It's Scientific

Check out this article in the Atlantic magazine (it's a short article) that relates a sense of connectedness to well-being and longevity...

 

The Need to Feel Connected

Leia Mais…

When Words Get In The Way

My dear precious boy Bogey passed on to the next stage of his existence this past Friday. He was an amazing, wonderful partner and friend and I miss him greatly.  I've written elsewhere about him and our time together; what I want to write about here is a lesson he helped me learn about true connectedness in the time leading up to his passing.

For years while we were together I'd talk to him about all kinds of things.  Of course he didn't understand most of the words (but he was very clear about the meanings of "treat" and "walk" and "ride").  But somehow it felt important that they all be said, as a means of helping to reinforce the connection between us.  Maybe in that sense they were more meaningful to me than they were to him, but I think they helped let him know he was important to me and that I cared about him and about our relationship enough to focus on him and communicate with him.

As the end drew near for our time together, I found myself pressing more and more to find just the right words to try and tell him how special he'd always been to me, how we'd meet up again someday on a trail by a lake full of ducks, how he'd always be in my heart.  What I think I was trying to do was to make as certain as I could that our connection was fortified as much as possible, so that nothing would break it as he crossed the threshold he was facing.  The more I tried to find all the right words though, the more I sensed my frustration and concern mounting that maybe I should try to say it all better, or more often, or in some different way, or that maybe I was forgetting to say something important.

Then one night just a couple of days before his passing, he stumbled into the family room where I was lying on the floor and lay down next to me, his eyes looking directly into mine.  And in that moment I felt him say, without making a sound, everything I'd been so clumsily trying to put into words.  I felt like he was letting me know that he knew, and that it was all okay.  Whatever happened, the love and the bond between us would remain. 

We use words in life to convey thoughts and express emotions, as one way of connecting our minds and hearts.  But ultimately we are all already connected, and there comes a point where words are just no longer necessary and even become distractions from that reality.  The connection of the heart that we all share deep down needs no words to establish or maintain it when we strip away all the things that make us feel separate and we return to our essence.  That connection is already and always perfect and whole without any words or other devices required on our part.

With attention and effort, we can choose to live consciously from that place of awareness of our oneness with all and enjoy a deep, rich sense of connection throughout our lives.  And anytime we forget that and get all caught up being egos exchanging words and feeling separate from each other, we need only look to our dogs to remind us of who we really are and what really matters in life. 

Leia Mais…

A World Once Hidden

This video pretty much says it all...

Welcome to a world once hidden from you

Enjoy and embrace!

Leia Mais…

Daily Word

Today's Daily Word (from www.dailyword.com) speaks from an awareness of our interconnectedness and how that awareness guides our interactions as we participate in community with each other.

Community

 

I am a beneficial presence in my community.

 

I am often part of a group - my family, colleagues at work, fellow passengers on a plane or subway, or neighbors at the local store. In every situation, I create community as I share and seek to discover the common threads that weave us together. 

I commit to being a beneficial presence in my community. I make connections and demonstrate the qualities I wish to experience. When I see love, I reflect it back. When I see sadness or anger, I embrace the individuals with compassion. When I see conflict or confusion, I center myself in the calm peace of God within so that I may be divinely guided to the right words and actions. My community is uplifted as I act with peace and love.

I think this is a great perspective to start the new year with. I'm grateful for every member of our community of humanity, for the awareness of our interconnection, and for the opportunity to live in loving service to all.  In this new year, may we all embrace the awareness that We Are All One and respond with love and compassion to this awareness in each of our interactions.

Leia Mais…

Lesson from a Dying Kitten

This has been a terrible day for me. I started the day in a major conflict with my girlfriend, one that resulted in a great degree of distancing and disillusionment and uncertainty about our future together. I think it's safe to say both of us are suffering the pain of great heartache, confusion, and a sense of a breach of a deep connection tonight.

Then tonight I went to dinner with an old friend who's going through a very painful and bitter divorce. The suffering experienced not only by herself but also by her children, family, and others affected is also great, and sure to be prolonged due to the contentious and complicated nature of their situation.

In between those two events I was driving into town this afternoon when I passed an object on the freeway on-ramp which at first looked like a small bag blowing in the wind. Just as I passed it I saw that it was actually a badly injured kitten, shaking and contorting from the effects of its injuries. By the time I could circle back around, pull to the side of the road, and wait for traffic to clear enough that I could run out there and move it from the roadway, it had stopped moving. As fate would have it, there was an emergency veterinary hospital right there within 100 yards of where it was hit. So I ran over there with the kitten, hoping against hope that there was something that could be done for it yet. But by the time I got inside with it, the kitten had died.

I don't know if it died while I was holding it or sometime before. But I do know that regardless of when that was, the kitten managed to teach me a very valuable lesson in our brief time together.

Much had been said about the death of Jack Kevorkian this week, the doctor who performed assisted suicides on individuals in Oregon until being jailed for it. The kitten taught me that all the arguing and finger-pointing and judgmentalism that has marked the conversation about that since the doctor's death means nothing when the moment of truth and action arrives. The kitten taught me that no matter how much I may think about it or argue one way or another about some scenario, there's no way to know until I'm actually in any given situation what life/spirit/God/love will lead me to do if I allow myself the freedom to open up to that voice and let it guide me. With the kitten, I didn't stop to think about whether running out into traffic was safe or legal or what I was or wasn't allowed to do in response to the situation; I just wanted to help ease its suffering however I could.

Throughout the day, I had many choices to make regarding how to respond to suffering. No amount of debating a bunch of what-if scenarios beforehand, and no amount of legislated required responses or limitations, would have mattered in any of these situations, at least not for me. My heart told me how to respond in each case, and I tried to be wise enough to listen and follow its lead.

We're all in this together - all us humans, all the animals, the plants, the planet, everything and everyone, and in every moment there is suffering to be found all around and often within us. For those who want to, let them have their debates and establish their set of canned criteria by which they then take action or not in any particular situation. But for the rest of us, I think each instance of suffering we observe or endure is a call to a greater level of spiritual awareness and to the development and exercising of ever-deepening levels of empathy and compassion for each other. If we wish to be truly prepared to respond to suffering in any situation, I believe our most productive effort will lie not in debate about legalities or philosophies; it will lie in expanding our awareness of our interconnectedness and in deepening our capacity for empathy so that we can face and embrace the suffering we encounter with great wisdom and compassion. Our goal shouldn't be a society in which the central question in response to suffering is "what am I allowed to do?" or worse, "what am I obligated to do?" but instead, "how can I help?" with the answer coming from within, based on compassion and a sense of our oneness with each other and with all things.

Leia Mais…

I Am

There are so many people talking about oneness and the interconnection of all much more eloquently and creatively than I am here.  Go see this movie and you'll see one example of this.

I think the important thing though is that more and more people are waking up to this awareness and are openly and actively promoting it.  And when that number gets large enough and we reach a tipping point in that awareness, big changes and much healing and growth will happen.

Leia Mais…

WWF Video

Beautiful, profound video capturing our interconnectedness...

WWF - We Are All Connected from Troublemakers.tv on Vimeo.

Leia Mais…