Sage Woman Chronicles

We Still Have Time to Change pt. 2

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. – Rumi

“Love is the deepest gift that we could be ever be given by someone and it’s the greatest gift that we could ever give to ourselves.” –Mastin Kipp

Continuing on the theme from last week, I’d like to write about one of my experiences, as a Reiki practitioner. I learned a great lesson during this period of my life.

For those of you who don’t know what Reiki is, it’s also known as, The Usui System of Natural Healing. It’s an ancient laying on of hands healing technique, and can be used to heal health issues, life situations, mental and spiritual issues, in other words, virtually anything we will ever face. I won’t go into the history of how Reiki came to this country now. It’s much too long. Besides, you can do some research on the internet if you’re interested. What I want to share is my experience of using it as a spiritual practice.

My husband and I were on a spiritual quest when we were introduced to Reiki. Since the church we had grown up in used hands on healing, we felt immediately connected to the practice and decided to become initiated.

Some time after I was initiated into second degree, I volunteered to give Reiki once or twice a week to the daughter for an old family friend. She had full-blown AIDS. This was early in the days of the AIDS epidemic, and not much was known about it. After my short time of practicing Reiki and seeing amazing results, I felt confident that I could be the conduit through which L could be healed. The Reiki practitioner is just a conduit for the healing energy, you see, but in my hubris, I wanted her to be physically healed. I didn’t understand that healing can take many forms. The person receiving the Reiki is in partnership with the energy, I was just the garden hose through which the energy flowed.

I think it’s a common feeling among people when they find a new talent or skill to be excited about what they can do, without understanding the depths it will take to become a master of the practice. Offering Reiki to L for the remainder of her life, was a huge lesson for me. No one knows the life contract, as Carolyn Myss puts it, of the person who has requested the healing. In the case of L, there were many family and personal issues she needed to deal with before leaving the planet. As the months wore on, and her health continued to deteriorate, I learned a great lesson from her and her family. Life is ephemeral, and death can be a beautiful, mysterious process. L and her family took the time to heal old wounds and peel back the layers that had kept unconditional love at bay. I became a humble witness to the transformation of their family dynamics.

At L’s memorial service, I got to observe the love shown to the family, and from the family to all those present. It was one of the most loving experiences of my life, and I was grateful that I got to help with the healing process of L and her family.

That experience taught me that to become a true healer takes lots of practice, and personal work. A healer can’t do their job well unless they have dealt with their own dark places. At that point in my life, I had many dark places that needed to be examined and exposed to the light. Reiki has been a powerful force in my own self-healing journey. And if that’s all I use it for, that and to help my family and friends, then that’s a wonderful use of my practice.

I’d like to close this post by sharing the Principles of Reiki with you. These are principles that could be used by anyone to help them improve their life, whether they are a Reiki practitioner or not. They’ve been of great comfort to me.

Just for today, do not worry,
Just for today, do not anger,
Honor your parents, teachers and elders,
Earn your living honestly,
Show gratitude to every living thing.

Blessings to you on your healing journey.

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

We Still Have Time To Change

“Increasing your care for the concerns of the global whole brings spirit and increased empowerment to the personal self.” –Doc Childre, GCI Steering Committee Chairman

A few weeks ago, my book club group got together for lunch. We weren’t discussing a book, it was just social time. A few of the women were going away on vacation and we weren’t going to get together until early July. Every time we get together the conversation always turns to all the things that are going wrong in the world. I must say that sometimes I’m overwhelmed by events too. We do face big problems. However, most of the time, I’m the one who puts a positive spin on events, because I’ve learned that every thought and word we say has power to affect the world around us.

At lunch, the conversation turned to something horrible that was going on, and one of the women said, “I’m sure Lucinda will be able to put a positive spin on this.” We all laughed, as I said, “I’m not sure I have anything positive to say about that situation.” Then as the conversation went on, I did think of positive things to say.

About a week later, I got one of my weekly emails from Global Coherence Initiative the DBA name of the Institute of HeartMath. It was about solar cycles and how solar and geomagnetic activity affects humans. Remembering our discussion at lunch, I forwarded the email to the members of the book club group.

