At 6:15am today, driving in the dark with snow falling steadily on untreated roads was potentially dangerous. It reminded me of my first drive in a heavier, mid-day, unexpected snow, when I was a college freshman. I'd had my license a bit more than a year. Our little American Rambler 330 had a 3-speed transmission on the column. I drove home from class (about ten miles) slowly, shifting between 1st and 2nd gear, mostly in a straight line, while cars around me slipped and slid on both sides of the road. The only full stop I remember was at the left turn into our subdivision. (How many intersections had signals magically turn green?) Our dad was sitting in the living room when I walked in. I was perspiring, shaking with anxiety. "How was it?" he asked. "Oh, Daddy! It was awful! Cars were sliding all over the place." "What did you do?" "I drove mostly in second gear and stayed in the lane." "That's exactly what you should do. I'm glad you did, since this was your first time. The next snow will be easier." I felt a rush of pride at his compliment; then, burst into tears of relief because I hadn't wrecked the car. Daddy died a few months later. I don't remember the second time I drove in snow, although I remember other surprises in winter weather. This morning, in the dark, despite the conditions, I was calm~ equally aware of the conditions and the interplay of snow falling into the light, sparkling on the pavement, crunching softly as I steered. While I was concerned that the county was slow to mitigate the situation, I was quietly delighted, at peace, and deeply grateful for being among the first to see its unaffected beauty. Daddy was right. It's been decades since that first nerve-wracking experience. I remember it as though I just walked through the door of my childhood home. I can almost smell my dad's cigarette against the fresh scent of the cold, snow-fresh air as I stepped inside. One of my long-time friends commented that she is continually amazed that our mind holds all these memories "that vividly come back in such detail by a trigger. Our brains are human computers with no storage limits!" What strikes me most about the memory is its contrast to my experience this morning: being mindful, calm, aware, and appreciative of beauty in a situation that had the potential to be daunting. No matter the challenge, my confidence level shifts with experience. Clarity is always apparent when I focus. Courage connects when I *feel, *engage, *accept, *respond authentically. Finest Hour Peer Mentoring and Coaching allows you to trust the wisdom of your experience. We believe that in transcending FEAR by honoring your Insights, Discernment, Exploration, Action, & Spirit. DonnaMarie Fekete, 17 January 2018
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Wisdom whispered something to me as I counted blessings for the annual day of giving thanks: Life is like a virus. It continually replicates, mutates, and multiplies the threads that created our unique, mysterious reasons for being. I've never physically met many of the friends on my personal FB page. Some of us PM, a few of us connect in other ways. When I saw the number of friends FB counted, I was surprised by it, because the number is much higher than the people whose posts I *see* daily. It occurred to me this morning that my virtual friends may represent less than 10% of all the personal encounters I've had (with students mostly) who touched me emotionally over nearly 50 years. There are thousands of individuals who have no special reason to seek me and yet, several have found me here. I'm grateful for all who bless me now and all who inspired me then. I'm grateful for meeting an incredible range of hearts and souls because I acted on impulse or with intention to seek new jobs, experiment artistically, learn to swim, ride horses, dance, craft, share intuitive gifts, establish FB communities, go on blind dates, volunteer, sing, and play accordion. It seems to me that every change we choose attempts to bring our longing for connection more directly into our current reality. When I focus more on how those choices blessed me** and less on what I miss about them (or what opportunities I missed) I am stunned by the abundance that supports and expands and continually enriches me. Whatever sets our energy in motion, no matter the level of control we exert, we're evolving beyond what we can possibly perceive in this moment. If we judge this moment to be less than we desire, we may limit its possibility to transform beyond our imagination. **Searching Google for an image to add to this note, I discovered a Smithsonian article asserting that the human genome includes ancient viruses that actually boost our resilience against undiscovered diseases. Somehow that seems to confirm the purpose of Finest Hour Services: Sharing Insight*Dialogue*Engagement*Affirming*Spirit to focus on benefits of past experience and find possibilities when challenges seek to transform us. DonnaMarie Fekete, 26 November 2017 Today is the first day of my sixth year in retirement. I get a bit frustrated with upscale definitions of thriving in this phase of my life. That implies something that few have the resources to emulate. I'm inspired by folks I've met at the Accordion Club. These are (more senior than I am) men and women who are beginners on their instruments than advanced or professional musicians. They place themselves in front of others -however joyously, proficiently, or hesitantly- courageously and bring forth music. In September, a grandmother introduced her