Do you sleep when the wind blows?

A handsome young man applied for a job as a farmhand. When the old farmer asked for his qualifications, he replied with an air of confidence “I can sleep when the wind blows.” The statement puzzled the farmer. But he liked the pleasant looking young man nevertheless and hired him.

A few days later, the old farmer and his wife were rudely awakened in the night by a violent storm. They quickly began to check things out to see if all was secure. They found that the shutters of the farmhouse had been securely fastened. A good supply of logs had been set next to the fireplace. The farm tools had been placed neatly in the storage shed, safe from the elements. The tractor had been moved into the garage. The barn was properly locked. Even the animals were calm. The young man slept soundly. All was well. The farmer then understood the meaning of the young man’s words, “I can sleep when the wind blows “.

 Because the farmhand did his work loyally and faithfully when the skies were clear, he was prepared for the storm when it broke loose. So when the wind blew, he was fearless. He slept in peace. 

How does this apply to our lives?

Author Unknown

 As we, the Forgetting 2 Remember Participants and Staff, prepare ourselves for this up coming  weekend retreat.  Turn on your light and start looking into your heart.  Start your work today, listening, breathing, tuning into your soul. 

What is your heart’s desire from the level of your soul?

I’m here, present and available for each of you.  317-833-4942

Derinda

From The Wisdom of Enzo….

The last blog I introduced you to a book that I’m reading ” Art of racing in the rain.” As I said this whole book is from the insight and wisdom of Enzo, a dog. It is an amazing story and so hard to put down and get to the real business of the day.Enzo says, ” People, like dogs, love repetition. Chasing a ball, lapping a course in a race car, sliding down a slide. Because as much as each incident is similar, so it is different.”

How is that dance showing up for you?

Well this dog got me thinking about the love of repetition or in other words the love of knowing what is happening next, being in control. Our desire to just let it happen and stay on the surface of life. It makes it so much easier than mixing it up or stepping outside that familiar box. But Enzo is so right in the fact that even in that repetition there is a difference. That difference is in each of us. Embrace the dance of similar and difference.

Art of Racing in the Rain-Garth Stein

The concept: “When a dog is finished living his lifetimes as a dog, his next incarnation will be as a man.” Not all dogs. Only those who are ready. Enzo, a shepherd-poodle-terrier mix, is ready.

Enzo has spent years watching daytime TV, mostly documentaries and the Weather Channel (It’s “not about weather, it is about the world”). And because Denny Swift, his owner, is a mechanic who’s training to race cars, he and Enzo watch countless hours of race footage. So Enzo knows about the world beyond the Swift home near Seattle.

The situation is equally appealing: Enzo is old, facing death. While he has learned from racing movies to forget the past and live in the moment, this is his time to remember. And he can remember objectively — as a dog, his senses are sharper, his emotions less complicated. With the clarity of a Buddha, Enzo can see. And he can listen: “I never interrupt, I never deflect the conversation with a comment of my own.” So he’s quite the knowing narrator.

And then the story: a happy family, brimming with good feeling and ambitious dreams. Denny loves Enzo like a son. Denny loves his wife Eve, who works for a big retail company that “provided us with money and health insurance.” And Denny lives for Zoe, their daughter. Then Enzo smells something bad happening in Eve — the dog is always the first to know — and you start to brace yourself. But not enough, not nearly enough. Bad things happen to good people in this novel, and then worse things, and soon you are so angry, so hurt, so tear-stained and concerned that you do not think for one second to step back and say, hey, wait, this is just a story! A shaggy dog story, at that!

It works out. This is fiction, of course it works out. Not without cost to the characters and the reader. But the payoff is considerable — a story that commands you to keep going, ideas that are a lot smarter than the treacle Garth Stein could have served up.

“How difficult it must be to be a person.” Enzo nails that. “To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live.” Who wouldn’t? “Racing is about discipline and intelligence, not about who has the heavier foot. The one who drives smart will always win in the end.” And there’s more — yeah, this could be summer reading in progressive high schools some day.

Or you could take a refresher course now in learning how to race in the rain.

Why wait?  I’m not I downloaded the book to my PC.  Great read!

Dad, are you hearing me?

I met with a father today who is dealing with the “letting go” of his eighteen year old son.  For years, this man has done everything in his power to guide, direct, push, manipulate his son into the man that he wants him to be.  Giving his son the guidance to make his life better than it was for himself as a young man.  I think this is an easy trap many parents fall into at this particular time of parenting.  I think most of us, in our generation, have chosen to parent our children differently than we were brought up.  I know I have consciously chosen several drastically different ways to raise my own children.  Some of those changes due to the fact that how I was raised just didn’t allow me to experience life and fail in a safe environment.  Children need a safe place to be able to be themselves and have their spirits to be acknowledged.  If not, they become our puppets and we are controlling the movement of their bodies.  We define the right and wrong and good and the bad as we should, but by our own actions, not by our words.

What is happening to this eighteen year-old young man is he is finally realizing that his voice might be a good one to hear too.  He is stepping into his adulthood and pulling at the strings on his arms to be released.  Now his dad has a choice, either loosen the hold or lose an opportunity to witness this young man bloom from the foundation in which he has been taught.  The son will undoubtedly change some of his foundation to best serve him in his life, and he should.  I don’t feel that our purpose is to create mini-me’s but to embrace our children for the journey of fully living life.  The hard part is letting go and trusting that your embrace and example have been enough. 

It is time to stop the conversation at this point.  This is the time to see what this beautiful human being’s purpose is on earth.  What is his dream?  And can you stop talking long enough to hear his answer? 

Be the example of love, of acceptance, of a safe place to make mistakes and fall down.  It’s time to trust the foundation and let him test his wings while the nest is still warm.  It is a tough road to be expected to move to each pull of the string for the happiness of pleasing someone else.  God created all of us with purpose.  Dad, mom, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, grandpa and grandma – are you hearing me?  I have an amazing voice too.  Let me tell you who I am……starting at eighteen. Not forty-eight, please.