Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness

A new branch of psychology, Positivity, is part of the latest search for happiness. I have encountered a few people who feel being told they must be positive all the time adds to their stress and therefore they feel less happiness. The percent of Americans who say they are happy is below 35%. And it doesn’t go up with income or living conditions. Most who say they’re happy mention the quality of gratitude being present in their lives and also being involved in helping others. For this reason, more women are happy then men. Women seem to be more interested in the subject of gratitude, and make up a huge proportion of those who volunteer, help in community projects and take an active role with children. This doesn’t mean men don’t, but when they do, they are honored greatly because they are such a minority. Most men volunteer in their business or fraternal organizations where networking has a concrete result. Happiness has NO relationship to seeking or achieving prosperity. Doing one’s work with gratitude, appreciating the relationships in your life, actually doing work you love are all meaningful in happiness. And it doesn’t cost any money! Reaching a place of stability in your income will help you be more content, and that is a part of happiness. But most research says the more “stuff” we have has no relationship to happiness. Looks like some good advice would be to go with the flow and not “pursue” happiness, but let it flow through relationships and work. So, don’t worry—be happy. I’ve heard that somewhere before, haven’t you?

The Emotions of Divorce/Poetry

Photo by Catherine Tappouni Burkee

When two become one, moods go from stunned to sad to angry and then to the choice of moving on healthy or moving on damaged. This poem was written when I was looking at my moods and set them in poetic form. It seemed to be written to my mate, but was more self-talk then anything. If you are experiencing separation or divorce or betrayal of some kind, try writing. I guarantee you, it will help reveal your true feelings and being the healing. I'd love to hear back from you.

Strange Music

I can’t listen to Carly, Emmylou, Bruce,
or even
Elvis—his spirituals would make me cry, or worse, cast stones at God.
I am awash
in Pavarotti and Callas,
Butterfly
in her death scene.

My car ascends
the bridge,
open windows casting Verdi across the water like black pearls.

Ahead, lawyers are
waiting on the top floor of their pyramid,
permanent ink at the ready.
They are too clean, too crisply arrayed
for this tragedia.

Give me grand gestures,
spectacle worthy of thirty-eight years story and music

complete with a cast of thousands weddings, baptisms, funerals—breakfasts, lunches, dinners, banquets, PTA spaghetti suppers kisses—lovemaking in beds in winter on the floor in front of the fireplace in spring, on a blanket in the back yard, once accompanied by a howling cat on the wall once in a foreign country in a bathtub at 3 a.m. once, after a long drought at your sister’s, in a rest-stop with the baby asleep on the back seat, and once, in our 40s, at the beach where a cop shined his light on us, smiled and walked away—at least 20 photo albums worth of life—together—why do I think of this now when anger is a much more companionable emotion? Now you sleep with her, wherever—


It’s the same with my garden, you know.
Only orchids, bromeliads, vines lush with fushcia
petals feel at home.
Homely violets, daisies, even mums
part company with me in these days
of exotic drinks
laced with baritones hinting at homicide.

In place of doves, crows
haunt my porch, and so they should.
One taste of Wagner and they’ll feel right at home.

Believing in a Better World

Musing, October 2010

Believing In a Better World

As we enter a new season, my happiness is overlaid with a melancholy brought on by so many problems in the human family. Young men committing suicide after being bullied; politicians throwing mud on each other until we can’t see who they are; people suffering from jobs lost, homes foreclosed; and, of course, the usual judgments about religion, sexual orientation and choice. How, in the midst of all of this, do we keep our focus on the positive? Also in my personal family, there have been deaths, illness, and challenges.
As I accepted these feelings of sadness being inevitable and also meaningful, I had the opportunity to study with some amazing women, bringing the sense of the feminine—the wholeness of all experience—into my days. This was followed by a weekend with my daughter in Charleston, where we were privileged to work with the incredible ageless Jean Houston (who is in her mid-seventies) and the energetic prescient ageless Barbara Marx Hubbard, who is now eighty. Being in their presence as they talked about the next evolution of our planet and our place in it was a gift beyond price. The wisdom and generosity of both women and the other presenters, and the group of women attending, put me back in my right place—my heart.
We are created in the image of the Divine, and as Jean says, “God is creating co-creators.” We are given the opportunity to co-create, with our creator, the way we want the world to be. Rather than finding the differences, we set an intention to find our similarities. They talked about Maslow’s belief that your vocation is self-actualizing, as in “your vocation is what wants to grow in you, not what’s wrong with you.” Depression—or sadness—is something revealing itself that wants to be expressed. What wants to be expressed in me is my belief that we must step back from accusing, bullying, ridiculing, attacking and believing we are better than others to the place of the heart, which is love. Seeing others as an opponent or less-then ourselves is outside of love. Only inclusion and empathy brings us inside love. As we approach the seasons of Thanksgiving and family, may we be aware of those who are outside of the circle of blessing and draw them in—with love.