My third-grade grandsons were given an assignment to write about the most beautiful place in nature they can imagine. Jake has wonderful memories of a special winter day in the Smoky Mountains. He drew the picture you see here. This is his story:
In my last post I wrote about the rewards of parenting and grandparenting and promised to share two essays written by my twin grandsons who are in the third grade this year. This is Connor’s. The assignment was to describe the most beautiful place in nature he could imagine.
Like most parents, we began investing in our grandchildren’s futures long before they were born. Now they attend a school which likewise actively prioritizes children’s well-being, parental involvement, intergenerational communication and shared responsibility for each other and our Mother Earth.
My readers are teaching me that others don’t automatically make the same connections I take for granted, and that sometimes I need to clarify their practical applications. So I’d like to share a recent interaction with a reader who is helping me see how to do this.
In Hinduism this shape is called the yoni, a stylized vulva used in religious art and as a maternity charm to celebrate and invoke the Great Mother’s creative, life-giving fertility.
Adam and Eve had everything in the Garden of Eden, didn’t they? Well, almost everything. They didn’t know the difference between good and evil, but we are told that Eve and the snake changed all that. God had given Adam and Eve only one rule: Do not eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. For a while, Adam and Eve found it easy to honor this rule, for there was much to discover in the beautiful garden and each other.
When we were in our thirties my husband and I were invited to a party at the home of a couple we’d recently met. Halfway through the evening I was sitting on the stairs when a man I didn’t know sat beside me. As we made small talk I began to realize he was flirting with me. I’m not great at flirting so I was a bit uncomfortable. But he wasn’t saying anything the least bit offensive or inappropriate so I kept my manner open and friendly.
I’d like to tell you about a particularly potent form of inner work that helped my daughter achieve her career goals. Julie was at Florida State University (Go Noles!) working on her Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy when the time came to write her dissertation. Suddenly, the psychic energy that had served her so well for so long hit a wall.
In my last post I said that understanding and compassion can heal dysfunctional relationships. While I know this is true, I also know that some relationships are not worth saving. The problem is how to tell the difference between those with healing potential and those that are truly toxic. Some relationships are vehicles to higher consciousness; others are accidents waiting to happen.
Every experience presents an opportunity to grow into our heroic selves. The spiritual journeyer’s question is not, “Why did this happen to me?” but, “What is the most authentic and beneficial response I can make to this situation?” Thus, one level of meaning in every dream pertains to our behavior in the outer world, and another to the inner condition of the psyche from which it originates.
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