http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOHJghBU0XA
During work today I was thinking about the lull in our forum. Being new, and this being the first forum I have participated in, I don’t know if this is a common thing, but would suppose like any communication – it will wax and wane.
I find that I am sort of missing the different personalities that gather here! I thought about posting a topic just asking the simple question “Whatcha doing?” Is everyone OK? Have you been busy? Has life slowed down with nothing happening?…. Or has it sped up, whizzing by so fast that some things just get pushed to the side while trying to catch up?”
At the beginning of this month I went through some processing that made me quieter than usual. Sometimes it’s just not the time for talking. As I type right now… I have had a couple days of being back on top of the wave, instead of underneath it. And although there is snow falling outside today…. I know that the sun is up there somewhere – shining like it does, 24 hours a day.
So – I just wanted to say that I sure look forward each day to checking into the G-spot and seeing what is new, and seeing what touched your heart enough to share with others.
I hope you enjoy the song that I chose to share with you today.
With Love,
Mary
Hi Mary
Thanks for the song it made a nice interlude in my day, just what I needed.
Time has been flying by for me just lately, my youngest daughter has just returned to Sydney after a short visit. It was so lovely to see her and to know that she is so very happy over there.
My eldest daughter is now 10 days late and so we should be hearing any day now that we are grandparents for the first time...................................sooooo exciting
My laptop has broken so I have to wait for air time on the main computer so I am not able to log on as often at the moment, and although I don't post often I do try to put a comment in now and then. I too miss the chats and really enjoyed reading about the Hidden Hand stuff.
So much seems to be happening these days, every day there is something new to take in. I am looking out of the window at the moment at the ash clouds from the volcano, all flights grounded in the UK for the first time ever. Strange things are happening and good times are ahead. I loved the shamam post by the way; very uplifting and informative.
Keep up the good work, it's lovely to hear from you.
with love valx
Everywhere energy flows and ebbs, like breaths in and out and in again. I've noticed too that the forums are strong and then they thin out for a while. People pay attention to other aspects of their lives -- aspects that we know nothing about, knowing only their cyber presences. I find that sometimes I've had enough of talk (expressing and listening) and just have to back away and experience more rarified air for a while. (I confess I love silence more than talking; if I had to choose one...)
When I joined (not that long ago) there was a vocal group of several, with who knows how many who just checked in to see what was happening. There were engaging discussions, some less so, some wonderful revelations; there were some heated exchanges, hurt feelings, and subsequent leavings. (What a microcosm of the world "out there"...) Over time at least half of those who were here then seem to have peeled away back into their lives for who knows what reasons, with maybe three or four of them still active now. And that's a normal ongoing process. Perhaps some of those who left felt that the forum had served its purpose for them and they needed to move on. Or it wasn't what they'd expected. Or they'd just changed their focus somehow. Occasionally someone from way back there will pop in briefly with something to post and then disappear again, and you realize that there is a mostly "silent majority". And then new people come in and salt the forum, supplying new energy and life, and its character changes. A year from now some of us who are here now will be focusing our attention somewhere else. So it rolls on in cycles. Normal stuff for living organisms and groups of organisms.
Impermanence. You got to love it (so said the Buddha, in so many words).
Hi Val – Thanks for your warm post. It seems that life got kind of busy for me too, and I haven’t had the time to post here for a couple days. I’m glad that the work week is done, and now I can slow down for a couple days. Yay!
I hope you share your grandparent status when you find out. That is exciting!!
So you can see the ash cloud from the volcano? That must be pretty interesting to say the least. Please excuse my ignorance of geography, but how far away from that are you? I was reading some news articles today about all the flights that were cancelled. I agree – strange things are happening. But I am feeling a lifting of spirits lately and have an increasing anticipation of “something”. I’m going to expect the best. Maybe it’s spring or something, but I am seeing an increase of happiness (for no reasons really) in many people around me – co-workers, clerks, family. It is fun to observe.
Bob – Your posts always delight me. Impermanence indeed! Life has never failed to show me time after time – the impermanence of all things… Yet, what did I strive and work towards for most of my life? Some solid place to stand… and something stable to hold onto. I never found it - thank God….. I probably would have proceeded to get miserably comfortable if I had. lol! It does make me wonder sometimes why there is such a strong desire in us to seek out, create, or obtain something that will last.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this forum and entanglement.
