Dear Reader:
I don’t know who is growing faster….the grandchildren or their Japanese Maples. Eva Cate’s tree (seen here) was planted over a year ahead of the others and I love having it as a compass of comparison and role-model for what is to come… for the three others that follow.
Rutledge’s Red Maple reminds me of a speckled butter bean as of late. Each tree has its own personality….size and design…unique until itself…but all are beautiful in their own way.
My garden has filled a passion I wasn’t even consciously aware of until late in my life. Now I can’t imagine my life without it… I love watching my “grandchildren” grow and my garden surprise me with daily gifts of beauty and delight.
Every season is different but still lovely within its own perimeters that define it. I look forward to all the seasonal transitions to see the final outcome of each change.
And isn’t that how our personal lives should be spent…excitedly anticipating each seasonal change along our personal time-line? Each stage, unique, in its own opportunities and possibilities to find ourselves in the “being” – not the “having.”
The article, this week, in Awakin Weekly, really woke me up. I found myself re-reading it several times. Normally I just use an excerpt from an article…but this short message is one that I think we can all ponder in our hearts and reflect upon each day. It is about acting on the voice inside us telling us to live our dreams instead of making excuses why we must choose existence over living.
“We Are What We Choose to Be”
Dawna Markova
On rare and precious moments, someone will tell me about when he used to play the saxophone or when she used to dream about opening a halfway house for abused women or when he thought he could mentor boys in the inner city or when she was going to write a book about how she made it through her childhood. And they light up. There is no other way to describe what happens. Their cheeks flush, their bodies become animated, their voices are electric as they speak.
For a moment, the clock stops ticking. Then they pause, shake themselves the way a dog does on a hot day after swimming in a cool lake, and they crawl back in their girdle, talk about money and time and reasons why not. “Well, (…) I am not the sort of a person who could just… I wouldn’t feel like me that way.” I watch heart failures as the clock begins to tick again.
My son once told me he didn’t want to grow up to be a man because they all seemed like they were walking dead. I came back from being dead realizing we are totally free to live fully alive. Now. In this moment. Free to define ourselves. We are what we choose to be. I don’t mean free to have. I mean free to be. I know many among us don’t have sufficient nourishment, space, education.
But I also remember learning how Nelson Mandela sang of freedom at the top of his lungs on a boat while being taken to prison. And I remember the Jamaican angel who swept the floors in a hospital and whispered words to me in the dark of the night that changed everything: “You are more than your fear.”
I know there are others among us who have more food than they can ever eat, bigger houses than they can ever occupy, more education than they can ever use, and still they suffer from spiritual insufficiency and lack of the kind of nourishment that a sense of purpose brings. Most of us would never dare sing at the top of our lungs on a boat for fear of being embarrassed!
Parker Palmer (…) wrote, “No punishment anyone might inflict on us could possibly be worse than the punishment we inflict on ourselves by conspiring in our own diminishing.”
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* When Dr. Wayne Dyer was writing about putting on special lenses and seeing everyone in their spirit form instead of physical one and also seeing miracles on a daily basis….Jackson can contest to that statement.
Tomorrow I want to share some of the blessing that have come her way….leaving her bewildered at the extent of caring and support from strangers these past few days.
Matthew, Jackson’s son, has started a GoFundMe for his mom to help with the expenses of completely starting over with no flood insurance, thus no home insurance. Like many of you readers…Jackson is a retired school teacher living on her SC retirement pension and social security benefits.
* (Kaitlyn Swicegood)- Sweet Kaitlyn put this on-line today…any help will be greatly appreciated.
This is one of Tommy Dingles mom’s, Becky Dingle‘s closest friends who lost her house in the flood. If you feel you can help, please do.
ichaseferalcats
John Turner
Legally Ohm
Becky Dingle