January 25, 2009
A blessing that we might hold for Barack Obama as he takes the helm:
A Blessing for One Who Holds Power--from Benedictus, A Book of Blessings by John O'Donohue
May the gift of leadership awaken in you as a vocation, Keep you mindful of the providence that calls you to serve.
As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings, May our perspective be larger than the view from the foothills.
When the way is flat and dull in times of grey endurance,
May your imagination continue to evoke horizons. When thirst burns in times of drought, May you be blessed to find the wells.
May you have the wisdom to read time clearly And know when the seed of change will flourish. In your heart may there be a sanctuary For the stillness where clarity is born.
May your work be infused with passion and creativity And have the wisdom to balance compassion and challenge.
May your soul find the graciousness To rise above the fester of small mediocrities.
May your power never become a shell Wherein your heart would silently atrophy.
May you welcome your own vulnerability As the ground where healing and truth join.
May integrity of soul be your first ideal, The source that will guide and bless your work.
September 22, 2008
When the Sky is Falling, Look In!
By Pam Burns-Clair
Deepak’s insights have helped me put in societal context what I encounter day after day in my therapy practice: it takes muscle and backbone to take the high road. Not all of us are up to the challenge.
If we choose Obama as our leader, in a sense, we have to be willing to join him and rise to the occasion of being what he embodies: tolerance, compassion, patience, vision…walking the walk, not just the talk of the high road. Deepak points out that our collective energy is generated in these elections and influences the process.
In therapy, as the client discovers “Oh not this again…Not another dysfunctional relationship!...Not another round of that old pattern!” it requires recognition, painstaking tedious repair, courage, stretching beyond. Some clients bail in the face of it, some go round the block of the dysfunctional relationship or self destruction or old pattern again, and yet again. Old patterns don’t die easy, nor do our illusions. We often fight vigorously for the status quo. “Don’t make me change! Don’t make me give up my preferred reality!” One client on such a path with repeated dysfunctional relationships labeled herself a “jerk magnet.”
So, where many of us have had enough of “jerks” in the last 8 years of this administration which have us screaming “ENOUGH!” others of us are not willing to admit defeat, unwilling to budge from the “us ‘n them” mentality that demonizes Al Qaida or Saddam Hussein or the Iranians which allows us to feel righteous and superior along with our leaders. Adopting the compassionate Obama position of “There are no red states or blue states, there are the UNITED States of America” is, by contrast, humbling! We have to eat our pride and tolerate our neighbor who collects junk and parks their car in front of our house for days at a time!
Enter Sarah Palin, whose small town Alaska “huntin’ ‘n fishin’” world and outa control kids (either in numbers or deeds) mirrors our own foibles and fetishes. She gives us permission to be small minded and fallible. We don’t have to try to wrap our mind around how campus shootings occur or how the price of gas got so high—we can just cast these problems as “bad guys” who need to be run outa town and we get to hold onto our righteous notion of being on the side of good. If it’s synonymous with naïve, well so be it…I’ve got my own little safe insulated world—my church or my bowling buddies or whoever my tribes are—they’re like me and I’m not asked to stretch outa my comfort zone.
Oddly, no sooner than we who lack courage and a wider lens got ourselves all cozy in the Sarah Palin niche…the sky fell and the bottom dropped out of the economy, rattling our sense of security. Where we may have been up for yet another round of “jerks” for president/vice-president, at some level, the sky fell. The financial market’s inflated greed and deception has caught up with itself and there’s no hiding now. It’s plain as day that whoever’s been minding the chicken house is not looking out for those chickens’ interests! And there’s no small minded simple solution, nor is the option of looking the other way gonna work. We actually have no choice but to face the fact that the existing leaders aren’t gonna be able to talk or spin their way through this. We’re gonna have to rise to the occasion on the double, come together bi-partisan style and give this situation our absolute the best and brightest think tank effort. It must be multi-layer: the immediate fix is imminent to stop the bleeding, but we also must get to the bottom of how this happened and restructure, re-regulate. We can’t afford to put another wolf in charge of the chicken house or another wolf in sheep’s clothing. There’s no denying that the USA is in deep trouble! Our foundation is NOT sound or secure, and anyone who claims it is must backpeddle real quick if they wanna survive!
It’s easier to view the world as flat, but then the sky falls right before our eyes and the evidence of there being another dimension is inescapable. This week Sarah’s world got shook up: “I USED to see Russia from my house!”
May we find it in us to move beyond jerks for leaders, despite ourselves.
4/13/08
Caucus, Anyone??
