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I cried when I watched this... because this is where my heart is right now... I have a couple of things going on behind the scenes... and those things are very much in the spirit of this video.
This week's full moon threw me... as usual.
I prepare for full moons like the Wolfman. My given name (which apparently I chose) is another name for which Diana, Goddess of the Moon is called. When I was a kid, my friends and I picked Hippie Names. Mine was Moon. I didn't know then the truth in that. My soul has just always been drawn to the moon.
One of my monthly rituals is to watch the full moon rise. It's so big and comforting when it's low and glowing behind the silhouette of the world below. Then through the trees, it begins to shrink a bit. Once up high among the stars, it's all but reduced to a tiny light bulb in the darkness. I KNOW that it doesn't change. It's the same size the whole way through the sky. Smarter and more patient people than me have measured it. It's only our perspective of the moon against all of the physical things in life that we can relate to. Mountains. Houses. Trees. But in the expanse of the eternal heavens, that moon sure does look tiny.
That’s because we can’t measure “forever.”
My Sweet Sixteen-Year-Old once said that she loved me "all the way to the gas station." For her, walking to the gas station where our bus picked us up in the morning was FAR. She used to cry the whole way telling me she was dying and to please carry her. To her, it was like walking across the world. It was only one city block away. Not that far really. But when she said "I love you all the way to the gas station," she was telling me that she loved me a lot. I thought it was so sweet and smiled every time she said it. But if I wouldn't have understood how far she perceived the gas station to be, how might I have responded?
We measure things, good and bad, based on our perspective of, or rather our relationship to those things. For instance, what is your relationship with money? What did it mean to you growing up? For some, the same numbers, or amounts, may mean rich or poor... want versus need... better or worse. One person might think having it means power. For another, it might mean security. If someone makes you part with it, would they be challenging your power or depriving your family of security? If so, the exchange of that paper may come with some anger or resentment. If it's in exchange for more of the same (power or security), the feelings will likely be positive.
Time… what is your perception of that? For me, time is worth so much more than money. So when someone else doesn't honor my time the way I do, I get a little... I don't know... I wouldn't say mad, but I do feel off a bit. When I'm in a meeting with someone, I'm constantly monitoring the clock to make sure that our agenda stays on time and that we accomplish our goals in that meeting because I want to honor that time set aside. But when I have an afternoon of just hanging out planned, the clocks all disappear so that the time spent relaxing or playing with family or friends is truly enjoyed.
Time and Money are just two forms of energy that we exchange for other experiences. They aren't numbers really. They can only be measured that way because we humans like to attach the finite to the infinite. Just like we like to say how big the moon is behind the mountain and are amazed as it shrinks next to the stars. The problem with our perspective is...
we have no idea how large the stars are.
...
Today is my thirty-eighth birthday!
I tell you the age because I am gloriously happy to BE my age and to look and feel like I do. I never thought it would be this good... not even when the "old" ladies I knew in my twenties told me that this would be the time of my life. They were right, of course. This is the time when life starts to make sense AND you still have the body to enjoy it! SWEET!
Last night, I went to bed with some words from Marianne Williamson's book, A Woman's Worth. I woke up with a smile on my face. I want to give a gift to all of the women I know and those that I have yet to meet. These are the words that lulled me to sleep on my last night as a thirty-seven year old:
"Joy is our goal, our destiny. We cannot know who we are except in joy. Not knowing joy, we do not know ourselves. When we are without joy, we grope in the dark. When we are centered in joy, we attain our wisdom. A joyful woman, by merely being, says it all. The world is terrified of joyful women. Make a stand. Be one anyway.
Joy is what happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things are. Joy is not necessarily what happens when things unfold according to our own plans. How often that's happened -- we married the [right] man, had the children, got the job -- and we've still known despair. Joy is what happens when we see that God's plan is PERFECT and we're already starring in a perfect show. It demands that we have the audacity to embrace the knowledge of just how beautiful we really are and how infintely powerful we are RIGHT NOW -- without changing a thing -- through the grace that's consistenlty born and reborn within us.
...Such an embrace is not arrogant but humble; it is not crazy but realistic. It is an appraisal of our lives through the eyes God gives us...
...Perhaps joy can be practiced. Perhaps we can decide to BE happy, to give joy before waiting to receive it. This is not denial but affirmation of the power inside us... Then we become the ones who teach the meaning of joy to our children, as well as allowing them to teach it to us. We bring joy to one another, to men, to children, to God. Just knowing we're meant to do this increases its presence within us. Our deciding to be joyful demonstrates our willingness to relinquish the petty and negative preoccupations that stand in the way. When we give these up, a more joyful life has a chance to emerge."
