Monday Musings: Setting Aside Fear

Another zinnia (the profuse bloomer this time of year) from our garden

Birthdays and death days. Both remind us how little power we have. Both present us with infinite opportunities to either love or fear. To the extent that we choose love, the puniness of our material power is replaced by a power that comes not from us but through us..... Real power is usually unspectacular, a simple setting aside of fear that allows the free flow of love. But it changes everything. — from How to Tap Your Power by Martha Beck in O Magazine

 I also like what she has to say about the difference between fear and love in this article:

FEAR

Always feels bad
Motivates grasping
Seizes control
Insists on certainty
Needs everything

LOVE

Always feels good
Motivates liberation
Relaxes control
Accepts uncertainty
Needs nothing

The process of spotting fear and refusing to obey it is the source of all true empowerment.

This week, and every day really, I'm committed to choosing love over fear.

Flowering Fridays: On Weeding

Zinnia in garden, August 2009

To be a gardener, you've got make peace with weeding.

So much of gardening is related to weeding. Relatively little time is spent planting and harvesting, compared to the regular demands that weeding requires.

I've been gardening now for 15 years, and weeding is one of my favorite things about gardening. (Second only to walking around the garden and enjoying it!)

I find weeding centering and calming. Almost meditative in its effectiveness in getting me out of my monkey mind and into the moment.

For me, weeding works best in short bursts. I love to weed while I'm on the phone, or when I'm out in the garden to pick tomatoes and beans or cut some flowers for bouquets.

Doing too much weeding at once is too strenuous and hard.

Recently, I've actually done relatively little weeding in my literal garden, but there is a lot of weeding going on in the interior garden of our home.

As we continue to move toward our goal of having the house on the market by the first week in October, we have been culling through everything in our house.

While I'm pretty good with real garden-variety weeding, I'm feeling like I am finally getting the hang of the weeding of physical items (after many, many years of hoarding tendency that leads to heavy overgrowth).

It's helped that we've been weeding for more than a year. (See here.)

And I'm getting how great it feels to release all the excess into the universe.

(And it's has felt especially good to just give it all away for free. It brings me such joy to release our "stuff" to someone who finds it of use and meaning to them.)

Energetically I feel like I'm so much more trusting of the abundance of the universe.

I'm getting in my bones that everything I need, I will have. I can release the stuff that I save for "someday," that I don't love or don't use.

Also, I'm finding that I'm more masterful at weeding my mind of thoughts I don't want to plant there, and I can't help but believe that this makes a difference, too.

My mom's healing journey has also inspired me of late.

I'm reminded of how fragile life is and how imperative it is to appreciate and enjoy every step of the journey to the fullest. It's sounds cliched, but it's a very empowered and magical place to live from.

Of course, I've had help in my journey, too.

Here are a few resources that have inspired me to a new relationship to my "stuff":

• James A. Ray's books and seminars (From him, I learned about creating space for abundance to come in and the value of just giving things away (instead of hosting a garage sale).
• Divine Decluttering E-course (a new session starts September 28) from the lovely Goddess Leonie and wise Lisa
• Bite the Candy and Never on a Sunday teleseminars with Cairene MacDonald of Third Hand Works
• The book, Simple Abundance, by Sarah Ban Breathnach
• A personal organizing consult with Roberta Schnieder of Organized Essentials
• Understanding how I work and process through the Kolbe-A Index. (I learned I need to see what I have; otherwise I forget.)
• And, last but not least, a lot of personal energetic healing and development work. I've found that as I've released old baggage emotionally and energetically, I'm freed up to be in a freer space around my stuff, too.

And two recent finds that inspired me from this past week:

• Marisa's (of Creative Thursday) blog post on living A Simple Life (found thanks to the always inspiring Christine Mason Miller, aka Swirly Girl.)
• Zen Habits Leo Babauta's new ebook, A Simple Guide to a Minimalist's Life.

