Zen. Don't Even Think About It.

I saw this on a bumper sticker today.

My friend Ken used to have this on his fridge:

your karma ran over my dogma...

Just love her...

There is a chapter early on the The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck where Peck is counseling a friend who says that he has fallen out of love with his wife... they've been married a long time and the friend just doesn't feel that feeling anymore. Peck advises him that love is action and also feels that the friend is letting himself off too easy. Peck says, "Don't feel it, do it. Just love her. Just do it." Peck says that doing is what produces the feeling - love the one you're with. Love him.

That opened up a lot of doors to me when I read it 20 years ago. The idea that I could act instead of feel or do instead of react -- it was empowering.

I was on my walk the other day and I thought that same thought about myself. What if I didn't wait to outgrow the things I dislike about my appearance, or about aging. What if I didn't hope that they'd go away but instead just loved her - all of her. It felt so silly to delve into new age affirmations while walking about, but I thought the same passage in that book could apply to my relationship with myself, my love for me and my acceptance of myself. Instead of bemoaning that I used to be cuter or younger or thinner, what if I just loved myself?

Halloween Poem by Emery

Emery wrote this for the newsletter at school:

I come back home
When the darkness
Is churning
I think I see
The doorknob
turning.
Out comes a
Nocturne,
Whose face
Unknown.
All that
Is left
Of me,
Is a pile
Of bone.
By Emery Arementrout