ii. 3/3 Causal - becoming elders

Canadian writer, Stephen Jenkinson, and for-most grief tender wrote:

"Perhaps the most radical act in a troubled time is to proceed as if you're needed."”

Grace in Aging

Journalist Krista Tippett describes an embodied form of grace—the surprising grace of aging. As our minds and bodies slow down, we make space for simple contentment:

To inhabit my body in all its grace and its flaws appears as a gift for the new/mundane bodily territory I’m on in midlife. Aging is the ultimate slow motion loss, inevit... See more

Krista tippet on Grace in aging. Beautifully written

True transcendence frees us from the tyranny of I am, the idolatry of we are, and the scapegoating of they are

From Richard Rohr

Mystics are men and women, who, through mystical experiences are touched by the realization that down in the deep-down depths of things, God is welling up and giving Herself away in and as every breath and heartbeat. They taste that oneness, and in moments, when we taste that oneness, we’re like a momentary mystic.

—James Finley

Daily mystic

Breath as passage way to easing back or stepping forwards into infinite space and unity. Breathe in the gift of plants. Breathe out a gift back to them. Treat your body as the compost it will one day become.

We desperately need healing for groups, institutions, marriages, the wounds of war, violence, racism, and the endless social problems in which we are drowning today. But we won’t know how to heal if we don’t learn the skills at ground zero: the individual human heart.

—Richard Rohr

Healing the world begins with ourselves

Let us visualize the waves on the ocean, several waves appearing on the surface of the ocean. Some waves are big, there are those that are small, and each wave seems to have its own life. A wave may have ideas like, “I am a wave. I am only a wave among many waves. I am smaller than the other wave. I am less beautiful. I last less than the other wav... See more

Thich Nhat Hanh • Rest In the River

bridging 2-3: noticing our individuality and our unity, like the wave in water.

While living the life of a wave, a wave can live a life of the water.

Ask people to sit in those different perspectives - the silence that hears your thoughts is the water. Thoughts are the wave

Thich Nhat Hanh

When creating an ofrenda (Day of the Dead altar), you can include items like: marigolds (cempasúchil), candles, sugar skulls, pan de muerto (Day of the Dead bread), a glass of water, family photos, papel picado (colorful tissue paper), incense, personal items of the deceased, and traditional Mexican food; all of which symbolize guiding the spirits ... See more

Building an ofrenda and staying connected to ancestors

One day as I was about to step on a dry leaf, I saw the leaf in the ultimate dimension. I saw that it was not really dead, but it was merging with the moist soil and preparing to appear on the tree the following spring in another form. I smiled at the leaf and said, “You are pretending.”

Thich Nhat Hanh • Beyond Birth and Death

Thich Nhat Hanh

9/17/20

Lion’s Roar

To be born means from nothing you become something; from no one you become someone. But nothing can be born from nothing. A flower is born from soil, minerals, seeds, sunshine, rain, and many other things. Meditation reveals to us the no-birth of all things. Life is a continuation.

Thich Nhat Hanh • Beyond Birth and Death

Thich Nhat Hanh

9/17/20

Lion’s Roar