labels & roles, patterns & habits

For most the holidays and year end are when matters come to a head - for better or worse. As we rush, rush, rush then crash headlong into our future.

Instead of waiting for a special occasion, would it not feel better to acknowledge the specialness of every moment - timely or not?

Rather than giving the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time - how to do the opposite with attention and effort?

Giving is a disciplined art that needs years of practice and observation to be done appropriately.

The poet David Whyte writes of Giving - "The full genius of gift giving is found when we give what a person does not fully feel they deserve, but that does not overstretch the point, it is the appropriate but surprising next step in their lives. It disarms and moves and empowers all at once while gratifying the one who gives beyond most everyday satisfactions."

Hopefully our state of attention and affairs allows us to be creative and contemplative enough to do so.

If we missed it this year then there is hope in the New Year!

legacy & eulogy

“It was as if he was born to teach the age a lesson in humility, in humour and above all else in patience. . . .Today, finally, he blinked.  And some of us cry, knowing our eyes were opened to so much because of him.” ~ Bono’s statement on Nelson Mandela’s legacy

What makes a legend? What myths are woven to create and sustain the reality or illusion?

When does mere mortal become memorialized icon? 

Why would a human being choose to be a hero? Is it heroism or mere heroics that go down in the annals of history?

No mortal is born perfect. For a hero to arise from the masses what odds are overcome? For the hero to remain forever so what sacrifices are made ‘for the good of all’?

For a tale to captivate folks, for the birth or rise of a star, for the populace to believe a story – what does it take?

Today - as millions of people around the world reflect on the life and achievements of an extraordinary human being - it is timely to ask all these. 

Our lives have accelerated and intensified - grown more complex and convoluted. Technological advances

have birthed marvels and mysteries. We hurry to step up, keep on, and stay relevant or lose our place, get confused and retreat. 

As heroes of our past are passing away - who is replacing them and how are they chosen?

Whose life and achievement stand out as extraordinary to me today?

Do I consider myself in these reflections? 

If so - why? Otherwise -  why not? 

thrive don’t strive

success vs. struggle – this is what it means to thrive instead of strive

Empire State Building dressed in colors of the Philippine Flag
-  in commemoration of those affected by Typhoon Haiyan

those driven by ambition believe that their effort and willpower will lead them to desired results and achievements

those with a longing are drawn and driven by demands beyond ourselves, something larger than us or any ambitious identity – a slave driving master and commander of unreasonable intent

in longing desires and demands vie constantly for attention – spinning us in a magnetic and gravitational vortex - for those who learn we are revitalized, recharged, rejuvenated – vibrant and vibrating with possibility and potential

ambition fueled by speed barely scratches the surface – it relies on results and recognition as advent to arrival or attainment

identity is shaped by longing and desire indistinct in inner and outer drives – it completes us seamlessly – longing drives all creative art, explorative work, evocative ideas

our life’s journey rather than paved in stepping stones is a turbulent gush on which we are meant to flow – self discovery and realization are manifested and magnified each moment as we thrive in the direction we are headed

the striving that comes with ambition clouds our clarity and leads to confusion

longing gives birth to growth, evolution, transmutation – and so we thrive

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to us all! 

to live and die in the Anthropocene

“This term, taken up by geologists, pondered by intellectuals and discussed in the pages of publications such as The Economist and the The New York Times, represents the idea that we have entered a new epoch in Earth’s geological history, one characterized by the arrival of the human species as a geological force." - Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene by ROY SCRANTON

There’s a word for this new era we live in - the Anthropocene. 

The first snow of the year fell here in New York City today. While half way around the world the Philippines was just flattened by what we are calling the worst storm known to man - two categories higher in intensity than Sandy and a hundred miles swifter.

Family and friends are safe and sound - not so with my hometown, Bacolod City. Though by no means the hardest hit neither was it spared. It has been declared a disaster area, with 5,000 homes wiped out all along the coast. 

Too many areas remain isolated - even choppers cannot make it to most of the hardest hit places. Too many villages wiped out. People there walk endlessly - in search of food and drinking water - intent to keep dry and bury their dead. 

