suffering

September 11, 2012…

~ jaysen ~ 2 Comments

spent the evening watching 9/11 footage as i do every year on this day.

i find it incredible that 11 years later, the emotions that rise up from my chest – that turn my stomach – that tighten in my throat, can still be so present. and although the emotions of sadness and anger manifest their presence once again, i do not watch to give them life anew. i watch to remind myself. to remind myself that suffering not grieved, that anger not transformed, that bitterness unchecked – left in its darkened cave, grows into hate. and that hate when held onto, when taught and modeled, finds life in hopeless – desperate hearts. possibly giving birth for generations, slowly separating us from our humanity, from what is divine.

i also watch to remind myself of what it looks like to see such bravery in the face of horrific disaster and tragedy, to watch courage and compassion manifest as it did that day in the police and fire fighters, in doctors and nurses, in coworkers and friends. i watch to remind myself how a nation who can get lost in division, can all at once be unified in their grief, their desire to hold life, and in their humanity.

i know in my heart we are given all we need to heal, all we need to reconcile and restore. the solution is us. our hearts, our minds, our light, our love – together. in moments we see this and in the long arc of history i believe its thread is clear.

but there are dark moments, periods of time that can shake the heart, and i am left to wonder – have we learned?

wishing all of you, dear friends – relief from your suffering, happiness and peace.

namaste.
~ j

September 11, 2012

a letter to Aurora…

~ jaysen ~ 1 Comment

a letter to Aurora…

to all those who are suffering from this horrific tragedy in Aurora, our prayers are with you. to all those who are suffering from their own personal tragedies in this life, our prayers are with you. we are connected in our suffering, in our pain, in our confusion as to how such violence can occur. we are connected in these dark moments of life, where our hearts break and our minds spin with emotion, we are connected in our sense of loss as life seems to have lost all that is good.

it is important to feel these emotions, to sit with these emotions. to be where we are at, to grieve. so many of us, in our confusion, our pain, our anger are running from this horrible event. it isn’t easy to sit with tragedy, to be awake with suffering. it is far easier (and even feels good to have some brief relief) to blame. to blame the existence of guns, to blame a broken system, to blame a single individual who has forgotten what it means to be human, to be connected in life and love. and there too, we connect. we connect into groups with missions and we feel some brief relief as we find a place to place our anger, our pain, our suffering…forgetting our truer connection, that we are One.

but there is another way we are connected. we are connected in our Light, in our Love, in Life.

so as we sit in this darkness, in this night of tragedy and pain, let us look to Aurora itself. Aurora means “dawn”…the coming of day. that sacred, beautiful time when the night moves from twilight to day.

there is pain here. there is confusion and anger. but, my friends, there is also hope. the day will come again and with it the sun, shining bright the light of love and life. the Light that lives in all of us – both passed and still present, and the Love that connects us – whether we have passed or are present, whatever may come.

wishing peace and freedom from suffering for us all.

namaste ~ j

Friday, July 20th 2012

the role of suffering in awakening…

~ jaysen ~ 2 Comments

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
~ Carl Jung

this is the second time i’ve seen this Jung quote recently and its theme feels so present both on the micro level for my own journey and on the macro level in seeing the way the world is facing things regarding economics and the environment….all the while looking for quick ways to end the suffering without facing our own shadow’s relationship to this. i am reminded that “stuff” doesn’t just go away…it may be suppressed for a while, but it must rise and make itself known. when we do finally face it and recognize it and know it, then – then healing and transformation can take their rightful place.

namasté, friends ~ j

Transformational living…

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“Give me everything mangled and bruised, and I will make a light of it to make you weep. And we will have rain & begin again.” ~ Deena Metzger

i simply love the emphasis on transformation within this selected piece of writing by Deena Metzger. the well known Franciscan Richard Rohr often says that what we don’t “transform” we then often “transmit”. there is something so connected and intuitively right on with these messages of tranformation. within such a perspective, everything EVERYTHING is grist for the mill. is this not incarnation? don’t we see that this path, this sacred journey has been tread before? lived out in the life of Jesus, grounded in the sitting of the Buddha? and did not they both invite us to experience this and to live this ourselves?

we have the profound ability to take the ugliest of hurts and make them beautiful, to shine our light – setting aglow all that is sacred here and now. what’s more, is that we have the divine right and even responsibility to do so. the capacity of heart to hold the entire world, knowing it in Love, so that it can be recognized for what it is.

namasté

~ j