It has been observed that in the old paradigm women wanted to talk a situation to death and men just wanted to fix it. It seems that we are moving out of these old stereotypes and finding a whole new way of being whole together though we may not be entirely there yet.
A male friend and I were discussing a situation. I expressed frustration that a group I was working with seemed to be in chaos for lack of leadership and things were not getting done in what I considered a timely manner. He wanted to “fix” it by going to the next level of management to see that things got “done right”. I was reluctant to go that route since I was new to the group and didn’t want to seem to be taking over without being asked to do so even though I believed I could see clearly what needed to be done.
By talking it through we came to understand that this was in fact a necessary part of the process as we learn to honor and appreciate each other’s unique gifts that we bring when we try to come together in common purpose. In M. Scott Peck’s book on community building, The Different Drum, he talks about chaos being necessary as all express their individual needs and visions before things come together in a unified approach. Though the finished product might not be my personal vision of perfection or timeliness, it will be in fact a common vision that is brought into being through honoring all parts of the community. In that it will be perfect. We are all learning from each other how to coexist in partnerships with diverse understandings and agendas.
I mentioned to him that when a woman voices her concerns and frustrations, it does not necessarily mean that she expects him to “fix” things. Sometimes it is just that she needs to vent and understand how things are perceived from a male point of view. Sometimes we are just putting a toe in the water to test the depth before we venture forward and appreciate a weather report. In previous times women were not expected to be able to “fix” things themselves and consequently looked to the men in their lives to do the heavy lifting in that department. We learned how to study and learn all we needed to know about a situation to discern and advise the best way of avoiding bloodshed before we acted.
On the other hand men at times have come from a “shoot first, ask questions later” school of problem resolution. They want to cut to the chase and make things better so life can go on. While removing obstacles had its advantages, in some cases these were put there for our growth and need to be carefully dismantled to keep them from exploding in our faces. This is a perspective women can provide which helps expand the vision of partnership. By taking time to understand and explore both ways of resolving conflict, balance is being restored and we are becoming more integrated in our approach to life.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
In the Silence
I am becoming more appreciative of the silence in my life for it is the blank slate on which I process my thoughts, dreams, and insights. When I was younger I felt that I had to fill each moment with sound as if its presence proved my existence. Now it is a gift to have the time, space and stillness to connect with my soul and listen for its whispers.
I no longer reach for the radio control when I enter the car. In the rhythmic sound and motion of the car moving across the road I move into a zone of inspiration. I have gotten some of my most profound realizations while in my state of meditation behind the wheel. Road trips are less of a chore and more of an opportunity for communion with the divine and introspection.
I have been blessed this week with an interval of aloneness. While I thoroughly enjoy the interaction with my housemates and friends, they are out of town so this has been a mini-vacation from the disruptions of life lived in the now of activity. I luxuriate in the opportunity to delve deeply in a cherished book and explore the garden listening to the songs of Nature without the background noise of TV and telephone.
It was in this time of silence that I received an unusual pointer. As I sat quietly on the portale, appreciating the beauty of nature expressed in the garden, a bobcat sauntered across the yard and disappeared into the brush beyond. I realized the gift of this occurrence and wondered what nature was trying to tell me. I sought out my animal wisdom cards and “supprisingly” drew the Lynx (the genus for bobcat). This is a silent seeker, knower, and keeper of nature’s secrets. It has the ability to move through time and space and to go into the Great Silence for unraveling any mystery. It is clairvoyance and clairaudience. It is a sign that Mother Earth is signaling in some manner. Some believe that the Sphinx in Egypt is not a lion but a lynx. For me this was a confirmation that this silent path has a deeper meaning and purpose and I am learning to hear with different ears.
Seldom have I had the luxury of personal space and quiet during the years of family, career, and growth. Life as a Gemini, with Mercury, the sign of communication, is seldom without noise-filled interaction with the world around me. Part of the duality of this sign is finding time to be quiet and reconnect with Source and recharge my mental and emotional batteries for the next day’s adventure.
