THE Still Point of the Pandemic World
Blog Archive - 2022
by Dr. Susan Nettleton
January 2, 2022
New Years morning was different this year. It didn't feel new; it still felt like 2021 as once again New Year's Eve revelry across the globe gave way to video celebrations. I had to accept that this New Year had a sluggish aura, a slow start as the Pandemic unexpectedly surges. When I walked outside though, the relief of a clear blue sky and warming sunshine (after gray days of unrelenting rain) brought another perspective: in the world of nature each day is another beginning, while human culture has a separate need for tracking time, setting apart it's own reference points of beginnings and ends, time and date. Then I suddenly realized I had forgotten my mask and had to backtrack to get it, a concrete reminder the Pandemic didn't end with 2021 nor the sunrise.
I walked to the prayer garden that rests on the edge of a heavily trafficked boulevard and is an sustained by a mega church campus. In spite of the urban setting, it is indeed a place of peace, prayer and Presence. The garden with it's rocks of inscribed scripture, miniature creek and pathways, and towering crosses is designed to invoke the power of tradition, anchored in the spiritual significance of the life and teachings of Jesus. For me, it is a reminder that this day and everyday contains the past, as well as the passing of time and events, along with the unfolding of
ever-renewing life as what was our future, is revealed as today. Where I sat on a bench watching the water flow, there were bees on my left less than 2 ft away, gathering pollen from a bottlebrush shrub and beautiful small finches landing on my right, equally close and unperturbed by my presence, resting on branches at eye height. Harmony here, now.
One thought seemed especially important to write today. As is Nature's way, the virus continues to evolve, but so do we. Daily, we gather more and more information in the outer world, especially in the microbial world, to push our tools beyond the mutating virus. But we also have an inner world and an inner human capacity to direct the ways in which we ourselves shift in relationship to our experiences. Our ideas, our choices, our responses are as much a part of our evolution as our biological entanglement with the viral world. While science sorts out genetics, as individuals we can sort out our inner life and frame our intent toward health, harmony, resilience and Good in this New Year. (Susan Nettleton)
For a beautiful affirmation on the new year from Unity's Daily Word, click the link below
http://www.xn--www-hla9801brya.dailyword.com/.../new-year...
January 9, 2022
I am thinking of the tradition of New Years resolutions, as one way our culture offers for reinforcing fresh starts and new beginnings. Our resolve to initiate change and improvement in our lives gives us a reference point and serves as a catalyst for 'newness of life'.
But any new construction needs a solid foundation. And adding new structures on old foundations may conserve resources in the short run but fail us in the long term. It's a good idea to inspect the foundation first and determine it's strength and stability, whether or not it is appropriate to the design of the new blueprint. That is my metaphor for the forgiveness process this Sunday. Adding a list of new resolutions, new goals, new directions in this new year may require more depth to a forgiveness process--even an attitude overhaul-- to move pass the accumulated burden, the mental, emotional, and physical strain of these 2 years of Pandemic.
There are many ways to look at forgiveness; today I am looking at it as a spiritual process that uproots worn out emotions, disappointment and resentment, fear as well as anger and blame. Forgiving the events of the Pandemic (and the Pandemic itself) may seem like an impossible feat. Yet, if we let go of the demand to simply go back to our pre-pandemic life as our 'foundation', we may uncover the spiritual bedrock that has supported us all along. (Susan Nettleton)
For a new perspective on forgiveness from Hafiz, tr. Daniel Ladinsky
https://gladdestthing.com/poems/a-strange-feather
For D.H. Lawrence's perspective of getting to the foundation:
https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../DeeperThanLo/index.html
January 16, 2022
"I was passionate,
filled with longing,
I searched
far and wide.
But the day
that the Truthful One
found me,
I was at home."
Lal Ded,
“[I was passionate]” translated by Jane Hirshfield, from Women in Praise of the Sacred (New York: Harper Collins, 1994).
I recently came across this short poem poem by 14th century saint and mystic poet of Kashmir, Lal Ded (also known as Lalla and Lallesawri). Her poem hits me with new force during this Omicron phase of the Pandemic. Lal Ded was 'given in marriage' to a harsh family when she was 12 years old and had only a basic education in the scriptures. As she matured she became an ardent worshiper of the Hindu God, Shiva. By age 26, she had broken free of tradition, renounced her marriage and became a wandering mystic and poet. But as her words point out, she found what she was seeking not in her wanderings, but "at home". The poem is a quiet reminder of the futility of trying to force spiritual revelation, especially (paradoxically) when driven by passionate longing. The problem is that the "longing" leads us further and further away from what is already here, right here, right now.
How do we, in 2022, approach That "right here, right now'? Depending on where you live and the intensity of the Pandemic surge, once again we are cautioned to not travel, to avoid crowds--particularly indoors, and be vigilant about virus exposure. Safety seems fused to limitation and caution, while places, people and even memory seem to cry out for movement, discovery, freedom and growth. Spiritually though, we are called again and again back to what is right in front of us wherever, whatever is here, now. Out of this push/pull experience, two distinct paths of mystical revelation historically arose. One is an inward-turning path of contemplation and awareness of the transcendent aspects of each day through meditation and prayer--essentially disengagement from the outer world. The other is a practice of opening wide to the world of the senses and the wonder of the external world as the daily manifestation of God. Either or both are within reach today, at home. And Lal Ded offers yet another realization--when the 'Truthful One" finds you, you are indeed, home.
For a poetic taste of the path of the senses, follow the link to the opening verses of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself".
https://recyclemefree.org/.../song-of-myself-walt-whitman...
January 21, 2022
Hillside Church's next Sunday Zoom talk will be January 30, 2022. Dr. Susan Nettleton will be speaking on "The Space of Potential" at 11:00 A.M. (Mountain Time) (10:00 A.M. Pacific time) If you would like to be on our email list and receive the Zoom link for the talk, please email us at hillsideew@aol.com or contact us through our website: hillsidesource.com and we will email you the link. You may also send your email address through Facebook messenger. Hope you can attend!
January 23, 2022
This morning as I sat staring at the computer, reflecting on a Sunday morning message, sorting out my thoughts, the dead silence was broken by a sharp call, a dialog among crows cut through my blank page. Then I heard their flapping wings as they launched out the yard, above this house, into the crisp blue sky. Now I was alert, filled with metaphors of sudden awakening. I had to smile. There is a kind of simplicity that waits underneath all the complexity of life and the muddledness of human thought and the vastness of nature in all it's forms. That's why there are so many spiritual stories of the commonplace sound (or sight, touch, taste, scent...) that cuts through everydayness and the search for more than what we are given here, where we are, now.
Crows are a rather mixed bag of tricks in the realm of the collective and cultural psyche. So to give them a prophetic role can actually put you back into shadows and superstition. They can be annoying creatures to gardeners and farmers, hence the birth of scarecrows. Naturalists and biologists tell us they are highly intelligent. I happen to be in an urban area where they like to hangout. So I am friendly. I let them lead me to this perfect poem and the unexpected.
Forest Life, by Joseph Kushnir (website: allpoetry)
Through the pine forest, direction comes by crows whispering wayward secrets.
This morning of crows opened the door to the memory of another poem that sings with the birds of the glory of life, the spiritual wonder of nature, the seasons, and our perception of time, Derrick Walcott's "The Season of Phantasmal Peace". (link below) This day is full of Wonder, of Beauty, of Guidance and yes, Love. Pay attention to God's call. Life is bringing you a gift. (Susan Nettleton)
February 6, 2022
With the frigid, icy weather that blew across the country this week, I found myself thinking of Cold Mountain, one of the classic volumes of Zen poetry. It was written by the T'ang Dynasty poet called Han-shan (believed to be 9th century). He is a legendary figure, with various tales of surrounding him, a recluse who wrote his poetry on rocks in the remote mountain area he roamed. There are several English translations of his work. Today I am quoting from Burton Watson's, published by Columbia University Press,1970. His poems give glimpses of his youth, his time as a father and family man, working as a bureaucrat for the government, and struggling with personalities, social classes and religious hypocrisy.
"I'm not so poor at reports and decisions--Why can't I get ahead in the government? The rating officials are determined to make life hard. All they do is try to expose my faults. Everything, I guess, is a matter of Fate; Still, I'll try the exam again this year.
A blind boy aiming at the eye of a sparrow, Might just accidentally manage a hit."
As he ages, he leans more and more to leaving the world behind and eventually does so, finding his mountain retreat: "Thirty years ago I was born into the world. A thousand, ten thousand miles I’ve roamed, By rivers where the green grass lies thick, Beyond the border where the red sands fly. I brewed potions in a vain search for life everlasting, I read books, I sang songs of history, And today I’ve come home to Cold Mountain, To pillow my head on the stream and wash my ears."
But he now he faces the challenge of loneliness and sometimes painful reflection on his past. "How cold it is on the mountain! Not this year but always. Crowded peaks forever choked with show, Dark forests breathing endless mist: No grass sprouts til the early days of June; Before the first of autumn, leaves are falling. And here a wanderer, drowned in delusion, Looks and looks but cannot see the sky."
But the seasons change and he continues in his inner pursuits. We now find him with new depth, and growing illumination and peace. "Today I sat before the cliff, Sat a long time till mists had cleared. A single thread, the clear stream runs cold; A thousand yards the green peaks lift their heads. Moon rise--the lamp of night drifts upward; What cares could trouble my mind?" And at last, "...All that remains is the core of truth." ..."Like a doctor prescribing a medicine for each disease, I use what remedy is at hand to save the world. Only when the mind is free of care, Can the light of understanding shine in every corner."
This is a reminder this Sunday, that our lives follow the lives of all that have come before, hardship and times of wonder, struggles with the natural order and insights into nature's unceasing gifts, separation and belonging, and great leaps forward even when we collectively regress. Winter passes, spring is born. Whatever the weather, this day is here to lead you to your "core of truth". (Susan Nettleton)
February 13, 2022
As once again the country begins to lift Covid restrictions, I have been reflecting on limitation. This seems in contrast to my recent Zoom talk on The Space of Potential, but limitation is really an aspect of our potential as human beings and the unlimited, boundless creativity of God. This is not always easy to grasp at first. Fundamentally, it means making our peace with the parameters of the world we live in, the bodies and minds we function as, and the limitations of relationship. "Laws" of limitation define limits in legal matters, in language structure, in mathematics and banking, in ethics and behavior in many contexts--limit-setting is part of the structure of culture. Spiritually, different streams of religious thought impose various limitations on their followers in the form of rules, interpretations and belief structures. But the human impulse enfolded in both culture and spirituality is to transcend limitation or grow beyond it.
The abstract idea of unlimited potentiality actually is a free space that pulls humans into the creative field. In that pulling, new concepts, ideas, visions are possible, and those begin to define specific forms or events that, at first, are possibilities and then, when nurtured though thought, belief, repetitive activity and acceptance, become actual. We describe this as a process of consciousness. This is a basic principle of New Thought as well as other metaphysical spiritual teachings.
And yet, paradoxically, to function well in daily human life, in this world, we make our peace with limitation. While we have developed technology to fly planes and even rockets to get from one place to another, it's not necessary to defy the laws of gravity. We live with it's limitations and it's gifts. Gravity keeps us grounded and on that ground we live and grow. To successfully use any tool or technology, we need to understand its limitations. To stay well during a Pandemic, we bear the limits that make for caution. To live in a peaceful society, we bear the limitations of others. We all as unique individuals deal with personal limitations as well. They form the boundaries that define us as individual expressions of the vast creative activity of Life, of God. Defining our limits then, becomes part of the task of being an individual.
To go beyond our limits is to draw on that larger reality where we also live, move and have our being, in the Oneness of God. That Oneness includes all that is and well as all that holds potential for Good. (Susan Nettleton)
For a poetic reflection on the human condition of dependency, consider Maya Angelou's poem "Alone" (1975) . Follow the link: https://poets.org/poem/alone
February 20, 2022
This Sunday, I invite you to a day of restoration. We know in the Bible creation story, God rested on the 7th day and from this arose the traditional idea that Sunday, when considered the 7th day of the week, is deemed a "day of rest". Although our 24/7 culture no longer supports that practice, I am taking that idea yet a bit further, from rest to restoration. Rest of course is one of the ways that we do restore our energy. Modern medical research has given us the understanding of what is called "restorative sleep" (essentially requiring that the body cycles fully through all 5 stages of sleep in approximately a 24 hour cycle of chemical and hormonal shifts)--this is the natural reparative and maintenance work of the body and brain. Shakespeare defined it this way: " ...Sleep that knits-up the raveled sleeve care. The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast." (Macbeth) The quote itself is a balm and a reminder that sleep, despite the continuous pressure of modern life, is a restorative process.
Society gives us many different models for restoration--medical and dental procedures, cosmetics, nutrition products, and not just restoration for humans, but for things like photos, paintings, houses. At the forefront of the larger picture, we have the pressure to restore life and culture to it's pre-Pandemic state. Finally, we face the urgent issue of restoring ecological balance for the planet.
From a spiritual perspective this Sunday, consider the opening lines of the 23rd Psalm ( ESV): "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul." Here is yet another type of restoration, not one that is an attempt to hold on to conditions, images or stages of our past and resist the march of time, but rather an affirmation of that which is outside the realm of time. Restoration of our soul can mean healing and nourishment of our spiritual core that comes as we turn toward our Source. The soul is restored in prayer, in meditation, even in the act of reaching for It. Soul restoration points to Awakening, rather than continuing to 'sleep' in the delusions and illusions of our separate identity in a frightening, frustrating, frantic world. As you contemplate a day of restoration from any or all of these levels, consider this verse on the words of 20th century Indian saga Ramana Maharshi. (Susan Nettleton)
#884 A woman with a necklace round Her neck imagines it is lost, And after long search elsewhere touches Her own neck and there finds it; even So, the Self is here within. Probe for it there and find it.
