Winter Reflection

Sky View Over Hoch Taurus Nature Park, Villmar, Hesse, Germany, September 2015

Winter Reflection

“Inner questioning from sincere desire to understand is one way to develop. The questions themselves are the precursors to the answers. It is the answer, the realization or insight that desires to be revealed to conscious cognitive awareness, that is the catalyst for the question, and so subsequently takes the form of the question. As this occurs, answers are unveiled, and understanding deepens.

This deeper understanding reveals how to keep one’s bearings and results in a serene demeanor and attitude, thus affecting the environment through which one walks. To return to the tuning fork analogy, the vibrational rate of a tuning fork initiates the same vibrational rate of sound in another tuning fork, alignment with the Wisdom of the Silence allows us to flow within Its lighthearted resonance. This catalyzes the same lighthearted feeling in another, with the subtlety of being “no big deal.” When something desirable is no big deal, there isn’t much to resist—in fact, it’s quite the opposite.

What gets catalyzed in another by one who is aligned with the Silence is energetic, vibrational resonance. The thinking that is then awakened in that other is insight that the other is seeking. This is not a personal manipulation of any sort. The resonance of the Silence, through one aligned with the Silence, catalyzes in another the answers to the questions the other is asking, even if those questions are not conscious.

There is a physics to it, a vibrational awakening that is gentle. It is irresistible in that it doesn’t engage the personal thought process, but rather it awakens within a person the Impersonal Thought of Infinite Intelligence available to all human beings. This Infinite Intelligence takes the form of whatever thought is needed to reveal the relevant solution, the answer to the query in which one’s self or another is engaged. Nothing need be analyzed within one’s self for such a solution. And for a person in the presence of one aligned with the Silence, no words need be exchanged between the two for the other person to see a relevant solution to their own issue.”

~ from The Inward Outlook, by Laura Basha, PhD; Chapter VII, “The Silence”, pp 68-69

SIMPLICITY

http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rcs/15._Simplicity_files/simplicity.jpg

SIMPLICITY

“In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.”

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I have been reflecting on simplicity for some time. Simplicity seems to be on many people’s minds, these days especially. Life experience can become so busy that it occurs to us as complex and as needing urgency to address every issue that comes up.

In my reflections as well as my investigative readings, what keeps coming back to me is a common thread that runs through the tapestry of all the commitments I have made, and then subsequently experience as demands on my time! I have often made commitments and choices without thinking through the entire picture of the issue or the ramifications of the choice. This results in the experience of living a complex life.

If I look at de-cluttering my home as an example, I can see that when I make a new purchase, I don’t always think through how useful it will truly be, so I often add to a collection of lovely-but-not-very-useful items already existing in our home.

When I look at my schedule, I see that I sometimes say “yes” to commitments without really looking at the entire use of hours in the day, or week, or month, or even year. I don’t ask myself in the moment of the commitment, have I given myself enough resting time to experience balance in my day/week/life?!

When I look at wanting to drop a few pounds, am I consciously choosing what food to put into my system that will actually contribute to having a body weight in which I feel most comfortable, or am I choosing to eat what feels compelling at the moment but not designed to accomplish my larger goal?

What I see now is that all of the issues to deal with around simplifying my life come down to one issue: being clear and purposeful regarding what I want, and being disciplined in remembering what I want.

Ah, discipline!! Such a contaminated word! Seems like acquiescing to coercion rather than creating a desired outcome. But, what if discipline was really simply remembering what we want?

I am left with a deepening of understanding of this concept of simplicity: that simplicity is the result of consciously choosing. Being present to the implications and ramifications of a choice, I then need to deal with the resistance that arises internally when I stay true to the larger picture.

Discipline is indeed remembering what I want, and I can see the added value gained from living a life of conscious discipline, conscious choice. Consciously remembering what I want, and choosing accordingly, allows for a letting go which syncronistically unveils simplicity.

Following Greatness

FOLLOWING GREATNESS

“There is something that contains everything.
Before heaven and earth it is.
Oh, it is still, unbodied, all on its own, unchanging, all-pervading, ever-moving

So it can act as the mother of all things.

Not knowing its real name, we only call it the Way.

If it must be named, let its name be Great.

Greatness means going on, going on means going far, and going far means turning back.

So they say: “The Way is great, heaven is great, earth is great, and humankind is great;

four greatnesses in the world, and humanity is one of  them.”

People follow earth,

earth follows heaven,

heaven follows the Way,

the Way follows what is.”

~~Lao Tzu,  Tao te Ching,

Translated by Ursula K. Leguin

Last week I wrote a guest article for an organization whose purpose is to inspire and empower women entrepreneurs. I am also in the process of designing a year-long succession planning and mentoring process for a wonderful client organization. Both of these projects – the writing of the article as well as the thinking through of how to successfully generate a transfer of senior level competency to a very qualified younger group of newly-hired consultants in a very short time frame – got me thinking about “The Divine Feminine”.

Now, that can be a loaded phrase. “The Divine Feminine” sounds as though it is some kind of possibility relegated to women only, or that it is a conversation belonging more in New Age jargon than any pragmatic business dialogue.

But, here’s the thing: in my consulting and coaching work with already highly successful executives, one of the key characteristics that is missing in leadership development is a deep understanding of quieting down one’s thinking and listening for what one is missing – what one is not seeing. Listening for what’s beneath the obvious conversation, the obvious issue at hand, listening to another’s point of view with no attention paid to your own inner monologue allows for insightful solution, perfectly tailored to whatever is the problem at hand.

So, on closer examination, what is the Divine Feminine? Listening to that quietness is access to the Divine Feminine. No “woo-woo”, nothing “too soft” or “touchy-feely”, rather a very pragmatic psychological vantage point in which to stand in order to have the most innovative and brilliant response. Light-heartedness born of trusting innate wisdom and common sense is always available, affording the highest quality thinking in any circumstance, even when confronting very serious issues.

From this perspective, gender has nothing to do with the Divine Feminine. It is not a quality available to women only, but a listening for a realm that is the balance of the Divine Masculine, and so available and needed by men and women leaders alike.

Taking cues from innate wisdom which then inform choices to outer action is the expressed balance of the Divine Feminine and Masculine at work. The Divine Feminine knows that the only thing one can count on is the wisdom within, and the Divine Masculine takes this inner leadership gracefully into the world.