Blossoming in Place

 "Bloom where you are planted." ~ Saint Francis de Sales

This particular lesson has returned to me many times in my life.  I recall first seeing it as a child, and I know it was written on something in the home where I grew up, but I can't quite recall where. 

I was reminded of it today.  Wherever we find ourselves, we can still blossom.  We are here on Earth to grow.

Flower photo by Susan Larison Danz.

Letting Spring In

"Beauty always offers solace in a tumultuous world." ~ Susan Larison Danz

It's easy to get entangled in the cares of our lives and the world.  That's exactly when it's time to breathe, and open ourselves to Spring.  

 

 

Daffodils photo by Susan Larison Danz.

 

Trust and Fear

"It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves." ~ Henry David Thoreau

Listen to today's program on The Frontier Beyond Fear broadcast:  Trust and Fear: Navigating with Wisdom

I honestly explore how Spirituality can provide us with the Trust and Wisdom we need to make solid choices when confronting fear. Not only will we make better choices going forward, we will be comfortable with those choices. If you feel discomfort with a choice, it's time to look at it more deeply.

 

Whether on this day, you are celebrating the first day of Spring or of Autumn, today is an excellent day to consult your inner compass. We make imperfect choices all the time, as this is human, but being mindful of our unhealthy relationship with fear can make all the difference.

 

We also listen to wisdom from Henry David Thoreau's Walden, some deeply profound words to guide us on our paths forward. 

Blossoms by the Bridge photo by Susan Larison Danz.

 

 

Being Honest with Yourself

"...to thine own self be true..." ~ William Shakespeare

This may seem to be a very simple - and even obvious - thing to say, but it's one of the most fundamental aspects of how discernment relates to inner growth and peace. 

When we are discerning and pay attention, when we are honest with ourselves about how we view things and how we feel (including when we're unsure), it makes a world of difference.  Honor the process.

 

 

Reflection photo by Susan Larison Danz. 

Silence

 "Silence is a source of great strength." ~ Lao Tzu

Sometimes, silence is exactly what we need.  

Trust in the gifts silence brings.  

Reflection photo by Susan Larison Danz.

Celebrating Our Authentic Paths

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." ~ Mother Teresa

Sometimes we need to simply take a moment to appreciate the beauty of our authentic paths.  This is the very essence of freely expressed spirituality and divinely derived unconditional Love.  This is the path to inner peace and peace on the planet.  There is no other route.

 

 

Forest Path photo by Susan Larison Danz.

 

Random Beauty

"Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,

And Innocence, thy sister dear?" 

~ Andrew Marvell, The Garden

It seems the older I get, the more I return to appreciating how a child sees the world.  I've written before about this notion of being "childlike" (versus "childish").  

We can wander through the world in a state of natural wonder.  We can combine this with maturity by being consciously Still. 

Tonight, I "randomly" turned to the poem The Garden by Andrew Marvell, in a very sizeable book.  It was exactly that.

Beauty awaits us.

 

 

 

Early Spring Wildflower by Susan Larison Danz.

The Peace that Passeth Understanding

 "The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength." ~ Marcus Aurelius

If it's not one thing, it's another.  We are continually barraged with peace-disrupting information.  Does it ever really change?  I remember worrying about nuclear war in the 70's as a teen.  Life is filled with vast and scary things.  It is natural to feel it.  

But how can Spirituality help?

It isn't necessarily about breathing exercises, yoga or meditation - though every one of these things can assist those who feel called to learn them.

It goes even deeper.

It's not a 10 or 25 step program.   

I'm not talking about steps.

I'm not talking about a formula.

There is no "formula" for "the peace that passeth understanding".  It is a mystery.  It can seem entirely illogical.  Who can understand it?  And that's the point.

But I will say this.  It takes a single step, not 10.  And that step is to be sincerely open to it, even when you don't understand what it is you're asking for.  Mysteriously,  it arrives.  Can it change the world as well?  Everything is possible.

Breathe Deeply photo by Susan Larison Danz.

Honesty and the Heart

"Keep your heart clear

And transparent, 

And you will never be bound." 

~ Ryokan Taigu

Honesty seems to be very "topical" these days.  Several days ago, I wrote here at length about The Elusive Art of Discernment.  

But here's the deal.

