Returning to my blog
A Return
This is a Blog I intended to continue. Seeing it again, makes me aware of how much time can pass between things we intend to do. We may journey elsewhere, but some things just remain where they are and as they are. The journey’s we take still teach us something about ourselves and reveal to us how we have moved through time. Are we carried along by each event or are we struggling to get somewhere we want to be, but have no idea how to get there? This is the moment to begin again and continue what I started.
The dialogue I hope to have through the internet is to gain perspective by also engaging with a variety of view points. Perhaps today we are not hearing each other and engaging. There can be viewpoints that will lead to negative outcomes, but if we engage perhaps there is hope we can come to more positive understanding about the future of humanity and more constructive solutions. These are trying times in the world about where people are going and why. There are many misunderstandings about purpose and solutions. A friend of mine once pointed out to me the belief that as long as we can talk to each other and listen, this reduces going to war. Engagement means many things. Can we begin to engage and perhaps be more hopeful about constructive solutions for our futures, about all our diverse futures. Is it possible for us to be different and still find common ground to be constructive.? Is it in our human nature to move past needing to make someone “the other”? Perhaps we are not really taking good care of our garden in this life. History is full of human beings making someone the evil other. Can we explore and have a discussion about this? I think this concept may be one of our greatest obstacles to peaceful solutions. What do you think?
Back after a while weeding
As I was pulling so many thistles that were taking over my yard, I began thinking how quickly neglect can produce so many weeds. Neglecting and under estimating how stubborn negatives in our lives can be has the power to cause us great difficulty. Things that hurt us or bother us, don’t just go away. They go underground and spread through our psyche. Nothing that happens to us disappears. We are the product of all our experiences. How we navigate through them and how we utilize them matters. I was thinking that life problems can be like these thistles. Things happen to us and if we don’t deal with them in good time or we think it’s not that bad and we put off and action we need to take, the thistles will fill the begin to fill the void and spread all over the yard (i.e. our being). I read that thistles and weeds in general fill voids. It is necessary to plant healthy counter plants in areas to crowd out weeds so they can’t grow. Perhaps that is what our positive actions on behalf of ourselves also does to crowd out what isn’t healthy for us.
Negativity can begin to take over our thinking patterns and our emotions. We get discouraged that we will never be able to manage all of this. We can become closed to options and solutions and become so drained that we don’t have the energy to tackle what is causing us pain. We aren’t always aware of what is making us so tired and also don’t necessarily understand the depth of our negative experiences and in frustration we shrug them off and tell ourselves we are okay and not much can be done. It’s over and done with we say, but this doesn’t help us.
If these negative experiences take hold of our deepest thoughts, they can proliferate and over time become over whelming. So over whelming that we don’t know where to start. We have provided the conditions in which these weeds can grow and these negative weeds develop deep roots and are hard to pull out.
I learned from avid gardeners that tending to a yard or a gardens seems to work on a little at time and often basis. If we develop a way to deal with breaking things into smaller pieces and parts and keep doing this on regular basis, we can get our negative thoughts or weeds under some kind of manageable control. Eventually we will have better outcomes and enjoy a beautiful healthy yard or garden to reflect on.
Solving our difficulties requires managing the small pieces rather than getting over whelmed and frustrated with the big picture. Sometimes we can feel hopeless that we will never get over or solve something troubling our lives. But if we pick a small area and work on it and then pick another small area another time and work on that, eventually we will accumulate pieces and will have covered more of the yard or garden (i.e. our being) with our efforts than we could have imagined and we won’t be too exhausted to continue. I think we can manage our lives this way to work through something difficult and painful. We can find different ways of being to enhance our lives. So I have vowed to take one area at a time and see what I can build.
In The Rain
Today is Saturday and it’s raining. Everything needs so much water. Rain also helps not only the vegetables and flowers to grow but also feeds the weeds. When I think of weeds, I think about how much energy they take to control. They require constant surveillance. It becomes important to find them and take them out when they are young before they develop deep roots.
I believe this applies to our everyday life. If we deal with things that bother us that can grow into something much more disruptive in our lives, we improve the quality of our lives. For example, if I have an issue with someone. If they have done something I would like to clarify because it bothered me and seemed to me disrespectful, I could go to the person and introduce a conversation to communicate how what they did seemed disrespectful to me or I could ignore it and let it fester and become more and more angry with the person and disrupt our relationship. I would be allowing “weeds” to grow.
If we want growth and understanding we could both talk about what happened and the “weed” or negative issue between, us can be rooted out and cause us no harm. In fact, we could develop an even closer relationship. But if I approached this person and the interaction was not receptive or maybe even more hostile, we will neglect to deal with the weed and it will grow. Ultimately, I we do not find some way to resolve this issue, the “weed” will grow ever larger and could propagate more weeds and ultimately destroy the garden of our relationship. A garden can deteriorate and allow more kinds of weeds to take root and resulting more roots to overtake the healthier parts of the garden and destroy growth. Just as gardens need to be tended and cared for, our relationships also need the same care so we can grow and blossom.
What was once a small solvable problem, could now spiral out of control. I think we need to make the effort when things are small. Ignoring them won’t make them go away. I think if we cultivated the courage to address our fears and refrain from labeling this action as confrontation we will be better served. A great deal of respect and deep understanding by both parties is worth the challenge. The more often we do this, I think we will find that it becomes easier and is definitely worth the effort. My thoughts for today. Back to pulling weeds. The rain has stopped. Faith
Just My Opinion
This is my first Blog experience and I am finding my way. I see and hear things everyday and have some opinions I would like to share and engage in a conversation.
Hello!
For a long time I have wanted to engage in conversations through the expansiveness of the internet. The amazing thing about the internet is that you can exchange ideas with people you would never reach otherwise. The world becomes a smaller place and location does not prevent the exchange of ideas and fostering a better understand of the world.
GARDEN THE WEEDS 