by Nancy Colasurdo on July 30, 2011
Another moment in my ongoing vibe with St. Francis of Assisi. Yesterday afternoon I went to the waterfront with a new book that my friend Diane had sent me — The Lessons of St. Francis by John Michael Talbot with Steve Rabey. There was a mellow breeze and I found a nice bench and settled in to read.
About 10 minutes into it, I heard birds tweeting and then swarming in. The ground in front of me was covered with them. I had no food, so I don’t know what attracted them, but they made their presence known for about five minutes and then flew away.
All was quiet again.
by Nancy Colasurdo on July 27, 2011
Oh yeah. You’ve got to love New York.
Today, feeling a little fraught but open, I was in desperate need of doing something very much outside my comfort zone. Just a few days ago my friend Chuck — who is prone to introduce me to some of the grittier, earthier things going on in New York — had told me about something called “Open Casting at Honey Space” on the West side of Chelsea.
What “inner course” actually means is that you will be taking a little course about you, going within. They call it “a psychodramatic audition for love in the age of abandonment” and the idea is to audition … for your life.
I had a last-minute change in my schedule in the late afternoon, so I ventured over. Chuck purposely didn’t reveal what happens there so I could experience it for myself, plus it is different for each person. Even though it closes tomorrow, I’m going to stay discreet on the details except to say I now know what “softing” is.
Never dull.
by Nancy Colasurdo on July 19, 2011
Today’s message in my mailbox courtesy of TUT.com:
Some, Nancy, are better loved from a distance.
For a while, anyway.
And that’s OK.
–The Universe
by Nancy Colasurdo on July 18, 2011
Interviewed a column subject on Madison Avenue today. On the way back, felt compelled to walk into the St. Patrick’s Cathedral gift shop and buy a laminated St. Francis of Assisi card with his prayer printed on it.
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled,
As to console;
To be understood,
As to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Again and again I am getting signs that I am supposed to be paying attention to this particular message. Even in some of the prayers I’ve been writing in my journal lately, these themes seem to be coming through. So beautiful and universal and perfect for our times.
by Nancy Colasurdo on July 10, 2011
So this morning, as usual, I opened to the day’s reading in Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening. The entry for July 10 is called “The Ring of Safety” and in it he tells a story of watching a yellow jacket while sitting on a bench. He thought of his mother, who would have rolled up a magazine and killed it rather than live with the uncertainty it might harm her.
Eventually Nepo relays the insight of “how often we imagine things are dangerous when they are only doing what comes naturally.” Silly as it seems, it made me think of my trip to the Butterfly Palace in Branson, Mo., and my own trepidation at the lovely creatures who were swooping and dive bombing near me, but landing softly on my calm friend’s shoulder.
Nepo ends his reading today with thoughts of St. Francis of Assisi, who “held so still the birds landed on his branchlike arms, and we wonder why we are so lonely when we won’t let anything full of life come near. If we could only see the bee or the bird, or our enemy as a brief living center like ourselves, we could let them go on their way without pulling us into opposition.”
As if that wasn’t enough of a thought-provoking way to start the day, a few hours later as I sipped iced tea on a bench at the Hudson River waterfront, journaling and reading a magazine, I looked up to find about a half-dozen geese sidling right up to me. There were people mulling about, sitting on nearby benches, but it was me they surrounded with abandon.
My impulse was to stamp my feet and send them away or get up and move, but I thought of Nepo and sat transfixed. My heart racing, I slowly reached for my phone so I could take a picture (friends of mine know this is RARE). I eventually stood up so I could capture the shot you see here, complete with magazine, notebook and iced tea. They hung out for a while, but some nearby folks brought out some food and the geese went on their way.
What in the world …
by Nancy Colasurdo on June 29, 2011
We read Cantos VI through X in The Inferno of Dante (Robert Pinsky translation) for class today. I so enjoyed Dante the poet’s message in Canto VII — how vain worldly goods are and what part Lady Fortune plays in our lives.
Here we have Virgil driving the point home to Dante the pilgrim:
You see from this
How all the gold there is beneath the moon,
Or that there every was, could not relieve
One of these weary souls.
by Nancy Colasurdo on June 27, 2011
Loved this Pablo Picasso quote from a recent edition of Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac:
“Everyone wants to understand painting. Why don’t they try to understand the song of the birds? Why do they love a night, a flower, everything which surrounds man, without attempting to understand them? Whereas where painting is concerned, they want to understand.”
by Nancy Colasurdo on June 23, 2011
You know you’ve taken a sweet leap in your emotional health when people are tumbling off pedestals around you. Why elevate them in the first place? And why put yourself a notch below anyone?
Take a deep breath and get in there. We’re all one. Every day. All day.
by Nancy Colasurdo on May 26, 2011
Today’s “Note from the Universe” courtesy of Mike Dooley:
You can change a great many things, Nancy.
Or you can change.
Same-same,
The Universe
by Nancy Colasurdo on May 9, 2011
When I was invited to attend the Auburn Lives of Commitment Breakfast at Cipriani in New York last week, I marveled aloud at the centerpieces — glass bowls filled with blue marbles — and wondered about their significance. The program said there would be a “fishbowl conversation with honorees and special guests.”
Eventually, we were asked to each take a marble and hold it in our palm. It represents the Earth. Then we were told to pass it along when the time is right, as a random act of gratitude.
Check out this far-reaching concept at BlueMarbles.org.
