Life After the Blender

Tags

community, earthquakes, Mother Earth, Pema Chodron, Puerto Rico, Terremoto del Dia de Reyes

Dear readers, setting up camp at night in my family-living room has become the norm in our family.  The nighttime is the worst part of the day, probably because the worst earthquake until now hit during the night.  Feeling everything  move around you as if you were in a blender isn’t fun at all.  It’s  like waking up in the middle of a nightmare.

In the wake of a swarm of earthquakes that are altering our day to day, it’s become hard to get back where we were prior to January 6th, 2020.

One thing is crystal clear to me life after the blender is going to be difficult.

Seismic awareness is central for me.  Now I plan how I’m storing my personal belongings,  and thinking twice before I make purchases.  Now having enough put away for a rainy day has become a reality,  not money-wise but pantry-wise.

photo credit via morguefile

Having food stashed at home is as good as having hard earned cash.

Having water stored for a rainy day, as well.

But most importantly of it all is having a contingent plan in place and working.  Each plan needs to be tailored  for each family.  We all come in different sizes and blends, each one has to come up with their particular plan.

Understanding that we can only count on our own resources and community.

However, the most important thing for me after the blender, is becoming aware of how nature is our Mother Earth.   The creation, this marvelous world with all it’s wonders is God’s mirror.  As humans we need to co-exist with it, not trying to make paths along the ways where we are not supposed to,  but using our conscious being to respect it.

As a  human I’m obsessed with ownership like the rest of humanity.   The blender reminds  me that it’s okay to surround myself with the things that bring me joy and happiness, but also I need to remind myself that even if I would to loose the material,  I’ve  made a life long worth of deposits in my emotional bank  account that is full of memories from which I can withdraw  happiness and joy whenever I need them.

I strive now to be seismic ready not only physically, but also emotionally.  My  mental health is so much more important than anything that I may own.  The bridges I need to reinforce are those who can make my emotional life stronger.  I only hope I can find like Pema Chodron says, “courage to rest in the open space of uncertainty, instead of trying to put things back together when they fall apart”.

So my dear friends, be kind to yourself and to each other, and have me and the Island of Puerto Rico in your prayers.

Hasta pronto.

 

 

 

One Million Questions

Tags

baby boomers, community, Generation X, kindness, Laundromat, Life, Meryl Streep, Netflix, purpose, self awareness, world order

Dear readers, as humans we never stop asking ourselves questions.  We want to know all the why’s, all the reasons listed neatly below our diverse dilemmas of our every day lives.  Nonetheless, we want to skip the process of agreeing with our why’s.

My generation (Generation X) were taught by the Baby Boomers (My parents) to always comply with the rules, no questions asked.  I’ve seen a shift in this trend for sure, specially after watching Meryl Streep’s superb performance in Laundromat.  Mostly her interrogatives at the end of it were all open end questions, almost all beginning with the powerful “Why?”.

My little boy belongs to a generation that after listening to the list of rules laid before him, he will then proceed to ask, “Why?”.

All of us for sure have a list of why’s, that some will place in the open and others, like me, will try to shy away from.  The power of the why walks us through different stages of thinking and creating consciousness of our choices, of our circumstances, or of our perspectives on so many different things, persons or events in our lives.

So my dear friends, what is the point I would like to make today?

It’s not about the generation we belong to,  did, does or will do, but more about how many questions we are willing to ask ourselves.  How many why’s do we want to discover the answers to.

The path of the one million questions can be painful.

We may have to cry a bit after we discover ourselves, not to dwell on our sadness, but to cleanse our spirit. 

We will probably laugh at ourselves, maybe finding ourselves a bit ridiculous.

We will give ourselves a mental pat in the back or a thumbs up, and maybe we will want to kick ourselves in the butt.

And, lastly but not less important, we will thank ourselves for having practiced the powerful “Why?”.

See you around the corner, be kind to yourself and others, and make your world the best place to live in because there is no way we will as a collective  inhabit a world that will ever be perfect.  Hasta pronto!

 

 

Our Realms

Tags

community, Faith, God, Magical Andes, Mother Earth, Netflix, society

Dear readers, if I would choose a word to describe what I felt while watching the documentary Magical Andes on Netflix I would probably pick, “MESMERIZED”.

Scene after scene threw me an awe.

I marveled on the beauty, wonders and dangers each one of them had.  I marveled on the relationship many who lived there had with the mountains.  How they revered them to an extent.

I thought for a moment that heaven probably would look like that.

photo credit via Morguefile

It was a glimpse of Mother Earth showcasing it’s wonders, untouched by humanity.

Life burst like the active volcanoes that it has  within  its range.

I think  that humanity is closer to God when we can listen, see and experience  nature. We stumble continuously upon buildings  utilized as temples, synagogues, mesquites and so on,  all of them particular to the faith tradition people who gather there practice.

We visit these places to venerate and seek God.   But what if, every once in a while we let us seek God in the home He created.  When you visit a friend, well you go to his or her house.  We experience joy and comfort when we connect to them in their surroundings.

So my dear friends, what I’m saying is that if  we want  to go and visit  God, to have a nice chat, to find some peace for our spirits,  to connect, to let ourselves be transformed with and by love, it’s not such a bad idea to look for a beautiful natural landscape once in a while and sit still  and God’s spirit will certainly touch our lives in ways that will make us wonder.

The buildings, they have their purpose as well,  they are there to build community. We just have to remember  this.  People don’t need to go to church to seek God  and his blessings, people need to go to church to connect with others.   We need to go to  church to be able to share with others our joys and our burdens out  of love  for one another. Not perfect people, but just people.

Today is Sunday, the perfect day to seek some solace and marvel in the beauty of this astonishing world we live in.  Let us quiet our minds, and open our ears to listen to God’s voice through the many sounds of nature.  Let’s set aside the “dogma” our times have engineered and experience the simplicity of realizing that  we  get to live in the here and now.

Love and let yourself be loved.

Seek community in the building and seek God in the mountain or shore.

Thanks for stopping by, and remember be kind to others and yourself.  See you around the corner.  Hasta pronto!

 

From My Little Corner of the World

Tags

blogging, community, cyber world, empathy, Era of Technology, Puerto Rico, Social media, Technology

Dear readers, as the Sun rises in the horizon and skies are painted in shades of blue, orange and some yellow here and there I ponder about how noisy this world is.  I’m not talking about noisy in cars speeding  by or people talking out loud, but the noise we all  make to be heard in a world where everybody wants to state a viewpoint on someone or something, just about anything as a matter of fact.

I love the movie Ralph Breaks the Internet because it represents very accurately the parallel universe of our cyber world.  There is so much information attached to so many possibilities that it’s ridiculous.

Nowadays the crowds move from one thing to another in mass, switching interests so rapidly that it can scare the heck out of you.  Empathy grows by the millions and fades away in seconds and people move on to the next big thing.

Is this stoppable? I really don’t think so.

What can we do about it?  Not much collectively, but rather individually. We can switch off our cyber universe for a while each day if we choose to.

How can we teach our younger ones?  By example.

It’s funny people often repeat that our kids now a days have been born into technology, that they don’t play outside as we used to, this or that.  The truth of the matter is that we began changing earlier than they did because we set the example  for them to be drawn to the fast pace of our cyber worlds, where everything is given or done instantly and where patience has little or no place at all.

When we need to wait even just for a few seconds or minutes for our internet connections to work and “high speed” seems to be not so fast, it  aggravates the hell out of us.  Not a good way to cultivate patience for sure.

You know it’s not that important to be heard, it’s more important to listen.  Listen to  others and to our inner voices with a compassionate heart.  Which sounds terrific, but is very hard to practice by the way.  Just the other day, I was putting myself  through an excruciating conversation with a very negative and pessimistic person and I felt like snapping (and to be completely honest I did snap a bit), but then I reminded myself to listen with compassion and just let go of my way and viewpoints.

So as it goes, the Sun is already up, the sky is no longer shaded with those beautiful mixed colors, it took its time, the right amount, not too long or short.  It wasn’t done with a click, but in time enough. The day will go on until dusk comes around and the other side of our planet gets to see some of this amazing light.

I kind of think that I’ll rather follow nature’s lead and live today with just the right amount of time and patience.  It’s better that trying to keep up with the cyber world that never takes a break, that is controlled by no one yet by everyone. Sunrise and sun fall are strangers to this world.

From someone from this corner of the world to anyone who stops by to read my blog,  practice friendship to every  living thing in this world.  From a plant to a human being and everything in between.

Thanks for stopping by.  Hasta pronto.

 

 

 

Coming Home

Tags

blogging, Budhism, cats, Christianity, community, Faith, Happiness, Home, Life, Mindfulness, Religion and Spirituality, Spirituality

Dear readers, time and time again I always come back to the same place.  Some think that life in its own funny way always makes you go round in circles.  However, its just probably us.  Our now and yesterday just intertwine pressing the play and replay many times.

Maybe that’s why many believe that we live over and over again in different time periods during the infinite life of our spirit.

For instance, I love cats.  What I like the most of them is their unbothered way of life.  They just go about doing their own thing.  However, my point is that during my life I’ve always had a cat, as a child I recall having a white Siamese cat, Mom told me recently that she wasn’t white, but black, probably she’s confused with my other cat, Miss Me-aw.  I had a hard time after she passed, so it took me a while to let another cat into my life.  My son convinced me of adopting a kitten and four years down the road, Jinx  lives happily (or I would think) with us in our home.

But hey this isn’t about cats!!! So let’s move on.

Isn’t it quite funny how things just happen to us so many times, the SAME things.

So, why wouldn’t it be different with my blog.  When I first started writing I was invested in it.  My blog was a way I would write myself through my difficulties, but than I just lost the thirst for writing.

It transitioned from reacting to Sunday’s sermon, to a place where I began growing as a person.  It was an eye opener to what was going on in a world that I had never bothered to look at closely.  Injustice rang loud and clear as I witnessed devastation created by those with power.  I began to question what I had thought was my faith.

I saw Christianity with new eyes.

I saw Buddhism with new eyes.

I began reading books about how to live a mindful life.

My spiritual exploration had been set in place and all these years down the road it’s still is.

Believing is a place where that exploration takes  place and I think I’m over with people who put you down spiritually.   It’s time to come back home and just write about the ups and down of life and faith.

My fingers are eager to type away my thoughts and experiences of a new path I’ve discovered.  A path where my spirit rests knowing that each and every day I try to not fall into practices that do  not contribute to my growth or those who I encounter with each day.

Because at the end of the day, we all want to feel the comfort of being in peace with ourselves  and the world, we all want to come home.

See you around and thanks for stopping by.  Hasta pronto!