Peace Dove: Photo By Pauline DeForest

Inspirational Quote of the Day

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Source: Kahlil Gibran

Accept the Seasons of Your Heart

Joy and pain are both parts of the same coin. Without one the other cannot exist.

I like the analogy of the coin because it is easier to understand. On a coin you have the head, and the tail. You cannot take away the tail and sill have the head.

You can split the coin into the finest width and still you will have a head and a tail. So it is with all things.

The joy…and the pain come in accepting both sides…to really understand that you cannot have one without the other.

We tend to try and avoid pain…pain hurts…but.

Think of love…to avoid it’s pain means to never have loved.

To accept the pain that comes with the incredible joy of love means you can love.

Acceptance is the key and the ability to see both sides at once and as one.

You must let the pain break the shell so that understanding is free to flow and grow and flourish…so that you can truly stand in the sun.

Nick

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Sunset at S. Vicente cape, Sagres, Portugal

I’ve greeted your sunrise with the beautiful sunset above.

Today is the first anniversary of my Mother’s death and transformation, so I thought an inspirational quote about death would be an interesting way to start off the morning.

In our society we don’t usually equate death with inspiration. A year ago I faced my mother’s death with dread but somehow, some when during that process my feelings turned more toward celebration. You’ll see why below.

Inspirational Quote of the Day

“The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.”

Source: Hermann Hesse

Death Can Be Sweet

Right Nick, this is suppose to be an inspirational quote! What’s so inspirational about death?

Well let me tell you.

A year ago today, my mother took her last breath around 10.30 A.M.

I firmly believe my Mother chose her time. For years she had slowly been loosing her vision. For a fiercely independent woman she now faced the prospect of some form of nursing care. For my mother that was not an option. She saw no virtue in swapping independence for life. Instead she chose death and transformation.

I watched along with the rest of my family, for about a month as she under went the transformation through death toward another form.

During that time magic happened all around us.

I can relate only a small fraction of the magic, the nurses and the extraordinary care she received, the people who came to visit and chat, the laughter that filled her room, they all contributed to something special in the air.

Mum found herself sharing a hospital room with a our next door neighbor in the Elm Grove Community where we crew up and came of age. Later another neighbor ended up in a room not far away and the visiting of all us “Kids” back and forth from one room to another as we all caught up and reminisced about our lives growing up in the old farming community where we all played together as kids.

Mum was in her glory through all of this, talking to the kids she’d watch grow up.

In her room there was a parade of coming and going, jokes and remembrances, that kept a twinkle in her eye.

Of course the whole family stayed with her. Even at nights there was one of us always by her side. One night we all had Fish and Chip dinners brought in and celebrated a feast of one of Mum’s favorite foods, even though she had little appetite left.

Even when she slipped into a final coma the laughter and the love still surrounded her.

Yes there were tears and sadness that beautiful April morning by those of us left behind

Yet her death was a celebration of a life well lived and a celebration of a gentle transformation to another state of existence.

I witnessed the transformation and felt privileged to do so. I felt part of the sweeping eternal transformation of life to death and death to life.

In the end that is why the call of death is a call of love, why death can be sweet if we understand and accept the breath taking beauty of life and the transformation.

Without death life could not exist. With out life we would not enjoy the opportunity to come to full consciousness of Joy, and Beauty and Love and the Magical Balance in the dance we are all dancing.

Today celebrate the moment, celebrate your time, celebrate the breath of air upon your skin. Speak your gratitude to all that is within your grasp and all that is unfolding before you.

I will see you in the quiet sunset on a darkening beech at the journey’s end, a smile upon my lips, and love in my eyes.

With Love.

Nick

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