"Who has peace, asks for nothing else"

It is a still moment. I can see the light of the sun reflected on the trees of the forest next to our home. There is some snow but much has melted away and the light in the trees feels like a promise of summer. My kids are playing upstairs and I'm by myself at the kitchen table. It's been a long and even quite exhausting day but for some reason I don't feel the exhaustion anymore.

I'm glad. Simply glad. But in a very quiet and subtle way.

To be here and to have arrived at this point in my life. I guess it is the peace. Again I remember a quote from someone: The one who has peace, asks for nothing else. To have peace is something wonderful, rest for our souls.

Of course I'm reminded of yesterday - ha! - wasn't that peaceful. Even my son said to me "Mom, you seem to be on a bad temper!" as I was cleaning up the house. I was upset and frustrated then, not at all at peace with myself and well, then again I wrote. But somewhere else in a diary. You see, I hate not to have peace and I can't bare myself very long when I get off my core. I have to force myself to deal with it in order to restore my balance.

I've learned that I have to stop and let it come out what ever is bothering me in order to deal with it. Many times I don't know what's wrong, I just feel it in some way. It's quite simple. Just like if we are feeling sick in our stomach, feeling that maybe we're getting ill, most of us would not go running or doing something to make us feel even more sick., but rather give ourselves a rest. I'm sure all of us want to stay in good health.

When it comes to our minds, it often seems more complicated, doesn't it.  We are not taught to scan our minds or feelings on a regular basis in order to make our own inner weather report. Often we go with the flow and only when we're jammed in our minds like in a traffic jam, only then we start really asking:  how am I doing really? Why am I feeling this way? And slowly we recognize something, perhaps some big guestion of our hearts trying to hide behind the bushes as if we were trying to fool ourselves of something.

I can't fool myself anymore. Believe me, there was a time I tried to fool myself  - for years, with nothing good in view. Bluntly said it's trying to escape from yourself constantly or on a regular basis and acting as if everything was fine - as much as you think you're fine when you are not. And as you lie to yourself, you lie to your surrounding and more and more energy is used to keep up walls that have no ground.

And that is sad. I wonder why as humans we quite easily start doing that? Are we so afraid of shame, is that how this world is now? Is it that people really care to be with us for the parties but not or the days of sorrow and trial.  What is your experience?

To speak the truth means freedom.  Another quote of someone I've learned (one of my favourites):
To tell the truth, you only need to tell it once. To lie, you have to lie many times (in order to keep up the lie). Think about that for a moment...

Peace is the treasure we find when we give ourselves to truth.

It is true yesterday I was off core and restless, but it is also true that I didn't lose myself in it..
Peace ís  the harbor of our souls to which we (can) always come home to. Yesterday I kept writing until I figured out the things that annoyed and puzzled me. As soon as I managed to name them, I had peace - even nothing had changed the matter and it puzzles me as much as yesterday but I'm at peace about it. It is not a matter of figuring out everything but admitting and receiving your real inner state where you find peace - because you are being truthful with yourself. And once some suitcase of inner travels is tagged with a name it's sure much easier to handle it and start "unpacking" it as you've owned it...Let's see, what's really in here! Often we think it's one thing, but in real there's many times also something else underground if we just look.

I know my peace could be larger, but it has also grown over the years and as I have given myself for the truth in me.  In it I can rest and it makes me glad, as seeing the sunlight rest on the skin of the trees. Nothing has changed the trees, they are still the same. Only the light in which they stand makes them different...


...Again, I could continue. But it's really time I go to sleep. Even the sun has gone.  Good night to you all out there. Sleep well and do rest to find and keep peace.

Love from Rina

FAREWELL

(drawings from years back..)

(...but similar feelings in today)

Today I’ve said goodbye to someone.  A person from abroad whom I’ve got to know a little bit in the past two months –   someone whom only since yesterday I  started really seeing and feeling as a new Friend that I’m glad to have met…

I’ve had to say goodbye many times in my life. I have never found it easy. And for that reason I never really say goodbye in my mind to people that have entered my heart.  Even I don’t know how far in geography or time that person will be taken from me, I can’t bare… to say goodbye. In a way they never leave me.

 In the years I lived in France and coming to Finland in between years I always felt departures as a small death and arrivals as a small birth. I was always eager to see people in one country or the other.  But I held sadness in the fact that people in Finland could not really understand or know what my life was about in France and then again the people in France could not relate to my life in Finland. In one country I missed people from the other country even I enjoyed where I was. Now that I’ve been back in Finland for several years, there are people I’ve lost contact with but who are as close to my heart as back then. Some I have met again with the feeling that it was just yesterday we last met --- but many, with a child or two (or three!) alongside them…hmm… I realize – yes -  years have passed and much has happened in between! Many of us have a family of our own and a new kind of unit or chapter in life.