[Source: https://archive.arunachala.org/docs//garland-ogs/verses]
February 27, 2022
This week, as Covid cases plummeted in the U.S., suddenly the world's attention turned to the shock of war with the Russian attack on Ukraine. The fighting opened many old wounds and renewed fears of global warfare in a time where humanity is still very much grappling with a world wide Pandemic, while also facing the roots of climate change and our ecological future. The lightening speed of digital communication has already produced volumes of interpretations and analysis of the Russian/Ukraine war and worldwide reaction. But to me, we cannot separate this war from the other crises facing our planet. Rather, I look to see and understand events both from the point of view of the individual (whether that be an individual country, government, leader, or citizen) as well as the whole-- a living, thriving planet, moving through a time of transformational change. This is in turn but an aspect of a limitless cosmic creative process. It is through times like these that we can further develop and practice shifting perspectives, moving through human emotions, reasoning and morality, to a more encompassing spiritual vision and then back again to the human field, with it's suffering, it's reach for power, ambition, and freedom. If that sounds abstract, simply said, today is a day to fall back on the spiritual dimension of life in prayer and affirmation of peace. Taking time to pray for peace, brings us back to spiritual ground. It brings us back to a unifying principle of life, because even as we hate, even as we fear, even as we reach for excitement and drama, there is always a part of us that longs to feel at peace.
Prayer for peace is not that difficult. Let it be simple, straightforward, heartfelt. Let it be all enfolding and all inclusive. If you cannot pray or accept peace for those who fill you with anger or outrage, then simply offer them up to God, Vast Intelligence and Good, that knows the way to Peace. You don't have to try to make yourself feel what you do not feel, nor do you need to know or dictate what is needed for Peace. Peace is not separate from Justice; Peace is the underlying unity of Life, expressed in the will to Good. Prayer is a letting go, whether it is asking or simply accepting Peace for all.
Below I offer you prayer possibilities to choose and adapt personally, because your voice completes the whole. For affirmation prayer: "I uphold the power of peace in all people." "The world is at peace. Peace prevails." From Pope Francis' prayer for Ukraine: "Let us ask the Lord to grant that the country [and all countries] may grow in the spirit of brotherhood, and that all hurts, fears and divisions will be overcome... May the prayers and supplications that today rise up to heaven touch the minds and hearts of world leaders, so that dialogue may prevail and the common good be placed ahead of partisan interests. Please, no more war." Below is a link for multi-faith prayers for peace. What you affirm for the world, you affirm for yourself on a personal, individual level. You are the world. (Susan Nettleton)
March 6, 2022
This Sunday, I am considering how we hold our vision of our future. While much of contemporary spirituality and even psychology spotlights the need to place our attention on the present moment, realistically the future remains a primary concern for people. It is not something that is so easily transcended. It is true that when immersed in the immediate, the work at hand, the shared happiness of a sunlit day, or creative or spiritual absorption, the future for a while no longer exists. Stopping in the moment gives us the space for life to alter our trajectory. Still, the human mind has developed with the capacity to envision and project what comes next. We certainly do not have total control over all future events, but that does not mean our actions, thoughts and emotions have no impact.
A positive vision of your future is more helpful than an apocalyptic, cataclysmic one. The same is true for our collective vision in this time of new war, new threats, and the building pressure of climate changes and global illness. A positive vision does not mean turning a blind eye to human suffering or grave transgressions. But it maintains a perspective that is focused on solutions, stretching beyond fear, rage, and despair. To me, that means giving way to the larger spiritual field, the unknown but timeless reality that creates, sustains, and transforms all life. But even for those without a solid spiritual base, a positive, courageous vision--even when kick started by fear and outrage--is more helpful than an apocalyptic vision. Without a positive vision of possibilities, the Covid-19 vaccines would never have been developed and as yet unrecognized solutions still lay waiting in our minds and hearts, individually and collectively.
When the troubles across the globe seem to much, simply too much to contemplate, it helps to remember that the individual is the whole, and the whole is the individual. Because of this, the whole feeds the parts and the parts feed the whole. When we cannot expand to be the whole, we simply stay with ourselves. Holding a positive vision for our personal future really requires peace with ourselves. Forgiveness. Acceptance. Love. This is not about entitlement or being self absorbed, but about an inner vision of the goodness that Life brings forth as you, as your life. Today, take time to offer yourself the gift of affirmation that extends through the day, the year, through time and circumstance, through connection, health, strength, discovery and peace. Your future, which enfolds all, is blessed. (Susan Nettleton)
"May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us…”
― Saint Terese of Liseaux
March 10, 2022
Hillside will offer a Sunday Zoom talk by Dr. Susan Nettleton on March 20, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. Mountain Time, 10 a.m. Pacific time. Dr. Nettleton will be speaking on "Your Armor of Light".
If you would like to be on our email list to receive an e-invitation to Sunday talks with the Zoom, please message your email address, or email us at hillsideew@aol.com or contact us through our website, hillsidesource.com.
March 13, 2022
"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you." Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
Today in the U.S., daylight savings time begins; we have set our clock forward 1 hour and thereby shortened the day. This is a predictably disrupted day for many as our routine timing must shift. Time will be paid back in the fall, but the fall seems a long way off, and today is perhaps well spent in considering the value of 'wasting time'. With the mounting pressures of these days, the Russia-Ukraine war, the continued threat of Covid and rising inflation, it may seem ill-advised to consider a day of idleness or goal-less activity. Yet, periods of "wasting time" often precede creative leaps in many areas of life. This is another way of letting the mind rest and renew. It opens the space in routine, habit and willfulness that forces life to conform to our demand, rather than letting go and letting life reveal and express solutions, new concepts, new connections. A day of "wasting time" seen from a spiritual perspective, may give us a taste of what the great scholar of mysticism, Evelyn Underhill, described as the “leisure of Eternity." These moments come when we no longer have to push or force our tasks, rushing around with a feeling of constant pressure, but move steadily with deep assurance of inner spiritual direction. It is also a reminder that even when we feel we simply must use our time productively, we do not have to over analyze the results. Mistakes and imperfections are part of human efforts, and usually less likely when "take our time." (Susan Nettleton)
Follow the link for a contemporary poem on use of time by Canadian poet Issac Goolle.
https://hellopoetry.com/.../this-poem-is-a-waste-of-your.../
March 20, 2022
Today I am posting an excerpt from my morning Zoom talk, "Your Armor of Light".
I considered using the title, Our Armor of Light, rather than Your Armor of Light, because I saw that it's a little tricky in a time of war; to cross back into dualistic spiritual warfare and erode the armor of community. People have sought self protection through relationship, through the group, the family, the tribe since the dawn of humanity. Part of the resistance to Pandemic mandates was basically the fear and trauma of isolation, the fear of facing fear alone. Unfortunately, modern media has cultivated promoting division as well as community--growing through establishing community based on division. Maybe, hopefully, we are beginning to see the weakness of that. I maintain that the essential principle of life to be reckoned with this century, to a degree the world has not known before this time, is our interdependence.
The last two years are screaming interdependence--any progress we have made in the Pandemic has been through Global efforts, and yes what happens in Hong Kong, or Ukraine or Ethiopia or Venezuela impacts us. The rapid mobilization of world wide sanctions to stop a war is another example. The climate crisis is another than cannot be solved by without Global action. There is the armor of community, but there is also the threat from a larger playing field. For the armor of community to be armor of Light, we expand our awareness that the armor extends it's boundary. If you make it complicated you will only get more entangled in fear and threat. On the personal level, attend to your relationships as aspects of your armor of Light, spiritual armor extends beyond your own skin and as you can, let it expand beyond that. In God "there is no darkness at all", means no one and nothing is left out. What we accept for ourselves, we sooner or later grow to accept for everyone and everything, which ultimately is love. Remember the spiritual antidote to fear is love.
The mind wants to qualify and quantify, separate and categorize. What you can't do, you can't do, just give room for the idea that what you accept for yourself, in terms of peace, assurance, safety, comfort, you have room within you to accept for all. Don't try to work it out in your mind or be responsible or carry the load. Just have an the opening that your prayer, this armor of light, includes all. It's back to this adage: When you are afraid, you can fight the dark or you turn on the light. And if you can't reach the light switch, surround yourself with people who can -- or can hold the flashlight. If you must fight the dark take positive action. Better to take positive action than sit alone in fear. Writing your own commentary, donating time/money, signing a petition, joining a concerned community, starting your own prayer group--there are many possibilities--community activity does lower anxiety. It too supports your armor of Light. (Susan Nettleton)
for an unusual poem of encouragement from Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004), follow the link: https://wordsfortheyear.com/.../on-angels-by-czeslaw-milosz/
March 27, 2022
Today I am continuing to reflect on last weeks' topic of "Your Armor of Light" and the importance of understanding vulnerability and protection spiritually. I have spoken about the metaphor of armor as a way to cultivate a consciousness of protection as we move beyond Covid-19 fear, cope with yet another variant and wrestle with global climate struggles and war.
A spiritual perspective give us a way to appreciate the natural protections of the human body; these along with the practice of prayer and the social protection of community (last week's posts) are components that can be nurtured and practice to lift fear, offer comfort, and live our lives with deepening peace. But there is still another factor to consider as a spiritual practice, removing the armor of a false sense of self. Chogyam Trungpa in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition writes of this with the idea of the Spiritual Warrior as one who's worldly armor has dissolved.
Here armor is seen as the hardened protection of our egoistic self, a wall of self-importance and self sufficiency. Armor in this sense then, includes the daily tension we carry around, defending ourselves against life, our own vulnerability, and the suffering of others (whom we unconsciously identify with). Vulnerability means the awareness that anything can happen, the recognition that human life is susceptible to injury, illness, and attack. It is not necessary the same thing as fear; fear is the emotional response to an awareness of vulnerability. All the defense mechanisms of the psyche and ego defend then against a realization that this separate life we claim as our identity, is false. Christianity has a similar stream of thought that urges acceptance of our human vulnerability, because it opens a spiritual door. St. Paul's confession of the 'answer' that came as he prayed to overcome his own unnamed vulnerability, sums up the idea: "But he (Christ) said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'” So here is an affirmation of vulnerability that is a reversal of the building up of the self image, that is sometimes taken to an extreme of worthlessness. But the point is not to fight the ego, which only strengthens it. Rather face life and yourself as what is, accepting fear, accepting mistakes, accepting lack of control and your feeling nature, including the need for others, for help. We take off the armor of separation, no longer defending the self, but not groveling, not shutting down. The "spiritual warrior" moves with open hand, open heart, tenderness, meeting life as it comes, without bravado or artifice. This is not something to force on yourself, rather it is recognizing this vulnerability is another aspect of the spiritual process. To move beyond the self is not to become all powerful-- just the opposite. It is: "I cannot do this, I cannot do this alone."
This is really two sides to one process. We let go of one kind of armor and gain another, again and again, until our sense of separation dissolves. Then armor is irrelevant. We are all somewhere on this line of living, and trusting life and ourselves, and each other. (Susan Nettleton)
Follow the link to a poem with the flavor of a spiritual warrior, by Jane Hirshfield
April 3, 2022
"There is a morning inside you waiting to burst into Light." Rumi
This week I found Spring. It had gotten lost in the general upheaval of life both personal and collective. But an unusual meditation the night before sparked my vision --I woke up to sunlight and a sense of excitement and gratitude to have the time for an early morning walk. After two days of gloomy (though much needed) rain and chill, the morning had broken free. Plants and trees, and even the air were cleansed and nourished by rain. There were flowers all along the sidewalks, and I was almost dizzy with the color show. I drank in the scarlet bottle brushes, softly hanging from green limbs. They had to be touched, as I thought of all the baby bottles I have washed during the Pandemic years. Surely our brushes were modeled after nature's creative leap in these strange, soft flowers. There were dancing sunflowers, sunrise pink oleander blossoms, creamy magnolias, daisies, purple crepe myrtle, multicolored camellias, tiny white alyssum and roses of every possible shade. Oranges and lemons with their perfume hung low on the trees. Of course the birds where excited; their songs over-rode a few cars idling at the stop signs while I crossed streets. I didn't mind the cars--I was grateful for mine-- on this day, the boundaries between living and inanimate dissolved.
To love life is to love the essence, the building block, the unformed, even emptiness that give rise to all form, however you conceive it. We learn to love by loving form, whether that is people, animals, places, things, even ourselves. The problem is such love is incomplete. Form changes. Form passes. Form does not always reciprocate. Form can wound. But when we discover the root, the ground, the Source of all form, then loving life is loving That, and That is All. (Susan Nettleton)
As Rumi put it:
God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flower bed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
till one day it cracks them open.
For Lao Tzu's expression, follow the link: https://www.dailygood.org/pdf/ij.php?tid=475
April 10, 2022
"There is a guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word. Why need you choose so painfully your place and occupation and associates and modes of action and of entertainment?... Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all who it floats...." Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
This week the household dryer broke, which in a busy home with children, is not a small thing. While waiting for a repair person to rescue us, I decided to set up a rudimentary clothes line. I found an old 20 foot cord that would do, but it was a tangled mess. So I began the tedious work of untangling which gave me the time to once again reflect on human problems as tangles, and to recall the solution: never begin to tackle a knotted mess by trying to think which piece to move where. Rather the trick is to loosen the knots and twists. Loosen, Loosen Loosen.
