photo: mindfulnessyoganorwich.co.uk “The Earth Laughs in Flowers” –Ralph Waldo Emerson Live your life. Live your life. Live your life. —Maurice Sendak In a workshop early in my career, a recently retired navy captain whose resignation had been compulsory, was angry. Hurt. While he served, the military was criticized. Members disparaged. Veterans inadequately attended. […]
My wife left her body two years ago this month. Four days before her birthday. Nine before our anniversary. Twenty-one after our denial shattered. Cancer. “For the soul to thrive, sometimes the heart has to be broken.” —Elif Shafak “The future isn’t what it used to be.” —Arthur C. Clarke As for my soul, I […]
December, 2020 Hello my constellation community, I trust you are well and safe — equal to circumstance and feel worthy of the tasks at hand. I trust you have close nurturing connections: supportive ones. I trust you face today’s uncertainties with Awareness and grace — agility and flexibility — compassionate intelligence — and Wisdom. I […]
Stephen Victor photo Further All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know. —Ernest Hemingway There was a time I characterized my life as a ship in transit on which I repeatedly busied myself redesigning and reconstructing its hull — while underway — in heavy, and becalmed seas. […]
Stephen Victor photo Act I Colluding “…a man who lived a short distance from himself.” —James Joyce, “A Difficult Case” Human life is but the loveliness of a passing fragrance. Few see it this way. Most are frequently fraught with challenging experiences leaving life hellishly difficult and long. Also many regard life’s fragrance with suspicion. […]
Photo: Stephen Victor – old iPhone The future is not what it used to be. —Arthur C. Clarke Lore holds, stories are to personal growth and becoming as facts to science. • Facts either exist or they do not. • Some stand the test of time. Some help. Some do not. • Others nullified. Some helped. Some […]
Whether all is really lost or not depends entirely on whether or not I am lost. —Vaclav Havel The late mythologist, Joseph Campbell, brought to the world’s attention that we each live out what he called The Hero’s Journey. A story in which we have the course of our lives spectacularly interrupted by an uncompromisingly […]
Photo: Stephen Victor I heard a short story, whether real or apocryphal who knows. It went like this: A woman whose circumstance and those of her community were extraordinarily challenging was asked why are you so happy. Her response was because I cry so much. This morning I cried and cried—missing my late wife. I […]
The Red Boats by Claude Monet “The much that calls for more.” — Margaret Fuller 1810-1850 There are moments when The Mystery, through circumstance, opens the ledgers of our life revealing its accounts—the credits and debits of experience and expression—our daily commerce. At these junctures we are best served to sit well in […]
I grew up in America’s mid-west: Mom from Brooklyn. Dad, rural Iowa. Dad never distanced himself from depression era losses. We all enjoyed THAT world. Mom struggled to imbue a fundamentalist Christian bent. WHEW! If that’s not a small box to add to impoverished thought… myopia and degrees of difficulty notwithstanding, the reconciling of a […]