions, fear, anxiety, stress, sadness and pulls it away from you and cleanses it in the waters of life. So we relax, and allow life to carry on, rolling in, and out and peace prevails if we let it.

Life can pull you in so many directions, but sometimes you just need to stop fighting the tide and go with the flow. Or sometimes you just need to STOP and listen to what your energy is telling you.

If you’re waiting for the lightbulb to go off sending you a signal or an a-ha moment you won’t get it going Mach 30 with your hair on fire. You need quiet to resolve and balance the energy so you can best read the situation. The energy within chaos is meant to be confusing. People surrounded by chaotic energy are surrounded by randomness and often unsettled, lacking clarity. This may leave you feeling like nothing you set out to do gets accomplished. You control your energy and you can control the energy you accept into your circle. When life feels chaotic, take this as that lightbulb moment, or your a-ha! Notice if you experience patterns, and connections between what you experience and times of day or people you are around. Check your ego. What energy are you showing up with which maybe isn’t serving you well? Develop your ability to bring awareness to your energy and notice how you feel and where you feel those feelings. Question those feelings. Ask why or how come and begin to connect the dots, reflect, and learn about what energy you want to hold onto and what energy you need to release, which no longer serves you well. You choose how to show up or not show up. What do you need today?

How will you and your energy choose to show up today?

The Wednesday Word is: BIRTHDAY

This morning, during and after meditation class, I was thinking about my husband’s birthday this week. Despite still being under COVID restrictions, I managed to take him to lunch (our first time out to eat together since March), to the beach and for a nice drive, to get away for a while. Then we came home and I did something I never had done before. I used his pellet grill to make him surf and turf for dinner. He got phone calls, video chats from our daughters and other family and friends, and a quick, socially distanced visit from our youngest daughter and her boyfriend. All-in-all, I think he had a good birthday.

Birthdays were something I always cherished. I remember, despite a lot of my childhood being filled with fear and angst, my mom used to try to make a point to make my birthday matter. I can still remember my very first birthday party with classmates at McDonald’s, when I turned 6. I remember some of my favorite gifts: a ceramic bunny, a water/hoop game, SpeakNSpell, Barbie dolls. I remember going ice skating once. I remember going to dinner with boyfriends over the years, and dinners with my husband. Each year, for my kids, I used to make them their favorite dinner and dessert. We went away from that when they got older, as they wanted to start new traditions. Yet, I find myself yearning for those birthday dinners these days. I hope those dinners are among my daughters’ favorite birthday memories. I remember having a cake fight at my grandson Drew’s birthday party one year, too. And a huge water balloon fight at my grandsons’ Eli and Jeb’s birthday party. Such fun!

For me, birthdays took on a greater significance when I was diagnosed with my first serious health condition at age 12. Seems I have been dealing with something all my life. I had no idea if I would overcome scoliosis. No idea if I would run again or if I would lose the ability to walk or something more serious. I came through it ok. Later in life I would be diagnosed with cancer. And while caught early, birthdays took on a strong purpose, for me. I celebrated my 28th birthday with my brother and friends, all the while no one knowing I was having surgery and starting treatment the following week. I didn’t celebrate my 29th birthday because depression set in. I didn’t celebrate much that year. When I turned 30, I took myself and my roommate out to the fanciest restaurant. I even ate escargot! I decided on my 30th birthday that from this moment on I would celebrate my birthday in some meaningful way, and make sure each of my children understood how precious their lives were, as we celebrated theirs each year, too.

While how we celebrate has changed, I meditate on their birthdays now, sending them love, light and health through the next year and honor the gratitude for being blessed by their lives. Same with my grandkids.