With seemingly daily upheavals, the world and each of us as individuals continue to face the puzzles and tangles of complex beliefs and complex lives. Often in a life-puzzle, we have the pull of spiritual guidance, but we (sometimes unconsciously) ignore it in confusion. The idea of guidance is fundamental to human beings. It is a large component of learning and adaptation to new situations where we apply learning, knowledge and experience directly to work, relationship, health and wellness, finances, and various decisions of daily life. When we are younger, we turn to parents, or older siblings and relatives and then in school, teachers. In work, we may rely on supervisors or consultants; as patients, we may need specialists of one form of another. This need is part natural and part social/cultural structure. Yet there is an element here of something more fundamental--human intelligence--some recognition that there is an aspect to sorting out life that requires a source of knowledge beyond our own. It is an intuitive awareness that some actions in specific situations are more useful and productive than others, and that action in one direction, inevitably impacts other aspects of our life.
That gnawing sense of the "better way" is our own spiritual nature, tugging at us toward an inner guidance system we can term spiritual Guidance. While we may sometimes sense the opinions or experiences of other people as spiritual Guidance, it is our own inner response that opens and determines who and what we pay attention to and take seriously. Ultimately, the Guidance system resides within. Recognition and experience fine tunes that Guidance system over time. But, modern life is complex and quickly tangles in cross currents. Our actions impact others. There is the constant cross-fire of seeming opposing opinions and needs. Confusion in decisions, masks our fear of consequences. The way to spiritual Guidance is to loosen, not break, not struggle, certainly not tighten, the tied-up mess of relationships, opinions, emotions and yes, even consequences, that jam the flow of Intelligence and "lowly listening" to Guidance. The day the dryer stopped, when the cord's tangles were loosened, the knots simply fell apart. I had my clothesline. Oh, and the repairman expertly fixed the machine. (Susan Nettleton)
April 17, 2022
Today is Easter Sunday, celebrated by over 2 billion Christians around the globe as a deeply sacred event. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the path of sacrifice and forgiveness promising eternal life, remain the cornerstone of Christianity and the Holy week of Easter. Yet, the holiday carries traditions rooted in ancient rites of Spring that recognized the rhythm of the seasons, cycles of life, and the amazing re-emergence of life that follows winter, or illness, or war and calamity. Out of these traditions, modern society has created an alternative celebration of secular and commercial Easter. If it were possible to trace all the roots and branches of the story and meaning of Easter attributed to our collective history, there would be no space large enough to illustrate or visualize it--layer upon layer of history, myth, analysis, revelation, pageantry, vision and mystery.
This Easter, I offer you one aspect of the story to contemplate: Our human need to put a face on God. True, we all have to reckon with the inevitability of death and therefore, many turn to Christianity because of it's belief in a path to "eternal Life". But the mystery of death is just one of the enigma's of life that propel people to a spiritual search. Birth is a mystery; existence itself is a mystery--pain and suffering, beauty, love and even sacrifice are often perplexing. Modern science and psychology offer some degree of understanding, but sometimes, the more we understand, the more mystery we discover in this phenomenal puzzle of life. The human heart has those moments of awe that open us to more transcendent awareness, yet not many can truly satisfy our personal well of gratitude, longing and love with an abstract 'God' of 'Allness'. A God with a "face", with "skin", with form, gives our psyche a bridge, allowing human perception to stretch to the imperceptible.
The Easter story revolves around Jesus as God (or Son of God; i.e, out of God) made flesh. Human yet Divine, he becomes a God of identification. He too suffers; he too is treated unfairly, he too has his time of doubt and turns to prayer, he too loves and despite it all, forgives.
A God with a face, is not only found in Christianity of course; many religions have tales of God (or gods) walking among the people, assuming human identities for one purpose or another-- Christianity absorbed the religious history of other traditions. For some, the saints, great mystics and teachers provide the bridge. A face that has transcended the confusion of life, reconciled, given way to the Allness, grounds us in a different kind Love, a different kind of Strength and Courage, as we stretch beyond ourselves to the Unknown. Happy Easter! (Susan Nettleton)
In this poem by George Herbert, the "face" of God is simply "Love". Follow the link:
April 24, 2022
Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth—rich apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.
(from Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman)
This Sunday follows Earth Day 2022, celebrated each year on April 22. So today I am asking you to consider your personal relationship with our planet. Collectively, we are grappling with the knowledge that the climate of Earth is undergoing a dramatic and life threatening shift of increasing and erratic temperatures, extreme storms and other natural disasters, and disappearing species that have consequences for the human food chain and the ecosystem in general. The road to healing the planet remains full of conflict, with struggles of battling interests, and often bitter negotiations. Yet, there are successful strategies that have already been slowly introduced in society, such as cleaner power plants, local initiatives to monitor and limit pollution and CO2 emissions, developments in the control of methane, new standards for appliance efficiency, improvements in farming, more acceptance of environmental practices in businesses--down to the individual level--and continued international debate in recognition that climate and environmental practices must include global cooperation.
Today though is a day for spiritual consideration, not a day of fear, anger, or hopelessness. We can all remind ourselves and each other that our own lives as individuals are called to see how lifestyles and behaviors affect the natural environment around us, just like they impact the people with whom we live and work. We deepen that understanding when we consider our personal relationship with our planet. There's no one right definition or description of that. For some, we are the "owners" of nature, of Earth--we can use it in any way we want. Unfortunately, with a rigid idea, we easily ignore the problems we create until they become highly dangerous. For some, we are "stewards" given the tasks to care for the natural world and learn what that means in various contexts. For still others, we are aliens to earth; we belong somewhere else in the cosmos or we look to a new location in some science fiction alternative that space travel may provide. Philosopher Alan Watts said, “We do not come into this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean waves, the universe peoples. Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe." For Walt Whitman, well, he was a lover of Earth.
Spend a little time today away from the human-made environment, if only by traveling in your imagination, and consider your personal relationship to Earth. What does that relationship require of you and what does the Earth give back? (Susan Nettleton)
For a poetic perspective from Larry Morris' book "On This Sweet Earth", follow the link:
May 1, 2022
Divine Timing
We are
thankful
that the universe
is a
vast
possibility
of
good
showing up
when
least
expected. (by Larry Morris)
Today is May Day, a holiday that has ancient roots in Europe, but is still known in America. This tradition celebrates the seasons as winter continues to fade into spring, and spring opens into summer. May Day is the midpoint between spring and summer. While we recognize the natural cycles of the seasons, life and its seasons have never been precisely predictable; there is a flow of one season into the other. Life is movement and surprise as one event flows and transforms into another.
Paradoxically, we have the term 'Mayday', communicated 3 times, as a call for help in life threatening emergencies. That cry of "Mayday" is understood internationally, and those who can respond, do. The code-word was coined from the French term for 'help-me' and is unrelated to the playful festival of May Day. Yet, the homophone has me reflecting on the spiritual life as a continual flow of Good, that we simply fail to grasp. Perhaps our spiritual code-phrase is "the unexpected"; the solutions we seek are "the unexpected". During the years of Pandemic, the seasons have come and gone; we had our times of relative normalcy, jolting changes, and life threatening emergencies. We've had times of great loss, but also tremendous discovery. Now that life is opening, why not reflect on an expectation of Good coming in unexpected ways? Why not open to a responsive Universe?
Whether we frame it as 'openness', faith, positive thinking, newness of life, or human capacity for ingenuity and adventure--or serendipity, synchronicity, or simply surprise--it is our space for the unexpected that gives a living quality to the spiritual life. In any given situation, we can stretch our expectations by considering a list of positive possibilities, then having primed the pump, jump into the void of unknown potential, which is God. While the practice of affirmation and visualizations has its psychological impact (lifting our mood and confidence), a rigid repetition of our insistence that life mold to our specific desire, can be exhausting. Such mental demand carries us further and further away from a deeper spiritual trust and a greater Intelligence. Let this May Day impart a positive trust of God's Good, bringing you unexpected insight, solutions, where-with-all, connection, and joy. (Susan Nettleton)
For more ideas on opening to unexpected Good, follow the links:
https://hillsidesource.com/.../3/16/unfamiliarize-yourself
https://hillsidesource.com/affirmation-prayer-for-freedom...
May 8, 2022
Today is Mother's Day traditionally celebrated as an opportunity for family to recognize and express gratitude for the works of mothers in raising the children. Originally, families honored mothers by attending church with them, underscoring the spiritual aspects of motherhood with a focus on selfless love and sacrifice at the center of the home. Eventually, the holiday became commercialized and embedded in secular culture. As our culture has evolved over the years, our construct of Mother has grown beyond ancient archetypes and the American vision of the early 20th Century mother. Still, some type of Mother's Day continues around the globe with various practices and dates. It retains a spiritual aura in cultures where the maternal aspects of God, or a feminine God, or a female companion to a masculine God is woven into the religion.
This year, it occurs to me that the 21st Century has entered a time of not just questioning rigid concepts of women and their roles and right in society (debated for centuries and surging in 19th century America to present day), but as some now demonstrate, gender identity itself can be deconstructed and abandoned. Does this leave us without mothers or is this the opportunity to stretch and grow beyond our ingrained ideas into a consciousness that is more fluid and adaptable. Over the centuries circumstances have required caring people of either gender and any age range to sometimes act as mother and sometimes as father; we shift roles as times demand. There are no clearcut forever answers in the flux of life; except no one and nothing is left out. Whatever your family background or identity, take time today to reflect on how you mother life around you, as life in turn, mothers you. (Susan Nettleton)
for poetic glimpses of mothering, follow the links below:
https://thevalueofsparrows.wordpress.com/.../poetry-that.../
May 15, 2022
As frightening fire continued to speed across northern New Mexico this week, I began to think about transitions. There are many ways to describe the time period we live in, 22 years into the 21st century, but today it seems to me that 'transition' is a significant one. The years of Pandemic and the years that stretch ahead are collective transition years, where much remains unsettled. We are trying as a society to move beyond the Pandemic, while at the same time to be watchful of Covid variants. We have also become aware that new viruses and micro organisms will continue to arise, as boundaries between the animal world and the human world shrink. But learning to adapt to mutating viruses is just one of the shifts of these times. We are entering a new kind of direct encounter with nature, the changes that human development has brought, and the renewed necessity to come into right relationship with our environment. As fire information officer Ryan Berlin said of the Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire, "...we need a little help from Mother Nature to shut the wind down, and a little rain." The tone of his words in the midst of the fierce wind and heat, the unrelenting focus and skill required of the fire fighters, and the tragedy of lost homes and potentially lost lives, seemed strangely gentle. But perhaps that gentleness is what is needed in our coming into some new alignment with Nature. Certainly gentleness is a balm to those who face loss. And calm gentleness toward ourselves and in prayer, opens our hearts to receive guidance.
Times of drought and fires are not foreign to New Mexico or the southwest in general. Neither is an appeal to Mother Nature for intervention and prayer. But the impact of the fires, and other future weather events goes far beyond the local level. The world is watching this fire. Perhaps along with courage and skill, we can offer it gentleness. (Susan Nettleton)
For poetic perspective on times of struggle that point to gentleness, follow the links below.
May 22, 2022
As both Covid-19 and flu cases continue to rise across the country, it seems a good time to consider the incremental nature of both growth and healing. With the digital age, the pace of world-wide events, news in general and targeted advertising, information is non-stop and must compete with multiple voices, to be recognized and absorbed. It's easy to feel a sense of urgency and drama about most information. In fact, that urgency and drama is cultivated to capture your attention where resources and markets are highly competitive. In the long run though, we undermine ourselves because we simply cannot absorb everything all at once. In some ways, this only confuses our collective sense of growth and healing, at a time when we need to make careful and wise choices.
It's not a very exciting contemplation on the surface, but today I urge you to reflect on the incremental. Some things are urgent. Certain core issues around the globe are urgent. But most of daily life is not. With constant exposure to urgency, our expectations and reactions are skewed. Consider the time it took for Life to grow you. Think of the gradual small shifts and adjustments that happened over time. Consider the time it takes to repair, to heal, to settle into a new way of being. Allow yourself to act incrementally, one small step at a time. Trust the Intelligence of Nature and of Time. It is one way to restore a sense of balance. (Susan Nettleton)
Follow the links below for further perspective from our website.
https://hillsidesource.com/daily.../2018/6/20/time-enough
https://hillsidesource.com/.../6/16/excellence-takes-time
https://hillsidesource.com/.../2018/3/24/from-worry-to-peace
May 29, 2022
Memorial Day is rooted in the national honoring of US military who died in service to America and that remains its focus. Over the years though, the weekend has expanded in different areas as an opportunity to recognize other sacrifice to the greater good for those who have died in service to society in other ways. Yet this Memorial weekend brings the news of another mass shooting with more tragedy and cultural divide to this country. The murders of so many young children and heroic educators casts a deep shadow of grief and loss which simply cannot be understood or explained away or ignored. No one is able to emotionally process or even absorb the impact of immense tragedies like war and mass murder in the time span that society often demands; to pick up, regroup, carry on, or to take immediate action to "make things right". It is not possible. Raw hearts must find some solace first.
Today, follow the pull of whatever brings you personal peace and comfort. Then consider the quotes below that sum up my own spiritual approach to moving forward in the face of tragedy:
A New Thought maxim, "Don't fight the dark, turn on the light."
From the I Ching (Richard Wilhelm translation),
"...the best way to fight evil is to make energetic progress in the good."
Robert Pirsig (reference to Plato's "Phaedrus" (dialogue with Socrates):
"And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good. Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"
There is wisdom and intelligence within each of us. We have within us, right at hand, a directive toward the good. This is a time to listen, You have your part, your way to feed the light and progress the good. (Susan Nettleton)
For poetic reflections, follow the links below.
