August 2008 Archives

I was speaking with a friend about love, true love and the experience it brings to our lives.  When I hit middle age, I realized that I had been holding onto a sacred belief about love and that belief had kept me from truly experiencing love at all.  I was bound by my history and hoping for a future where love was concerned, and living without love.

Byron Katie said, "As long as we believe any negative concept about one person ("He's selfish," "She's arrogant," "He should stand up for me," "She shouldn't do this," "He should do that,") that we're going to project those negative thoughts onto everyone - our husband, our wife, our parents, our children.  Sooner or later, when we don't get what we wont from them, or when they threaten our sacred beliefs, we're going to impose that concept onto them.  This is what we humans do.

I don't understand other people.  I only understand my perception of others - my story that I've made up in my mind about them.  This is played out so beautifully in my relationship with my dear husband.  When I'm centered, totally conscious and aware, I am love and I experience love with my husband.  When I'm unconscious, unaware, playing my "story", then I get angry with him because he's not fulfilling my story correctly about him.  He's selfish, he's distant, he's...he's... Well you get the idea.  He really doesn't have anything to do with my love story about him. It's not personal, because I'm the projector.

More importantly, as I'm learning, if I don't love myself, the projector lens is dusty.  I can try to move the screen, to better light, to a more romantic spot, to a darker room, but if the lens (read: my thoughts) about myself are negative, then that picture on the screen will show the dust.  When I've cleaned the lens and found home in reality - that I am love - then the whole world reflects that love and the whole world loves me - even though they might not realize that yet.

Once I find that healthy self-love, not the narcissistic, needy story about love, then I can be intimate and present with anyone.  And I do love everyone I meet when I'm in love with my self.  There's always been talk about us boomers; that we are the "me" generation, and selfish, greedy, totally self-absorbed.  It has taken some evolution of those baby steps we took in the 70's at self-actualization to be enlightened (at any given moment - now - it's gone - now - it's gone) and realize that self love encompasses the whole of everything.

When I get angry with my husband because he "isn't there" for me, what I'm really saying is, I'm not there for me.  It's so much easier to see it in another person.  In truth, I'm married to reality - to God - and when I understand that, and feel that love, then it does not really matter what others do or don't do, think about me, or anything.

For my Christian women friends, Mathew 22: 37-39 states this eloquently:

 ³⁷Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind
.

   ³⁸This is the first and great commandment.

   ³⁹And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

So if we first see God as reality, "what is", the beginning and end of everything, Love in Action, then we can love our neighbor as we love ourselves.  (This last part can be hard on Christian women because we've believed other people's (Paul's) stories about us! <grin>) We have to know that God is it, is in us, is with us, is Love, then it's easy to drop our stories of ourselves and each other and experience the greatest love we've ever known.

God is everything and everyone.  That is pure, total love, baby, and excludes no one.  When we have healthy self-love, and we meet a drunk on the street, or a raging maniac on the road, or our family member that drives us crazy - hey - if we see it in them - then it is in us.  We cannot be repelled because it is them believing their story about themselves and if we have issues with them, that is our story about them - it is not them.  And we see the truth about them - the love story about them - because we have given it to ourselves.  We can be totally present, the right words and actions come, because we are living this moment with them.

Kindness and compassion come when we surrender to the love that we are.  Love is This means this is one sweet world when we drop our stories about ourselves and about other people.  This is kind and benevolent, and totally safe.

Sometimes, life gets complicated.  Sometimes, we just have to trust ourselves, our strength and our courage and do what we think is best.  One day we look up to find the love and the life we thought we were building has somehow lost its bones.  The structure is just not there.  My friend is experiencing that now.  She's on a tour of her life ... trusting in herself.  She's left the safety of her beautiful home to heal, to love and be loved, to figure out the "now".  To build her own structure by leaping into the unknown. I admire the hell out of her.

When I came upon this <a href="http://christinekane.com/blog" target="_blank">Christine Kane </a>video, I thought how perfect it fit my friend.  Goddess bless you.  I love you and admire your strength and courage to make life better.

By Pamela Perry Blaine

"I'll just give this a lick and a promise", my mother said as she quickly
mopped up a spill on the floor without moving any of the furniture.

"What is that supposed to mean", I asked as in my young mind I envisioned
someone licking the floor with his or her tongue. "It means that I'm in a
hurry and I'm busy canning tomatoes so I am going to just give it a lick
with the mop and promise to come back and do the job right later.

