Life — Page 11

Give me liberty or….

March 13, 2016 by Barbara

Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86-34 B.C.) observed, “Few men desire liberty; most … wish only for a just master.”

LIBERTY: the quality or state of being free (From Merriam-Webster)

Choosing Freedom (or, there is no savior coming)

Free to choose, I learn
the consequences
of my choices.

Coerced into goodness
I learn resentment,
or worse, nothing at all.

“Yes” means nothing if I
can’t say “no”; Courage
is the soulmate of freedom.

“Don’t tread on me,”
I will strive to love you.
I choose to be free

not just in action
but in thought
and in what I feel.

What I come to believe,
how I live or die,
what I give or withhold,

all serve my soul’s purpose
growing awareness
as my heart unfolds.

besliter, March, 2016

Epilogue:
Freedom is not without risks. But trading freedom for perceived safety, for someone to blame, or even someone else to make me happy, well, then I’m doomed to disappointment. Love, joy, peace are inside jobs. Love is always freely given.

Filed Under: Choice, Life

What does he see?

February 25, 2016 by Barbara

I’m waiting to leave for cataract surgery, left eye, scheduled for 11:40 am. The eyes are sensitive. Those of us who have not had to adapt to blindness, rely on our visual cues to assess what is going on around us. We look at faces to discern what is being communicated, for movement for signs of danger, at sunsets for just shear beauty.
So I sit waiting, and remember what I wrote when I first found out about the cataract last October. Post eye drops, I was sitting in the chair waiting for the ophthalmologist:

The Eye Doctor

Waiting, dilating, I wonder,
“What does he see?”

Is the the eye a window
to the soul?
Is mine covered
by a gossamer curtain?

Deceived by magic and illusion
Blinded by hopes and fears

We can be so sure, but
not necessarily so right.
We don’t see the same colors, yet
argue as if we see the same world.

The soul’s eyes do they
bypass the curtains of deception?

Still dilating, I sit waiting—
wanting some great insight,
at least some better eye sight—

and I wonder,
“What does he see?”

2015
besliter

Filed Under: Life, Perception

It’s my birthday…

February 20, 2016 by Barbara

My friend Cheryl texted me about her birthday. She was noticing that her age, the number ascribed to her by the calendar, seemed young to her now. She didn’t feel old, the image she used to have of someone in their late 60’s. It got me to musing……and this is what I wrote:

It’s my birthday and I’ll cry if I want to….*

Will I start hanging out in coffee
houses hoping for conversation?
Volunteer at soup kitchens just
for something to do?

Will people see me in the garden
bending over – a cliche?
Or maybe I’ll discover my right
brain, another Grandma Moses.

Will I succumb and buy some
plastic surgeon his next BMW?
Or, will I just relax,
surrendering to each moment?

Do what I’m doing but with
a little more awareness.
Slow down enough to
really taste my food.

Feel the sun on my skin.
And maybe wear what
I want simply because
I feel good in it.

Birthdays are reminders.
That it is our life to live,
and to notice when we try
to live someone else’s.

It’s my birthday and
I’ll cry if I want to….
my tears will not be of sorrow
but for the joy of being me.

*adapted from:
“It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you.”
sung by Lesley Gore – It’s My Party

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: birthday, Heart, Life

The earth is shaking, rejoice…

January 22, 2016 by Barbara

You are on the cusp of change. Do you make that job shift? Do you sell the house? Can you envision living without them? Retirement becomes a reality; work receding into the background. The stock market once again prunes the money tree you thought would bear you fruit.

The unknown looms ahead.

At times like this, it’s good to be reminded that life isn’t something we lockstep through. Security and predictability are perhaps not meant to be.

XXIX
Traveler, there is no path.
The path is made by walking.

Traveller, the path is your tracks
And nothing more.
Traveller, there is no path
The path is made by walking.
By walking you make a path
And turning, you look back
At a way you will never tread again
Traveller, there is no road
Only wakes in the sea.”
― Antonio Machado, Border of a Dream: Selected Poems

It is in living life that we are blessed, engaging in the ultimate adventure. Life tests us, demands we grow, learn and become more. The challenge is always, can we be present to it? Can we allow the flow even when it looks like going over Niagara Falls, or feels like we might run aground, or maybe even worse, stagnate going no where.

Can we find the rainbow? Or, better yet …can we let it find us?

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: Antonio Machado, change, Life, rainbow

How’s it going?

January 2, 2016 by Barbara

Recently Sally Schneider posted at Improvised Life about not knowing. She asks the question, “Can you hang with not knowing.”

I understand not knowing. Not knowing the MRI results, the outcome of an operation, whether an organization will turn around in time, whether our favorite oak tree will succumb to the Bacterial Leaf Drop… the list goes on.

I wrote this poem a year ago. It is as true today as it was then. However, there is a difference. I’m listening a little harder, trusting a little more, and importantly, more at peace with just “the next step.”

How’s It Going?

“I don’t know”
Not a satisfying response
Most prefer a polite lie,
Definitely more certainty.

But the small voice
of wisdom won’t
be ordered about,
has its own timing.

So when the veils
haven’t yet parted,
how do you
walk through life?

The sun rises and sets
Baby birds hatch
Trees lose their leaves.
Life in its rhythm.

Surely you too are part
of life’s flow, as important
as the field mouse,
the fallen bird.

What’s left but
noticing what calls you.
Trusting you’re guided
Always the next step.

besliter

Filed Under: Heart's wisdom, Life, We are creators Tagged With: faith, Heart, Life, not knowing

Joy – musings

December 4, 2014 by Barbara

JOY

Bubbles up
Unbidden,
Riding in the car,
Sun, blue skies.

