My Definition of the word "Professional"

My definition of the word "professional" explains a lot about my life trajectory. I just looked it up in the dictionary. It simply means getting paid for doing something. I knew that. But I had a much grander idea that it meant being trained or practiced in doing something so well that you could do it in spite of whatever was going on around you or in your head and heart. If I admired some one's professionalism, my view was that they could play a perfect concert during a disaster, or teach their college class while their mother lay dying. That kind of thing.

My personal, misguided, definition had nothing to do with pay. It had to do with being able to put on the hat of your profession and leave the rest of your life behind. My notion was that if one was practiced enough, trained enough, you could perform your craft well under any circumstances.

I hold to my notion and am not surprised that I left out the importance of the pay part. I have pretty much ignored that part of every action of my life. I am not proud of this, it just has been so.

I think I was also misguided by some residual class consciousness from my youth. This person was a professional. That one was blue collar.  That makes no sense in terms of pay. They are both being paid. It also doesn't make sense in terms of training. Both have had to be trained. The Dalai Lama is not a professional meditator. He doesn't get paid to meditate. In my qualifications he would be  the ultimate professional. In the dictionary definition, not.

So, every soldier we have is a professional. They get paid. I had also a mental mix up between "career" soldier and other soldiers. They are all trained. They all get paid. So, I guess the mercenaries are just the smartest ones because they get paid a truck load more and don't have to pretend to follow international laws.

The  one formal training I had was in massage. I took the training very late in life. Everything else I had learned was empirically learned. I had learned by being an apprentice or by taking a course. I was really impressed with the massage training because it gave me assurance which clients felt through my hands. After I learned technique, I added my intuition and life knowledge. It worked for me. I actually wished at that time that I had taken some other trainings in my lifetime.

I know why this thought came to me today. The young woman behind the counter at the market was just great. I had the thought that she was really professional and then self corrected. She was just a sunshine personality who also did her job flawlessly.

Babies Everywhere...

Everywhere I have gone since I returned from Nicaragua, I am seeing babies and older folks. Mind you, I have only been in California and Oregon. I have mostly been in high end neighborhoods, but the epidemic of the boomers and their grandchildren is wildly evident. If I were to consider a business at this time, it would be directed at those markets.

I was born in 1944, so I was a war baby. By the time I was in second or third grade, the portable classrooms started to sprout up all over the school yard. The boomers had hit in enormous numbers. For a while every activity for kids was mobbed. Now we (they) have hit 65. I expect that the lines will be very long for any activity (doctors offices) that we need.

I can see how it happened. Men (mostly) had been away for years fighting in the Pacific and in Europe. They returned to a country that was out of the depression, desperately anxious to return to some normalcy. Housing loans and the GI Bill for education were put in place immediately. The kids came and came fast. The American Dream was attainable for many. The world stage was mostly quiet. Manufacturing had exploded during the war. Everyone had a shot.

Rudolf Steiner said that there are times in history when many souls feel the need to incarnate at the same time. They have a karmic need to be alive for critical events in world history. I don't have the insight into what the even was that our generation was here for, nor this new gang that is coming now. What I do feel is hope. New babies always bring me hope. The children that I have met all seem to be remarkable. Many are being born bringing an aura of having it all together. They are beautiful, engaging, smart, wise. I don't think this just because I have a grandmother's bragging rights. I see it in random kids I walk by in the park. I see it in the stores.

These kids give me hope. I hope they are a mighty force to turn things around and bring humanity to a better place, bring the world into balance, bring light into the darkness. That is what I am hoping.

I pressed the panic button.

I forgot where I was yesterday when I was in a coffee shop in Oregon, USA and I thought I had lost my wallet. I forgot I was home where I could easily get replacements for any documents I needed.  When I travel and bum around a lot, there are very few possessions that I care about. I tend to bring well used luggage after having seen that high end pack packs are the first to get stolen. I often take clothes that are at the end of their usefulness, so that I have no bad feelings about leaving them behind.

But the wallet! The passport! My Kindle! My debit card! My phone! My tiny computer! When I had my panic yesterday, I remembered the crying people at the airport a month ago who had been robbed and were missing their flight and didn't have the money to get a taxi to the Embassy. For a second, I was far away and had no proof of who I am. It was only a second before my friend caught sight of the wallet and the flash was over.

