2021 Closing a Challenging Year

By Rev. Amari Magdalena

We seemingly begin each new year with hopes, dreams, goals, and those nefarious resolutions that are oft whisked away in the buzz of living in an electronic age.  Some of us attempt to reclaim the newness with other New Years, Chinese, Nowruz etc.  Anything to keep hope of unmet aspirations alive. Yet life moves on and we are met by the positive and negative.  Hopefully we’ve learned as in Tao, to not place an uneven emphasis on either.

That illusive quality of time seemed to dissolve in 2021, a numerological 5 year of change.  Just as many of us were celebrating a change in governance, a January political coup taught us how very fragile is our democracy. We witnessed a rise in hatred when love and acceptance were much needed. Conquering a deadly virus seemed within reach and yet we end this year with a troubling variant seemingly taking us back to ground zero.  Frustration over isolation and dramatic change in our usual routines and lifestyle has robbed many of sanity and resulted in concurring increases in violence.

In truth, on a global level, personal, and nationwide, we’ve had a helluva couple years.  It is as if we’ve all worn our clothing inside out and been exposed for our fragility and doused our fledging vanity. So very many isms have defined our daily lives that many feel battle fatigue.

Sorrow with so many deaths has pervaded many families and households. Beyond the usual turnover of aging and disease, the 2019 Virus and subsequent deaths have wrung us out emotionally, and for too many financially. We’ve awakened to a much harsher reality than our somewhat gilded existence prepared us for. Perhaps it is like being deposed.  We suffered the illusion of freedom, abundance, opportunity, growing equality, parity, and very high standard of living compared to the rest of the world. The division from the super haves and the growing have nots has diminished our world Light as a place to legally immigrate too for possibilities.

Yet, 2022 finds us still here!  Despite needed adjustments in socializing, community building, economics, politics, family unity or disparity, trust, and belief in the inherent good of humankind, we’ve had a global shift. So here we are, and the real question is, what are we each going to do about helping our fellow travelers on planet Earth thrive.  We now know we are not alone and what affects each of us, impacts the others.

Global Community will be part of the emphasis of this numerological 6 Year, 2022.  Return to some life affirming values and focus on other, not self, will be another.  Giving not receiving will be hailed as a must if we are all to share in the resources and inherent best interests of our global citizenry. Self, this, and that, must now take a back seat.  I and we will decrease in importance and emphasis on Us will be prominent. Housing may now require the sacrifice of individual domiciles to multiple and shared dwellings.  Less extravagance will need to prevail from richest to marginally less advantaged.

And the gift of the coming year? Service.  That will be the hallmark of saving the planet and our fragile occupants. As many people have discovered, good works and community involvement give us purpose. When other becomes the focus, the niggling issues of unhappiness, depression, grief, lack, abuse, etc. fades in import.

As we tomorrow, welcome 2022, let’s commit to finding our service and offering in all ways so that we can say when it is 12-31-2022, we gave of ourselves to foster hope, resurrect our planet, close our divides, restore global health, and brought that inimitable quality of Love to our precious sphere and its inhabitants.

May 2022 Bless each and every one of you with an important Service that you can provide to others along with health, wellness, and a sense of contentment knowing you contributed to the good of All.

 

 

 

Separation: The 2nd Veil of Illusion

 by Rev. Amari Magdalena

Separation. In my book “Unbecoming Me,” separation is the 2^nd veil of illusion.  It begins with the separation from the umbilical cord at birth.  Emotional events that follow through our lives may keep many in the second veil for perhaps their lifetime. Surrendering that veil of illusion requires trust, of yourself and trust of others.

What we’ve observed in our population since 2016 is a growing separation due, in part, to disparate views and entrenched unwillingness to consider reevaluation of what have become solidified values.

The media can, in part, be held accountable for this fractioning with severe biases and false reporting becoming new true source for way too many. We teetered on disillusion of our democracy on January 6^th with a shocking insurrection.

Add to this, we’ve been living uncomfortably with a global pandemic which has been met with the same depth of resistance and misinformation.  Many people don’t know anymore who to believe. Some wave flags of freedom without the understanding of just what freedom is about.

Thus, neighbor to neighbor may be avoiding one another or alternatively confronting each other. We’ve made manifest what a spiritual counselor told me years ago: “If you treat your neighbor the way that you treat yourself, they’d move!”

In my spiritual belief system, I believe there is no separation between us, energetically. At the very essence level of beingness, there simply is no “us and them.” Sitting today listening to a presentation about the concept that we are all energetically together and that impact one of us, impacts all of us, I was reminded that I’ve felt separation from family since early childhood. I’ve always thought of myself as a round peg in a square hole. 

