Lately, the phrase ‘This too shall pass’ has been coming to my mind. I wondered where this phrase originated. Googling it this morning brought up a Wikipedia page where I learned that the phrase is a Persian adage that seems to have originated in the writings of the medevial Persian Sufi poets.

Abraham Lincoln used the phrase in a speech he gave on September 30, 1859 as he recounted a story:

“It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent for him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: “And this, too, shall pass away.” How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction.”

It sent a shiver down my spine to realize that Abraham Lincoln gave this speech on September 30, the same date as has been chosen for our National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. This will be a solemn day of reflection for all Canadians. I am just beginning to ponder how Abraham Lincoln’s speech and the words ‘This too shall pass away’ might relate to our National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, but I can’t help but think there may be a connection of some kind between September 30, 1859 and September 30, 2021.

May God bless us all with insight, wisdom, courage, fortitude and the resolve to do our part to become the people we want to be, who do the things we know we should do.

Isn’t it lovely to be experiencing the cool, crisp mornings of September? Ahhhh! We can breathe comfortably again!

Summer is wonderful in its own way- a time of lots of visiting, fresh fruit and vegetables, swimming and ice cream cones! But for me, it’s also a time that feels a little chaotic.

Fall brings with it order, routine, planning and Thanksgiving, which is my favourite holiday in the calendar year. This week, I came across a marvellous quote found in the body of Christine Valters Paintner’s weekly Abbey of the Arts post. She was talking about Hildegard of Bingen, whose feast day it is today. Hildegard was a 12th century Benedictine Abbess. She was a visionary leader of extraordinary creative power. She was a monk, a herbal healer, a visual artist, a musician, a poet, a spiritual director and more! Although she was one busy lady, she also taught about the value of cultivating moderation and balance in one’s life. She developed a list of 35 virtues that she felt one should cultivate in pursuit of a happy, fulfilled life. The fourteenth of these she called discretio or discretion, the opposite of which she called ‘excess’. In writing about discretio she said, “ A person who toils more than her body can bear is rendered useless in her spirit by ill-judged roil and abstinence. Living hopelessly and joylessly, that person’s sense often fails.”

Christine commented on this by saying: “The key to creative flourishing is cultivating moderation and balance. The virtue of discretio is about discerning the right path and not being overburdened or overworked so that we are stretched too thin and joy is lost.”

I was really struck by these words coming after the experience of a very busy August and early September which was full of good things and lovely visits with people, but which did lack the balance of rest and reflection. This week I have been on a silent retreat, spending 72 hours alone resting, reflecting, journaling, just lying on my porch swing gazing at a tree for an hour, eating ice cream, going swimming and taking long afternoon naps.

The result is that I feel balance is being restored!

Thank you, Hildegard and Christine, for writing us these words of wisdom! May we all know balance and restoration in our lives!

Wow, a month and a bit has slipped by since I have written a blogpost. A friend pointed this out, and as I reflected upon why I haven’t written recently, I realized that the move out of my expressive arts studio on June 30 really took it out of me. Not the actual move, but the sorting through everything that had accumulated there after 14 years of working in the space. There were so many cards to read again, a lot of pieces of art to look at and decide if I wanted to keep them or give them away, so many notes to review from so many courses taken during that time frame, or given to others in the studio. After the move I crashed for a week of rest, and last week was a vacation week with family.

Now, it’s time to look around and think about what’s next. A friend sent me an intriguing question today. She said that one of her contacts had stated, “Our best years are behind us now.” My friend asked, “Do you think they are?” My immediate inner response was, “No way!!” I thought of Robert Browning’s quote: “Grow old with me, the best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made.” How can it be that the last of life may be the best?

Thinking of today, it has been wonderful to email back and forth with my friend about this question. I took a long afternoon nap. I mused with another friend by email about a course I would like to offer this fall or winter about writing ethical wills. My partner and I worked on our front porch- washing it and applying a coat of stain to freshen it up. We will barbeque later and go for a long walk down at the beach.

