Our Greatest Fear

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others".  Marianne Williamson

Second Chances

I love the dark hours of my being
In which my senses drop into sleep.
I have found in them as in old letters

My private life that is already
lived through and become wide
and powerful, now like legends.
Then I know that there
Is room in me for a second
Huge and timeless life.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Power

"Originally the word power meant to be able to be.  In time, it was contracted to mean to be able.  We suffer the difference."  Mark Nepo

Freedom

Dear Friends,
Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said:
"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you".
In other words: freedom consists in finding the point of power, which is always in the present moment. It also means: how you respond to what happens is more important than what happens.
With love
Eckhart.

Humility

"Humility is the beginning, the middle and the end of the path.   The more humble you become the greater the divine transforming power can be given you.  The more humbly you are willing to do whatever is asked of you, without asking for certainty or reward, the more can be done through you and by you by God."  Andrew Harvey

Blame

"Placing the blame or judgment on someone else leaves you powerless to change your experience; taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them"
— Byron Katie

Dillusion

"All of what we crave in life - security, beauty, youth, energy, power - is out of our control.  All of what we fear - loss, decay, illness, aging, death - will come to pass."  Pema Chondron

Parenting

THE WAY WINGS SHOULD

What will
our children do in the morning?
Will they wake with their hearts wanting to play,
...the way wings
should?

Will they have dreamed the needed flights and gathered
the strength from the planets that all men and women need to balance
the wonderful charms of
the earth

so that her power and beauty does not make us forget our own?

I know all about the ways of the heart - how it wants to be alive.

Love so needs to love
that it will endure almost anything, even abuse,
just to flicker for a moment. But the sky's mouth is kind,
its song will never hurt you, for I
sing those words.

What will our children do in the morning
if they do not see us
fly?

~ Rumi ~

Authenticity

"Take your life in your own hands and what happens.  A terrible thing; no one to blame."  Erica Jong

Sacred Feminine

"A rediscovered language of sacred sisterhood can change the world.  One way to begin this work is to re-establish and claim the lost feminine traditions of spiritual practice: to know ourselves, and mirror each other, without blaming our brothers.   In fact, the brotherhood should no longer be our standard of focus.   In the way that the women's movement began with rightful outrage, it is now moving into a more visionary period in which women re-imagine the feminine as distinct and powerful in itself."   Brenda Peterson, Sister Stories

Listening

"Listening is the oldest and perhaps the most powerful tool of healing.  It is often through the quality of our listening and not the wisdom of our words that we are able to effect the most profound changes in the people around us.   When we listen, we offer, with our attention an opportunity for wholeness.   Our listening creates sanctuary for the homeless parts within the other person.   That which has been denied, unloved, devalued by themselves and by others.  That which is hidden."   Rachel Naomi Remen

Joy

"The willingness to win or lose moves us out of an adversarial relationship to life and into a powerful kind of openness.   From such a position, we can make a greater commitment to life.  Not only pleasant life or comfortable life, or our own idea of life.  Joy seems more closely related to aliveness than to happiness."  Rachel Naomi Remen

Samsara

"Buddhists talk about Samsara, the world of illusion.   It is the place that most of us live.   Mistaking illusion for reality is said to be the root cause of suffering.   Yet in some immensely elegant way suffering itself can release us from illusion.   Often in times of crisis, when we reach for what we have considered our strength we stumble on our wholeness and our real power.   How we were before we fixed ourselves to win approval."  Rachel Naomi Remen

Belief

"A belief is like a pair of sunglasses.  When we wear a belief and look at life through it, it is difficult to convince ourselves that what we see is not what is real.   Knowing that what is real requires that we remember that we are wearing sunglasses and take them off.   One of the great moments in life is the moment we recognize we have them on in the first place.   Freedom is very close to us then.   It is a moment of great power."  Rachel Naomi Remen

Life

"Coherent, elegant, mysterious, Aesthetic...I would not have described life in this way.    But I was not on intimate terms with life then.   I had not seen the power of life force in everyone, met the will to live in all it's varied and subtle forms, recognized irrepressible love of life buried in the heart of every living thing.   I had not been used by life to fulfill itself or been caught unaware by it's strength in the midst of the most profound weakness.   I had no sense of awe.   I had thought that life was broken and that I, armed with powerful tools would fix it.   I had thought then that I was broken also.   But life has shown me otherwise."  Rachel Naomi Remen

Gifts of the Soul

"Fulfilling work, rewarding relationships, personal power, and relief from symptoms are all gifts of the soul."  Thomas Moore

William James says there are two types of people:  Once-born and Twice-born. 

Once-Born:

1. Do not stray from familiar territory of who they think they are and what they think is expected of them.
2. If pushed to the edge (of Dante's dark woods) where the straight way is lost.
3. Don't want to learn something new from life's darkest lessons.
4. Stay with what feels safe and what is expected/acceptable to their family and society
5. Stick to what they already know -even if they don't necessarily want it or like it.
6. May go their whole life and never know what lies beyond the woods.
7. May question later, "Is this all there is to life?"
8. Lives as if the soul was a figment of a flighty imagination.
9. Leads to confusion, numbness, sadness, depression, anger.
10. Avoid, deny or bitterly accept the unpredictable changes of real life.

Twice-Born:

1. Always pays attention to the soul poking it's head through a half-lived life.
2. Whether through choice or calamity- goes into the woods, loses the straight way, confronts that which needs to change within himself in order to live a more genuine and radiant life.
3. The journey into the woods of change and transformation is an inner one. 
4. The most ordinary-looking lives are often being lived by the most extraordinary spiritual warriors; people who have chosen the road less traveled, of self-reflection.
5. Uses adversity for awakening.
6. Trade the safety of the known for the power of the unknown
7. Something calls them into the woods (betrayal, illness, divorce, loss, death), where the straight path vanishes, and there is no turning back, only going through. 

Poetry

"I have come to trust the power of a few well-chosen words to reveal to the world something I cannot say, or don't want to say, or didn't even know I needed to say until I saw it spelled out in front of me in the prophetic hand of the poet."  Elizabeth Lesser

Stories

"Perhaps the most profound of the tools we have at our disposal is the simple act of telling our stories to other human travelers- in a circle around the fire, at the back fence with the neighbor, or at the kitchen table.   By sharing our most human traits, we begin to feel  less odd, less lonely, and less pessimistic.   And the core of each story-each personal myth-we uncover a splendid treasure, a source of unending power and sweetness; the shining soul of each wayfarer."   Elizabeth Lesser

Image

"The compulsion to be desired and desirable undermines self-direction, self-confidence, and self-determination in women of all ages, in all our roles, whether or not the affliction is conscious.  Wanting to be wanted is about finding our power in an image rather than in our own actions.   We try to appear attractive, nice, good, valid, legitimate, or worthy to someone else, instead of discovering what we actually feel and want for ourselves.   Other people are expected to provide our own feelings of power, worth or vitality, at the expense of our own authentic development.   In place of knowing the truth of who we are and what we want for our lives we become trapped in images."    Polly Young-Eisendrath