“Global Coherence Initiative is a science based, co-creative project to unite people in heart focused care and intention…” a quote that explains what they do from the home page of their website. It’s free to join to participate in the synchronized care focus of the day where heart energy is sent to discordant situations around the world. They also provide wonderful educational videos that show how our energy emanates outward from us. The videos opened my eyes to the effect I have not only near to home, but in far away places.

My friends were thrilled to get this information. One of them said that I should write a blog post about this, and about my spiritual upbringing, which in her words, “I also firmly believe that your early training in spiritual matters provides you with a level of simple fortitude that helps [with] coping.”

When I read her email it made me think about my upbringing. I was fortunate to have parents who paid attention to spiritual matters. But, it was more than that. Something in my parents DNA was passed down to me that caused me to seek the spiritual life of self-healing.

We know that traits of all kinds are passed down from generation to generation through DNA. Even attitudes are passed down through DNA and education. Traits that were passed to me were an automatic spiritual connection, an acceptance of every individual, and a positive attitude. I embrace change and see the good in it because it’s in my DNA. It’s easy for me. For others it might not be so easy to accept that we all have a spiritual connection, and that we all affect the world around us. If that’s not part of your DNA, maybe GCI can help you understand just how important you are as a part of this planet we’re living upon.

Getting back to the GCI article, we are affected by many unseen forces in the world. We think we’re so advanced, and look down on the superstitions of the past where people believed they were affected by celestial events. The research done at GCI shows us that we ARE affected by the stars. It also shows that each of us is vibrating and sending out energy all the time, though most of us are completely unaware of that fact. We are affected by the energy of other people.

In many of my posts over this past year, I’ve written again and again about the need to heal ourselves, which in turn helps to heal the world. When you watch the videos produced by GCI , you’ll see that my assertion is true. I didn’t come by that assertion by accident. I came by it through lots of study of spiritual teachers, and sites like GCI.

So, if we’re going to save ourselves and our planet, we need to change the way we do things. We need some tools. GCI is one tool to become more internally coherent as the videos show. When you go to the GCI care room to participate, you are asked to focus your positive energy on a specific situation, place, or group of people. It’s a form of meditation. It doesn’t take hours to do this, but it does take dedication to spend a few minutes each day to focus on the situation presented. When you do that, you heal not only yourself, but also the world a little at a time.

I hope you’ll watch these videos, and join Global Coherence Initiative, or find some other way to heal yourself. We don’t have a lot of time to turn things around you know. However, we can still change the world for the better, if we choose to do so.

Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
She Writes
LinkedIn

A World With a Different Kind of Memorial Day

“Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.” – Sam Ewing

“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt

This past weekend was the Memorial Day celebration. Every year I feel strange about all the hoopla about honoring the men and women who gave their lives during times of war. I want to honor their sacrifice. I’m grateful to live in a country that is free. I’m grateful, but also sad. I wish we lived in a world where wars didn’t happen, and we didn’t build memorials to our “Honored Dead.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if Memorial Day honored Artists, Scientists, Peace Keepers, Teachers, Social and Aide Workers? Wouldn’t it be nice if countries didn’t need an Army, Navy, or Air Force? Wouldn’t it be nice if every single person in the world was honored for who they are and what they do?

Just think what it would be like if we had a day to honor Garbage Workers. I know, you’re raising your eye brows. But think about it. What would your neighborhood, or city be like if the garbage wasn’t picked up every week. What if we didn’t have people working at the recycling stations? What if the garbage piled up, like it does in some locations?

The point I’m trying to make is that every single person’s job is important. What if we didn’t have people to wait on us at restaurants, or clerical people to file our paperwork? What if there was no one to fix our cars, or the roads, or build houses and office buildings? What would it be like if we had to fit our own glasses, or make our own clothes? And what would it be like if we had to teach our own children, or diagnose our own diseases?

I don’t believe one career is better than any other, yet even in this country, we have a class system, where some jobs are considered better and more lucrative than others. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone earned a wage that made their lives comfortable, with all the bills paid, and gave them the nice things in life. I’m not saying that we should all have yachts, or fancy mansions to live in. I’m just saying it would be nice if every single person on this planet had food on the table and nice roof over their heads.

