Appearances are not only deceiving but are unimportant

TO live happily is an inward power of the soul, when she is affected with indifference, towards those things that are by their nature indifferent.

MARCUS AURELIUS. MEDITATIONS. Book xi. 15

Today's reading from Words of the Ancient Wise involved three separate readings all dealing with appearances and how they are indifferents.  Our moral compass must be set on virtues to find its heading, not appearances.  Appearances can be easily changed to make them appear different than the reality of the situation really is.  We can be "photoshopped" to appear thinner, and younger than we actually are.  Humans can also use various techniques, press, lying, etc. to make ourselves appear to be different than we really are.  How many criminals and serial killers have evaded capture by using these techniques.  

Although it is nice to have a good public reputation it is much more important to be able to face ourself in the mirror and know that we have no blemishes or hidden facets in our moral character.  To Thine Own Self Be True is the best adage to live by.  When we fool ourselves and others we are only hurting ourselves and denying ourselves the joy of being completely free.  The joy of loving one's self and accepting who we are is an elusive quality in this complicated world that we live in.  Let's decide what our "best" self looks like and strive to be true to that "best" self in this life.  Building the moral framework and foundation to "be" the best self that we can be.  Someone who is able to greet the world without a mask, able to be truly honest with self and all others.  Honesty is a wonderful goal to take the rest of our lives to achieve. 

 

Flourishing

Today's reading was all about finding happiness in life and flourishing.  I had many moments of deep happiness over the weekend visiting my family.  One of my happiest moments was actually visiting my Father and Godmother's memorial sites with my Mum and husband.  It was a perfect, peaceful, autumn Sunday morning.  My mum and I sat for awhile, after having placed some flowers at their sites, and enjoyed the beauty of the day.  Reminiscing about both of them and knowing that they would have loved the weather.  Although  both are deeply missed, their love and lives made a huge impact and they are remembered for the places they both took in our hearts and lives.

I had the opportunity to see a lot of my family this weekend, mother, sisters, brother-in-laws, nephews and nieces.  The family is growing with lots of little ones to carry on for us when we are gone.  The wonder of life was renewed within me.  I have a renewed bounce in my step and a new determination to seize each day and embrace the wonder of life here on earth.

Blessings of harvest to all!

Thanksgiving and Thankfulness

This weekend is the Thanksgiving weekend in Canada.  I am heading out for the weekend to visit my mother and sisters and the gang.  We will be back for the Statutory holiday on Monday to have a turkey feast with my own children.  Given the time of year I thought it was only appropriate to write about gratitude, thanksgiving and thankfulness in general.

Today I feel incredibly blessed to have everyone and everything that I have in my life.  I have an amazing husband who continues to surprise me in little ways even after being together over 25 years.  We continue to learn and grow together which is really quite fun and gives life an extra thrill.  I have three outstanding children who are now young adults and making their own marks on the world.  Each one of them are unique and incredible in their own ways and I am so blessed to have them in my life.

I am blessed with having grown up in amazing family with a father and mother who made sure that we knew we were loved every day.  My father died in 2001 but his legacy continues in my heart and in the choices that I make on a day to day basis.  My parents taught me to be strong and independent but to always think of others and act with kindness.  My mother would still give her shirt off of her back to anyone if she knew that they needed it.  This kind of generosity and warmth can be quite rare in our cynical world but I grew up with it on a daily basis.  This nurturing atmosphere definitely helped influence and mold me into the person that I am today.  My sisters, although older than me, have always made it clear that they are proud of me and that family is all that matters, no matter what.  I am blessed, indeed.

I am blessed to have spent the majority of my life in this amazing country called Canada.  This land of far open spaces, wilderness and Victorian influenced cities.  It is a young country when compared to Europe and more eastern countries but it has a warmth and hospitable charm that is hard to find anywhere else on earth.  I live in a city where I am not afraid of my neighbour, there are no shots heard in the night and I have no worries of religious intolerance or being jailed for my beliefs.

Let us all ponder and give thanks in whatever way we feel fitting for all the blessings we have in this life.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow...

What if somewhere is actually where we are?  What if we are wasting so much of our life chasing for a rainbow without seeing the technicolour display in our own life?  The Stoic reading today was again from Epictetus.  The theme of how our fear of death can actually prevent us from living.  Fear is a huge factor in our lives, in my life it has often reared its ugly head to stop me from moving forward.  I battle fear everyday, although most people, except for my husband and children, are unaware of this fact.  I know that I am not unique in this respect, most humans battle fear on a daily basis or have battled it in some form for a long period of time.

