He Says, She Says… Are You a Seeker or a Finder?

Hello, Dear Reader:

Happy Monday!

This week’s ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post was inspired by a quote we came across recently from Andrew Cohen, who is the Founder and Editor in Chief of EnlightenNext:

Are You a Seeker or a Finder?

“Are you a seeker or a finder? This is a very important question. If you are on a spiritual path, have you found what you are looking for? Or are you still searching? If you are doing a spiritual practice, are you doing it to reach a goal or are you doing it just because you think it’s a good thing to be doing? Or are you doing spiritual practice from another position altogether—the position of being a finder? Being a finder means you are one of those rare individuals who has unequivocally found what they are looking for, and are now doing spiritual practice only because they want to continue to develop.” ~ Andrew Cohen

NB: This is only the opening paragraph of a longer article.  You can read the full post here.

This is a very fundamental question, and sparked different ideas for both of us.  If you haven’t already, ask yourself: are you a Seeker or a Finder?

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

He Says, She Says… Universal *Boinks*

Hello, Dear Reader:

Any fan of ‘The Three Stooges‘ knows that they had no difficulty getting their point across to each other.  We think they would have loved ‘Boinks‘!

For most of us, however, the Universe speaks in a much quieter voice.  There is a lovely Hindu poem, translated by Ravindra Kumar Karnani, that speaks well of this:

And A Meadow Lark Sang

The child whispered, “God, speak to me”
And a meadow lark sang.
The child did not hear.

So the child yelled, “God, speak to me!”
And the thunder rolled across the sky
But the child did not listen.

The child looked around and said,
“God let me see you” and a star shone brightly
But the child did not notice.

And the child shouted,
“God show me a miracle!”
And a life was born but the child did not know.

So the child cried out in despair,
“Touch me God, and let me know you are here!”
Whereupon God reached down
And touched the child.

But the child brushed the butterfly away
And walked away unknowingly.

For this week’s ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post we want to disuss the quiet voice that speaks to each of us from within.

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

Marcia’s Meanderings – Finding Balance

Hello Dear Ones!

For those of you who follow me regularly, you will likely have noticed my recent absence. I am in my second week back at working in a full-time job. My decision to take on this responsibility was based on perceived financial need. Its joyful benefits (such as the people I am privileged to work with and the customers) have proved to be a delightful blessing.

Blessing that it is in so very many ways, life with out-of-home work is proving to be a challenge for me. Counting in the eight hours on the job five days a week, plus the prep time (I am using an alarm-clock for the first time in almost a year), plus the transportation time (I travel one hour each way by bus) … adds up to a great deal of time. All of that is time away from my husband, from my writing, from my computer, and my Twitter family.

What I have been attempting to do the past two weeks is to regain balance within myself. Continue Reading →

Marcia’s Meanderings – Kicking & Screaming

Hello Dear Ones!

Mike and I just celebrated our 93rd Monthaversary (we were married in October of 2002) and we treated ourselves to a nice dinner out. Over the meal we found ourselves reliving the amazement of our wedding and honeymoon (a collection of stories in and of themselves!) and laughed about the challenges that had befallen us over this same period of time.

As events of our lives arose, and with each new adventure, we couldn’t imagine how we were going to get through this situation or that challenge, this drama or that letting go of something deemed essential in the moment. In other words, there were many times when we moved from one home or city to another with at least one of us kicking and screaming and being dragged by the hair from point A to point B.

We can laugh about it now! And we did exactly that tonight. We are both so grateful that our sense of humour stayed heartily intact over the years! We have grown spiritually as well – both individually and as a couple. As a result, this latest crisis of spirit that I have recently undergone, though devastating on its own, has been less traumatic than it might have been years back. What I can say is that rather than kicking and screaming like a toddler taking a temper tantrum the way I might have, I found myself going into a place of relative quiet. There was a sense of angst without the demonstrative component to accompany it. It was a peaceful crumbling into self – rather scary, actually. Continue Reading →

He Says, She Says… Resistance: Grace under Fire

Hello Dear Ones!

