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the contemplative diva

~ #livethegray

the contemplative diva

Category Archives: Spirituality

Go where the peace is

12 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by thecontemplativediva in Decision making, Spirituality

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Tags

#peace #freedom #livethegray #prayer #meditation #richardrohr

Rohr quote_1

There’s a misconception about peace. We tend to believe that being at peace means the absence of discomfort, but it’s actually quite the opposite. Our inclination towards being comfortable can mislead us. In reality, God most often leads us to places fraught with challenges because this is how we grow in love.  And what God wants most for us is to be equal to God in Love.

The spiritual life is a journey. We’re all headed somewhere. And like any journey, along the way, there will be danger, doubt, confusion, feelings of being alone, mixed with moments of sheer joy. It is easy to become consumed by what happens to us along the way and distracted from seeing instead, what is happening within us, and what God is becoming for us.

Seeing life through a spiritual lens involves changing our perception of who we are and who God is for us.  And it takes work. Mostly because the first thing we see clearly when we put on our spiritual glasses are the false truths we tell ourselves. We see how we actually prefer the distractions because the way we are accustomed to seeing is more comforting to us than the hard work and discomfort of transformation. Yet it is in this way, that we also begin to see that the peace that God desires for us, offers us a different sort of freedom. Not freedom from trouble or discomfort, but freedom from our own illusions –  that God is not present, at work within us, walking before us, whispering behind us. The greatest illusion is that we are alone, that we could actually drift beyond God’s reach.

This is not an easy shift in perception. But the shift does comes about slowly through a practiced, intentional effort to align ourselves with seeing through a spiritual lens. Contemplative prayer (or meditation) helps to re-align the way we see. As we sit, the mind shows us all kinds of thoughts and worries, even bright ideas. These thoughts will never go away…and that is not the goal of quiet prayer. Resting in Presence teaches you that while everything goes on around you, within you there is a place that is still and quiet, a place that exists beyond our thought world, a place where peace exists within us, regardless of what’s going on around us. We may only access that peace for a few seconds here or there when we first begin to practice. But over time, we will learn to find our way to that place with more frequency, not through any effort or will of our own, but by gently responding to God’s invitation to come and stay a little longer this time.

Accepting Loss

05 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by thecontemplativediva in Relationships, Spirituality

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Tags

#grace #loss #acceptance #spiritualdirection #realtionships #grief

Gerald May quote

I’m oiled up…wearing my acceptance oils today – Cypress, Frankincense, and Myrrh – because I’m going through a major transition, experiencing a blend of losses that are very real to me. And with any transition and loss comes a grieving period.

Grieving is uncommon nowadays. We associate grief primarily with death, but the death of a person is not the only kind of loss we experience in life. We lose jobs, we lose status, we lose lovers, we lose dreams. And in suffering these kinds of losses, when you share the pain or heartbreak associated with it, you may find a few moments of sincere understanding followed by a quick prescription to get over it – “Let it go” and “move on” are the most familiar approaches. We have a ‘buck up’ approach to grief in dealing with these seemingly less important losses which concerns me on many levels.  One, because it doesn’t offer real compassion for the person suffering the loss, but perhaps even more importantly, simply “moving on” doesn’t leave space for the growth, healing and transformation that comes from first accepting that you are indeed losing something that was valuable to you.

Despite casual advice, I’ve chosen to allow myself to settle into the process of grieving. As a trained spiritual director, it is my duty to be able to sit with my own feelings of pain and loss so I can hold those feelings for another person. What I run from in myself, I will run from in others. You have no idea how badly I just want to move on…replace this grief with work, or television, or any sort of noise or busy-ness. I want to exchange this weakness for Power. Instead, I let the weakness overcome me like a wave…let it lead me to a place of transformation.

A proper grieving experience actually invites us to become something new. When loss and pain confront us, our first instinct is to sweep it under a rug. We can cry later. We don’t have time to be sad, or angry or resentful or whatever feeling may arise in the holding of our pain. So we just turn that channel off. We are hard-wired to resist any kind of suffering. But what we fail to understand that great contemplatives know as truth is that burying our own anger, resentment, pain or loss actually steals our joy. We carry the opposing energy we refuse to give to the other. And it builds up in us like a toxin.

What makes the spiritual life such an inconvenient commitment is, that it calls for an acceptance of all things. All things. Not just good things, like blessings and prosperity, but all things. Even sad, suffering things like loss and hurt and pain. We accept that they are present in our lives so we can accept that they are present in others lives. And in the acceptance of our losses, we come to know a deeper, more compassionate, present even in darkness kind of God. This is the God of the Psalms. This is the vulnerable God. This is the God who transforms and makes us whole. And this is the God who desires to dwell comfortably within us, and it is our suffering that makes room for Her. Suffering makes way for Grace…that grace, we might extend to others.

