Nancy Rhine, MS, LMFT

Calling All Grand Mothers By Alice Walker We have to live differently... or we will die in the same old ways. Therefore I call on all Grand Mothers everywhere on the planet to rise and take your place in the leadership of the world Come out of the kitchen out of the fields out of the beauty parlors out of the television Step forward & assume the role for which you were created: To lead humanity to health, happiness & sanity. I call on all the Grand Mothers of Earth & every person who possesses the Grand Mother spirit of respect for life & protection of the young to rise & lead. The life of our species depends on it. & I call on all men of Earth to gracefully and gratefully stand aside & let them (let us) do so.

You are comprised of: 84 minerals, 23 Elements, and 8 gallons of water Spread across 38 trillion cells. ... You have been built up from nothing by the spare parts of the Earth you have consumed, according to a set of instructions hidden in a double helix and small enough to be carried by a sperm. You are recycled butterflies, plants, rocks, streams, firewood, wolf fur, and shark teeth, broken down to their smallest parts and rebuilt into our planet’s most complex living thing. You are not living on Earth. You are Earth. - Aubrey Marcus

Knocking on wood actually comes from the belief that every tree is inhabited by a spirit known as Hamadryad or Dryad. The action of knocking was practiced by ancient priests to immediately summon this spirit to aid the Priest or Priestess in order to ward off evil or fulfill a wish. So the next time you knock on wood, remember that you are actually summoning the Spirits of the Tree.

Grandma, how do you cope with pain? With your hands, honey. If you do it with your mind instead of relieving the pain, it toughens even harder. With your h...ands grandma? Yes, our hands are the antennae of our soul. If you move them; knitting, cooking, painting, playing or sinking them into the ground, you send care signs to the deepest part of you and your soul lights up because you’re paying attention to it. Then signs of pain will no longer be necessary. Hands are really that important? Yes my daughter. Think of babies: they start to know the world through the touch of their hands. If you look at the hands of old people, they tell you more about their life then any body part. Everything that is done by hand is said to be done with the heart. Because it’s really like this: hands and heart are connected. Masseurs know well: when they touch someone with their hands, they create a deep connection. It is precisely from this connection that healing comes. Think of lovers: when they touch their hands, they make love in a more sublime way. My hands grandma.... how long I haven’t used them like this! Move them, my love. Begin to create with them and everything within you will begin to move. The pain will not pass away. And instead what you do with them will become the most beautiful masterpiece and it won’t hurt anymore. Because you have been able to transform its essence. ~Elena Bernabe Shared and translated by Takiruna art: Linda Apple

Felt this my whole life. I love that there’s a word for it

Advice on Growing Old and Dying: A neighbor/friend shared Advice on How to Grow Old by Bertrand Russell. It’s rather long so I will only share the section I ...liked most. Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. An individual human existence should be like a river, small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death.

From Notes From Your Therapist, a wonderful Instagram site.

"I release my parents from the feeling that they have failed me. I release my children from the need to bring pride to me; that they may write their own ways ac...cording to their hearts, that whisper all the time in their ears. I release my partner from the obligation to complete myself. I do not lack anything, I learn with all beings, all the time. I thank my grandparents and ancestors who have gathered so that I can breathe life today. I release them from past failures and unfulfilled desires, aware that they have done their very best to resolve their situations within the consciousness they had at that moment. I honor you, I love you and I recognize you as innocent. I am transparent before your eyes, so they know that I do not hide or owe anything other than being true to myself and to my very existence, that walking with the wisdom of the heart, I am aware that I fulfill my life purpose, free from invisible and visible family loyalties that might disturb my Peace and Happiness, which are my only responsibilities. I renounce the role of savior, of being one who unites or fulfills the expectations of others. Learning through, and only through, LOVE, I bless my essence, my way of expressing, even though somebody may not understand me. I understand myself because I alone have lived and experienced my history; because I know myself, I know who I am, what I feel, what I do and why I do it. I respect and approve of myself. I honor the Divinity in me and in you. We are free." (This ancient blessing was created in the Nahuatl language, spoken in Mexico. It deals with forgiveness, affection, detachment, and liberation). artist: Karen Noles