Two problems presented themselves in that flash. Who am I ? And how did my list of necessities turn into a list of widgets? It used to be that the most important things I brought on a trip were travelers checks, a good book, food and my passport. Travelers checks are over, history. Young people probably don't even know about them. They were money you bought from a company like American Express which could be cashed anywhere and were insured so that if they were lost or stolen, they would be replaced. American Express and the advent of plastic cards ended that. American Express got a well deserved reputation for not reimbursing the banks and the stores for months. No merchant wanted to deal with them.

The good book thing just can't compare to the Kindle on the road. My son and I ran out of books on a beach vacation in Central America and it was a very desperate situation. I read myself to sleep every night. Before I travel now I put tons of emergency books on the Kindle. It is like money in the bank. And a replacement Kindle comes faster than an ordered book.

I need to bring food along more than ever. If we are going down memory lane, remember the days when you got a tasty hot meal on an airplane? Now, it is often a problem to have enough time between flights to buy something in the airport. Moan.

Now the real question. Without my wallet (passport, drivers license, credit card, insurance card) who am I? Without the widgets, how can I communicate? I have lived in places without electricity. I have lived in places without food (El Salvador, Highlands of Guatemala during the 'troubles')  This panic represents a new insecurity to me, which arrived with my dependence on little devices. I don't really like the feeling. I certainly will examine it. I am not a piece of paper or plastic. I would have supposed that I would feel more secure with all this connectivity. That isn't my current experience. I feel more dependent. I am going to assume that when I examine this panic, I am going to free myself from it. I know that being without the accoutrements of contemporary civilization doesn't take away my humanity and doesn't take away other people's kindness. Sometimes it is also the beginning if an adventure.

I remember when we tried out restaurants or hotels or hostels without reading 50 reviews of them It was kind of exciting.Yes, I am going to put my stock in the adventure of it all next time I think I have lost my wallet and not press the panic button. 

At our age, I guess we all have some melancholia.

Hung out with girlfriends last night. It was a gorgeous night. It was also a bit of a desperation dinner. Girlfriends came loaded with grief and anger and disappointment. I had kind of rehearsed my misery during my glorious walk in the park yesterday. I came fully loaded, wanting wisdom, sympathy and center stage.

It didn't go quite like that. I never even got to my story. We jumped into each others pain. They unloaded. Conversation swirled around the deck under the moonlight. G. brought out Lama Marut's book and any page we opened was perfectly relevant. And we relaxed and faces changed and we hugged it out.

That's what girlfriends are for. About the melancholy...I don't mean that the evening made me melancholic, I mean that in the way temperaments behave, their pain, somehow relieved mine. I have never been a melancholic type. I am pretty choleric with some sanguine mixed in. But the different ages of life have their own temperaments. And anyone can see that as we get older, the melancholia comes to the foreground. We think about the past. We remember the past.

In Waldorf schools, we seat the children in the classroom according to the temperaments. They help each other to become more balanced by their close proximity. Many times as a teacher, I heard some choleric child say to someone just like her, "Calm down. You don't need to fight about everything." Or a sanguine student tell his neighbor to sit still for a while. In that same way, my sympathies were aroused by girlfriends struggles and my stuff didn't feel so bad.

We didn't get into solving each others problems. We didn't even try. But we were together in the tears and the laughter. Sometimes that's all it takes.

We Need Each Other

We need each other. Then, why is it so hard? We need each other in order that we can resolve our karmic relationships and attain BLISS. I bet that isn't where you thought I was going with this. When this thought came to mind, I expected to be writing about how we need love and nurture and support and feedback and stimulation and a million other things in order to be healthy individuals. But if I follow my Buddhist stream of thought, everyone we meet , we meet because of a karmic connection.

The enlightened beings have worked things through to the place where they can give pure love to everyone including those who might be their worst enemies. When everything is love, of course, you can have no enemies. Every sentient creature is your beloved. "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." "Love your neighbor as yourself." When someone wrongs you, have compassion for them. They will have the karma of their misdeeds to reap later. By having compassion instead of anger, we free ourselves of our part of the karmic dance.

Enlightenment isn't about knowing everything. It is about being full of light, free of debt, karmically speaking, and free to be blissful. And my good Lama says that we don't have to wait to go to heaven to experience this. I thought Desmond Tutu looks very blissful. I know the Dalai Lama has a smile that comes directly from his heart for everyone he meets.

Years ago, I was at The Courage of Conscience awards given by the Peace Abbey at the Kennedy Center in Boston. There was a man receiving an award. His light shined so brightly that I thought he was an angel. He was Chief John Pretty on Top. He had that look of radiant light that I equate with bliss. He was a part time janitor at a church somewhere, doesn't matter. It was no surprise that people recognized that he was special. What more could we want from life?

My Boston Irish

Still thinking about Boston. That always leads me to thinking about the Irish. (all my Boston relations are/were pure Irish) That leads me to my answer Jane's question on our walk this morning. "Have you ever been to Ireland?" "No, I have not." And then to wondering why not?

I always had dumb reasons like the rainy weather and I don't drink beer or whiskey. But my mother and all my relatives loved the county. And I assume that two of my favorite personal traits came from my Irish heritage; The Blarney and the 'Sight'. Not that I have overmuch of each, but I have my fair share which is sometimes great and sometimes a pain in the ass.

I have snippets of family stories that come to mind from time to time along with certain expressions that are engraved somewhere in my consciousness. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" Heard that a lot. "Go on with you!" With any good Irish family, it is hard to tell the legends from the history, but who cares? When my mother was three, she died of scarlet fever. At least the doctor proclaimed her dead. The priest gave her the last rites. Then her nurse took her on the train from Lawrence, MA to the ocean, throwing her bottle out the window on the way. After she was plunged in the salt water she revived and began to heal. "Salt water cures everything." I heard that story more than once. When given the chance we put all our cuts into the sea.

My great grandfather had ships that brought refugees from the famine to Boston. He was highly revered because his boats were not death traps like so many and he gave a lot of starving people a break. his reputation was still alive when I was a kid. My grandfather had money during the depression and he helped out a lot of his countrymen. I can still remember going out with them (to church, I suppose) and feeling the respect they got. But much of life in the community was banter, jokes and most of all, stories.

The stories were tall tales, but they were self-deprecating at the same time. Any Irishman worth his salt  would have you laughing and crying almost at the same time. And then there were the songs of the Uprising. They still bring tears to my eyes and I, myself, never lost a son to the Cause.

OK. I am going to Ireland. I need to feel the spirit. I want to meet my history. All this inspired by watching my tribe, may of them cops, during the sad news coverage in Boston.

The Yankee Way

My friend, Frances Day, God rest her soul, named her big beautiful Hereshoff sailboat "Desperate Lark". I loved that name. She, (the boat) has been rebuilt and is now in the water again. That makes me happy.

Years ago, about 27 years ago, I took my two youngest kids out of school and we headed off to Central and South America on our "desperate lark". There were many reasons for this trip. I had been divorced and sold my house in the woods of New Hampshire after an heroic stay there when we survived against blistering odds.

The house had been built by Frances Day and her husband Fritz Day. It was a little log cabin deep in the woods. The part of the cabin that wasn't logs was sided with bark. It had been built around two trees, on of which was still alive 50 years after the Great Room was made. I used to say that the house had all the luxuries and none of the necessities. We had a six foot absolutely fabulous bath tub, but often had to resort to a hand pump in the woods. It had a wonderful dining room and almost no kitchen. The driveway ended long before the cabin and we had to walk over a little stone bridge over a quarry pond to get in the house.

It had quartz crystals breaking through the granite ledges. It had some studio buildings and a tiny log cabin on a hill. If you left the lights on very long, the walls got hot. It had no heating system. It had been built as an getaway for a few weeks in the summer for Greenwich Village artists. It was a dream. It was also a bit of a nightmare. Because of the live tree and because the house had sat empty for so many months each year, it was inhabited. You could hear chewing all the time. 

We had wonderful Yankee neighbors. Yankees are often looked upon as aloof, minding their own business, twenty-five years minimum to get to know you kind of people. But they are often sturdy, reliable, practical and very generous. We weren't a charity case, but winter was coming and we were in a house with no heat, crooked windows warped by time, a mile long dirt driveway, filled with holes... It was often an adventure to come home. We found a few cords of stacked wood by the door. We found bushels of apples, piles of squash. The town (611 souls) grated the drive. All these things happened quietly, without signature. Yankees at their best.