The un-welcomed truth about the spiritual life is that whatever we resist, persists in us. Still, we have become a people very adept at covering up our wounds. Social media affords us the luxury of presenting only the parts of ourselves we find, and believe others will receive as desirable. Nobody wants sadness, nobody wants weakness. We call that “bad energy.” But look to any great spiritual teacher and practice their way. The truly courageous spiritual person possesses the willingness to actually look suffering in the face, go to hell, war with themselves and return home anew – stronger, more truthful…shining because they’ve walked through fire.

Anais Nin on the torment of awareness

23 Friday May 2014

Posted by thecontemplativediva in Femininity, Spirituality, Women's Thought

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“I have a ferocious lucidity…I am aware that my gift is my curse-for I see into others lives abnormally with such keen insight, it sometimes gives me an inhuman role to play-the wise man’s role, so hateful, so difficult. At times some depend on my guidance, but at other times they hate it and rebel against it…And yet at other times, they ignore it, and then, because my feelings are involved, I suffer more from their blindness than they do…I utter truths which hurt…because I am accurate. I hate my own lucidity-I suffer as a god must suffer when he looks down and commits a murder committed in a moment of blindness. Sometimes I feel so desperate I cry out that I will kill myself and put and end to this seeing. Oh, the torture of eyes forever open! Close my eyes, oh god, that I may rest from suffering. I can no longer bear my awareness. How clearly I see!”

-Anais Nin, Mirages

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the fragile Diva

09 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by thecontemplativediva in Femininity, Film, Pop Culture, Spirituality, Women's Thought

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marilyn-monroe - 1Thinking about Marilyn Monroe a lot these days. She’s stunning and vulnerable yet gets a really disrespectful rap in our culture, and I’ve been trying to sort out why.

I work with a bunch of dudes, and asked a couple of them in the story room recently, “What category of woman do you put Marilyn in?” “Not a role model,” was the first reply. “Alcoholic, pill popping, whore,” was another. They see the mistress of JFK, singing “Happy Birthday,” lips all pouty, skirt blowing up in the wind. She certainly was all of that, oozing sex appeal with an embarrassing need for validation, yet still somehow she strikes me as a woman who was very in control of her destiny, not willing to be controlled by her daring choices nor man’s perception of her.

marilyn-and-ella2 - 2spot

I recently watched a short documentary about her life and learned a few things that surprised even me.  Like, did you know she was the first woman in Hollywood since Mary Pickford (the silent film star) ever to own her own production company? And she was such a big fan and friend of Ella Fitzgerald, that she petitioned a famous night club owner in Hollywood to let Ella perform there back in the days when not even famous blacks could sing in night clubs, promising that every night Ella sang, she, the enigmatic Marilyn Monroe would be in the audience. And the club owner did it, and Marilyn showed up for her friend, Ella, every night…

That’s no bimbo move.

But Marilyn knew she was a fantasy. The girl you secretly admire but never actually make your wife…or your friend.  She didn’t fit in a traditional role, she didn’t want what was readily available to a pretty girl like her and in refusing what was offered her, called into question everyone else’s assumed role in culture. Women scorned her, men lusted after her. What to do with a woman who identifies with something bigger than herself, unapologetically chooses to follow It, and oozes a peculiar, disarming confidence along the way? We are all given the option when confronted by a woman like Marilyn – to embrace Her or reject Her…and in choosing either we demand of ourselves to either step up to the plate of life, or retreat.

This peculiar something Marilyn embodied is mysterious and challenging.  It harkens to another time, long ago when being a woman of power didn’t necessarily mean giving up all your feminine attributes. To be a goddess in a former world meant being both seductive and a wise leader. It’s a frightening kind of power women possess, it’s been called cunning, manipulative…we’ve been re-storied by men as temptresses, brujas, whores, bitches and witches, Delilah’s and Jezebel’s….simply because of our alluring power. True feminine power is a scary kind.  It weakens the structures we build to protect us from all feeling.

20140224-224508.jpgWhile undeniably striking Marilyn appears on the surface, I get that one wouldn’t necessarily consider her a “tower of strength.” Her pout distracts from the limitlessly freeing multi-dimensionality of what being a real woman like Marilyn actually offers to me, and all women alike.  She was tragic and empowered in a way that we don’t dare celebrate so no wonder it’s hard to recognize strength in her…or in oneself. It’s simply easier to pity than feign to understand. Easier then to put woman in a box – strong or weak, secure in herself or self-loathing, confident or wracked with self-doubt. Hollywood, God bless this town, seems to beckon these enigmas. It may be one of the few spaces where insecurity and vulnerability are invited, and then tricked into putting it all out there for everyone to see.  Marilyn owned her sexual prowess, and her weakness.  And that is a lifestyle granted only to the extremely daring and courageous.