Truth has a way of feeling right with your heart.  It may be a process of discovery and thought, but once you settle on whatever it is, you feel a peace in your Spirit.  Truth may often be in some way uncomfortable or "inconvenient" within the seemingly finite space of this world, but you will still have that sense of inner peace.  The search eases.  You feel it.  And the peace expands, the deeper you go.  

In the course of our lives, we undoubtedly all have experienced at times that feeling of being entangled, that feeling that something we're thinking or attempting to believe is "amiss" - but the truth really does set us free.  Once we feel this, the gratitude from "knowing" and realizing we're finally finding clarity is a gift in itself.  When we feel free in our hearts, we are free.  Nothing can take that away, once it happens.

 

Heart on the Trail Photo by Susan Larison Danz

Giving it a Rest

 "Conflict cannot survive without your participation." ~ Wayne Dyer

I decided to give it a rest tonight, and so I turned on the Classical music.  It was exactly the right thing to do.  I had seen something really inspiring and uplifting and forward looking right before, and I wanted to hold onto it.

Much of my evening was very peaceful.

I assist a few people with social media, and after deciding to give it a rest, from this notion of "following the news/commentary", after actually finding a welcome space of trust, I couldn't help but see someone being nasty to someone else, on social media, and more than once. 

I didn't want to see it.  But I saw it.

About the same time, a piece came on the radio with notes that felt askew.

Sometimes such notes are OK, but not tonight.  I wanted to hear a simple melody, not dissonance.  And so I turned the radio off, and I finished my social media work, and I tried not to look at the various things people were being nasty about (not anyone I was assisting, just in the feed), but still it got inside my head.

And so I came in here to write.  And I feel better.

Light Emerging photo by Susan Larison Danz

Stillness of Spirit

 "True stillness of Spirit is with you always, whether standing in a meadow or a maelstrom." ~ Susan Larison Danz

It may seem an ideal, and it is, to speak of it this way, this concept of always finding stillness of Spirit.  What is remarkable as we begin to discover this Stillness is how it grows.  It may not always be always, but it becomes more and more accessible.

Together, we are navigating through times that feel unprecedented to most of us.  At times like these, I am so very thankful for my Spirituality.  I didn't always have it so present in my life, but I surely am thankful it is now.  

I wish I could tell you it's as simple as some formula.  There are formulas out there to help, such as mindfulness and breathing.  Or walking in a quiet meadow.

But this is not quite that.  There is no formula.  It isn't well defined.  It can feel like some kind of a Miracle, how it arrives.  It's an undeniable presence of Spirituality, every day, in my life. 

In times like these, we need an open heart and a still Spirit, as much as we can find them.  Many Spiritual wayshowers in history have told us this as well.  Open hearts and still Spirits navigate far more effectively and honestly than closed and agitated minds.  

Thank goodness for Spirituality.  I can no longer imagine my life without it.

Meadow photo by Susan Larison Danz.

Spring, Insistently!

"To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself." 

~ Henry David Thoreau

Very busy today doing "necessary things", having just quickly taken my 13-year-old dog out and back in 20 minutes ago, she suddenly became rather anxious, insistent, pacing the room.

"Do you need to go out again?" I asked, thinking she had more "business" to do.

And so out we went - she is mostly blind and partially deaf and must be taken out on a leash due to the retaining walls and steps in the yard. Slowly she made her way up the little slope and stopped, sniffing the air best she could (her sense of smell isn't what it once was either).

She paused a long while.

The birds sang.

And then down she plopped in the grass in the sunshine and decided that's where she wanted to be.

Apparently she DID have "business" outside. Perhaps we all do. It's called Spring.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow....

"Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high..." 

~ The Wizard of Oz

Independent of the lyrics, this is what is playing on the radio as I begin to write, essentially the lullaby of which it speaks.  What a quiet joy it is to heed the gentle flow of late night Classical music, especially in these times.

Perhaps if we begin to breathe and listen very closely, we might begin to realize that what we seek is not up high at all.  It is not far away.  It exists without the seeking.  The Rainbow is within.

Music, Interwoven

“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.”~ Charles Darwin

Some weeks ago my main cable TV connection went out.  The wiring into the home, I had been told last year, was not up to the standards of the latest equipment, but it had managed to work for a long while.  It actually worked fine until it was necessary to disconnect it briefly one day, and then it was never really the same again, and very soon, it gave out completely.  I decided not to reconnect it.

