Parinama

  What if the deeper currents shaping our lives come through the unfinished lives of our ancestors? Perhaps, we come into this life, are given this gift of life, not only for our own purpose but to help heal some of the wounds of our ancestors, those lives that came before us and made our lives possible.   I have always felt myself to be carrying some of my ancestor’s struggle, their despair, as well as their hope.   Jung has said that the child will be called to live the unlived life of the parent.   What remains unresolved in the parent, the grandparent, the tribe will enter the child’s being.   New science bears truth to these insights showing us how trauma from generations passed alter the DNA that is passed through the body.   We have the chance to heal some of the trauma that has been passed down to us and through us.   Healing pulls more light and healing into our world rather than more darkness.   It is our choice. I...

  On a recent Zoom call at work, a colleague’s three year old son came into view giving his mother a sweet and generous hug and kiss.   His love for his mother and his happiness to be near her poured out of him.   We all have this remarkable capacity to allow love to flow through us towards others.   Many of the wisdom traditions call this God, God as love.   It doesn’t matter what you call it. Learning how to unconditionally love more is why we have been given these lives.   But unlike when we were three, as we grew into adults, a necessary hard shell formed around our hearts separating us from others and blocking this divine flow of love.   While we needed this armor of the egoic self to individuate, become separate selves, after midlife, it just gets in the way of our loving.   To get the tap flowing, we need to consent to allowing this love to flow.   Spiritual practices which have been passed down to us for thousands ...

When I was first beginning this ole spiritual journey, I believed that serenity might come my way if I were only good enough.   I prayed the serenity prayer, trying to discern what was in my control to change and what was out of my control, but looking back now can see that I gave hardly anything up to things that I could not control and had a hard time accepting most things about myself. It seemed to me then that if I could only work harder to be a better friend, daughter, partner, economist, woman, than I might not have to endure so many failures.   When things got difficult, as they did, when I lost jobs, friends, joy, control over my anger, I felt ashamed to find myself once again unable to create through force of will, character, and competence a fruitful, easier, fulfilling life. The image I have of this time is of the red sea parting.   On one side is all that is bad and the other all that is good.   I stand in the middle straining with my always too meagre fo...