I know we can’t create that kind of world over night. However, I’m willing to say, “That’s the kind of world I want.” I’m willing to look my waitress, or waiter in the eye and thank them for their service, with a nice sized tip. I’m willing to thank my garbage man, or the construction worker on the street, or the cashier at the store. I want everyone on this planet to have fulfilling work that provides them with the necessities, and some of the niceties of life. I’m willing to honor people for the contributions they make. I’m willing to buy that piece of artwork at the price the artist puts on it, because artists have bills to pay too. After all, I’m buying something unique that is the expression of someone’s soul.

So, I say thank you to the people who are willing to do the dirty work that I can’t or don’t want to do, no matter what it is. I’m grateful for your dedication, hard work and service. I hope that one day we’ll honor every single person living on this planet.

Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
She Writes
LinkedIn

Women Unite!

“Out of 6 billion humans, the troublemakers are just a handful.” –Dalai Lama

“I think governments can’t do much.” –Dalai Lama

“Change in the world comes from individuals, from the inner peace in individual hearts. Just as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water, the actions of individuals can have far reaching affects.” –Dalai Lama

Last week I wanted to scream! So many attacks of all kinds on women. I don’t say this often, but I was OUTRAGED by the kidnapping of the girls in Nigeria. There are so many incidents reported in the news where women are attacked in one way or another.

I was already fuming when I saw the link to this article on Facebook the other day, and I nearly lost it. The title of the article is: “Council of Islamic Ideology declares women’s existence anti-Islamic.” And here’s a quote from the article. “As the meeting concluded CII Chairman Maulana Huhammad Kan Shirani noted that women by existing defied the laws of nature, and to protect Islam and the Sharia women should be forced to stop existing as soon as possible.” Ahhhh! Good luck keeping the species going with that one guys. The article is completely unbelievable to me, as a Western woman.

As a disclaimer, I have to say that the CII may be an extremist group. I’m sure not all Islamic leaders hold to this drastic point of view.

It’s no secret that women suffer ill treatment world wide. Some men think we women are commodities to use as they see fit.

In this country women’s rights aren’t much better. The rights women worked so hard to obtain when I was growing up, are being threatened by ultra-conservative men. They think we can’t understand what kind of health care we need, that we don’t need wage equality, and if we complain about the fact that we’re not getting paid the same amount as men for doing the same job, we get fired. Take for example Jill Abramson, former Executive Editor of the New York Times.

If we women stand up for ourselves, we’re labeled as hard to work with, or overly emotional, irrational, illogical. We’re often characterized as hormonal bitches. We’ve been blamed for causing men to rape us, and I couldn’t believe this one: In an article on Care2 on April 29, 2014 titled “Is There Anything We Won’t Blame on Women?”, South Carolina Republican Senate candidate Det Bowers said we’re to blame if our husbands leave us for another woman. I guess men don’t have to take responsibility for their actions.

The thing is that we women are so much more than any description anyone can give of us. Human beings are complicated. It may be that women are more complicated than men, and that’s what baffles them so much. I will be bold and say, I believe women are what holds civilization together.

In 2009, the Dalai Lama is credited with saying that “The world will be saved by the western woman.” Well I’m a western woman, and I’m going to stand up and state in this blog, and anywhere I can, that I’ve had enough of this foolishness. I’m a human being created by God in Her image with a brain to think with, and a heart to love with. And if you’re such an insecure man, that you have to try to subjugate my gender because we scare the bejeezes out of you, well, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. We’re getting sick and tired of your juvenile attitudes and treatment of us. And like we always do, we’re going to clean up this mess you immature guys have made.

Here’s one bit of encouraging news that happened just last week. Minnesota has a “safe harbor” law meant to treat girls who are kidnapped and trafficked as victims of a crime rather than criminals themselves. (It’s about time someone realized that!) It’s the inspiration for a new law being crafted by Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Erik Paulsen to tackle sex trafficking in the United States. Yes, it happens here too. It’s just one good thing that’s happening to change the way women are treated.

I want to be clear, I’m not saying all men are bad, or think women are inferior. I am fortunate to be surrounded by great men in my family, and circle of friends. Most of the men I know, are mature, kind, and supportive. They’ve done their own personal work, and want to make the world a better place in which all people can live. But there are men out there, like the men who kidnapped those girls in Nigeria, who are delusional. Dare I say they’re sociopathic? Just what is it about women that frighten men so much? It seems to me that’s a key question we need to address.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I can do to help women find their power. Writing this blog, speaking out on the issues I think matter, is one thing I can do. Another is to support women in my local area in any way I can. What I feel is happening, is that women and men are seeing the faults in the way we’ve treated each other. They are forming a web of support for their fellow human beings. I want to be part of that web of support. I want to nurture others, and help turn the tide of human interactions from dog-eat-dog, to cooperation and collaboration. What about you?

Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
She Writes
LinkedIn

You Get More With Honey Part 2

“I wish to live without hate, whim, jealousy, envy, and fear. I wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural…to face any obstacle and meet every
difficulty unabashed and unafraid.”-Elbert Hubbard

Something about the article about Donald Sterling that I wrote last week stirred up lots of discussion, and made me go back to take another look at what I was trying to say.

Over the years I’ve done a lot of personal work, which started with listening to, and observing my dad. He used to say, “You can’t change another person’s mind. You can only change yourself, and hope they’re paying attention.” I’ve taken that advice to heart. Over the years I’ve discovered something really amazing. If I stop pushing against what I don’t like in others, and just accept them for who they are, amazing changes happen.

I’m a very sensitive person, so I feel the pain of others deeply. It’s hard for me not to speak up when someone is getting abused. Here’s an example. When I was teaching high school, I had two students who were named to the State All Star Football team. They were full of themselves, and thought they ruled the world. This created a very bad situation in our classroom. There was a student in that class that everyone assumed was gay. The football players treated him very badly. When I tried to stop them from harassing him, they acted as if I had no power over them.

I called their parents, I talked to their coach, I talked with the Principal trying to get support to back me up. I got support, but the boys were convinced that they were gods, and nothing could touch them. They continued to treat that student badly. Of course, they treated everyone else with distain as well. One day I’d had enough. I took them outside the classroom individually, and told them that in my classroom everyone gets treated with respect. If they weren’t willing to do that, then I would have them removed, which would mean they’d have to make up the English class. I left the choice up to them. If I saw improvement in their behavior, we’d say no more about it. Otherwise they were out. They straightened up. Part of what made that work was their eligibility to play football during their senior year.

They stopped harassing the student they thought was gay during class time. I don’t know what happened outside of class.

Something happened to me during that incident. I had to accept that the two football players were probably not going to change their minds about gay people just because I said they should. The only thing I could do was to protect the other student, and show as much respect for everyone in the class as possible. Maybe it made a difference, maybe it didn’t. I’ll never know. However, by the end of the school year, the relationships among the students seemed to be much more amicable.

My dad was right. We can’t change someone else. We can only change ourselves. That’s been a big lesson in all my relationships, but particularly in my marriage. Like most of us, I thought once Barry and I got married, life would be perfect. But, of course, it soon wasn’t perfect. Over the years, I’ve learned that if I want Barry to love and accept me, I’ve got to stop expecting him to be someone other than who he is, and I’ve got to love him the way I want to be loved. I’ve realized that I can’t make him responsible for making me happy. Being happy is my job, not his.

Having written all that, I have to admit, that staying silent about issues as big as the way we treat others from different races, creeds and genders, isn’t good. We have to speak up. We have to engage in discussion. We have to look at our own attitudes, and admit when we’re wrong. We also have to treat the people who are racist, and full of hate with the kind of respect we wish they’d show to others, even though we’d like to punch them out.

Not long ago there was a great example of that. The Pastor of the Kansas church that makes a practice of demonstrating at funerals, showing signs full of hate, died. I’m sorry I don’t remember his name or the name of his church. This group was particularly hateful toward gays. A large group of people got together for a different kind of demonstration at his funeral. They stood outside the church, with signs of love. They could have returned hate with hate. But they didn’t. They turned the other cheek and returned hate with love. I don’t know if that act of kindness will make a difference in the lives of the people of that congregation or not. I do know that being kind to someone has a better chance of affecting change than treating them with hate. Treating someone who’s mean and hateful with love is a lot harder to do than lashing out in anger, but it’s the only way I know to bring about positive change.

	lucindasagemidgorden on Syntesis: Nevelle Longbottom a…
	Gerald on Syntesis: Nevelle Longbottom a…
	lucindasagemidgorden on Empathy Rising!
	heardandfelt on Empathy Rising!
	Forte Marketing PR on How to Succeed in Life if Not…