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Forgiveness
This is a powerful word, overloaded with layers of context from religious backgrounds, moral code, all the “shoulds” in our lives. But what does it really mean to forgive?
Here again understanding begins with inner work, the inner examination of what this word means and how it applies to us, to me. Is this something that comes to us from others who have wronged us in some way? How do we recognize it? Is it an apology? And how do we react to it? Do we shrug it off as if it didn’t happen; go on as if it didn’t?
And how do we react when we are in the wrong? What form do we want forgiveness to take when we’ve hurt someone but hope they will forgive us?
I think the only way to understand forgiveness is to see how it applies to ourselves.
A couple of days ago I dropped my favorite fountain pen. I reacted with shock, dismay and anger that this pen was ruined. This was, of course, an accident: I fumbled with papers and a notebook trying to take notes during a coaching call. I was clumsy and inattentive. The pen fell, point down of course, on the tile floor. How do I forgive myself for this negligence? I go inside to examine the feelings: heartbreak, yes, but over an object? It is repairable. Let the object go. Anger, yes, both self and outer-directed. Is it the floor’s fault? Do I blame gravity? My lack of an appropriate work-area? My clumsiness? Why do I need to find fault at all? Accidents happen. As I look back at the event today it is an opportunity to examine and apply forgiveness – self-forgiveness.
I can learn about forgiveness here by going inward, self-ward. Forgiveness here is not to dismiss the event. It happened, I am still upset by it and there are consequences to deal with. But to hold on to blame or anger seems unproductive. Holding on to the lesson seems the better approach. I can also respond with action to help prevent accidents of this type in the future: I can improve my work environment and place more attention on protecting my valuable pens. Action and awareness help assuage the hurt from the loss. But ultimately I have to return to the illusive notion of forgiveness. This thing happened; it can’t be undone and should not be forgotten. But I take the lesson and come back to the mantra: “I am always doing my best and I am continually learning and improving.” This is the rock-bottom message here. This is self-forgiveness.
We can then take this into the outer world, the world populated by others! We are all doing our best; even those who might hurt us in some way are doing their best! We may wish they were doing better! But they are where they are. We don’t have to forget the injury or pretend it didn’t happen. We do have to take some action, to let them know of the hurt caused and to learn for ourselves what there is to take from the incident so it doesn’t happen again. And, this action may be to avoid this person or situation in the future. We remember the lesson and move on, doing our best and giving them space to do their best.
Forgiveness. Somehow there is a seed of Peace here, buried in this too often misunderstood approach to relationships. Maybe we need to practice forgiveness in order to wage Peace.
Love
A couple of days ago I wrote about Peace and my charge to be a “Warrior of Peace.” I wrote that there is only one place to begin the quest for that peace, which must be known so intimately well that it is like our own skin if we are to be true defenders of Peace, and that’s inside – the first step of the quest is inward!
And what do we find when we go inward? I am reminded not only that today is Valentine’s Day but also that Rosemary’s daily video message today (you can get it here: TheScientificMystic.com) is about Love; and not just any kind of love, romantic love for example, but Self-Love! When you go inside do you find there that sense of love, especially self-love?
If we have no sense of how to love ourselves then how can we love others? If our mantra is “Everyone is doing their best” then doesn’t that apply to ourselves first? Love, forgiveness, peace—they all begin with oneself!
We are each a unique expression of humanity with a unique soul, purpose, mission, destiny. We have to be here and be us to make everything work in some incredibly complicated, interdependent way. The Universe created us to be here now. That is a lot to love about ourselves! Without us the world would be incomplete, imperfect.
There is both grand praise and deep grief in this self-loving. The grief comes from the immense responsibility we fall so short from standing up to. But if we are doing our best at all times then forgiveness finds a home in our consciousness if we let it in.
I am reminded here of a deep thought given to me by Martín Prechtel, one of my most honored and revered teachers (his most recent book published this January, expands on this concept much more eloquently than I could ever attempt. See it at: The Unlikely Peace of Cuchumaquic). We are all mutually and forever indebted for our life. Think for a moment of all you have that you are indebted for. And I’m not talking about “stuff” or bank-debt here. I’m talking about the deeper elements of life without which we could not live. How can we ever pay back the plants for the nourishment they provide and the air they produce for us to breathe? But we do our best and we offer all we have to pay the debt knowing all along that we can never make it; we can never pay it all back. The toll it takes from everything, everyone, especially Mother Earth to allow a human to grow, survive, thrive is just too great.
