JOY
I am grateful that people are liking the meanderings of this almost old “broad.” We humans are collectively entwined or that’s what the quantum world is telling us. We have never been more entwined than in this divisive national experiment called Trump. Even other countries are pulled into the orbit of demagogues like Trump shaping hatred into nationalism. The greatest threat to the planet is over-population and we know that humans are not going to give up that which got us here, and that entwines us more urgently.
My recent health issues have been an entwining god-send. I needed to find compassion for the haters because my judgement was making me sick. I have been mired so long in the political landscape, it’s 24 hour a day urgency with punditry’s that once provided valuable information, now loud partisan noise. We can’t escape the ever-increasing challenges of a world on the brink. We are no longer just a community or region in crises, we are a globe in crises. The first reaction is of course to circle the tribal wagons eliminating infiltration by those that are not “us.” When has that ever worked? Civilizations have perished with that thinking. We all know that nothing lasts forever. Perhaps American democracy is done. The US has questionably elected a non-thinker, a grifter who stokes the fears of the vulnerable and feeds off the frenzy. In the long-run that won’t protect the vulnerable, the fearful or the non-thinkers. It won’t protect anyone. To cure what ails the world, we need to become more entwined, more invested in each other because compassion and acceptance create solutions.
Finally, “getting” that idea, I reached out. I had become isolated in my wilderness retreat. It served me well when I was in the thick of my business life. As I drop out of the frenzy and take care to not create any more A-fib events, I need communion with people who don’t run from the adversities yet are able to find joy and purpose in their daily lives. If the quantum people are correct about the Zero Point Field, everything in the universe, including us, are packets of pulsating energy constantly interacting with a vast sea of energy (Zero Point Field). If that is so, it gives human beings a sense of control over our world. We have the capacity heal ourselves, our relationships and our world.
Lynne McTaggart, an investigative journalist, has been documenting and studying the effects of Zero Point Field with groups of people setting intentions on health, regions in conflict and much more. Groups come together physically or through the internet at specific times around the globe to meditate on a collective goal either someone’s health or healing conflict in war zones. Zero Point Field implies that all matter in the universe is interconnected by waves, which spread out through time and space. It is a vast web of energy that we all are affected by and participate in. To learn more, I highly recommend her book, “The Power of Eight.”
I went to such a gathering in Ashland at the invitation of Trish who created my blog site. It was held at Peggy Rubin’s house, a person who I have admired for years. She was an acclaimed actress with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and currently works with Jean Houston which is where I initially met her. Jean was there as well, and I reconnected with her. Both Peggy and Jean live their lives in the positive, in what Peggy calls “Evolutionary Journey from Creation to Creativity. Our goal is to practice joy, discovering profound sources within and around ourselves, and experiencing the vivid aliveness such sources provide.” It was just the medicine I needed.
The group practices intentions for each other and other people, for the earth and whatever and whoever might need healing intentions. My intention was/is to heal my A-fib heart. There is a two-minute collective meditation for each person’s intention who is present. For those not in attendance or those who ask for a special group intention, the names are read and the intention set by the group and another minute or two of focused meditation for them. When I got home, I checked my heart rate. For the first time ever, it was 55 calm beats per minute. At the end of the evening, Peggy invited me to her final workshop, The Shakespeare Joy Expedition, which had been two-year journey. I entered not knowing a thing and I ended with a sense of hope. I haven’t felt hope for our world for a long time. The problems are vast, and I feel helpless. I know that changes begin in our daily lives but even that felt less hopeful; yet, I keep hearing the nurse in the Edinburgh ER whispering “accept the things you cannot change and change the things you can.” The thing I can change, the thing I need to change is my perception that we are helpless into we are hopeful. The intention group is hopeful. It’s a big start. In 2019, Peggy is starting another workshop as she writes it’s an invitation “to join the ride to Bliss, the Outer Reaches of Inner Joy.”
I have always shunned the idea of bliss-ninny joy – too new age. There is nothing bliss-ninny about these women. They are smart, empowered, well-educated older women. It upended my judgement and made me take a more mature view of joy and bliss.
Most interestingly to me was what joy means to me as I age. Where and when did I lose the daily delights of joy. Joy is created in childhood. Joy is what we first experience on an hourly basis as toddlers. Dashing from one thing to the next, putting pieces of anything in our mouths to taste the essence of life, the colors and smells as we experience things for the first time, the grass between our toes, the smell of spring lilacs, the dog that licks our face, plopping in a pool of water and mud, finger painting, a bed time story as we glide so easily into sleep, a treasured stuff animal or doll that hugs us when we are sad and so many more daily joyous events that form our initial experiences. Bringing those moments of childhood joy back into my daily life might just stop the “fight or flight” response, the adrenaline surges, the obsessive list making of what I need to do that only half on a good day could be completed.
I can’t stop engaging in my professional world just yet, but I can be more mindful that balancing sorrow with joy will create a more peaceful happiness.