Grandmas' Just Plain Wrong







 

 

 

 Grandmas' Just Plain Wrong

It’s occurred to me over the past few weeks that the content of this blog is missing an essential element.


Everything Quicksilver Times does, supports, shares, and recommends has at its core the lessons learned from the Death, Dying, Grief, and Loss movement. Quicksilver Times grew out of the experience of working with those who are dying. Whatever radical, Evolutionary Revolution Quicksilver Times now endorses was born out of the experience of death. Watching the light go out. That’s where personal evolution begins, and that’s where planetary evolution begins.

To understand that requires an understanding not only of what is so broken out here in our complex, misguided world, but how change is inexorably tied not first to changing the world, but to awakening each heart. Hopefully the book White Man Dancing – Grief, God, and a Unified Theory addresses the issues, from the micro to the macro. I hope that those who read this blog will read it when it is published – hopefully in a few weeks.

But for now, this blog must reflect the foundation upon which Quicksilver Times is based. In the coming months we’ll look at some fundamental grief issues and how they affect our ability to make changes in ourselves and in our World Community.

All this was brought to mind last evening by a post I saw on Facebook. If there is one place to start examining grief issues and how they affect us – micro to macro – all we need do is look to Denial.

If we can’t look at reality – we will never see it. Denial.

The following Facebook post is a perfect example of using words to seemingly help us deal with the darkness life sometimes brings. In reality the cutesy diversion does nothing except encourage denial, and guilt in the person experiencing loss, grief, confusion, and anger.

Here is the post and my response to it –

 

Grandmother says... Carrots, Eggs, or Coffee; "Which are you?"

A young woman went to her grandmother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She ...was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved a new one arose.

Her grandmother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water. In the first, she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs and the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her granddaughter, she asked, "Tell me what do you see?"

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

She brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they got soft.She then asked her to take an egg and break it.

After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, she asked her to sip the coffee. The granddaughter smiled, as she tasted its rich aroma. The granddaughter then asked. "What's the point,grandmother?"

Her grandmother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity--boiling water--but each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting. However after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior. But, after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her granddaughter.

"When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?"

Think of this: Which am I?

Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity, do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff?

Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and a hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.

When the hours are the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate to another level?

---AUTHOR UNKNOWN —

　

Response -

Grandmas' just plain wrong. We aren't eggs, carrots, or coffee beans - each of which by the way, in this silly scenario, reacted according to their own unique, specific nature.

This foolish fable tells the granddaughter to take it to another level, but gives not one word of advice on how to do that.

All this succeeds in doing is making us feel guilty for becoming overwhelmed by the darkness life can bring us.

Here's what Grandma shoulda' done –

Grandma took her confused, grieving, angry, frightened, granddaughter in her arms. She held her close, rocked her back and forth, back and forth, like she did when the granddaughter was just a little girl.

"Oh, my darling girl. I love you so much. What you are feeling, the reactions you’re having, are natural. The struggles you're experiencing, the losses you have suffered, the fears that come sneaking into your mind in the dead of night, are beyond understanding. The darkness that comes feels like it's too much to bear. And sometimes it is.

"That's when you come here to me, and to all the folks who love you, and we'll walk through the darkness with you. One step at a time, one breath at a time.

"We won't be able to take away the pain, or banish the darkness, but you will not have to walk this path alone. I could tell you the darkness will pass, and it will, but right now that won't help, because it seems like it never will.

"We will never understand the darkness, but we can pass through it.

"Now you just sit here with me for a while and let me hold you. You go ahead and cry. Every tear is meant to be cried. I'll stay here. With you. I do so love you..."

The granddaughter cried, the grandmother rocked, and rocked and waited.... And loved.

　

We’ll talk more about such things in the weeks to come.



love, 



bill

　

　

　



Outline – From Inner Understanding to Activism

 

　

Outline – From Inner Understanding to Activism

Evolutionary Revolution 1A

　

Understanding cultural, societal issues is inexorably tied to defining our personal, individual issues. We can't work through issues out in the world until we have a clear idea of our own.

1. To understand the denial we've been inappropriately infected with requires first understanding the depth of grief process to which a human life cycle is exposed.

2. Every loss triggers a grief response. In balanced circumstances the response is commensurate with the loss.

3. Once we understand the reactionary, dysfunctional grief responses to the multitude of losses each of us experiences we can understand the sources of our dissatisfaction, frustration, and fear.