As I reflected on this, I thought of something said in the movie “My Great Big Fat Greek Wedding” by the father of the bride. He was explaining that the name Miller (son-in-law’s last name) distilled down stands for apples and their Greek name stilled down meant oranges. He then said, “apples and oranges, we’re different but were still fruit!”

Got me considering further that round and square are just two of many shapes in math, in the universe, and in life.  Were all shapes though we are all members of the greater human family. While I was contemplating sending love to the greater occupants of the Universe, it was a reminder to start with the family and come to acceptance that we are different, and it is past time to simply accept the difference rather than separate. And, hopefully, in acceptance, I would cease to feel an outsider and end that final veil of separation. 

I’m in hopes that we will all, lay our burdens of separation down and just accept our human family in more loving thoughts.  Don’t have to live with them; only let the illusionary divide dissolve and return to the nothingness from which it came.

Peace Be.

“Whether you know it or not, we leave parts of ourselves wherever we go.” Simon Van Booy

“The greatest illusion in the world is the illusion of separation.  Things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same. We are all one people, but we live as if divided.” Abhay Sutar

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” Thich Nhat Hanh

“…For all we touch bears us, and all that touches us we bear, and we are either full harvests or famines of our own delusion.” Amari Magdalena

Privilege Most White Americans Enjoy

 

By Rev. Amari Magdalena

I was thinking about this when I awoke today. I’ve fallen below middle class economically and yet my life, in comparison, with so many in the U.S. and everywhere is luxurious. When I awakened and sat for a few moments on the bed, I was sitting on a high-end mattress designed to give full body support and sleeping on a pillow with similar properties.

Getting out of bed, I wandered into the bathroom and sat on a toilet with an upgraded toilet seat, running water, and excrement swished down the pipes.  I did not have to wander outside in heat or cold to go to the bathroom that even with chemicals, stunk and was NOT environmentally controlled.

I washed my face with warm water from my plumbed in sink and did my morning routine with upscale soap and toweled dry with soft fabric towels. Grabbed the morning medications and vitamins and wandered into the kitchen where I have a stove, oven, microwave, garbage disposal, fan, lights etc.  Opened the refrigerator to see what I fancied for breakfast.  Had no gnawing hunger that would go unsated. Ate designer yogurt, drank designer coffee, and nibbled on a few designer crackers.

Then I wandered into my closet to choose from a slew of clothing possibilities, that I deem needing replacement because some are showing wear and picked from the many choices clothing suitable for the season and weather forecast. Didn’t get to choose pretty shoes, woe is me, as I had to wear my designer tennis shoes with the Richie brace to help my ankle. Pulled on the compression socks while bemoaning, for a minute, just how unfashionable they were rather than saying thank heavens I have the correct attire for the body I live in. Oh, and I forgot that I put on my designer (some by me) jewelry to accent my outfit.

Drove my designer Hybrid Prius with its 50 miles per hour gas consumption to downtown Las Cruces to attend services in a properly masked congregation and separated for COVID-19 exposure room.  Was able to make a donation and enjoyed a great service replete with music, meditation, and stimulating address. Drove home in the same designer car.

The temperatures were rising as I drove, and my little designer car’s air conditioning easily kept the car’s interior very comfortable. I got out of my car and endured (😊) less than a minute of 90-degree temperatures, stepping into my air-conditioned apartment at a very comfortable 78 degrees.  Poured myself a glass of filtered water from my designer filtering pitcher and relaxed into the afternoon.

Was hungry when I arrived home nearing 1 pm and noshed on chips, salsa, and crackers-designer of course!  Then sat at my designer, top of the line, computer with my designer orthopedic chair, and desk at appropriate ergonomic height to spend time answering emails, texts (from my designer two phones), and contemplating doing some work (remote work).

And here I am making a point of our collective frame of reference that begs new understanding and labeling.  Even at this point in my life, I see all the entitlement and privilege that even on what is now considered poverty living, I am comfortable beyond half of the world’s imagining.

No crazed religious zealots are taking over my country and mouthing promises never to be kept while frightened citizenry literally run for their lives to a possible chance of freedom. The air in my city is not filled with smoke from engaged weapons of destruction used to keep people in fear. Troops are not marching down my street breaking into homes and taking people into custody. I am not asked to wear hot, uncomfortable clothing that annihilates my identify and robs me of long fought for equitable freedoms and whose adherence to, will be necessary if I am to live.

Too many voices today ask what our country can do for them, not what they can do for our country. Assumptions of entitlement run rampart along with privilege. We have SO much here, isn’t it a bit past time to begin a regimen of gratitude and thankfulness for the bounty most of us enjoy even with reduced income?

