Hope, Courage, Patience, Perseverance

    "I believe that there’s an intelligence, a spiritual power that I don’t understand. I call it God because I don’t know what else to call this great spiritual power. It gives me strength. 
    I’ve also had amazing times alone in nature when for a moment you forget you’re human. Your humanness goes away, and you’re part of that natural world. It’s the most amazing and wonderful and beautiful feeling .....
    Traditional faith will have you believe in a loving God, and when I look at what’s happening on the planet, I think if there is a God like that, is he playing with us? Are we living in some great experiment? How can you believe in a loving God when you see the horrors that are perpetrated against nature, against animals, against each other? I sometimes think it is like an experiment which has culminated in this strange, confused creature that is human beings, and we seem to be lost. Who are we? What are we? Why are we here? I don’t know what the meaning of life is. 
    The meaning of my life is to give people hope because without hope you give up."  
    Jane Goodall PhD 1934-2025 

    There's a lot to unpack in Jane Goodall's heart-felt words. So what does she mean by "amazing times alone in nature when for a moment you forget you’re human"? 
    I understand that momentarily forgetting you're human refers to going beyond or deeper than your surface identity of name, address, history, likes / dislikes, virtues / neuroses etc, and opening up to / remembering our primal intimate Oneness & Source.      

    Goodall clearly contrasts what many of us see as human civilization blindly rushing towards self-destruction, with her sense that there is still hope, because human beings are also capable of experiencing, nurturing & sharing awe, wonder, & beauty. 

    Iain McGilchrist has been clearly explaining how human society's current tendency is "left-hemisphere-dominant" - seeing the world in a very pragmatic, abstract, detached, transactional manner: seeing only lumber when looking at a great forest, seeing only mining opportunities when looking at a majestic mountain, seeing only harvesting of fish, oil & natural gas when looking at the great oceans - focused only on what they can quickly grab for short-term gain for themselves. Some, much like the tobacco industry a few decades ago, flatly deny that this way of seeing is "perpetrating horrors against nature, against animals, against each other." Many CEOs, populist politicians / dictators, billionaires, etc CAN BE clever, AND YET display no evidence at all of wisdom. 

    From a neuroscience perspective, McGilchrist would say that we are able to see things in balanced way when the left-hemisphere's exclusive emphasis on grabbing, controlling & surviving is not running the whole show. One way to facilitate a balanced, healthy, holistic perspective is being alone (and at peace) in nature. Then we more easily appreciate the right-hemisphere's way of seeing the world: appreciating our intimate inter-connectedness with everyone & everything, love, beauty, truth, the arts, mystery, spirituality, meaning, metaphor, humor, paradox, etc - AS WELL AS - using the practical, limited role of the left-hemisphere. 
    To have a clearer understanding of these two, ideally complementary ways of seeing and being in the world, I highly recommend one of McGilchrist's many excellent interviews, eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuqz0MO9mX0

    To paraphrase Einstein, our (left-hemisphere dominant) way of seeing / level consciousness that got us into this dire mess CANNOT possibly lift us out of it, into a better future. Our exclusive left-hemisphere ways: estranged, adversarial relationship with our own hearts, each other & Nature is what's so painfully unnatural & unsustainable. 
    Chronic fear, anxiety & anger has for too long, been drowning out our patience, wisdom & kindness. We desperately need to cultivate a FAR wiser balance.

    So can we gain some freedom from chronic fear & anxiety - when "being well-adjusted to a toxic situation is no measure of health"? 
    Well, we know that our executive function is easily shut down when we're stressed - ie stress tends to impair good judgment. 
    We also know that many are able to operate under high-stress life-or-death situations with amazing calm & competence: fire-fighters, police officers, paramedics, surgeons, psychiatrists, air traffic controllers, pilots, military personnel, martial artists, etc. 

