January 14--Becoming What?

The greatest joy lies not in simply being, but in becoming.  --Oprah Winfrey

    If we are alive, we are automatically in the act of becoming. One of my yoga teacher's favorite sayings is "Evolve or die." We are different each day from the person we were the previous day. Interactions and activities change our perspective, we learn about ourselves and the world, and we make choices. I would offer that downtime, "simply being," is a state that helps us make the choices that lead our becoming in a satisfying direction. 

    Onward,

        Leta

January 13--Sunshine and Shadow

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows.  --Helen Keller

    I find this to be an interesting quote from a blind person. I get the encouragement of it--to stay turned toward the source of life, warmth, nourishment, energy. Alas, I don't see anything wrong with shadows. The shadow of a tree is welcome shade. If we consider human shadows, our dark side, well, those shadows are only as negative as we allow them to be. Recognized and released, those shadows inform and evolve us into better versions of ourselves. Kept hidden and ignored, those inner shadows can fester and cause all sorts of undesirable behavior, addiction being a prime example. 

    Enjoy the sunshine, but don't dis the shadows,

        Leta

January 12--Inside

There is only one journey: going inside yourself.  --Rainer Maria Rilke

    Right now, inside myself is tired. We drove to Colorado on Sunday, returned yesterday--that's a lot of driving (~1200 miles) in the space of three days. It was a successful trip, fulfilling an intention set almost a year ago. That intention was for us to have a new vehicle so that we could turn over our car to our older son and his wife. We left my Nissan out there with them, driving home in our new "Spaceship" (RAV4 Hybrid). It is odd not having my black sedan, Maddie, around. She went to a good home 😉😉

    Two things are very helpful to me for going inside. Those are writing and lap-swimming. The process of writing opens me up to Spirit. Just now, I had no idea what to write, because I'm tired and I don't feel like writing. But I just started writing about that, and voila, here's a blog post. Writing makes me think about how I'm feeling, and that is a good thing. It's too easy for life's busyness to push feelings aside. As for lap-swimming--the repetitive nature of it is meditative. I can think as much or as little as I choose stroking back and forth in the pool. I always feel better after a swim.  

    I'll be in the pool later this morning,

        Leta

A lovely park ornament discovered
on a Monday walk with Barney in Fort Collins

January 11--Fired Up!

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.  --Plutarch

    Alas, this takes me directly to our public education system, which I believe is severely broken. It is broken because we are trying desperately to fill the vessels rather than kindle the fires. Bloated vessels are easy to control and manipulate. Kindled fires are not. In a society whose politics and religions seek continuously to control and manipulate, it is intolerable to have uncontrolled fires, i.e., curiosity, passion, creativity. Thank the Universe for the internal fires that do get kindled and burn vibrantly! 

    Next my thoughts go to "flow." The contents of a vessel just sit there--they don't do anything. Fires move! They contain energy. We thrive when our minds are in the flow, continuously taking in new information, using it, moving with the flow of life, offering what moves us to the world. 

    My husband and I are currently enjoying the high-tech wonder of a brand new vehicle. He has nicknamed it the "spaceship." Many kindled fires have gone into its creation, and the safety features are amazing. My favorite is the adaptive cruise control. We humans could have waddled along forever with regular cruise control, but someone had a idea burst into flames to make cruise control significantly safer and more user-friendly. 

    Let's keep those fires burning!

        Leta

January 10--Infinity Within

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.  --Ralph Waldo Emerson

    This is the basis for the hope I hold in my heart. Humans are continually evolving. We are resilient. We survive. We invent. We pick ourselves up after a disaster. We grow. We dream. All progress comes from within. As Ernest Holmes stated, everything is twice created--first in thought, then in form. Those thoughts lie within us, and they are the basis for all evolution. 

    Also within us, the foundation for our very life on Earth, is free will. We tend to take that for granted, but life would be 100% different if we did not have it. I'm not saying we have always used it well, but without it, Emerson's quote would be meaningless. 

    Choosing to make this day a good one,

        Leta

by Claude Monet

January 9--Beautiful Future

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. 
--Eleanor Roosevelt

    Keep the focus on the positive, what I want to happen, rather than what I don't want to happen. That makes for a much greater chance of beautiful dreams coming to fruition. 

    For six years running, my mid-January to mid-April time has been consumed by tax prep work. 2022 will be my seventh and last tax season working. This leads to dreams of travel to warm places in wintertime, which I have had to put off. It also leads to "what will I do with myself during those three months?" New dreams other than travel are undecided and unknown, but I am certain that desires will arise--they always do. If nothing else, it will give me more time to play with my new grandbaby. 😉😉

    You can call me "Grammie." 

        Leta

GOOD VIBES ONLY!

January 8--One Step Back, Two SLOW Steps Forward

Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change--this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.  --Bruce Barton

    My older son is a delivery driver for FedEx Express based in Fort Collins, Colorado. For two consecutive nights, he was stranded in Laramie, Wyoming. Snowfall, wind and weather shut down all the roads that would take him back home. It was not the rhythm of life he would have chosen, but I am grateful that with the conditions so dreadful, someone had the wisdom to close the roads. And the company paid for hotel, meals, and necessities.

    The pandemic has certainly given us a taste, nay a whole banquet, of "action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change." One of the items of progress that I especially like is working from home. I realize it's not for everyone, but having that option is huge progress on many levels for so many people. 

    While it is tough to witness, I see our current political system's quicksand of divisiveness and ignorance being an excellent example of "out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress." Nothing changes until things get shaken up quite a bit, and the shake-up is going strong now. It's ugly, but I'm hopeful. 

    Happy to be here,

        Leta