Seems men and woman alike aren’t quite sure how to manage the fascination with this kind of woman.  There’s something about Marilyn that was so desirable, yet she could never be possessed by anyone. Studios tried.  And men certainly tried. And because she could not be possessed, I gather they could not figure out how to love her. And I am coming to believe her life was a tragedy not because she had a tragic childhood or an addiction to pain medication. The tragedy was that truly, the lady just needed to be loved. Not possessed, Loved.  Underneath all her liquid appeal, she was really just a fragile diva. Very needy, very wounded and very unwilling to hide it from anyone.  She knew she was a fantasy because she knew the truth of herself. It wasn’t just the way she dreamed, it was her awareness of her own duality…That she could be at once a persona, yet always still just a person.

I’m thinking a lot about how to walk that line – of the persona and the person. Because what’s occurring now in culture is a type of woman whom we call strong, confident, secure of herself…who doesn’t seem to need a thing. This kind of confidence comes quite naturally to some, that ability to project strength, to keep going in the face of fear and never let on to the truth of what’s really occurring inside you. It’s so damn attractive, and it is often quite a real strength to be admired. Yet, it seems once a woman exhibits that kind of strength, she is qualified as this “type,”and that qualification seems to come at the cost of her full expression of herself. Not sure that’s the ideal either?

marilyn monroe4Half the beauty of being a woman is being able to love fully in our bodies, and through our feelings. The widest range of emotional expressions is at our disposal, to embrace and mirror back what we experience in the world. To laugh and cry, to smile and pout. To nurture and to need. It is our luxury as women, it is our natural biological cycle to be Moved…to care…To Feel.

The impulse to disregard our feelings, our Be-ing, is in effect to deny the Essence of a woman. No matter how masculine the everyday rhythm of this world (and it is so) – to win, to own, to rush, to war. No matter how insistent the compulsion to play at a man’s game – to rationality, to logic, to strategy, to succeed. We cannot do so at the cost of our feminine power. I will not put up walls, button up, give good face.  If my crying makes you cry, good for you. Connect for one moment as the Feminine does, with the suffering of this world, with the recurring loss of innocence, the desperate grasping for hope, the incessant hum of injustice, the raging inequality – and your powerlessness to do anything about except to Feel It All. Touch Her, for one moment…sit with Her and let Her break your heart. And just. fucking. cry. about it.

That’s the gift, the absolute joy of being a woman. We have the pleasure of knowing that this expanse of feeling inside us, no matter how overwhelming, won’t be the end of us, and it won’t be the end of you, and it won’t be the end of this world. It is just Who We Are at this moment, at any given moment. We are disappointed, broken-hearted, yet we still Love. We are betrayed, and betrayed again, and again, yet risk love once more. Because that’s what women do.  We give birth and watch it die, over and over and over again…for Love.

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I feel it all I feel it all
The wings are wide, the wings are wide
Wild card inside, wild card inside
…I’ll be the one who’ll break my heart…
–Feist

a chance to be God

21 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by thecontemplativediva in Decision making, Spirituality

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I think at our core we know, we do not choose everything. And it’s unnerving in a world where there’s so much choice, that there are some things beyond our control. It’s often when we resist the flow, that struggle happens. This can be a good experience. Because it’s as though our lessons were built into our failures by design. Our failure to let go produces angst, discomfort, tension, suffering. This is okay too. In fact, this is our privilege of being human. That we can choose to go against the flow, against nature. We can will our way to power…perhaps only to learn the cost. Being God ain’t easy. But we get a chance at it. We’re trusted to do our best with it. We experience grace, forgiveness, love. All the riches of life.

women who own it

10 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by thecontemplativediva in Decision making, Femininity, Spirituality, Women's Thought

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DameJudi

I’m all about Queens right now. Women who own it. One of their many distinguishing qualities is their commitment to their decisions. They rule.  So once they decide, no matter the public opinion (nor the private opinion of their own inner thoughts) – It is so. Then they live with it, boldly.  They own it.  

#livefortheday

reflections from the mountaintop

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by thecontemplativediva in Spirituality

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I do not believe in God

Because I’ve never seen him.

But if God is the hive

and the honeybee,

pollen and nectar and sun and moon

then I believe in her

and I believe in her at every moment,

and my life is a prayer

and a celebration

and a communion with the eyes

and through the ears,

I honor her by living spontaneously,

as a person who opens his eyes and truly sees,

and I call her the hive

and the honeybee

and pollen and nectar

and sun and moon

and I love her,

I think of her by seeing

and hearing, and tasting

and I am with her.

                                                      –Fernando Pessoa

 

More and more, coming to understand the meaning of this. What it is to believe in something you cannot define, possess or hold tangibly. To trust the gray. To admit your limitation, declare love for what you do not know, and honor it in your most natural expressions of being.

Love is life fully lived. Lived spontaneously, as a celebration, through the experience of the senses. We are one with God in living, not in shrinking back. It is more dangerous to live. The stakes are higher. There is something to lose, perhaps, when eyes are open and you truly see.  So much to take in, so much to behold, and it is all so utterly unexplainable.

But somewhere, in that vast newness of life, lived everyday like a prayer, I am with him. 

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