At first I missed it.

You see, somehow I had apparently stopped noticing the noise.  And when the noise was gone, it felt very strange.  The noise was actually generally the cable news spouting opinions about the state of the world - because "the news" isn't "the news" anymore and probably never was, but nowadays it doesn't even pretend to be "news" - it's shrill opinion, with a little "news" mixed in, no matter what the leanings of the "news station".

It turns out I didn't need it.  I learn what small amount of "actual news" I need to know in other ways.  Yes, I missed the old movies I liked to watch on TCM, but that's why we have libraries and DVDs.  And even those were tending to distract me.  So were other forms of talk, at the times I didn't need to hear it (as a radio host myself, I know helpful conversations have their place, but we need to personally respect what that place is).

I needed the Peace.  I needed the Stillness.

When family is here, we needed the Stillness, too, especially during dinner.  We used to be tempted to turn on the TV and generally watch "the news".

So what are evenings like now?

Musical.  Beautifully Musical. 

I realized one night it is shared, well beyond this home.  When I turn on the local Classical station, like I did on both Christmas and New Year's Eve (and Christmas and New Year's night, too, and all of the nights in between), it's like going to a concert.  (It's on at times during the day too, in between sometimes switching the station to Jazz.  It's on right now.)  When you are listening to a particularly good station, it has a way of surprising you - you come to realize the Music is lovingly woven together by the hosts, over time, night after night after night and day after day (the hosts are actually artists and composers themselves - that's what the weaving is).  You yourself become woven into the form.  It becomes inextricable.

There is something here that I've been missing.  I've felt I've known it before, and then somehow I lost it.  But I have found it, again. 

I'm reading more.  I'm feeling personally poetic (though I've been no stranger to poetry).   I'm even blogging right now (though I've been no stranger to writing).

It is changing me.  I feel it, already.  There is a new pattern.  There is a Divine majesty to it.  There is a kind of an unfolding.  It's like walking in Nature.  Perhaps it's just Beauty, and a kind of re-centering.

It is Still, even when not.

How is it the Music connects me even more to "the world" than "the news"?   Yet, exactly, so, it is.

Transistor Radio Summer #11: All Over the World

"There's gonna be a party all over the world." ~ Electric Light Orchestra

As the summer draws to a close, the Autumn Equinox just hours away, I can't help but include a song that had a magical, expansive effect on me in my teens and still does...

"I got a message on the radio....from where it came from, I don't really know....and I heard these voices callin' all over the world...."

By the way, I found the radio.

Wide Open Spaces

"She needs wide open spaces

room to make her big mistakes." 

~ The Dixie Chicks

This song has been on my mind ever since I interviewed Larry Seyer last week, a 9-time Grammy award-winning producer, engineer and musician who played a pivotal role in launching The Dixie Chicks.  I hadn't thought about the song in a long while, an old favorite.  It is echoed even more by my current surroundings, on a visit to the wide open spaces of my original home in
Colorado.

Room to make big mistakes doesn't necessarily imply "big mistakes" are inevitable.  In fact, I would suggest that it is the mistakes and apparent missteps which can often open up the spaces even more.  It all depends on our response.  We can close down or we can open up.  And sometimes it can even be a combination of the two.

There is a tendency in life to seek to fill a wide open space.  I see it symbolically all around me, as the much smaller Denver I remember from my youth sprawls out upon the plains.  Sometimes when a wide open space is in front of us, it is best to pause, take a deep breath, and simply experience the wonder of Wide Open.  We will know soon enough just what space it is we are called to occupy next...





 

The Path to Peace

True security resides within.

As I begin to take in what happened today in Boston, where I have more than one dear friend (thankfully ok), I don't need to know the how's or the why's, not tonight anyway.  There will be time later for better understanding how we can begin to heal whatever rift or wound was at its source.

In the old days, I might have allowed the TV or the radio to loop endlessly in search of more details.  But not tonight.

By its very definition, terror only operates in the fear space, not the Love space, except where healing may begin.  My heart goes out to anyone caught in fear, or pain, or despair.

We may feel many things today and in the tomorrows to come, feelings we must allow in order to heal, but how we ultimately choose to respond to fear in the long run is entirely up to us.