Knowing we can never repay is a source of both grief and praise at the same time (these feelings are really two sides of one emotion!). We grieve our indebtedness and still celebrate our lives as worth something, worth living, worth fulfilling our purpose. If we can’t celebrate life then there can be no meaning to any of it! We need to celebrate the perfection of our lives as token repayment, an honoring of the Mother for giving us this life in the first place! As Martín might put it: we feed (honor) the Holy (God/Goddess in all things) by celebrating our lives; and in turn the Holy feed us!
And out of this grief and praise comes Love! The Mother loves us into existence at great sacrifice. We are all born of love. And this is our first debt. We need to repay this love in kind. And this is where self-love really is important. It is not only the source of knowing how to love, it is partial payment for our very existence—the love that created us!
Peace, joy, fulfillment all spring from Love of Self! Celebrate this!
Peace
What does this word mean? It is too easy to define it as its negative: “the absence of war.” But if we don’t use what we think of as this word’s opposite, how do we define it, describe the essence or the quality that is associated with this word?
I recently had the privilege of participating with my wife, Rosemary, as she channeled “The Divine Feminine” for several of us. When it came to be my turn she offered a message from an Archangel she saw standing with me. And here, paraphrased, is the heart of the message from that Archangel:
The Archangel showed her a sword and said through her to me:
“There is a battle raging; you must pick up this sword and fight for peace. You must find your warrior strength and fight. You must find your inner warrior, your power, your strength to stand in truth for peace. There is no peace possible from firing a gun.
“Peace is not a weak, airy, gentle thing. It is strong, with a quality of balance, surety, confidence. Your message is about the warrior who can stand for peace. There is a vibration of peace that you can sense. This comes from inner peace, a knowing that this is true.
“You are the Messenger of the Warrior of Peace. Be peace in the world. Hold this energy for others, especially men. Men seem only to know fighting. Fighting, killing, destruction is not a path to peace. Don’t confuse warrior with war. Peace is not the absence of killing but a vibration, the Vibration of Peace.
“Write about this in poetry, an article; write about the strength of the Warrior of Peace. This is your mantle, your charge. Explore and expose the Warrior of Peace, what that means. Invite others to explore their inner Warrior of Peace.”
This is the essence of the message. After she channeled it for me, Rosemary asked if I had any questions! I could barely catch my breath to say: “How, after that, could I ask for more?”
And so I begin to fulfill my “charge” to explore and expose this archetype, The Warrior of Peace. I could go in so many directions with this but the only direction to begin is inward.
The inner exploration is vital to anything we attempt in the outer world! One of my practices for inner work is to write “morning pages” – three hand-written pages much in the way recommended by Julia Cameron in her book “The Artist’s Way”. While thinking, questioning and writing about my message from Rosemary this came to me during my inner quest:
“Peace. It starts within. We all need to find an inner peace and this begins with practice. Practice Inner Peace. This is not unlike my primary value: Practice–>Love! Inner peace begins with self-love. If we all loved ourselves would there be war in the world? If we were all complete and trusted in the abundance and reflected love in the Universe would there be war? If we simply accepted ourselves and our purpose in the world would there be a need for war? Would there even be any motivation for war? If we all accepted of ourselves and everyone else that we are all doing our best and pledge to do better would there be any war?
“Awareness–>Acceptance–>Action to learn and improve–>Integration. These are seeds of Peace.”
I have not defined Peace here. I have even fallen to the “no-war” level as a first attempt! But I have found a place to begin this quest! Every quest begins with a step.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2013!
From RosemarySpace and my family we wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous 2013! May you live Your Richest Life!
Happiness is Family All Around!
Balance
Glenn M. Smith and I are launching a new site just at the Autumnal Equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere. In fact the Equinox comes to Colorado at 3:05 am Mountain Daylight Time, Friday, September 23, 2011, in case you are up then and want to celebrate with a little ceremony or ritual.