-          Today I’ve said goodbye to someone. I knew my eyes would water after she was gone. As I saw her walking away in the distance, the agony of letting go reminded also of other times I’ve said goodbye to someone. Once again, I saw the pain of letting go. Farewells. Only when we are apart from people do we really see the space they leave empty within us…Today, alongside with the emptiness I felt a fulfillment in the realization that the things that truly connect people will never separate them. And so my melancholy demanded to wear some other clothes but those of sadness.

As humans we need to be connected with others. But I see that our ability to connect with others is often like searching for a radio channel – are we able to fine-tune in with ourselves and through that with others? When do we find ourselves tuned in the same channel with others? I know when we search to be tuned in to our hearts in all honesty, there are more channels opened for real connection. With real connection I point to a honest, constructive attribute in a relationship.

My heart gained this new friend through the experience of sharing the same channel of communication and discovering that life is really an island of experiences we share. This happened over a cup of coffee, some cheesecake and conversation about the roads of our lives…J  As humans we all share the same roots and we are really not so different from others as we so easily tend to think at times …  Some old woman – wish I had met her! – has said that we are all the same age – but at a different time. Be it that you’re from a different cultural background or even a lot younger or older – doesn’t mean you cannot be connected, I would think it gives the opportunity to find even more one can learn from another. All of us are growing older in age, gaining more experience of life in the world we all share. Learning and connecting is really all about how we look at where we are. How can we zoom in closer and also zoom further to see the place where we’re at?

 As there are people who have at the end only taken up a room in the house of my memories,  I have at a time also grown more distant to new connections I guess with the idea that I won’t let other’s get close to me because I’M GOING TO LOSE THEM ANYWAY. What I didn’t know is that in doing so I lost a part of myself as well…. or in all paradoxality of life, maybe instead  I found me? Truly. We are meant to connect and if we don’t something shrinks within us.

 This actually makes me even think of this blog  -  I wanted to speak out to someone but didn’t know to whom anymore… who to write and share… and so through the blog I opened up space in me for myself and to anyone who wants to enter this livingroom of my heart and mind.  Be in or be out, either way, you’re welcome.

 What I’m really trying to get down to in all these thoughts is something that lit up in me during these goodbyes. I said already before that I had a realization that the things that truly connect people will never separate them. The moments with people in which I’ve experienced that we’ve been tuned in with eachother to the same channel despite our differences and connected in understanding of eachother’s lives  - those moments and people have never left me. I can press ‘play’ in my mind and review it over and over again and remember.

 We all need to be seen for who we are and it has nothing to do with some egocentric desire. There are moments we all have in which we wish someone would see us in the truth of ourselves in all simplicity. And love us. In today’s society we have little faith in the hope that someone could look at us that way so we add a whole lot of lines in our speaking and costume to our being as to shield ourselves from what is underneath all of us. So people who could really unite in depth cannot because so much is a play and drama. And many I’m sure are lost from themselves not knowing who they really are because they’re trying to be something they imagine they should be.

So actually as I look at my life and all the “visitors” that have come along during that journey so far, I notice I see people also in context of some dialog I’ve been having with myself and they’ve added perspective or brought me in new direction in my lifestory. It’s like we can all fill out this sentence in some way: I’ll always remember how _________ taught me ______________________________________________________.

I remember and treasure people who have taught me something real about life. People, who have been themselves, open and real about the trials of their lives and noble in the arms of life. People who have stood by me at distant shores. I remember also people who have mirrored me  - me. In who’s company I’ve dared to look and see the things that I tried to hide from. MUCH in important connections seem to be those that bring us closer to ourselves… even we don’t see it when we are looking at the other. It just happens. Just like the old lady said we are all the same age – but at a different time….as in we all have many similar kind of experiences but at a different time – and meeting at the table of those experiences we are not only connected with another, but ourselves and the world we’re in.

 I look outside the window and down the road. I see people I don’t see. They are somewhere to be found but I don’t know where. Sometimes I remember and think, wish I could have had at least one more day. One more time to meet. To speak. To make some gesture. To stamp them with a V.I.P. sign… (In thinking this way I also realize how many occasions I miss with the ones who are now close by. )

Sometimes, do we lose people because we think to have not expressed our care well enough and so we let go of them, ourselves, thinking that since the other is not remembering ‘either’ I must not mean much to him/her either. And so days, weeks, months, even years pass with the absence of communication. The place of meeting happens only in people’s memories until you find yourself asking again: I wonder how she/he is doing… I wonder where she/he is….

Reconnections are beautiful and that is one reason I’m grateful of Facebook (I won’t get to other thoughts now ;-)  The feeling of finding someone from years ago or being found by someone – feels amazing. A bridge is built over the distance of time and geography.  You remember what you’ve shared in the past and slowly discover you’ve both changed or “stayed the same” and something comes back to life (or then doesn’t).  I myself don’t find Facebook good in tuning in deeper with people, but almost like a huge livingroom with tabloids on the walls telling what people are up to but  with whom you rarely really (can) connect there. It makes me sad of something I can’t yet fully define.

