To all my dear ones,
When the going is good and the living is easy it seems only natural to be thankful. But what about all those times when nothing seems to flow? When energy is blocked and life flows like a river of glue.
When we are stuck in the rush hour traffic jam of dailiness and our bodies and souls start to feel like banged up bumper cars? When things seem so crazy and out of whack that we wonder what do we have to be thankful for?
“Well,” as my dear friend Daile once wisely and calmly commented in the midst of a work disaster that would normally have driven her mad, “at least nobody died.” That's it, exactly. Perspective.
The trick is to be able to maintain a healthy perspective. If we can manage to do that, we will automatically enjoy a perpetual attitude of gratitude.
People who have themselves been ill and those who caretake others have earned a certain understanding of this point of view. Everything is relative (in both senses of that word). For most of us, though, it is a daily, hourly, minutely learned lesson — one that we tend to forget in the flurry.
Here is a moving meditation to help us remember:
Take a walk someplace nice. Alone.
With each step you take, name one good thing that you have in your life. Say this aloud or silently.
Step.
My health.
Step.
My love.
Step.
My dog.
Step.
My network of circles.
Step.
The clouds.
Step.
The beautiful moon.
Step.
Trees.
Step.
A new friend.
Step.
That certain memory.
Step.
Not knowing war.
Step.
A secure home.
Step.
Two feet.
Step.
My heart, my soul, my spirit.
The list is endless.
Gratitude boundless.
Thank Goodness!
I am especially thankful for all the heartwarming support you showed me this year and expressed in so many wonderful ways. You bought my books. Thank you. You came to my workshops. Thank you. You forwarded my messages to your own circles of friends and family. Thank you. You wrote me amazing letters filled with spirit and soul. Thank you.
I would have to walk the entire length of the Great Wall of China in order to name each great gift that I received from you. Thank you all so, so much.
With bountiful blessings of fulfillment and peace,
xxQueen Mama Donna
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
The Queen’s Chronicles: HOME SWEET HOME
I’m home. I’m HOME. I’M HOME!!!
I have been on the road on and off for the past three years. Never home for more than six weeks at a time. Always off to another talk, another bookstore appearance, another workshop.
Mind you, I am not complaining. I have been to some great places and met thousands of incredible women. I’ve seen lots of lovely sights, had many amazing conversations and shared the spirit in some extraordinary rituals.
But I have packed and unpacked and repacked one bag too many!
Now I am home for the entire winter. I don’t have any travel plans until late March when my spring schedule intensifies and takes me to Pennsylvania and then Massachusetts, Northern California, and the Pacific Northwest. Which means that I will be home for almost five months until then. Which is perfect, as I hate to travel in winter and I love to hibernate and nest. What bliss!
All I want to do for a while is cook and clean and transplant my plants. Putter around my house and dance to my favorite CDs. File all the loose papers in the piles on my desk. Write in my journals and do some creative work. Take long walks and longer baths.
I used to do these things all the time as a matter of course. But my travel schedule came to dominate my existence. I was always either away, preparing to go away or recovering from having been away.
This made having a balanced, relaxed life here in NYC very difficult. Let alone having a social life like a normal person.
But now that I am back, I am reconstructing a life rich with the pleasures of communion and conviviality. Already this week I found time to have tea with two lovely women. Tomorrow I will host a small party for my dear Blessing Band. And Sunday I will make a beautiful brunch for eight.
Is life paradise or what? I am so happy to be home.
I have been on the road on and off for the past three years. Never home for more than six weeks at a time. Always off to another talk, another bookstore appearance, another workshop.
Mind you, I am not complaining. I have been to some great places and met thousands of incredible women. I’ve seen lots of lovely sights, had many amazing conversations and shared the spirit in some extraordinary rituals.
But I have packed and unpacked and repacked one bag too many!
Now I am home for the entire winter. I don’t have any travel plans until late March when my spring schedule intensifies and takes me to Pennsylvania and then Massachusetts, Northern California, and the Pacific Northwest. Which means that I will be home for almost five months until then. Which is perfect, as I hate to travel in winter and I love to hibernate and nest. What bliss!
All I want to do for a while is cook and clean and transplant my plants. Putter around my house and dance to my favorite CDs. File all the loose papers in the piles on my desk. Write in my journals and do some creative work. Take long walks and longer baths.
I used to do these things all the time as a matter of course. But my travel schedule came to dominate my existence. I was always either away, preparing to go away or recovering from having been away.
This made having a balanced, relaxed life here in NYC very difficult. Let alone having a social life like a normal person.
But now that I am back, I am reconstructing a life rich with the pleasures of communion and conviviality. Already this week I found time to have tea with two lovely women. Tomorrow I will host a small party for my dear Blessing Band. And Sunday I will make a beautiful brunch for eight.
Is life paradise or what? I am so happy to be home.
Monday, November 5, 2007
The Queen’s Chronicles: BLESSINGS OF PEACE AT HALLOWEEN AND BEYOND
This year I was invited to lead the world famous Greenwich Village Halloween Parade with blessings. As the Grand Marshall it was my duty and privilege to walk ahead of the parade and bless the streets, transforming them from their secular purpose into spiritual pathways. In addition, I was called upon to bless the participants of the parade as well as the inhabitants of the city.
This was an amazing opportunity to spread positive energy on an extremely large scale. About 30,000 people walked in the parade and two million more lined the parade path. The NYC Halloween Parade is one of the 10 biggest tourist events in the world! And of course, about eight million folks actually live here.
Joining me in this honorable endeavor was my magnificent Blessing Band of 30 wonderful individuals who are deeply earnest in their desire to extend blessings of peace and positive community spirit to New York City and beyond every chance we get.