Thank you both for your posts – and for the silent majority – for adding your thoughts.
With Love,
Mary
I am newer here than you mary, and I have also noticed the ebb and flow of the info,I have mostly been replying so far, and I love the surges of the posts and replies, it is very genuine, and so far has been pretty much in sync with my own cycles,,although, last week, after 6 months of no work, but lots of internal work,(a great job for winter) I am so busy now and for the next month at least, I am hardly able to get online.........I am now leaping gracefully from famine to feast,,isn t spring great? thanx for the song
Mary,
You're right, we do seek permanence. I guess that's natural. I always have. Unfortunately we humans tend to seek it in places where it just isn't. (You evidently realize that.) We try to gather for ourselves an infinite supply of whatever we think we need: money, stable relationships, respect, love... I'm sure I'm leaving some important ones out -- oh, yes, and spiritual attainment (enlightenment, or whater you want to call it), as if it were just another commodity we have to get lots of in order to feel safe and secure in an ultimate sense. (Chogyam Trungpa addresses this phenomenon in his classic book, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. The title says it all.) And freedom.
I used to rent office space from a psychotherapist, who had this statement posted on the wall: "If what you want is not what you need, you can never get enough of it." Wow. How much in our world does that explain?
So here's my idea (and I think others may have proposed this, too): When we seek material things (or non-material things as if they were material), what we're really seeking is the power, wealth, freedom, and love inherent in our own true nature -- our fully realized selves -- but we don't know it (that is, until we do). We seek these essential things in the world we see with our "water-bubble eyes" that can see only the phenomenal world around us, nothing more. For example, people who seek wealth and get it tend to seek more wealth. They want to reach a point where they're so rich and secure that they're way above the vicissitudes of life (impermanence) that plague the rest of humanity (the "little people") -- total, absolute power and freedom. Unfortunately, there's that pesky heart attack, auto accident, or some other "mortality event" that comes along out of the blue and ruins it all anyhow. But mortality events notwithstanding, no matter how much they amass, they never seem to quite get there. Of course not; what they're looking for is to be found in another realm of being (even though that realm includes the pheonomenal world). -- I say "they," but, with certain adjustments according to our differences, it's really "we", any and all of us. We're all just variations on the generic-human theme.
Anyhow, with an understanding that the world we live in (including our bodies) can't give us permanence, we can ride the waves of impermanence and find permanence in our own Big Self. Well, there are many ways to do this. But I think it boils down to practicing presence (open attention), exercising compassion, and abandoning the habit of making judgments. It feels as if it takes a certain trust and relaxation so as not to get hamstrung by fear and greed. It feels to me like this: the Universe is conscious, so we can relax. A certain amount of relaxation with the fact of impermanence is necessary for us to function effectively on any level. And it's also relaxation with at least the sense that that Universal Consciousness is ourselves. I believe that it's our destiny to fully realize that -- all of us. But... it isn't just handed to us. We do seem to have to "work" for it -- as long as we realize that it's not just another commodity to be obtained.
Hmm. I didn't mean to go on like that. But really, what I described above is what I've been working on -- sometimes with more success than at other times -- this acceptance of impermanence. I'm getting a lot more comfortable with it (but sometimes I get caught). No sense getting uptight about about a world that we're dreaming. Waking up will happen -- is happening now. With our attending. With presence.
You know, it could even be fun. And even tragedies don't have to be real tragedies -- in a dream, a drama, that's well attended to.
B.
Hi everyone!
It feels like a long time since I've been on this site... lol... probably only a few weeks. I love it here, and yet there are periods where everything seems harder that it "normally" is, and I have to just retreat. Even missing everyone, and wondering what's all being talked about doesn't get me out of the rut. The time does seem to pass so darn quickly these days....
Thank you for the beautiful video, Mary! As per usual Kathy style, I watched and cried like a baby - in joy, and connection.
I hope my energy is back up and running, and I'll be here more regularly.
Much love and light,
Kathy