I sometimes wonder about my grandchildren’s generation that must have the constant stimulation of noise plugged into their ears and their awareness. When do they have the opportunity to dream, imagine, and process the events in their lives? Have they evolved past the necessity to reason, evaluate, and discern and become merely reactors to stimuli rather than creators and innovators? Do they understand what it means to listen to the still, small voice within?
I recognize the growth inherent in being content in my own company and not feeling I need to fill the void. It has been said that the only thing worse than being alone is wishing you were. Somehow the possibility of aloneness for a while is not so daunting when it becomes a time to dialogue with higher self. I am grateful for this time alone in the silence. Peace be still…
I no longer reach for the radio control when I enter the car. In the rhythmic sound and motion of the car moving across the road I move into a zone of inspiration. I have gotten some of my most profound realizations while in my state of meditation behind the wheel. Road trips are less of a chore and more of an opportunity for communion with the divine and introspection.
I have been blessed this week with an interval of aloneness. While I thoroughly enjoy the interaction with my housemates and friends, they are out of town so this has been a mini-vacation from the disruptions of life lived in the now of activity. I luxuriate in the opportunity to delve deeply in a cherished book and explore the garden listening to the songs of Nature without the background noise of TV and telephone.
It was in this time of silence that I received an unusual pointer. As I sat quietly on the portale, appreciating the beauty of nature expressed in the garden, a bobcat sauntered across the yard and disappeared into the brush beyond. I realized the gift of this occurrence and wondered what nature was trying to tell me. I sought out my animal wisdom cards and “supprisingly” drew the Lynx (the genus for bobcat). This is a silent seeker, knower, and keeper of nature’s secrets. It has the ability to move through time and space and to go into the Great Silence for unraveling any mystery. It is clairvoyance and clairaudience. It is a sign that Mother Earth is signaling in some manner. Some believe that the Sphinx in Egypt is not a lion but a lynx. For me this was a confirmation that this silent path has a deeper meaning and purpose and I am learning to hear with different ears.
Seldom have I had the luxury of personal space and quiet during the years of family, career, and growth. Life as a Gemini, with Mercury, the sign of communication, is seldom without noise-filled interaction with the world around me. Part of the duality of this sign is finding time to be quiet and reconnect with Source and recharge my mental and emotional batteries for the next day’s adventure.
I sometimes wonder about my grandchildren’s generation that must have the constant stimulation of noise plugged into their ears and their awareness. When do they have the opportunity to dream, imagine, and process the events in their lives? Have they evolved past the necessity to reason, evaluate, and discern and become merely reactors to stimuli rather than creators and innovators? Do they understand what it means to listen to the still, small voice within?
I recognize the growth inherent in being content in my own company and not feeling I need to fill the void. It has been said that the only thing worse than being alone is wishing you were. Somehow the possibility of aloneness for a while is not so daunting when it becomes a time to dialogue with higher self. I am grateful for this time alone in the silence. Peace be still…
Monday, July 19, 2010
Sisters
Biologically I have only one wonderful sister but I am blessed with many sisters of choice for which I am profoundly grateful. It has been only since my husband’s passing five years ago that I became aware of the richness of sisterhood that I had been missing in my prior life. I left a coven of soul sisters in New Mexico with their encouragement and blessings and wasn’t sure I would be able to find that here but I have been pleasantly surprised that it has been so easy to reconnect with members of my soul family.
Certainly I had girl/women friends growing up and as a wife and mother. Usually these were because we shared a common interest or activity. It became natural to associate with women whose husbands were friends of my husband or children and in such we could all share activities. While we had many things in common, with a couple of exceptions, I can’t say many of them were would what I would call sisters in light of my new awareness. Compared to the depth of the relationships I have today, these were just aquaintenances.
For me sisterhood implies a deep bond of love, appreciation, acceptance, and caring at a soul level. We are there for each other to honestly mirror, chide, and encourage each other to be our best, most authentic self and to grow in depth and awareness that we are unable to do apart. We may not be our sister’s keeper but we can be each other’s greatest supporter and champion as we grow into oneness together.