By Pam Burns-Clair
I was pretty excited when I stumbled across an email invitation 2 weeks ago from a fellow Napa Democratic activist to attend a Napa caucus for Obama to elect a delegate—so I thought—to send to the convention in August. I had no idea how this worked, having never had exposure to such a process in previous elections. But why not check it out and get involved in this event, as intricate, complex and mysterious as this election has been? I put the word out and stirred up a couple of local Sonoma cronies to accompany this journey. I was amazed to discover that my District 1 expands way north of Napa/Sonoma and east to Yolo and Lake Counties.
Where I was initially under the impression that the particular delegate candidate whose email solicitations came my way was the only running—kind of a shoe-in I figured for the delegate spot for our district—silly me, as soon as my friends and I took our place in the line today, we started getting bombarded by literature and introductions by a host of candidates, about 45 total competing for 3 spots, not 1 as I had thought, to include 2 females, 1 male plus a runner-up male. I learned that the convention strives to strike an equal number of male and female delegates, so there is an assigned gender quota per district. Each of the candidates present—perhaps a little more than half those running—was allowed to make a 1 minute speech on stage once the eligible voters had signed in at a specified time.
The two, not 1, women I voted for, including the candidate who had drawn me there from her email campaign, were both impassioned activists vowing to vote unwaveringly for Obama at the convention. (I hadn’t realized that pledged delegates, which is what these folks will become, may end up voting multiple times and are only pledged/committed for their first round of votes—after that they are free to switch! Pretty puzzling, but I voted for those who agreed to hold firm to their/our candidate--Obama.)
As inspiring and compelling as the presentation and literature was for my two chosen female candidates, there were three young men, two of whom captured my remaining 2 votes, whom I found inspiring beyond my expectations. All 3 of them were young—between 20 and about 25…2 were college students in No CA at state schools and proud that their first elections included such a fine candidate as Obama. They talked about hope, about the environment and the economy as motivations to get on board his campaign. One had just returned from spring break with activist friends in Pennsylvania where they had registered many new voters and handed out many buttons and bumper stickers for eager Pennsylvania Obama fans. The third young man, a black union member in his community, shared that Obama’s speech four years ago at the Democratic Convention had changed his life and inspired him to run for local city council. Each of these young men circulated effectively in the crowd prior to and after the voting occurred, sharing their stories and soliciting support. How cool is that, we all thought?
There were many more delegates whose stories touched me…a Native American mom of 5, 1 of whom had just returned from his first term serving in Iraq and who fervently wants a candidate who will end the war and spare her son a 2nd tour and perhaps spare him a funeral…she wants a candidate who will represent all people. There were Hispanic delegates…a former staff member of Bill Clinton’s…a deaf candidate looking to see disabled people better represented…a black preacher…quite an inspiring collection of worthy folks all willing to set their local lives aside and high tail it to participate in the electoral process on behalf of their district and Obama in August at the convention. One identified herself as an “Obamaholic” whose husband accuses her of making him share her with another man—she pledged to return to him after the convention if selected!
As the 3 of us drove home, we all felt so privileged to experience this democratic process…uplifted by the positive presence of so many fine candidates and organizers…hopeful and infected with the spirit of Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” campaign intended to unify and equalize. Given how much is wrong with our democracy, the negativity the press has emphasized in this campaign, the bleak state of our union and its status on the world stage, today was a big shot in the arm. For those who weren’t lucky enough to be there, I urge you to rub up against some aspect of this campaign. Get some o’ this and spread it around! YES WE CAN!!
The ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ Phenomenon
By Pam Burns-Clair
1/13/08
I imagine most of you have read this, or at least been told to read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book by that title. I purchased my copy sometime last spring, having been alerted by several clients and friends: “Must read.” Indeed, as I “entered” Italy with Ms. Gilbert, I immediately wanted to share it with my daughter, Chelsea, who was studying in Florence at the time and traveling most every weekend around Europe and beyond. I gave it to Chelsea when she returned home in the summer, shaken by culture shock and grieving the bittersweet parting from her Italian boyfriend of then 9 months. But before she left Italy and when the 2 of them were traveling through Naples, I alerted her to the pizza place that Elizabeth so deliciously describes in the book—the picture of Chelsea grinning and drooling over that slice of pizza is forever embedded in her blog and scrapbook.
