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Dear listeners –

There is so much chronic stress and distress in the news these days – racism, terrorism, extremism, and the scary storms driven by climate change. Lately, I have met a number of people who feel strained and worried, and who feel great uncertainty.

We’re just not sure any more.

How do we find hope for our society and our planet? And of course, there are those personal situations that stretch and strain us, at work and in our families. They challenge us to find the energy of hope, day by day.

In my lifelong path of recovering from a native tendency to begin each day in a state of despair about my self and my world, I have developed some ways and notions about hope that help get me through difficult times with a lighter step. 

Ah, you didn’t know that about me, did you? Yes, I was born already depressed and despondent about everything. And, I have been making my way into a state of sustainable cheer for a long time, with frequent short dips into the dark valley of the Glum Outlook.

Somehow, I am happy more and more of the time, no matter what’s actually going on.

I am eager to share a few things about “Hope” in these next two podcasts, and I promise you there will be no Pollyanna-style “positivity” in what I’m saying.

Something different, something do-able. And as ever, a few laughs along the way.

Thanks for joining us,
Mary & Erin

EPISODE 14O: HOPE FOR MYSELF, HOPE FOR MY WORLD

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”  W.B. Yeats

Hope is a way of walking into our day,
of being open in a way that leaves room for the tiny miracle.

We must walk into our challenging life situations with some part of us that is always breathing, always relaxed and aligned with “the highest good.”

Most things are not within our control, and plenty of things are neither what we expected nor what we wished for. Not what we thought, at all. 

But hope itself is not a positive thought – it is a way of giving up our attachment to all thoughts, in order to be at peace in the now, as it is.

On a personal level, and on a collective level, the human situation is such that we will sometimes have to face into things that are sad or disappointing – we will have to regain our footing in order to go forward despite the sense of loss that we feel.

We are free to give up if we want to, but it is the strangely indefatigable energy of hope that makes us comb our hair and take our next step.

The truth is, we cannot stop a person or a thing from dying – right before our eyes.
Therefore, we must make friends with death, because life is a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.

Destruction, decay, dissolution is a part of every single day because that’s the way it is.

IT’S WONDER-FUL!

Enjoy this program in which Mary reflects on her long experiences of being a “Calamity Jane,” and how she has learned to step back and back until she can see a bigger picture that is held in a space of benevolence.

Remember to keep that tiny shred of trust in your pocket, and turn your face to the very next opportunity to give or receive some love with someone.

Because we’re all in this together.