I am hearing impaired, was born that way, and it does cause me to lose my way in social situations.  I also experience quite a high level of social anxiety.  I imagine there are a number of contributing factors to my social anxiety but there really is no sense in dwelling on them.  The reality is that I still need to function in this world.  I need to "put myself out there" on a daily basis.  I have my own consulting business that I am able to run from home so I am spared some of the daily contact required in "normal" employment situations.  I have lately become more vocal in my community, opening up my home for workshops on Stoic philosophy and a local community group for seasonal rituals, etc.  I am overcoming my fear and continue to work on this on a daily basis.  I am growing and moving forward because I refuse to allow my social fear to win.

When we allow our fear of death to win, we rob ourselves of many beautiful experiences in life.  We need to accept that, just as a flower blooms for a time and then withers and dies, we too bloom, wither and then die.  We ALL must die.  We have no idea if death is final or if there is another life beyond this one in some form or another.  We can believe, depending on our different religious or spiritual paths, that there is something more, but none of us have ever been shown an incontrovertible proof of life beyond this one.  Rather than being so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good let's go out into the world with a renewed purpose.  Let's find our bliss and make a difference with the lifetime that is left to us.  Let us greet each new day as a brand new opportunity to change the world that we live in for the better.  I want that to be my legacy.  When I am no longer on this earth I want those who I knew and loved to know that I loved them and cherished them.

Let's move forward and cherish our lives as gifts from the Universe and make a difference today.

Morning Ramblings...

Today I am preoccupied with the world and the state that it is in.  The protests on Wall Street, people rising up against the weatlthy and the priviledged...  I am reminded of France before the revolution.  Situations that are caused by humanity's lack of caring for each other.  It is easy when you are living the "good life" to forget those who you have used and climbed up on to reach the pinnacle of whatever ladder it is you are climbing.  There are those who live at the top of the ladder and live there with principles and caring, doing what they can to make the world a better place.  Unfortunately, they are not nearly as vocal as the ones in the one percent that have caused this ninety-nine percent to rise up against them.

I cannot magically change the world to be a just place.  My small contribution is not felt on the streets of New York where people are hurting but I can be felt in my community, in my family, and in my home.  I can create an oasis of calm in a crazy hurting world where all are welcome.  I can grow gardens and help to replenish the earth in my small corner.  I can raise my children with principles and virtues, who in turn will be kinder to others and raise their children with the same principles and virtues.  I can teach a spiritual path that I believe helps us make sense of this world and gives us a beacon to cut through the darkness of confusion and apathy.  In my small way I can make this world a kinder place.

One small grain of sand is the start of a beautiful pearl.

When Death Comes...

 Today's Stoic reading was on facing death, the reality of death, not shying away from the reality that just as a human is born, a human must die.  We are not eternal creatures but mortal.  The fact of our mortality must be embraced and understood if we are to live our life to its fullest.  We need to craft our lives like a work of art; a treasured pot crafted on the potter's wheel, a painting full of colours and shading, subtle nuances that make a primitive craft a work of art.

Crafting our life is the work of a Stoic, living according to Nature and OUR Nature is the way that this work of art can come to see the light.  Reducing our lives to what truly brings us bliss and peace, discarding the excess and living authentically.  This is my quest, my "sacred" charge from the Universe.  To live life fully according to the best of my nature and Nature itself.

When Death Comes – A Poem by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

I want to be the bride married to amazement and the bridegroom taking the world into my arms.  I want to know that I crafted my life to be something real.  I want to have fully lived and not just visited this world.  Let's all strive to find our bliss, get rid of the affluenza, embrace the Stoic life and live fully in this world of wonder and amazement.

Looking Through Rose Coloured Glasses...

MEN are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. Death, for instance, is not terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible. When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never impute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. It is the action of an uninstructed person to lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others; of one entering upon instruction to lay the fault on himself; and of one perfectly instructed, neither on others nor on himself.

EPICTETUS. MANUAL. 5.

 

We need to learn to accept things as they are without colouring them with false circumstances and outcomes.  We all bring our particular biases and predispositions to situations in our life.  We don't actually see the situations for what they are but pile a bunch of baggage left over from past experiences and judgements onto the new situation.  This baggage becomes a lens or filter that we see the world through. We need to try to greet each circumstance as a new experience without automatically ascribing a variety of emotions to it.  We need to rationally analyze each experience or circumstance as a new land with a brand new landscape.  When we prejudge a situation or circumstance irrationally we predispose ourselves to failure, doomed to recreate mistakes from the past.  We also rob ourselves of the possibility of growth as we don't acknowledge the newness of the experience but greet it as a familiar occurrence and relegate it to the mundane and mediocre.

The Stoic practice of recognizing what is "in our control" and "not in our control" can help us eliminate a lot of these filters, allowing us to make new judgements and have new experiences.  I hope to cultivate an ability to analyze each situation as a new situation, making correct decisions without carrying negativity from the past.  Let's all strive to greet each new day as a new canvas rich and ripe for painting new vistas on.