Blessings For Earth-Healers

Blessings for Earth-Healers - Starhawk

 

We give thanks for all those who are moved, in their lives, to heal and protect the earth, in small ways and in large. Blessings on the composter, the gardeners, the breeders of worms and mushrooms, the soil-builders, those who cleanse the waters and purify the air, all those who clean up the messes others have made. Blessings on those who defend trees and who plant trees, who guard the forests and who renew the forests. Blessings on those who prevent erosion, who restore the salmon and the fisheries, who guard the healing herbs and who know the lore of the wild plants. Blessings on those who heal the cities and bring them alive again with excitement and creativity and love. Gratitude and blessings to all who stand against greed, who risk themselves, to those who have bled and been wounded, and to those who have given their lives in service of the earth.

 

May all the healers of the earth find their healing. May they be fueled by passionate love for the earth. May they know their fear but not be stopped by fear. May they feel their anger and yet not be ruled by rage. May they honor their grief but not be paralyzed by sorrow. May they transform fear, rage, and grief into compassion and the inspiration to act in service of what they love. May they find the help, the resources, the courage, the luck, the strength, the love, the health, the joy that they need to do the work. May they be in the right place, at the right time, in the right way. May they bring alive a great awakening, open a listening ear to hear the earth's voice, transform imbalance to balance, hate and greed to love.

Blessed be the healers of the earth.

About the Author: Excerpted from The Earth Path by Starhawk. 

If a man going down into a river, swollen and swiftly flowing, is carried away by the current -- how can he help others across? --Buddha

How Anxiety Reduces Empathy

--by Kira M. Newman, syndicated from Greater Good, Jul 12, 2016

One afternoon in Dublin, I found myself running through the airport, convinced I was about to miss a flight for the first time in my life.

My anxiety surged at the sight of a long security line, but luckily an airport official ushered me to the front. I didn’t care how the waiting passengers felt about my preferential treatment, and I don’t remember much about the people I encountered during that nerve-wracking afternoon. I was thinking only about my goal: to get home.

In short, my empathy for others plummeted as my anxiety mounted—and a recent paper helps explain this phenomenon by linking anxiety to egocentrism. In doing so, it provides yet another reason why cultivating empathy is so crucial.

In a series of six studies with more than 1,300 total participants, researchers from universities including Harvard and Columbia induced anxiety, anger, disgust, surprise, or pride in participants by asking them to write about a past experience when they felt one of those emotions. (Some participants did nothing or wrote about how they typically spend their evenings, generating a neutral feeling.)

Then, participants were tested on perspective taking. In one study, they specified whether a book placed on their right side (but someone else’s left) was on the right or left side of a table. In another, they indicated the position of a green light from their perspective and someone else’s.

In a third, they had to figure out whether the recipient of an email would read it as sincere, when they had privileged information suggesting it was sarcastic. In yet another experiment, they read scenarios like the one below and filled in the blank as quickly as possible:

Anna made lasagna in the blue dish. After Anna left, Ian came home and ate the lasagna. Then he filled the blue dish with spaghetti and replaced it in the fridge. Anna thinks the blue dish contains (lasagna/spaghetti).

In these studies, participants who were feeling anxious or surprised were more likely to give the egocentric answer—or take longer to answer from someone else’s perspective—than those who were feeling angry, disgusted, proud, or neutral. In other words, the stressed people had trouble seeing things from another’s point of view: I know the blue dish contains spaghetti, so Anna must know, too. And the more anxious they were, the more egocentric they became. (On questions that didn’t involve perspective taking, they didn’t perform any worse than the other participants.)

The finding that anxiety and surprise increased egocentrism was, well, surprising—particularly when the self-focused emotion of pride did not.

Why was this happening? The researchers found a clue in a final pair of studies: Participants were also more egocentric after induced to feel uncertain, and surprise and anxiety are both associated with uncertainty. While anger makes us certain in our righteous indignation, anxiety and surprise make us unsure of what’s going on and what will happen next. And when we feel uncertain, we tend to fall back on what we know to be true—namely, our own perspectives and feelings.

Although Anna’s lasagna might not seem particularly relevant in the grand scheme of things, these findings point to a disturbing possibility. If our stress-filled lives generate more moments of anxiety, that means our perspective taking is routinely compromised—and with it, part of our ability to empathize and connect with others.

Now more than ever, we need to train our empathy muscles. Consider trying these science-based practices, particularly if you’re prone to anxiety:

Active Listening: Listen better and express active interest in your conversational partner, making them feel heard and understood.

Shared Identity: Think of someone who is very different from you, and then try to imagine all the ways that you two are similar—seeing them as an individual, not an out-group member.

Mindful Breathing: Focus attention on your own breathing to cultivate awareness.

That day in Dublin, I caught my flight. I also learned a lesson in empathy. No one wants to live life as if they’re constantly late for a plane, too stressed to look around and connect with others. We’re much better off cultivating empathy, building connection, and accepting that what will be, will be—missed flights and all.

This article generated controversy among Greater Good readers on social media. Read about it and gain more context for this study in “What is the Relationship Between Stress and Empathy?”

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This article is printed here with permission. It originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC). Based at UC Berkeley, the GGSC studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society. 

Be The Change: Breathe deeply and listen to others carefully to combat anxiety and egocentrism in stressful situations.

