Patience is a Virtue

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

Joseph Addison, English Essayist 1672-1719

Patience is not my strong suit, I feel like a tethered wildcat ready to bolt into the next thing if I am forced to wait. I also hate being too early for an event or meeting for this reason. I might have to wait, horrors!

In life when things hit a slow down I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof, jumping from this spot to that looking for a place to find the next resting place or activity. The hardest thing has always been for me to sit quietly, to adopt the attitude of allowing things to unfold, trusting in the future, letting go of control. Anyone out there feel the same?

The first experience I had of meditation was at a yoga class and when I reported how uncomfortable I felt the teacher said, "You are the type of person who would most benefit from this practice." Her words often come back to my monkey mind!

That said I have know the benefits of the stillness. I practiced meditation daily for ten years and I began to feel more centered, content in myself, less frantic. Then life changed and my routine got disrupted.  I started to see how what I gained from all the years of practice started to unravel. The old or was it a new restlessness surfaced. There are more days I feel off kilter, more irritable and less calm and able to deal with life's up and downs.

A bit like fitness really. If you stop working out, or running very soon you lose the benefits of more energy, better sleep, weight control, feeling healthy and thinking more positive.

But as with anything there is always the option to recommit. Every day is a new beginning and no matter what the past looked like tomorrow can be different if we are willing to let go of the belief that things cant change. 

So I recommit on a regular basis to the practice of mindfulness and though there are days that I look like I never meditated a day in my life, I still return to it because I want the benefits. Life is so much better when I trust the process, when I can be with myself in silence. And when life slows down I can wait for inspiration before making a move. Life will unfold its wisdom if I can just have patience and wait.

Change is the Only Constant

"There are 6 billion belief systems in the world" - Andrew Newberg

Its so interesting to me the way we make sense of the world, each of us doing our best to be at peace with our version of how things are and work. Newberg also says there are huge gaps between the world out there and our inner worldview, so the brain stays busy revisiting its cognitive maps selecting some perceptions, ignoring others and filling in the blanks with conjecture. Busy brains!

No wonder in these times of media bombardment more and more people are turning to meditation. I just attended the Scripps Institute Nursing Conference  in San Diego and witnessed the latest ideas in healing. I was part of the Chakra Pavilion as an artist and Practitioner with Centers for Spiritual Living. I spent three days in a room full of energy healers and it was a delight to see and hear the nurses talk about the work they are incorporating into their medical practices.

Dr. Mimi Guarneri, heart surgeon and head of the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine and Healing Hearts Program believes in treating the whole patient - mind, body and soul. She works with cardiac patients using treatments such as biofeedback, acupuncture, guided imagery and hypnotherapy, healing touch treatments, kundalini yoga, cooking classes, stress reduction and meditation!

Beliefs are changing as part of the expanding consciousness of the universe. Are you open to it?
As we meditate, we take a step back from the routine thoughts that may have us stuck in a groove. Try it today and be willing to allow new in. Life can get better, experiences can be expanded, healing can come in unusual and unexpected ways. Just be willing today and see what transpires as you loosen your hold on old beliefs.

God Speed

“I sent my soul through the invisible,some letter of that afterlife to spell; and by and by my soul returned to me,and answered, "I myself am Heav'n and Hell"
Omar Khayyam

Loosing someone we love whether in an untimely way or after they have lived a long and fulfilling life raises questions for even those among us who have the strongest faith.
I used to visit with a lady I came to call my adopted granny for about 5 years before her death at the grand age of 95. I knew her husband also who died a year or so after I began visiting them. She felt his loss acutely but it did not dampen her zest for life despite being legally blind and her mobility slowed to a snails pace. She used to tell a story of trying to console a child who was grappling with the death of an aunt. She would tell her that that person was with her in spirit although she couldnt see her anymore and that all she had to do was think of her and she was present. The young girl seemed to understand but her response was, "That's all very well but I'd rather have someone with skin on!"


I think of that story when someone passes. I know that people sense the presence of the deceased person from time to time and definitely hold that loved one forever alive in their memory and hearts but its the loss of the physical presence that the mind has such a hard to coming to terms with.


A young man of about nineteen gave me pause for thought when he made a comment as we talked about death. He had meditated since he was very young and felt he went to that place of simply being energy or spirit when he sat to turn within. He felt as if he had already visited that place of disembodiment and pure consciousness, there was nothing to fear in the afterlife.

If death is the ultimate fear, fear of non existence, his experience is a good argument for the meditative state. Only once in my life have I had that truly freeing experience. I felt unencumbered by all my attachments to who I am on this physical plane and it was blissful.


If this is what our loved ones go on to, we can celebrate their release knowing we will join them one day or any day if we choose to incorporate deepening our meditation into our daily practice.

If I myself am heaven and hell, it's a powerful and comforting way to choose heaven as we commune with the universal energy where we are one with our beloved and they are one with us.

Can you relate to this? Have you had a similar experience? I would love to hear about it.

Emptiness is in fact form when we forget the self. There's nothing in the universe other than ourself. Nothing to compare, name, or identify. When it's the only thing there is, how can we talk about it?- Taizan Maezumi

For Clifford Giles beloved and loved by all who knew him.