June 5, 2022
"Beings are numberless, I vow to save them
Desires are inexhaustible, I vow to end them
Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them
Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it."
In my years of spiritual practice and meditation, I have spent time in various Zen centers and retreats, where some variation of the Bodhisattva Vows, translated above, are recited. The vows are the core of Mahayana Buddhism and the idea of bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is defined as a spontaneous wish and compassionate mind to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings, rather than just one's own personal salvation. Our current times that include mass shootings in America, war between Russia and Ukraine, the global Pandemic and continued international issues of poverty and oppression naturally bring an inner call to help somehow, somewhere. Compassion is a human response and this week has me recalling the line, "Beings are numberless, I vow to save them."
In times of chanting with a group as an "outsider" and a psychiatrist, I often found myself pausing at that line, questioning the wisdom and logic of vowing to "save" the numberless beings of the world. Like wrestling with a koan, my mind would wrestle with the rationale of vowing the impossible, even though I knew very well that the point of Zen and indeed religion, is not rationality. Then one evening it hit me, and I understood. The only way you save all beings is to awaken to Truth: There are no numberless beings to save; there is One Life. To know your Self, as Self is to liberate all.
That in no way is to dismiss human suffering and help. We live on two (or more or many) planes. We live in this concrete world where concrete action has its purpose. But that action is far more wise and healing when fed by the transcendent awareness. Jesus put it this way, "And I, if I be lifted up from the Earth, draw all people unto me." Metaphysically, when we know the Transcendent, we too are lifted up from the Earth and thereby free others. What we touch in those moments, we carry with us as a shared blessing with all, even in the whirlwind of daily life. Those moments bring new peace and renewed action. (Susan Nettleton)
“We will develop and cultivate the liberation of mind by lovingkindness, make it our vehicle, make it our basis, stabilize it, exercise ourselves in it, and fully perfect it.” The Buddha
“Whatever living beings there may be — feeble or strong, long, stout, or of medium size, short, small, large, those seen or those unseen, those dwelling far or near, those who are born as well as those yet to be born — may all beings have happy minds.” The Buddha
(ref: O'Brien, Barbara. "Bodhisattva Vows." Learn Religions, Aug. 25, 2020.)
June 12, 2022
This week I re-read a book of poetry edited by Robert Bly, "The Soul is Here for it's Own Joy..." It's a book I know well, but this time I was struck by a counter theme I had not sensed before: facing the reality of the burden of human life as we seek a more Transcendent Reality. There is a certain thread in many religions that separates worldly life from the spiritual life. Worldly life carries the weight of burden--fear, illness, struggles for survival from one threat or another, the struggle to fit into the social order, the responsibility for and dependency on others, the uncertainty of death. Religions and spiritual teachings offer meaning in the face of the burden and the potential promise of relief.
As the poet Friedrich Holderlin wrote, the spiritual process itself is one of living in the world with it's difficulties, while our vision expands and we learn to move with the flow of life: "...And many things have to stay on the shoulders like a load of failure..." "Let us learn to live swaying, as in a rocking boat on the sea.” (see link below for the poem)
Rumi's poem, "Night and Sleep" offers the vision of a parallel, perhaps simultaneous, Reality: the freedom of the spiritual life in sleep that brings nightly healing and a reassuring balm:
"At the time of night-prayer, as the sun slides down,,
The route the senses walk on closes, the route to the invisible opens...
I think one could say the spirit goes back to its old home;
It no longer remembers where it lives, and loses its fatigue.
It carries around in life so many griefs and loads
And trembles under their weight; they are gone, it is all well." (excerpt)
Margaret of Navarre's (1491-1549) poem, "Wind Will Blow It All Away" gives the perspective of time to worldly conflicts and confusion.
"If someone insults you,
Go on, with light heart;
If they all do it, pay
No heed to what they say.
There's no new art
In talk of that kind.
Wind Will blow it all away...
And if the world itself
Should come, money, castles,
Great sweets in its hand, just say,
"I have enough today."
For worldly things
Return whence they came.
Wind will blow it all away..." (excerpt, see link below)
Prayer and meditation are the cornerstones of navigating the burdens of the world, but we each approach that in our own way. Turning toward the inner pull brings what is needed to lighten our load and opens our understanding and hearts to our own joy right here, in this world. Let today be a time of lightening --even dissolving--the burden. (Susan Nettleton)
(all quotes from "The Soul is Here for it's Own Joy, Sacred Poems from Many Cultures", edited by Robert Bly, ECCO Press, "Night and Sleep" pg. 235, "Wind Will Blow It All Away", pg. 22-229, "All the Fruit", pg. 247, 1995. )
https://www.goodreads.com/.../116512-all-the-fruit-is...
http://warpandwolf.blogspot.com/.../wind-will-blow-it-all...
June 19, 2022
"When you give up, when you enter into complete despair with hopelessness after hopelessness, just before despair and laziness take you over, you begin to develop a sense of humor." Chogyam Trungpa (Illusion's Game, The Life and Teaching of Naropa, pg. 62)"
In this quote, Tibetan Buddhist Teacher Chogyam Trungpa (1939-1987) is speaking on a particular kind of spiritual hopelessness that seizes those who struggle for spiritual Awakening, beyond the identification of a separate self or ego. I find this insight on humor helpful in humanity's, collective and individual struggle with despair and hopelessness. Humor is a form of spiritual salvation.
This Sunday, I encourage you to follow the humorous. Like beauty, humor is sprinkled about. It often takes us by surprise (surprise is one of it's qualities), but also like beauty, it is more likely to find us when we are open to it. Most people can't just make themselves laugh, but we can give way to it when it happens, from mild amusement to uncontrollable delight.
The great Hasidic Master, the Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760), expressed humor as "that thing that ushers a person's mind from a place of constricted consciousness to a place of expanded consciousness." Despair and hopelessness are rooted in constricted consciousness, where life seems hemmed in, framed in rigid barriers of limitation. Those barriers may have their concrete reality, but ultimately life is not bound by our emotions or concepts or social construction (including religious beliefs). Humor is one way that life bursts free--crossing polite boundaries, breaking collective barriers cemented with rules that prescribe what we can talk about and what we are supposed to ignore--we encounter the paradoxical, the irreverent, the outrageous, and we can heal when we learn to poke fun at ourselves and our situation.
There are many studies that show the psychological value and healing quality of laughter, but the point here is not to analyze humor but affirm it. Today, consider the comedy of life. Find something funny, or let its expanding, healing power find you. Don't be afraid to laugh. (Susan Nettleton)
For a bit of Larry Morris' spiritual humor from our website, follow the links below.
https://hillsidesource.com/daily.../2018/6/14/who-is-it?
https://hillsidesource.com/daily-thoughts/2018/6/14/ask
https://hillsidesource.com/dai.../2018/6/14/explain-yourself
June 26, 2022
This week past week has brought more political upheaval in America and sadly feeds further religious and spiritual conflict, along with other cultural divisions. This same week, the summer solstice arrived, the peak point of daylight and the shortest period of night. It is the point when summer as a seasonal event begins. Yet, this peak is also the beginning of decline in terms of daylight. In the I Ching (Book of Changes) we are reminded that peak conditions are not maintained permanently, rather they are cyclical and wisdom teaches us to move with the ebb and flow of what is named a "time of abundance", the peak stage of any process. "Therefore a sage might will feel sad in view of the decline that must follow. But such sadness does not befit him. Only (one) who is inwardly free of sorrow and care can lead in a time of abundance... be like the sun at midday, illuminating and gladdening everything under heaven. " Perhaps this is why the phrase "June is the Joy of God" came to me in this week of changes.
It seems strange with all the current events rocking the country and the world to consider Joy.
But the line is actually the title of this poem, by Larry Morris:
"June is the Joy of God"
"God's love is the warmth-shedding June
don't think
smell the lilacs
don't fret
let the crickets fill your ears
with love songs
from God"
This Joy is not about human fantasies of God's 'opinion' on social and political structures. Yes, we are active participants in society, but individual spirituality means stepping outside social structures for interior guidance on the ways in which we personally participate. Take this Sunday as a day to both recover from the shocks of recent events and to discover deeper levels of what is here and now. There is renewal in turning to nature's summer gifts (yes, even with the extreme heat and worry about what that means). Within the Joy, the giving way to summer, this summer season right here, new ideas are being formed, energy for fresh action is being generated. That applies to your individual, daily life as well as our shared collective life. This is Nature's season of Light. Let it be a summer of light for you that naturally lifts you and others. We begin by letting go of the struggle of thought today and turn to our senses and our hearts. This is the power of Nature's renewal. (Susan Nettleton)
For poet Wendell Berry's sense of Sabbaths, follow the link:
https://thesquattingsasquatch.wordpress.com/.../sabbaths.../
Follow this link for Rabindranath Tagore's exquisite reminder of universal Love:
July 3, 2022
Tomorrow is the 4th of July, America's celebration of Independence from British colonial rule and the Freedom that the new nation won. This historic drive for freedom included freedom of religion, incorporated into the U.S. Constitution in the Bill of Rights. The first amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
But religious freedom has never been an easy road in America or anywhere else. Religious fervor is a powerful human emotion that can be wielded to motivate action for positive change in one's own life and inspire collective action. But religious fervor can also be used to manipulate the individual by weaving destructive collective delusion. The history of religion, including American history, amply demonstrates this. When the social order has no religious freedom, or when spirituality is dictated and coerced, our innate individual capacity as well as our collective capacity to grow, discover, and expand life withers. No single human being, no school of thought, or religion has the complete, ultimate, final truth on Life or God. Life resonates with diversity in a weaving beyond our capacity to grasp its totality. This is the root of spiritual humility.
One of the great blessings of the 21st century is the availability of information and communication of varying viewpoints, including a vast array of ideas of spirituality, world wide religious history, ancient, foreign, and newly emerging concepts of Life--all of which can potentially contribute to a greater realization of transcendence and our own religious practice. Even the ideas we discard, shape and hone our understanding of our own beliefs and spiritual experiences. If we are courageous enough to grow beyond the safety net of fixed ideas and rigid belief systems, we enter a time of expanding consciousness where we (individually and collectively) just might find new answers and solutions to the problems we have created. Doing that requires freedom.
Let this Sunday reveal your own sense of spiritual independence and freedom. Consider the path you have taken and the role that freedom and independence has played. Keep it in your heart for the 4th of July, 2022. (Susan Nettleton)
July 5, 2022
Our next Zoom talk on "Coming Into Agreement" by Susan Nettleton will be Sunday, July 17, at 11:00 a.m. Mountain Time, 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. If you would like to receive an email invitation with the link for the talk, please message your email address, or email at hillsideew@aol.com, or leave as a phone message at 505-254-2606
July 10, 2022
Summer is now in its fullness. The last few weeks has been an interweaving of the shocks of change across America, as the concern of the Pandemic reappears and elections push to the forefront, crossing the threads of the Way of Spiritual Peace. Daily life continues and summer blossoms with intense heat, reminding us of global climate change. There is a pressure of coming events, a kind of bracing against a future wind, that humanity seems to carry. And then there is the Peace of the moment, the stillness of a summer afternoon, and the quiet of deep night that balances longer, erratic days.
This week, I find myself reflecting on the philosophy of Emerson: "To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom." How in this July 2022, can we live the "greatest number of good hours"? For Emerson, that "good" must incorporate the Good; we learn to live in a way that integrates, undulates and often alternates, the reality of our present world with our spiritually transcendent one. As he put it, we learn to live in "the mid-world". There we find all the material needed for who we are to expand and grow a larger spiritual ground. "Face life as it really is. That is forever practical." "Save on the low levels and spend on the high levels. That is forever practical".
And particularly for Sunday, "Do not craze yourself with thinking, but go about your business anywhere. Life is not intellectual or critical, but sturdy...To fill the hour--that is happiness; to fill the hour and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval." Let your Sunday, be filled with hours of Good. (Susan Nettleton)
"Human strength is not in extremes, but in avoiding extremes."
(all quotes from "The Gospel of Emerson" by Newton Dillaway, 13th ed. Unity Books, 2nd ed. 1978)
July 17, 2022
This morning I gave a Sunday Zoom talk on "Coming Into Agreement." The talk will be posted in a couple of weeks with the audio files on our website: hillsidesource.com but I am posting a segment here to consider today.
One of the great world myths found in the Bible (Genesis) and other religious sources, addresses this issue of why humans have such trouble with agreement: The Tower of Babel. t is a story of how God decentralized the great kingdom of Babylon's power and authority. We are told, the people of this kingdom, at a time of great renown, all spoke one language, and in Genesis, this extends to whole of the earth or at least the known earth. A popular movement arose with the idea of building a tower to that would reach to Heaven. The fame and power of the Kingdom would expand, and it's people would never leave. But God 'came down' and saw that if they achieved it, nothing could restrain their power; they would do anything without his command, so he vowed to confuse language so they could no longer understand each other, and then he scattered them across the Earth.
Various versions are found in other texts. In the Torah, which gives more details, the Tower is spearheaded by Nimrod, the great grandson of Noah, with some interpretations suggesting Nimrod was resentful of the Flood and didn't trust God, so he strove to expand his own power. A Greek version, 'Apocalypse of Baruch' details a vision by a scribe and disciple of the prophet Jeremiah. In the vision, he sees the punishment of the builders of the “tower of strife against God,” who "smote them with blindness and confusion of speech." In the Qur’an there is mention of an official called Haman who built a great tower in Egypt with miraculous bricks under orders of the Pharaoh, who wanted to reach God. Because Islam's teaching that language is a sacred gift and that God taught Adam all languages, with Arabic as the most sacred of the Qur'an, the Genesis story of the Tower of Babel is seen as false. From Sumerian culture, within a story of two warrior-kings building competing temples, there is the story of a rivalry of gods in a utopian past, where multi-ethnic peoples of Mesopotamia all spoke the same tongue and worshipped the same deity, Enlil. Possibly out of jealously, the god of wisdom and mischief caused humanity to separate and speak in varied tongues.