We are only given so many birthdays. Some people are given a spirit and are lost in utero and their families celebrate their short lives in special ways. Others may only get a few seconds of life and their families still celebrate their lives, too. Still, others may get many seconds of life (there are apx. 22,075,000 seconds in a long lifetime) and take each one for granted. Or, as sad as the reality is, life can end in a second, and this birthday could be the last. We never know how many birthdays we will have. So my advice is celebrate each one. Celebrate half birthdays, too. Live the life you deserve, and even if you have a birthday where you just do not feel like celebrating you, make a point to do a random act of kindness for someone else. It will lift your spirits and give new meaning to celebrating life every day. Heck, for that matter, treat each new day like a birthday. Why not?

Happy Birthday! <3

The Wednesday Word is: QUIET

For years I have been a community advocate and stood for the rights of others – mentally ill, developmentally disabled, Veterans, LGTBQ+, homeless women, children, human rights, and countless others. For me, it is my way of honoring the process of my journey. I have empathy and compassion, which helps me help others. While I may never know what your life experiences are like, I can speak up for you as a human being with rights. If you feel I cannot speak for you, then I supportively stand next to you, using my tools when called upon. I tend to be the quiet in the storm, but my quiet is always percolating.

Ironically, by some in my community, I am called ‘The Quiet Lady’. This is because I teach meditation. That once quieted voice now speaks out against injustices to all and equality for all, yet is also the restorative centering people need in order to heal. I am beginning to understand it is because of my history that the world needs me. The world needs the boisterous, soul shakers, too. They make sure the world is listening. So, are you listening? Or have you tuned us out?

I used to be a boisterous soul shaker. At age 12, I picketed the proposed site of a dump, which I am happy to say still has not been built. For all the rebellious luster I had within, one day God said to me: “Be quiet. Be still. They will come. They will need you.” And I said recently, “God, I am mad! I’m angry. I need to scream!!! Why are you doing this?” I even told God I didn’t like people. No answer. I felt like He too was ignoring me. Today, in the quiet of this morning God whispered to me again. “Be quiet. Be still. They will come. They need you.”

So, I wait. I am quiet. Fuming inside at the injustice, the inequality, the outrage, the chains which still bind and hold others back. I’m quiet. I’m still. Uncertain, but trusting. I’m praying. I’m holding signs, but saying no words, because cannot adequately address the injustice and hatred. I’m at a loss for how to help. My voice may not vibrate out with words, but my soul is radiating love, compassion and kindness, hoping people will be called to my light, knowing in me and my practice, the quiet is the tool needed to heal and my four walls are the sanctuary to restore your shaken soul.

Lastly, never let anyone silence you. Never.

No one knows your heart except you and God. If someone is interpreting your words a way which was not of your intention, have a conversation with one another, or choose to ignore their ignorance. If your actions do not match your words, the conversation which needs to be had takes place in the mirror. God already knows. You stopped listening.

-My Prayer-

May your voice find the freedom you deserve.

May the quiet never silence you.

May the quiet with in you bring resolve.

May the peace in your heart bring balance to the changes our world needs.

Amen & Namaste

The Wednesday Word is…

The Wednesday Word usually comes to me when I meditate each morning. Sometimes it filters in after ruminating a bit on how I feel or what is going on in the world. The following words came to me:

EMPTY

SAD

MAD

ANGER

FRUSTRATION

EPITOME

SLAVERY

UNITED

PEOPLE

DARKNESS

OVERWHELMED

OPPRESSED

DISENFRANCHISED

PEACE

RIGHTS

HOME

I have no idea where to begin. I also do not feel I have any more words of comfort, or words of wisdom, right now. I know people look to me for clarity and compassion, and I try to convey that each week in this message, I am just out of words that host any benefit.

A wise man once told me: “If you cannot add to the conversation, don’t bother speaking just to hear yourself talk.” – or something like that. So, I’ll just say this: I love you. You matter. You’ve always mattered to me. I will likely never understand, but I stand with you and up for all people to be treated as such.

More than 400 years ago, Black people were stripped, literally, of everything and brought to a country inhabited by White people after they seized it from Native people. When I hear racist statements like, “Then go back to where you came from…” Who, exactly, are you or should you be directing those words?

#allliveswillmatterwhenalllivesmatter