Why has this book become such the rage? It has traveled through all my women’s circles and is the talk of many lunches and retreats…Oprah has featured Elizabeth a couple of times and now a movie is being made of her journey through Italy, India and Bali…I tried to get tickets to the upcoming speaking event featuring Elizabeth Gilbert and Anne Lamott in Marin and it seems to be sold out already, nearly 3 months in advance. It is just one woman’s candid story of loss and quest to find self as she sets out on her travels. But it has all the ingredients of a good novel or chick flick: it’s touching, it’s funny, you can’t help but identify with her foibles (I laughed out loud reading her account of trying to make friends with meditation at the ashram!), and it’s spiritual—that is, deeply inspiring.
I expect daughter Chelsea to struggle again with re-entry as she returns from a 3 week visit to the boyfriend in Italy this week to return to college. She called today to announce, gleefully, that she finished Eat, Pray, Love on the trip and LOVED it! She and the boyfriend just traveled to a fairytale town in northern Italy, Bolzano, where people live close to nature surrounded by alps and goats, are friendly and unguarded, unfettered by the frenzy of modern culture. She is enamored by this lifestyle and didn’t want to leave it—but, of course! The book is just the medicine needed for her upcoming second re-entry.
I think I’ve discovered what the key ingredient is of this book for even those of us who are not traveling and returning, but I’ll lead into it by sharing the quote from Elizabeth’s FAQ’s from her website (http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/faq.htm#FAQ8) which Chelsea directed me to, before I offer my ‘aha’ up:
9) WHAT WAS IT LIKE RETURNING TO REALITY AFTER ALL YOUR TRAVELS?
Returning to America, I desperately wanted to hold onto all that I had learned during my journey. But I also didn’t want to be the jerk who comes home from Bali and says, “Whoa, man…why’s everyone so stressed out?” So I returned to very much a normal life (cell phones, bills, friends and family, obligations), but I do feel that I am changed. There is a small, new, holy part of me which I hold onto and treasure very carefully – cupping it in my hands like a freshly lit match. I try to protect that new part of me as much as possible from the sheering winds of 21st Century America. (Generally, this means avoiding particularly spastic invasions of too much television, consumer debt, competition, over-consumption, success-pressure, greed and other forms of our daily cultural life.) This is not to say that I walk around in constant, perfect bliss, or that I’m not still capable of exploding with rage at minor frustrations, but I do live differently now. I won’t race you to beat that traffic light anymore. These days I slow down when the light turns yellow (I mean this in many ways) instead of speeding through every intersection blindly. The American capitalist machine is a marvel to behold (and I am a grateful beneficiary of it), but the race to always be the fastest, richest, most productive and best can also become a killing addiction. I push against that force with all my might. I don’t always succeed, but I always try. Meditation helps. (When I actually do it, that is. Which is not as often as I should, but what can I say, people? I’ll be working on that till the day I die. That’s why they call it a meditation PRACTICE.)
I realize I am challenged with “re-entry” also almost daily. A snapshot of this moment’s challenges in my life involves: the transition back to the workaday schedule and reality after a holiday break including a tough visit from my mother…attempting to both address as well as step back from her health drama which surfaced during the visit so as not to let it consume me with helplessness and frustration…attempting to detach from my high school senior daughter’s over-extended college-bound stress and enjoy these remaining months of her living with us full time before she launches—easier said than done…I enter and then step back from my the lives of clients psychotherapy daily.
It’s about building bridges, isn’t it? Between our inner heart’s desires…our soul’s journey and purpose when we get glimmers or urges of them…and the ‘fetters’ (i.e. cell phones, computers, schedules, freeways, the intrusions and obligations…as well as the stresses in our relationships) of our modern culture. Meditation and breathing, yellow stoplights offer us a momentary bridge…moments to shake off the fetters and to make the shift…drink from the cup…and then re-enter. My new year’s resolution is to observe and insert more yellow stoplights into my pace!
Happy New Year and thank you Elizabeth Gilbert for your insights as you so boldly stepped away, re-entered, and honed/continue to hone and offer the art of bridge building in the process!
Denial or Compassion? — June 15, 2006
Letter to Sonoma Index Tribune regarding Measure C — April 3, 2006
Reading from the Andromeda Guides and other guides-who are all previous Earthlings — March 31, 2006
Tsunami Survival Guide — March 21, 2006
Nature as the Ultimate Unifier — March 12, 2006
Being Love…or Being Right — April 16, 2006
Miles above it All — March 3, 2006
No on C!
Stirrings from Spirit of Napa Valley
Let Go-Be Happy
Andromeda Guides on Politics of the Times
The New Year's Dilema
All Roads Lead to Home
St. Theresa's Prayer
Inching my way from Katrina andromeda guides
Read Pam's wonderful Letter to the Editor from the Napa Valley Register!
lost and found
In memory of Timothy Shea, August 30, 2005
Rehab, October 6, 2005
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