The ambiguous call...

Justice is defined in the dictionary as the quality of being just, impartial or fair.

In recent times we've seen one side or another in demonstrations or news conferences demanding justice, but the way it's said, and the meaning implied, has nothing to do with being impartial or fair.

It seems individuals or groups in seeking the quality of justice, get caught up in the phrase and use it as a rallying cry to address perceived wrongs.

When some cry "we want justice" their passionate cry seems to be for the opposite. They seek a validation of their viewpoint, their opinions, their expectations and they forget that justice is represented as blind for a reason.

If the noble call for justice only means an intolerant demand for punitive action or reversing a decision no matter what, then it is not justice that one seeks, but vengeance.

It is extreme justice and as Cicero once said, that's extreme injustice.

The positive action of justice is truth and that is discerned by careful analysis, patient communication and a willingness to unconditionally listen.

More of Letting Go

Is admitting fears or a perceived vulnerability a personal failure; a systemic weakness of thought or is it a construct of the ego’s ability to sustain itself?

The desire to become something, empowers the ego and feeds the illusion of attachment. The action of BEING acknowledges the spirit and nourishes the truth that by letting go we always have.

We are both physical and spiritual beings. When we perceive, through our physical bodies via the intellect and instinct each moment of being is precious because we tie it to time. Our spirit, however, the true essence of what we are, sees each moment as eternity and perfect, for linear time does not exist.

If we accept that premise, the expression, "Live in the Moment" takes on a different meaning.  We can live in the moment, all it takes is the desire to do so and when we make that choice the result is love, for fear cannot exist when love of self is present.

Understanding the dichotomy of letting go, to always have, is a constant struggle of life.  Implicit is the understanding that we are not our bodies. Our bodies only house what we really are -- spirit!

The body is a beautiful mechanism brought into form that allows the spirit to exist in form and in the density of this environment.  When the spirit is finished with what it came here to do, it discards the body and returns to the Source and the body returns to the earth. This is why the body and the earth are considered sacred. They are of the same substance with similar functions. Containers of spirit!

When we go deep within our being we remember this truth and much more. Awareness is an equal gift from God to all. It is the remembering that is selective by each of us, and the levels of enlightenment are the precipitations of our choices.  There are only two emotions available to humankind. Love and fear.  All other emotions are derivatives.  We will remember more, love ourselves more, if we let go of fear.

The Autumn of Life

I think the season’s change is a profound lesson for humankind. To me both autumn and spring are sacred. In these two opposing seasons we see the seeming death and birth of nature.

The trees, grasses, and flowers pass. The insects and some mammals disappear and essentially hibernate until the warmth of spring encourages the return to active life.

The trees especially are the harbingers of endings and the heralds of new growth.

The human condition is similar to the cycle of tree life. Like the trees when we pass we really don’t die. The body passes, but the spirit, the sap of life, survives. We meld, we blend, and we hibernate into the root cosmos until divine guidance gives us another opportunity to return and grow bigger and better and more fully in the appreciation of All That Is.

I acknowledge that this concept may be both inimical and foreign to some beliefs systems. It doesn’t diminish your dogma, nor does it augment mine. It is a thought that works for me until another comes around that's better.

Letting go

The other day when I was posting about nothing, it reminded me of letting go and the profound benefits you can get from just emptying your mind.

The process is a little awkward at first because all sorts of things that have been lingering in the folds of your mind will pop up and you will have to purposely purge them so that all you see in your minds eye is a blank screen.

It takes a little practice, but once you succeed, even for a nano-moment, a peace descends and all the knotted tensions of the body become untied and a rebirth of a freeing spirit emerges. Or nothing happens.

Past Peek, but...

I spent a few hours over the weekend kayaking on a peaceful river near my home. The fall folliage was past it's color peek, but that didn't matter. There were a smidgeon of deep reds and bright yellows here and there; some still green shrubs added a contrast so the scene was a perfect Eastern fall day.

The water was clear and shallow in spots so I could see the bottom rocks still covered with the decaying vegetation of a summer's growth. I imagine the trout, bass, and catfish that live in these waters will head for the deep pools when the water gets several degrees cooler. 

The water's flow was slow, but with a slight current. I paddled upstream for a few miles and when I returned I could drift with the molasses like current and I enjoyed the push of a downstream breeze. It  also festooned the water before me with falling leaves. We floated together in the silence of silence.

That was it for me for the season. I've put the boat away until spring, but I will remember the cosmic experience all winter, especially when I feel the winter science that equals the river float.

Nothing

Sometimes you have to write about nothing in order for something to seem more profound.

Thanks for tuning in.

RGS

Missing Courtesies

I don’t know if this happens in other countries, but here in America when you are driving at night and another car approaches drivers are supposed to dim their lights.

I said supposed to dim their lights. What I’ve noticed lately is that most drivers wait until they see your on-coming bright lights before they dim the lights.

My process is to dim my lights whenever I see a reflection of light or even a hit of light either rounding a curve or off in the distance depending on the road.

I guess it’s a lot like other things. Being discourteous in America seems to be the norm these days. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

Just look at pulling into heavy traffic on a busy highway. How many drivers will let you in? Look at seating on the train or subway or bus, people packages or brief cases are on an open seat and few will move them knowing someone has to sit there. Most are just hoping that you don’t ask to sit at their seat.

Whatever happened to a gentleman giving up his seat for a lady?

Sacred Places

I visited the Santuario de Chimayo in northern New Mexico several times over the last few decades.

It has always attracted me because of its story. A couple of hundred years ago a priest was martyred at that location and it became a healing and sacred ground.

Hundreds of people visit the tiny adobe church every year and many claim to have been healed from illness or deformity. Some leave their crutches as evidence and others post a note or picture with their story.

The world is filled with sacred places. Lourdes, Medjugorie, Machu Pichu, Sedona vortexes, the Wailing Wall, Stonehenge and Ayres Rock to name a few. Not all of them have a healing component, but all of them have an energy different from the norm; you can feel it if you move yourself into a quiet meditative state.

Why does one place become sacred and not another? I think it has to do with the collective energy we human beings leave there through time and thought.

I think we have far more spiritual power than we remember and we leave that energy in places by our appreciation or awe or reverence of the location or an historical event that took place there.

Old Movies

I watched part of an old western movie last night made in 1969 starring Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson. It was calld The Station, I think.  I picked it up in the early beginning and was never really able to catch the plot accept there was a whole lot of stareing at each other. Jason Robards was also in it.

It was classic western. A train, shooting each other, women, horses, weird music and gunfights.

We don't see too many westerns these days. I guess we've outgrown the genre for today's audiences. Now we make zombie, science fiction, cartoon and action dramas with lots of visual effects for public consumption. In those days they didn't have that many visual effects. It was a simple time.

It was a lot like the early west itself.

I don't know why I think I miss it. I never lived there. Or maybe I did.

We are Nature

Another fall has arrived and once again the season provides numerous lessons of life and passage if we but choose to see them.

In human life we are born, grow, blossom and pass and hopefully we do it with the fulfillment and graceful intention of our spiritual purpose.

In nature, plants are born, albeit emerge, from a hibernation or seed. They grow, blossom and seemingly pass leaving their gifts of beauty and sustenance.

In general, we humans have decades before our passage. So does much of  the earthly flora, but they give the illusion of passage each fall and return in the spring so that we can remember that life never ends. We are eternal.

Take an early morning walk as the sun begins to rise.

Listen to your heart in the silence of your room.

Hear a child laugh and know that God is not discouraged with humanity.

Let go of a personal fear and begin to laugh.

In a mirror, stare into the center of your eye and ask, “Who am I?” and then listen to the answer.