In this myth, the root of disharmony is differing languages. We know people identify with their language as a fundamental structure of their culture, and take offense when someone refuses speak it, or ridicules it. What a metaphor for our emotions and our belief systems, our points of reference, our own sense of relationship or competency. Even within a culture and shared language, we misinterpret another's words and meaning. Learning another language is humbling; you make mistakes; others--the foreigners-- know more than we do. Yet, the need to speak another's language, pushes us to enter, to some degree, another's mind-set, different from ours.
The world's story is still in process from the various ancient myths of the Tower of Babel to 2022; perhaps this myth is not all punishment. To me, it is about the beauty and necessity of diversity. Nature exhibits diversity, an overwhelming abundance of variation of whatever theme is expressed. The people of the Earth too, come in abundant varieties. Diversity doesn't just separate; diversity provides a rich field of exchange and exchange increases our options for creativity, adaptation and survival. The tellers of the myth left out a crucial piece of meaning, the gift hidden in the scattered and divergent. The global scientific and medical exchange of the Pandemic--flawed and limited it may be--has saved lives. The global climate change debates and negotiations is another exchange in process. These kinds of efforts toward world-wide problems are not about coming into some universal collective mind, or world religion, or even unification. We are of one planet, but with diverse minds. It's astounding when you think of the varieties of microbial, plant, and animal life on Earth, and then turn to human expectation and demands that we all look alike, think alike, believe alike, or that we can rank the rich resource of variety that is humanity. What appeared as one thing centuries ago, may be something entirely different in life's unfolding. Scrambling the language and scattering the people was a good move. (Susan Nettleton)
July 24, 2022
(from Barry Cornwall, 19 century)
"Oh, the Summer Night
Has a smile of light,
And she sits on a sapphire throne..."
Every summer, the above lines return to my mind, imprinted very early in my life (probably from a high school English class), reminding me of the beauty of night in summer. Until I left for college, summer nights were a time of freedom and play, of long outdoor discussions with friends, of ocean moons and mysterious shooting stars. These words echoed again this week, when I realized how little I have ventured out at night during the Pandemic--mainly, errands in my car. Night does bring relief to the extreme heat of this summer, but postponing errands until sunset because of heat doesn't really touch the level of the power of a summer night. Luckily, the city here is offering movies in the park--and the poem pushed me to grab a camp chair and hike to the show. The evening was a throwback to simpler times, with families lounging on blankets in the grass, a few night picnics, crying babies, children at chase and elders in...camp chairs--a lovely evening, but the greatest part was my walk home with a flashlight and a renewed communion with night.
In his classic analysis of Indian thought, S. Radhakrishnan (Indian Philosophy, Volume I, pg. 138) quotes an ancient Buddhist proverb: "Long to the watcher is the night, To the weary wand'rer along the road, To him who will not see truth's light, Long is the torment of his chain of births." This is a jarring turn away from my night adventure! It is a reminder that many religious teachings, including early Christianity, with it's eagerness for the world's end in Christ's return, have seen life on earth as "torment". A key defining point of individual spirituality is our answer to the question: do we see earthly life as a treasure or a curse?
Night is often associated with the absence of spiritual Light, or a time of spiritual struggle, when we no longer fit in with the worldly pursuits of society, but have yet to come into a state of spiritual Peace and Acceptance. Night is the unconscious, imperceptible workings of God within. Beyond these spiritual metaphors, night is a gift and full of life that is different from day, even though we sleep. Take this week to discover it's wonder and beauty. I trust the power of night. (Susan Nettleton)
"Keep going; never stop; sit tight;
Read something luminous at night.”
Edmund Wilson Jr. (20th century) Night poetry, follow the links: https://poets.org/poem/evening-3
July 31, 2022
This Sunday as part of summer ease, I'm suggesting you take a Complaint Break. I cannot claim the originality of the phrase; it was coined by self-help author Shad Helmsetter in his book Choices (1990). His point, as many others have made, is that frequent complaining is a habit of thought (and feeling) that over time undermines our well-being and shapes a distorted, one-sided view of life. It also undermines relationships, since people tire of hearing complaints, especially if directed toward them!
Complaining may seem only natural, particularly in 2022 when it has become increasingly difficult to find sustained positive news, and conflict can seem the norm. Don't confuse complaining with assertive action or honestly dealing with problems in relationship and work, and/or with your own mistakes. The key words that distinguish positive response from complaint are "problem solving" and "action". A Complaint Break is about letting go of repetitive thoughts that dwell on mistakes, resentments and grievances, bringing us dissatisfaction and emotional pain. Letting go of our complaints, may well include the spiritual work of forgiveness.
Today's focus though, is on giving yourself a break from your own dissatisfaction with yourself, others, life. Paradoxically, you may discover several complaints that have already started taking root in your mind, because when we pull away from any habit of thought, that habit can chase us, pulling us back. So we don't judge our complaining today; we don't fight it or put our mind to confrontation; we are taking a break and letting life, situations, and people be fine today.
Tomorrow we may pick up the challenge of really taking a look at a sore spot of complaint, and set our sights on resolving it with the tools we know. Those tools include sitting with it in prayer and meditation, setting aside time to problem solve, talking it over with another and taking action as well as forgiveness. But today we just shift our thoughts to enjoy a day of peace and awareness of the gifts of life around us. We can do our best to avoid the complaints of others, to be compassionate or stay neutral or silent as best we can. This last day in July 2022, we can all use a complaint break. (Susan Nettleton)
For "No Complaints" by poet Nikki Geovanni: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/90181/no-complaints
From our website:
https://hillsidesource.com/daily.../2018/6/20/complaints
https://hillsidesource.com/.../6/28/completing-the-complaint
August 7, 2022
Last Sunday, I wrote of taking a Complaint Break; today I encourage you to consider the vaster field of struggling with people and situations and reach for a larger reality. Complaints are one of the ways our brains have developed to protect our sense of self--we deflect our difficulties and struggles and experience them as the fault of 'other': personalities, groups, the planets, or all sorts of ideas of sources external to ourselves. What then, are the boundaries of self? This is not by any means a simple question--it is a core question of human life in relationship to the Unknown. To me, the most natural way to expand our understanding of self vs. other vs. Other (Transcendent) is to circle around it again and again as life presents us with circumstances that spark conflict and confusion, as well as insight. So in that practice, I offer you some quotes to ponder today as you move about your life. This one is from Witter Brynner's translation of Lao Tzu's "The Way of Life":
"As the soft yield of water cleaves obstinate stone,
So to yield with life solves the insoluble:
To yield, I have learned, is to come back again."
Yielding to life is a central principle of Taoist thought; here the yielding is itself the solution. And that yielding involves return; we return over and over again, actively engaging in life as best we can from a spiritual perspective. In time, often when we least expect it, we gain insight, even expansive revelation. When the prospect of return seems overwhelmingly difficult or we are too deeply wounded, Ramana Maharshi's verse can be soothing. From Sri Muruganar's translation in poetic form ("The Garland of Guru's Sayings"):
" 297: Do not dwell in the desert hot of the non-self, eating arid sand. come into the Heart, the mansion Cool, shady, vast, serene And feast on the bliss of Self."
Now we have the idea that most of our struggles involve the non-self. Indeed spiritual practice is often about letting go of the non-self, defined in varied ways. But Self is not about knowledge and knowing; it is about Being. From Ramana (The Garland of Guru's Sayings):
"576: Knowing a thing is only drawing The boundary that limits it. Defining, measuring, is the mark Of knowledge. The all-transcending Self Cannot be measured and cannot be known."
If it cannot be known (or not known in the usual way we understand that), what are we to do? Consider this advice from Lao Tzu. (Susan Nettleton)
"There is no need to run outside
For better seeing,
Nor to peer from a window. Rather abide
At the center of your being;
For the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Search your heart and see
If he is wise who takes each turn:
The way to do is to be. "
August 14, 2022
“It takes a very long time to become young.”
― Pablo Picasso
While summer remains, consider a plunge into your youthful nature. The annual stirring of 'back to school' energy has already begun and despite the heat waves, mornings and evenings still bring children to parks and neighborhood gatherings. This is a time where you can feel the pull of the freshness of youth and the adventure of learning and discovery that still lies within you. It may be faint, lost under the burden of adult responsibility or an aging body or even the trauma of these years of Pandemic, or your own childhood, but it is there. Our capacity to feel young at heart is healing. It opens us spiritually to a renewed sense of wonder and expectancy. It brings us into a closer connection with God. We are more open--less cluttered with assumptions, disappointments, and mistrust. It brings us closer to those who are younger in a way that paradoxically frees us to give our support and life experience to the newer generations.
Years ago in India, I visited my teacher and friend, U.G. Krishnamurti, in a private living room packed with people. That night, U.G. was in a boisterous mood, spinning jokes with artist (and natural comic) Louis Brawley. U.G., who was then 85, had been ill and was still rather frail, but he suddenly astonished the crowd by asking Louis for a piggy-back ride. Louis, a big, strong guy always up for a challenge, quickly managed to get U.G. on his shoulders in an unbelievable scene that sent shock waves through the room. As they danced around the people huddled on the floor, U.G. on Louis' shoulders, the westerners began raising their hands and pumping their fists like at a wrestling match or rock concert, shouting/chanting "U.G.!, U.G.! U.G.!" The Indians were appalled. This shattered all the protocols for hosting an enlightened sage. Some were enraged; some were terrified he would fall. I sat there filled with grateful amazement, because I was witnessing an ancient archetype: the spiritual master, ignoring "the teachings" to play with children in the dance of life.
Today, despite the world's pressing problems, your troubles, or the troubles of the younger ones in your life, this day--everyday--holds joy. The world is not lifted by wringing our hands and fretting. Lift your heart instead. May you stay forever young. (Susan Nettleton)
follow the link to Bob Dylan's lyrics: https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/forever-young/
August 21, 2022
A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?"
Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason." (Zen master, 1904-1971)
This Sunday I am urging you to cultivate positive experiences for yourself and for those around you and in your care. Paradoxically, a friend sent the quote on suffering to me early this morning. Let's begin with the quote, because positive experiences heal the scars of suffering.
The Suzuki quote is not what it seems on the surface. Centuries of deep philosophical thought and prayer have searched for and designed countless explanations for human suffering. These explanations, from karma to the fall of Adam, underlie all religious structures. They may satisfy many hearts, but breakdown when the onslaught of suffering becomes unmanageable and we are overwhelmed with the disconnect between modern life and religious thinking. We assume there is a reason, a cause and an effect; if we knew the cause of suffering then we could heal and prevent. But Zen is not linear logic--it cracks open the container of our assumptions. Suzuki's answer is not necessarily that there are no grounds or understanding to suffering, but rather that "reasoning" is not the way. We cannot arrive at the "answer" through such a question.
The very structure that asks the question has to give way to what is "unknowable".
That does not mean that we are left comfortless or without recourse. One of the bits of understanding being explored through modern psychology and genetic science is the benefit of positive experience. I recently attended an online medical conference that included an overview of pediatric trauma and the power of positive experiences to mitigate the impact of childhood trauma. The data was very impressive. This is increasingly important given the tragedies and turmoil that children have endured in the Pandemic and the surging numbers of mental health issues society faces. Neuroscience points to the role of branching neural pathways and telomeres (tiny protein chains that cap our DNA and prevent their unraveling) in health, healing and resiliency. Positive experiences in both adults and children lengthen telomeres; longer telomeres are strongly associated with healthier lives and longevity. Branching of neurons occurs when we have a variety of positive experiences--when our lives "branch out" beyond constricted repetition of thought, sensory input and relationship with others. This is particularly important in children whose brains are highly active in branching. Adults benefit from branching out as well!
Positive experiences are simply meaningful, rewarding and/or enjoyable moments of time. There is not one description that is defines "positive" for everyone, but rather follows your personal interests and then stretches into new paths of discovery. They include both private moments and shared experiences. They add a sense of gratitude for that time and they are indeed both protective and healing. No matter how far away you (or someone you know) may seem from enjoyment and gratitude, a positive moment begins the path of return. (Susan Nettleton)
Come, come whoever you are
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving
Oh come, come whoever you are
This isn’t a caravan of despair
It doesn’t matter if you’ve broken your vows a thousand times before
Still yet again, come again come
Yet again, come----------Jalaluddin Rumi
August 28, 2022
The recent announcement of a White House summit next month to address hate-fueled violence brought to my mind these lines from Chuang Tzu (369 B.C.-286 B.C.):
...When the heart is right "For" and "against" are forgotten. No drives, no compulsions, No needs, no attractions: Then your affairs Are under control. You are a free man.
In an time when "for and against" has become a frighteningly common tactic to undermine a united sociability and basic human to human respect, Chuang Tzu's ancient philosophy gives a key to understanding: "When the heart is right, for and against are forgotten". The heart he speaks of is not about the circulation of blood, but rather the concept of heart in ancient China that includes both our feeling nature and our thoughts, each feeding the other. But how do we set our hearts "right"? Here we enter the spiritual realm. For Chuang Tzu there is a naturalness to this that comes with giving way to the flow of life and the Tao as the underlying principle of life. (See link below for the complete poem) This is an intuitive process, muddied by cultural pressures, schooled intellect, and a sense of separation. Taoism is a holistic response to the shifting sands of life--not piece-meal. Such an intuitive practice has it's own stops and starts and misfires. With practice, we find our way and even "for and against" struggles are simply forgotten.