severely disabled grandson (brain-damaged with very little muscle coordination) who mashed a few keys until "Jingle Bells" emerged. A few mashes more and he played March of the Gladiators, a song most of us hear as the introduction to the main attraction under a circus big top. A woman I met crafting (a bit younger than I) had a heart transplant 11 months ago. On a disability income she spends dozens of hours each week making items for charity. Since her transplant she's taken up contra-dancing. A member of MENSA, she labeled her left hand when she started going to dances because she doesn't immediately process "right hand forward" when it's called in motion. A woman who regularly attends the monthly acoustic jam to sing along has finally consented to use her oxygen supply. Partially, that's because she'll lose her place on the lung transplant list if she doesn't follow her protocols, but also because the transplanted heart came to the jam to play recorder and spoke with her about how intensely anxious waiting can be and how extraordinary it is to realize you can breathe, walk, sing, and play after years of exhaustion. One of the guitarists who regularly attends both the craft group and the jam sessions is a former middle school music teacher. She "stalked" me online before we met in person because she realized we had two friends in common. Her husband asked me when he met me, "Do black lives matter?" That opened a dialogue around our shared experiences in communities where we were the minority. They were with me -and the mutual friend who plays flute- when I walked into a room full of accordions in June 2016. Late in August, their 30-something multiracial son was found dead in his bedroom. One row at the memorial service was filled with silver haired folks who never met their son. We left thanking his friends for sharing their stories about his adventurous, fun-loving spirit. Weeks passed before the coroner's report determined he'd accidentally overdosed. The last time we were together crafting, she smiled tearfully, saying she thought she'd healed enough to return to a place where others were enjoying playing and singing. Not long after I retired, a dear friend of mine suffered a massive stroke. He astounded his medical care team, because even though his traumatized cerebellum couldn't retain the past 30 seconds, he remained cogent. He communicated effectively and demonstrated a sense of humor. A week or two later, he had recovered beyond all expectations. Since then, he's returned to work, mostly out of a sincere understanding that shifting one paragraph in a document full of jargon could make a difference for a child who needs resources to support his educational development; or because that paragraph advanced a connection with a parent, teacher, or accountant who'll make that happen. He also reminds his youthful colleagues that life experiences call forth as much delight as devastation, maybe more. When I first retired, I repeatedly stated that what I would miss most was the incredible diversity of personalities and expressions of culture I encountered every day. I missed the voices of people starting every day in the same way, creating rituals they didn't realize were sacred. It took months for me to say "yes" to invitations to groups of old (many of whom are younger than I) ladies knitting; to say "so what?" when I step into a new group of people whose daily routine centers around a mushy free lunch in the senior center. Somehow, that's how my understanding of "thrive" began changing. It opened my heart to doing what would inspire me: tap dancing, coordinating a musical activity, a pretzel-twisting "gentle" yoga class. If all I do is bear witness to these amazing ordinary men and women, I'm grateful. Whatever we do in retirement that's different, we can't cast off what is most essential to our wellbeing. Some are ahead of the learning curve that defines how to thrive outside the "work," "income," and "evidence of effectiveness" that structured our lives for more than 40 years. We'll thrive because our next adventure will stem from any invitation we receive, the ones we decline, the ones we hesitate to accept, and the ones we leap toward without a second thought about which foot is dancing off the cliff. You've been doing that long before your read this, and you will continue doing what you do best because it always works. You may even become audacious enough to change what hasn't worked the way you wanted. DonnaMarie Fekete 1 November 2017 I remember loving to sing a folk song with the refrain, "SPIRIT is movin' all over this land." As a child in the mid-20th century, I was excited with the preparations we made for school fires and confused by drills for nuclear attacks. As a teen, I was enthused with the promise of opening opportunities for people whose enslaved ancestors had little hope of survival. When our chorus sang the words engraved on the Statue of Liberty, I connected to my family's history as immigrants, and my grandfather's status as a resident alien. I believed with all my heart that there would be no further impediments to citizenship, to scholarship, to personal progress, and community engagement. In the last few weeks, I've been hearing another line from the same song, "God send fire, not a flood next time." Threats and anxieties that potential destruction by powerful weapons have been resurrected. Floods, fires, and an array of toxic consequences are pouring across communities where people I know and love live and where I vested my interests in the education