“Your dark night teaches you the truth of the moon. Life is not intended to be only solar, and indeed the cool, blue shadows of the moon have a special beauty. You can live in that beautiful glow, that light shaded by painful experiences and doubts and lack of understanding. Life is often more buoyant there than it is in solar brilliance.”
– from Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore

It is in the dark, on those moments when nothing seems to make sense or that numb our senses, where we finally dig deep in order to bring forth our essence. Everything that lives deep beneath our mind, beneath the walls we plaster over our soul in order to protect the tender areas of our being. We are never safe from the perils life send our way all we can do is face them, if we shy away from them we end up living a meaningless existence. It is in trials and challenges that we begin to live in the manner we are called to live and to stand for our dreams and values. It is the moment when our true colors shine through.

We stand before the mirror and many times don’t recognize the face we see, it is the reality that time and circumstances have changed us not only inside but outside as well. Perhaps we have lost that optimism and good sense of humor in the day to day dealing with circumstances we have been forced to live. Resistance can make up a lot of intolerable moments in our life that we prefer not to live but there is only one way to handle that situation; facing it. It makes take us days, weeks or years but it is ultimately the only way to cross to the other side.

Tell me about your Dark Night experience.

Clary Lopez, author of Simplicity, Richness of Life

Contemplo el mar y lo envidio. Quisiera ser como el, reflejando el cielo azul que lo techa, ser movida por el viento y acariciar la tibia arena cual dulce beso en la mejilla. Ser banada por los rayos del sol y los destellos de la luna, sumergida en el gran misterio de su profundidad.

El mar, lugar donde todo lo que fluye corre hacia el para asi alimentarlo y bendicir a todo aquel, que como yo, lo contempla. Tener la fuerza y la constancia que no disminuye con el tiempo y sirve para que otros naveguen a lugares distantes nunca antes vistos. Lleno de sabor, mezcla de todo aquello que a el se unio. Suficientemente fuerte para golpe a golpe transformar todo aquello que se resiste a el, como las rocas que segundo a segundo toca; sin excusas, sin razones o explicaciones. El baila libremente con el viento, levantadose tiernamente en su vestido blanco entre sus olas, creando su propia melodia, despertando asi todos los sentidos. Logra complacer y llenar de alegria a todo aquel que lo conoce y lo sabe respetar tomando solo lo que el le quiere dar y nada mas.

Mar llevate mi tristeza y traeme mi alegria, dejala sobre la orilla a la vez que mis pies pisan la arena que vienes a besar. Llevate las lagrimas y sana mis heridas a la vez que me sumerjo en ti. Ensename que como tu, todo tiene un tiempo, un ritmo, un estimulo unico. Que cobras vida en varias formas y que son muchas las influencias que te hacen especial. Que todo cambia y se transforma con el tiempo pero siempre ocupas el mismo espacio y lugar. Y que antes de disminuir mas bien continuas creciendo y siendo aun mucho, mucho mas.

Clary Lopez
11 de julio, 2008

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
Albert Camus

We can easily get lost in the analysis of life and happiness, it’s natural for us to wonder and want to understand and control every circumstance in our life. It is good to reflect but we also need to act upon some of our yearning dreams, it is only then when they will materialize before us.

Refusing that our physical existence is finite help us waste a lot of time, accept that it is, and most of all that the moment to part can come at any given moment. If you do you will begin to look at your life in a different manner and try to reach for goals you had on your to do list long time ago.

I loved the movie Bucket List, it reminded me that life is too short and that dreams can come true but only if we take action. Who knows when our time will be, the main thing is that we live true to ourselves and that we love one another.

If we live this way and learn to take action along our earthly life, we will live a live a life that will touch others in a very special way.

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Clary Lopez, author of Simplicity, Richness of Life

It’s not easy to take time to reflect upon those things that are changing our life, the incertitude that lies beyond the ideas we had about our life. The people we love and that no longer are or no longer love us and the pain it causes. It is hard to come face to face to what lies within our heart to embrace what we can’t change and the feelings we must put aside for a while when we want to deal with the situation at hand. It is a matter of moving on the deep waters of our despair in order not to sink in sorrow. Emotions run through our mind and body affecting everything we do and what we will become. Seeing how our hopes and dreams quickly drown deep below the surface, buried under our survival’s pressure. It goes beyond our strength many times but a much needed exercise in patience and humility.