Now the vigil begins. Challenging to send love and support from so far away and not cave with the rising death counts and horror stories of chaos and corruption. 

Because we live here and love the place we are the most invested.

The challenge the Anthropocene poses is a challenge not just to national security, food and energy markets - or even to our “way of life” - though these challenges are all real, profound, and inescapable.

The greatest challenge the Anthropocene poses may be to our own humanity and our own possible extinction. If homo sapiens (or some genetically modified variant) survives the next millennium/s - it will be survival in a world unrecognizably different from the one we inhabit now. 

The Buddhist Christian in me takes comfort that when we die, we are not bound by the same physical laws of time and place anyway.  

bzzz, buzz, buzy bee

This business of the solar eclipse and the Scorpio new moon has wound me up and kept me in a buzz of productivity this past week. The energy is pretty intense and can hardly be contained - switching back and forth between excitement and irritation.

How have you been feeling?

As Daniel Quinn says, "We are all captives of a story." If you are like me - having an active and vivid imagination - this can prove a double edged sword.

Our imaginations can be a valuable tool to drive and direct us in deciding what we eventually believe in. But if we do not train and discipline it early on we fail to harness it to understand and integrate the lessons life offers us through our experiences.

What story do we tell our self?

Do we tell a tale of self reliance and empowerment? Or do we believe in lack and fear?

If we allow ourselves to use our imaginations to engage us in a deeper mystic story - it will show us how to meet challenges - and we can be guided to access one of the great gifts of the Creative Imagination.

Instead of getting lost in mere fantasy and losing touch with our collective reality - we can decipher the symbols and understand a new story - and be guided by our true nature to surpass our challenges and break through to create the necessary changes.

Become complete and live in wholeness.

making whoopee!

October 31 is Samhain or Halloween - also known as All Hallows Eve - the celebration of the end of the year and the beginning of the year's last season. Straddling the line between fall and winter, harvest and follow, life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition.

Pagan or Christian, ancient or modern, young or old - the world over, we all come together to share and celebrate on this special day. As the wind grows chill and the days shorten, we bundle up around our hearths and get warm and cozy.

Preparations for the holidays are picking up all around - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and the New Year.

Apart from the scares and treats set to happen this Halloween, astrologers are saying that everyone should be aware of the increased possibility of challenges and obstacles getting in our way between Oct 21 and Nov 10 - when Mercury goes retrograde for the third and final time in 2013.

Do what you can to minimize ill effects and increase good luck whenever possible. Stay alert and aware - focusing on you and what is going on for and around you.

Be well all!

Conquests and Conquerors

According to historian Edmund Morgan, Columbus was not a scholarly man. Yet he studied these books, made hundreds of marginal notations in them and came out with ideas about the world that were characteristically simple and strong and sometimes wrong, the kind of ideas that the self-educated person gains from independent reading and clings to in defiance of what anyone else tries to tell him. [Morgan, Edmund S. (2009). "Columbus's Confusion About the New World". Smithsonian Magazine.]



Today is Columbus Day – an occasion fraught with as much controversy as the historical icon himself. Columbus may have been a gifted navigator but he was a troubled and troublesome soul. His ambition knew no bounds and he was determined to wipe clean from humanity’s collective memories the fact that the Vikings led by Lief Ericson came three centuries before him.

In his search for wealth and recognition, Columbus’ avarice fueled the birth of torture, tyranny and genocide in all of the Americas - killing off most of the New World before it could even gain a foothold in history. Trade routes were key to success for European kingdoms and their emerging imperialism and expanding economies. Columbus preyed on this need to propel his own ambitions.

On inception Columbus was already soundly beaten by his fellow countryman, Bartholomew Diaz, the Portuguese nobleman and explorer who had rounded the Cape of Good Hope. After begging from court to court across Europe, his failed mission brought him to Portugal’s primary nemesis - Spain and the royal court of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille.

 

In the end Columbus never got what the Spanish crown promised. Columbus the unrelenting social climber and self-promoter stopped at nothing - not even exploitation, slavery, or twisting Biblical scripture to advance his ambitions - in denial until his death that what he had discovered was not Asia but the Americas.

 

Rightly or not history has chosen to remember and revere the man.