JoAnn and I saw “Secretariat” on the weekend. What a terrific movie. Highly recommended.

One of many touching aspects in the movie was the strong bond of mutual trust and respect it depicted between “Big Red,” considered by many to be “the greatest racehorse in the world,” and owner Penny Chenery, played by Diane Lane.

At a certain point in the movie, after Secretariat has just won a big race — with another race coming up — there was a real question whether it was right to continue training the horse hard for the next race or let him rest for a while.

“I’m going to ask him,” says the owner. “He’ll let me know.”

And so that’s what she did. You saw her hold the horse’s head in her hands and comfort him. You saw them look deep into each other’s eyes and hearts. And you saw actress Diane Lane — who incidentally gives a terrific performance throughout this movie — finally acknowledge to herself what the horse has told her.

Our own body is also a magnificent creature

Our own body is also a beautiful, magnificent creature possessed of extraordinary resilience and potential. A creature that gives and gives and gives until it has nothing more to give.

It seems to me we are bound by an invisible agreement with this universe to love our body, believe in our body, and listen to our body in exactly the same way as was portrayed in the movie “Secretariat.”

There is such a fine line between asking for what is right and reasonable — within our body’s capacity — and simply imposing our own self-centered will and purposes without any regard for its well-being.

Your body is your best friend

Your own physical body is the best friend you will ever have. Hard things, sometimes terrifying things happen in this world, of course, over which we have no control.

But there is one thing over which we do have control. And that is to respect this noble creature which has brought each one of us to this moment in our life.

We can take a few moments, in quietness and stillness, as actress Diane Lane did, to consciously enfold our body and express the gratitude that we feel for it.

“Do you feel up to this?”

We can ask, like Secretariat’s owner did, “Do you feel up to this?”

Sometimes, of course, there is something we need to do whether our body is up to it or not. But we can still ask its permission, can’t we?

We can ask questions like: “How are you doing? What more can I do to care for you and help you that I’m not doing?”

We talk about dog whisperers and horse whisperers and so forth and it is exciting and truly magical.

But the greatest “whispering” of all is the whisper of deep, sacred communion between ourselves and our own body, with its capacities of mind and heart.

Any thoughts about this post? I’d love to hear from you. Also, if you enjoyed it, please share it with others.

And while I’m at it — how am I doing with this blog? How can I make it better serve your needs?

PS Watch for my free ebook out VERY SOON now I promise…

Picture credit:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3569/3430854745_553f080720.jpg

Trust your body, love your body, listen to your body is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

I was browsing a few favorite blogs last evening when I came upon a post entitled “Love and Survival,” by Robin Easton, author of Naked in Eden. It’s so beautiful and inspiring I’m still thinking about it.

Robin exhorts her readers to “let love in” regardless of experiences we may have had as babies or as children suggesting we were somehow flawed and imperfect — unworthy of love.

“As adults we are now strong enough to see that we were never flawed,” says this brave and wise woman. “We are now strong enough to embrace the honest reality that people sometimes cannot give us what we really need.

“In embracing this reality we are better equipped to let go of old pain and forgive. In this way we can once again connect to love. We can now fully embrace those who CAN love us. We can marvel at the tenacity and survival skills of the human spirit.

“Love consciously and actively every day, and let others love you. Let love in. The more love you let in, the more love you will give your children, your family, your friends… and yourself.”

Letting love in

The one thing I know for sure about love is that we will never understand it. What love really is, and where it comes from, is unknowable, which is a good thing, because otherwise someone or other would probably try to get in there and improve it or change it in some way.

But the fact that we will never understand love doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant, because what we CAN do is experience it. We can “let it in,” as Robin suggests — just like JoAnn’s daughter Sherrie did yesterday.

JoAnn needed to be taken to the hospital for a procedure. I wasn’t in the best of shape after some emergency dental work, so Sherrie offered to take her Mom instead. When they came back home around 5pm I thanked Sherrie.