I move around the house, I read a book, I pray, I meditate and nothing helps me. I walk out to the beach and once on the shore I take off my sandals, sink my feet in the sand and sit right under a palm tree. The waves crash against the shore, the rocks are bathed with each one of them, sometimes barely making it over the top and others overflowing all the way to the other side. Just like my emotions at this moment, they come in waves at unpredictable times and speed and sometimes I feel they are too much for me to handle, overflowing out of my heart and erupting through my eyes, releasing some of the pain lodged deep inside.

Many words come to mind, words I wish I could speak to claim some dignity out of the situation but when the moment comes I remain silent. I don’t want to lose, I don’t want to hurt, I don’t want to cry and yet, I experience it all.

Is it possible to not be completely destroyed by emotion? Could we put aside the wounds and forget about the pain? Can we truly try one more time after being disappointed so many times? It takes courage, courage to be open to worthwhile feelings and experiences in life in order not to die inside. To die while being alive is one of the worst punishments we can choose for ourselves. Buried deep beneath the surface of our soul, crushed and silenced prisoner of sorrow. Is it a life sentence, reigning in the land of perpetual sadness? It is a quenching of all heart’s hope, the one who once was full of love, and that now has been forgotten. I speak about what human nature many times experience throughout life, changing and transforming the pure and sublime creature who believed that anything was possible when in reality few things are. I guess the key is not to look so much at what isn’t possible but to look at what is possible instead, and to fight for it to the end.

Body and soul, two very important components of human nature but totally ignored by many of us along our life. It is so much easier to attend to what we see than to what we don’t see and yet, neglecting the body of our soul soon reflects upon our physical body. No wonder many medical doctors are beginning to realize the body-soul connection to illness and recovery of their patients. Our body is the reflection of our soul. That’s why dead people don’t look the same way when they were alive, because the soul is no longer part of their physical body.

Our physical body is a mere instrument to do and move about our human existence. It should also be at the service of our soul and the divine promptings which it receives. It is through the senses that our physical world nurtures the soul and somehow transforms the simple into the sublime. It is important to notice that all of our senses must have room in our daily life. A beautiful place close to nature can be both a place of torment and a place of rest. I’m not sure if our personality has anything to do with the way we react to our surroundings and what satisfy our soul but to me personally time to enjoy not only the color, sounds and textures of what surrounds me helps me connect my body to my soul.

I’ve spent three days in my parent’s country home, a beautiful place full of the sounds of nature; birds, horses, chickens and more. Somehow all of that was overshadowed by the busyness and the noise of a radio and TV from sunrise to sundown, I was growing weary. The lack of time to be able to go within, to listen to my thoughts and reflect on my reading was slowly sipping the enthusiasm out of me. Today my mom didn’t turn on the TV and decided to sit outside to read. Perhaps she listened to me saying that I couldn’t have noise all day long so she is sacrificing herself giving me the chance to really enjoy my time here. What a difference silence makes in my daily living. I hear the birds singing, the lawnmower while my dad works and I smell the fresh cut grass. At one point I take my camera a go around taking pictures of the fruit trees on the property. Sight, sound and smell, all let’s me know that I’m alive, that there is life around me providing me with the necessary stimulation to feel human and creative. It is impossible to live in total silence but fragments of silence throughout the day can make wonders on the way I feel.

When we don’t attend to the body of our soul our life continues but not to the fullness of its potential. There is always a nagging feeling that something is missing. The soul, that part of our nature that has the capability to communicate to its creator, begins to slowly become weaker and at the same time begins to demand our attention. We realize our full potential when we finally begin to care and nurture the body of our soul and when we align the physical with the spiritual.

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Clary Lopez, author of Simplicity, Richness of Life

Our life is shaped by the experiences we live and how we deal with our emotions and circumstances. Two people could have the same thing happen to them and have a different outcome according to their reaction to it. One could be crushed while the other is propelled to look for new ways to overcome their situation and create something positive.

Emotions are powerful and they are meant to stir in us a sense of being alive, they move us to act. They can make us feel happy, sad, compassionate, and enthusiastic. The person who is unable to let their emotions flow is usually an unhappy individual, their emotions build up to the bursting point unto the surface of their daily life like an exploding volcano.

The way we approach challenges and changing circumstances shape the magnitude of the impact it will have on our emotions. The mind is the one that begins to form the ideas that will help us act later on to make it a reality.

