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A FRIDAY POEM FROM “RHYTHMS AND CYCLES” – Wounded Man
This is an interesting poem I came across for today. I wrote it in the Spring, four years ago. It seems to fit the Rhythms & Cycles collection as we all go through the highs and lows of life.
We are all wounded in some (or many) ways. So I write. And perhaps I’m feeling a little wounded now because I haven’t been writing enough lately. How are you wounded? And how do you treat that wound? We have to take care of ourselves; then each other!
Wounded Man
Wounded healer,
Heal thy self.
Recover that lost piece
Which bleeds in some far place.
Wounded warrior,
Come home now.
Soothe thy fevered brow
And sing songs of peace.
Wounded High King,
Rule in peace.
Strengthen thy green land
And love your people free.
Wounded poet,
Write thy verse.
Create the song of peace
To heal the Warrior-King.
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
What’s Your MESSAGE? – Richard’s Commentary
One of the catch phrases we heard at the Suzanne Evans’ Be the Change Event a couple of weeks ago is “turn your mess into your message.” This can be an interesting approach to answering Rosemary’s question! What does this mean?
If we examine our lives we will no doubt find some “messiness” under the surface. We all live with stuff. These messes, this stuff, is what Rosemary and I have called “lessons” over the many years of writing these articles, and publishing Rosemary’s Ezine. In fact we are here on the planet to learn lessons, right?
So, as we learn these lessons maybe it’s important, even part of our purpose, even our whole purpose, to share what we learn from our lessons – our messes! Our mess can become our message. This is story telling with a purpose.
But this advice needs to come with a warning: “Be sure your mess is cleared up, and be sure you have learned this lesson well, before you share the message you have gained”!
There’s a corollary to this approach to finding your message: we often learn what we are to teach; and the best form is mastery is to teach what we are working to master.
When Jeff Primack certified me to teach Qigong, his advice was to go out and teach the forms as soon as possible. “The only way to master the forms is to teach them.” Now, I was still shaking from the experience of being watched, judged and corrected as I “taught” the form to my little training group. Picturing myself teaching a group of strangers, even friends, was not a scene I was ready for! But I was soon offered the opportunity to lead a group and I have been teaching regularly for over a year now. Have I mastered the forms? No. But I am moving in that direction! I turned my messy form into my message.
Rosemary’s questions are the place to start to find your message:
Sit with yourself for a few minutes and ask yourself these two questions:
1) What is MY MESSAGE to the world? And, then,
2) Am I living MY MESSAGE in my daily life?
Or backing up a short step you could ask: What is the MESS that I have worked through in my life that would be helpful to share with the world as my MESSAGE. But only share that message if you are living that MESSAGE in your daily life!
The real trick is in the answer to that second question; you must be living that message to be effective in sharing it. In my case I practice Qigong almost every day. I am currently teaching three classes a week, attending a fourth and practicing in between. I am “living Qigong.” And Qigong is only part of my message!
So, look at your messes – the ones you have worked through, learned, even mastered – and ask if the world will be a better place if you share that mastery. Your message is there!
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: What’s Your MESSAGE?
Each of us is put on Planet Earth for a reason. We have someone important to BE. Our Soul agreed with the Souls around us to play a certain role in every interaction. When you figure out who you came to Earth to be, your message to others grows out of who you are BEing.
How often have you been caught up in DOing so much that you haven’t have time to think about anything except putting one foot in front of the other and getting through the day? Happens to everyone occasionally. But if you are living your daily life like this you are missing your own message, to yourself and to the world.
Sit with yourself for a few minutes and ask yourself these two questions:
1) What is MY MESSAGE to the world? And, then,
2) Am I living MY MESSAGE in my daily life?
Bob Sima, a transformational musician, has a great message for his latest CD – Put a Little More Love in the World – and Bob lives his message as he travels around the world sharing his amazing music. Everyone who encounters his gifts knows that he is living this message.
Are you clear about YOUR MESSAGE? Do you know what you want to tell the world? Think about what you would say if you knew this were your last day on Planet Earth. What would you broadcast on a radio show to the world that day? What would you want the rest of the world to know, to ponder, to act on?
What do you feel about the gifts you have been given and how you are sharing those in the world? Are you living your message?
When you ask yourself these two questions you start to glimpse how you fit into the bigger picture of what is going on in 21st Century Earth life.
You HAVE a message to share, based on your gifts, talents and purpose. Your responsibility to all those other Souls is to crystallize that message and get it out into the world. You don’t have to write songs to share your message. Live it first!