I think it’s the freedom to choose how our days go, as we grow older, that most contributes to happiness for me. I love the luxury of afternoon naps, long phone calls with good friends, and the opportunity to go for a long walk, or a swim whenever I want to. I still want to volunteer at my local library, offer life coaching and workshops and Nia classes, but I get to set my own schedule. More often I can live according to what I truly want to do, and I can make plans on the spur of the moment that fit with that. I know it’s summer and we just got released from many of the COVID restrictions we have been living under, but I do think that freedom to choose my days will continue to be pretty thrilling. I read a study that showed that people’s happiness often is a U shaped curve over the course of their lives. High levels of happiness tend to occur early in life and late in life. Now isn’t that something to enjoy now, and look forward to later?

Happy Summer to all!

I love reading Shelley Klammer’s posts on her website found at www.expressiveartworkshops.com. Like me, she is a collector of quotations that feel meaningful to her. Here is the one she shared with us today:

“Love in a way that the person you love feels free.”

—Thich Nhat Hanh

These words led me to spontaneously raise my hands over my head and exclaim, “YES!!!”

What effect does the quote have on you, I wonder?

I am hoping that where you are today it is a beautiful, full of the fragrance of flowers in blossom kind of day. May you love yourself in such a way today that you set yourself free!

I am having fun this week taking a little course called Intuitive Painting Play, offered by expressive arts therapist Shelley Klammer via her website, www.expressiveartworkshops.com

Shelley has designed many bitesized courses, usually lasting 30 days, where one can explore making a piece of art, a piece of writing, or a collage in about 10-15 minutes each day. They are arranged around a theme for the 30 days. They are also very affordable. For instance, Intuitive Painting Play cost $25 US. This course is designed to loosen us up a little and get the creative juices flowing. I don’t know if it is a coincidence, but I have felt inspired by making these daily paintings and have made a new friend this week and connected with several old friends. I have been planting annuals, journaling more and generally enjoying life more since I started the course.

Of course, the stay at home order was lifted yesterday, the vaccination rate is going up, case numbers are going down and it looks like there’s every chance we will have an enjoyable and more social summer. This could definitely be contributing to my happy week too!

If you feel like engaging with something to jumpstart your creativity, I encourage you to take a peek at Shelley’s site and course offerings. Otherwise, enjoy being out in your garden and looking forward to summer fun!

Well, as I write this, we are still under a stay at home order. We are allowed to go to the golf course and the tennis courts, and to meet with up to 5 people outside, but we’re still pretty restricted overall.

I have discovered another author I want to recommend to you. His name is Robert Rotenberg, and he is both a practising criminal lawyer in downtown Toronto, and the author of six wonderfully written crime novels. They feature two detectives, Ari Greene and Daniel Kennicott. The stories are set in downtown Toronto. Although, admittedly, sometimes the murders that occur are quite grisly, that’s not the focus of the books. We learn a lot about the main characters’ lives as they go about the mechanics of solving the mystery. I found the characters both realistic and relatable, bordering on endearing! I started with a book in the middle of the series and then ended up reading all the rest! It has made for a very pleasant and engaged 4 weeks of reading. I am sorry to say I finished the last book in the series just now and I am eagerly awaiting the next story, which will likely be available in 2022.

The Telegraph-Journal says, “Rotenberg is Canada’s John Grisham.” I beg to differ. I think he writes a lot better than John Grisham and I love that he’s a Canadian, writing about real Canadian topics of concern, such as homelessness, in downtown Toronto.

I highly recommend him to you!

Last week I ordered a book called Seeds of Devotion by Roger Butts, a hospital chaplain in Colorado. It was one of those ‘Recommended for You’ books that pops up on Amazon when you are ordering another book. I have just started reading it, yet already I am finding it to be a beautiful and inspiring read.

The author shares that at a critical time in his life, when he was wracked with self-doubt and confusion, he came across a single paragraph in a book of essays that provided him with the comfort he needed at the time. He says it was ‘his lighthouse and life jacket’ for those days and that it showed him the path home.

Here is the paragraph:
”The Great Surmise says simply this: At the heart of all creation lies a good intent, a purposeful goodness, from which we come, by which we live our fullest, to which we shall at last return. And this is the supreme reality of our lives.” Carl Scovel

Isn’t this paragraph a beauty? Roger then goes on to offer us the following reflection questions:

1) What do you think is at the heart of all creation?

2) What is the supreme reality of your life?

3) When you’ve been disoriented, confused, uncertain, has a passage or a mantra helped you? if so, what was it and how did it come to you?

Wow! What juicy questions! I have had the best morning contemplating them and writing out my answers.
I just had to share them with you too!!

Well, the stay at home order continues. The vaccination rate is slowly climbing toward the level it needs to be for restrictions to be lifted. The daily number of COVID cases in Ontario has begun to decline. The weather is improving and our bulbs are blooming. However, we still need to think up ways to stay calm, engaged, and relatively contented in the remaining days until the stay at home order is lifted.

I have been rereading various book series from my bookshelf. I got this idea from a 90 year old friend of mine who has told me that is what has kept her going during COVID. As I combed through my bookshelves this morning, I came across a couple more authors to recommend to you- one of whom I don’t think you will know.

That’s Dorothy Gilman. She wrote a delightful series of novels featuring the ‘witty and unpredictable Emily Pollifax—part-time CIA operative, full-time garden-clubbing grandmother from New Jersey.’ There are 18 novels in total and I remember thoroughly enjoying each one.

The other author is Steve Berry. He has a series of novels featuring former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone, who keeps getting called back to work when his former boss, Stephanie Nelle, needs his help. These books also give us the chance to learn a lot of history, but if you want to skip that and just read the action and interaction between characters, you can.

I have started to reread Mrs Pollifax and the Second Thief and within a few paragraphs I was into the story. This book was written in 1993 and as I am blessed with the ability to forget a story line, I know I am in for a very enjoyable few days ahead!

Hopefully as you comb through your bookshelves, you too will discover some old treasures. If not, I can heartily recommend exploring Dorothy Gilman and Steve Berry’s books!

May you be continue to be blessed with resilience, stamina, and fortitude to endure these COVID days, as well as with the enjoyment of some of the pleasures of nature in springtime.

As I write this, Ontario is back in a stay at home order which is in place until May 20. Vaccinations are proceeding, but not quickly enough to keep up with the spread of the variants at this time. Again, for the sake of the health and safety of all of us, we must find a way to comply with a stay at home order, while at the same time remaining as calm and contented as possible. How can we do this?

As I have been pondering this for myself, I have been realizing that close attention to creating and maintaining a calming and comforting routine is the most helpful for me. For instance, every morning I make a cup of coffee to take up to bed and drink while quietly reading and relaxing. At lunchtime, I look forward to coffee and a few Fudgeeos, while listening to favourite relaxing music in my study. At suppertime, we always light a candle as we sit down for the evening meal. After supper, we go for a 20-30 minute walk, after we have done the dishes together, then return for a cup of herbal tea and a couple of digestive cookies. At around the same time each evening, I go upstairs to enjoy a fragrant bubble bath, then tuck into bed with a relaxing novel. (I am still rereading the Mitford series!)

These simple things form the basis of a comforting routine for me and are touchstones for my day. The fact that I can look forward to them, and feel pleasure and comfort while engaging in them, is what keeps me going through the very quiet days while we wait to be released from a stay at home order yet again.

As you know, one of the questions I have been pondering this week is, “Why did Jesus die?”

I woke up this morning hearing these words in my head:
”Freedom is what we have, Christ has set us free. Stand then as free men (and women!). Do not allow yourselves to be enslaved again. Freedom is what we have. Christ has set us free!”

These are the words to a little song I learned when I was in my 20s. I knew these words came from the Bible, so I looked up their source, which turns out to be Galatians 5:1.

I then started wondering what Jesus Himself said about freedom and I found these blessed words:

Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” John 8:31.

What could be better than that Jesus’ death be all about freedom?

I remember reading Richard Rohr’s book Falling Upward many years ago. His take on the meaning of Jesus’ death was that it was to demonstrate that life is about suffering, death and resurrection. This rang true for me. Jesus was living in solidarity with each of us, and experiencing what each of us experiences in our life here on earth.

I have some more pondering to do, but for this Easter, I am going to rejoice in the knowledge that Jesus’ death on the cross had in part, at least, to do with obtaining our freedom.

Hallelujah!