In dealing with emotions and circumstances it is important to know that many times we have no control over circumstances but we can control our emotions if necessary. Because our emotions are so volatile we must know to distinguish when going with our emotions is the right thing to do. It won’t be easy at times to go against our emotions but at the end it will be the best decision we ever make in our life. To be at the mercy of our emotions is to forever be on a roll-a-coaster ride unable to get off. Getting off the ride every once in a while will give us the chance to experience a certain level of stability and them a thrill when we decide to go back on.

How do you deal with your emotions and circumstances?

Last night I thought of how many people feel responsible for someone else’s happiness or sadness to the point of thinking bad about themselves if they fail. True, but I would say that many times we are not responsible but we are the catalyst by what the circumstances develop in someone’s life affecting their current existence and provoking them to be happy or sad as a result. But situations of this magnitude don’t develop as a result of just one individual, but two or more and sometimes even other aspects of life take a toll on the dynamic of the situation as well; health, financial pressures and what’s happening in the world.

Looking at it from that point of view, it is unjust to believe we are the solely responsible for someone else’s happiness or sadness. Each person is in charge of themselves and it is their duty to know how to obtain and maintain their own emotional state independently from other individuals. When we are content within we attract more positive emotions in our reality.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to make someone else happy as long as we realize that it is ultimately their decision to be receptive to our efforts and their voluntary opening of their hearts to welcome the possibility to feel it. Two people can create a beautiful dynamic relationship opened to experience the many rewards it can develop, but no one person is responsible for the outcome of what it may become.

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Clary Lopez, author of Simplicity, Richness of Life

Traveling can get you completely out of sink with writing. I landed on Puerto Rico on Thursday and in matter of minutes my mind went into the things I would encounter; my mom back home from the hospital after surgery last week and my responsabilities as a caretaker for the next few weeks. I wish I could be here with her all the time.

It is hard to think of what to write, to think what you would need to hear today so I will let my intuition do it for me.

Getting the focus out of what our immediate needs might be to attent to others is so helpful in so many ways. You are completely guided by the love you feel for one another and when you do so your worries and tensions disappear. I needed that. Now I understand why so many people began to dedicate their life to helping others. I try to be attentive and to anticipate what is needed of me and get so tired sometimes that I just crash on my bed at night.

Another positive thing about this whole experience is that when you begin to live this kind of service to others there is only one person you can rely on and that is God.

Hopefully this theme would be of interest to you and when you feel tired, worried or just consumed with your daily struggles you begin to look outside of yourself and see who needs you. If you have experienced something like this before I would love to know.

This is soon becoming a traveling tradition for me; I pick a new book either before I leave or when I get to my destination by Paulo Coelho. My selection for my next trip is The Valkyries, let me tell you that it wasn’t easy to select just one book because I also wanted to read The Witch of Portobello. But I guess the theme of this one is what I’m looking for right now. Here is the review from Amazon.com:

From Booklist
There is enough interest in angels to ensure this peculiar little book a significant audience. It traces a spiritual journey of sorts, stereotypically cast as a journey into the desert, that embodies a New Age conception of liberation as liberation from the past in confrontation with oneself. The “ritual that demolishes rituals,” which is the climax of the book, is all done with mirrors. As Simone de Beauvoir would note, the “mirrors” are women–and that calls into question both the “newness” of the story and the “age” it heralds. But it is a strange tale many will find compelling. Steve Schroeder –

Excerpt from the backcover:
A powerful exploration of one man’s battle with self-doubt and fear.
“this true-life odyssey is at once a modern-day adventure story and a poignant message about letting go of the past and believing in the future.”

If you have read this book please share with me your thoughts on it, but don’t tell me the ending though.

Paulo, you are traveling with me one more time. I hope you don’t mind.

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Clary Lopez, author of Simplicity, Richness of Life

One of the things I dislike the most from traveling is the task to choose the books I’m taking with me. I have a huge collection of permanent books in my library and a selection of books I want to read. It’s too hard to part from them.

When I travel I take in consideration the time and place I’m going and how much time I think I’ll have to read. Of course I can’t forget that I have also need to be writing this blog, an e-zine and my next book. Unlike my last trip when I took a bunch of books with me,this time I will choose only 4-5 books. I will try to keep the size compact and the themes varied; non-fiction, fiction and mystery. I’m also bringing the latest magazines I received. I guess you can call me a read-a-holic.

If you travel with books I want to know about it.

What are you taking with you and how do you select your books?

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Clary Lopez, author of Simplicity, Richness of Life