4. Unresolved grief never, ever goes away.

5. Recognizing, understanding, and working through our unresolved grief - becoming current with our grief - opens us to balanced experience of light/love.

6. Of equal importance, being current with our grief allows us to deal with the darkness, which is as inevitable an experience in our life as breathing out after breathing in, without resistance or guilt. The darkness is not one bit lighter or less painful, but we pass through it in the shared presence of our community.

7. In the balance of that environment we can for the first time open ourselves to the transcendence that is at the heart of love. It is then that we can open ourselves to our own, unique, individual spiritual path.

8. It's after we can direct our lives and follow our path that we can finally look about us and begin to see how the same process that has so damaged us, has mired our social, political, economic, and spiritual institutions in patterns counter to the needs of the people.

These few sentences can't share what needs to be shared. I have previously suggested it was possible to present an overview in an hour. I think I was wrong. It might well be more like two hours - and some extra time for questions. And that’s only a bare-bones explanation of the Overview.

Most often the objection I hear to even discussing these issues is –

“You want to change everything, do something about everything? It’s too much, it’s just too much.”

Here’s my response. I've repeated this at least a thousand times in the last thirty plus years. A Buddhist teacher once told me –

"... You want to make changes out there in the world? Look to your own heart. Then be totally in the moment. Be open to that moment. You will always know what needs to be done in that moment. Watch what happens. Watch the changes."

I've tried to live that advice every day since then. Everything that I’ve been involved in that has had positive results, at the St. Francis Center, the Fredericksburg Hospice, Sena Foundation, both books, Quicksilver Times, and in my personal life, has come as a result of that lesson. I've failed at it so often, still do every day, especially in all the love relationships I've been so lucky to have experienced. Failed so often and so many. But the failure was always mine, my self-absorption, my greed, my laziness. The lesson is true. And me? I'm working on it.

Can we do this? To quote a great man, “Yes we Can!”

The thing is… If you’re fulfilled, if your life is in balance and your world – the way you see it out there – is balanced and working well, go on about your business. But if you’re not fulfilled, if your world is as out of balance as your heart, take a look. Listen. Read. Think. Ask questions.

No one at Sena Foundation or Quicksilver Times wants your money. No one wants to control you, or manipulate you. It’s all about sharing.

There’s a new Translation in a state of becoming. Sena Foundation and Quicksilver Times, Remembered Gifts and New Directions and White Man Dancing – Grief, God, and A Unified Theory, are part of a Telling, as are the SF & QST Facebook pages and this blog.

You understand. You hear…



love,



bill



What to do, What to do?

 

What to do, What to do?

　

In response to recent posts I’ve received comments that ask – In the face of such massive, global-wide dysfunction, and given the almost incomprehensible complexity of making fundamental changes to world-wide systems, What Can We Do?

Here is what we can do -

First stand up. Speak out. Look, study, commit. Talk about it, think about it. Ask about it. Help us find like minded folks who will begin to come together to discuss how to:

1. Define the connection between denial of mortality and grief and the culture of "More"

2. Design an alternative to Capitalism

3. Define political process (Government) in a Quicksilver Times Evolutionary/Revolutionary environment

4. Find and create group affiliations.

5. Reach out to, and connect with world workers

6. Define specifics of population control

7. Design political action that is in keeping with concepts and values of QST

8. Define and create an environment of sexual freedom that will allow each individual to fully experience her/his sexuality.

9. Encourage spiritual perspective based on re-defined spiritual values identified on Quicksilver Times and in White Man Dancing – Grief, God, and a Unified Theory.

Each of these topics is essential – and more may need to be defined as the path unfolds – to making the fundamental changes that must be made to heal the systemic, planet wide dysfunction and move towards balance.

In addition to communicating via Internet we need to design meetings, workshops, and retreats where we begin to meet with folks in person. The power of the Internet has been co-opted by the massive amount of drivel out there at any given moment.

We can gather momentum, we can define and share, but, finally, we have to stand in each other’s presence and be seen by the community at large. Just as this Evolution/Revolution will grow one heart at a time, it will be recognized and valued when it manifests out here in the real world one group, one meeting, one physical manifestation at a time.

Right now we are involved in defining and organizing. Does it feel overwhelming? Oh, yes. But the key is remembering that no individual is responsible for making any of this happen. The singular responsibility is to do your part – and you do your part not “for the good of the world,” but for yourself. Because it’s the only way to understand the next step on your own path. It’s a beautiful example of appropriate selfishness. It’s a lovely paradox. The only way to truly serve yourself is to serve the world.



love,



bill