An old friend gave my 12 year old son a chain saw and we installed a wood stove and new windows. Then a miracle happened. The teacher-principle of the local three room school told me he had a job for me. He had started a little project which he ran himself. I had heard hints of his work around town. Basically, if he saw a need, he found someone who could fill the need. His job for me was that I would be the Publishers Sweepstakes person who would deliver the million dollar check.

I was depressed about my divorce. I was having to revision my future and that of my kids. This 'job' was to go to a person's house and tell them that someone had fixed a problem that they were finding insurmountable. He started me out with a few easy jobs. I went to the house of an older woman who had been getting threatening letters about her electricity being shut off. I knocked on the door, introduced myself and told her that all her past due bills had been paid and there was an advance payment made for the next 4 months.

She cried and kissed me and said thank you over and over. I told her the truth. I didn't know who had paid the money and I was just the messenger. I got many more thanks, a few hugs and a piece of cake and was on my way. The next house was a young family. I had to tell them that on Saturday morning, a washer and dryer and a plumber and an electrician would be arriving at their house. A gift from ...I don't know where. I had to endure thanks, and kisses and coffee and coffee cake and disclaim any responsibility. I loved my new job!!!!! I was feeling better and better.

The job got better and better. Jim Grant, the man behind this, was a simple man in this project. We lived in a beautiful New Hampshire town, Temple. There was a great deal of money around and there were many families who were struggling very hard. Through his position at school, he had been witness to kids with dirty clothes, kids who couldn't go on field trips because their parents didn't have the money, old people who couldn't get the firewood in or rake their leaves. He had propositioned a few of the wealthy (Mr. Banks!) and was told to get people what they needed, but they wanted to stay behind the scenes.

More and more people heard about this and offered their work or money or goods. Merchants in nearby towns contributed mightily over the years. The giving and the getting stayed quiet and this project went on for years. My job gave me wonderful contact with people who were being helped and beamed that at me for lack of knowing who else to thank. I was so helped and I turned out to be very good at being another connector person in the chain. We never had a name. We never had papers. We just did what needed to be done. The Yankee way.

I miss Boston today.

God, sometimes I miss Boston. One thing I miss is the camaraderie and the banter and the crazy neighborhoods. I miss the humor and I miss the pathos. Bostonians do have something special going on. Probably all cities do.

I was substitute teaching in the North End one day. It was the Rose Kennedy School. The North End is the Italian neighborhood, but the school was almost all black kids because of busing. They came from a shitty neighborhood all the way across town, from Roxbury, to go to a terrible school in a white neighborhood. Go figure. It was probably a nice school before the neighborhood kids left.

The school was right next to the Old North Church and the statue of Paul Revere. I took the kids next door to the Old North Church and one bright sixth grader mentioned that he thought all the founders (John Hancock and his cronies) were probably all slave holders. I had to tell them that I thought they weren't probably slave holders (what do I know?) but that I was pretty certain that most of them had made their fortunes from the slave trade. It was a very smooth cycle for the New England merchants. The ships went from England to West Africa with textiles. From Africa they went to the Caribbean with slaves, from there they came to New England with rum, molasses, sugar. From New England the ships went to England with timber or granite. A very profitable journey.

The kid's friend then piped up and scornfully looked at the statue of Paul Revere and said,"What so great about him? All he did was freak out and race around on his horse yelling that trouble was coming. It was kind of sad, but they saw shoot outs nightly in their own streets. I was more able to defend Paul Revere. He was warning folks of a real danger.

I am certain that those kids were just as devastated by the violence in Boston this past week as any Blue Blood. Boston has a way of getting under your skin. I felt that when I was watching the line up of speakers this afternoon when the suspect was caught.  At that moment, everyone was on the same page. From Mumbles Mennino, the Mayor, to the Governor, to the cops to the onlookers, they were Boston.

I always had good experiences with the Boston cops. But, I must say that there was something frightening to me today seeing the pictures of tanks rolling down the streets and thousands of cops everywhere. I have seen that moment in Guatemala and El Salvador when the cops were not the good guys. I am highly impressed with the work the Boston cops did. I am very happy that the monsters have been caught. I think we have to be extremely vigilant to keep our rights and our freedoms so that that unbelievable show of force and weaponry can never be in the hands of unscrupulous people. Never.

Gun Control? Don't be ridiculous..

The loss in the Senate on the gun control bill would have been more interesting if the bill had had some teeth. So many compromises had been made in the creation of the bill that I think it was already shameful before the vote. A great defeat of a radical bill would have distinguished those fighting for it. The right and the ultra right are not making concessions. They are standing for their ideals. I think the left needs to do the same.