You don’t have to be famous or have a radio show or write books to share your message to the world. I think of our daughter who is an Occupational Therapist and who works with infants and toddlers with challenges, coaching the parents on how to interact with their children in the most beneficial way. She LOVES those kids with all her heart. Her message to the parents is to bring out the best in the children through love and knowledge of what to do.
Every one of us is a child within an adult and we are looking for someone to help us to be the best we can be. If your gift is to help another person and you continue to hide or to avoid reaching out because you aren’t sure of your message, then you are not serving in the highest way that you are meant to serve. If you are seeking help and don’t know where to find it, look inside yourself to your own purpose, gifts, and talents. Share your own message and you will attract others who have the very message that you are seeking/needing to hear.
Live your message this week. Ask for help if you need to get clarity on what your message, purpose, gifts and talents are. Other Souls are waiting for you.
PS: If you are struggling with your “message” why not ask for some help to seek clarity? Rosemary has a special offer running through May to help you find how you “fit in to the bigger picture”! Send her an email to explore options: Rosemary@TheScientificMystic.com
ROSEMARY’S INSPIRATION: What’s Your Message?
Rosemary’s “Two-Minute” Video for this Week: What’s Your Message?
PS: Do you know your “message”? Are you looking for clarity? Rosemary is offering a very special “spring cleaning” opportunity to work with her. This offer is only available through May. Send her an email to explore this opportunity: Rosemary@TheScientificMystic.com
MONDAY’S POEM: Rosemary’s Music
Yesterday was Mothers’ Day here in the US and we celebrated Rosemary with a nice grilled steak dinner with daughter, son-in-law and one of the grandkids. Sons called from west and south. It was a good day!
This poem from a few years ago recalls a memory triggered by Rosemary’s playing her “baby grand” in the Colorado house, the music sailing high through the two story foyer. I may not have ever shared this with her, so for Mothers’ Day here it is:
Rosemary’s Music
She plays beautifully
Pulling notes from some
Magical place to ring in
Ears sensing brilliance.
She speaks wonderfully
Offering words from
Another dimension to sink in
Mind thinking in awe.
She gives generously
Bringing gifts from Source,
That deep well of abundance,
Heart feeling gratitude.
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
A FRIDAY POEM FROM “RHYTHMS AND CYCLES” – Lessons
I wrote this a few years ago when I was in the middle of the ebb and flow of life lessons. I guess we are always there; part of the rhythms and cycles we live within. Happy weekend!
Lessons
Endless chain,
Link by link,
Event by event;
A measured life,
No start, no end.
Continuous flow,
Then to now,
Now to when;
A lessoned life,
No start, no end.
Unbroken stream,
Spring to river,
River to sea;
Consciousness rising,
No start, no end.
Rising sea,
Spring fed, river fed,
Rain drenched, windswept;
Lessons to learn,
No start, no end.
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Ask Yourself… – Richard’s Commentary
So, why DO you get up in the morning? My answer to this question has changed over the course of my long corporate career. I had the opportunity to work on and lead a number of exciting technical projects, from space and earth sciences exploration to commercial software development and logistics planning and management. I always enjoyed my work, its challenges and rewards.
But for all that time I had a bigger “why”…family. Rosemary and I raised three fabulous kids, now in their 30s; they are off doing their own “family things” now. Yes, we have grandkids – a wonder! But they are their parents’ responsibility and their “why” now.
So as my family dynamics have shifted my “big why” is also shifting. Of course I still have family responsibilities to Rosemary but she is fully capable of taking care of herself. It is true that I am taking care of much of the “back-office” obligations of managing our businesses together, Rosemary’s The Scientific Mystic enterprise and our church and consciousness study center, Church of A New Alliance. And these efforts are fun and fruitful. But they are not up there with a “Big Why.”
I love to write. I write lots of things, including blog posts, like this one, poetry which I share selections on this blog, morning pages, sales copy for websites…I spend a lot of my time writing. But writing is not up there with a “Big Why.”
I love bodywork. Currently I am practicing both yoga and several forms of Qigong. In fact I am teaching three classes of Qigong now and really enjoying the sharing the physical “energetic” of the forms, the breath work and the Taoist philosophical underpinnings of Qigong.
This gets at another love: my love of world religions and spirituality. I am an ordained “Interfaith Minister” – by a seminary of Pebble Hill Church, Doylestown, PA. And since my ordination in 2000 I have continued to study, absorb and practice many of the world’s spiritual traditions, from Taoism, to Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Sufism to Judaism and Christianity, not to exclude indigenous cultures and their spiritual traditions. My emphasis in understanding these traditions is to gain insight through practice, not just learning the beliefs and reading the texts. It is through practice that we truly get in touch with one another.
