Winter 2010

CONTINUUM VANCOUVER

NEWSLETTER – WINTER 2010

It is Christmas Day. I am sitting in my home basking in a shaft of sunlight coming through the window, reflecting on the passing of the darkness and the turning to the light, along with the soon to be passing of another year. What may be in store for my future and the future of our world? It is a time of gratitude for the blessings of my family and community and the abundance that we share, knowing that there are many of our brothers and sisters in the world who are suffering from the effects of war, violence, poverty and even starvation. One of the things we initiated in my women’s group last year, instead of giving material gifts, was to give each other a donation to an organization or charity of our choice which benefited some humans in greater need than ourselves. The giving of gifts is also a remembrance of the gift of life, that light burning within each soul and encourages the evolving of the inner gifts that each soul brings to the world no matter what the manifestation of their outer life.

Recently, I listened to a CD from a talk given by David Whyte, entitled “A Change for the Better, Poetry & the Reimagination of Midlife.” As usual, I am inspired by David Whyte’s insights into the human condition, in particular in this talk about the changes forced upon us by the limitations occurring in midlife. This evokes my experiences over the last two decades with the physical losses I have had to deal with and the truth of what David Whyte says in this talk, “To become a full human being, we need to confront and take it all in.” My teacher, Emilie Conrad, has said that when something passes, something else will come in to take its place. From David Whyte’s poem, “Millennium,”

The place you have fallen
refusing to rise again
becomes the spiral line of flame
where we turn
into the one desire
we have not lived.

While it is necessary to mourn our losses as something that is passing and the limitations that may follow, it is also important to keep opening up to “what else,” to other possibilities. One can see these situations as limitations and cling to what was or to see them as opportunities and challenges and began to look forward to new ways of being and perceiving. This has certainly been my learning, to be with what is, to learn from it fully and to move on with curiosity, compassion for oneself and with patience.

David Whyte quotes from “Weathering”, by a New Zealand poet, speaking to her experience of the aging process: “Now I’m in love with a place that doesn’t care how I look or if I’m happy, then happy is how I look.” “Whatever context you’ve arranged for your existence, there’s another that makes it absurd.”

With love and blessings for the new year,

Doris

December 25, 2009