Happy Earth Day!

                            I came across several posts today on social media about 15 things to "give up" in order to be happy.  Always preferring to frame things in the positive, I thought about my teachers guidance regarding growing and expanding, which is that the easiest way to remove (give up) something is to replace it with something better:
      So, I rewrote the suggestions and offer you this today.
DON’T GIVE UP!  FROLIC IN GIFT WAVES FROM THE OCEAN OF LOVE & MERCY
     
      Let's all

1.      Enjoy being human even when that means being wrong sometimes

2.      Let others make mistakes knowing we are all strong enough to handle all results

3.      Own our part in any problem and give each other compassion

4.      Increase positive self-talk

5.      Expand our beliefs to all possibilities

6.      See the good and proclaim it.

7.      Give praise unsparingly and receive it graciously.  

8.      Welcome and embrace change

       9.   Identify with our true & perfect selves

     10.  Relish diversity 

     11.  Be courageous in the face of mind's fears

     12.  Find reason to dive in, knowing we are loved and cared for no matter what.

     13.  Be here now
     14.  Be free to receive and let go to be in the ebb & flow.

     15.  Live life playing for the fun of it.

                                                     

Happy Earthday!

The Cosmo I Am

I live in lands of love and laughter,
In realms of radiant reverence
That explode from clouds of fog and frolic
In meadows of merriment
And sometimes sorrow streaks
Hand in hand with occasional anger
Arching over inordinate evil
Until karma reveals its kindness
From the peaks of mountains’ mysteries

The world is in me
The dark and the light
The silence and the symphony
There is nothing I cannot contain
No burden too big to abide
No joy too small to celebrate
With shooting stars;

Goodness, mercy, and beauty
Within and about me

Sheila April 2013

 Talk about synchronicity! April 22 is my birthday and within moments of writing the above, I was notified of the following:

 

What's in a Word or Phrase?

A friend once called me to task for using the word “hate” about everything I disliked.  He thought “hate” was a strong word with an intense emotion, and though he didn’t think I actually felt hateful, my use of the word made him uncomfortable.  If a rough fabric that snagged on my dry skin or the smell of someone’s overabundance of cologne could so quickly spark hatred in me, he didn’t feel at ease with my emotional range.

After only a little defensiveness, I agreed with him and acknowledged that my use of the word was just a habit.  I changed the habit and extended my emotional base line out much further. Now I rarely hear myself saying I hate anyone or anything.  A therapist also gave me the tool of simply citing my preferences rather than attaching emotional surges to them.  

I have often heard that the problem with losing a language, a people forgetting it as they are assimilated into a new culture and new language, is that with that language an entire culture is lost.

In some instances there are aspects of our language and culture that it would be good to do away with, at least in some contexts.

This week I attended a talk at UNM-Albuquerque, sponsored by multiple organizations to stop violence against women, which featured Ted Bunch the co-founder and co-director of A Call to Men, an organization which “works to create a world where all men and boys are loving and respectful and all women and girls are valued and safe” http://www.acalltomen.org/ .  He spoke on how we as a society perpetuate values both positive and negative thru the language we use and specifically how our language diminishes the value of females, and elevates males. A classic example is how a person might say to a boy, “you throw like a girl.”  He reported that one young man said if his coach told him that in front of his teammates it would “destroy” him.  Clearly being like a girl is not higly valued.  Of course throwing with more strength and with more direction is highly valued in athletics, but its opposite or lesser degrees doesn't need to be put in context of being female, and thus grouped together as unacceptable.

The following day, via V-Day on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/#!/vday , I came across a blog that has stimulated a lot of online conversation about this very issue – about how a specific phrase in a specific context attaches or removes value. It was so against the mainstream thinking that many have taken umbrage, or deemed it just more politically correct b.s.

I see it is yet another way to look more carefully at how our language socializes us and how we use it and unwittingly pass on cultureal beliefs and assign value in even more subtle modes than the above example (throwing like a girl).

So, because I'm a strong proponent of self-examination and because I love the energy of controversy (but only when it isn’t hateful), and viewing from differnet perspectives,  I am herein encouraging you to read, with the intention of understanding the author's point of view, this particular blog: http://bellejarblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/i-am-not-your-wife-sister-or-daughter/

Blessings!

New Beginnings

Uh-oh, almost another full year has passed since I last posted.
....And thus, my blog is a pefect example of "what we don't feed won't grow." That works in both polarities, the negative and the positive.

I am not beating myself up over it though. 2012 was a rich year, I attended the birth of my most recent granddaughter last February and I gave some extra attention to my Dad who passed away at home this past December, after a long 92 years. I kept up my writing group and have also been participating in a great book club.  I've cultivated old and new friendships. .  It's all good.

