Cultivate Tranquility in the Midst of Chaos Part 2

“If there is light in the soul,
There will be beauty in the person.
If there is beauty in the person,
There will be harmony in the house.
If there is harmony in the house,
There will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
There will be peace in the world.”

— Chinese proverb

In an unprecedented time, if you are sheltering at home, take care to nurture and nourish yourself with time out. There is a collective stillness and centering available, if you will use this time to ground yourself in the simple things of life, and explore the interior riches that have always been there, but have been ignored in the rush of “normal” daily life. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to discover inner resources by choosing serenity and openness instead of trying to dictate to life. Let Life Itself lead you into what your heart most longs for.

You look in the mirror, but instead of a serene smiling face, you see your own worried countenance. How do you achieve serenity in this ever-accelerating modern age? How can you find the stillness and tranquility that brings a higher perspective on life and your place in it?  It doesn’t have to be a complex solution or the entire rearrangement of your life. Cultivating inner serenity can begin with small adjustments that will shift your attention and move you into a calmer place. Serenity is a gift that comes moment-by-moment, choice-by-choice. It grows from within and expands outwardly. Serenity can exist in the midst of a storm as well as when the sun shines in a cloudless sky. 

 Here’s an illustration that shows what stress can do—and how making a simple, subtle change can relieve stress and make life easier. Place a small rock in the open palm of your hand. Now clench your fist around that rock, holding it tightly, keeping your muscles rigid and tense. How long can you hold this position comfortably? Notice how quickly your hand tires. If you hold this position for too long, your hand becomes stiff and painful, and that rigidity spreads to your entire body. Now open your hand again, allowing the rock to lie comfortably in the center of your open palm. Hold it softly, open, still, and quiet. Do you think you could hold the rock more comfortably for a longer period of time in this open position?

How often have you clutched your life in a clenched fist, fighting the natural forces, trying to control and confine life within the small boundaries of your fears and expectations? It is as uncomfortable for the human heart to be clenched and closed as it is for the human hand. Stress is the hand grasping and clutching. Serenity is an open hand ready to receive the gifts life has to offer and to release that which no longer serves; choosing to believe in Something Greater than the limits that our life conditions would indicate. Finding serenity is less about keeping your outer life under control, and more about anchoring your reality in the unseen of the spiritual realm. There is a Higher Power and an inner wisdom that can offer you peace in the midst of the storm. Cultivating that interior life can transform you from the inside out. 

You may find serenity gazing on a lighted candle, or opening the door of a newly ordered closet, or in making a clear commitment to honoring your own truth. Simple ideas for a practical spirituality—or a spiritual practicality—help you create an island of serenity in a sea of chaos. As you anchor yourself to a serenity that begins within, it eventually affects the outer conditions of your life.

Affirmations

• I am willing to let go of old preconceptions and explore new ways of looking at life.

 • My home nourishes my soul and is a creative reflection of the inner serenity I am cultivating. 

 • I know that I am guided as I listen to my heart and keep an open mind.

Cultivating tranquility allows you to experience the life force moving through you and to tap into the essence of your own being. When you are in a place of stillness and serenity everything becomes clear and you gain a more detached and higher perspective on whatever situation you are experiencing. As muddy water in a glass settles and clears with patient waiting, so your mind and emotions can settle and clarify when you choose to practice inner stillness. Choosing to focus on each moment with quiet awareness, you are more able to respond appropriately and make fully conscious choices instead of allowing yourself to be driven by unconscious forces. 

“We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.”

— Dag Hammarskjöld

Make choices that promote peace and harmony. Instead of trying to keep up with a world that is spinning too fast, step aside from the daily whirlwind and seek a more soulful path. Make more conscious choices and avoid getting caught up in chaotic emotions or events. 

Stand still, breathe deeply, and let go of the need to keep up with everything and everyone. Savor the moment, stop and smell the roses, smile at your naive assumptions of self-importance, and recognize that God is in charge. You are not responsible for running the world, and the world will not end if you take time to slow down and nourish your spirit. Enjoy the freedom of letting the earth spin on its axis without you pushing or pulling to make it happen. Let go and let God. Pause and listen for the still small voice. Then consciously choose, just in this moment, to create a life that is more joyful, loving, and harmonious. 

“The greatest security we can have, in the face of antagonism and the inner and outer complexities of life, is to be consciously connected with the unchanging sense of self at the core of our being.”

— John Maxwell Taylor

“Let us leave the surface and, without leaving the world, plunge into God.”

— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Why I Write

Lit From Within

“The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I believe that people who read my books and see my photos will sense spirit speaking to spirit, encouraging them to discover their own inner awakening. Not so much by trying to convince by argument (though I try my best to be logical) but by Presence, because if I am "awake" or "translucent" the light shared will enlighten others and speak to that in them which is ready to awaken. It's a quality of being, supported by authenticity and positive action. Deep calling to deep. I don't always live up to the brightness of the books I write. I have a strong melancholy streak and have not always made the best choices. The books are wiser than I am and teach me as well as my readers. But I also trust the Something Greater is calling me to continue writing.

My books and my photos are my response to my own fear. They tell me, and tell others, that we must choose our sanity, and choose to move beyond our fears, our unreasoning emotions that see a threat lurking in every corner. I look for the light, the luminous Reality beyond dark and threatening circumstances. And the play of light and shadow reminds me to be brave once again.

I find myself more surrendered to the mystery, realizing that whatever ideas I might have about the evolution of my writing may be true in essence, but may unfold with unimaginable consequences. I open to all possibilities. I'm seeing that my foundational work is to continue deepening my spiritual walk, so that no matter what form the work takes, it will be done in a spirit of integrity and translucence (open to the light, even in the times I'm feeling opaque). It is vital that I live what I write, teach, speak, sing, and share. It is my service to the world.

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.”

— Carl Jung

White Lantern 

But the inner life sits at home, and does not learn to do things, nor value these feats at all. 'T is a quiet, wise perception. It loves truth, because it is itself real; it loves right, it knows nothing else; but it makes no progress; was as wise in our first memory of it as now; is just the same now in maturity and hereafter in age, it was in youth. We have grown to manhood and womanhood; we have powers, connection, children, reputations, professions: this makes no account of them all. It lives in the great present; it makes the present great. This tranquil, well-founded, wide-seeing soul is no express-rider, no attorney, no magistrate: it lies in the sun and broods on the world. A person of this temper once said to a man of much activity, "I will pardon you that you do so much, and you me that I do nothing." 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Success

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”

— Ansel Adams

Purple Glow 

“In each soul, God loves and partly saves the whole world which the soul sums up in an incommunicable and particular way… By his fidelity he must build—starting with the most natural territory of his own self—a work, an opus, into which something enters from all the elements of the earth. He makes his own soul throughout his earthly days; and at the same time he collaborates in another work, in another opus, which infinitely transcends, while at the same time it narrowly determines, the perspectives of his individual achievement: the completing of the world.”

— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin