Resurrecting Beauty

Besides the comics, I read the Letters to the Editor and Dear Abby every day.  These three ground me more in reality than "All the News That's Fit to Print."  The two letter-formats (Editor and Abby) help me to understand local concerns from one person's perspective and personal issues that people are encountering.  And the comics bring humor into my morning!

I find it difficult sometimes to absorb humanity and all of our struggles: the inability to forgive; the need for vengeance; and the desire to dominate others economically, culturally, and ideologically.

Sometimes I just don't understand...

How do you display your Inner Beauty?
(Photo - Amaryllis - Larry Gardepie)

Maybe that's why I retreat into gardening:

• Planting and waiting.
• Pruning and new growth.
  
• Enjoying hard work and harvesting.

It's the simple acts that ground us in harmony and healing.

What is your role in Pollinating Goodness?
(Photo: Orange Blossoms and a
Honeybee - Larry Gardepie)

Is it any wonder that Spring and the Holy Days of Passover and Easter often coincide?  There are important lessons for us to learn:

• Moving from the darkness and cold of Winter to the light and warmth of Spring.
• Being liberated from slavery and passing over destruction.
• Opening ourselves to a resurrected life and a Beauty Unknown.

It's our ability to co-create and bring life into this world that haunts us when we don't.

 

Where do you find your Resurrected Beauty?
(Photo: Calla Lilies - Larry Gardepie)

The challenges we face with Spring, Passover, and Easter is in our faith: our faith in nature, humanity, and our Creator.  That is:

• Even in the depths of Winter, we wait for Spring.
• Even in moments of human despair, we hope for deliverance.
• Even in painful and deadly Fridays, we believe in the Sunday After.

Maybe when faced with unforgiveness, revenge, and oppression, we are invited to resurrect the beauty that is hidden in the soil of our lives... planting the seeds of forgiveness and goodness.

Welcome Spring!  Happy Pesach!  Blessed Easter!
 

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting

(click on link for website)

An Unwritten Year: An Immense Responsibility

We stand at the end of another year: minutes ticking by as we anticipate 2023; waiting to revel in new beginnings; ready to celebrate... what?  If it weren't for the calendar year changing and our traditional or cultural expressions of Endings and Beginnings, I would wonder WHAT are we celebrating?

After all, look at our responses these past few years to COVID, our political divisions, and our social unrest!  Are we celebrating these... or the desire to be released from them and begin anew?

Are you experiencing turbulence in your life?
(Photo: Storm at Sea - Larry Gardepie)

I don't want to be too negative on this final day of 2022, but I am trying to understand why we think things will be any different next year if...

• We make resolutions that we don't intend to keep, or
• We aren't more civil and understanding to one another, or
  
• We don't put thought and time into changing the turbulence in our lives.

After all, there are individual and social responsibilities in starting anew:

• Accepting our role in past misunderstandings.
• Realizing that change cannot happen without self-transformation.
• Creating a better future that begins with each decision we make.

 

Where can you create beauty?
(Photo:  Rouen Cathedral,
Rouen, France - Larry Gardepie)

As I reflect on this past year -- those areas where improvements are needed -- and what I want to accomplish during this Year Unwritten, I yearn to discover beauty, seek peace, and work towards harmony.  I don't need to give up what I believe in or my value system.  Instead, I must stay open to the opportunities that present themselves: seeing people as Gifts Unopened and Surprises Awaiting.

How will you build peace and harmony?
(Photo: Two Bridges, Dartmoor National Park,
England - Larry Gardepie)

Walking along a mist-shrouded roadway to take a picture of Two Bridges -- where the guide told us about the bridge and most people stayed on the roadway to take their pictures, I chose to wander off-course down the incline... and was surprised by a new perspective of the bridge's reflection in the serene waters below.

 

Being willing to go off-course, allowing biases and prejudices to soften, and anticipating a surprise will create an experience much different than if we remained where everyone else is rooted in what was told to them.  I can discover beauty...  I can seek peace...  I can work towards harmony... if I am willing to change... and expect to be surprised.

 

May this New Year invite each of us to go off-course enough to move past turbulent times and reflect new beginnings in our hearts and minds.

Blessings to 2023!

 

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting

(click on link for website)