Being and Doing the work you love

"Doing is a function of the body. Being is a function of the soul. The body is always doing something. Every minute of every day it's up to something. It never stops, it never rests, it's constantly doing something.

.The soul is forever being. IT IS BEING WHAT IT IS BEING, regardless of what the body is doing, not because of what it's doing...your soul doesn't care what you do for a living, and either will you when your life is over.

...Go ahead and do what you really love to do! Do nothing else! you have so little time. How can you think of wasting a moment doing something for a living you don't like to do? what kind of a living is that? that is not a lving, that is a dying!

If you say, But, but....I have others who depend on me...little mouths to feed...a spouse who is looking to me...I will answer: If you insist that your life is about what your body is doing you do not understand why you came here. At leaast do something that please you - that speaks of Who You Are.

Then at least you can stay out of resentment and anger toward those you imagine are keeping you from your joy.

What your body is doing is not to be discounted. It is important. But not in the way that you think. The actions of the body were meant to be reflections of a state of being, not attempts to attain a state of being.
...

You have a right to your joy; children or no children; spouse or no spouse. Seek it! find it! and you will have a joyful family, no matter how much money you make or don't make. and if they aren't joyful and they get up and leave you, then release them with love to seek their joy.

...

Your life work is a statement of Who You Are. If it is not, then why are you doing it?

Do you imagine that you have to?
you don't have to do anything.

If 'man who suports his family, at all costs, even hiw own happiness" is Who You Are, then love your work, because it is facilitating your creation of a lving statement of Self.

If 'woman who works at job she hates in order to meet responsibilties as she sees them' is Who You Are, then love, love, love your job, for it totally supports your Self image, yuour Self concept.

Everyone can love everything the moment they understand what they are doing, and why.

No one does anything he doesn't want to do.

from Conversations with God, book 1 by Neale Donald Walsch

jenn/musemother

Goal Setting and the Feminine Way

“In this culture we are told to set goals. We are supposed to know where we are going and then take specific steps to get there. But this is not always possible, or even wise. It is the male model of linear, rational thinking. But the life process of women…is more chaotic and disorderly, more circular and intuitive. Sometimes we can’t see the next horizon until we step out of the old life. We don’t yet know where we are going. We may not know the place until we arrive.”
A Woman’s Journey to God, Joan Borysenko

Here’s what one Jungian analyst and author says:

"The feeling values of the Feminine are woman’s earth and blood. They form the foundation of human interaction and flow out to nourish all of society. In places where Feminine feeling values are ignored or persecuted, life becomes oppressive and barren."
From I sit listening to the wind, Judith Duerk

Waiting, stillness, feelings, not knowing where I am going....

these are all uncomfortable places for me to be, to be waiting for my daughter during her physiotherapy appointment, to be waiting for my husband to come home from a golf tournament now knowing if he wants supper or not, to be inside my body feeling what I am feeling during all these moments instead of elsewhere in my thoughts, far in the future or lost in the past.

Every organization uses goal setting, every life coach encourages us to set goals for the future to help us get started on the present.

But if I listen to the feminine wisdom about being close to stillness, and feelings and being willing to wait until uncertainty clears, I may become less goal-centered and more centered: more willing to be circular....to listen to non-logic, to intuition, to quiet whisperings heaving up from underground. To pay attention to the non-visible, the not known by the 5 senses, and yes, to the five senses too.

To be a woman going in circles and spirals, getting closer to the center with each step. The goal, not out here, but in here, and unfolding.

nameste
musemother

Eve Ensler speaks for Congolese Women

Usually I write about myself, my needs, and my own dreams, but today I received a newsletter from Eve Ensler and V-Day.org, and realized there is something more important to bring your attention to. Recently Eve and Stephen Lewis were invited to speak to my country's parliament about the situation in Congo.

Eve has been doing some wonderful and difficult work over there, gathering support and publicizing the atrocities perpetrated on women and their vaginas through rape and violence. I heard Stephen Lewis address the members of 60 Million Girls foundation about AIDS in Afrida two years ago and was impressed by his clarity, and his anger. These two people are working tirelessly to give silent women a voice.

