Tag: love

Getting Into The Holiday Spirit

On By MaryIn Observations & MusingsLeave a comment

Last year, during the Christmas holidays, I read a lot of posts from people disillusioned by all of the commercialism so prevalent during the holiday season. Please don’t despair!  Just because the holidays seem to have been co-opted by commercial interests doesn’t mean that the true spirit of the season has to be lost! It doesn’t matter what religion you practice or if you don’t practice any religion at all. There is still something beautiful to be shared and en-JOY-ed during this time of year.  Here are some points to ponder:

  1. We often get so caught up in our daily routines that every single day seems to be the same day & time just flies by without our noticing. During the holiday season, though, things start to look a lot different than on our “ordinary” days. Lights, colorful decorations and joyful music suddenly appear just about everywhere giving us the opportunity to be drawn out of the dream of our daily routines. Take advantage of this opportunity to truly “be there” and to reflect on your life.
  2. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I tend to develop a negative attitude towards the world and the people I encounter throughout the year.  Everyone seems so distant and self-centered and the news is always bad. But during the holiday season, a different spirit seems to permeate – not necessarily other people or the world in general, but within myself. I don’t know if it’s the pretty lights or the music or if it’s just the simple fact that I am now thinking about giving gifts to others instead of just thinking of myself as I do for most of the rest of the year. Whatever it is, I start to see people differently and my heart is filled with love instead of mistrust, disdain or indifference. Maybe I should reflect on this & ask myself if my life might be happier and more meaningful if  I looked at people through the lens of the Holiday Spirit all year long. In other words, maybe the problem is me and not them.
  3. The winter holidays are very interesting from a psychological perspective in that this is the time of the year when the days of sunlight are so short, everything is mostly grey and dead looking. And, yet, this is the time of year when humans choose to celebrate their most festive and extravagant holidays! If this doesn’t speak of a great spirit of Hope & Faith, I don’t know what does. Think about it:  If suddenly everything that supplied you with your life’s sustenance was suddenly dying and disappearing, wouldn’t the sane thing be to hoard as much as you could get your hands on? Instead, we prepare great feasts and give everything away. Think about this deeply.

So, don’t despair! Sure a lot of people are looking to make lots of money from the holidays – it only makes good business sense. But good business sense has nothing to do with the true Holiday Spirit. As stated in #3 above, the holiday season is really all about a glorious foolishness and madness wherein human beings choose Hope & Faith over Fear & Uncertainty! So, let’s all try to take advantage of the season to go a little crazy & to take a look around at the world and at each other and see if maybe there isn’t a little Love, Joy & Hope to be had.

Heartshine

On By MaryIn Observations & MusingsLeave a comment

I recently suffered the loss of my little furry friend and companion with whom I had shared my life for the past 17 years. Needless to say, I was very sad and depressed to have lost my little cat-friend, Sissy. I have had and lost other cats in my life, but she was really someone special and the loss of her left a large hole in my life and in my heart.

I posted about my loss on Twitter as a simple expression of my grief. What I received back from people on Twitter – all virtual strangers who I will probably never have the privilege of meeting face-to-face in the “real world,” was nothing short of life and heart changing.

My Twitter friend, @SimonDevon75 sent me the following beautiful piece of prose that broke my heart all over again, while at the same time healing that broken heart:

What moves through us is a silence, a quiet sadness, a longing for one more day, one more word, one more touch, we may not understand why you left this earth so soon, or why you left before we were ready to say good-bye, but little by little, we begin to remember not just that you died, but that you lived. And that your life gave us memories too beautiful to forget.

Another Tweeter whom I have come to know over the past year, @Kilanalu, also sent me her love and support even though she, herself, had just suffered the loss of her brother.

This morning, I had a beautiful and life-changing exchange with a few other Twitter friends, some that I have known for awhile and some that I just met this morning through this exchange. My friends, @Atomic_Honey & @Atomic_Twlrbee, along with new friends, @Ravenval & @Marousia shared their special “garden” with me and introduced me to the word/concept of “Heartshine.”

Heartshine, to me, represents the wonderful and warm feeling that occurs in one’s heart when the outpouring of love from others is shared and received in one’s own heart. That is certainly the feeling that I experienced this morning. Sometimes, especially at times of loss, we can feel like life has lost its meaning and/or specialness. My experience of “Heartshine” this morning has given me a renewed sense of what life is really all about. In the end, the only thing that really matters is love – and love can only be expressed and experienced when there are others to share it with.

Thank you so much, my beautiful friends. I truly love you all.

Fuck it. No honesty here.

On By MaryIn Re-Inventing MaryLeave a comment

Originally, I intended this post to be an honest confessional about my failings in life and as a human being. Furthermore, I was going to discuss how even though I can be an absolute, total schmuck to the people in my life who love me, I am always forgiven my failings and continue to receive their love, kindness and companionship. I was even going to make the point that this love and forgiveness is what keeps me going and pushing and trying to become a better person.

But, then, I decided that such matters are way too personal to blog about so I said “Fuck it,” and changed my mind. I guess you’re all going to have do without my honest confessional and sentimental moralizing. Sorry about that – maybe next time.

Something and Nothing

On By MaryIn Observations & MusingsLeave a comment

It is really hot today and I am so grateful for my air conditioner which fills my office with nice cold air. Or so it seems.

Years ago I took an automotive air conditioning course at a technical school and learned to start looking at things in a different way.

An air conditioner does not add cold air to a room. An air conditioner removes heat. It is the removal of heat that makes the room feel cooler. So what, you might say, what does it matter as long as the room is now cool? Well, comfort-wise it doesn’t really matter, but philosophically it makes a great big difference because it brings up the ontological subject of “something and nothing.”

In the example concerning air conditioning we can look at “heat” as “something” and “cold” as “nothing,” wherein heat is “something” that must be removed in order to make it “cold.” Cold, then, would simply be the absence of heat and not “something.” The more heat we remove the less “something” is there and the closer we get to “nothing.” If we remove enough heat and achieve the condition of “no heat”, we would have “nothing” – which would mean that “cold” is “nothing.”

The same way of looking at “something” and “nothing” can be applied to lots of things in our everyday lives. Looking at things in this way, we can see that so much of what we call “opposites” are really degrees of the same thing, only moving closer or farther away from “something” to “nothing.”

What is the opposite of “Love?” Many of us would say “Hate.” But this is not so. The opposite of “Love” would be “Indifference.” By the same token, the opposite of “Hate” would be the same thing – “Indifference.” Love and Hate are “something,” but Indifference is “nothing” – I have no feeling for you whatsoever. I have removed my feelings so far from you that I have slid from the positive, or real feeling of Love or Hate (it’s funny to think of Hate as a positive thing, isn’t it?) all the way down the scale to the “nothing” of Indifference.

This is a very interesting way of looking at things isn’t it. Try it for yourself and let me know what you come up with!

Disagree? Leave a comment.

-m