This reflection reminded me of a case presentation I heard in a Mental Health conference on the impact of Covid. The patient was an older man who wasn't doing what he wanted to do as Covid restrictions faded. He was paralyzed in depression, with various health and aging issues complicating things and slowing him down. He perceived his life as worthless and meaningless, developing the attitude of "a countdown" to final incapacitation and death. The therapist, rather than directly tackling his despair, encouraged him to list the various ideas that had occurred to him that he kept rejecting-- things that he would like to do if only he wasn't old, ailing, and depressed. They were not extravagant fantasies of high adventure, but did involve interacting with others and risks of one level or another. They included visiting family out of state, going to dinner in a nearby town at new restaurant he had read about, taking a stab at writing and submitting an article on his philosophical musings, reading newly released books that pulled at some corner of his mind with a sense of intrigue. In therapy, he considered the activities that he had previously dismissed with "why bother, it's impossible". Now, he saw they did actually hold appeal; part of him wanted to try and part of him felt hopeless. He began to see that his failure to act created further hopelessness. As he actively engaged in planning the steps he would need to take for each item on his list, each step considered by itself was do-able. Bit by bit, he set new activity in motion, gathering momentum through positive experiences. Despair faded away. His heart became right. Impossibility and hopelessness were forgotten.
While the forces of hate are clearly exploited by larger undermining, anti-social agendas, we are more susceptible to them when we are personally frustrated, saddened and hopeless about our lives. Consider this Sunday, your own right heart and new ways to follow it. (Susan Nettleton)
For Chuang Tzu's complete poem (trans. by Thomas Merton) see: https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/.../thomas-merton-when...
September 4, 2022
This Labor Day weekend brings 2022's migrating extreme heat to southern California--another direct reminder of our collective dependency on the natural environment. As varying areas of the country wrestle with natural disasters and "un-natural" (unfamiliar) weather patterns, the consequences of a changing climate become more real. This is not a swift process, regardless of the urgency of immediate needs and genuine emergencies that erupt in extreme weather. Specific situations demand we act in the moment, but digesting and coming into alignment with global changes--a change of collect consciousness-- takes time. The collective change is an inner movement that impacts each of us, initially unconsciously, even as we attend to our private lives, personal concerns, and familiar routines. Extreme weather disrupts routines, disrupts expectations. At best we are unsettled, more aware of the hardships others face, and begin to prepare for a changing future. The more flexible we are, the more we can adapt and the more we can offer support for others.
But how do we adapt? What do we need to do? Those who have been immersed in ecological study for decades have one form of knowledge that offers road maps for reconstructing society's relationship with nature through regulation, technology and global cooperation. Cooperation may be the most difficult to achieve.
As individuals, living spiritually, consider this teaching from Anthony de Mello's, The Song of the Bird (1984). He retells the classic metaphor of the ocean fish who searched for the thing called the ocean, missing the reality of ocean all around him. De Mello writes of a seeker who complains of looking for God on mountain peaks, in the desert, in monasteries, and among the poor but never finding God. There was nothing the teacher could say, because the all-ness of God was alive in the sunset, the hundreds of gathering birds, the sounds of human traffic and the buzz of a mosquito near his ear.... He concludes with, "Stop searching, little fish. There isn't anything to look FOR. All you have to do is look."
Today is a day to look, hear, smell, touch, or taste life. We will grow into new social action. Spiritually, we don't have to look FOR nature's signs and directions; even as the collective consciousness is reckoning with the new, we are that new, that evolving shift. We are embedded in this living Earth.
Follow the link for Amanda Gorman's inspiring poem Earthrise https://www.sierraclub.org/.../earthrise-poem-amanda-gorman
September 10, 2022
Hillside Community Church Sunday Talk by Dr. Susan Nettleton
on Zoom
Topic: The Way of Retrieval
Time: Sep 18, 2022 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
11:00 AM Mountain Time
Email us at hillsideew@aol.com requesting the link for the Zoom talk, or contact us through our website at hillsidesource.com
September 11, 2022
Today is Sept. 11, now designated as America's Patriot Day in remembrance of those--almost 3,000-- who died in the 2001, Sept. 11 attack. Patriot Day has become a call to a day of service to the country and/or the larger collective Good, in the spirit of those who gave their lives in service and sacrifice during and after the attack. Today we are are called to both remember and 'give back'. The horror and tragedy of Sept. 11 united America. Now 21 years later, during 2 1/2 years of Pandemic, we have lost over 1 million people to Covid-19, and witnessed great sacrifices from essential workers and medical staff who have served the emergency needs of the country, yet we face increasing division in our country. Today is a day to remember 'giving back', in a way that defines unity. Prayer is one way, a cooperative spirit is another. We don't need to think so much of grand gestures of remembrance and service; it is the intent of gratitude and unity that matter here. That intent may also tug at you to forgive.
Here in Southern California we have come through another kind of test of unity and cooperation in the face of climate change. The extreme heat wave created a power grid emergency, which threatened the state's electricity supply to its limit. On Tuesday, my cellphone set off the alarm for emergency notifications from the state with a warning that if power usage continued to rise, rolling black outs would begin. The alert urged residents to take all possible measures to conserve electricity during the peak hours of 4-9 p.m. The instructions were respectful, clear cut, with links to specific data on the threat, and gently acknowledged that those with health issues might not be able to comply. In our household, we immediately switched off appliances and brainstormed how to work around inconveniences. The alerts were sent to 39 million people. Power usage plunged immediately! Rolling black-outs were avoided. Daily alerts continued through the week and so did immediate public response. As the weather shifted with Hurricane Kay's landfall and the heat receded, critics began their complaints. But in those days of clear information and an appeal to collective effort, there was really no space, no time for division. I'm sure there was grumbling and some wounds to entitlement, but the power of agreement, unity, and respect prevailed.
A mature concept of service includes understanding that the good of the whole, includes our good. Spiritually, this is not really about self sacrifice; the boundary of self doesn't shrink--it expands to Allness. (Susan Nettleton)
For a memorial perspective from Juan Ramon Jimenez (scroll to bottom for English translation), https://heardatdawn.blogspot.com/.../remordimiento-or...
September 18, 2022
Today's post is an excerpt from this morning's Zoom Talk, "The Way of Renewal":
The Way of Retrieval. This topic actually came to me when I was sorting through a section of books that I've been trying to downsize for years. I was flipping through Larry Morris' booklet "Glimpses of Grace", a thin stapled book of aphorisms, little ideas or, glimpses that came to him over time...I was flipping through it and my eyes settled on "Clear path, way of retrieval". That Intrigued me. Over the years, I have looked at aspects of the spiritual life from many angles and traditions, so it seems natural to look at the way of retrieval. Definition of retrieve leads us to the prefix re--which means again or describes something that is being repeated, but it also means back, getting it back; you have to go back to an object or a prior state. The trieve part as a verb is "catching, acquiring, accessing or fetch". The noun is treasure or bounty, or a goal, a mission. So the Way of getting something back, or going back to get something, bring something back, or recalling, getting something back from memory.
Then there's this phrase, "clear path". Why is it a clear path? Because retrieval implies the known, a prior state or condition as opposed to the unknown. There are layers to that in human experience and there are values that underlie the pull to retrieve. Retrieval is a response to loss or misplaced or out of reach; it carries the appeal of the familiar, the comfort and stability that familiarity brings. That seems especially significant in times of uncertainty or when traumatic events have disturbed and disrupted our "place", our safety, our belonging. The familiar brings less wear and tear, unless of course it is riddled with conflict. Much of the role of religion in the life of people and cultures is to give us a framework for dealing with loss and the disruption of life, by provide meaning, structure and community. Retrieval can re-establish order. The one photograph or notebook or old letters salvaged from fire or flood is external and yet internal material for re-establishing order and stability; it's like a stake for a tent, or setting a beam to support a structure. Trauma often means those emblems of stability fly off with the shattering experience, but some can be retrieved. So retrieval has roots in the known and our attachments, which weave our earliest sense of stability, control and resiliency. What we treasure as individuals, what is worth retrieval, varies.
In Spiritual retrieval as an individual, we have the idea of various forms of healing, redemption, return, sometimes experienced through our own insight, or pain, or just getting lost in the duties of regular life. We may realize we've misplaced or lost focus on our spiritual life and practice The thread of the spiritual is always available. Our willingness to find it again and again and again is an opening process. The significant thing is the decision to retrieve it. Pick up a practice again. Find the corner of time or space for prayer or meditation. Intention and action. (Susan Nettleton)
follow the link for Robert Bly's poem on retrieval, "People Like Us" https://mypoetryparty.blogspot.com/.../people-like-us-by...
September 25, 2022
I have been reflecting on a poem I came across yesterday by Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1841) in his classic spiritual volume, Gitanjali, verse 88. Gitanjali is known as "Song Offerings", devotional verses that flow from the poet's spiritual journey. The book was Tagore's way of sorting through his relationship to God following a time of devastating personal losses.
Verse 88 (see link below) speaks of spiritual neglect in an abandoned temple where flowers and prayers are no longer offered, although flowers still bloom outside as festival days pass in silence. One lone devotee, who must enter the daily world of weary work, returns nightly with unmet longing. While the poem belongs to a larger context of verses, reading that specific one has me reflecting on the 21st century dynamic of spirituality and the world of work and material necessity. That is of course a timeless dynamic: the pull of the worldly life of commerce, of basic needs that morph into the desire for more than what is needed with the pressure to fulfill social expectations and/or achieve personal prestige and power. Urbanization, global economies, increasing technology and 24-hour nonstop "days" of availability, communication, shipments and deliveries, inflation and shortages, chip away at a rhythm of life that no longer supports time to nurture a spiritual life.
While ancient temples still offer a sacred space, even when abandoned (I am thinking of the moments I entered tourist-filled, exquisite cathedrals in Europe, and small abandoned neighborhood shrines in Japan and almost primordial cave temples in India), the real temple is the one we carry with us. We each have our own private place of prayer in our heart/mind, built of both intention and necessity. Today, if even for a few moments, stop to enter there. Bring your offering of gratitude and a new trust. The wearier you are, the better. This is where you truly rest and where you find there are not two worlds, the material and the spiritual, but one Source that supplies all. (Susan Nettleton)
for Tagore's verse 88, follow the link: https://project-tagore.blogspot.com/.../gitanjali-verse...
for a reminder that nature also provides it's own temple experience:
https://poetry-chaikhana.com/.../SecondPoemth/index.html
for Larry Morris' take on a Visionary Heart:
https://hillsidesource.com/dail.../2018/5/25/visionary-heart
October 2, 2022
Last night, reflecting on the 1st of October, I recalled an unusual October morning when I was an undergraduate, walking across campus at the University of Houston--unusual in the sense that it was an incredibly vibrant day, a day of crisp cool air and vast, rich blue sky. All around, life was filled with energy, students rushing to classes or sprawled on grassy fields; the lovely oaks, and hedges surrounding the buildings, the buildings themselves, seemed to vibrate with a new quickening. Something popped into my head that simply said, "This is Fall"! It was as though I had never understood what the shift of seasons meant. ( In sub-tropic Houston, seasons were subtle.) For those few moments, the full impact of a seasonal shift hit me. For the first time, I understood the seasons as part of a larger mechanism of life that continually self-renews. I was renewed. My life was changing. And change it did--that fall brought powerful shifts in my relationships, my studies and my spiritual life.
With the extreme heat this September, the days have not given much hint of fall, but they have shortened and just now there is a hint of that golden light that the changing angle of the sun provides as we move into October. Erratic climate patterns and weather emergencies, have disrupted our intuitive sense of shifting seasons--not necessarily by the weather itself, but by the internal alarm that frequent alerts, urgent warnings and catastrophic news (even if far from home) trigger in the culture. Yet, we have within us our own awareness of the movements of nature; we are part of the way life is renewed again and again through the cycles of seasons. This week is a good time to feel the stirrings of that renewal. To do that, we need to quiet the alarm enough to truly feel the quickening. It seems to me a vital part of the environmental changes we will collectively make.
At the same time we can stay open to the spiritual level that turns the wheel of life's cycles and seasons. Each awakening to nature is a spiritual awakening. Each awakening to our personal interior response to the cycles and seasons is a spiritual awakening. That October day in Houston, I didn't just discover the power of the seasons; I discovered joy. (Susan Nettleton)
For a poetic nudge in contemplation of fall, follow the links:
https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../AutumnMoon/index.html
https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../Autumnchrysa/index.htm
https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../SecondPoemth/index.html
October 9, 2022
“Do you have the patience to wait Till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving Till the right action arises by itself?” Lao Tzu
This Sunday I am thinking about the parallels between deep immersion in nature and deep immersion in meditation. Both serve to renew us. Mounting research in the field of Ecopsychology shows that time spent in nature benefits human health. Various studies highlight the benefits: lower blood pressure, lower stress hormone levels, lower anxiety, enhanced immune system, increased self-esteem, improved sleep and mood, and lower risk of cardiovascular disease. When we look at the research on meditation, we find the same health impact.
A 2019 Nature research project (20,000 people) from the European Centre for Environment and Human Health, established 2 hours a week as the standard time to spend in nature to achieve these benefits. That breaks down to 17.14 minutes a day. Weekly cumulative time is what matters in nature, not daily time. I'm breaking it down only to compare with daily meditation. The usual recommendation for health benefits from meditation is 10-20 minutes a day, in either 1 or 2 sessions. (Over the years, I have recommended a meditation beginner start with 10 or 15 minutes daily, and then increase by 5 minutes each year, until reaching what you learn is optimal for you.)
