The Stone Suitcase: Balancing the Load

Greetings my gentle readers to this week’s installment of the “Be Yourself, Often” blog and the second installment of “The Stone Suitcase”. That wonderful point in the week when we can mindfully reflect on what we are becoming. A time to reflect on the choices that present themselves.

This week, building on the theory of remembrance, we will look at the approach of how to carry the load of our stone suitcases. It may be a temptation to jettison the baggage, for after all, are we not designed to be free spirited and free of will and thought and actions? To do so would mean that we are constantly as a babe and recall nothing and have no animosities, etc.

But there are certain things that we have evolved across. When we are young, we lament that we wish we were older and somewhere along the line, often in the 30’s we aspire for the opposite.  Why is that? There are the suitcases that we carry that encase the race and culture and history that we are and were.

Eckhart Tolle calls the negative component “The Pain-Body”, which I agree with. These are suitcases that are often not needed, carried as a martyr and drug out for all to see when in reality, most of it is sheer baggage and worthy of jettison, much less paraded in public display. The saddest part about that pain body is that individuals may not even recognize they are carrying it, or even worse use these exceptionally one-sided stories for pity and perceived victimization.  These are experiences of degeneration. There are some pain bodies though that may be useful to remember in the sense where the human entity itself is at some degree of risk, to allow us preventing it from happening again.

On the converse is what I would call the “Healing-Body” and these are aspects and suitcases that we have picked up through learnings across the days and years (and in fact ages!) that allow tips and tools to help and learn and heal. This may be similar to developing and advancing neuroplasticity and in fact healing along the line that we see in a younger individual. Their skin is good and their mind absorbs all of the learnings. This is a time of generation of positives and learnings. We develop language, skills, mediation, play and social interaction. All of these latter skills are becoming sadly more archaic with all the advents of Internet addiction and social media addiction, such as I wrote of the beginning of this year in the Canadian Journal of CME.

So… what to keep and what to jettison? Along and balanced with the suitcases are friends and advisers, mentors and healers, teachers and fellow students, family and loved ones that can help you sort through the positives and negatives. These wise sages DO have some wonderful positive stone suitcases that they have acquired over the years and in the spirit of education, which is a two way format of delivering information I believe, are able to help you help you. That being that they impart their wisdom and enable the carrier of the suitcases to open their minds beyond the tangible horizons they thought was possible. That may include Eastern medicines, Reiki, spirituality, different cultures, religions, languages, thoughts and ideas.

THIS is why we lament to be older when we are young. For that chance and responsibility and the learnings that the elders carry. The elders have imparted these to us and we ideally will advance these objectives through education and social discourse through a positive, mentoring modeling.

The Sound of Emptiness

Greetings my gentle readers to another week that was and will be yet again and the “Be Yourself, Often” Blog. A time when we can reflect on the actions and challenges and opportunities of the week and filter them through the contributions, good and bad that we have imprinted upon the event. Reflection and meditation with quietness and goodness on the positivity that can extend from any, absolutely any encounter that will and has transpired. My new book, “The Peacock on Viagra” available at lulu.com offers reflections and further meditative statements from the period of 2009-2012.

One of the things that have kept coming back over the past 2 months to me and in finalizing the book is the expression “No life is done until all the lives that have been touched are done”. There is much that we are able to offer in simply how we do things and what others see of us. I have stated over and over again that our Beliefs define our thoughts, which will define our actions, which will ultimately define our outcomes.  There are also past energies and karmic reflection at play here which are fourth dimension that we can conceptualize, but never really touch.

And touch is such a valued sacrament my friend. Not just the physical sense, but also all of our senses are touched by the actions of people and we inherently filter those through our own genetics, nature, nurture and experiences. Thus there can be no two people that see exactly the same thing. To take the time and listen to inspiration or what people have to say is incredible on many levels. Our hearts, ears, souls can be touched, if we allow by individuals that inspire us. For we all have the blessing and gift of being teachers… whether we know it or not.

When a teacher departs, for whatever reason… there is a sense of emptiness and loss. Often it is a loved one, family, friend or animal. We cry at the emptiness and feel the loss, often because we know that touch (physical, written, spoken, seen) will never be encountered again in this lifespan. There is a large sound of silence that can only be labeled akin to being on the end of a phone receiver, but the connection is gone. There is no sound emptier than a dead line.

Reflections of the loss of that connection through death or other actions should give us pause. So many say that in times when the end is near, that family pulls together and this is true. That there is an unconditional love that extends for a short time as we look at that black implacable wall of nothingness. And then we feel the shock wave hit us… the connection is gone. Phone lines down, not even an operator standing by.

Yet it is because we love that that memory and the touch resonates still within us and we can reflect on the time when the person, pet or loved one was there and we can be at ease and almost feel their touch upon us again.  For as we move forward, they live on in us through the actions, gifts and touches they have taught us and imparted on us.

Thank you to all those brave souls who give, offer and have passed on… yet are still with us. It is reflections like these in the moments of a dead line that remind you to embrace everything up front and it is not about money or an infusion of cash… that will not save us in the end. We can replace all the stuff in the world, but not that gentle touch and kind heart and often we have guilt as survivors for what could have been.

Maybe, just maybe we can learn in our periods of loss, remove the ego from the equation and want and embrace and feel and especially appreciate the small things and gifts. For I believe my gentle readers, that if we can learn to love the small things and the touch of others, they will help us to help us which will then help others and truly in a sense of purity and Light to be yourself, often.

                                    ~~ Rev. Dr. Joel Lamoure  September 2012