~ A Joy Warrior's Journey
When the flicker of orange
caught my eye, I gasped.
A butterfly! It’s only the third
that I’ve seen here this summer.
Maybe it wasn’t a butterfly at all,
but an Angel of Hope with sky on its wings
Delighted at the thought, I whispered,
“Thank you, amber angel. May you fly long.
May you thrive.”
You simply leave me speechless.
All I can do is stare, my mouth agape
in wonder, my breath tasting of awe.
Unasked, you appear, sprung from
mere ground, and opening your petals
to the morning sun, astound me.
Summer pulls August over the horizon,
its greens lush and steamy beneath
liquid skies that smell of coming rain.
But a white sun still blazes above
igniting the meadow’s deep weeds,
making the shade trees into gods
under whose spreading arms
rabbits take refuge and nibble
the sweet summer grass
It was one of those summer days that the geese tucked into their memory stores to recount to one another on long, winter nights. They would remind each other how they sat on the lawn and ate their fill of the bugs that crawled between the blades of grass. On those cold, dark nights, they would remind each other of the wonderful smell of the newly mown grass and luscious white clover.
Normally, the humans filled the park. But they disappeared in the rain as if it would melt them and rain had fallen all morning long and threatened to return. So the geese had the place to themselves. And they sat on the earth amidst the waves of grass and preened themselves, and slept and dreamed, wrapped in the green luscious smell of it all, breathing it into their hearts to hold for the days when the grass slept beneath a blanket of soft, sparkling snow.
Such wise birds, these.
Be who you are, and sing it boldly.
Trumpet your song–
even when those who surround you
seem to be singing a wholly different tune.
From a distance, all of our songs
blend into one great harmony,
afloat in the infinite music
of the ever-perfect Yes.
Some things come with built-in smiles.
You know, kittens and puppies,
that sort of thing. They just make you
feel all better inside. Take these
flowers, for instance. Their yellow
just cancels out all your blue,
makes you believe in laughter
and light all over again.
Makes you feel how the Great Yes
genuinely loves us, whether
we deserve it or not.
Oh yes, they have lakes here, too,
shimmering bodies of fresh water
that reflect the blue sky and the green
of the forested hills that surround them.
Silvery fish swim in their waters, and geese
paddle past or bask on the shores In the grass.
And oh! The wildflowers that dance along
their edges. This is summer in its perfection!
Wish you were here!
Okay, summer; you win.
I admit that at first I was put off
by your incessant rains. And when
they ceased, I didn’t trust your dazzle,
seeing it as so much show, an act.
But now you have convinced me.
Your sincerity is everywhere, deep
in its greens, devoted in its endless
display of color. And at last
your warmth has penetrated
my understanding, and I want
nothing more than to sink
into your loving emerald arms.
Oh my! What big eyes you have,
Mr. Dragonfly! And how like a biplane
you seem to be with those papery thin
double wings. Are you from here?
Or did our flowers draw you from
an alien world, some imaginary
place far away where flowers
only come in black and white,
lacking the deliciousness of pink?
I think I get to make a wish on you,
just because you are so splendid.
And in return, let me invite you
to make a wish, too, perhaps
for pink summer flowers forever.
“It’s just going to be that kind of day,” my friend said as he got in my car. “Everything’s gone wrong.” He started on a litany of all the bothersome things that had happened since he got out of bed.
“Well,” I said, “I’m glad you got all that out of the way! Used up all your bad luck first thing. Now you can let it go and have a fine rest-of-the-day.” And he did. But if I hadn’t steered him to look at the possibility of a good day ahead, he might have gone on and on about his little clashes and misadventures.
Painful events produce mental movies of what happened, replays of the situation. They’re daydreams our minds create to help us realize that it was true, that it really happened and that it hurt. That’s a pretty common response to pain. It’s the first step toward accepting things, to getting to the point where we can say, however reluctantly, “It is what it is.”
The next step is figure out what you need to do next. What are some of your options? What’s most urgent? What direction do you want to go? You might still feel the raw pain, but it, too, is what it is—an injury of some kind, and injuries take time to heal. You let it sit there, acknowledging it, but accepting it as a part of your current experience. In the meantime, take a survey of your resources and start moving in the direction that your better self most wants to go, the one that makes the most sense.
But first, you’re in that place where you’re remembering what happened, trying to get a grasp on it and somehow make it different. There’s a trap here, though. If you play the movie over and over and over, you can get stuck in it. You can get so stuck that it becomes the focus of your reality. That’s when our daydreams become living nightmares.
Remember the phrase, “What you focus on expands?” It applies full force here. Your mind will always search for information to bring you when it knows you’re interested in something. If you’re looking at nothing but your mental movie about the hurtful thing that happened, your mind will bring you more and more ways that you were hurt like this in the past or might be hurt in similar ways in the future. That generates fear, anxiety, and avoidance strategies–none of which are helpful. In fact, your fear makes your brain think that looking out for danger is now a priority matter. It will point out all the signals it can find that you might be risking another blow. And there you are, stuck in the nightmare.
Now here’s the good news. You are the one who’s in charge of what’s playing in the theater of your mind. You’re running the projector that beams the movie onto the screen of your mind. If you can see that this movie has played over and over, you can look for a different movie to play. That lets you break the nightmare’s spell.
You might not be able to switch movies instantly. The nightmare one has dug itself into the screen of your attention and its drama has you hooked. But you can interrupt it as often as want by asking yourself a simple question like “What’s good about her/him/this mess?” or “What’s good about this present moment?” Questions like that take your brain by surprise. “A new game!” it says, happy to have a new assignment. And it will start looking for answers to your question. Robert Maurer, Ph.D,,says in his book One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, that you can start by asking your little question at leaset once a day, and keep it up every day for a couple weeks. Link asking it to brushing your teeth or drinking your morning coffee, or when you go to bed. You could also jot down the answers you get if you’re so inclined.
Gradually, looking for the good will become a habit, quieting and eventually replacing your nightmare. Your world will expand and brighten, your moods will shift to the enjoyable end of the scale. And it starts by asking a simple question: “What’s good here?”
Remember, what you focus on expands. Focus on asking yourself one little question at least once a day about what’s good, and see how the goodness grows.
Wishing you a week of surprising smiles.
Warmly,
Susan
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay