July 9, 2012

July 9, 2012

  Today I am waiting on word that I will see a surgeon for my right hand to correct the nerve issues there. So, since I am using only my left hand for the mouse and typing is necessarily of short duration, I will continue to use those items that have already been written. I hope that this offering will still be something of what I am about at each sitting. Thank you for understanding.


(All photos are mine unless otherwise noted.)


                                          -----------------------------------

     "We have to educate ourselves to know who we are. That's what I mean when I say, 'Teach the children.'"

                                                                  -- Eddie Benton-Banai, OJIBWAY

    It is only by knowing ourselves that we can get in touch with our power. It is said, "Tell me what you know about yourself and I'll tell you what you know about God. Tell me what you know about God and I'll tell you what you know about yourself." As we increase knowledge of ourselves, as we choose to grow spiritually, as we clean up our act, then we can teach the children.

   My Creator, You have said "Know thyself." Today let me see the wisdom of this Truth. Give me Your insight of myself. I am always walking the talk and most people can see it.

    (To receive daily meditations from White Bison where the above quote came from click here:   http://www.whitebison.org/meditation/   


    (If you double click on the photos they come up as full screen with thumbnails at the bottom to go from photo to photo. Use ESC to return to the normal screen.)

Wisdom and The Student

      Listen to this short teaching by Pema Chodron on teaching, teacher and student - worthwhile to spend a few minutes with.

Click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7qFi52FX1Q

As long as we are together we can learn together

no matter the weather

------------------------------------

A lesson received a few years ago about the Present Moment - staying in the here and now 

                   - Monday –

The skies blackened, the heavens went dark,

The body on that Cross took its last breath.

The expiration date on that vehicle was met –

Returning to the Creator, dust very soon.

The event, in perspective, was a non-event,

Everything that lives eventually loses its ride.

Why do you think otherwise of Jesus?

God was a temporary resident then, passing through, so to speak.

The permanence we seek, human as we are,

Is an illusion not worthy of a carnival side show-

Yet we grasp it solidly, denying its True Nature,

Leaving Jesus forever on that Cross –

Two thousand years now, with no relief in sight.

Through our eternal projected suffering onto the Wood,

We justify our pain – hoping for its end.

The point is missed, Jesus lives. That's it. Period.

We are alive. That's it. End the discussion.

Look for the living within, not the dead without.

Paint the crucifixes black – a dim memory of Jesus dying.

Let us look for life where the Cross points the way;

The backside of that treasured tree,

Our only goal, our only next beginning.

                                               

                                                          Bill Lagerstrom 2009

Growth in life can be accomplished being alone.

but best done together in community.

------------------------

Campobello Sky

(From the lighthouse opposite Lubec)

-----------------------

Some Humor - Beware of some teachers!

July 3, 2012

July 3, 2012


(All photos are mine unless otherwise noted,)


   Lee and I spent the last four days at Herring Cove on Campobello Island, New Brunswick just over the border from Lubec, Maine. We rent a tent cabin which is a wonderful alternative to tenting and a heck of a lot less work. Our view from the deck of the cabin is of Herring Cove where on most mornings maybe one or two people can be seen on the mile and a half beach which is the cove. A rare place where we go to five or so times each season when the campground is open. In the Winter we stay at one of the cottages for rent on the island of some eight hundred residents.
   On Saturday night three friends joined us for hours of good conversation and some creativity. The following photos are the result of a collaborative effort on the part of Bev, John, Lee, Stephan and myself holding the camera as the others painted with light in the night air,
   What resulted reminds me of how God may appear to me when revealed within my depths. God as image may be best expressed in abstract terms. How can one who has experienced God's presence express that knowledge  by definition of what is known and seeable to us? 


   So, the artists of the following photographs are: Bev Wilson, John Wilson. Lee White and Stephan Giannini. I did the camera work.

------------------------------------------

   Stephan Giannini is an artist of worth and is also a restorer of paintings, murals, and frescos working in churches all around the country. Here is his website which is well worth a look:   

                               http://stephangiannini.com/category/my-artwork/

                          ------------------------------------------------------------------

A Poem -

          - Where The Wind Blows –

When I try to leave this holy space,

God grabs my feet, sits on my head,

And enters again the place within my heart

That Time itself has reserved for Love’s Presence.

The Wind of the Spirit’s storms are raging in this breast;

My heart has lost all its senses, and has no hands or feet

With which to fend off or flee from soul’s only desire.

The Lover’s secrets have been given to this moonstruck heart.