"The worst thing we ever did was put God in the sky out of reach pulling the divinity... from the leaf, sifting out the holy from our bones, insisting God isn’t bursting dazzlement through everything we’ve made a hard commitment to see as ordinary, stripping the sacred from everywhere to put in a cloud man elsewhere, prying closeness from your heart. The worst thing we ever did was take the dance and the song out of prayer made it sit up straight and cross its legs removed it of rejoicing wiped clean its hip sway, its questions, its ecstatic yowl, its tears. The worst thing we ever did is pretend God isn’t the easiest thing in this Universe available to every soul in every breath" ~ Chelan Harkin, in poetry book 'Susceptible to Light' Art: Autumn Skye Art Mycelium Dreaming

It's about female elephants. You know, as all good stories begin. See, in the wild, when a mama elephant is giving birth, all the other female elephants in the... herd back around her in formation. They close ranks so that the delivering mama cannot even be seen in the middle. They stomp and kick up dirt and soil to throw attackers off the scent and basically act like a pack of badasses. They surround the mama and incoming baby in protection, sending a clear signal to predators that if they want to attack their friend while she is vulnerable, they'll have to get through 40 tons of female aggression first. When the baby elephant is delivered, the sister elephants do two things: they kick sand or dirt over the newborn to protect its fragile skin from the sun, and then they all start trumpeting, a female celebration of new life, of sisterhood, of something beautiful being born in a harsh, wild world despite enemies and attackers and predators and odds. Scientists tell us this: They normally take this formation in only two cases - under attack by predators like lions, or during the birth of a new elephant. This is what we do, girls. When our sisters are vulnerable, when they are giving birth to new life, new ideas, new ministries, new spaces, when they are under attack, when they need their people to surround them so they can create, deliver, heal, recover...we get in formation. We close ranks and literally have each others' backs. You want to mess with our sis? Come through us first. Good luck. And when delivery comes, when new life makes its entrance, when healing finally begins, when the night has passed and our sister is ready to rise back up, we sound our trumpets because we saw it through together. We celebrate! We cheer! We raise our glasses and give thanks. Maybe you need this too. If you are closing ranks around a vulnerable sister, or if your girls have you surrounded while you are tender, this is how we do it. There is no community like a community of women. -Jen Hatmaker Photo cred: David Yarrow Photography

Nadia Bolz- Weber’s interpretation of Psalm 46:10. If you don't know who she is, I recommend checking her out. Best-selling author and ordained pastor - and a champion for inclusivity.

This is such a beautiful piece about traditions throughout the world.

Chocorua Landscape by E. E. Cummings E. E. Cummings (American, 18941962), Chocorua Landscape. Watercolor, 12 18 in. i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees... and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay great happening illimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing anylifted from the no of all nothinghuman merely being doubt unimaginable You? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

A lovely poem and reminder of Light at this season.

The swan does not care if I think it is beautiful. The platypus is indifferent to my laugh or scorn.... My great granddaughter-- "great" "grand" "daughter"-- what an odd and awe inspiring succession of words-- makes her 10 month old will be known over the tiniest of indignations: that piece of cheese this book pick me up put me down. I do not want to break her spirit. I can only show her the swan and the platypus, the blue dragonflies mating over the pond, the soft forest floor beneath the redwoods, the crash of the ocean's waves, the pelicans that glide above them. I can only hope that she will use that fierce will to protect the natural world and her place in it. - Richard Bloom

This is a powerful and heartbreaking tribute to a brother showing the power of grieving in community and with ritual.

"When you feel overwhelmed, you’re trying too hard. That kind of energy does not help the other person and it does not help you. You should not be too eager to help right away. There are two things: to be and to do. Don’t think too much about to doto be is first. To be peace. To be joy. To be happiness. And then to do joy, to do happinesson the basis of being. So first you have to focus on the practice of being. Being fresh. Being peaceful. Being attentive. Being generous. Being compassionate. This is the basic practice. It’s like if the other person is sitting at the foot of a tree. The tree does not do anything, but the tree is fresh and alive. When you are like that tree, sending out waves of freshness, you help to calm down the suffering in the other person. ~ Thích Nht Hnh

Prescription for the Disillusioned by Rebecca del Rio Come new to this day.... Remove the rigid overcoat of experience, the notion of knowing, the beliefs that cloud your vision. Leave behind the stories of your life. Spit out the sour taste of unmet expectation. Let the stale scent of what-ifs waft back into the swamp of your useless fears. Arrive curious, without the armor of certainty, the plans and planned results of the life you’ve imagined. Live the life that chooses you, new every breath, every blink of your astonished eyes.