What comes to my mind at the equinoxes is “balance.” These two times a year the days and nights are of equal (more or less) length; the light is balanced by the dark. For us Northerners the days are shrinking in length until Friday when day balances night. And from then we plunge toward the darkness and death of winter as the wheel turns and we turn inward and toward quite times. (Well, that’s if you are living a Natural Life in tune with nature, cycles and the harmonics of the dynamic Universe in which we find ourselves!)
But for now we are in balance at least for a few days around this equinox. This is a time to recognize the balances of many aspects of life. And this is why I think our launch of powerfulsensitivemen.com is timed perfectly with this equinox. Powerful and Sensitive: there is a balance in the feeling of these words, particularly as they apply to men. Powerful does not exclude sensitive. And Sensitive does not exclude powerful. These characteristics can be in dynamic balance in everyone – in fact this is exactly the goal! It is the goal of every conscious evolving human. It is certainly my goal, not only for me but for everyone who is willing to join us in seeking this balance.
Equal days and nights; equal light and dark; I conjure up the Taichi symbol of the Toaists.
They have many corollaries for light and dark: male and female, hard and soft, giving and receiving, fire and water, yang and yin! The symbol is perfectly balanced with equal parts light and dark. Yet there is a dynamic to the dance of the ‘fish’ as they swirl around one-another. And note there is a spot of dark in the light; a spot of light in the dark – all is in harmony.
The dynamic of power and sensitivity are not unlike the Taichi symbol. Every powerful man has a ‘spot’ of sensitivity within; every sensitive man has a ‘spot’ of power within. The key is to bring these into balance. Every male has an inner feminine energy at play. In many this energy is suppressed, ignored, even denied. These may be powerful men but they are living “half-lives” – they are not living to their full potential as humans. In others the inner feminine has taken control. These are the “soft males” who have become overly sensitive and in the process have lost their ability to effect the changes their very sensitivity is demanding of them!
Balance: equal parts masculine and feminine, power and sensitivity, light and dark. This is what we seek. This is what we hope to explore in great depth, together, in this forum for men seeking to be powerfully sensitive!
As we go into this equinox time let’s remember to seek balance in everything we do. On every inhale breathe in the power and energy of life! On every exhale breathe out the gift of love and acceptance of All that Is!
Richard
I’m Back!
I have been away for too long! Sorry, it has been a hectic year. How is 2011 treating you?
I am still in the midst of rubble! No, there’s been no tragedy that’s struck here other than one of my own making! You see Rosemary and I have decided to sell our house in Colorado and move back to Maryland. This is a long and winding story and I’ll spare you the details. Here’s the high view:
We moved to Colorado in early 2000 just a couple of weeks after Rosemary’s Mom, Gloria, made her transition. We moved more stuff than we wanted to, but since it was a corporate move and we were in the midst of grief, the packers and movers packed everything in our Maryland house, yes, even some trash! In 2003 my company wanted me back in Maryland; rather than move again we went the short-term rental route keeping the house in Colorado. Four “short-term” places and five years later I retired and we moved back to our house in Colorado. Basically we then had two house-holds worth of stuff in this one house.
Well, I’m now going through all that stuff and purging. It’s a task and a half! Boxes of keep-stuff are in the basement and garage. Boxes of give-stuff are in the entry-way to be picked up soon. And I have many more boxes to fill! So, I’m living among the rubble of sorting, purging, packing, pitching as I go room-to-room preparing the house for sale. And this is my shallow excuse for my absence from this blog!
But I have not been idle in other ways aside from the move. In fact a friend of mine, Glenn M. Smith and I are joining forces to start a movement. And you can read about this movement, still in the “crawling phase” at:
And I’m going to repost an article I wrote for that site here; please read the next post.
Glenn’s and my new site is a social site meant to gain membership and discussion on any range of topics men may be interested in pursuing. Please visit and join our movement!
Meanwhile I plan to keep “Men and the Goddess” alive and begin feeding it again. I’ll keep you “posted” on that!
Greetings from far away and yet so near!
Hello. I’ve missed you. I have been away for too long but the away time was well worth it. In early June Rosemary and I married some very good friends in DC. They live in Maryland but DC allows gay marriages and Maryland recognizes all legal marriages from other jurisdictions. I think the biggest hurdle in the whole arrangement was getting Rosemary certified to perform weddings in DC. All came off without a hitch; well, that’s not true exactly! The hitched couple is now on their honeymoon cruise!