All my cooing and singing of love’s words

Have turned into cries and wailing – such is the longing.

The Beautiful One heard and said, “I am the One you seek.

Come with me. I will show you the road you search for.”

O friend, for so long God has been lost to me –

I have been separated from my heart’s yearnings.

This life has been spent looking for God outside,

Until I learned to search the rooms of my own house.

Hope was always there, an ember waiting for some wood;

For Love was always there with me on the journey.

Wherever I have been, this hand was held by God,

And my face was looking ahead all the while.

My dear companion, as we walk, know this –

We look for God with God.

The Grace to have intimacy with Our Lover, has been given.

Let us not be distracted by worldly things.

                                              Bill Lagerstrom,   Maine, 2005

                                     --------------------------

A dream of the Holy, a hint of the Sacred Light 

at the shore of the Ocean that is God's Self

 - A Sacred Becoming –

   So how do we encourage the heart to blossom? How do we get about trying to embody wisdom?

Through a sacred becoming.

When God is asked in the Torah for His name,  

a reply comes from the un-seeable,

"I am Becoming ….."

   At once Becoming embodies two meanings. As a noun, it suggests that God is a process, that the sacred reveals itself in a life of transformation and unfolding. As a verb, it suggests that God is still emerging, still not completely defined, beautifully as unfinished as we are. The story implies that our unfolding and God's unfolding are intimately entwined. You could say that the aim of any sacred becoming is not to arrive at any finished state, but to taste everything in our brush with life and thereby know, through experience, the hint of what is holy.

                                                                                         Mark Nepo

Each Moment, Only Once

----------------------------------

   A delightful animation - not to be missed!  Watch what can appear in a bowl of noodles.

                               Click here: http://vimeo.com/44633289

                                              -------------------------------------------

Some Humor:

Till next week, Peace,  Bill Lagerstrom

                                            

   

June 25, 2012

June 25, 2012

     The photos this week were taken last Saturday on a foggy morning where visibility was really low. Still, in spite of the weather which turned out to be heavy rain, Lee and I both said that it was a wonderful day - different yes - but a wonderful day. Each day can always be "This is the day the Lord has made." 


   Stopping by the pier in Bar Harbor to cancel a boat trip out to Baker Island because of the weather, I noticed the expressions on the faces of what seemed to me to be an extraordinary number of people for such an early hour - 7:30 AM. An elderly couple were walking across the foot of the pier with shopping bags from the souvenir shop where all the boat trips were booked - some energetic young people who looked determined to have vacation no matter what - and some who were sad as the weather did not cooperate. Most of what I saw on the pier and especially in the souvenir shop were those who were working their week or two off from jobs. I identify with this as many of my vacations in the past were "work" done with the attitude that I will get as much as possible out of down time as I can even though I would hurry back home at the very last minute and return to life exhausted.


    Learning how to be in the present moment has given a better perspective to life. (Moving here to Maine, "Vacation Land" as the signs say, does help my 'doing' nature relax to a great degree.) So, I walked the pier for a few minutes and with the perspective mindfulness has brought me to today I found myself in life-mode, present moment acceptance. It was a good day after all.

Look into the fog blocking inner vision,

the ship waiting to carry you back Home will be seen.

God is always waiting - always ....

---------------------------------

   When we started out this voyage together, I invited you to join me on the journey of a mystic, to set foot in a boat unfamiliar to you, a vessel whose dimensions none of you knew, and to let it drift out to sea without really knowing where you were going; to face the unknown with an open heart, without any apparent support, with no promise of anything. Just the way ahead, the way within, an internal voyager who leaves the pleasures of the world, and dives down deep into the recesses of his or her own heart-body-mind, alone.

                                                                                                 Ayya Medhanandi

-------------------------------

When the fog lifts your boat will be waiting 

and the Journey to God's Very Self can begin.

(The Ocean is metaphor for God.)

----------------------------------

   Here is a remarkable video from someone who was not afraid to enter into the ocean and learn to somehow breathe the Water. Well worth a look at how God is ever calling us to enter into God's Very Self.

Click here: http://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/14074949

                                                          -----------------------------------------------

   On the journey inward if we take the path God presents as the way forward, there will always be a Gift waiting for us and no matter how steep 

the Way may seem timidity is not an option here.             

     Pick any boat for the Journey.

If it has a motor run in into the Ocean Of God until out of gas -

if it has oars row until you find the place where vision is the Gift received.

-----------------------------

A little humor:

Peace,  Bill Lagerstrom