#7 Joyful Remembrance 2022
The Month of Remembering Joy
August 29 to October 7, 2022
A Tale of Two Rivers
All I feel is rivers
and the current is
my life force.
–Robert Vivian
Embracing the rivers of joyful memory this month can provide such playfulness, such courage, and such resilience that we find ourselves willing to acknowledge, and even engage that other river, the river of sorrow, grief, and pain.
This month’s activity brings focus to the true work of the Rivers of Joy. That work is:
• to bathe the past in sweetness,
• to lift suffering into the gentle air of awareness, even forgiveness,
• to suffuse with lightness the follies of time,
• to reduce any sense of loss by remembering the fullness of caring,
and when possible,
• to transform elements of the other river with renewed attention, prayer, movement, healing power, even equanimity.
It also helps to look again at that poignant word, impermanence.
At the most personal level, we can remember that when we lose something that gave us great joy, our grief is great. This month is the time when we can best honor and hold both joy and grief. My teacher Elaine de Beauport, working with those of us in the throes of grief, kept reminding us, when possible, to move toward remembering the love that was there. Just that element of remembering joy can release the chemicals of grief and can take us to that sweetened place where love and loss rest together in peace.
Remembering Joy through the memories of the rivers of our lives is powerfully restorative. Where have we gathered with friends on river banks? What river waters have we dived into, swum in, rafted through, skied over? Felt most alive near? Invite those memories to suffuse the body/brain with delight. And then take on that other river! The right action, the right thought, the right cherishing will be there, floating across the waters to carry you through whatever comes.
Joy in the World
And in me.
Praise. Praise. Praise.
Buy the calendar:
The Lady’s Year for Joy
The Lady’s Year for Joy is your personal guide and journal as you seek, focus, explore, test, recognize, experience, embrace, offer, and report
the truth of Joy in the world.
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In 2010, several members of Jean Houston’s West Coast Mystery School joined to support one another with a daily phone call to ponder the inspirational writings collected by Peggy Rubin. All are welcome to join the calls. For those who wish to join the call at 9 am Pacific time the number is 1-605-313-4818 (new in April, 2019), code 884124#. Read more about them HERE.
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donna eden
August 22, 2022 @ 9:52 pm
Oh Peggy Rubin,
I sure do love you, donna (eden)
Marjorie R. Barlow
August 23, 2022 @ 8:20 am
This is like a new fresh deep breath of air, Peggy. Thank you! I hope you are planning your next book with all your rivers of Joy ….
Angela Cole
August 23, 2022 @ 1:39 pm
Dear Peggy, Your joyful, poignant posts always seem to arrive when perfectly needed. They gently and deeply lift my gaze toward the beauty and fullness of life, opening my heart and taking me to tender places within myself. Remembering with a sigh, Ah yes, there I am. Like diving in a flowing river, carried by the current to later find myself climbing out onto a new yet familiar riverbank, refreshed and alive! Thanks so much.
Marie Sforza Roberts
August 24, 2022 @ 6:33 am
You are a much-loved, gentle inspirited soul, Peggy1
All our love, Marie and Jim
Michelle Massi
August 28, 2022 @ 12:48 pm
Remembering Joy in the World and in me,
while keeping my pulse on sorrow, grief,
in other words bathing the past in sweetness
and gently and tenderly, toweling off the the drops of grief and sorrow.
I have come to understand that, even in the most challenging times we face
there is something that is so courageous about us
that cannot be harmed or hurt or injured , and understanding this takes
much practice and the willingness to open our heart space to include
intra compassion and extend that outwards others as inter compassion.
We heal our selves when we can extend that outwards and we heal the space between us.
When I forget this , I feel separated from the Holy One and I just move back into
the stream again and flow more buoyantly, with all here now, no one left behind
nor out. Until I need another uplift which is just a look away or a smile that someone
gives me when I walk to the Bay to see the children splashing about with Joy and
squeals of delight! Music to my ears and my eyes feast awhile.
All is calm again.
Remembering how blessed we all are and especially in this time with all the chaos
and uncertainty, I can be sure of beauty and benefit.
Thank you Peggy , Rivers and currents and all the movement and rhythm of life with in and life without/out of water in Air!
Sometimes it is just a beautiful day. Sometimes we have to imagine it is.
Both have merit, never a dull moment for Earthlings is there?
Thank you for this post it is so worth remembering the wisdom you sent us.
Love
Michelle