In many Native American traditions, one member of the tribe will assume the role of "Faithkeeper". The role of the Faithkeeper is to remain peaceful and calm, w...hile maintaining spiritual enlightenment and understanding, no matter what the tribe may endure. Under extreme conditions, if every single tribe member stumbles into fear, doubt, anxiety, worry and pain - the Faithkeeper maintains peace, spirituality and understanding. Therefore, the Faithkeeper is looked upon as the mainstay to the "I AM" presence of God, Great Spirit or Creator See more

Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be. -Joseph Campbell

Women dropping out of work force in record numbers to fill the gap in all kinds of family caregiving. Worth a read.

'Oh I am love, loving this poem. Beneath The Sweater And The Skin How many years of beauty do I have left?... she asks me. How many more do you want? Here. Here is 34. Here is 50. When you are 80 years old and your beauty rises in ways your cells cannot even imagine now and your wild bones grow luminous and ripe, having carried the weight of a passionate life. When your hair is aflame with winter and you have decades of learning and leaving and loving sewn into the corners of your eyes and your children come home to find their own history in your face. When you know what it feels like to fail ferociously and have gained the capacity to rise and rise and rise again. When you can make your tea on a quiet and ridiculously lonely afternoon and still have a song in your heart Queen owl wings beating beneath the cotton of your sweater. Because your beauty began there beneath the sweater and the skin, remember? This is when I will take you into my arms and coo YOU BRAVE AND GLORIOUS THING you've come so far. I see you. Your beauty is breathtaking.' ~ Jeannette Encinias

In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered most waken, most holy. There's a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightni...ng of loss, he or she stands on the threshold of the spirit world. The prayers of those who grieve are considered especially strong, and it is proper to ask them for their help. You might recall what it's like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person's eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future. In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom. Tara Brach

This is what Grief feels like.. Don’t judge it Don’t rush it Don’t dismiss it Don’t suppress it ... There is no Rulebook for Grief. It comes in waves. And I pray for the ones who feel as though they’re drowning. This is in Switzerland~ I think it describes grief perfectly. By Albert Gyorgy and it is entitled "Mélancolie"

Gratitude Gratitude, I am your listening post, perched on the shoulders of mountains, in the grasses, in your granite face,... reclining in the long valleys of your body. Send me your chariots, your champion angels, warriors of the spirit, whose love rises in speech, in gesture, in wordless looks, bathed in the most sublime rose waters; even in anguish for the suffering of others. Send me your thoroughbreds, heavy with bridle; I will race alongside you, breathing my thanksgiving for the idealism of youth, for the wild and holy power of the earnest novitiate; for conversations between fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, blooming in the rising cumulus of purity and courage, in the altitudes of high regard, the vitality of innocence, the awakening of inquiry. Let me travel beside you, raining down with the pounding hooves of your galloping love. - Gary Horvitz

With practice, we can see that our wounded child is not only us. Our wounded child may represent several generations. Our mother may have suffered throughout he...r life. Our father may have suffered. Perhaps our parents weren’t able to look after the wounded child in themselves. So when we’re embracing the wounded child in us, we are embracing all the wounded child in our past generations. This practice is not a practice for ourselves alone, but for numberless generations of ancestors and descendants. Thich Nhat Hanh Art: Anna Lee @annaofthemedow IG

Message from the Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers: ‘As you move through these changing times be easy on yourself and be easy on one another. You are at the beginning of something new. You are learning a new way of being. You will find that you are working less in the yang modes that you are used to. You will stop working so hard at getting from point A to point B the way you have in the past, but instead, you will spend more time experiencing yourself in the whole, and... your place in it. Instead of traveling to a goal out there, you will voyage deeper into yourself. Your mother’s grandmother knew how to do this. Your ancestors from long ago knew how to do this. They knew the power of the feminine principle and because you carry their DNA in your body, this wisdom and this way of being is within you. Call on it. Call it up. Invite your ancestors in. As the yang based habits and the decaying institutions on our planet begin to crumble, look up. A breeze is stirring. Feel the sun on your wings.’ Art by Jan Oliver Schultz , www.Fineartamerica.com

This Notes from Your Therapist author on Instagram regularly posts such short insightful messages.

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were st...ill. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently. "And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal. "And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed." ~Kitty O'Meara

Albert Einstein.

