Beneath the surface of our anger often lies a deeper, more vulnerable emotion-grief. When we take the time to sit with our anger, to truly listen to what it's trying to tell us, we may discover that it's rooted in pain, loss, or unhealed wounds. Anger is a natural response, but it can also be a mask for the sorrow we haven't yet allowed ourselves to feel. By acknowledging the grief behind the anger, we open the door to healing. It's a brave step towards understanding ourselves better, towards embracing our emotions with compassion rather than judgment. This simple act of sitting with our feelings, of peeling back the layers, helps us to navigate the complexities of our emotional world. It reminds us that our emotions are interconnected, and that healing one often leads to healing others. Next time you feel anger rising, pause for a moment. Sit with it, breathe through it, and ask yourself, "What is this anger really trying to show me?" You might be surprised by the answer. And in that revelation, you may find the path to true emotional freedom and peace. Let's embrace the process of self-discovery, one emotion at a time, knowing that each step brings us closer to wholeness.

 

Walking in wonder

 

A faint heart never filled a spade flush.

Be who you needed when you were younger.

Your heart and my heart are very, very old friends

KINTSUGI

 

Twain

 

Reveal

 

At least do it with intention

 

You have to meet people where they are and sometimes you have to leave them there.

Come along

Come Along Come along, catch a Heffalump 

Sit with me on a muddy clump 

We'll sing a song of days gone by 

Run along now, don't be glum 

Get you gone, now, have some fun 

Don't be long, for the end is nigh 

Don't let moments pass along 

And waste before your eyes 

March with me and the borogoves 

Come with me and the slithy toves 

And never ask us why 

Come, come, come, come, come along now 

Run away from the hum-drum 

We'll go to a place that is safe from Greed, anger and boredom 

We'll dance and sing 'til sundown And feast with abandon 

We'll sleep when the morning comes 

And we'll rise by the sound of the birdsongs 

We'll be here when the world slows down 

And the sunbeams fade away 

Keeping time by a pendulum 

As the fabric starts to fray 

There's no such thing as time to kill 

Nor time to throw away 

So, once for the bright sky, twice for the pig sty 

Thrice for another day 

Come, come, come, come, come along now 

Run away from the hum-drum 

We'll go to a place that is safe from 

Greed, anger and boredom 

We'll dance and sing 'til sundown 

And feast with abandon 

We'll sleep when the morning comes 

And we'll rise by the sound of the birdsongs 

Come with me, catch a rare type specimen 

Cuddle up with a hesitant skeleton 

We'll break our fast with friends 

Once we're fed, we shall disappear rapidly 

Many moons to the west of here and happily 

Our journey never ends 

Shut your ears when sirens sing 

Tie armbands to your feet 

Listen up and you won't go wrong again 

Float along on a verse-less song and then 

Get to where the two ends meet 

Come, come, come, come, come along now 

Run away from the hum-drum 

We'll go to a place that is safe from Greed, anger and boredom 

We'll dance and sing 'til sundown 

And feast with abandon 

We'll sleep when the morning comes 

And we'll rise by the sound of the birdsongs

 ~ Cosmo Sheldrake

Happy New Year

T.S. Eliot

"We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness." ~Mary Oliver

Intention

ON BEING AWAKE IN A SLEEPING WORLD When you’re awake, you’re no longer numb. You can no longer turn away from Truth. You can no longer comfort yourself with the old fairy tales, stories of good and evil, positive thinking. The light of awareness cannot be switched off. You can’t hide from yourself now. There’s nowhere to hide. You live life in the raw. And you feel more than ever, not less. Your bandwidth is infinite. From the deepest despair to the most ecstatic joy, it all passes through. But the difference is, now, you are not at war with it all. You allow all feelings to surge through. You don’t judge them or try to get rid of them. You are their mother, their sanctuary. You don't blame anyone else anymore. You no longer have a fixed identity. You don’t know who you are anymore, from the perspective of the mind. And yet, you know who you are more deeply than ever. You are alive. You are life itself, inseparable from the stars, the moon, the flowers and trees. It is dizzying, sometimes, this freedom. Like being born again in every moment. Like dying every day to the old hopes. Reality is groundless, you see, dripping with uncertainty. You live at the point of total insecurity, nothing to hold onto, no concept to bring comfort to a weary mind. And yet, you feel the deepest kind of security of all, a security deep within your bones, the security of Being itself. You know that your experience is always trustable, even if it hurts like hell. You won’t call yourself an ‘awakened person’, you won’t think of yourself as better or worse than anyone, you won’t lie to yourself about having the answers. You won’t make a big fuss about yourself at all, for the self is the biggest illusion. It’s simple, being so fully awake, because it is the effortless embrace of the present moment. But it’s not easy at all, because your old reality has shattered into a billion pieces, and the old protection has gone, and you are a vessel for all the joy and the pain of the world, and you can’t kid yourself that you’re in control any longer. It’s not easy, to be so open to life. It’s not easy, to see all the pain of the world. It’s not easy, to sometimes feel like you’re a stranger in a strange land, knowing yourself as Love more clearly than ever, yet seeing others around you forgetting so much. It’s not easy, no longer fitting into the systems that promised so much happiness and delivered so little. And yet, this is the price you pay for absolute freedom. One cannot be fully awake without fully dying to the dreams of yesterday. One cannot live without leaving the known. Those of you who are walking this exhilarating and terrifying path, I bow to your courage. ~ Jeff Foster

