Pilgrimage of Healing and Consciousness
For 2025, we’re embarking on a 52-week pilgrimage of inward healing, growth, and self-discovery…and ultimately, peace…regardless of whether the healing is related to addiction, grief, or any other challenge we seek to overcome.
The nineteenth “mile” of our pilgrimage reminds us 1) that patience is something that can be learned and 2) that there are two sides to patience: one where we allow things to unfold at their own pace, and one where we’re waiting (patiently) for something to happen when we really need to be do something different. Our challenge becomes knowing the difference and responding accordingly.
For instance, I submitted an article to a magazine. Their confirmation email let me know that it will be five to six months before they notify me as to whether it was accepted or not. Since I’ve done all I can on my end, I just need to be patient until they get back to me. Contacting them anytime before then will be futile and probably hurt my chances rather than help.
On the other hand, years ago we struggled with the excessive noise of a newly opened bar diagonally across the street from us. We reached out to several authority figures for help, to no avail. We could have been patient with the situation, hoping the bar would change hands or go out of business, but that was not likely judging by the bar’s popularity. We could have waited for our elected officials to do something about it…but they had higher priorities to deal with.
So instead, I and a couple of neighbors started a community-wide effort to get the county to enact a noise ordinance. Long story short…in the end, after making a name for myself because of this effort, then running for county commissioner (and losing) making more of a name for myself, I was hired by the County to develop their first web site (this was back in 1995) with the intention of fulfilling my campaign promise of making government information more readily accessible to the public.
Oh, and eventually that bar closed down…but still no noise ordinance. So looking back on it, rather than waiting for something to happen, I did something different, which wound up be a five-year job that paid double what I would have made had I been elected…AND the web site won a national award because of all the helpful information it provided. So there’s that.
Essentially, we’ve got to “know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run”. In other words, do we practice patience or do we do something different?
How about you? How are you with “patience”? Do you tend to be impatient or too patient? Looking back on your life experiences, when did having patience make a positive difference and when did doing something different make a positive difference?
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Peace & Blessings,
Maureen
The Mandala Lady
TheMandalaLadyArtsCenter.com
transforming soul whispers into mandalas and channeled messages
About the 2025 Mandalas of the Week
Each week I will create a new mandala design to color, along with my coloring of it, and a weekly message and prompt for us to continue on our quest throughout the year. All of which is inspired by Melody Beattie’s book entitled “52 Weeks of Consciousness Contact”.
I will be breaking down each week’s topic into daily insights and images (inspired by Melody’s book) on my blog site: MandalaoftheDay.com where I’ll be creating/building one giant mandala (48”x48”), one puzzle piece of it each day.
Mandala of the Week 