In solidarity with those women, and without knowing what else to do exactly to support this effort except raise my voice, I have posted a poem entitled Mother Famine on the http://www.wisdomforwomen.blogspot.com/ blog. Below is a link to Eve's speech. Please take five minutes and read it. I know there are rapes happening around the world (1 in 3 women), but the situation in Congo is particularly dire.

Read Eve Ensler's speech to Canadian Parliament about the rape of the women in Congo at link below. "Until The Violence Stops: How Canada Can Help End The Use Of Sexual Violence As A Weapon In War."Read Eve's speech to the Canadian Parliament at:

http://www.vday.org/canada-parliament

taken from V-Day Newsletter, May 14, 2009

musemother/jenn

Gift of Solitude

Hope your mother's day weekend was pleasant, restful and socially full - can all those go together? it depends who is doing the cooking I guess, and the numbers of extended family that descend on you.

Our brunch was somewhere else, with Chinese food ordered in, with both my mother and my mother-in-law attending, as well as 16 other family members. So it was fun, sociable, and exhausting - only because the night before my daughter had her last dance show and invited 30 of her fellow-dancers in the graduating class to come and celebrate at midnight! Needless to say, our sleep was cut short a bit.

This morning, while sitting at the osteopath's office waiting for Caitie's appointment to be over, I read A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. I have seen this book quoted, seen the book title on other blog lists, but can't believe I haven't read it before now.

It is exactly the book I would love to write - on the importance of solitude and alone time for women to find themselves, to nurture their souls, and not only once a year on vacation or retreat, but every week, and even every day.

We give and give outwards, and need to spiral back inwards, like the shells Lindbergh picks up on the beach and uses as metaphors for the stages of a woman's life. How easily she writes! And she writes from experience, having had five children, a busy home life, and authored several books.

It's not only artists or monks who need and appreciate solitude. But it is a foreign topic to most of us, who fill our days with radio, TV, newspapers and 'busy-ness'. We are perhaps afraid to be alone, to be silent. Since our young childhood we are taught how to occupy ourselves, how to be sociable, and the worst punishment is to be sent to your room, alone, cut off from the world.

Yet I feel as Lindbergh does, that our nourishment comes from within, from our own thoughts and reflections, from the time we use to center-down, as the Quaker's say.

Here's to centering within, in the midst of your day. Take a minute to look out the window, refresh your gaze, let your mind wander. Daydream a little, or watch the clouds, and see if this little break for your mind can replenish the well.

If you have a chance to plan for a half-day retreat somewhere, or even a daily walk in the woods, make that a priority on this lovely spring day.

nameste,
Jenn

Mothering Recognition

http://news.cnnbcvideo.com/?nid=M0xAdlv8raRJ_Cnx8B71pjExNzgzNjA1&referred_by=15713813-PPlF02x&p=moveon

Click on the above link to watch a video nominating yours truly for Mother of the Year,
but then you can click on the label that says, send one to all your friends, and it will insert their names and send to their email address, once you fill it out.

This is a very smart website, from momsrising.org in the U.S., and although I am Canadian, I heartily endorse the sentiment. Moms need more recognition and thanks!

happy mother's day,
mother yourself today

jenn/musemother

Mother's Day and Self-Love

Dear Women, friends, mothers, sisters, fellow bloggers,

I want to wish you all a Happy Mother's Day, but not the Hallmark way.

Mothering calls forth real emotions, real love, real challenges - it's not for the faint of heart.

Mothering is heartfull, heart felt, heart-song.

Mothering is the toughest job I have ever been called to perform.

Mothering is an answer to a call - someone unborn somewhere wanted to come into the world, at this time, with this mother, with this family, and learn something with You.

Mothering gets very little PR, and no head-hunting agencies are hunting up the Best Executive perks to give to mothers to make their job more attractive.

But without mothers, there would be no children - think of that!

I hope you will all be kinder to yourselves this week, this day, as the new leaves turn from their bright yellow-green to bigger broader green leaves, let some sun shine into your heart.

Let the compassion and loving kindness you give your children be extended to yourself this day, and every day.

Self-love is like oxygen - put some in your tank today!

love and greetings
jenn aka musemother