Welcome to my monthly journal.

I encounter an issue with myself daily; feeling limited, stuck and some loss of hope about the world.

Despite and alongside the parts of me that believe in beauty and hope and all seen and unseen possibilities, my fragile human brain will sometimes slam the door shut on that awakened part. Like my inner toddler making a scene.

What can I do when I’m there? I do direct that question rather quickly to my mind, as I’ve been trained to do this by the various practices I do daily.

Some part of me always thinks well, so you’re not very awake after all. Here we are again.

Then I look outside, and the answer is right in front of me, in my garden. Anything in the state of opening (the ongoing striving to do so) will attract and grow weeds, too. Maybe the answer is to simply tend the garden. Taking care of what comes up in me that I want to block so deeply, I easily close the door on the light that life has always shown me.

I have a new Buddhist friend, Bertrand Odelys, Author of “Don’t Say No to a Tibetan.” He has spent two and a half years making many trips to interview

His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He always asks the same questions. How to remain positive when something goes wrong? How do you develop mental peace in times of trouble?

The answer is the middle way. Find a way to love your enemy and, with nonviolence, continually strive to meet them.

So when I look out at my garden, I remember to invite all that I am to be seen, and hopefully I will meet all of her in this lifetime, with the openness and love that the Dalai Lama lives.

Welcome her, and befriend what I yet can’t understand.

(https://www.howweheal.site/)

Happy longest days of light.