From my friend Amanda this morning:

I asked the leaf whether it was frightened because it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. The leaf told me, "No. During the whole spring and summer I ...was completely alive. I worked hard to help nourish the tree, and now much of me is in the tree. I am not limited by this form. I am also the whole tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree. So I don’t worry at all. As I leave this branch and float to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her, 'I will see you again very soon'." That day there was a wind blowing and, after a while, I saw the leaf leave the branch and float down to the soil, dancing joyfully, because as it floated it saw itself already there in the tree. It was so happy. I bowed my head, knowing that I have a lot to learn from the leaf. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh Image: William Smith

This is just so moving and beautiful.

Stacey Abrams ig: 1ChaseAnd

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace! That where there is hatred, I may bring love.... That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness. That where there is discord, I may bring harmony. That where there is error, I may bring truth. That where there is doubt, I may bring faith. That where there is despair, I may bring hope. That where there are shadows, I may bring light. That where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted. To understand, than to be understood. To love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. Saint Francis of Assisi

Advice from María Sabina, Mexican healer and poet Heal yourself with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon. With the sound of the river and the wate...rfall. With the swaying of the sea and the fluttering of birds. Heal yourself with mint, neem, and eucalyptus. Sweeten with lavender, rosemary, and chamomile. Hug yourself with the cocoa bean and a hint of cinnamon. Put love in tea instead of sugar and drink it looking at the stars. Heal yourself with the kisses that the wind gives you and the hugs of the rain. Stand strong with your bare feet on the ground and with everything that comes from it. Be smarter every day by listening to your intuition, looking at the world with your forehead. Jump, dance, sing, so that you live happier. Heal yourself, with beautiful love, and always remember ... you are the medicine.

A story from early voting at West Seneca Community Center and not what you might expect. In the first photo, you can see the back of an elderly man with a cane ...and a hat with stars on it being helped by a woman in a pink coat. The other photos show the length of the voting line. He had walked all the way to the back of the line to vote despite having trouble even standing. When others realized his plight because of the pink coat lady (who didn’t want any credit or to be recognized), they wanted to give him their spot. It was like a domino effect as she walked him down the line - people kept waving him forward until he was brought right into the building. It was a beautiful thing to see happen. His name is Robert. He told me he will be 98 next month and that he knew there would be a long line but he was willing to wait. It was that important to him to vote. He’s a WWII vet who served in Europe against the Germans. It was tough, he said. I know this because I later found him and walked with him to his car parked far in the back. As we walked, people in the long line waved to him and he waved back smiling. The kindness of strangers clearly meant a lot to him. Thank you for your service Robert - giving up our spot in line was the least anyone could do for you.

THE WOMEN WILL LEAD THE HEALING`~ "The elders say the women will lead the healing among the nations. We need to especially pray for our women and ask the Creator to bless them and give them strength. Inside them are powers of Love, and strength given by Moon (Meztli) and Earth. When everyone else gives up, it is women who sing songs of strength, she is the backbone of the people. So, to our women we say...Sing your songs of strength...pray for your special powers...keep our... people strong...be respectful..gentle and modest. Great one ~Bless our women~Make them strong today" Author - Angella Piercy- Sparrow White Elk Raven Matriarchy rising..

A beautiful chant read by Thich Nhat Hahn and chanted by monk Phap Niem. The Great Bell Chant.

By Gavin Harrison THE GREAT STORY Embedded deep within you, ... from the very beginning, is the Great Story of your life. Fall to your knees. Lay your ear to the ground. Listen for the melody of that Story. Do you hear your Song? It’s there. Rooted within you. Always playing. Beautiful beyond describing. Awaiting your dancing. Are you setting for anything less than your Story, your Song? Return yourself to yourself. Discover the Meaning already seeded within you. Embrace the Great Story you have longed for, for so long. And as you die to all the small stories and little songs, may the requiem of their passing herald the glory of your Homecoming. Give way into the sacred arc of your life. Your Story. Your Song. Home. Gavin Harrison 1950=2018

Beautiful words by the late, great John O’Donohue

By Mary Oliver I know, you never intended to be in this world. But you’re in it all the same.... so why not get started immediately. I mean, belonging to it. There is so much to admire, to weep over. And to write music or poems about. Bless the feet that take you to and fro. Bless the eyes and the listening ears. Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste. Bless touching. You could live a hundred years, it’s happened. Or not. I am speaking from the fortunate platform of many years, none of which, I think, I ever wasted. Do you need a prod? Do you need a little darkness to get you going? Let me be urgent as a knife, then, and remind you of Keats, so single of purpose and thinking, for a while, he had a lifetime. - This the third section of her poem The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac.

One day an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the earth." ~ Gloria Steinem Art by: Claudia Tremblay