Greetings for the new week. For those of you who are not regular readers, I missed last week’s blog, and am still contemplating whether this should be weekly, monthly, occasional. Although I sort of missed posting last week. I will ponder further.
One of the reasons I missed last week was because I was writing the weekly blog for the organisation that I work for, the Lower Mountains Neighbourhood Centre. You can find it at http://www.lmnc.org.au/blog/its-time-for-quiet-time-and-more In that blog I reflected on what we need to do to nourish ourselves when the news is dark, as it so often is these days. I was touched that one of our volunteer workers at the neighbourhood centre came up to tell me how much this blog meant to her, given the dark world and local news over the previous weekend.
The dark news continues, both on the world level and in so many of our personal lives. I am still reeling from my hand-bag being stolen from my desk at work last Thursday night – not how I was expecting my Thursday night and the weekend to unfold. And you all will know what that means – the cancelling of credit cards, passport, Medicare, health funds, loss of cash, USB stick, loss of personal items (the lipstick holder my Mum gave me; the mirror compact my sister-in-law gave me; the nail file one of my staff gave me). And then the changing of the house locks, the car locks, the remote control for the garage. It’s tedious, frustrating, annoying, dispiriting. Yet as I fought the wind on Saturday on my journey up the road to do my shopping – as a tree had fallen on my driveway and I couldn’t get the car out – I decided I had to be warrior woman, the spiritual warrior, and fight the difficulties with ferocity – I am not going to be defeated. And yes, I thought of the larger world picture – the tragedies in Munich, Nice, the ongoing tragedy of Afghanistan and the Middle East – and yes, that is an important perspective. But the microcosm of our own lives is the stuff of life, and in that we need to nourish ourselves in order to deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I have touched on this before in previous blogs, but I truly believe it: in order to turn outwards, we need to turn inwards, and nourish our mind, heart and spirit, in whatever way that means for each of us. And not be defeated.
And since last Thursday night, the gestures of love that have come my way have touched my heart. My beautiful family and friends – lending me a credit card, giving me a spare comb, donning gloves and searching garbage bins in Blaxland in the hope my handbag had been discarded, a credit card for petrol, phone calls and emails of love and support, a friend paying for dinner, an anonymous envelope with $250 enclosed under my door, support from my work colleagues. Those of you who have made me laugh. Financial abundance is one type of abundance in our lives; the abundance of love in friendship and family is a blessing of abundance indeed, and I give thanks for that, and to all of you who provide that to me in spades.
So, what music fits for our challenging times this week? For me it is ‘Finding a place of peace’ from my ‘Meditation on Love’ album. Some of you have heard it before, but music is for more than one listening, isn’t it?
As always, for more details go to http://www.petawilliams.com.au/music_cd_baby/ .
Until next time,
Peta
PS (1) Scroll down to the bottom of this web page to play the featured music.
PS (2) I am still checking out what is possible with my new website, and tonight I am trying an email to some of you through that medium. Let’s see how it goes. If you already receive too many emails, you can unsubscribe. I will miss you, but will understand.