When least expected,
hanging out,
watching people…
It comes

somewhere
deep inside my chest.
I turn to look,
to hold on.

It evaporates…

So, why do I want
such a shy
fickle friend?

Because when joy
Fills me,
~everything else~
Sparkles!

This year I found a window decoration that says “Joy.” I had rejected the plastic renderings that said peace. Peace describes the absence of something…no conflict, no war…but for most folks, it’s a wish, stopping short of painting a picture of what could be.

I rejected the Angels outlined in white lights. Angels watching over us, hovering nearby to aid when needed. No, while I suspect Angels are hovering nearby, they aren’t reduced to two dimensions in my front window this year.

I couldn’t find a candle I liked. I love the idea of light shining in the darkness with hope. But alas, the ones I found were puny.

No, it was the red and green lights saying “Joy” that captured my heart. That elusive feeling that brings me into the now. The feeling that, when present, shows everything as beautiful. The feeling that if I try to grab on, to understand, it goes away.

So, JOY shines in my window, reminding me each evening to pay attention and notice what arises unbidden, to not grab, to stop controlling and just be.

I wish you all a bubbling moment of JOY!

Filed Under: Heart's wisdom, Life Tagged With: joy, light

Shiva whispered in my ear

August 26, 2014 by Barbara

When Shiva, our sweet cat died, this poem came to me:

Love fiercely,
Let your heart break
It’s then that Life
knows its worth.*

I think Shiva whispered these words in my ear. She was letting me know how letting myself feel such love, even for a moment, is what life is all about. And yes, that means feeling the grief and pain when something or someone you love leaves you.

Love fiercely! Again and again. Life demands it, and you’ll have no regrets.

* Shiva via besliter 8/11/14

Filed Under: Heart's wisdom, Life Tagged With: Life, Love, Shiva

Talent to be managed?

February 4, 2014 by Barbara

In a recent Forbes article, HR Managers were advised to focus on “talent management.” Sounds reasonable given the information age, internet and the competitive need for creativity, but I find myself asking, “Who wants to be treated as talent to be managed?”

It reminds me of factory workers in the early 1900’s who were seen as extensions of the machine to be optimized. Although the world has changed, articles like Forbe’s suggest we are still seeing employees as “cogs in the organizational machinery,” talented cogs to be sure, but cogs. And therein lies a problem.

As long as HR Managers (and senior Leaders) see people as company assets to be optimized, we’ll continue to create environments that kill the human spirit. Employees will remain disposable parts, abstract concepts to be planned for, controlled and manipulated. CEOs and organizational hierarchy will continue to see themselves separate from the “masses.”

But different models are emerging, each the result of the beliefs, personal passion. and unique circumstances of their creators. In each example people are, well people, not assets.

Here are some of my favorite out-of-the-box examples: Ricardo Semler’s Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace, Tony Hsieh’s story of Zappo’s Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty’s Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior, and Jack Stack’s The Great Game of Business, Expanded and Updated: The Only Sensible Way to Run a Company.

Filed Under: Life, We are creators Tagged With: HR, Jack Stack, Phil Jackson, Semler, talent management, Zappos

Am I my books?

January 15, 2014 by Barbara

It started when my husband needed to replace an electrical outlet behind one of my two crammed bookcases. I emptied all the books into the middle of my office floor so the bookcase would be light enough to move away from the wall.

When it was time to move the books back, I decided I should go through them and pare down. As for criteria, I would consider: Do I refer to them? Will I re-read them? Sounded simple enough.

But when I turned to the pile I froze. Some of these books influenced me greatly. I was sentimental about them. “Molecules of Emotions” by Candice Pert, “The Mind of the Strategist” by Kenichi Ohmae, Marvin Weisbord’s “Organizational Diagnosis,” “Everyday Miracles” by David Spangler, “Focusing” by Eugene Gendlin, M.Scott Myers’ “Every Employee a Manager, “How to make Meetings Work” by Doyle and Straus. There were Enneagram books, coaching books, self-help books, Spiritual books.

My fondness for these physical books made me wonder what magical powers I’d attributed to their printed pages. In a sense, these books defined me. Sitting on shelves, they were visible signposts of my journey through life. I appreciated their gifts. They seemed like faithful friends.

But going through them, I realized that over the years I’ve incorporated their ideas into my own understanding and way of working. I didn’t need them any more as testimony to my own learning, nor as talismans against my own deficiencies. I began to appreciate what I now knew; the knowledge I carried within me. It was not only OK to let the books go, it was time. So I sorted and got sacks ready to take to Half Priced Books.

May someone else find them as helpful as I did.

Filed Under: Choice, Life Tagged With: books, decluttering, letting go, pare down

I killed two butterflies and a Cardinal

July 10, 2013 by Barbara

Driving home through the country, a butterfly flew too close to the car. Sucked in by the car’s momentum, it hit the car and died. Miles down the road it happened again. I hated that I was a part of these fragile, beautiful creatures’ demise.

Then, a few days later coming home from a meeting, a Cardinal flew into my windshield. The loud crack let me know it couldn’t have survived.

Stunned, I wondered if these events were connected; a message from the Universe that I was supposed to understand. That to be alive means that at times we inadvertently kill things? That life is fragile? That I can’t ultimately protect the people and things I care about?

Or, maybe it’s that things just happen; what is, is? The Universe gently letting me know that I’m not always in control of what happens, but I can always choose how I respond to it?

At the end of the day I settle for compassion and a sense of awe at the beauty and fragility of life. Tomorrow? Who knows.

Filed Under: Choice, Emotion, Life Tagged With: control, what is