and advancement of students whose language and traditions differed from those whose passion honors them. I'm no longer confused with misunderstanding that crouching for protection will guarantee the safety of those I love. I'm aware that drills to escape fires, lessons in drown-proofing, and memories of austerity that linked to cooking, mending, salvaging, and sharing may be more important than my ability to tap out thoughts on this keyboard. If we are prone to see these possibilities, we're also poised to perceive their potential. One of the most powerful concepts I adopted is an understanding that chaos is a force for creativity. Peace is a personal trait, even when circumstances oppose my ideals. Joy is available in the shake of a squirrel's tale, the sigh of a dove, the shift in a breeze. If I can't hold your hand, chop a fire break, or swim against a current, I can believe you will feel connected, find a safe exit, and remember the drills that keep you focused and ready to respond with purpose and power. I tend to call this "HOPE." You may call it faith, logic, fate, courage, or destiny. Whether you proclaim the promise of another realm or fully expect that existence is limited to time and space, practicing how we focus our attention reclaims balance and informs our actions. At a time of massive shifts in my personal life and career, I read the words of Teilhard de Chardin reminding me to accept the anxiety of feeling myself in suspense and incomplete. That calls forth the POWER of mindfulness. Suspended and incomplete, I can recognize simple delights, be surprised by gratitude, enjoy silence or song, and choose to believe that whatever pulls my attention from my well being is, most likely, awareness that you are asking me to recognize and reflect your vitality and resilience while we are suspended together in this unending moment. DonnaMarie Fekete September 6, 2017 Today is Memorial Day in the USA. We remember those who sacrificed their lives in war. All too often we forget that our celebrations of home and family mark this holiday because men and women put themselves in harm's way: They ran into storms of bullets; sheltered wounded while receiving fire; moved into the unknown despite odds we can only imagine. If they felt fear, they were compelled by greater faith: in an idea, an experience, a hope that they would secure blessings for others. May we remember them. May we thank them. May we celebrate what we share and become willing to stand powerfully when we see what we share and celebrate is denied in our homes, our communities, our nation, and across the world. ALL that GIVES LIFE~ Today may I recall those whose lives were given in trust they served a greater good. May I remember their youth, innocence, experience faith, and willingness to place themselves in danger for what they held sacred: An idea, a place, a person, a nation, nature, structures on land, among the stars, across oceans, in places they had only dreamed. They ‘believed’ through love beyond fear, that Life is an irrepressible gift to be shared equally, joyfully, freely. Help me understand that where Others are not allowed Your gifts, that I am right to address oppression, Risking my security Courageously as those whose Sacrifices kept me safe. DonnaMarie Fekete 29 May 2017 A full moon, an eclipse, a holiday that confuses love with chocolates/sex/martyrdom, and political fireworks showering sparks of hate, exclusion, terror, force, pain, and power converged to remind me that nearly every known poison has an antidote. Whatever flew out of Pandora's box biting and stinging souls across mythical time also brought comfort and hope into being for each of us. Maybe we've been interpreting the myth incorrectly. Perhaps hope crowded those pests to the point where a tiny crack let pricklies escape howling and afraid of being diffused into hope's light. Flowing from confinement, Hope sang that we are safe and loved, capable and creating, growing and expanding ALL GOOD faster than we feel the sting that distracts us as we progress. Why was Hope at the bottom of the box that kept troubles at bay? Perhaps it was Hope's chemistry, or Alchemy ~its magic~ that transforms pain to power, despair to love, defeat to victory, venom to vibrant life. What flew out of the box biting and stinging across mythical time escaped howling and terrified of being diffused into hope’s service. Irony! When troubles exploded, shrieking, sparking, declaring supremacy, Hope flowed from its confinement, singing: You are safe. You are loved. You are capable, creating, growing, expanding ALL GOOD faster than any flying, prickly, expiring breed of pests can impede the invasive Progress of Hope. DonnaMarie Fekete 14 February 2017 I don't know if you're feeling it, but there's a great deal of dissension, anger, passion, and excitement around the pending Presidential inauguration. Some of us are devastated; others are ecstatic about being recognized as a rising power in the nation. Wisdom tells us that EACH OF US chooses to frame our experiences in terms that support our world view. In this reflection about how HOPE appears in our past, I ask you to consider how looking back can shift the way we see every experience, opportunity, and potential as a sign of our PERSONAL POWER. If our experience *compels* us to complain, we will look for horrors, slights, fantasies, delusions, and lies that defined our past; restrict our present; cloud the future. We may ignore slivers of hope illuminating where we thrived; how we persevered; why we grew through cracks, in