If you follow our posts regularly, our entries this week: Mike’s -  Being Green – Literally & Marcia’s -  Marcia’s Meanderings – A Crisis of Spirit, you will already know that both of us have had our share of interesting challenges in the past seven days.

Then the following quote came through an e-mail from Eckhart Tolle:

One could say that going through loss is the great awakener. It is a potential opening if you don’t run away from it. What is usually condemned as ‘bad’ by the mind and the mind-made self is actually grace coming into your life.

We thought to use this as the foundation for this week’s He Says, She Says… post – “Resistance: Grace under Fire“.

Normally our Sunday posts present a ‘He Says’ and a ‘She Says’ view; sometimes contradictory, sometimes complementary, always unique.  However, Mike is dealing with a rather large headache at the moment, so this week’s post is going to be a ‘She Says’ only.

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what She Says: Marcia’s View

He Says, She Says… Intrinsic or Extrinsic?

Hello, Dear Reader:

How do we measure the true value of something – is it intrinsic or extrinsic?  According to Wikipedia:

Intrinsic value is an ethical and philosophic property. It is the ethical or philosophic value that an object has “in itself” or “for its own sake”, as an intrinsic property. An object with intrinsic value may be regarded as an end or end-in-itself.

Extrinsic value is the idea that something has value only because of outside factors. It is an end to a means.  Work is, by many, considered to have extrinsic value. We work because we need money in order to survive.

With that in mind we thought we’d take on ‘value’ as the subject of this week’s ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post.

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

He Says, She Says… The Authentic Self

Hello, Dear Reader:

Who are you, really?  Are you who you pretend to be, or are you being your truest self?  Seth wrote:

“The natural person is to be found, now, not in the past or in the present, but beneath layers and layers of official beliefs, so you are dealing with an archaeology of beliefs to find the person who creates beliefs to begin with. As I have said often, evidence of clairvoyance, telepathy, or whatever, are not eccentric, isolated instances occurring in man’s experience, but are representative of natural patterns of everyday behavior that become invisible in your world because of the official picture of behavior and reality.” ~ The Magical Approach, session ten.

It’s with this in mind that we’re going to dive into this week’s ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post, ‘The Authentic Self’.

After all… “Don’t be afraid to touch, to feel, to show emotion. The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are” ~ Leo Buscaglia

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

Marcia’s Meanderings – Food: a Love/Hate Relationship

Hello Dear Ones!

My weeks are always so full of adventures and learnings, joy and creativity! This week past was no exception: mountain hiking to view the amazing wildflowers in our area; extensive work on the 4th draft of my upcoming novel; copious micro & haiku poems written (check them out here: Poetry Corner); and my daily journaling as guided by Iyanla Vanzant‘s book: ‘One Day My Soul Just Opened Up’.

There is one more thing that has begun to occupy my time and focus the past two weeks. I mentioned in last week’s post Trusting the Divine to having had a love/hate relationship with food over the course of my lifetime. My weight has fluctuated and varied over the years with the comings and goings of happy, sad and stressful times. I have been as slim as a size 5 and as stout as a 22 1/2. Recently I’ve been registering in at a modest size 15/16, and yet … this is still not a satisfactory comfort zone for me. Continue Reading →

Marcia’s Meanderings – Trusting the Divine

Hello Dear Ones!

What a whirlwind Easter weekend! Fun, occasionally emotional and deeply enlightening. AHA moments all over the place. Check out one of them in my She Says – The Sandbox post.

The other major AHA moment is the one I’ve chosen for this post. Yes, the subject line – Trusting the Divine – tells you the potential intensity of the topic. Intense, yet powerfully uplifting!

It was my Day 3 of the 40 day and 40 night guided inner journey with Iyanla Vanzant’s book: One Day My Soul Just Opened Up that set all of this expansion into action. It is my writings from that particular exercise that I wish to share with you. That and the unique happenings that arose the next morning. Continue Reading →