She looked at her Mom and said simply, “You know I’d do anything for you.”

Love is letting go

Another example of love that comes to mind as I write this post is this: love is sometimes letting go.

When I was a young man of 23 – an only child — I had a burning urge to go to British Columbia. I never really thought about it much at the time, but it was an act of tremendous courage and love on the part of my mother and father to let me go, not knowing what would become of me – or even if they would see me again.

Love is an equal opportunity employer

It doesn’t matter how rich we are, or how poor we are, or where we live, or what our age is, or what culture we come from, or anything else. We all have the same opportunity as far as love is concerned.

Love is an “equal opportunity employer,” isn’t it?

I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a better use for my life than to make it available as fully and completely as I can to the purposes of this most gracious and trustworthy employer.

PS If you have any thoughts or experiences of “love in action” you’d be willing to share with the Happy Seeker community, please do send them along.

Picture credit:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/176/473303144_ecc3bf6b4f_m.jpg

Love is an “equal opportunity employer” is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

I was wandering around the living room this morning — not long out of bed — probably looking a bit lost — when JoAnn sang out, “You look like a man looking for a hug.”

What a brilliant lady she is. Of course. That was exactly what I was looking for — I just hadn’t realized it yet.

We have a ritual in this matter. I stand at the bottom of the stairs and JoAnn stands one step up so as to compensate for our difference in height.

It was a good hug. We took a little time with it. It not only got me in the flow of life’s goodness and generosity, shall I say, but it also got me thinking about the importance of hugs to our lives and overall well-being. As the author and therapist Leo Buscaglia once said, “Everybody needs a hug. It changes your metabolism.”

I remember very well one of my first hugs with JoAnn. We weren’t married yet, heck we weren’t even dating yet. We had been corresponding for a few months though, and had agreed I would fly down from Vancouver to Denver for a visit so that we could get to know each other better.

JoAnn met me at DIA and we walked to the parking lot where she had parked her car. But before getting into the car I succumbed to an urge that was impossible to deny, and took her in my arms. It was a hug that went on and on and on, and I must say — speaking for myself — that it made me feel my visit was off to a very auspicious beginning indeed.

There is much more to hugs than “romance,” of course. A hug can fill a void in a way that nothing else can.

One of the most precious hugs of my life came in the extraordinarily tender and indescribable moment that followed the physical passing of my first wife, Joy.

Joy had suffered a stroke on an airplane as we were returning to Vancouver from a holiday in the Caribbean, and was rushed to hospital in a coma. The doctor said there was nothing they could do, and it was simply a matter of waiting for the end. Joy was moved to a private room — where for two or three hours I kept a lonely vigil as her life slowly ebbed away.

The fateful moment arrived. Joy breathed her last breath. The wonderful Australian nurse turned to me and said, “God’s got her.” Then, opening her arms wide — she gave me a hug of pure compassion and love.

I’d like to end this post with an excerpt from an article entitled ‘Importance of Hugs in a Marriage,’ at www.theprofessorshouse.com.

“When the man of the house — the breadwinner — gets downsized by his company, he comes home, looks at his wife and says, ‘I could use a hug right now.’ Or when the wife commits a serious flop during her piano recital and breaks down crying, the husband instinctively puts his arms around her, holds her close and says, everything’s okay. It’s only a piano recital. Your playing was brilliant.

“In his article, ‘Have you hugged anyone lately?’ Parveen Chopra quotes family therapist Virginia Satir: ‘We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.’”

What’s YOUR most memorable hug? is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

JoAnn was very sweet, but very firm, as she always is. She had ordered a new shirt and pants for me for Christmas, but the parcel arrived early. So she gave me a choice. I could start wearing my new clothes right away — which is the choice I made — or I could save the present until Christmas and open it then.

“Don’t forget, you won’t be getting anything else from me at Christmas,” she reminds me every now and again. “Of course not,” I say indignantly.

