teachers

In the beginning of her book “Eat Pray Love”, Liz Gilbert finds herself in the middle of something she has no control over which is causing her a great deal of angst, worry, anxiety, and despair. In her case, a contested divorce. It has come to the place where it has the potential to consume yet another year of her life by tying her up in court, not to mention wasting every dime of their money on legal fees.

Are you guys with me? Anxiety? Despair? Loss of control? Can you relate?

She feels hopeless and out of control and while on a drive through Kansas with a friend, she expresses her desire to write a Petition to God, you know, to inject some Divine Intervention into a situation which seems beyond repair.

Once she drafts a copy in the car, she and her amazing and very willing friend, add imaginary (energetic), signatures at the bottom. “My parents both signed it!” her friend exclaims. “So did mine! And so did my grandparents!” Liz replies. “St Francis of Assisi just signed it!” her friend yells excitedly, pounding the steering wheel for emphasis; and the exercise continues for well over an hour raising Liz’s spirits and bolstering her resolve.

Later, still in the passenger seat of the car, she grabs a quick nap and is awakened by her ringing phone. “You’ll never guess”, her attorney from New York exclaims without even saying hello, “He just signed the papers!”

God, I love that scene! Because I love magic, and I believe in the Physics of Quests, clues, and signs, and our right to Petition God or the Universe to take the wheel on our behalf, and so it dawned on me that I should write my own Petition, regarding my own crazy brave,crazy, brave, batshit crazy endeavour, and send it to my tiny inner circle—my tribe—so I did last night.

“Just like in the book I’d love it if you could sign it energetically (or literally) and send it out to others in the aether, living or dead, and let me know who we’ve got working on this.
I’ll put mine at the bottom.

I love you all more than words can express.
xoxJ”

And all day the names of the signatories have been pouring in!
Lucille Ball, Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Kennedy, The Obama’s…
Even the Pope signed it! What??!!

I wasn’t going to share it but then I realised that you guys are my tribe too! Below is what I wrote so you can use it as a template for your own Petition.

Then, I had what I thought was a great idea! I wanted to offer YOU this: If you want to write a short sentence in the comments about something that needs some energetic surrendering—start your own Pettition—I (we) will add our names and the names of others to it and up that juju factor.

How about it? Wanna try it? What do you have to lose?

I love you all more than words can express!
Carry on,
xox

Dear God, Universe, Nora, Nixon and All,
It is now time for you to intervene and facilitate the making of this “darling” screenplay into a movie. I humbly and respectfully acknowledge that I haven’t the faintest idea of what comes next or how to make this happen, and I am well aware of the fact that if I attempt to meddle in matters this far outside my paygrade, well, let’s just say ‘I’ll fuck it up’.

I realize that you may have more pressing things on your agendas like Chinese and North Korean diplomacy, Syria, finding a great karaoke song and looking for other ways to demystify death, and that helping me to ‘mind my own business’ seems like an insurmountable challenge, but we’ve come this far and worked so well together—that I beseech you to try.

Please attract only those to this project who are lifted by its message. Let it easily find its way to the best and the brightest. May the making of the movie be surrounded by as much love, light, fun and magic as the writing of the screenplay has been and may those that lay eyes on it see beyond what was written on the page. May it live to touch hearts and soothe souls.

Thank you for your kind consideration,
Respectfully,
Janet Bertolus

Picasso
Diane Sawyer
Mike Nicols
James Cameron
Elizabeth Gilbert
Oprah
Gayle King
My dad
Tom Hanks
Rob Bell
Erma Bombeck
Dear Abby
Clark Gable
Eva Gardner
Frank Sinatra
Andy Williams
Bob Fosse
Hemingway
Mark Twain
Martha Stewart
Mama Cass
Stevie Nicks
Joni Mitchell
Cameron Crowe
Ron Howard
Bryan Lorde
Rob Lowe
Prince

If you think you’re too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito
~The Dalai Lama~

It seems mosquitos are very effective teachers.
To some they teach tolerance and non violence.
They test your patience as they make their presence known.
They draw you into the present and make you pay attention.
Me? With me they bring out my deepest, darkest killer instinct. My inner Dexter.
At three in the morning, when I hear that high pitched whining in my ear,
I Want. Them. Dead.
So much for non violence.
And I’m the girl that carries spiders outside.
I’m a card carrying pacifist until the mosquito shows me otherwise.

Just when you’re certain of your enlightened state. At the moment you know who you are and what you stand for, you can leave it to one of God’s tiniest creatures to bitch slap you back to reality. Or leave crazy, itchy, welts on your ass.
She has a wicked sense of humor.
If THAT doesn’t get you off your high horse….

So……I’m a pacifist unless pushed. Good to know.
Can you be a conditional pacifist? What IS my breaking point?
Those are important questions that can lead to self discovery……..or not.

Here’s what I know for sure.
I know I can snap if my sleep is interrupted.
I have been known to scream obscenities at ignorant drivers.

Then there’s the little dog. The puppy. The boxer-shark puppy.
IT has been sent by God to torment; I mean test me.
I have swatted the puppy on the rump for numerous infractions. Not hard, don’t go all PETA on me. It’s a swat to get her to pay attention to my stern face. She has made a mockery of my stern face. My stern face is a joke to her. The older dog cowers, she points and laughs.
Forget about NO. NO has become useless. To her, it means HI and SURE. She thinks it’s her name. It is yelled so frequently it has lost all of its bite. 
Talking about bite; that one tests my patience with her incessant biting.
She bites when she’s playing. She bites when she’s tired. She bites to make a point. She bites AIR. 
She bites the older dog on her Achilles. Little bitch. I scold her. I forcefully push her away. I “time out” her. When all I really want to do is bite her back.
She wields an unbelievable amount of power in our house. She is small, but her presence is mighty. She is my teacher. She makes me question my parenting skills AND my pacifist membership.

OMMMMM…………Back to a loving place………..Between the Mosquitos and the boxer-shark puppy, I have some serious spiritual work to do.

Who or what is your trigger? I’d love to hear who tests your patience, tolerance and all around spiritual practice. Tell me about it in the comments.

Xox