11.4.2024. Playing Small Does Not Serve
“Your playing small does not serve the world.”
— Marianne Williamson
Somewhere deep in the marrow of our bones, we all know this quandary between playing small (hiding our light under a tightly woven bushel basket) and tooting our own horn. Somewhere there is a part (or maybe two), a still small voice inside of us that hides out, shrinks, holds back (a part that is vulnerable and raw beyond measure). A part that (maybe) peeks out every now and then, then safely tucks itself back into its ancient old, hard-bone sea turtle shell. learned to be content in the 4 x 4 confinement of the 100 lb box we carry on our backs formed long ago out of protective patterns, ancestral conditioning and condition responses.
Good news, we all have them, patterns that run all the way to the river's edge.
More good news, patterns can be named, unearthed and dismantled.
This is our holy of holy tasks; to acknowledge and honor the fullness of who we are. Unfold the grip of the patterns and story-narratives that run our life amuck and block our entry to our birthright, emancipated joy and aliveness as human-Divine, our Gardens of Eden!
So I say to you, speak your triumphs! Share your true largeness-awe and deep astonishment.
For I have learned a deep bone-teaching to share with you: your efforts and holy-prayer accomplishments are an inspiration to others and give hope that our wildest edge dreams can come true too.
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🌸 Below, lovely offerings for your Heart: 2 Poems. 3 Quotes. 1 Practice. 1 Share. 1 Join Me! 1 Closing Medicine-for-Today Song.
🌸 Two Poems to Share 🌸
The Place Where We Are Right | Yehuda Amichai and Stephen Mitchell
From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.
The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.
🌿 A powerful poem especially in today’s political world. What if all conversations politically, and even our personal conversations dropped the hard and trampled ground of being of ‘right/wrong’ instead leaned into the ‘doubts and loves’. Then what else could be heard and born?
What’s in the Temple | Tom Barrett
In the quiet spaces of my mind a thought lies still, but ready to spring.
It begs me to open the door so it can walk about.
The poets speak in obscure terms pointing madly at the unsayable.
The sages say nothing, but walk ahead patting their thigh calling for us to follow.
The monk sits pen in hand poised to explain the cloud of unknowing.
The seeker seeks, just around the corner from the truth.
If she stands still it will catch up with her.
Pause with us here a while.
Put your ear to the wall of your heart.
Listen for the whisper of knowing there.
Love will touch you if you are very still.
Read Full Poem Here.
🌿 Take a moment to read this poem fully. Sit. Let the last stanza open you. Whisper into you. Download into you the secret spaces of your heart.
“If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart,
What would you worship there?
What would you bring to sacrifice?
What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?
Go there now.”
🌸 Three Quotes | Albert Schweitzer. Alan Watts. Mark Nepo. 🌸
“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.” — Albert Schweitzer in MEMOIRS OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH, translated by Erica Anderson
“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be." — Alan Watts
“Since speed and confidence are the traits of success we are taught to strive with, it takes added courage to welcome time and humility into our lives.” — Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life
🌸 Something to Practice | Embracing the Wounded Child 🌸
“With practice, we can see that our wounded child is not only us. Our wounded child may represent several generations. Our mother may have suffered throughout her life. Our father may have suffered. Perhaps our parents weren't able to look after the wounded child in themselves. So when we're embracing the wounded child in us, we are embracing all the wounded child in our past generations. This practice is not a practice for ourselves alone, but for numberless generations of ancestors and descendants.” – by Thich Nhat Hanh
🌿 A treasure find: To help practice and work with your ‘Inner Child’ there is an exquisite book by spiritual teacher and founder of Full Bloomed Lotus, Ramaa Krishnan.
Find Wholeness and Healing with The Yoga of Self-Love is a gorgeous-beyond. The Yoga of Self-Love is about reparenting ourselves, as we navigate the complexities of life's stages, from the struggles of youth to the depths of midlife crisis.
"The Yoga of Self-Love is a memoir steeped in wisdom, and ultimately a roadmap toward deepened self-knowing and a return to love... Read in one swift gulp, or taken sip by sip, it's a book that will stay with you and just might bring you home along the way.”
— Barbara Mahany, author of The Book of Nature: The Astonishing Beauty of God's First Sacred Text (another gorgeous book to breathe into, dripping with breathtaking beauty!)
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🌸 Something to Share | Poetry & Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer 🌸
‘Sometimes a dream comes true’. I am humbled and honored to share with you that two of my poems were selected for top 10 poems for the Eremos Poetry for Thriving Contest. One being in the top five. The poet, gorgeous beyond words, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, one of my poet-inspirations-heroes, was the final judge.
Meeting Rosemerry in-person was a dream come true. Reciting my poem out-loud even as a trembling leaf swan diving off its limb, risking hard ground, was a dream come true too.
🌿 Rosemary’s new book of poems, The Unfolding, is out, so worth a buy to add to your bedside. This YouTube, The Courage to Say Yes - A Conversation with Tara Brach and poet, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, is dancing light!
🌸 Join Me! | AWAKENING YOUR YES. DECEMBER 9TH 🌸
“Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.”
– Maya Angelo
✨
A 1-day Retreat together with Megan Dunne Krouse and Courtney Riley, this is an invitation to step into the heart of self-discovery and open to your authentic ‘Yes’ that resides within you. Engage with your full embodied self through Breath, Movement, Meditation, Yoga Nidra, Reflective Dialogue, Ritual, and Contemplative Writing.
Here is what you need to know:
✨ Monday December 9th.
9:30am - 3:30pm.
A nutritious seasonal lunch is included
✨ Women's Club of Wilmette
930 Greenleaf Avenue in Wilmette
✨ Courtney Riley
Wini Nimrod
Megan Dunne Krouse
✨ Space is Limited
🌿 Scholarships are available. (reach out to Courtney, all requests honored and held sacred)
🌸 Closing Song | Beautiful Chorus - Brilliant Mycelium 🌸
Medicine. A song good for your heart. For remembering. For thriving. For vision. Offering hope and light in the overwhelm, frustration and grief—about things happening within our world.
May we listen into the nourishing underground hum of the universe, a web of interconnection. Resilient and flourishing. Holy, holy. Amen.
“an underground universe that’s
thriving fully alive
sensitive resilient”
Listen on YouTube (3:48 min)
on Spotify here (3:42 min)
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🌸 So Grateful You Are Part of This Community. 🌸
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please feel free to share it with someone who might appreciate it, too.
🌿 Thank you for being here!
This Metta Newsletter is a Love-offering
✨ an offering to bloom more Light
💞 more Goodness
🌎 more gorgeous-tenderness on our planet.
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Until next week. 💖 ✨
