Engaged Spirituality & Mystic Activism

The Power of Little Work in Challenging Times

No matter where we look or listen these days, it seems that signs and stories of fear, anxiety, and gloom-and-doom are plentiful. Amidst this 'boom of gloom and doom', as Jonathan Cainer calls it, we're also called upon to be ever-mindful of what we allow ourselves to get caught up in, because it has an effect on our clarity of mind, thought, and action.

What 'ripple' we want to send forth becomes a focusing question for our practice. What effect do you want to have on others during these times (or in general)? What do you want to add to by way of your energy, focus, thought, and action? How do you want to invest your energy?

Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker called it 'the little work', and there are similar concepts in various traditions. The gist is that small things can make a big difference, just as a small pebble tossed into a pool sends out ripple after ripple to the broader body of water. So, too, do our primary thought patterns and energetic imprints, and of course, our actions themselves.

We always think that it has to be some 'big action', worthy of our 'five minutes of fame'; something that saves the world (assuming that it has to be 'big' in order to do that). And yet just as days of made of minutes lived one by one, big effects can accumulate and ripple outward by small gestures, acts of loving-kindness, and even just being loving-kindness.

If we assume that we are not the isolated beings that we've been taught we are, and know that we are all connected through the air we breathe and a morphogenic energy field that connects us, we have a new understanding of 'being the change'!

Buddha said that 'with your thoughts you make the world.' Many indigenous peoples understand that our thoughts and beliefs contribute to a dream that we live as 'reality'; they know that by changing the 'dreaming', we change the 'reality'. Again, sages and masters from many traditions and philosophies echo this sentiment; it's wise guidance.

So if we allow ourselves to get caught up in, rather than just being aware of or witnessing, the waves of gloom, doom, fear, anxiety, scarcity, and the intolerance, panic, and fear-based reactions they often open us to, we are contributing to that dynamic or 'reality'.

This is a discipline for all on the path, whether the 'path' be spiritual or philosophical at its center. And it's a significant challenge and deep, deep practice for those of us who are more sensitive to subtle energies, and/or more empathic in Nature.

In challenging times we are called upon to deepen our practice to a more aware and conscious presence and ripple effect. However we do that, whatever our practices -- the ones that helps us to see and witness compassionately but not go over the cliff, and instead cultivate a loving-kindness that is centered in Grace, faith, patience ... whatever words we prefer to use that infer a ripple effect that we'd like to contribute to and an energetic dynamic and 'reality' that we'd like to live in with our fellow human-and-other-Beings.

There is a wonderful practice called 'the inner smile', and there are also meditations, visualizations, affirmations, powerful conversations, energy and vibrational healing practices, flower essence and oils, sacred ritual, movement, mindfulness, and other practices that allow us to act on the intention to cultivate and ripple out healing and heartfulness, and a spaciousness that allows something more beautiful, joyful, and graceful to grow.

It can seem impractical, but as history and our wisdom teachers have reminded us and reminded us again, it's infinitely practical. With our thoughts we shape our world; with our choice we create dream-realities of Heaven or Hell.

And this can give us hope that the loving-kindness and conscious attention we bring to simple, seemingly small, everyday things and thoughts can have a big effect.

As Gandhi said, "As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves." Because he knew that the world 'reality' is just a reflection of us.

Joyful Blessings,
Jamie

Strong at the Broken Places

The world breaks  everyone, and afterward
      many are strong at the broken places.
                      ~ Ernest Hemingway

There are times when, due to some circumstance or series of events -- often involving a deep loss of some kind -- we get broken open. Something within us, or something in our lives that we considered 'unbreakable' or 'all-important' comes crashing down or splitting apart, and we find ourself living with the uncertainty of broken places.

Just looking at the headlines -- if we're not already hearing the same thing from friends, family members, clients, readers, etc. -- we see that loss and brokenness is a common theme these days.

I understand this deeply now, having been through a cycle of 7 years which featured losses which seemed, prior to this time (and even sometimes during it), unimaginable, from the loss of several immediate family members, including my father and grandmother, to the loss of several beloved cats who were dear family members and long-time companions; to business and financial losses due to outside economic forces and personal and family wellness crises; the end of a long marriage; and the loss of my community and proximity to dear friends when I was called East from San Francisco to help with my father's hospice care and then remain in closer proximity to family for awhile.

All of this unmade me -- a common term in spiritual traditions that still include the Wisdom of navigating the Dark Night and the cycle of Death that is part of Life. Such deep change breaks open the Mask, the false identity, the 'who you thought you were (supposed to be)'. It breaks open how you thought things were supposed to be, and challenges you to your core to remember.

Like our kindreds in other places in the world, we in our Western, American culture, experience loss regularly, and our ancestors knew it well. Yet, despite that experience and knowing, we don't have a refuge for authentically, openly experience loss and grief in a culture that shuns and shies away from it, that treats it as a 'failure' because our collective awareness has traveled so far from the wisdom of Life-Death-and-Renewal that our ancestors knew so well.

And so many people suffer losses in isolation, which magnifies the grief because it's a full-on experience of the loss of connection that resides beneath the losses that take place on the surface of our lives.

Now, with so much that seemed 'sure' threatened, along with the natural cycles of life and death of those among us, there is a call to remember the Wisdom that can help us navigate this 'underworld' more gracefully and with an awareness of connection and the ongoing Nature of Life.

This is how we grow strong in our broken places, and how we come to see that which challenges our certainty, and that which undoes and unmakes what is familiar to us, is also the very thing that reveals the place where new life grows. We meet that which is truly 'beyond death', while honoring what it living and what has passed out of our familiar, day-to-day life.

The broken places are rich and fertile, where our lives -- inward or outward -- may have become stale and lifeless in some way. We're cracked open to allow for new, fresh life.

Leonard Cohen, in his song "Anthem", writes:

Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering, There is a crack, a crack in everything, That's how the light gets in.

If we allow the broken-open places, without scurrying to try to fill them in or hide them, we not only allow ourselves to experience fully what has passed -- what we've lost -- but we also allow the Light to shine in and illuminate all that is there, Heaven around us, all of the time. And in our deep-feeling and deep-experiencing of loss, and the full acknowledging and honor of what's passed, we open ourselves to deeper Joy and a deeper ability to connect, reach out, in a joyful compassion and intimacy.

Blessings on the Way,
Jamie