"A lick and a promise" was just one of the many old phrases that I remember
my mother, grandmother, and others using that they probably heard from the
generations before them. With the passing of time, many old phrases become
obsolete or even disappear.This is unfortunate because some of them are very
appropriate and humorous. Here is a list that I came up with that I remember
my parents and grandparents using that we don't hear much anymore. Perhaps
you have some memorable old phrases of your own that you could add to the
list:

A Bone to Pick (someone who wants to discuss a disagreement)

An Axe to Grind (Someone who has a hidden motive.This phrase is said to have
originated from Benjamin Franklin who told a story about a devious man who
asked how a grinding wheel worked. He ended up walking away with his axe
sharpened free of charge)

A bad apple spoils the whole barrel (one corrupt person can cause all the
others to go bad if you don't remove the bad one)

At sea (lost or not understanding something)

Bad Egg (Someone who was not a good person)

Barking at a knot (meaning that your efforts were as useless as a dog
barking at a knot.)

Bee in your bonnet (To have an idea that won't let loose)

Been through the mill (had a rough time of it)

Between hay and grass (Not a child or an adult)

Blinky (Between sweet and sour.as in milk)

Calaboose (a jail)

Cattywampus (Something that sits crooked such as a piece of furniture
sitting at an angle)

Dicker (To barter or trade)

Feather In Your Cap (to accomplish a goal.this came from years ago in
wartime when warriors might receive a feather they would put in their cap
for defeating an enemy)

Hold your horses (Be patient!)

I reckon (I suppose)

Jawing (Talking or arguing)

Kit and caboodle (The whole thing)

Madder than an old wet hen (really angry)

Needs taken down a notch or two (like notches in a belt.usually a young
person who thinks too highly of himself and needs a lesson)

No Spring Chicken (Not young anymore)

Persnickety (overly particular or snobbish)

Pert-near (short for pretty near)

Pretty is as pretty does (your actions are more important than your looks)

Scalawag (a rascal or unprincipled person)

Scarce as hen's teeth (something difficult to obtain)

Skedaddle (Get out of here quickly)

Sparking (courting)

Straight From the Horse's Mouth (privileged information from the one
concerned)

Stringing around, gallivanting around, or piddling (Not doing anything of
value)

Sunday go to meetin' dress (The best dress you had)

We wash up real fine is another goodie...)

Tie the Knot (to get married)

Too many irons in the fire (to be involved in too many things)

Tuckered out (tired and all worn out)

Under the weather (not feeling well.this term came from going below deck on
ships due to sea sickness thus you go below or under the weather)

Wearing your "best bib and tucker" (Being all dressed up)

You ain't the only duck in the pond (It's not all about you)

Well, if you hold your horses, I reckon I'll get this whole kit and caboodle
done and sent off to you. Please don't be too persnickety and get a bee in
your bonnet because I've been pretty tuckered out and at sea lately because
I'm no spring chicken. I haven't been just stringin' around and I know I'm
not the only duck in the pond, but I do have too many irons in the fire. I
might just be barking at a knot, but I have tried to give this article more
than just a lick and a promise. 

A Holy Relationship is one in which you join with what is part of you in truth. So when you feel a deep love, a deep respect, a deep peace when you meet another, you are seeing the Christ in that person reflecting the Christ within you.

We come to another with so much baggage. We feel we need to change them, when in fact, what we see, is a projection of ourselves. If we could only say, "Thank You". "I love you so much" for giving me this feedback about myself. The good, the bad and the ugly. If someone says they hate the day they met me, I can say, how sorry I am that they are having a nightmare about me. I check myself for the defects they say I have and if they are true, I will try to change them. If they are not true, then I will bless them and wish them well.

If someone says to me, I love you - you are my perfect dream woman. I will say, I'm happy you are having a good dream, and this dream is about you.

It is never about me, unless I become part of their dream. I dream you, you dream me, and it is all illusion, until we meet in no-time, no-mind, no-past, no-future. And if I want you now, that is wonderful. I may change my mind, and that is good too.

It's all good, it's all God. You are the God in me, I am the God in you. Nameste'.

The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) is a long-term national health study that focuses on strategies for preventing heart disease, breast and colorectal cancer and fracture in postmenopausal women. This 15-year project involves over 161,000 women ages 50-79, and is one of the most definitive, far reaching programs of research on women's health ever undertaken in the U.S. The purpose of this site is to provide WHI participants and others interested in the WHI findings a way of obtaining information about research results directly from the study.

WHI Participant website

Keep track of updated studies and results that affect women over fifty.