But as beneficial as they are, these comparisons around health research only touch the surface of human experience. Time spent in a park is healthier than time spent in a treeless concrete parking lot. Taking 10 minutes out of your day to calm your breath and quiet thought is healthier than spending time with muscle tension, fighting a keyboard, or a co-worker, and rehearsing disturbing events in your mind. Consider beyond this: deep immersion. Consider that this Sunday holds the opportunity for deep immersion, maybe in nature, maybe in meditation...or perhaps both.
What is important here is the letting go of the structures of daily thoughts, habits, routines, and place--the world of social pressure and human expectations in a human-constructed world. Instead, we re-enter what is natural, a natural outer field and a natural spiritual interior. There we find not only healing, but also a discovery: the right action arises by itself. (Susan Nettleton)
For a brilliant commentary by poet Ivan M. Granger on Gary Snyder's meditation/nature poem, "On Top", follow the link:
https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../Sny.../OnTop/index.html
October 16, 2022
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” — Confucius
This morning I am considering the stops and starts of the spiritual journey. Actually, at this time in my sense of spirituality, there are are no stopping points; the spiritual is synonymous with life. Life and spirit are not two separate things. At some point, life as we know and experience it comes to a point we name as death, but death is not necessarily a stopping point. While we are living as the body and psyche of this individual identity in this world, we are living our spirituality. We may personally yearn for greater understanding, faith, or confirmation of spiritual states and transcendence, but despite our conscious striving and interpretation, we remain at the pinnacle of our spiritual life. Our longings and struggles are the exact movements that are opening life, creating and unfolding our individual lives as a creative spiritual process. Our times of insight and awakenings, in the same way, open and expand our lives further. Ebb and flow are principles of life and therefore of spirituality. Sometimes movement is dramatic and deeply satisfying, sometime movement is healing and deeply reassuring, sometimes life is devastatingly painful and hard--we feel abandoned-- and sometimes life is seemingly static and stuck. Is it really necessary to name any of these experiences as less than our spiritual good?
Emmett Fox offers the analogy of a boat that sails on the waves of high tide, but ends up running aground during low tide. Maybe some unexpected circumstances caused the grounding, or maybe lack of awareness. Sometimes it works to push the boat out, or seek emergency assistance, but what looks like one situation at low tide will be a completely different matter in 6 hours when high tide returns, which it will. The tide is nothing personal; it simply is the way of the water in the larger movement of life's gravitational pulls. We all have our times of being "grounded" in our spiritual life, caught up in social aspects, or responsibilities and duties that may sap our time, energy and spiritual focus. But these things are not separate, really, from the spiritual life. Time for spiritual practice and contemplation returns, especially if we don't fight with the ebb and flow, trying to force ourselves and everyone around us to align with our will or a rigid agenda. Instead, we stay the course set before us, and let our hearts remember the larger reality that all human drama is enfolded in--a spiritual life.
When new light shines on us, it often comes when we least expected it, not on demand. As the saying of Jesus (Matthew 24:44) directs, “Be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” Rather than the traditional interpretation that Jesus was warning of his Apocalyptic return to Earth, Emmett Fox interprets this teaching metaphysically as an interior experience of Christ consciousness (or a spiritual Awakening or Insight) that arises unexpectedly, like "a thief in the night". The point is that illumination doesn't fit our personal time tables, but happens when the time is right, when new insight and revelation best serve the context of our lives. Our part is to leave that inner space actually open and receptive, whether events are fast-tracked or slow, exciting or boring, at high or low tide. (Susan Nettleton)
For a short poem by Larry Morris, follow the link: https://hillsidesource.com/freshstart
October 23, 2022
This week I've returned to contemplating the uniqueness of the individual spiritual path and its impact on relationship. As I wrote on our website (hillsidesource.com) , "The Hillside Source presents the idea that every individual has his/her/its own connection to the spiritual underpinning of life. Even though life has but one Source, God being the traditional term for that Source, life produces individuals--each distinct and unique. Therefore, though we share countless commonalities and are ultimately interdependent, there are distinctions in how we find and express the Transcendent. Life is one; paths are infinite." While religion has the cultural power to establish communities based on shared beliefs and practices, over time, the variety of interpretations create rifts and divisions-- new denominations and sects form and branch away from traditional roots. At the core, communities, spiritual or otherwise, are made of individuals, just as families are. Each path, regardless of depth of agreement, differs from another's. Yet, within our spiritual pulls, we have both the pull to be unique and the pull to belong to and with others.
Someone once wrote me: "One has to give up a part of one's self in order to be a part of someone else life." My response was, "It depends on your definition of self". Whether we are talking about daily worldly life, or whether we are speaking of the spiritual life, the issues are the same; we seemingly make compromises of our spiritual life, or our personal worldly wants and needs to "belong". But isn't this division an aspect of life itself? Is it possible to see that our spiritual life includes the flowing of life from separation to union, from giving to receiving, from accommodating to impeding, engagement to non-engagement and the reverse? With deepening awareness of an underlying unity and rhythm to life, our sense of self expands. As Walt Whitman put it, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes)."
We tie ourselves in knots when we restrict our sense of self and spiritual practice too narrowly. But without some boundaries, it is impossible to navigate this complex world or follow our inner directive. The task calls for some elasticity that allows us to stretch the boundary of the self, and yet, pull back into shape to stabilize. Consider your own elasticity today as well as your unique path. (Susan Nettleton)
One form of this elasticity evident in contemporary poetry translations is in the translator's personal interpretation/meaning of spiritual poetry offered as a version of the poet's meaning.
Daniel Ladinsky's translation of St. Teresa of Avila (link below) is an example. Are the words hers or his? Does it matter? As history and religious authenticity, it may matter, as spiritual food perhaps not. Follow the link: https://thisunlitlight.com/.../24/i-loved-what-i-could-love/
October 30, 2022
Tomorrow is Halloween--a day and night mixture of traditions, history and spiritual tones, linked with both pagan practices and Christianity, as well as All Saints Day and Day of the Dead. It can stir up controversy, the genuinely frightening, often mischief, and simply fun. Today it has me thinking of Prasad and generosity. Prasad is a spiritual practice from Hinduism; it is the act of bringing food as a spiritual offering to the Divine. The Divine (or representative in various forms) in turn shares the food with the devotee, in a spiritualized process of exchange and mutual enjoyment. Visits with my friend and teacher, U.G. Krishnamurti, often involved spontaneous Prasad. It was well know that he had a preference for Leonidas Belgian white chocolates and visitors would unexpectedly arrive with a box, or someone would ship a delivery box to surprise him. Immediately, he would present everyone in the room with a piece of Heaven. Whatever the mood of the day would lift, had to lift, with this incredibly indulgent confection. Refusal was not possible. Those who tried to avoid calories or the fine ingredients of cream, sugar and coffee would find themselves coerced to eat even more in their resistance, as U.G. declared, "We need to sweeten you up." And sweeten it did. There was magic in those moments.
Halloween, it strikes me, is a holiday of generosity as well as collective fantasies. There are cultures which still practice a religious respect and hospitality to arriving travelers and strangers, because the stranger at your door may be a Divine being in disguise. Modern American life has one night of tradition that opens the door to disguise--in every imaginable form--rewarding the visit with candy. We have our community events as well, abundant with sweets. In spite of all the corn syrup, fructose, and artificial flavors and colors, one night of sweet overload is collectively understood as mysteriously useful. And there is a generosity of shared creativity, especially here in L.A. County, where neighborhoods are bursting with amazing transformations of Halloween decor, freely offered to all. Is it possible to approach all of this as a kind of Prasad, an offering that is shared, an exchange of wonder and delight in play and pretense, Lila (the Divine play that is life itself), a time of offering and generosity of spirit?
Even if you choose to turn out the lights and lock your door, and withdraw from the neighborhood parade (which I have done on many Halloweens), look for a moment of Prasad this week. Share your sweetness. (Susan Nettleton)
I shared this link previously in January, but it is worth re-reading this week as Oct. turns to Nov. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/.../the-season-of...
November 6, 2022
"Paradise" by Larry Morris
Gold
trees
in
my
window
Sunday
morning
Albuquerque
November
This Sunday is a good time to stop for a moment and recognize the beauty of November. Hopefully, wherever you are, you can find that beauty and let it bring you peace. Let today have a space for peace before we all gear up for the social pressure of this November. That pressure includes the beginning of the Holiday Season with Thanksgiving gatherings, often travel, and all the concerns around Covid and health in general. We have the ongoing pressure of inflation and the various events that underlie financial worries. And in the forefront, Tuesday is election day with an outcome that--despite polls, ads, social media and speeches-- remains an unknown, in an atmosphere that includes deliberate attempts to further polarize and divide America.
Let your inner peace, expand to a collective outer peace, and let that expansion in turn, deepen your personal peace. From the tradition of New Thought with it's emphasis on our individual spiritual consciousness as the bedrock of outer peace, we have what seems like an over simplistic idea: Peace begins with me. Yet, the collective is but the sum total of the peace of individuals. Collective peace begins with individual realization of the intricate interweaving of all creation, in an affirmation of the essential Goodness and Peace of the Whole. We name that "the Spiritual", or "God". Emmett Fox wrote: "The secret of happiness and harmony is Peace of Mind--and there is no other. You find Peace of Mind by getting right with God."
How do you "get right" with God? The answer again is an individual one. It comes in moving beyond anything within your consciousness, your awareness, your feeling nature, that has separated you, or built a barrier between your experience of your life right now and the Peace of God. As St. Paul wrote (Romans 8: 38-39), "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God...."
Where there is love, there is Peace. (Myanmar proverb)
A willingness to see beyond your mental rehearsals, a renewed faith and trust, a new receptivity to positive participation, a return to prayer and meditation, forgiveness, surrender, giving way, letting go--all of these are possible path's to Peace of Mind. Follow the 'nagging feeling' of your heart, leading you, and thereby all of us, to Peace. (Susan Nettleton)
Follow the links below for more poems by Larry Morris on Peace of Mind.
https://hillsidesource.com/release
November 13, 2022
"I will show you what is glorious. The sun is glorious. When he shineth in the clear sky, when he sitteth on his throne in the heavens, and looketh abroad over the earth, he is the most glorious and excellent object the eye can behold." John Keble (1792-1866)
Yesterday, I received a text from a friend who was happily congratulating herself for rising early in the morning, tackling and completing her errands by mid morning, while I was still finding my way to coffee. It occurred to me that this Sunday is a good time to shake off the lethargy that Autumn's lengthening nights and shorter days often bring by spending time in sunlight.
While we adjust to Daylight Savings time, await further election news, and perhaps reflect on the stalled Sunshine Protection Act, take your spiritual practice into sunlight. Even if you are on the go from here to there, linger outside a bit to savor the sun. If you are in winter storm mode and must wait, find that inner correlate: the gift of light, always there, always supporting.
Life outside our homes takes us beyond our self-preoccupation and into both the reality of other people, known and unknown, and the natural world. Over the last century we learned the potential harmful effects of too much and too intense ultraviolet sunlight on our skin, yet the sun, even with brief exposure, remains a source of essential health in other ways. Sunlight activates the release of serotonin, boosting mood, and preventing or lifting seasonal depression. Sunlight is also the source of Vitamin D essential to human health, both the regulation of our immune system and of bone strength. Early morning sunlight aids in regulating our circadian rhythms crucial to regulating our cycles of waking and sleeping. There are other positive factors as well, including some anti-bacterial effects, promoting healing of skin disorders, and in certain circumstances, blood pressure regulation-- aspects that are under study.
"Every day, priests minutely examine the Law
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind and rain, the snow and moon. " Ikkyu (Crazy Cloud Anthology of A Zen poet of Medieval Japan, tr. Sonya Artuzen) from poetry-chaikana.com
All of this is a reminder that human life is supported by our relationship with nature. As we alter nature, we alter that which supports us, in a highly intricate, complex system that we only minutely understand. But we do understand some things; sunlight calls us outside--even as the weather becomes less predictable. Today, I'm taking my coffee into the sunlight. Consider it a spiritual practice. (Susan Nettleton)
for further poetic perspective, follow the links
November 16, 2022
Our next Zoom talk with Dr. Susan Nettleton, speaking on "The Self You Are Not" will be November 27,2022 at 11:00 A.M. Mountain Time (10:A.M. Pacific Time) To attend, please send us your email address and we will email you the Zoom link. You can contact us through our webside at: hillsidesource.com or email us at hillsideew.com.
November 20, 2022
“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between there are doors.” William Blake (1757-1827)
This week I've had a barrage of questions flowing across the computer from various people checking in as the holidays approach. On one end of the emotional spectrum was someone wanting my thoughts on the underpinnings of the emotion of dread. This was followed by another friend who spoke of a new anxiety around going places alone. At the other end of the spectrum, was a note from someone else who was perplexed by a formal health reminder from his cardiologist's office to practice gratitude this month! November has been a month of escalating anxiety, with the elections, the weather, ongoing war in Ukraine, cumulative reports of violence and continued health warnings of a "tri-epidemic" of flu, RSV, and Covid. No wonder the word dread comes to mind.
Like anxiety, dread is anticipatory fear--different from the natural fear we feel in the moment when actually facing a threat or danger. While we may use the word dread to describe our own resistance to an anticipated difficult situation, usually it's an exaggeration of our anxiety--our feelings of uncertainty and lack of control. Dread is the more intense emotion because it carries an often non-specific sense of impending doom. The word "doom" itself is shadowy and the dread is shadowy. It can be part of accumulated anxiety (like a panic attack), or accumulated despair and sadness (an aspect of depression), and yes, it is possible it is intuitive. The bottom line is that things feel hopeless and dreadful until we face them head-on. If they are shadowy and undefined, we cannot mobilize our resources to solve and adapt. With the level of misinformation and deliberate disinformation in social media and our current society, dread can easily become a collective experience, hovering in shadow. Dread (and anxiety) is countered in the willingness to face the truth.
