...a great lady is gone...

Maya Angelou is gone, and we are made immediately less by her passing. That remarkable, sonorous voice will not grace our ears again, but all that she has created can remain in our memories and our libraries.

Her life was astonishing, and I doubt that any one of us knew all the elements of it completely. Raped at seven years old, by her own admission, she became a “voluntary mute” for several years until the discovery of books opened a new dimension and a new voice in her.

Who among us did as many things as Maya Angelou did! She was a single mother, a singer, a dancer. She was an activist, a college professor, an Inaugural poet, an author, a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. She has been called a cultural pioneer and a Renaissance woman. I think we can only smile and say, “Of course!”

It was as if she achieved heroic proportions during her 86 years quite naturally, as if life had a special intention for her, and she continually grew into it. Maya Angelou did not hide herself from us, for she revealed herself to us through her evolving memoirs. Hers was as informed a life as any that has been lived among us.  She is irreplaceable.

                                       “ Into a daybreak miraculously clean, I rise…”

On Being in Neutral

Some of us remember life before dishwashers, when you stood before a sink full of dirty dishes, made a few strokes over a dish with a sponge or dishcloth, dunked it in warm rinse water and parked it in a drainer. Obviously this was not rocket science, and it took no thought to repeat this motion over and over until all the dishes were draining. Because it took no thought, in my pre-dishwasher days, I would soon find myself disconnected from active thinking, kind of in the space between mindfulness and mindlessness; in other words…in neutral, enjoying a kind of vacation from focused thinking. Dishwashers aside, I have made sure to keep a neutral space at hand because there is real magic in that disengaged spot. For one thing, “stuff” can come to me…ideas, answers, indicators, ways to go where before there were none.

"Stuff comes...

How often have I said that I am a believer in something greater than myself, so I do not have to remain dead ended when my mind won’t cooperate! Since I live in a sea of knowledge, if I will detach from success and failure, having and not having, seeking but not finding, “stuff” comes, and it seems to be directed to me.

Good news....

Good news! Anyone can do this! We need only find our particular means of disengagement, where the mind is as innocent as it can be, and “stuff” will come. In fact, over time the neutral place comes to know what we want or need and will funnel such to where the active mind can seize upon it.

Just a little relaxed openness...

The fun part about this is that we can all activate the neutral place (Hmmm….Is this a contradiction in terms?) It takes no special training, just a little relaxed openness, and our gems will begin to arrive.

And it’s free too…

On Cynicism

I believe that cynicism is one of the worst communicable diseases known to man. There are lots of ways in which people can sicken and die; we all know that, but not all have to rob the body of life and sustenance. Some can reduce the soul to ruin as well, and one of these is cynicism. How do I know? Because at times I am in danger of catching the very contagion I swore I never would. At times I am in danger of throwing up my hands over yet another disappointment of many of the same. I hear myself wanting to say, “well, that’s the way it is,” when it is by no means inevitable. I have just stopped feeling the springiness I used to rely on when starting something over again.

It can creep into the heart...

Cynicism is sneaky, sinister and nasty. It can creep into the heart when we are not noticing, when we are down and disheartened. It used to be considered the older person’s plaint, but that’s not so any more. Many young people now have the what’s-the-use look that was once reserved for the flattened-out hopes and dreams of those more experienced at losing out. It takes a lot to hang in there when you feel the deck is stacked against you. This mind set may not be a spiritual truth, but enough disappointment and short-circuited actions can obscure that light.

...Thoughts that cannot take wing...

There is no juice in cynicism, only hard, unmalleable thoughts that cannot take wing and brains that wither with discontent. When that happens there is no surprise when things go wrong, when once more there is betrayal of trust instead of fulfilled action that brings about something life affirming.

Say yes...say yes...say yes...

Still, there is that place in us that can say no to lifelessness and yes to a new day. Cynicism is not incurable; it does not infect everything unless we sit back and allow it to do so. I am remembering my old promise to myself. Otherwise the infant called possibility will not see the light of day. I’m practicing again…. say yes…say yes…say yes…

On Intuition

I have always considered intuition the means of knowing that does not involve the process of measured reasoning. In other words, it is our capacity to know things without knowing how we know them. This whole idea blows away the “women’s intuition” baloney by suggesting that the notion of women’s having some sort of floaty, untethered awareness that men don’t is a myth. We all have a connection to the core of intelligence that we access every day, sometimes with more interest than at others. Some days we just don’t care much.

Would keep us informed...

One of Ernest Holmes’ favorite thinkers, Thomas Troward, suggests that we have an inner mind of pure spirit that would keep us informed of all we need to know if our objective minds were trained to receive. Nice to know we have a wellspring of information available at our mental fingertips, even if we are not always interested in what it holds.

A close sense of Oneness...

Opening to a close sense of Oneness is not that big a deal. We could pay more attention to what thoughts and feelings come up to tell us. It’s a noisy world we live in unless we happen to be cloister nuns, and so we’ll need to encourage an open side to our minds to catch what the greater Mind has for us. Actually I think this kind of mental training is part of what it means to function as a spiritual being living a human life, as Wayne Dyer might say.

Consider what more of life would be available to us. Ya gotta love it!

On Searching for the Magic Bullet

    

I am a believer, and being a retired minister I have had many years of prayer, meditation and working with thoughts. My particular belief system practices the life-affirming idea of Oneness with God, so it stands to reason that, once one with God, one is never not one with God. I’m always mixing it up with the Infinite mentally and physically as well since I believe that the Divine Energies, left alone to do what is natural to them, continually renew and refresh the body. My cohorts and I expect to feel more vital, younger and more able, and so we do…except for one thing…wrinkles.

Worry and grief are costly...

I have tried every prayer practice and every moisturizing, wrinkle-deleting cream known to man, and still I seem to be losing an inexorable battle with gravity inch by inch, year by year. Yes, I could get a face lift, but then I feel I would be erasing some of my history. After all, I may not be thrilled with wrinkles, but I did earn them. I can remember some personal losses that popped out a new, facial crevasse or two. Worry and grief are costly, and they remind us that we may be spiritual beings but we are also subject to our humanity as well. This, too, is an unavoidable life progression.

Growing older is not for sissies...

Is there a magic bullet, something that will smooth out my smiling face and make me a girly-girl again? Maybe the search for magic is the problem. There is nothing magic about living a full and honest life. There is nothing magic about growing into ourselves either. Some wag once said that growing older is not for sissies, and that wise one was right. Enough looking for the magic bullet already! I’ll just keep laying on the lead-lined sunscreen, appreciate where I find myself and remember that I have more life to share than ever.