Make me a channel of your peace.

[JB_Girl]

Every Sunday evening I try to attend a meeting of meditation and hope in the guise of recovery from addiction. This AA meeting begins with a bit of time devoted to silent medition after which we read the Prayer of St Francis. I am not a Christian, but this prayer attributed to a saint of the Christian fath speaks to me. The themes are universal and profound; they define what I think is the spiritual transcendance that an authentic life demands.

I wish you peace, now and forever

Julie

[JB_Girl]

More thoughts on a beautiful afternoon.

I've hovered on the edge of frustration and despair for some months.  It seems that social and earth justice, generosity of spirit, and equality of all peoples just keeps getting discarded for short term gain, and selfishness.  A general anomie has had me in its grip for too long.  Somehow that near despair seems to be dissipating from my spirit and I think I may be ready to go out into the world with new eyes once again.

Nothing has objectively changed.  The leadership of the USA is still bigoted and acquisitive.  Children here and elsewhere are exploited and discarded without regret or recognition of the fundamental wrongness that this represents.  Bombs continue to fall, bullets continue to take the lives of black and brown young men with appalling regularity.  Gay, and transgender people continue to be killed and oppressed for who they love or who they are.  The sadness is ever eclipsed by still greater evil and unspeakable pathologies.

But a week ago I gave fresh cherries to a family with nothing to eat.  Saturday I captured in images the celebration of the creation of a new family.  Sunday I held a clipboard for a woman whose arms were full of her ten day old child so that she could add her name to a list of people who were gathered for meditation and renewal.  Tonight I will break bread with a family who has spent many years ministering to men and women who struggle with autism.  This weekend I will spend with my beloved friend JAX in the woods of the northern Cascade Mountains.
My life is, by any measure, full.  My needs are met – including my need to be of service to those to whom I would teach the message of peace.  I cannot change the world, but I can take responsibility to change my relationship to it and in so doing add my spirit to the cause of transcendence – the cause of peace.

So my loves, my friends, my fellow travelers; I pray that your lives are blessed, that you find love, that you are filled with bounty.  My friend Deanna greets me with Nǐ jīntiān chīfànle ma  "Have you eaten rice today?" Have you been gifted with what you need today?  I pray that you have.

Namaste

[LindseyP]

It makes me happy to know there are people like you out in the world trying to make it a beautiful place for everyone.

[Sarah_P]

Sadly we usually only hear of the tragedies in the world. Rarely are the moments of simple kindness & good shown to the world at large, so it's easy to despair for humanity. But there is as much (if not more!) goodness in the world than evil.
'A single moment of beauty can light the darkest day'. No idea if that's an actual quote or if I just made it up.

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[Tessa James]

Keep on singing Julie.  We both know it as a balm for the heart and soul

[JB_Girl]

Tessa,

For me to be silent is for me to ignore the beauty that I believe is within us all.  Here are some more thoughts along this line.  I believe that we are all spiritual beings.  The recognition of difference that being trans entails was for me a starting point to revisit the whole notion of spiritual contentedness.  The Chinese Zen Master Chu Hsi extolled the value of traveling on foot.  "Only in that way," he said," may you see truth in all its varied respects." 

To me living an authentic life is a pilgrimage on foot from persona to person.  The journey is every bit as much inward looking as outwardly appearing. To travel on foot is to meet all kinds of people.  To experience hardship as well as bliss and emerge from the journey changed and perhaps knowing a bit of new truth.

The actions of creating somethin new, exploring self, learning new skills, are milestones on the journey but not the whole journey.  They are do not require classification as masculine or feminine, but are both and neither.  The search for who I have become is expressed with femininity, but the journey will never cease and the pilgrimage will always transform the pilgrim.  I do not need to conform to the definitions of others, only to the descriptions of myself that I write.

Many cultures revere the two spirit people.  Mine did not.  But I can walk with those who do and learn from those who have passed before, as I learn from the people who participate here.  In this we walk together, in support, one to the other transcending the bounds of culture and biology, and finding authenticity in how we live and how we speak.

Six years ago I started on the path to Julie.  Somehow I believe that I have both arrived and have very long way to go.

To again quote Chu Hsi

"Last night the spring floods swelled the water in the river.
Today the huge ship floats, as if it were feather-weighted.
What could not be pulled or pusher before,
Now moves on freely in the middle of the river."

I will see you as the water flows into new realities at your Skipanon River Retreat.

Namaste,
Julie

[JB_Girl]

'A single moment of beauty can light the darkest day'. No idea if that's an actual quote or if I just made it up.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

It is an actual quote now and with your permission I will use it.

Thank You,
Julie

[Sarah_P]

It is an actual quote now and with your permission I will use it.

Thank You,
Julie

Absolutely!