crevices, on rocks, despite drought and darkness. If we defy experience, challenge perception, look through the prism of hope, everything changes. We discover how any scar added strength; every slight became opportunity; each accomplishment grew from power within us, not the problems around us. One look back, seeking hope, calls out truth, floods our presence, expands our reality, stimulates possibility, and opens our hearts with recognition. We were strong. We can rejoice. We will prevail. We know we are ALL We (thought) We were not. ~DonnaMarie Fekete January 18, 2016 Christmas dreamed me awake with images of newborns, whispering that we cherish each baby, as a Holy Infant, tender and mild. We may forget as we individuate, become independent and adopt ideas of accomplishment, talent, and ownership that Holy, Perfect PRESENCE is always within us, at every stage of our being. We are always vulnerable, soft, and perfectly lovable. In our first six minutes, at 6 months or 60 years, we reach for connection; we long for recognition; we seek love to nourish us and we return it with gratitude. Each of us is as miraculous as the baby Christians celebrate today. Our lives, however tangled, tortured, or tickled they seem, express the POWER and LIGHT that formed the universe. May you give and receive COMFORT and JOY today and every day! When the Force that explodes galaxies into being, constructs planets, boils oceans down until continents emerge, and molds eons of fantasied, fabled, and physical creatures (to crash through centuries as prototypes of what we pet and cuddle in our homes) considers its Might, Glory and Omnipotence, what else can It do to prove It is ALL Love? It dissolves with need into Its smallest, weakest, fragile form. We welcome the infant. We adore its soft, small, pure perfection. We marvel at it as our self-made miracle. We treasure it, tickle it, wrap ourselves around tiny fingers and toes, clean, soothe, coddle, nurse, and exalt it. Infants change our world, recalling the Joy of innocence; the miracle of Recognition; the exquisite moment of Union that led to its conception. Our hearts melt the moment we hear a first breath, the cry that calls for help or milk, for arms to cover and comfort the shock of separation. From that first gasping, vulnerable moment, every celebration, birth to death, recalls that great source of Power and Light lives here, within us all. Rejoice! We are Emmanuel. DonnaMarie Fekete December 25, 2016 Our area of the mid-Atlantic USA had a deep freeze overnight Friday. By dawn Saturday, dangerous conditions became deadly; one interstate near Baltimore was a mix of fire, smoke, and water. More ice formed by extinguishing blazes, increasing the danger and closing the road for hours.
From dark night through midday and into evening, ice encapsulated every blade of grass, every last leaf clinging to the oaks, and each needle on the soft pines around us. Even as the temps rose from well below freezing to nearly 40 degrees, we marveled at how hard the ice stayed. Overnight, we had another huge shift in temps; they rose to F50+ degrees. This morning, there's haze near the ground where the melting ice dissolved and transformed. If that's not an analogy for how hearts melt with love, it's science. If it's not the melding of science and spirit, I'm not sure what is. For a few moments today, please check your heart for cold spots and send yourself a bit of love. You may find that warmth expands, like mist or steam, wanting to be shared with others. DonnaMarie Fekete 18 December 2016 As we prepare for Thanksgiving in the USA, please take a moment to reflect on who went before you, planting and harvesting ALL that benefits you. Then remind yourself, that you are going to be supporting others through your example, in action, with prayer, and with purpose-filled intention to be open-hearted and open-minded.For more than 15 years, I worked with an educational program that supported a "Harvest of Hope." It supported the wishes and dreams of agricultural workers for their children to access the full range of public educational services, wherever they traveled, from Florida to Maine, Texas to Michigan, California to Idaho, from Puerto Rico, across all 48 continental states, through Alaska and Hawaii. It only took me a few months to understand at a gut level that these families were working for *my* welfare and comfort. Ever since, no matter how I purchase, prepare, and enjoy my meals, I'm aware of their labor, their poverty, their dignity, their hopes, and many of their successes. May your Thanksgiving bring you awareness of how you benefit by those who shared their hopes, dreams, and prayers to help and guide you. May you become generous as you cultivate your world and grow your deepest desires. How will we harvest Hope? Everything we gather grows from what was planted. If we measure rows, careful to drop one kernel, then another, opportunities align. Scattered seeds, windblown or at will, call to songbirds, brighten meadows, dance with bees, turn to honey. If we broadcast dreams, stars appear to guide the lost. When we give thanks for acts of kindness; savored sweetness; light through darkness, we are gleaning Hope. Our whispered prayer of gratefulness, leaves a bit of Hope to feed another soul. DonnaMarie Fekete, November 23, 2016 |
AuthorI've been paid to sing, act, paint, teach and write. What I do most to express myself is write. I've self-published four books: poems, essays, stories, and prayers. Archives
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