And gratitude? Well, it is Thanksgiving week. It's hard to maintain darkness and doom when your heart is grateful. The grateful heart is no longer just a metaphor; there is cumulating scientific research that gratitude practice is indeed healing and strengthens our physical heart by making us more resilient toward stress, lowering blood pressure, improving immune function decreasing inflammation, improving mood and sleep, and creating stronger, healthier relationships. Gratitude remains an ancient core spiritual practice of the world's religions. We are just beginning to grasp the fullness of it's Grace. William Blake put it this way, "Gratitude is Heaven itself. There is no Heaven without gratitude." (Susan Nettleton)
Gratitude practice ideas from the American Heart Association: https://www.heart.org/.../simple-ways-to-practice-gratitude
For a poetic take on your Thanksgiving cooking: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/.../how-to-stuff-a-pepper
And gratitude for Natures' bounty, including Grapefruit: https://www.stateoftheartsnj.com/958/
November 27, 2022
Today's post is an excerpt from my Zoom talk this morning, "The Self You Are Not". To be on the email list for information and links to future Zoom talks, email your request to hillsideew@aol.com The audio version of today's Zoom talk will be added to our website audio files over the next week or so. Hillsidesource.com
Self as a concept, developed over centuries, with various descriptions and definitions that come in and out of fashion. Concepts are platforms that we gravitate to, adopt or usually born into that become the framework around which we build our lives, understanding and knowledge and values. This is one aspect of the self you are not. The self is a construct and who and what you are becomes limited by that construct. You are far more than our ideas of self; out constructs, our intellect and even our imagination cannot contain the whole "knowledge" of the cosmos. Nevertheless, I offer a model of a Wheel of Identity, where self is the the hub, and the spokes are all the identities and roles that we express in life, as work and relation labels, like mom or grandmother, or son and daughter, friend all your relatives, and the work of work and the concerns of the body and interests and activity.
One way to see this is that all those identities compose the self but the self is not limited to those identities. It's a useful picture for dealing with the shifts in life where some of the spokes fall off. You lose a relationship, a role, your appearance or body changes, or your retirement funds, the center holds despite the losses. If the center collapses because the spoke falls off, it means you made that (or those because sometimes one loss triggers another) particular identity your hub, your core. And it is time to rethink that misplacement. The self expresses through identities. And it seems to me that a solid self, self acceptance come when 3 ways of viewing this wheel line up--who you actually are (that is the identities are true) is who you want to be and who you think you should be. The actuality is congruent with the your shoulds and your longing. This idea of the self-you-are-not can refer to the self you long to be, or the measuring up (based on all sorts of ideology, what you feel is correct, or the best thing), the true spokes that are missing. Or it can refer to the false identities that you carry, based on duty or shoulds or expectations of others or other subterfuge, that we carry and invest energy in, but hold little meaning or truth to them for us. They're out there as a spoke, but dead weight. Pre-tense consumes tremendous energy. This wheel is dynamic, it is not fixed. If we freeze it, hold on to every identity, despite the changing nature of life or identities that are incompatible, behavior that is incompatible, our self image freezes, remains the same, there's this ravine, between who the self is and who we think we are, this splintered wheel, we create internal conflict. The mind doesn't work well with this kind of conflict. We can avoid dealing with it, again at a cost of energy and distraction and dissatisfaction. While there is this idea of an unchanging self, the reality is we are changing, we physically and emotionally grow, we learn new skills, and essentially enter a new world.
(Susan Nettleton)
For some of today's reading, follow the links below.
December 4, 2022
Today, as I opened my front door for a walk, I saw the fruit trees that dot the yard, now coming into their fullness. The word 'abundance' came to mind. Immediately in front of me was the largest of the yard's citrus fruit, the pomelo tree, the branches bending gracefully with the weight of over 60 pomelos. (I counted them in my wonder!) Behind me was an equally loaded grapefruit tree, not quite ripe, and the surrounding trees at various stages: tangerines, oranges, pomegranates and avocado. Nature's bounty, nourished by human intent, cultivation and care.
Abundance is the term used in New Thought, as well as other modern religious teachings that see God's grace and power not just in nature, but in material manifestation and prosperity. As we begin December, we enter a time of community celebrations, holy holidays, gift giving, fund raising efforts and the year's review. This year, we carry the weight of inflation with the usual financial pressure of December. Today, I encourage you to reflect on the spiritual aspect of your financial well-being and carry that exploration through the month. We all grow up with some sort of attitude and belief about money, expenses, earnings, giving, receiving and their roles in our well-being. Those early ideas form a foundational structure of expectations, attitudes, and if you are lucky, a skill set for managing finances and material needs and wants. As we mature, we have tangible experiences that re-enforce or challenge that structure as we manage situations as best we can. The sum total of all this composes what we term "prosperity consciousness." Your prosperity consciousness may have never had a direct link to your spiritual understanding, yet if you are pulled to living spiritually, sooner or later, the inner life wrestles with the material world to reconcile and integrate finances with the essential need for food, clothing, shelter, health care and the emotional need for stability, comfort, companionship and competency.
There is not one answer or methodology that speaks to everyone in this process; just like there is not one way of a spiritual life. New Thought interpretations of Eastern and Biblical traditions focus on consciousness--your thoughts, perceptions, and interpretations determine outcome and future events. Consciousness creates experience. Along with that principle is the principle of an abundant creation, sustained by Divine Love. All that supports life is available through a consciousness of acceptance. As Jesus put it, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12:32) What do you need? Fulfillment is "prosperity."
When I was first exposed to these principles, New Thought leaders and teachers used the phrase "opulence" to describe the fullness of creation and its prosperity. That word bothered me, because it seemed to confuse the idea of what is 'needed' with a need for extravagance, in a world where millions grapple daily for sustenance. As humanity begins to wrestle with the seriousness of environmental damage done by human extravagance, opulence is no longer appropriate. But recognition of the abundance of creation, its diversity and resilience on so many levels, opens our minds to new positive possibilities in a shared world. In this 21st Century world, prosperity may mean the Peace that comes in knowing, "We all have enough." Begin with you. (Susan Nettleton)
For Hillside's version of Prosperity Affirmations, follow the link: https://hillsidesource.com/prosperity-affirmations
December 11, 2022
Last Sunday, I took a spiritual look at the issue of money as we entered the holiday season. Today, I am looking at the season with healing in mind. Along with inflation, December brings renewed health warnings, as flu cases rise, pediatric wards fill with RSV, and new strains of Covid emerge. But it is not just viral infections that are fueling public health care fears, it is also mental health issues. Recent surveys show as high as 90% of Americans believe there is a mental health crisis in the US, and 80% of adults consider children's mental health to be a public mental health emergency. The reasons underpinning these concerns include the years of Pandemic with all it's uncertainty in a time of political polarization, an opioid epidemic, and the public health threats of racism and gun violence, along with the lack of access to health care and it's costs. This concern shows that the public is beginning to understand that mental health is critical to both well-being and physical health.
Our stories of magical Christmas's and miraculous Divine interventions have brought light and wonder to our lives for centuries, and in this hemisphere that light literally is at the darkest point of the year. That Light has inspired times of peace, love, and deep spiritual insight. Now in the 21st century, why not let that magic include healing.
I have known a few people in life who gave themselves a Christmas gift each year--actually wrapping it, putting it under the tree with everyone else's gifts and then unwrapping it with joy when everyone's gifts are opened. It always seemed to me a strange practice, but I appreciate the self-care, creativity (and independence!) that underlies self-giving. What if you could unwrap a gift of healing this year, a gift from yourself? I encourage you to pick one aspect of your life to heal spiritually this December. It may be a problem with the body that you have been neglecting, or concern for your own mental health, or a relationship, a memory, a grudge, a heart ache, a fear. It may seemingly have nothing to do with the pandemic years. But today, as it is, name it as now on the path of spiritual healing. Nurture it with prayer. Tend to it with what Emmett Fox terms "Divine Wisdom expressed through 'common sense'". That common sense may include professional or other expert support. Above all, listen to your healing, leading the way. Your gift may not be ready to fully open when December arrives on the door step of the New Year, but it will not be what it was. The healing begins today. (Susan Nettleton)
For a poetic taste of the love that is involved in such healing, follow the link: https://onbeing.org/poetry/annunciation/
December 18, 2022
The week before Christmas in American culture is usually a hectic time of last minute preparations, gift shopping and get-to-togethers. Now once again, this week carries the backdrop of Covid spread and the national call to to those who have yet to get the bivalent booster, to do so to prevent the Covid tragedies of the 2020 and 2021 holidays. Last week I wrote of giving yourself a gift of healing; the vaccine is one way to do that. As I have written many times, spiritual healing includes the knowledge and skill of the scientific/medical world. It is only the ideas and confused, mixed motives of human beings that separate and divide science and religion. But today, as a further step in healing, I am reflecting on Deep Peace.
Deep Peace is one of the ways of naming the core state of our innermost nature. This means that the essence of our life, of all forms of life, is always a state of Peace. The essence of life, which is God, the All that Is, is Peace. Since nothing exists outside of that, all is Deeply at Peace. Such a statement is bound to stir confusion when society and the world at large is far from peaceful. War in Ukraine and elsewhere rages on even in the face of bitter winter; we have not just the threat of disease and Pandemic, but climate change, with predictions of food and water shortages and more conflict. How can we claim to be at peace?
To hold a vision of the world and ourselves at peace is not about ignoring the experiences of conflict right in front of us or our own private turmoils and agitation. It is about touching the Deep Peace at the core that is not the same thing as our struggles to find peace, or to broker peace, or the relax and calm down. These practices have their value, their time and place. Learning to "be at peace" and achieve an inner calm is healing, just like a truce is healing, creating a space where the world can recollect itself. But Deep Peace just is. It is the very fabric of Creation; it is not to be won or achieved. It is Grace. It is You.
I had a renewed taste of it last night as I drove through the cold, dark, silent neighborhood streets, with Christmas lights delicately sparkling through open curtains and across lawns. It was a magical transformation from the agitated thrills of Halloween that had taken over the neighborhood in October. This was Peace. A wave of Deep Peace flowed through the car and through me and I remembered: Christmas Peace. Deep Peace at the Center. Let it find you.(Susan Nettleton)
for a Blessing of Deep Peace: https://hillsidesource.com/celtic-blessing-of-deep-peace
December 25, 2022
Merry Christmas!
This Christmas with the extreme cold sweeping across the country (though I have escaped the freeze) has me reflecting on all those who are the helpers in life, especially during the holidays. It is through the generosity of 'helpers': rescue teams, public technicians working through the night to restore services, those who bring unexpected kindness, those willing to move beyond personal concerns in a crisis-- that return holidays to Holy Days and awaken our gratitude. Through gratitude as well as giving, we find the spiritual meaning that satisfies the human heart.
I am remembering a snowstorm in Albuquerque, many years ago. Having grown up in Houston, I saw snow only twice before I moved to New Mexico. In Albuquerque, I learned to navigate snow that soon melted. When I moved to the canyon area in the Sandia Mountains, a neighbor gave me an old pair of tire chains. I protested that I hadn't a clue what to do with them, but he threw them in the trunk of my car and said, "Just keep them there--you never know." Time passed, and then we had a massive snow storm. I was at the church in the city as news of the storm worsened, so I left early for home. I was concerned about my daughter, in first grade at the mountain school, riding home on the a bus. I knew driving would take longer, but I had no idea how treacherous it was becoming. As I approached the mountains on I-25, the traffic was backed- up for miles, visibility was poor, and flashing signs warned only residents were allowed through the pass. This is before cell phones; radio news gave me updates on school closures.
I was near panic at the standstill, when through the whirl of snow I saw a man in an unzipped jacket approaching my car--no gloves, no hat, just an open jacket. He knocked on my window and as I opened it, he said, "I'm just walking up the interstate, checking on people to see if they need help. Are you OK? " I couldn't quite process where he came from and how he managed the icy wind. But I told him where I was headed, and he said, "No one is getting through that pass without a 4-wheel drive vehicle or chains. The State Police have a road block ahead." Then I remembered the chains. I told him I didn't know how to use them but they were in the trunk. He said, "I'll put them on for you, just pop open the trunk and wait till I tell you to move the car a bit." In a few minutes they were on! I had only a moment to yell out a thank you as he waved goodby, walking ahead and quickly disappearing in another flurry of snow. Overwhelmed with gratitude, for the first time in my life I wondered whether I had encountered an actual Angel.
I reached the road block on my chains and was passed through. When I finally drove up the mountain to the subdivision and an empty house, I checked the phone answering machine. There was a message from my neighbor that my daughter was safe at her house. School had closed early. The bus driver had dropped the children off at the bottom of the steep road to the subdivision. My daughter had hiked up through the snow with friends, but headed home. Not sure what to do when the wind was blowing snow everywhere, she climbed into our dog house! Fear of spiders made her change her mind and she walked to safety at her friend's home.
Human angels and yes, perhaps unseen other realm angels, are part of the balancing, protecting, Grace of all Life. Our sense of wonder, love and gratitude draw them near. There are life's moments when we too become the angel with our generosity, our compassion, and care. Whatever your spiritual background and path--even with all the storms of life--let this be the season of a heart-opening to the Goodness of Life and it's Wondrous Possibilities. Stay open to Grace. Merry Christmas, Susan Nettleton
for a poetic perspective on Christmas by Larry Morris, follow the link: https://hillsidesource.com/christmas-vision-2007