It’s fun giving gifts at Christmas. It’s fun receiving gifts, too, especially when you are little. But as another Christmas rolls around, I think to myself that any gift we receive — or give — this season will sooner or later break down, or lose its luster. It may simply wear out, like my new shirt and pants. Or it may simply lose its appeal, its novelty.

There is one gift, however, that will never wear out, or break own – and it is the gift of our own timeless being, untouched and untroubled by any of the vicissitudes of our lives.

As I sit down to concoct a new post this morning, I am filled with awe and thankfulness for this magnificent gift that is the true spiritual heritage of each one of us.

It asks so little. It gives so much. It is eternal love, and it asks simply that we be still for a moment.

I find that as I am still, surrendering my human preoccupations and thoughts, I become increasingly aware of the vast presence within which my physical form is contained and within which all life is contained.

Every atom of my body rejoices in this presence. It is not separate from me. It is myself. It is my own true nature, my own true character, crying out for expression through me.

It is already happy. It is already free.

May this Christmas be truly different. May it be NEW, because as you and I go about our lives, doing the little deeds that need to be done each day, we remember the gift that has been given us – so priceless it cannot really be named.

The one gift that will never lose its luster is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

It has been a wild and woolly adventure getting this blog up and ready to go over the last few months. As happens any time we start something new, it has taken quite a bit of stretching — for the last thing I am is some kind of computer whiz. At the same time, it has been utterly magical. I still can hardly believe that it is possible to write a few words at my computer, and with a click of a button, release those words, and the spirit that is in them, to the entire world.

We live in a brave, utterly terrifying, and yet utterly beautiful and glorious time.I’m filled, in this moment, with a deep sense of gratitude for one of life’s most mysterious paradoxes. We can only navigate this life on our own. We are totally responsible, as an individual, for our choices in life — no one else can really tell us what to do. And yet on the other side of that, none of us could do anything if it were not for the abundance of kindness and encouragement and support that comes to us in so many different ways from other people.

I’m thinking, for example, in this moment, of a new friend named Easton Ellsworth, a computer geek (if he will forgive my use of that term) who recently started his own blog consulting business named www.visionaryblogging.com Easton lives in a small Colorado town quite close to Loveland, where I live. The simple truth is that I could not have penetrated the mysteries of blogging — to the extent I have penetrated them, which is not very much — without his wonderful encouragement and inspiration and support. Easton helped in every step of the process, particularly in the design of the blog, and of course continues to help me. He’s roughly the same age as my son Durwin, who lives in North Vancouver, B.C., and they both have three young children.

One of the books that really helped me in a difficult period of my life, after I had suddenly lost my first wife, was You Can Have It All, by Arnold Patent. He was speaking of the vital importance of mutual respect and cooperation if our lives are to be truly effective and fulfilling. The power, friendship and sheer pleasure that can be generated when we do find a creative partnership of some kind with another person or persons never ceases to amaze me. JoAnn and I were watching an NBC special the other day on life inside the Obama White House, and were so impressed with what seemed to us to be this same dynamic at work in those who are part of Obama’s team.

Another thing I want to mention, and gives thanks for, is the sudden appearance – like wildflowers in spring — of a few comments on this site. I’m so touched that people took time out of their busy day not only to visit the blog, but to drop off a few thoughts.

There is a vast pool of friendship, love and goodwill that covers the world and goes very deep. It does not get a lot of publicity compared to all the violence and mayhem that is going on. But it is there, and it is a beautiful thing when in the midst of our busy affairs — perhaps in as simple a way as stopping to chat with a neighbor — we are made more keenly aware of its existence.

We are here to nourish this “pool” of love, aren’t we? We are here to express our own particular unique spirit into this world to the fullest extent of our power, and what an adventure it is.

Anyone got their own story of “mutual respect and cooperation” at work in their life they’d like to share?

Thoughts on starting a blog — and on the giant pool of love in this world is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age