I Heart Macro 118

We are floating in Mystery. With each exhalation released we do not know if another inhalation will follow. I spent this week at the hospital bedside of two friends dwelling in the liminal space between exhalation and inhalation, between life and death. T and B, floating in Mystery, their families courageously riding the river with them; counting breaths with the shush of ventilators. T was taken off her ventilator, everyone praying that she would be able to breathe on her own, not knowing, not knowing. In a day or so she woke up, opened her eyes and told her daughter “This is a Chanukah miracle!” Truly it is. 

B was hit by a car crossing the street as T was journeying back to consciousness. B remains in critical care, in a coma. Her two beautiful daughters, her extended family and friends, all of us are floating in Mystery with her, hope and surrender a flickering dance as tonight we light the first candle of Chanukah.

This week in my meditation classes, I offered the words below to my students, as a part of a pre-Chanukah teaching, not knowing if T would survive, inspired by her will to live, her family’s strength and courage. This was before B was so tragically injured:

I have seen the spiritual quality of Ometz lev  (courageous heart) used to describe the Macabees fighting a much greater army and prevailing, and certainly faith and trust in God inspired them with courage, but ometz lev is less about acts of courage that take form in the power and might of soldiers in battle—than it is about who we are, living and acting from love. Ometz lev is the kind of courage that is aligned with surrender rather than fighting, letting go into the Mystery precisely when we are vulnerable and afraid. It is the strength of heart we don’t realize we have until we are plunged into the darkness of our life’s most difficult moments. It is courage nurtured and sustained by faith and trust in God, LOVE, the expansiveness of Being, the Compassionate Source of Life Unfolding.

We are fragile, hanging by a thin stem, whether we know it or not. Be a light in this world. Reach out to others who need your support, maybe a smile, a hug, a phone call, text or email. It doesn’t have to be a big gesture. Say I love you more often to all of your beloveds. Make every breath you’ve been given count. Please join me and a world wide community in creating this year's Gratitude Quilt (info at the top of the page)… We all have so much to be thankful for, no matter how dark life feels.

ps. If I don't respond to your messages it is because I am spending time at the hospital in Boston with B and her daughters. She is stable, but not improving. 

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Welcome to Week 118

I Heart Macro

"Pure awareness transcends thinking... It allows you to look at the world once again with open eyes. And when you do so, a sense of wonder and quiet contentment begins to reappear in your life."~Mark Williams and Danny Pennman, from Mindfulness An Eight-Week Plan For Finding Peace In A Frantic World

It is time for YOU to share the love up-close with YOUR

I Heart Macro offerings!


Enjoy slowing down with your camera, paying full attention, observing beauty and curiosities many people pass right by. Your generosity of spirit and keen eyes may open the door to miniscule miracles and mirth others would not have access to otherwise. Feel free to include poetry, prose and thoughts your macro photo or series inspire(s) in you. Writing is completely optional for participation. Straight out of the camera (SOC), edited, color, black and white, anything goes as long as you bring the viewer near to whatever it is that drew your heart's attention and "woke you up" to full presence.

Please link back to my blog either by copying and pasting the button provided above on your post, or by linking the words "I Heart Macro" back to my blog with this link:

shinethedivinecreativityisaspiritualpractice.com.

By sharing the link, visitors to your blog will learn about this meme and have a chance to participate as well if they so choose. 

Visit each other...

S  p  r  e  a  d  the  LOVE. Thanks :-)

linking to:

nature notes

macro monday 2

our world tuesday