Then last week I was in Ojo Caliente, NM mudding an adobe hall where I go to school: Bolad’s Kitchen. The great hall, we call her The Lady, was built and mudded three years ago. The entire structure, a free-standing (meaning no posts of any kind) building made entirely of mud stands about 20 feet high and is about a 40×50 foot rectangle. She has to be re-mudded every three years since she is made of all natural ingredients that weather with the passage of time. There were about a dozen of us and we put an entire coat of mud (half agregate, half adobe, a bunch of shredded straw and water) about a half inch thick around the entire hall during the week. It was hard work but a labor of love!
With all this activity I have neglected this blog. Sorry if there has been anyone out there impatiently waiting for my next post. But the marriage of friends and The Lady come first!
I will comment on this week’s Mystic Message from The Divine Feminine tomorrow. It is an excellent message that we all need to hear and consider. It’s titled “Reach for the Joy!” – you may want to read it in advance.
Meanwhile, be good to yourselves and do reach for the joy!
Goddess Guidance Oracle Cards: Maat and Isolt
Greetings on this fine Monday in Colorado: cool temperatures, bright sun and a nice breeze; it would be a sailor’s delight if we had any water! It’s also “remembrance day” (aka Memorial Day) in the US. When I was a kid growing up we also used this day to remember all of our relations who had crossed over, not just the war fallen. I still do that preferring to avoid the whole concept of celebrating war.
Rosemary and I leave for Maryland tomorrow to celebrate something very special, a wedding in DC! Since we’ll be out of town for this week, and then I’ll be in New Mexico the following week mudding the adobe hall (The Lady), the home to Bolad’s Kitchen, posts may become thin. I’ll keep Rosemary’s blog going and will at least attempt to post on Wednesdays here to comment on the Mystic Message. Divination using the Dr. Doreen Virtue Goddess Oracle Card may fall off a bit. So, these cards may be the guidance for the next couple of weeks.
Today the card I drew is Maat. But as I drew her from the deck another slipped out: Isolt. So, I retained her as well and took her emergence as part of the message and the amplifier to Maat. I did not draw a Grandmother Card today.
Maat’s message is Fairness; and she says: “This situation will be handled in a fair and just manner.” She goes on to define fairness and I really like this: “Let me suggest another definition for fairness: It’s when all parties surrender their personal agendas in favor of the greater good for the entirety of the group.” And perhaps on this Memorial Day this is a good thing to remember: for the sake of fairness we are called to surrender our personal agenda for the greater good. This doesn’t sound exactly like the current “American Way.” We have been so caught up in the rights of the individual and, especially, the rights of the corporations, that the “common good” is often completely ignored. Yet Maat would have us surrender these individual rights, these corporate rights for the sake of the group.
It used to be that corporations were granted their status and privileges by states to serve the people, the common good. And that certainly seemed fair. It’s not clear to me that corporations these days have the common interest in mind. In a perfect world the corporations would respond to their boards of directors which would respond to the stockholders who would represent the common good. How far have we come from that perfect world? And as we remember those who waged war to defend our democracy how far have we come from that democracy? Do we still have a government of, by and for the people, or do we have the best government money can buy?
Whew, sorry! Not sure where this is coming from. I guess the word “fairness” on this Memorial Day took me down a rather serious and dark rabbit hole! Let’s look at the meaning of Maat for ourselves and then take a close look at Isolt, who will soften this whole discussion – and calm me down!
“Maat is the Egyptian goddess of integrity, fairness and justice, who holds a scale that measures souls against a feather at the time of death to detect any heaviness from guilt.” writes Dr. Virtue. That is a beautiful and potent image! I would love to be able to claim that my guilt rests as lightly on my soul as a feather!
For me this week I will call on Maat to remind me to be fair; this will mean putting the common good before my own agenda. And this is in excellent congruence with this week’s Mystic Message from The Divine Feminine channeled by Rosemary. Check out the message and post titled Send the Judge on vacation and choose Compassion! I’ll comment more on this post on Wednesday, but note how this plays into “fairness,” into the message of Maat! And this takes me smoothly to Isolt.