Yes, I work hard as I approach my eighties and some of it is very stressful taking a toll on my health.  Yes, I have a lot of health issues now.  Yes, I have debts to be concerned about too often.  Yes, I made the choice to work so that I could afford to live a tad more comfortably. Yes, I made choices that have created the me of now and who cares!

I recognized this day just how very privileged I am and as I look about, and say Thank You! I hope more and more of us will wake up to the lives we lead that are so far above real need that it is ridiculous. And even more importantly, have us recognize the real obligation for giving back from our abundance each in our own way. In other words, sharing our world in ways that may ultimately lift the lives of others vs. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous-or not, just too rich not to recognize the need to share from our excess.

“I was not born with a silver spoon, but an old rusty steel spoon bent all out of shape. Over the year's I made that old spoon straight again. I polished that spoon so hard, now my spoon shines just as if it were made of newly minted silver...!”
― Craig Langstaff

“When I think about creating abundance, it's not about creating a life of luxury for everybody on this planet; it's about creating a life of possibility. It is about taking that which was scarce and making it abundant.” ―Peter Diamandis

 

Mortality

By Rev. Amari Magdalena

 

Perhaps if I didn’t choose to live in the bubble that my daughter often refers to as my way of life, I’d have noticed symptoms of a heart that was experiencing struggles.  Given that I am rapidly approaching membership in the octogenarian tribe, logically I may have imagined the things that come up for many with age. True I’d been experiencing the most intense body breakdown period of my life, yet still I denied.

Of course, that was easy as some of the symptoms were well aligned with my lung issues and had been for some time.  Breathlessness?  Many had observed over the years how breathless I became with excitement.  Then again, moving back to higher altitude added to the excuses.

It was quite the shock when my excellent medical practitioner upon receiving the CT scan called me late in the afternoon and advised me to immediately see a heart physician who was waiting for me. Seems the report indicated an aorta aneurysm. Got to the new doc and immediately had an EKG and much more intense heart exam. He ordered an Electrocardiogram for the next day.

Other surprise was that the Mitral Prolapse that I’d known about for 41 years but thought had gone away (no one mentioned it anymore) was leaking. The electrocardiogram also showed the aneurysm to be larger than the CT scan showed and more leaks.  I laughingly shared that I’d always been a “bleeding heart liberal.”  Jokes aside I was mystified as to why this had all happened, and no one had ever noticed some of the telltale signs. Guess that knowledge went with the demise of the annual physical that health insurance axed.

Next, I was sent to the partner of the heart doc who started talking chemical stress tests and catherization along with stents etc.  My initial shock kept me somewhat insulated from the truth though in panic I began to take care of end-of-life details and expenses.  The latter seemed such b.s. in a society tethered to the almighty dollar. We pay both ways, in and out, or our relatives do.

Time seemed of the essence, and I started running around like a chicken who’d just lost their head. Once I saw heart doc #2, we decided to do nothing but get the ole B.P. down before charting the course. A month's reprise was in the offing. That has now given me time to contemplate. I decided to stop all the craziness and sit with a possible exit before I’d imagined it.  Yes, I do realize that lots of people in their seventies check out, just didn’t imagine I’d be one of them.

Denial and delusion are such masters of the great cover up.  Despite them, I’ve found myself tearing up a whole lot more than in the past couple of decades.  I began to look around at all the ‘stuff’ I’ve acquired that has brought me such beauty and discern who would get what in the will’s addendum. Got the medical directives signed and posted the DNR to the refrigerator.

Shock has worn off now and I am more at peace with whatever is to be the outcome. Hopefully my creativity will take up some of the hours of suspense and meditation will fill in the rest. It all got me thinking about a song in the movie, “Playing by Heart” entitled Walk into This Room.

Synthesized, it is about laying down our burden basket and walking into the light of love.  I realized we don’t have to wait for that crossover of the rainbow bridge to do so.  I used to have a First American burden basket on my wall.  I’m thinking that I’ll have one again.  In fact, I feel we would all benefit by having one.  If we simply write down what’s weighting us (or simply state it aloud and metaphorically add it to the basket) and then surrender it to the basket it can lift off any encumbrance. At year’s end, the year's burdens can be consigned it to flame.

I may still not know the outcome of this glitch in my health.  I do know that it is what it is and that all the angst in the world will not change anything. I do know, and have taught, that the word stressed turned around spells desserts.  I will choose to lay it down and walk into that world of light and love, here or there.  Ultimately, peace will prevail, and the right milestone will be celebrated.

"Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you." -Shannon Alder