While previous friendships may have had an undercurrent of competition and withholding truths that did not reflect the image we wished to portray, my sisters today have moved past that limited vision and are reflective of the higher awareness of who we really are and who we wish to be. By reaching out to a sister and sharing our truth we are able to minister to each other and to grow together in love. It is wholeness being manifested in the bond of sisterhood.
I have been reading M. Scott Peck’s book on community building and he talks about appreciating the richness we bring to each other with our differences. It is in accepting and valuing each other in our own unique ways that we forge the bonds that create community. I am fortunate to be participating in a living, growing community of sisters in the truest sense of the word and for that I am profoundly grateful.
Penny
Certainly I had girl/women friends growing up and as a wife and mother. Usually these were because we shared a common interest or activity. It became natural to associate with women whose husbands were friends of my husband or children and in such we could all share activities. While we had many things in common, with a couple of exceptions, I can’t say many of them were would what I would call sisters in light of my new awareness. Compared to the depth of the relationships I have today, these were just aquaintenances.
For me sisterhood implies a deep bond of love, appreciation, acceptance, and caring at a soul level. We are there for each other to honestly mirror, chide, and encourage each other to be our best, most authentic self and to grow in depth and awareness that we are unable to do apart. We may not be our sister’s keeper but we can be each other’s greatest supporter and champion as we grow into oneness together.
While previous friendships may have had an undercurrent of competition and withholding truths that did not reflect the image we wished to portray, my sisters today have moved past that limited vision and are reflective of the higher awareness of who we really are and who we wish to be. By reaching out to a sister and sharing our truth we are able to minister to each other and to grow together in love. It is wholeness being manifested in the bond of sisterhood.
I have been reading M. Scott Peck’s book on community building and he talks about appreciating the richness we bring to each other with our differences. It is in accepting and valuing each other in our own unique ways that we forge the bonds that create community. I am fortunate to be participating in a living, growing community of sisters in the truest sense of the word and for that I am profoundly grateful.
Penny
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Making Love Not War
I am grateful for all of the people in my life but especially the men for they give me a different way of looking at the world. I am delighted to see that the gratitude circle I attend each week is usually about equally represented by both men and women which has not always been the case in previous groups I have been in. Perhaps men and women are finding ways of coming together in more cooperative forms of intercourse.
I think back to early TV shows like I Love Lucy and the Honeymooners where relationships were all about manipulation and deception in order to achieve personal wants. I am so glad at least some of us seem to have evolved past these outdated dramas – at least I hope we have. Or is it that I just live in the rarefied environment of Sedona where more enlightened souls have chosen to congregate. Hopefully this is a harbinger of the new reality.
I truly believe that men and women do think differently. It is not just that women want to talk a problem to death and men just want to fix it. That may have been the old paradigm but now we seem to be learning to come together and honor both our masculine and feminine natures. The new paradigm is about balance in all things and working within the dynamics of cooperation and respect rather than fear and isolation.
I know I can roll a situation around in my mind, examining it from many levels and come to my own conclusions but it is inevitably when I compare my findings with the men in my life that I see a big missing piece that escaped my attention. It seems we do need each other not just in a physical sense, but to flesh out the complementary parts of our own vision and experience.
I remember a couple of weeks ago my friend, John spoke and blogged about women, or perhaps a woman, who helped him open up and express his feelings and emotions. I think a lot of evolved men are discovering the same thing and it feels good. At the same time we women are learning to respect and honor that and to accept our own power to direct our lives, solve our own problems, find our voices, and trust and honor our own wisdom which also feels good also. In the surrender to our own vulnerability we seem to be integrating as well as learning to work together in higher purpose. That feels really good.
I am very grateful for the men in my life that have shown me that the battle of the sexes is a no win and that greater rewards are to be found in finding common ground and making love not war. Thanks guys… I am very grateful.
