I M Perfect lady

"Sometimes I go about with pity for myself and all the while Great Winds are carrying me across the sky."  Ojibway Saying

In Mark Nepo's Book of Awakening, he writes…

"Our crucial task when in pain or dispair is not to let the sour feelings spill into everything, so that we stain our sense of the world. Yet we must also take care not to so contain our feelings that they fester and infect our sense of ourselves.  Somewhere between the two extremes waits the life of healthy expression, not personalizing everything and not painting the world with our troubles."

"Our inner work is often most demanding when we are sad and afraid, for we can easily be overwhelmed by the power of these emotions that we can start to believe the world less possible or ourselves diminshed.  Once feeling less than, we stop feeling the truth of what is genuine and start losing touch with the Great Winds of life."

"Yet, somehow life has a way of carrying us along whether we are aware of it or not. Just as the stream carries both the hungry fish and the sleeping one downstream, the Great Winds carry both the agitated heart and the peaceful one into tomorrow."

"Thus, the work of prayer, when we feel least like praying, is neither to inflate or deflate the world or ourselves, but to restore our connection to the powerful currents of life."  Mark Nepo

What I like about this reading is the thought that the Winds of the Universe will carry the hungry and the sleeping, the peaceful and the agitated; all go at the same pace….so, it is up to us how we enjoy the ride or become stressed and worried.

I was in an online discussion about Burdens and how the native americans hang a burden pouch besides their entry, so you don't enter into their homes heavy laden, and they believe that the only place you bring them is to the Wise Elders.

It is an interesting idea.  I believe that we each should hang a Burden Pouch on our body, so that we are continually considering what to carry and what to place in the pouch. I decided that the pouch should actually remain empty….for we either can fix/change something or we are being asked to accept it.

The only burdens we carry are the things we cannot change or have no control over….so, they truly are not ours to carry. 

I find that when I start to frett, I am usually in someone else's life…I am worrying about another's life and wanting to get involved in something that is not mine to move around.

In our own lives, you will know immediately if it is something you can change of it it is something that you have to accept.  I believe our burden bags are full of things we prefer not to accept, so we are fighting what is.

If you do as the old saying goes, The Serenity Prayer…..to change what I can and to know the difference.

What I believe many carry around their necks is a Pretend Pouch, where they believe they can magically change the very things that cannot be changed, but they are not willing to gracefully accept them…instead they carry around an untrue reality.

Not sure what is more burdensome, the weight of worry trying to change what is impossible or pretending there is nothing to change?  Both leave you fighting the Great Winds.

You are not going with the flow of reality.

It is not easy to accept with grace and own to your soul some things…but once you can master this task, you flow with Grace.