Tell me, what resources have helped you to weed out the clutter from your life or mind?

P.S. My mom is still in ICU and continues to heal. She is more alert and showing signs of improving. It's still very much a practice for me in being present and trusting in the unfolding, each and every day.

P.P.S. Due to a technical glitch, a blank version of this post went out earlier today. I've since removed the post. Sorry for any confusion.

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Flowering Fridays is a weekly look at flowers through the lens of what they might teach us about flowering fully in our life. Past editions are here.

Monday Musings: A Life of Paradox

Morning glories in our garden

When we are willing to exchange our life of preoccupation with “me” and “my needs” for a life given in the service of love itself, of that presence itself, we are faced with an interesting paradox.

On one side of the paradox, we recognize that everything is perfect just as it is. When the chatter of the mind recedes just a little bit, when the smells, colors, and textures of the world become more immediately felt, we recognize the grace running through it all. Even in conflict, or in the midst of what we call suffering, if we are really in touch with the pulse of life itself, we can feel the beauty of it all.

On the other side of the paradox, we realize that everything is continuously evolving. Our human condition, as it is now, is flawed with unconscious habits, addictions, and compulsions. In seeing the gap between who we are today and who we could be, seeing the trickle of gifting that’s coming through us relative to the latent torrent that we intuit, we bow in humility.

When we look down from our resting point on the mountain, we may marvel at how far we have come from the valley below, but when we look up, the peaks are still lofty and daunting, and we know there is still much more to discover.

Between these two poles of paradox, that everything is perfect as it is on one side and everything is evolving and imperfect on the other side, lies the art of translucent spiritual practice—the art of practice with no goal.

— from Introduction to Leap Before You Look: 72 Shortcuts for Getting Out of Your Mind and Into the Moment by Arjuna Ardagh,

I love, love, love this book and CD set by Arjuna Ardagh; it has wonderful exercises to cultivate mindfulness. (They are even rated on their degree of difficulty). You can download a free sample with several exercises and MP3 files from here.

P.S. Update on my mom: On Friday afternoon, my mom's condition became very unstable, and she is back in a medically induced coma. They are thinking she might have had a stroke, but she is too unstable to get an MRI or a CAT scan. The doctors are starting to wonder if they are helping her at all — they told my sister they are wondering if she is suffering too much and if they are only prolonging her death. She has only been off sedation or awake for a few days in the last month, and she was showing signs last week of "cognitive damage." There is a meeting today to discuss next steps, including whether to take Mom off the ventilator. Such a hard choice to face.  I continue to stand in the trust that there is love with her and all of us every step of the way.

Update on Monday, September 14, 2009 at 10:38AM by Shannon Jackson Arnold

An update on my Mom: my sister, my brother and I had a conversation with the pulmonologist today (Monday). The bottom line: we are going to wait a few days and see how Mom does.

Her pulmonologist is looking to see signs of less oxygen needed and less ventilator support as signs of her improving. A couple of things they've identified that might help her recovery: Mom's tracheostomy is malfunctioning so that will be fixed today, and they are looking for ways to wean her of sedation without having her go through withdrawal. (They are thinking her instability might be exacerbated by the fact she is going through withdrawal from the medications; hence the sweating, the rapid heart rate, etc.)

The doctors are thinking Mom's ARDS was caused from aspirating into her lungs after her knee replacement surgery. As for the possibility of brain damage (encephalopathy), the doctor said he did not believe that she has bleeding on the brain or had a stroke. He said it would take several weeks off sedation before he could say whether there was any permanent brain damage. He said it can take the brain a long time to recover off sedation and that Mom's young age meant that her brain would likely heal.

Bottom bottom line: more patience, more trust, more sending Mom the knowledge that she is surrounded by love and light every step of this journey. This morning, I read this quote in the October issue of Body & Soul magazine that spoke to me deeply:

"Trusting without knowing makes the world alive with possibility."

It is my intention to continue to be present and to trust without knowing.