    Common knowledge would incorrectly tell us that our level of stress is directly proportional to the degree to which we lack total control of our present situation. 
    Actually, our level of stress is mostly based on catastrophizing ie anxiously, vividly imagining the worst possible future outcome, which very rarely if ever materializes and / or being stuck re-living the past.
    The secret of the "grace under pressure" exemplified by fire-fighters etc is staying in the reality of the present moment and responding appropriately. Clearly, knowledge, training & practice in knowing what to do in challenging present situations is a basic necessity ALONG WITH knowing how to remain present, focused & grounded ie Mindful.

    Mindfulness training IS PRACTICING staying in the reality of the present moment and responding appropriately. It's best started under stress-free conditions eg being peacefully alone in nature, or in your own home away from distractions. Start by sitting, standing or lying down and remaining still, for a set period of time eg just 5 minutes at first, with eyes closed, and just quietly observe what goes on, mainly inside of you. 

    "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."  Blaise Pascal, French philosopher

     With patience, a bit of courage, and a lot of perseverance, a sustained regular practice will result in you being able to remain surprisingly calm, grounded & wisely responsive (rather than impulsively reactive in a way that everyone will later regret) to even the most serious challenges. You will also learn humility & empathy for yourself & others, because you will remain perfectly imperfect. Interestingly & a bit annoyingly, after decades of practice, you too might find major challenges surprisingly easy to accept, yet small, meaningless events might still briefly provoke you. 

    So this is a life-long practice, with continual growth in wisdom, and less & less sabotaging interference by neuroses & traumas. Your quality of life, and the quality of life of those around you, will definitely progressively improve well beyond your current understanding.

“We are not isolated individuals. 

We are cells in the body of humanity, and what we do to one another we do to ourselves. 

The new story is one of interdependence, shared purpose, and sacred relationship with all Life.” 
Nancy B. Roof PhD 1929-2025

 

Another World is Possible www.kosmosjournal.org

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE

    "In this world we’re waking up in, we can’t just close our eyes and follow our breath — we have to find a way to contribute what we love to this world. I love to practice because I feel like that aligns me with what I could call my North Star: what will I contribute? What do I love? We’re usually good at what we love, you know.
    So, where is my heart needed most? That’s the question that comes to me. In some ways, the Dharma saved my life. But service gave me a life worth living. And that’s what made it beautiful." Vinny Ferraro

 

     Our very nature is the activity or energy of loving / nurturing. The more we can embody our true nature the better it is for ourselves, everyone & everything.
    I've written about the pivotal importance of loving & nurturing - it's well-worth re-visiting these blogs imho : http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=love

 

     HOWEVER some, even in the relatively stable & affluent West, will find all of the above irritatingly idealistic & impractical. Why? Because for them, the only practical activity is facing existing difficulties, and everything that might go terribly wrong. For them, this 'glass half-empty' perspective is not a matter of choice, but rather a necessity based on harsh past experience. Personal & inter-generational traumas affect ALL of us, but in highly varying degrees. Refugees from war-ravaged countries; those who've lived for decades in refugee camps; abused women & children; visible minorities; those who've experienced chronic poverty, disability, lack of formal education, lack of relevant work experience, & inadequate English / French language skills; etc, can add up to almost insurmountable challenges that most of us can't even imagine. This large group of people has experienced, & thus now sees the world, VERY DIFFERENTLY!
    And even if we're fortunate enough to have had minimal direct experience of acute or ongoing forms of trauma such as poverty & racism, the news media, all forms of advertising & populist politicians spend billions each year, to keep us insecure, anxiously 'consuming' their (useless to harmful) products.
    One of the world's foremost PTSD experts: “If you feel safe & loved, your brain (is) specialized in exploration, play, & cooperation; if you are frightened & unwanted, it (is) specialized in managing feelings of fear & abandonment." Bessel Van Der Kolk. “The Body Keeps the Score. Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.” Penguin Books, 2015.

 

    We clearly can't move forward intelligently while gripped with fear & reactivity. Despite our current very serious challenges, we must learn to stabilize in some degree of spaciousness in order to manifest our true nature - our capacity to nurture ourselves, each other and our planet and extricate ourselves from the mess we've created. More & more mature, wise voices are pointing the way to do exactly this:

 

    Stephanie Kaza ed. "A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Time." Shambhala, 2020.

