Balancing Paradox

n the midst of everything else going on in our world today ~ all the craziness, every mundane context, individual moments ~ I find myself turning inward and finding a safe, quiet place within.

When I lift my head out of those moments of slipping away, or more precisely, diving deep, familiar words find their way into view. The quote from Frederick Buechner was one. I find myself reading it, breathing it deeply into my lungs, letting it fill me up. I live, we live, in that world where "beautiful and terrible things will happen." Often, both of those extremes can make us afraid. We exalt in and love the beautiful, yet fear that it will go away, that simply having it and acknowledging it will curse it into nonexistence. Yet we most need to remember to let go that feeling of fear. Understand that these things will happen.

The terrible things leave us wary of anything new ~ or of the news itself. What next? Where will the next quake hit? What's happening in the arctic? How long before the disease (whichever one it may be) takes Auntie or Grandpa? So much opportunity for terrible things. Again, along with our best efforts to allay or avoid it, we have the same need to let go of the fear. It takes us out of being present to the moment.

Another quote that flowed easily into my view was this one by Parker J. Palmer:

The spiritual life is lived in a balance of paradoxes, and the humility that enables us to hear the truth of others must stand in creative tension with the faith that empowers us to speak our own.

Everything that is most important to us rests on the balance point of those paradoxes: hearing the truth of others and speaking our own truth. We move forward too quickly and we stop listening to others. We stand still too long and we stop voicing our truths. We are here, in this world, with these beautiful and terrible things happening, to face each other and help each other through the most profound Darkness and the most resplendent Light.

This is a time of facing our rebellious, passionate natures. This is a time of honesty and clarity. This is a time of living in and through our truest and deepest selves. This is not about being meek in the world. It is about being aware and truthful alongside being loving and strong. It is also a time of owning our own personal Darkness as well as revealing our brightest Light. We are not only balancing the paradoxes, we are the very balance point of them.

How do you speak your truth? How do listen to the truth of others? What is your passion? What do you fear? How do you view the beauty in our world? What terrible things are in your life now? What action will you take to refute fear? How are your practices working? What paradoxes are you balancing?

Listening and The Lovers

Shapeshifter Tarot

The Lovers
The Lovers is a card about perfect communication, about finding something your soul requires. When this card appears, you are being told to trust your instincts, to choose this career, challenge, person or thing you're so strongly drawn to, no matter how scary, how difficult, irrational or troublesome - without it, you will never be wholly you. It's sudden and unexpected, and it means a complete change in plans; but this is LOVE. True love. Go for it!


Before drawing this card, I focused for several heartbeats on my coming week. My question, the center of my focus, was: What strength will I need and have available to draw on in the coming week?

The very first part of the statement about The Lovers card attracted me: perfect communication. That's often easier said than done when working with others who are clearly not reading my mind, nor I theirs!

Trusting my instincts is something I am consciously developing. Instincts don't always follow our thoughts, our conscious minds. We call them 'gut' instincts for a reason: we feel their pull, their truth, deep within ourselves ~ at a place that requires us to be still and listen. Our minds are constantly chattering at us. Even though our instincts may be communicating, it is our minds that we are used to hearing.

What draws me most, at the moment? Obviously, writing. I've been writing in my blog daily (with one exception) since the beginning of April. I am encouraged by the numbers of people reading what I write. I find that I write to please me as much as to please others. The feedback I receive is wonderful and reassuring, yet I am prompted to put words to paper from a deep, internal space.

I also find myself reaching for my camera more. Not at work. When on walks, driving in the car, looking at my surroundings. I am amazed by the wonder and beauty around me ~ the blessing of it all. My gratitude challenges me to capture it in some way through my photography.

These two passions spur me onward. Drawing The Lovers card reinforces me ~ reminds me that I am listening to that still, small voice within. That I am responding to the instinct to create.

What do you see in The Lovers card? What draws your instinctual self? How do you respond? What reinforcement do you need to follow your instincts? What defines perfect communication for you? How will you pursue it?

October New Moon in Libra

Wow! It's been a long time since I've written in this blog. September was a wild ride month. Anyone else experience that? Lots of energy buzzing and zapping around with the eclipses, the equinox and Mercury retrograde. It's good to be on the other side of that.

Now there's a New Moon in Libra ~ which is all about relationships ~ and that will be greatly assisted by being past the wild and wacky energy of the past month!

Now is the time for balance. Settling in just enough to make me recognize my own need for self-care in all areas: mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It's also the time to honor communications as the leading edge for growth. Listen with an open mind. Speak from the heart's truth. Remember to express gratitude.

Continuing on the path of change, making big plans and keeping track of the details finds support at this time too. It's about Choice: tension or release? movement or stagnation? healing or rage? being awake or staying asleep? owning what needs to be healed or projecting it on others?

Personally, I'm being challenged to be more centered and reflect what is being mirrored to me by the world. I continue to learn to use ~ as well as to rest ~ my voice, speaking clearly from my own truth and expressing my feelings. If I believe in my purpose and myself, I can stand in relationship with those around me without causing harm to either myself or the other. I am also working through and with balancing the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine. For me, this balance has been going on for years. It's a dance I enjoy having.

I recall something one of my former teachers said: "Each time you let go, each time you learn a lesson, it will come back to you in the old way again. Only the next time, you will go deeper to release it. And so it will go until you are done." Learning the lessons, evolving to the next level, continues in a spiral, looping back over and over again so the mastery can get deeper and deeper.

What lesson are you learning? What is the truth that is seeking you? What change is poking itself into your life? How do your relationships support you? How do you balance it all?

Mirror Pieces

Have you ever heard the story about the blind men describing an elephant? Each one had touched only one part of the elephant and insisted that his view was the most accurate one.

This is Rumi's description of the same action. One piece of something, one side of the story, one point of view, is not the entirety of the truth.

To illustrate this, let me tell a tale ~
At a friend's house for a party, I got into a discussion with another guest about the contents of a particular dessert. The other person insisted that the dessert was "healthy" for diabetics because it was sweetened with honey rather than white sugar. I asked, "Is that true?" At which point, the other guest got angry and insisted it was true and, besides that, it wasn't her fault if it wasn't. Then she turned and stomped off. I was dumb-struck. I had asked a simple question ~ not sure (1) if the dessert was sweetened with honey or (2) if it was, would that made it a healthier choice. Afterward, when mentioning the incident to the host, I was informed that someone with whom this other guest worked had died in the month prior to the party. She was still in shock and grief.
My "piece of mirror" was that this guest had over-reacted to my query or was a grumpy drunk or something of that sort. Never would I have suspected that she was emotionally spent.
Her "piece of mirror" may have been that I was challenging her and she was too psychologically stretched to handle it.
The host's "piece of mirror"? The incident had gone unnoticed.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation like this? How did you discover the different facet of the mirror/truth? Did you have an "aha" moment? How did the new information change you?