Penny
I think back to early TV shows like I Love Lucy and the Honeymooners where relationships were all about manipulation and deception in order to achieve personal wants. I am so glad at least some of us seem to have evolved past these outdated dramas – at least I hope we have. Or is it that I just live in the rarefied environment of Sedona where more enlightened souls have chosen to congregate. Hopefully this is a harbinger of the new reality.
I truly believe that men and women do think differently. It is not just that women want to talk a problem to death and men just want to fix it. That may have been the old paradigm but now we seem to be learning to come together and honor both our masculine and feminine natures. The new paradigm is about balance in all things and working within the dynamics of cooperation and respect rather than fear and isolation.
I know I can roll a situation around in my mind, examining it from many levels and come to my own conclusions but it is inevitably when I compare my findings with the men in my life that I see a big missing piece that escaped my attention. It seems we do need each other not just in a physical sense, but to flesh out the complementary parts of our own vision and experience.
I remember a couple of weeks ago my friend, John spoke and blogged about women, or perhaps a woman, who helped him open up and express his feelings and emotions. I think a lot of evolved men are discovering the same thing and it feels good. At the same time we women are learning to respect and honor that and to accept our own power to direct our lives, solve our own problems, find our voices, and trust and honor our own wisdom which also feels good also. In the surrender to our own vulnerability we seem to be integrating as well as learning to work together in higher purpose. That feels really good.
I am very grateful for the men in my life that have shown me that the battle of the sexes is a no win and that greater rewards are to be found in finding common ground and making love not war. Thanks guys… I am very grateful.
Penny
Monday, July 5, 2010
Along Came a Spider
Sometimes it is through our fellow participants in our dance with Nature that we hear the voice of our soul calling. I entered the pool this morning in a meditative state and began moving in resistance to the water in order to create “exercise”. I glanced to my side in the center of the pool and saw a huge spider nestled in the safety of the lane marker where he had found refuge. I began wondering how he had found himself in this remote area without any apparent place to go since both of the ends of the floating surface were submerged in the water. We coexisted in this space for an hour until I finished the movement, each eying the other watchfully.
I debated whether to take off my water shoe and offer him a ride to the side. I remembered the video we had watched the day before by Wayne Dyer who was talking about allowing our true nature to unfold. I decided that perhaps this was a lesson he needed to experience for himself and that it was not my job to interfere so I didn’t. After I left the pool I glanced back and noticed that he was no longer there.
I felt that there was a deeper connection and meaning in this so when I returned home I looked up the medicine wisdom of the spider. It is all about weaving. I know that the archetype of Penelope in Greek mythology is the weaver as well.
According to the animal wisdom “Spider is the symbol for the infinite possibilities of creation. Spider wove the web that brought humans the first picture of the alphabet. The letters were part of the angles and symbols in her web. Spider is the female energy of the creative force that weaves the beautiful designs in life. Spider could be asking you to use a journal to write out and review your progress.”
My sun sign Gemini and Mercury are all about communication. For the past fifteen years I have been weaving books out of the wisdom of others. My e-book on 2013… Blueprints for the New Paradigm is now ready to share. It seems the time has come for finding my own voice and weaving this into the web of life to create new designs. This blog is my soul that is opening up to its expression as well. Thank you spider…
I debated whether to take off my water shoe and offer him a ride to the side. I remembered the video we had watched the day before by Wayne Dyer who was talking about allowing our true nature to unfold. I decided that perhaps this was a lesson he needed to experience for himself and that it was not my job to interfere so I didn’t. After I left the pool I glanced back and noticed that he was no longer there.
I felt that there was a deeper connection and meaning in this so when I returned home I looked up the medicine wisdom of the spider. It is all about weaving. I know that the archetype of Penelope in Greek mythology is the weaver as well.
According to the animal wisdom “Spider is the symbol for the infinite possibilities of creation. Spider wove the web that brought humans the first picture of the alphabet. The letters were part of the angles and symbols in her web. Spider is the female energy of the creative force that weaves the beautiful designs in life. Spider could be asking you to use a journal to write out and review your progress.”