    EXCELLENT Joanna Macy interview by Krista Tippett: https://onbeing.org/programs/joanna-macy-a-wild-love-for-the-world/

 

 "All You Need Is Love" - Beatles

No Worries Old Friends!

    Serious, skillful, regular meditation practice gradually & progressively ensures awakening - an endless process which is usually very different from what we had initially hoped for, yet is what we needed. "But meditation is not for everybody."
    Many older folks are rigidly stuck in a closed loop of negative thought patterns. Most of them have no interest in meditation or any other deeply meaningful spiritual practice, but might be open to one or two sessions of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

    "I think the Greeks had a more subtle understanding of drugs: we tend to either celebrate them or condemn them. They called them ‘pharmakon,’ and a ‘pharmakon’ could be either a blessing or a curse, a poison or a medicine. Whether it’s one or the other doesn’t depend on the drug so much as the context in which it’s used and the reasons for which it’s used. The drugs aren’t inherently good or evil; it’s very contextual. And that’s a subtle idea. It's about set & setting. Set & setting definitely affects all drugs.

    Psychedelics offer people benefits, particularly as we age. We become more deeply mired in the grooves of habit, the older we get. We have developed a set of very sophisticated algorithms to get us through the day, get us through arguments with our partners, get us through how we do our work — it all becomes kind of habitual, and very efficient for that reason But there’s a trade-off — habit dulls us to reality. Habit helps you get stuff done, but habit cuts you off from experience, fresh experience, from seeing things with fresh eyes. ... maybe psychedelics are wasted on the young. I know lots of young people who’ve had very powerful and valuable experiences. But I think they have a unique benefit to people as we get older and as we’re thinking about death, as we’re thinking about these spiritual questions, but also as we’re set in our ways and as a result, losing contact with experience. On psychedelics, there’s a kind of cleaning the doors of perception that’s going on.
    There’s a wonderful metaphor that a Dutch neuroscientist working in London gave me. He said, ‘Think of the mind as a snow-covered hill and your thoughts as sleds going down that hill. Over time, the more runs of the sled, the deeper the grooves, and it becomes very hard to go down the hill without getting drawn into the grooves. They become attractors. Think of psychedelic experience as a fresh snowfall that fills all the grooves and allows you once again to go down the hill, along another route, any route you want.’ I thought that was a beautiful metaphor." Michael Pollan and Katherine May - The Future of Hope 4 - On Being with Krista Tippett : https://onbeing.org/programs/michael-pollan-and-katherine-may-the-future-of-hope-4/  EXCELLENT Interview

    “It’s important to note that the kinds of problems psychedelics seem to be effective with, have a lot in common. They’re all at the end of the spectrum where people’s thinking becomes too rigid, too trapped in deep grooves of habit, whether mental habit or behavioral habit, people in these loops they can’t break out of.
    And what the psychedelics seem to do is give a real jolt to the system that gives people the kind of perspective on their lives that can actually break the mental habit.
    And it needs to be accompanied by lots of therapeutic intervention … these are guided ... People are very carefully prepared in advance, told what to expect, how to deal with difficulties if they come up because frightening things can happen, especially if you’re facing your mortality. And then during the experience, the guides are with you the whole time. … the idea is to basically give you a sense of safety. So you can surrender to what can be a very disturbing set of mental events. And then after the session, you come back, usually the next day … and you have an integration session where you tell the therapist what you saw, what happened, what you’re puzzled by, and with the therapists, you try to come to some interpretation of what’s happened and figure out how you can take the lessons, the insights, and apply them to the conduct of your life." Michael Pollan & Chris Bache EXCELLENT interview : https://batgap.com/michael-pollan-chris-bache/

 

Wise Hope

    Many today feel hopeless & try not to think about the desperate state our world is in. This is entirely understandable, but like many of our other behaviours, hopeless resignation is recklessly unsustainable.

    We must remember that we are no longer unloved, abandoned, afraid & helpless children. We may appreciate how that feels BUT now realize we are so much more than that! We are the wise, peaceful, spacious source of safety & unconditional love, and are now in the powerful, privileged position to join together to nurture & help ourselves & others flourish in this critical time in human history.