The country is divided in a way that has not, to my knowledge, happened since the Civil War. Seemingly, in an attempt to bridge that gap and make things work, we are allowing the chipping away of what we know is right. This is not working. When those wishing for sensible, sane, gun control know they have the will of a large majority behind them, they should be emboldened. I can't see why this is not happening.

If we continue on the current trajectory we will become like the Congo or other countries in the midst of civil wars where men go around in the back of pick up trucks spraying the crowds randomly with millions of bullets. I don't think anyone wants to be part of that picture.

We need some Gandhi figures to stand up and never give an inch. If you are for the truth and do not compromise, you will prevail. I believe this. I don't vote for a legislature which won't even stand for what the majority of their voters want. It doesn't make sense. It is a stupid picture. Maybe we should give up our idea of democracy and just vote for what corporation or industry we want running the show. Monsanto or AT&T? Halliburton or General Electric? It feels like that's almost what is going on.

I got afraid the other day and I lost my cool.

I guess I have prided myself on my ability to stay cool when things got crazy. I do fall apart afterwards. I was cool when threatened with death in El Salvador. I have been extremely cool when coming upon a motorcycle accident in the middle of the woods in New Hampshire with a car full of kids. (before cell phones)  But the other day, the lioness in me came out when I felt that some dear ones were threatened. I escalated the situation. I felt fear and took the wrong tact.

I am not usually into true confessions on this blog, but I failed my Buddhism, big time. I was not violent, but my words were aggressive and hurtful. Buddhism tells me that the way to get rid of an irritating person, and this was a HIGHLY irritating person, is to feel compassion. I had a fleeting glimpse that the person threatening me and mine was a truly suffering being but my righteousness in the situation, (in my mind) and this fear, this threat, got me.

I have a many reasons to justify my actions, but at the same time I have taken non-violent trainings. I have committed myself to peace. I should not have let myself get into that situation. Mea culpa. I did get out quickly. I did not re-engage when the chance came. I did learn again that "There is no path to peace. Peace is the path."

Now I am working on the forgiveness part. I need to forgive myself first and the guy second. I do forgive, but I won't forget, I hope.

Why are Americans so worried about their kids?

I was at the fabulous Hotel Granada swimming pool in Granada, Nicaragua. (gigantic, surrounded by lush foliage, salt water, great place to catch up on the world news as people arrive from all over all the time) There was a large catered birthday party happening on one side. The waiters set everything up and then about forty moms arrived with their seven year old children in tow.

This was definitely a well-heeled group. I would guess the kids went to the international school in Managua. It was about half Norte Americanos and half Nicaraguans. The kids all looked great and only wanted to get in the pool. The Nicaraguan moms were beautifully put together...lovely clothes, jewelry, perfect hair. The whole nine yards. The American moms were sporty, plain, giving off the harried mom, thrown together at the last minute vibe.

The kids hit the pool, the moms chatted around the drinks table for a few minutes but the American moms couldn't seem to stay in the conversation. They drifted poolside to watch the kids. Every kid knew how to swim. The pool is shallow. They were happily playing together and there were many adults around, both in the pool and around it.

While the Nicaraguan moms reclined in lounge chairs, laughing, chatting, enjoying the beautiful day, the American moms, to a one, were anxiously standing poolside looking as if they were watching their kids do a high dive for the first time. "Bobby!!! Are you hydrated!!", "Play nice, Beth!", "Are you cold yet, Suzie?", "Stay at this end..Now! Listen to me!!!!!" (the whole pool is the same depth) The kids were all doing great. They weren't running, diving in shallow water, or bugging each other.

When the party was winding down, the Nicaraguan kids found their mothers. The all kissed each other a lot and they left. The poor American moms left looking like they had run the marathon, wilted, exhausted, probably hoping to get a chance to relax.

Watching the kids, I couldn't tell what nationality they were. Watching the moms, it was clear. I felt sad for the moms. They were working too hard. I felt badly for the kids because the kept getting interrupted in their play. It kind of made them look like they were unable to do for themselves the normal functions of being a kid.  Are we guilty of creating our own stress? Why do we lay this on kids?