Sometimes I think, were I just a little rougher made, I would go altogether to the woods—to my work entirely, and solitude, a few friends, books, my dogs, all things peaceful, ready for meditation and industry—if for no other reason than to escape the heart-jamming damages and discouragements of the worlds mean spirits. But, no use. Even the most solitudinous of us is communal by habit, and indeed by commitment to the bravest of our dreams, which is to make a moral world. The whirlwind of human behavior is not to be set aside. Mary Oliver, Winter Hours

A Settlement

Venture

Suppose

“One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.” –André Gide

“Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.” ~ John O'Donohue

Some drink deeply from the well of knowledge . . . some just rinse and spit.

John O’Donohue

Get real. I know as a woman I’m supposed to be afraid of getting older but I love this shit so much. Every year I sink deeper into this bath of unapologetic realness and it’s amazing.

prosperity is relating . . . not acquiring

This year has been heavy in ways I didn’t expect. I’ve had to learn to leave people where they choose to stay, even when I wanted to pull them closer. It’s a quiet kind of pain, realizing that some people won’t meet you halfway, no matter how much you care. I struggled with it—wondering if I wasn’t enough or if I did something wrong. But after a while, I stopped fighting for people who wouldn’t fight for me. It wasn’t easy, and the ache doesn’t go away overnight, but I’ve started to understand that holding on too tightly only leaves my hands bruised. I’ve also learned that not everything needs my reaction, though that’s a lesson I’m still trying to master. There were moments when I wanted to lash out, defend myself, or explain my side just to feel heard. But I realized that reacting doesn’t always bring peace—it only drags out the hurt. I’m learning to sit with the discomfort, let the emotions pass, and choose silence when words would only make it worse. It’s not a perfect process some days, the pain feels fresh, and healing feels slow. But little by little, I’m finding strength in letting go—of people, of expectations, and of the need to fix everything.

Options

If you can fall in love again and again . . . if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical . . . you’ve got it half licked. ~ Henry Miller

See it through

Forward

Merry Christmas

It’s about the babies

Virginia Woolf

Let’s keep a candle lit this holiday season for those no longer with us—whose love, laughter, and light still echo in our hearts. Their presence may be gone, but their impact is eternal.

The Ying and Yang

Scar of Bethlehem

Jingle all the way

When my absense doesn't affect your life, then my presense has no meaning in it.

Taking life in stride

Solstice

Strangers with memories

Walking away

Reclamation

Uber rebel 😉

Tom Waits . . . for no one 😉

Hermann Hesse ~ Siddhartha

Over and Over

A call to passion

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit when eventually one of them looks over at the other and says, “What the hell is water?"

All I know is that I've wasted all these years looking for something, a sort of trophy I'd get only if I really, really did enough to deserve it. But I don't want it anymore, I want something else now, something warm and sheltering, something I can turn to, regardless of what I do, regardless of who I become. Something that will just be there, always, like tomorrow's sky. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person.

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can; all of them make me laugh.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing

Walking meditation

Electric Ladies

Seriously

“You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do." ~ David Foster Wallace

I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility. ~ Jack Kerouac

The soul usually knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.

Naked as the eyes of a clown

bruised orange

A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.

~ Robt Brault

John O’Donohue

Or 5

DSM-5 is a good source

Another 5 Miles

The first rule of burning down the patriarchy is to never use other women as kindling.

Walk Good

I will never, ever grow so old again

Come With Me

And So It Gies

Heart to Heart

~ May Sarton ~

~ Jody ~ Meditations and Musings

~ JOHN O'DONOHUE, Eternal Echoes

Survivor + Independent

Despite how open, peaceful and loving you attempt to be, people can only meet you as deeply as they've met themselves.

“Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their children than the unlived life of the parent.” ~ Carl Jung

I’ve always been an avid reader. I love fiction. Almost every genre. But non fiction really lights my fire. New information is fascinating to me. Before the internets I subscribed to publications like Utne and Chicago Reader, Scientific American, Nat Geo, etc.,etc. There were always several books and magazines on just about every surface. I read all the time. I read in the bathroom, at the dinner table……all the time. I am so grateful for the internet and how it has so easily expanded what is available for me to read. I can research just about any topic of interest. I can easily find recipes and solutions to irritating problems. I can barely keep up. Grateful.

Progress in Motion

Throw Hope Out The Window

~ John O’Donohue ~ To Bless the Space Between Us