    Messages of wise hope:

    “Wise hope includes the aspiration to manifest our full potential, individually and collectively, and the trust that this is possible. Especially in stressful times, this hope gets clouded over by fear. When it is alive, wise hope energizes and guides all spiritual transformation. Three practices help us nurture hope:
    Aspiration for what we love,
    Attending to what we love, and
    Actively serving what we love.” Tara Brach - please watch her wonderful short video below.

    “The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right inside it, under its roof. What I want is so simple, I almost can’t say it. Elementary kindness.” Barbara Kingsolver, quoted by Tara Brach

 

"Notes from My Couch this Morning" by Joan Benner

"Let me hold you said the couch
    As you re-member yourself into loving awareness.
No more than this is needed.
    You, present to this moment is enough.
It has always been this way.
    You just forget,
And allow confusion, delusion, and frustration move you
    Into the false dreams of who you are.
The very presence of loving awareness is so much more than the illusions
    You so often crave.
Sink into this now
As you honor yourself by not getting caught in your thoughts.
Treasure them, then let them fly by,
    Refusing to allow yourself to be dragged or tossed by their fleeting visits.
Welcome the truth that this awesome awareness itself is more than enough.
    Embrace the expansiveness of clear boundless loving awareness.
Rest in the truth of this, my precious love.
    Rest, only rest will lead you to your healing.
The need to shine outward is over.
    Melt yourself back into the timeless space of loving awareness,
And dance in the knowing that you have come home.

Breathe in the comfort of this place,
And when ready, circle back as a wave in the ocean.
Rest here in this new place where the shimmering hologram of life shines though.
Take the hands offered by those who know this seamless mandala of wholeness,
And acknowledge together the beautiful core of loving awareness you all share.
    Nod to your sameness in suffering when you forget who you truly are.
Reach out to all as you bow to the deep equality you share.
    And pray as one that all beings truly awaken
And live fully in the joy that is beyond sorrow.
    The dance of loving awareness is meant for all.
May this be so…

    Terry Patten inspiring, energizing (62min) interview, author of “A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries - A Guide to Inner Work for Holistic Change.” : https://drmichaelwayne.com/leadingedge/terry-patten-author-a-new-republic-of-the-heart/

    Steve McIntosh (63min) a bit scholarly but excellent interview, author of “The Presence of the Infinite - The Spiritual Experience of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness.” : https://drmichaelwayne.com/leadingedge/interviews-with-the-leading-edge-steve-mcintosh-author-the-presence-of-the-infinite/

 

“Please may I live from love.” Tara Brach’s prayer

 

 Tara Brach's WONDERFUL (50min) video : Three Practices for Nurturing Wise Hope

 

Education for the Heart-Mind

     Effective physicians know how to genuinely connect with their patients on a human-to-human level. How much the physician genuinely cares for the patient's well-being is clearly felt by the patient. This therapeutic alliance in turn positively affects the patient's hope & expectancy.
     Educators have a very similar high calling. Educators have a great influence - positive or negative - on their students.
     We all must take the influence we have on each other very, very seriously.

First Day of School   by   Sheree Fitch

Here, take my child.
He has a fistful of crayons,
Is ready to begin
To enter the halls that smell of chalk dust and lemon oil.
He wants to colour a picture.
Help him to see that the colour he chooses,
The pictures he makes, are beautiful…..
Before you ask him to paint the Sistine Chapel.
Here, take my child.
She knows one and one makes two.
I want her to learn to add,
Without being subtracted from.
I want her to multiply her abilities,
But not if it divides her against herself.
Here, take my child.
He has a book he wants to read.
Let him read it first,
Tell you why he likes it,
Before you ask him to read a book
You think he should read…..
To be up to “the level”.
Here, take my child.
She has written a poem:
“dandy lions are golden buttons in the grass”
Smell those dandelions, see the image,
Before you tell her dandelions are weeds or
Dandelions is not spelled correctly.
Here, take my child
but... TAKE CARE.

http://www.shereefitch.com/blog/2015/9/8/first-day-of-school-poem.html