ASKING FOR GUIDANCE

I do believe that we all have a higher self, a guardian angel. How otherwise would we have survived this long? When we ask for advice from friends or a therapist or a priest, we are looking for some objectivity. Such objectivity lies also within. We can access it through quieting ourselves, asking and listening. We can have a direct line to wisdom.

Many years ago, I was staying with my friend Shelley and had just come back from El Salvador. I was having a difficult experience of culture shock, returning to the USA. In the midst of a pretty chaotic scene (teenagers and kids all over the place), I asked for guidance and heard that I should write about the subject of asking for guidance. I sat on the deck and scribbled in an old notebook. I wrote a book called How to Know Now. Then I put the book in a drawer and forgot about it.

After a lot of time had passed, I had a bad dream. In the dream, I had a baby. I went to check on the baby in her room and she was lying in a crib; cold, wet, hungry. I was frightened and upset by the dream. I had never neglected my kids. I spent the day trying to figure out why I had had that dream.

As I went to sleep that night, I remembered that my friend, John Gardner, had once told me that I might get insight if I asked for a dream that would solve my question. Upon going to sleep that night I asked what the neglected baby dream was about.

The dream came back and when I opened the door to check on the baby, she had pulled herself up and was standing in the crib with a brand new white tee shirt with the words YOUR BOOK written on it. Oh shit. I had followed my guidance and written what I felt led to and then thrown it aside. Oops.

With a lot of help from my friend Ron, I self-published the little book. It helped a bunch of people. It felt good. (It is printed in its entirety near the beginning of this BLOG. Read it, or read it again)

The thing is, whether about the book, or the dream, or any little problem of life, the thing is that we have to remember to turn to the highest and focus on the divine solutions. And it is always hard to remember when we are in the midst of confusing situations. Turning towards the Light is always the best choice, sometimes the only choice.

Susan Dodger commented on your link. Susan wrote: "Solved it like tea it's BREWD & F" Sarah Braucher commented on your link. Sarah wrote: "Start with turning to your faith. The pain you speak of is the hardest. Know people love you and go to your heart when your head is overwhelmed with too much thought. You can't fix it. I wish I could help you,"

I'm no doctor...

I'm no doctor but I was thinking about pain today and wondering whether emotional pain is the same as physical pain. I actually don't know much about physical pain except for personal experiences and massage school. With muscles most pain has its root cause in an inflammation. Could that be what causes emotional pain also? Just wondering.

With muscle inflammation we often use RICE: rest, ice, compression, elevation. I also add to that some big dose of anti-inflammatory. Usually that takes care of things. Based on my own experience I have adopted the idea that the rest part is extremely important. I hate to see injured people pulling repeating the gesture that injured them or stretching the hurt muscle more. Doing so has to make matters worse. It only makes sense.

So, is it a long stretch to think that we need some comparable successful program for emotional pain, that is if my comparison can hold water? If the physical or emotional pain is too much, we can often buy time by going into shock.  Then, how can we control the emotional inflammation? How can we cool our jets without going into a deadened state?  I know that, for me, I need to eat and rest and carry on (often with the help of friends). When my friend's baby died, back when we were young parents, her mother came and went about producing meals and sending people to bathe and rest. This was a huge lesson for me. You keep putting one foot in front of the other and do the most basic chores.

Another thing I know helps is to drink water or tea. There is something magic that happens when someone hands you a glass of water when you are emotionally distraught. It might have to do with the next thing that occurs to me. Breathe. The breath is the main place you can stabilize yourself. I know that there are myriad fabulous therapies starting with simple ones like Rescue Remedy and going through acupuncture all the way to psychotherapy. But I am working on the small immediate steps that can reduce the emotional inflammation and not make things any worse.

Now comes my big question. Is this the time to talk about the causes of the pain? Or is that going to create more inflammation and therefore more pain. I don't know. Eat, Rest,Drink Water, Breathe and Focus on something else for a few minutes? I am not only not sure about this, but I can't make any kind of a decent anagram from these steps.

I think I need my readers to come aboard with your thoughts on this subject. You are doctors and therapists and most you have experienced some emotional pain. Help!

Who are your heroes?

Hero:

Mythological or legendary figure, often of divine descent, who is endowed with great strength or ability, like the heroes celebrated in early epics such as Gilgamesh, The Iliad, Beowulf, or the Chanson de Roland. Usually illustrious warriors or adventurers, heroes are often represented as fulfilling a quest (e.g., Aeneas, in Virgil's Aeneid, founding the Roman state, or Beowulf ridding his people of the monstrous Grendel and his mother). Heroes often possess special qualities such as unusual beauty, precocity, and skills in many crafts.