But as spring approaches once again, I've been fostering my writing through a great online class given by Lesley King  who just published her novel The Baby Pact www.lesleysking.com/writing/the-baby-pact, and who has a great inspiring blog of her own at http://www.lesleysking.com/

I am also noting my resistence to motivation, to stretching, to putting myself out there. Due to Lesley's class I have more direction now and my willingness I am opening up to possibilities.  My Master http://www.masterpath.org/says that resistence is always part of the creative process. First comes the idea or ideal, then the resistence, then the overcoming of the resistence and the manifestation.

So here I am in the flow of the creative process!  I am excited to see what I bring to fruition this year.

Second Year, Time Passes, Best Friends

So, its been over a year since I started my blog, and still I have only one follower, one of my best friends..perhaps partially because I don't advertise even to other best friends. 
I can say whatever I have to say on Facebook, or in private emails? Right?
Not really, not when I have a lot to say and think it's important enough for more people to hear/read what I think.
Guess I better get my blog out there for those rare moments
Once again face to face with my own lack of motivation backed by the fact that I'm coming to see those rare moments as misguided ones; that my opinion matters a whit.
Once again seeing the lack of importance of my opinions and my attachment to them.
And I like that.
Some say sharing insights encourages and inspires others.
Insights are intimate gifts, pearls, that the miserly me likes to keep to myself more often than not of late. I used to think they needed to be broadcast, but not so much anymore.  I am seeing this journey as more of a singular one with every passing day. Though I still delight in gathering my rosebuds, sharing them seems to take the bloom off.  Besides, the more I try, the more I resort to cliches.
But since I do have one reader and perhaps more to follow, i want to say this about "best friends"; they can be multiple even though they are best.
The best describes the characteristics of them as friends.
Some are fair weather, some good friends, others are best.
You are few & far between, best friends,  but I think the world of each of you because of how you've been there for me, in different ways at different times, because you love me in spite of my shortcomings, because I feel safe letting you know me warts and all.

So, for now, my one follower/best friend,  that's all!

A Poem Post My Mother's Death about Mothers in General

First Person Primal Love by Sheila Burns August 2011

She is not always the one

Who bore and birthed us

But the first who daily

Cared enough to nurture us;

First person that we, unconscious

She had a choice, took for granted;

First person whose fingers

Ours regularly gripped;

First person who responded

To our cries, who put,

Begrudgingly, or not, our needs

First.

She is the first person whose face

Ours mimicked with a smile

Whose approval and affection

We craved; the first person

Whose words mattered

The one whose support

We relied upon

First.

She is the first person

Who daily fed us, gave us

Our mother tongue,

Whose teachings constructed us;

First person we disobeyed

Who made us feel

More guilty than afraid;

First person we had to ask

First for permission;

First person who cared

What happened to us

First.

She is who we first rebelled against

And when, not if, she goes away,

Abandons us by choice or fate,

Runs from the burden of us

Or becomes a burden to us before

She is scythed down by Death

No one else will ever be

First.

JUST MY OPINION

            We all know that saying about opinions, that they are like a**holes; everyone has one. That’s so off the mark. Probably from some adolescent mind that just wanted to use the word a**holes.

Opinions are more like skin cells, everyone has zillions and they are always being sloughed off in one-on-one conversations, group gatherings, via TV, Radio, e-mails, newspapers, and now in blogs (I’d say like this one, but I have few followers) with avid fans.  

And no, that doesn’t make me a hypocrite for having this blog.  I am not criticizing opinions by comparing them to body parts.  I am just making a comparison of fact. To state my opinions in any form, just affirms me to be human and quite similar to most others of my species.  

Not all my opinions are without judgment. Most of them are judgmental.  It’s called discernment. I like hearing others opinions if they make sense to me, which is why I listen to progressive talk radio.

So many others’ opinions are a study in lack of logic. But if one has no basis to know what logic is, one is lost and easily led down an illogical path when someone with a podium and a bullhorn draws what they claim is a logical path to a conclusion on a blackboard.  The thinking must be, “Someone gave them the podium, bullhorn, and blackboard, so they must have the respect of someone who must know.”  So they follow along with the lecturer's charting as he writes something like 1+2 = 4, then adds a big arrow from that formula to a picture of a pitchfork stabbing a dollar bill with the face of the current President and another arrow to the word Socialist, and another arrow that states that President was born in La-la-land and is therefore related to the Marxist that rose up and rebelled in that country. Then he draw a big bubble around the whole mess and empahtically states this undeniably proves that foreign born Socialist is out to destroy our country.  And the sheeple nod in agreement and spread the word.

One believes  also because, as Randi Rhodes said the other day, and I paraphrase here, the weakminded  are drawn to Loud & Strong, to Might rather than right. They want to be on the side of the big, loud bully whether he or she makes sense or not. Being on the side of the lumbering, ludicrous giants is so much more secure than on the side of the quiet, compassionate, nuanced  intellects. They seem wimpy to those who are unable to think critically for themselves.  Loud wins every argument.   So, I am glad to see a certain opinionated, loudmouth leave television.

              I don’t like to name the names of people I disrespect