The subtitle of the Isolt card is Undying Love, and Dr. Virtue has her say: “The love you have shared is eternal regardless of the situation.” The message of Isolt is one of healing, especially of the heart. And she calls on us to first heal the hurts inside ourselves by going to that inner space and examining the wounds, the places of grief, loss, betrayal, despair. Be patient and gentle in this process. Compassion comes from within and begins as compassion for one’s-self.
Isolt is the Celtic goddess who was caught up in a love triangle between her husband, King Mark of Corwall, and the knight, Sir Tristan. Her message is to balance all of our love relationships. “She reminds us that – regardless of the situation – our love is real, powerful, and undying.” And our love can heal all hurts.
It’s certainly an interesting time for me to draw Isolt as we prepare to travel to Maryland to visit family: daughter, son-in-law, GRANDCHILDREN, sisters, husbands, nephews, nieces; and friends. And we go to marry a beautiful couple, to join them in a bond of love. I will carry the message of Isolt in my heart on this trip and hold Love as my motivating emotion.
Fairness and Love. Maat and Isolt. They seem to go hand-in-hand. (Clearly Isolt slipped out of the deck as I drew Maat because she knew they belonged together!) How can we have fairness without love: the common good requires our love. How can we have love without fairness: compassion calls us to surrender.
Goddess Guidance Oracle Cards: Athena and The Teacher
Time is continuing to play tricks acting like Coyote with me. My Friday, when I like to draw oracle cards for the weekend, dissolved into activities and dinner with friends. Today has been similar, the morning dissolving into procrastination and dabbling with the iPad. Then I finally took some action and drew two cards.
I drew Athena from the Dr. Doreen Virtue Goddess Guidance Oracle Cards. Her tag line is Inner Wisdom, and her short advice is: “You know what to do. Trust your inner wisdom, and take appropriate action without delay.” Right! In other words, stop procrastinating and get on with your day! I get that. She goes on to say that this “inner wisdom” is right there; “to access this wisdom, you must quiet your mind. Surrender all worries and other concerns to the loving and almighty power of the universe. Close your eyes, and note the thoughts and feelings that come streaming into your consciousness. If you like you can ask me to give you a signal that you’ve heard your inner wisdom correctly.” The first meaning of the card that Dr. Virtue offers is “Stop procrastinating.” OK, I get the message!
So, instead of writing this blog I moved on to my to-do list which had garden work at the top . I needed to get the pond back in action which meant getting filter material for the pump and the normal spring cleanup stuff plus some new plants – a lily for Rosemary! It felt good to get on with the day and get that task completed. Our water-fall is flowing and falling again and the new plants seem happy.
And this is one of the many reasons I draw these cards; they get me going because they reinforce what I already know. I knew I was procrastinating; I knew what I needed and wanted to do; and I knew it had to be done today. The card gave me that little extra boost to get on with it! Thanks, Athena, Greek Goddess, daughter of Zeus. Although Athena is a warrior goddess, she does battle with wits instead of weapons.” She is a diplomat; we need more like her in our world!
The Grandmother Card I drew from the Megan Garcia deck is The Teacher of the Clan Elders. She say: “We have learned from the records of those who have walked before us, and we continue to preserve the understanding. We pass to the next generation the teachings of our ancestors. We see in our her-story/his-story the truths we need to continue as Humans. We challenge, communicate, and guide others on a path of discovery of themselves.”
And just as Athena advises, Grandmother says we need to walk the path of self-discovery. It is all inside for us to know, to learn and to reveal. Yes, I procrastinated this morning avoiding the simple tasks put on a list to get done. That was a small thing. I also procrastinate reaching for that inner wisdom; and when I do reach for it I hold it inside, or I write it in my journal, locking it away again. And I avoid the role of “teacher.” A true teacher elicits the inner wisdom of others. It is our combined inner wisdom which will save us, will show us the “truths we need to continue as Humans.”
So, as I conclude this post, I realize I am still procrastinating. I am avoiding my “writing chair” and my meditation cushion. I will devote more time to these “spaces” over this long weekend.
How will you go about seeking and sharing your Inner Wisdom?
Men and The Goddess 