Are heroes better after they are dead? Can heroism be taught? What qualities make legends and what qualities miss the mark?

About the teaching of "how to be a hero", I suppose the Waldorf Schools have the most effective method. The curriculum includes the great legends and myths from many times and many places. The children, infused with these magnificent stories can make their own inner pictures and find their relationship with the heroes who resonate with them.

If we are all spiritual beings, we can all call on our own divine being and become the heroes of our own story. I suspect that we are all given chances over and over in our lives. I don't think we need to be perfect in our worldly lives. I think in an heroic moment, we need to be divine and combine that with whatever gifts or talents we possess. Give me your examples.

Does it matter where your body is?

Meditating with Oprah and walking with Michael Moore have made me realize how little it matters where my body is. When I meditate, listening to Deepak's voice, I am  with him and Oprah and probably a million other people. There is no specific time or place to undertake the venture. Does the spiritual world care about our time and space concepts? I don't think so. I felt very united with others. When I decided to accept Michael Moore's invite to walk with him for a half hour a day, I was pretty cynical about it. I walked anyway - had for years. But thinking of Michael does two things for me. I love the idea that hundreds of thousands of others are taking this half hour a day to walk together and I have very stimulating conversations on my walks with him.

It sounds a bit nutty, but I think that is how Spirit works. We can go to any time and any place in our inner space. That must be how great writers write about past time, even cavemen times. That must be how people can write books about the future that turn out to be compellingly close to reality 50 years later. When I saw Garrison Keeler tell his Lake Woebegone story one day, it was my perception that he put himself into a bit of a trance and was actually, in his mind's eye, walking down the streets and seeing the houses and people and churches. It was brilliant.

Is this the same energy that works in the power of positive thinking? I don't know. There is something different about manifesting compared to envisioning. I have to think about this. What I do know for sure is that the stronger our connection with Spirit is, the more fantastic openings come our way.

It is very easy to lose this connection when we most need it. I think of Corrie Ten Boon who kept her connection throughout her devastating experiences in concentration camps during the Hitler genocide. Her relationship with Christ brought love and joy to others in the worst imaginable situation. That she was so special was inspiring. I suspect that we are all that special. We just have to remember that we are spiritual beings first and material beings second. Just that and nothing more.

Again, Why do people in the USA think we have to re-invent the wheel?

I 'get' the ideas we operated from in the past. I get our weird concept of "Manifest Destiny". I get "Brotherly Love" being an ideal at the same time we had slavery and were genociding the Indians. I understand that we won the walk-on-the-moon race. I comprehend that we suffered the illusion that we had created the best democracy on the globe. What I don't understand is where, in our perfection we have lost the ability to take from other countries their more successful programs and replicate them.

Here is an example of what I mean: I met many Canadians in Nicaragua this past winter. They have figured out how to get away from the cold. To a one, they all said they were proud of the Canadian educational system. Every child gets an excellent education regardless of what province they inhabit, regardless of their parent's financial situation, regardless of their race. This sounds like a system we should look at closely. I have never even remotely heard such a statement from anyone in the USA.

I would like to be able to say that about my country. The opposite is true. A basic education is not a very complicated deal. Teaching reading and maths and history to 6,7,8 year olds is not a very complicated project. Yet, we have towns and school boards and parents and educators struggling with this problem from sea to shining sea.  And it is getting worse everyday. And it is costing more. And it is failing larger. If we can't seem to solve a simple problem like how to teach a 6 year old how to read, then maybe we should ask Canada.

According to the CIA Factbook (!) the US is about 50th from the best infant mortality rate on the planet. Should we spend millions of people hours and truck loads of $ trying to figure how to improve this rating or should we perhaps call someone in Japan or Singapore and ask them how they manage to do better?

Several answers come to mind when I ask myself these questions. One is that we do not have the will to do things better. That is sort of obvious. One reason might be that we don't believe in equality. We believe that the wealthy are better and deserve better. Another answer comes from Fox news and that is that Jesus prefers the successes and thinks any attempt to help (even educating a kid)  anyone, to offer them an equal chance is Socialism, and that is the work of the devil or the antichrist. (Obama).

