The Power of Words

As those who read my blog will notice I haven’t posted much of anything new this month, after my initial entries. My apologies.

The problem I have with just putting stuff in there to fill up the space is that I would rather not do it if it is not both creative and positive.

For example, I don’t want to talk about my feelings for a few people in my life that have come to mean a lot to me. These are personal, and I am not in the mood to share them publically. Nor do I wish to vent using my blog. I would rather issue feelings and sentiments of love and strength.

There is plenty of negativity circulating out there in cyberspace anyway, as in the world at large and why not offset it with a shot of love?

The fact that I write for myself every day keeping my journal is the main grist for my mill, and it satisfies the urge to write for the sake of writing.

There is something about the discipline of putting words to page that gives me a feeling of utter satisfaction, and who is to say where this comes from but it has become an integral part of my life over the past 40 or so years.

When I have entered my journal at the beginning of each day, I feel my day has properly begun. It is as integral a discipline as washing my face and saying my morning prayers.

The Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan not only displayed but wrote about the power of words in his books. He wrote:

Among all the things in this world that are valuable, the word is the most precious for in the word you can find the light that gems and jewels do not possess. In the word you can find an intoxication which no wine can give; in a word you can find a life that could heal the wounds of the heart. - From "The Smiling Forehead" published in 1973 by the Rainbow Bridge Press.

Early on in my life I became aware of the power of words to heal or hurt and I promised myself that I would teach myself to use them wisely. This power is as active in what you say to yourself as in what you express to others.

It is a lesson I am still learning.

Here is a link to some of the writings of Inayat posted on line (thank you brother Wahiduddin):

The Smiling Forehead

The Lion in Winter

I guess after all the groundhog was right and now March has come in like a lion with high winds, freezing rain and today a new blanket of thick snow that continues to fall at 9:34 a.m.

The early evening sleet storm had stopped by the time I left the office last night and so snow this morning was the last thing I expected. I have a feeling that many morning commuters will have the same thought.

I am still feeling the effects of the hour lost sleep as daylight savings time kicked in yesterday and this morning I woke at a couple of minutes to 9 out of a deep dream in which a robotic animal with sharp teeth was biting it’s way through a barrier or chain by way of providing more fun for my infant son.

That image is echoing the meaning of snow to an adult who has to trudge through it to work while the child revels in building a snowman.

It was not so very long that I would wake in weather like this to the plaintive cries of my young children. "Come outside dad and help me build a snowman!" And me of course with a cup of hot coffee in hand, stubbornly dragging my heels all the way to the front yard. Such precious memories and so very fleeting.

The one bright spot about trudging through the snow to work is the bright and smiling faces of my friends and co-workers once I arrive. And I doubt very much that this light blast of snow will compare to the blast earlier this year that turned my neighborhood into a prairie winter suburb.

Then of course there is the laughable comparison of our wet coast climate to anything east of Hope, B.C.

Here in the Hawaii of Canada we can afford to play with the lion in winter. Elsewhere we might be devoured by it!

This old boy might be anyway!