MEMORY AND INTUITION

Memory and Intuition

 This is how memory works.  

If you want to forget you remember. 

If you want to remember you forget.  

One day your memory comforts. 

The next day it torments. 

A memory never finishes.   

 A picture incomplete, an angle out of view,

It travels side-to-side.  

We can or can't recall and that's its way. 

A broken mind with broken thoughts does not a memory find.  

Where there's a memory shadowless its shelter fills our heart,

My childhood home, my children young, so much that's kind and true. 

Or memory takes a hurt and rags it like a bone.

"Leave me alone," we say, yet it does not. 

What's over not our choice. 

But intuition quite apart,  

Itself a memory shadowless, on it we can depend. 

Our intuition holds our hand as we approach the wall. 

   Unready for the news we fear forever heart on hold.

It doesn't let us fail. 

With intuition there's no doubt, it's always on our side.  

With memory we can fall right through and land upright or not. 

But intuition could be God, His saving grace a balm. 

His wisdom greater than our own,

His insight only bliss.   

  

 

JULY IS SUCH A LOVELY MONTH

Rose o' Sharon blooms in July

July is such a lovely month.  Plenty of summer left.  Quite hot where we live and dry, but good for swimming and grilling and eating al fresco,  especially this holiday weekend.  Mornings are cool enough to walk and there are evening breezes.  We've been giving the birds lots of water and irrigating the plants from our well.  

Lots of our friends have Covid but none, thankfully, is hospitalized.  Our Durham family spent the last week rafting in the Grand Canyon and comes back tomorrow.  And I've been feeling better about the world-at-large now that New York has outsmarted the Supreme Court by banning concealed weapons from parks and playgrounds, hospitals, schools and churches, subways and Times Square.  New Jersey is set to do the same and we have family there; six are children.  Other states will follow.  Things are looking a little less dire.  I hope you are feeling the same.  There's too much good in the world to allow our negativity bias free reign.  

I've been learning a lot lately and perhaps some of it you might like a reminder of.  

• One thing we're told focus on is listening to our bodies.  My mind can stray to unhelpful thoughts, but my body strains toward what I need.  It is our bodies that recognize when someone loves us and we them, more than our minds.  We love with our bodies.  Our bodies tell us to stretch, or go outdoors, or jump in the water, or give a big hug.  They are pretty much infallible.  

•  Our intuition is the same.  It is always on our side.  It's different for everyone, but I equate my intuition with my mother.  It tells me what she would.  When I have silenced my intuition things have gotten worse; when I sensed a wrong and looked the other way, the wrong grew and became impossible to ignore.  

• Being in flow is a respite we need.  Flow is when space and time are lost.  One place I find it is swimming.  There skills and challenges match and motivation comes from the inside; it is thought-less, meaning without thought.  I count the laps.  There is no extrinsic reward.  I bet something gives a flow state to each of us, more than one thing in fact.  Running is a common one.  Whenever we love what we're doing and it absorbs us.  It used to happen to me on late nights at work, immersed in a legal case.  If you're in a stage of life where personal growth is on your horizon, this may be the time for flow. 

• Any life-goal can be revised and maybe should be.  Example:  If you always wanted to be married (or fill-in-the-blank)  and it isn't working, change the goal to "I always wanted to be content."  Then work on that.  Remember that childhood goals rarely keep up with our grownup selves.  Dreams change.  There's never just one right decision. 
  

• This one is really simple:  add house plants.  They need care, they reward care, they brighten any space, they help the environment, they absorb household toxins, they encourage sleep.  There is not a single negative to adding plants to your space.  What else can we say that about?  They don't even wake us up in the night barking or needing to go out.  They don't claw the furniture. (Even though I love both cats and dogs and have NEVER been without a pet.)

This is enough for today.  As we enjoy July let us support our friends, listen to eachother, love ourselves, live without arrogance or the need for admiration, and let nothing that we cannot change spoil our contentment with the goodness of life.  

                                                              Nina Naomi

"I BELIEVE IN INTUITIONS AND INSPIRATIONS," SAYS ALBERT EINSTEIN

 

Me too.  How about you?  This seems to be a time to listen to our intuition.  I've written about this before ("Doomscrolling.  Let's Not," 7/20/20).  How our intuition is emotionally powered; when our emotions are strong, our intuition kicks in.  It takes what is happening in the moment--good or ill--and integrates it with our experience and memory. I know that when I have needed to be brave, or recognize something that I'd rather weren't true, my intuition has been my guide.  It has taught me to rely upon it.  As you read this, are you remembering a time when that has been true for you as well? When because you followed your intuition, you were emboldened to change something important to you?

One thing about intuition:  it exists only in the present.  "This is wrong."  "I know what has to be done."  Or, "This is right."  "Here is what matters."  They say our intuition responds to signs: a snippet of conversation, an email, some words, even a gesture can become a trigger to awaken our inner guide.  That has been true for me.   People's minds find all sorts of reasons (excuses) for doing the wrong thing. But when our intuition tells us something, we can generally trust it.  When we're chasing our tails, that's usually the mind floundering.  Intuition gives us purpose and direction. When it speaks to us we can act quickly and with confidence.  We can do the hardest things.  

I've been reading and thinking about ways to encourage our intuition.  One way is to make space to hear our intuitive voice, space for it to be clear and true.  Some deep breaths might help.  If our world is crashing, and some of ours have been, a pause might provide space. A break-away of whatever length we can manage.  Space to become attuned to ourselves.  Being honest with ourselves is also important experts say. Admit if something feels wrong; don't try to normalize what isn't right.   We can spend years ignoring our intuition while trying to normalize another's misbehavior.  I've done that.  

Other experts say that being creative allows our intuition to flow naturally.  Another reason to paint, dance, write . . . to move through life believing in ourselves.  

These days it's great to not future-trip about what might happen--we've seen how that doesn't work--or ruminate about the past.  But to try listening to our bodies, where our intuition resides.  And if no less that Albert Einstein recommends it, so much the better.