My conclusion for today is that we are a country so polarized that each day we are lucky to function at all. I expect that none of our huge national problems will get sorted very soon, if ever, and we are way too proud (in the negative sense of the word) to ever look outside of ourselves to find solutions to our failings.

Resurrection is a great idea. The Phoenix rising from the ashes, not bad either.

I am going to assume that we all have had experiences of life's little crucifixions. As in the Catholic story, "He was crucified, died, and was buried." Can you think of any of those moments? From the smallest to the largest, they all hit us pretty hard. And if you are a good Catholic or a good Jew, you feel guilty as anything because you have been trained to suffer guilt. It is bred in.

But this resurrection business - this is good stuff! We can rise from the dead. We can get reborn. It can happen in this life with a lot of hard work a la Obrah and Deepak, it can happen suddenly, as in a miracle, an awakening, a conversion, or it can happen in the next life, as in getting a great next incarnation. My Mom used to say, "You will get your reward in heaven." I have no memory of that experience, but I have experienced many little resurrections.

When I grew up in the Catholic faith, I was always uncomfortable with the Christ on the cross as the centerpiece of the altar. I wanted to be looking at a picture or statue of the Resurrected Christ. If the Christ being incarnated in the man, Jesus, he/she could also incarnate in me. That is very hopeful stuff.

In the Buddhist tradition, when one is suffering, you are encouraged to seek refuge in a higher being. I am alternately comforted by being in the arms of Mother Mary and the Dalai Lama. Weird, for some distress, I want a man being and other times a woman. I don't know anything more than my own experience, but sometimes I picture myself in their arms and sometimes I try and merge myself with them. And, as you know, I sometimes I hug a tree. All good stuff. Strength and courage can be found inside, of course, but sometimes it helps to get a little help from our friends.

I perceive a lot of spiritual beings trying to help us human beings. Once, Christ appeared to me in an orchard when I was having a moment of existential despair. I was instantly set right. Gracias a Dios. Another time, the being of Unconditional Love showed her face and was such a mighty being that I was flooded with love and peace. I suspect that these guys are always around, always willing, and our job is to turn toward the beings of love and peace and invite them, whether desperately or peacefully, into our lives. Why not take the most immediate help that is offered, and the easiest? Then we can move from our cross into the light of resurrection. Always a good plan.

I am floating.

I have no anchor. This is a state I have enjoyed (endured?) in the past. Sometimes when I have dropped anchor for what feels like too long, I can't wait to get on the road. I crave the unknown and the unexpected. Right now the opposite is happening. I have dropped into so many places and taken up so many people's lives that I am dreaming of a my own spot on the planet with my own sense of order and a bit more control over my life.

That being said, I am simultaneously content. I am blessed with spectacular friends and relatives who are interesting and diverse. I have almost no possessions and enjoy the freedom that gives me. When I really think of settling down, I feel weary. The foundation feeling is wishing I could wave my magic wand and have the perfect cottage appear by magic. Is this about a condo in Florida? Is this about a cabin in Western Massachusetts ? Is this about the south of France? I don't know, the vision fades.

This past weekend my grandson was especially nice to me. I asked him at one point what he was thinking and he said "By my calculations, you have at most 20 more years to live, so I want to make the best of them." He was generous in his optimism. I am 69 and friends are already dropping like flies. But, that being said, I enjoyed the fruits of his thoughts.

I also ran into another limit of age. I hate that. We were kayaking and at the end of the trip, we hit a cross current and my strength was low. I paddled as hard as I could and was going backwards. I had to be rescued by the strong guys. I have to learn to be more gracious about these new limits to my strength that keep popping up. And I have to appreciate what I still have. I can walk. I can swim. I can hear and see. I can read. I can follow the gist. Not so bad.

In a strange way, my friends all say that they don't want to be a burden on their kids when they get infirm. In Nica, the elderly weren't considered a burden. I don't think there is one retirement home in that country (unless it is for expats). The salient point is "considered a burden." If having an elderly person around is just part of life, then there is no burden attached. It is just another of the joys and trials that are part of life, much like having kids. And there isn't the problem of extreme cost and displacement and the kids having to dutifully make visits all the time.

I just wish there was an easier way for everyone. I wish I could have it all. Maybe I can make some magic and manifest a perfect next step. Somehow, that has happened so far my whole life. Why would anything change now?