My sun sign Gemini and Mercury are all about communication. For the past fifteen years I have been weaving books out of the wisdom of others. My e-book on 2013… Blueprints for the New Paradigm is now ready to share. It seems the time has come for finding my own voice and weaving this into the web of life to create new designs. This blog is my soul that is opening up to its expression as well. Thank you spider…
Friday, July 2, 2010
Mirrors of Appreciation
I have been contemplating how to accept a compliment in an egoless state.
One of the men I share a house with is the world champion acknowledger and appreciator. Nothing and no one in our world goes unrecognized or unappreciated in some way. He frequently calls me within a couple of blocks of home to tell me something I have done that he is appreciative of and has neglected to mention. I have never been acknowledged or appreciated so much by anyone in my life. This was becoming almost annoying.
While I have no doubt as to his sincerity, on some level I felt that I did not deserve the praise. Somewhere I picked up the idea that praise and appreciation were rewards for hard work and achievement so it felt unearned. More like I was being honored for something I did automatically like breathing. Maybe part of my DNA but then I realized that I am part of the DNA of all creation and am reflecting an aspect of that whole. It seems egocentric to accept a reward for something that is more an accident of birth and upbringing or living long enough that you have worked out the kinks of life. And, I wonder, does appreciation imply comparison which Brugh has cautioned about?
I told him that my heroes that I appreciate are those that may not have the tools I have but have overcome challenges in their lives and have chosen to take a higher road to achievement. While he concurs that this is indeed commendable, he points out that many people have the tools to do something but it does not mean that they will use them unselfishly or care enough to step forward and make a difference in the lives of others without fear or expectation of reward.
The fact that I am willing to show up and move fearlessly, following the vision of how I intend things to be, regardless of how they appear, is what is remarkable and cause for acknowledgement and appreciation, not just the results of my actions. It is not just that I can pull off the perfect dinner party without breaking a sweat but that everyone there feels loved, appreciated and honored. Because it is so effortless they are at ease and able to share their own gifts as well which creates the magic when two or more are gathered together.
That I get and accept with gratitude because we all struggle with what it means to live a life of integrity and honor and it is nice when someone notices when we hit the mark and says “I see you” in the Avatar sense. It is how we encourage each other to reach higher.
Thank you my friend for being a mirror to me when mine is smudged.
One of the men I share a house with is the world champion acknowledger and appreciator. Nothing and no one in our world goes unrecognized or unappreciated in some way. He frequently calls me within a couple of blocks of home to tell me something I have done that he is appreciative of and has neglected to mention. I have never been acknowledged or appreciated so much by anyone in my life. This was becoming almost annoying.
While I have no doubt as to his sincerity, on some level I felt that I did not deserve the praise. Somewhere I picked up the idea that praise and appreciation were rewards for hard work and achievement so it felt unearned. More like I was being honored for something I did automatically like breathing. Maybe part of my DNA but then I realized that I am part of the DNA of all creation and am reflecting an aspect of that whole. It seems egocentric to accept a reward for something that is more an accident of birth and upbringing or living long enough that you have worked out the kinks of life. And, I wonder, does appreciation imply comparison which Brugh has cautioned about?
I told him that my heroes that I appreciate are those that may not have the tools I have but have overcome challenges in their lives and have chosen to take a higher road to achievement. While he concurs that this is indeed commendable, he points out that many people have the tools to do something but it does not mean that they will use them unselfishly or care enough to step forward and make a difference in the lives of others without fear or expectation of reward.
The fact that I am willing to show up and move fearlessly, following the vision of how I intend things to be, regardless of how they appear, is what is remarkable and cause for acknowledgement and appreciation, not just the results of my actions. It is not just that I can pull off the perfect dinner party without breaking a sweat but that everyone there feels loved, appreciated and honored. Because it is so effortless they are at ease and able to share their own gifts as well which creates the magic when two or more are gathered together.
That I get and accept with gratitude because we all struggle with what it means to live a life of integrity and honor and it is nice when someone notices when we hit the mark and says “I see you” in the Avatar sense. It is how we encourage each other to reach higher.
Thank you my friend for being a mirror to me when mine is smudged.
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