The train of my thoughts has now worn me out ;-D, I’ve been waiting for ”an end” but it hasn’t come but I’ve got to stop now. For all friends and strangers (?) who have read this far, wow, thank you for coming along. Now let’s go and have a cup of something… 

 No goodbyes -

in the arms of life,

Rina   

METSÄSSÄ

Viikonloppuna menin metsään pikkupolulle. Tämmöiselle ihanalle:

Kuljin eikä kukaan tullut vastaan. Hyvin aurautunut polku kuitenkin kertoi kulkijoista, ja monelle tutusta reitistä joka lumisateista huolimatta on pysynyt avoimena. Mielessäni olin kiitollinen jalankulkijoille jotka polkua olivat ylläpitäneet... sinne oli nyt niin hyvä mennä. Yksin.

- Mähän olin kiukkuinen. Vihainenkin! Ei sitä kieltäminen auta. Vapaapäiviensä ratoksi kun sitä piti saada vielä riitaa aikaiseksi rakkaimpansa kanssa ja itseni solmuun. Olin väsynyt, miksi me ei ymmärretä toisiamme?!!!!! 

Metsässä kuljin ja ajattelin että ei tämä tästä miksikään muutu. Itketti. Samalla luonto oli niin kaunis ja kotoisa, silti vieras asialleni. Kenties. Mitä minä täällä. Jatkoin tallustamista uutta, tuntematonta polkua. Teki hyvää mennä jonnekin mistä ei oikein tiennyt mihin se vie. Karata, vaikka kaikki tunteet kyllä pysyi mukana aivan kuin jossain talutushihnassa. Vuh vuh. Vihainen koira.

Tunteet ne sitten onkin mielenkiintoisia. Helpottaisi kun tuntisi ne! Kyllähän me tunnemme paljon kaikenlaista ja ollaan heti karvat pystyssä ja sit ei kuitenkaan tunneta sitä maastoa mistä se tunne on lähtenyt lenkille. Kumpi siinä nyt sitten onkaan talutushihnassa, minä vai se tunne...

Jostakin kuitenkin pikku hiljaa.... lieneekö se tunteiden ulkoiluttaminen, että en tuntenut enää kiukkua tai mielipahaa. Miten se tapahtui, eihän mitään ollut muuttunut? Metsäkö se minua kesytti vai näinkö kauempaa asiat toisin?

Oliko se itku, se, että pitkästä aikaa vähän itkin ja tuntui itkulitkutuksen jälkeen kuin olisi saanut jostakin luopua ja helpottua... Nestemäistä murhetta metsän kasvillisuuden ravinnoksi! Vai oliko se laulu. Lauloin lauluja joiden sisältöä olisin halunnut jonkun toisen minulle sanovan. Miksi voima pitää löytyä aina itsestä? Mutta laulaminen, se teki silti hyvää - laulaa puille, ystäviähän ne ovat. Vai oliko se lumeen piirtäminen ja se pieni kutkutus, että se voi myös yllättää jonkun toisen kulkijan. Oliko se hiljaisuus, luonnon tyyneys ja metsän rauha. Vai se kaikki yhdessä.

 Aikani kuljettua kaipasin kuitenkin tuttua kotia johon mennä, palata. 

Voisinhan olla jälleen kärsivällinen sen löytämisessä joka on nähty jo monta kertaa: oikeasti puhumme rakkaani kanssa niin usein samaa asiaa mutta eri tavalla ja siksi äkkiä oletamme toisen olevan jotakin muuta kuin mitä onkaan. Näin kävi tälläkin kertaa. Mutta osaamme me ihmiset olla toisillemme aikamoisia ristisanatehtäviä kun on kyseessä tunteet. Mene ja tiedä. ¨Jonkinlaisesta labyrintista löydämme toisemme kuitenkin jossa eteenpäin pääsee vain rakkaudella.

Tästä metsäpolusta tuli minulle tuttu polku, jonne tiedän palaavani ja etsiväni myös uusia polkuja. Ihastuin myös lumitaiteen tekemisestä (lumeen piirtämisestä) vaikka muuten odotankin kovin tämän valkoisen massan maahan virtaamista ja maan heräämistä kevään ja kesän väreihin ja tuoksuihin. Uuteen kasvuun.

Muutamasta piirroksesta otin kuvan...

Oho. Kellohan on jo vaikka mitä. Lähden unille...tarvitsen riittävän pitkän polun tälle yölle...

 Bonne nuit! <3 Rina

Music and dreams

Yesterday I found a list that I've made approximately fifteen years ago. A list with a big title: DREAMS OF MY LIFE.