We walked ahead of the parade for the entire route, blessing as we went. We were dressed entirely in white and silver to emphasize the purity of our intentions. Since this was not a performance, but a real ritual, we were not wearing masks or elaborate face paint, as we wanted our eyes and facial expressions to convey the sincerity of our serious, yet joyous, mission.
Our blessings were offered with smudge, or burning sacred herbs, which I call, “holy smoke.” In addition, we used bells, bubbles, glitter, and energetic chanting to spread our blessings. We shared blessings of peace, blessings of good will, blessings of community relationships, blessings of safety, blessings of protection, blessings of peace, and blessings of love.
The experience was amazing. As we passed by chanting “Blessings!” folks along the sidelines reached out their hands and bowed their heads so we could bless them! Monsters and devils, nurses and cartoon characters, ghosts and super heroes, alike, thanked us for the blessings and offered theirs back to us in the hundreds of languages and dialects spoken in New York. I blessed all the police in the street for their patience and good humor and was duly rewarded by hundreds of grins.
Such an enormous crowd. And so incredibly diverse. Yet there was only laughter and smiles and blessings and joy. Not one drunk or belligerent person. Not one incident. Not one disturbance of the peace. The only wild behavior was evidenced as creativity and ecstatic good humor. But that is typical here in the Big Apple.
When ever I am away somewhere lecturing or leading workshops, someone will inevitably ask me why I choose to live in New York City where “there is no nature.” I always respond by saying that in New York, the wildlife is the people. And I mean that in every sort of respectful, positive way. Think of the mouth-watering variety of food, music, costume, and custom here. I just adore riding the subway, watching the folks read their newspapers and realizing that every paper along the line is in a different language!
People from nearly 200 counties, having a full palette of beliefs and backgrounds, manage to live and work together in New York City in admirable peace. As huge and diverse and broken down as it is here, everybody pretty much gets along. And I am pleased as punch and very proud to be part of it.
I have given programs on multicultural ritual celebrations in schools where there are 65 nationalities represented in the student body. In a typical classroom an Egyptian boy sits next to a Korean girl who sits next to a Guatemalan boy who sits next to a pretty girl from Azerbaijan who was wearing a veil just months before. And they all get along very well. Their mutual immigrant experience connects them together and they relate.
And when they are old enough, they date. Those segregationists in the 1960’s were right when they said that if kids go to school together they will inevitably fraternize and worse. Hormones are color blind, you see, and they are responsible for a beautiful, brave new world that is developing right in font of our eyes. Living New York City is an experiment in the future. And it works. What is more, if we can do it here, it can be done anywhere.
There is still a chance for peace on this poor beleaguered planet.
This was an amazing opportunity to spread positive energy on an extremely large scale. About 30,000 people walked in the parade and two million more lined the parade path. The NYC Halloween Parade is one of the 10 biggest tourist events in the world! And of course, about eight million folks actually live here.
Joining me in this honorable endeavor was my magnificent Blessing Band of 30 wonderful individuals who are deeply earnest in their desire to extend blessings of peace and positive community spirit to New York City and beyond every chance we get.
We walked ahead of the parade for the entire route, blessing as we went. We were dressed entirely in white and silver to emphasize the purity of our intentions. Since this was not a performance, but a real ritual, we were not wearing masks or elaborate face paint, as we wanted our eyes and facial expressions to convey the sincerity of our serious, yet joyous, mission.
Our blessings were offered with smudge, or burning sacred herbs, which I call, “holy smoke.” In addition, we used bells, bubbles, glitter, and energetic chanting to spread our blessings. We shared blessings of peace, blessings of good will, blessings of community relationships, blessings of safety, blessings of protection, blessings of peace, and blessings of love.
The experience was amazing. As we passed by chanting “Blessings!” folks along the sidelines reached out their hands and bowed their heads so we could bless them! Monsters and devils, nurses and cartoon characters, ghosts and super heroes, alike, thanked us for the blessings and offered theirs back to us in the hundreds of languages and dialects spoken in New York. I blessed all the police in the street for their patience and good humor and was duly rewarded by hundreds of grins.
Such an enormous crowd. And so incredibly diverse. Yet there was only laughter and smiles and blessings and joy. Not one drunk or belligerent person. Not one incident. Not one disturbance of the peace. The only wild behavior was evidenced as creativity and ecstatic good humor. But that is typical here in the Big Apple.
When ever I am away somewhere lecturing or leading workshops, someone will inevitably ask me why I choose to live in New York City where “there is no nature.” I always respond by saying that in New York, the wildlife is the people. And I mean that in every sort of respectful, positive way. Think of the mouth-watering variety of food, music, costume, and custom here. I just adore riding the subway, watching the folks read their newspapers and realizing that every paper along the line is in a different language!
People from nearly 200 counties, having a full palette of beliefs and backgrounds, manage to live and work together in New York City in admirable peace. As huge and diverse and broken down as it is here, everybody pretty much gets along. And I am pleased as punch and very proud to be part of it.
I have given programs on multicultural ritual celebrations in schools where there are 65 nationalities represented in the student body. In a typical classroom an Egyptian boy sits next to a Korean girl who sits next to a Guatemalan boy who sits next to a pretty girl from Azerbaijan who was wearing a veil just months before. And they all get along very well. Their mutual immigrant experience connects them together and they relate.
And when they are old enough, they date. Those segregationists in the 1960’s were right when they said that if kids go to school together they will inevitably fraternize and worse. Hormones are color blind, you see, and they are responsible for a beautiful, brave new world that is developing right in font of our eyes. Living New York City is an experiment in the future. And it works. What is more, if we can do it here, it can be done anywhere.
There is still a chance for peace on this poor beleaguered planet.
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