The Challenge of Illness - John O'Donohue

We never value or even see some things in our lives until we
are just about to lose them.  This is particularly true of health.
When we are in good health, we are so busy in the world that
we never notice how well we are.  Illness comes and challenges
everything about us.  It unmasks all pretense.
When you are really ill, you cannot mask it.

Illness also tests the inner fiber and luminosity of the soul. 

Illness focuses us onto our "inner landscape", into resting
deeply in the inner silence of the Soul.  It is a remedial silence
that allows us to endure, to move through, but not necessarily
getting rid of the illness.  We can't have an agenda - only the 
deep acceptance of the companion - and learn to navigate it.

John O'Donohue
From - Eternal Echoes

~

Photo of Soft Sunset taken by my brother :)

 

The Weight of Opinions - a meandering...

While I have my personal opinions
about what just happened in this country -
and the numbing and sombering effects of
its consequences,
I must not engage in my opinions -
but turn my focus
towards the Greater Reality within myself -
for I do believe there is a Greater Reality than our
personal beliefs, religions, "spirituality", nationalism;
personal politics; and the distractions of our lives
that keep us bound to *this* time-bound reality -
that I must now learn to travel through...

For some reason this moment is a "gate" that we,
as a country and a world, must pass through  - and
learn to accept and navigate what has befallen us in
this shift in reality...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 6, 2024

~

If there is anything you should stop wearing
as you get older is the weight of other people's
[and your own] opinions...

Author Unknown

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

"Choice"/No-Choice - a meandering...

"... it is not necessary to accept the choices handed
down to you by life as you know it.  There is more
to it than that - no one HAS to do something he
doesn't want to do for the rest of his life."

Hunter S. Thompson

The Proud Highway

from Whiskey River

~

A Meandering...

While I would like to agree with the above quote,
from my own personal experience, there are times
when you are placed in a position of "no choice" in an
"untenable" (impossible) situation; some call it the
"choiceless choice."

That happened to us a year ago - because we couldn't just
turn our backs on a family member and send her out to
be homeless on the streets (as some suggested we do),
where she obviously wouldn't survive;  nor drop her off
at Rehab, where she refused to go.  We were told we
couldn't put her in a Nursing Home/Care Facility against
her will, as she was still capable of making her own
decisions - and made it clear she wouldn't go!
You can't force someone to go where they don't want to
go, as much as we would have liked to.  We felt we had
no other choice but to take her in, while looking for
alternative places for her to stay, that never worked out.

We were always told we were in an "untenable situation" -
because there was no other choice, no other workable option...

It is what it is - I know...  What's so is what's so - yes...

Accept and Navigate... okay

So we navigate the rough waters daily, struggling to keep
from drowning in an ongoing impossible situation..

~ 

Beware of simplistic answers to sometimes complex
situations that Life hands you...

MM

Blessings to all who are dealing with "untenable"
life situations and challenges...

_/\_

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Foliage Mosaic