Sourced From www.dailygood.org

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. --Morrie Schwartz

Letting Love Come In

--by Mia Tagano, Jul 22, 2016

Two and a half years ago my grandmother was placed in a nursing home where she will live out the rest of her life. She has dementia and so her memory capacity has been marred.   Somehow though she remembers kindness.  She is my constant teacher.  One of things we like to do is walk down the halls in the nursing facility saying hello to the other residents.  We stop say hello and wait for an answer.   We rarely get a verbal response. My grandmother will put her face up real close so she and the neighbor will be looking eye to eye then, she will say hello again as she squeezes their hand.   She doesn't actually understand anymore that most of the residents are no longer verbal.  Still, some kind of connection is made.  And, actually there is no memory of these encounters but the next time we pass there is some kind of recognition whether a flicker of the eyes, or a silent reach of a hand.  It is beautiful even if I am perhaps the only witness who understands the connection comes from an earlier time.  Community is created by these moments, these silent connections, these touches of the hand.  When I go to the nursing facility, it is like going to the village.  I do not know the individuals histories but I have a sense of their spirits now and I have come to care for them.  In that context, I would like to share a story of my time with my grandmother and some of these elders that I have come to think of as my relatives too in a way. So....

Two fire trucks and an ambulance were in front of the nursing home as I pulled up. My chest tightened. The reality here is that people do not necessarily get better – they come here to die. Still, after visiting almost 6 months now, I have come to care for the residents. It always makes me sad when someone passes. Inside, I half expected there to be a rush of firemen or paramedics shouting, “Code blue” or “Clear the way!” but that is only on TV.

Here, it is business as usual – all in a days work.

Down the hall, Mr. Le was propped up on the sofa, his one foot in his wheel chair. He has good days and not so good, today was a sad one. I sat with him while he spoke to me in Vietnamese with tears in his eyes; I held his hand and nodded as if I understood.

Later, Mrs. Owens brightened up as I came into the room and reached for me as she always does now. I spoke to her about the cold and laughed about winter being here for sure before going to my grandmother who was working intently on a word search puzzle. Turns out she’s pretty good at finding the words; It is the one activity that keeps her from wandering around lost. I greet her with a big smile and hello – she responds in kind adding, “Where have you been? Long time no see! Sit down, Sit down!” It is part of our ritual. Next we take a walk through the halls where she complains to all the nurses, “She’s making me…WALK!” We all laugh including her.

Next, is shower-time - another something she will lightly complain about at first but is always grateful for during and afterwards. We spend shower-time getting wet (me barefoot but fully clothed) and laughing through the washing and drying. It is a sweet time, I will never forget. Before putting her to bed, she hugs me tightly and thanks me for helping her. I say my goodnights and sweet dreams to both her and Mrs Owens who now adds, “Be careful!” with a tiny wave and a smile.

As I approach the front lobby, I see Mr. Yakov in the doorway – he was trying to escape (for a 90 something year old man with a broken foot confined to a wheel chair, he is pretty mobile). Now, he is holding on to the door refusing to let go. 3 nurses are trying to get him to come inside.

Tomorrow all of this will be forgotten. At least, by most who live here. For the rest who remember, no matter, it will be a new day for us as well .

UPDATE from two years later: Mr. Le has a girlfriend now - a sweet woman who also lives at the facility and who speaks only Korean (he only speaks Vietnamese). She doesn't walk so he pushes her in her wheel chair from his wheel chair with his one foot. At meals, they sit together and he shares his napkins with her (he was homeless at one time so hoards napkins-this is connected somehow). When they are apart, he is more disoriented and she calls repeatedly for "the old man" in her language (after I found out what she was saying and before I knew of their friendship, I wheeled her over to the old man I thought she meant (there are a few to choose from lol), she seemed agitated and wrinkled her nose but when I took her to see Mr. Le they became animated as if in the middle of a conversation) - when they are together, they are happy - love is a beautiful thing and, not so complicated really.

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Mia Tagano is an actor, voice over artist and performing arts teacher. She's toured with the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed in scores of stage productions in the United States. Her dedication towards her 96-year-old grandmother has touched many across the world. Read more about her inspiring journey here.    

Be The Change: The next time you encounter someone whom you find it difficult to communicate with, try to build a bridge that goes beyond language.

Sourced From www.dailygood.org

You Are Not Depressed; You Are Distracted

You Are Not Depressed; You Are Distracted - Facundo Cabral

 

You are not depressed; you are distracted. You believe that you have lost something, which is impossible, because everything that you have was given to you. You did not make a single hair of your head so you can not own anything. In addition, life does not subtract things, it liberates you from them. It makes you lighter so that you can fly higher and reach the fullness. From cradle to grave, it is a school, and that is why those predicaments that you call problems are lessons, indeed.

 

You lost nobody; the one who died is just going ahead, because we all are going there. Besides this, the best of him/her, his/her love, is still in your heart. Who could say that Jesus is dead? There is not death, but only movement. And on the other side there are some wonderful people waiting for you: Gandhi, Michelangelo Whitman, St. Augustine, Mother Teresa, your grandmother and my mother, who believed that poverty is actually closer to what we call Love, because money distracts us with too many things, and makes us apprehensive and doubtful.

 

Do only what you love and you will be happy; the one who can do what he/she loves, is blessed and destined to have success, which will definitively come, because what must come, will come, but will come naturally. Do not do anything for obligation or commitment, but for love. Only then there will be fullness in your life, and with fullness everything is possible; and possible without any effort because what will move you will be the natural force of life, the same that raised me when the plane crashed with my wife and my daughter, the same which kept me alive when my doctors predicted that I would have only 3 or 4 more months of life.

 

Liberate yourself from the tremendous burden of guilt, responsibility, and vanity, and be ready to live each moment deeply, as it should be.

 

You are not depressed, you just need to be busy. Help the child who needs you, and that child will be your child’s partner. Help old people, and young people will help you when you be old. In addition, service to others is an absolutely guaranteed happiness, as certain as enjoying and taking care of nature for those who will come tomorrow. Give without measure and you will receive without measure.

About the Author: Gautemalean poet -- excerpted from here.