I made that list as a young adult putting down all the things I wished to learn and do during my life as I looked at it then... and funny thing was that as years later I found it again, I could mark off several dreams as "done it!"

As reading the list yesterday I could mark off another: piano lessons. Those I started last fall and that is an ongoing dream to become a fluent player. It's interesting that for years I have wanted to take pianolessons but for some reason I have not got myself to that place. I know I had excuses but at the same even this sounds a bit silly, I think I wasn't ready.

When I finally made that step and got me a piano-teacher and took the book of Aaron for piano I found marks in it that the last time I've had lessons was at age 10. I had always thought it was something like age 6 or 7. I don't remember my piano teacher, I only hold the memory of having learned something wrong... And  I suppose I let that thought be so large in my head even I haven't thought of it so much that I never got started...as thinking well, maybe I can't learn... For years I've been a good listener of other players, secretly hoping one day I could enjoy the art of playing myself.

Now that I'm learning with the help of an awesome teacher, an old man who has played for over 50 years and continues to play every single day apart from times when he's travelling, I've discovered something else: I CAN learn and do learn, even so far I'm in the level of children's songs. :-) I'm progressing, defenitely.

Before getting started with the piano lessons, I also started singing-lessons in pop-jazz style last fall. Quite spontanously! I have always loved singing and been in music class for six years but I've always been rather reserved to sing to others. Insecure. I took voice-lessons years ago when I lived in France and have sung in the choir quite a few years too. Slowly, during last year, something grew more eager within me to sing more... One time I found myself at a birthday party and felt an inner push to sing a song and at the very end I had the courage to do it (I felt I could not go home if I didn't) and I guess that was a big step for me, for the next day I found myself looking for occasion to sing more. To just let myself enjoy with others what I enjoy to do: to sing.  So I have, once a week had this class with two other women, teacher accompanying us with the piano we sing together and on our own. And again I've found: I CAN learn. I'm progressing, defenitely.And most of all, I can let myself enjoy what I enjoy. I'm not expecting to be a great pianist or singer but to fulfill myself in the art that's in my heart.

These are dreams coming true for me. And as dreams are, they are also a gift: to be able to do what we yearn to do because in doing so we discover something new of ourselves, completing us. We can find ourselves like a growing flower making its way from the frozen earth towards the light and warmth of spring and summer. When we plant a seed in the ground and water it, we tend to believe something is gonna grow out from there, right?! A sunflower or a strawberry for example! :-)
- Why don't we see the seeds that are as gifts inside us and believe in the growth that can take place in us? Learning a language or to play an instrument? To garden? To learn new recipes and enjoy cooking? What is it in you? Through learning to love ourselves we water those seeds and grow to new inner lengths.

I believe all of us have gifts to be discovered. Gifts that make us who we really are. Often these gifts are hidden in our dreams and that is yet a greater gift when we realise it. What do you dream of ? How could you make the path there? I suggest: start by making a list of those dreams and slowly an inner path leads you towards those dreams; in seeing and finding ways of making it real.

Something happened recently that I want to write down, because it feels much like a dream.

A couple weeks ago I was out with some friends.  Around two in the morning I was on the street calling the taxi to take me home. The street where I was had a building with - I assumed offices and a restaurant downstairs that was closed. It was all quiet, with only some cars passing and I felt like singing...and I sang as I thought it would not disturb anyone... After a while a door opened and a man came out asking me "Is it you singing here so beautifully? I came out just for that... would you sing for me?"

You can imagine I was taken by surprise.... But I discovered I had only little hesitation in me with such an invitation but did tell him I'm waiting for the taxi however... and so I started and sang again the song Bridge over troubled water by Simon & Garfunkel.  He sat down with his shoelaces untied and listened. In the last verse he sang along a couple lines. From the first look I saw he was a rather sad man. All I did was to sing, because when the last verse came to its end the taxi arrived and I stopped singing. Before getting in the taxi I went to shake hands with the man and wished him all the best in life. And that moment disappeared only to remain in the book of my memories as long as I hold memory.

Unkowingly, he gave me a gift that I probably haven't still been able to completely unravel.... I hope to believe he also received something. It made me realise again that we don't always have to know people in order to connect with them in some way. As humans we are more alike than we realise.



BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER by Simon And Garfunkel

When you're weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all

I'm on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

When you're down and out
When you're on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you

I'll take your part
When darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

Sail on Silver Girl,
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way

See how they shine
If you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind



********************************


It is now Easter friday, actually, as I've been completing this text I started already a few days ago.

The scene from the window is not the kind I would like: it's snowing AGAIN. I'm so much looking forward to spring. But I know it's coming just as I know YOU and I hold dreams to come true for us, in us. Dreams that are gifts for ourselves and others. Dreams that create us to be more of who we really are.

Happy Easter!

With nothing less than my heart,
Rina