falling down, being undone, and the great immutable law of Love.

I fell down this morning, and it hurt.
Accidents, mishaps, catastrophes — they all happen like that, so suddenly. Your world spins in the momentum which leaves you wondering, "what happened?" for a disorienting space of time before you can make sense of the…this…led to that…perspective.

I was making my way by bike on the road to work, and all of the sudden I was bleeding on the sidewalk. It was shocking at first. And then, it hurt. And then, it became clearer with each passing minute, as the blood pooled beneath my skin in a feverish swell of black and blue, that it was going to hurt worse.

I am lucky.
There were 4 cars that did not hit me.
I am lucky.
I was catapulted to the side of the road, even as my bike was launched over me.
I am lucky.
It is merely a flesh wound.
I am lucky.
There was a safe place to stop nearby where I could address the immediate pain, and assess the damage.

Some ice, and tenderness, and a cleansing cold wash with a rag, and a friendly cup of coffee later, I was on my way again…straining a bit at first, against the twisted memory of a new pain…I continued – and finished – my journey.

And the whole while, a somber thought, I carried in the pocket of my heart. It was there like an unspoken dawning, the awareness of what day this is.

I thought of it
as I awoke this morning.

I thought of it
as I listened to coverage and remembrances on NPR as I readied for work.

I thought of it
as my friend hastily put together a compress of ice for my bruised and bleeding knees.

I thought of it
as she sat across from me – of how she was there – in that city caring for frightened children on that terrible day.

I thought of it
as I considered the countless others whose lives are forever, irreversibly changed.

Those who lost fathers, and mothers, and brothers, and sisters, and daughters, and sons, and lovers, and friends.

Those who lost comfort, and safety, and security, and focus, and vision, and purpose, and dreams, and perhaps even faith, or hope, or love.

And I thought of it
even as my wounds simply smart, how they are just a temporary grief.


And grief is like this. It changes who we are. It causes us to re-evaluate our journey.

We come to grief, often so unexpectedly, so suddenly, our whole lives

Stop,

and unravel, and are undone.

We are opened up in a way that seems we have no choice but to hurt. We are often shocked. We are hurting. We are so immobile for a while, even as the world continues to spin. We are frightened, or angry, or despondent, or heartbroken. We are raw.

But we are still here. And this grief has now – regardless of our choosing – become a part of who we are. It is now a part of our journey…which will end, now and here, if we stay in this place. But now/here is nowhere…and even as we come to an acceptance of this change, we must keep moving.

And this is no easy task. How is it when we lose all sense of what we know as sure that we can know which way to go? It is helpful to remember, and has become a touchstone for my own life…that choosing the path of love will always expand our horizons, while choosing the path of self-protection, or hatred, or fear, will always lead to a diminished, closed-off, narrow existence.

If I had refused to get back on my bike, I would not be here/now…it is embracing with an open heart each new moment that will slowly bring us back to life with grace.

And it is loving, really loving when we are challenged. When our world is devastated. When our heart is crushed. When we lose everything. When we are broken. When someone would wish to do us harm. When we are stripped of everything we could ever hold as dear to us, that we can know for certain. Only love is real. [and living and giving that love is our highest purpose.]and,it is this great truth, that is scryed upon my heart –


All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction.
Love is therefore the only law of life.
He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying.
Therefore love for love's sake,
because it is law of life,
just as you breathe to live.


- Swami Vivekananda -

le bon mot du jour: bien-aimé, je t'aime tellement ça fait mal

No one gets to heaven
by following the rules
– or breaking them.
Heaven must burst forth from your breast.


IVAN M. GRANGER

it's pretty simple.

stale donuts.

stale glazed cake donuts
remind me of
micheline eleanor

and that

makes me

happy

Hoooooo-rah! Women for Women: how and why.

Hoooooo-rah! I just received my sponsorship packet in the mail today from Women for Women International.

For those of you who don't know, Women for Women is an award-winning nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lot of women in war-torn countries. What makes Women for Women so incredible is that it builds one-to-one connections between sponsors [people like you and me] and women survivors of war in currently 8 different countries. Often times, these women, are socially excluded [due to their status as widows, or victims of war] and often, they are their family's sole breadwinner and caregiver.

Realizing that financial assistance alone is not enough, Women for Women helps women survivors develop marketable skills, cultivate an understanding of their rights and potential as women, and create secure ways to earn an income for years to come. In so doing, women can gradually overcome the horrors of war and civil strife — family loss and widowhood, rape, murder, forced migration, poverty, starvation, trafficking and torture — and gain the strength and stature that can help them rebuild their lives, families, and communities.

You can sponsor a woman, which entails a $27/month donation. $5 of this donation keeps the organization running, and the rest provides your sister with staples for her family, and pays for job and rights-awareness training. Depending on where and how educated your sister is, you may be able to correspond with her. At the end of one year, each woman "graduates".

The upshot is — this organization helps women in warn torn countries find each other, recover, start self-sustaining businesses, and apply for micro-credit — regularly demonstrating world-wide,

That one woman can change anything.

But…

MANY WOMEN CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING.


Why did I choose to become involved? Because I believe…to whom much is given, much is required. We have so, so much here in America…and no distance physically or geographically between my life here and my sister's in Rwanda makes foreign to me her basic desire to live and care for her family. She is 6 years younger than me, with 5 children…but if it is true [and I believe] that we are all interconnected…the basic welfare and well-being of a woman and her children half a world away matters to me when I go to sleep every night with a roof over my head, and wake up to the security of food to eat. I don't have a lot by this society's standards, [I arise early each morning to pack up and bike 10 miles to work], but I have an overwhelming abundance by comparison to hers…and I believe no act of love or compassion is ever insignificant. I did the research on this organization and was so moved by the personal difference they are making in women's lives, and so I decided to take the risk to reach out to someone who has known a very different life than mine. It is through building bridges between hearts like this that I believe, in this day of apathy or outright violence, we can mend the fabric of the world creating a future of hope for all our children.

-jen


hope you're interested. here's some nifty links:

Women for Women

Charity Navigator Guide to Intelligent Giving

imagining world.

photo by michael wilson



In my dream,
the angel shrugged
& said, If we
fail this time, it
will be a failure of
imagination


& then she placed the world
gently in the palm of my hand.


BRIAN ANDREAS

that nifty poet John Keats, and some thoughts on suffering.

"In a letter written back in 1819, the British poet John Keats refers to the world not as a vale of tears, but as "the vale of soulmaking." He says, "Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and Troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a Soul? A Place where the heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways!"

i am so struck by how similar this is to Jung's concept of the Soul's path toward individuation by facing and incorporating its 'shadow side.' we all have a shadow side...and it is a sacred duty toward adulthood to hold no illusions about that reality within us...and in facing the darker places within us, we are inevitably opened up to pain and grief...how interesting that, especially in this culture, we are conditioned to think that pain and suffering are a result of something having gone wrong in our journey...of having, perhaps, taken a wrong turn...but the reality is...pain and suffering are universal...and a wholehearted acceptance of this truth is so often the key that can unlock and open our heart to a more encompassing love and compassion than we could ever imagine. As the writer Ram Dass expressed when discussing the spiritual lessons found in suffering a stroke:

"Greater suffering elicits higher consciousness."

and so it is, wisdom and maturity is found in not shutting down, but opening ever wider your heart.