I love community. I enjoy the dynamics and give and take, the yin and yang of community, of people sharing their gifts, their understanding and wisdom. How else can we get in tune with the world around us than through community.
I guess the bottom line of what gets me up in the morning is love. I’ve said before in this space that my highest value is PRACTICE –> LOVE. I’ve also mentioned that my fingerprints tell the same tale; my 10 loops for prints point to my purpose: LOVE.
So, yeah, love gets me up in the morning. It keeps me going through the day. And it’s often the last thing on my mind and in my heart as I drift off to sleep.
Big Whys are important. If you don’t know yours do some soul searching. Get your hand and fingerprints read by a Scientific Hand Analyst. Get help eliciting your Big Why if you need it. Knowing makes it fun to get up in the morning!
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Ask Yourself…
So often we get stuck in a place where we’re feeling as if there’s something we’re missing, some clue that is just beyond our vision, some message that we just can’t quite hear. And while we seek the answer we forget to ask the right question.
Today, ask yourself, ‘What is my WHY?’ What’s your reason for the choices that you are making each day? Is that reason the same reason that you made that choice in the first place or has your ‘why’ changed since then?
For example, you might have chosen a job because you knew some folks who already worked there and you liked them. Now, though, you might have moved farther away or they might have left and you might have totally different reasons for continuing to work there.
Or you might have started a business because you wanted to help people and now that business isn’t supporting the lifestyle you desire.
You might have had kids and your ‘why’ might be something about providing for them but your choices were made at a time when they weren’t in the picture.
Looking at your ‘why’ is important for many reasons.
Your reason to get up in the morning has to be more compelling than rolling over and going back to sleep. Is that what you wish you could do every morning? Then maybe you need to examine your ‘why’ and make some changes in your life.
Everyone hits rough spots in life. Your BIG WHY keeps you going over those boulders in the road. If you’re not sure what your ‘why’ is you might find it more difficult to endure those bumpy spots.
And your ‘why’ can change as your life changes, as you grow and develop. What your ‘why’ was in your 20s might no longer be so important in your 40s, 50s, 60s. You might even find that your ‘why’ keeps expanding into a huge reason to get up every morning!
For example, I have a friend who feels her BIG WHY is to end illiteracy. She earns money, in a business unrelated to illiteracy, so that she can contribute to causes that help to educate populations around the world. Another’s is to help women heal their shame around childhood trauma. This might not be the immediate cause in which you see her involved but it informs what she does because it is based on WHY she does it.
So what is your WHY? What do you hope to accomplish in your lifetime? What motivates you enough to struggle through the tough spots and feel exhilarated at your successes? Can you see an expansion of your WHY as your personal growth has expanded?
I recently did an exercise to examine my ‘why’ by starting to look at what I don’t want, what upsets me. It really bugs me to see people believing that they are less than the Brilliant Light that I see in them. I want to help each individual to reach inside and find that Light that I can see and shine that Light out into the world. Because I see the dimensions that most others can’t access I can see how much that individual’s Light is needed.
And so my BIG WHY is to reach around the world and turn on that Brilliant Light Within individuals so that the Light can outshine the darkness. I help people access that Light and clear the shadows that they have been hiding behind and under. I am excited by each opportunity I have to help people, individually and in groups.
I know my WHY. Do you know yours?
PS: If you are struggling with your “why” why not ask for some help to seek clarity? Rosemary has a special offer running through May to help you find your Inner Light! Use the form here to contact her:
Your message has been sent
ROSEMARY’S INSPIRATION: Why Do You Get Up in the Morning?
Rosemary’s “Two-Minute” Video for this Week: Why Do You Get Up in the Morning?
PS: Do you know your “big why”? Why you are on the planet? Why it’s important for you to get up in the morning? Rosemary is offering a very special “spring cleaning” opportunity to work with her. This offer is only available through May. Please use the following form to send her an email to explore this opportunity:
Your message has been sent
MONDAY’S POEM: Poet’s Choice
Today’s poem is from the archives. I opened to a random page in my journal and reached back to August 2011. I am feeling a bit conflicted today so this poem is for me and all of you out there having a conflicted Monday!
Poet’s Choice
What does a conflicted poet write?
What bubbles up from below?
What trickles down from above?
Love. A poet writes of love
For all the world to read
And understand this Queen.
Low. A poet sinks so low
To find the deepest part
And understand this King.
Light. A poet merges with light
To sing of the highest peaks
And understand this God.
A poet writes of highs and lows.
He writes of light and sings
From mountain tops.
And most of all he writes of Love!
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Men and The Goddess 