Empathy/Feels

 

 

 

I gotta share something with you:

Depending on your age, empathy can be called different terms.  While adults may say “Empathy” our youth may say “Feels”.  Whatever we call it, Empathy is our ability to understand and share feelings of others.  Human Beings are programmed to be empathetic.  It is Empathy that, some feel, sets us apart from other species.  It can be nurtured, modeled, and taught.  The more we practice empathy, the more developed is our potential for more empathy.  The more empathetic personality we develop, the greater gift we are to a positive peaceful family of man.  We become more protective, we become more understanding, we become more loyal and a more rounded human being. There are studies being done that say the Baby Boomers are the last generation to have the highest empathy and that the children of today lack high levels of compassion and empathy.

It is not hard to guess that technological components are linked to why this is happening.  Long hours spent on computers, and in gaming, is taking away the one-on-one interactions that help to develop empathy.  Along with comes emotional intelligence and the ability to be socially adept.  Social skills are being lost.  Children, of today, are all about Selfies and social interactions are being confined to Snapchat, to Instagram, and our kids are being addicted to things that stunt their social growth. Studies are showing that there is a propensity for less caring, less compassionate, interactions. 

“You don’t learn emotional literacy facing a screen. You don’t learn emotional literacy with emojis” -Dr. Michele Borba, Educational psychologist and parenting expert.

She found that college students are 40% less empathetic, compared to their peers 30 years ago.  Narcissism increased by 58%.  Bullying is rising in educational arenas.  She speaks and writes of the “Selfie Syndrome” adding to the lack of empathy and creating more of a problem because of the rise of Celebrity culture, hyper-competitive parenting, materialistic ethos, and the elimination of time for kids to play like kids.  What do parents, grandparents, those who care about children, do?

I have met many children who exhibit empathy, compassion, and actively display such.  I have raised my own children and see how they are truly empathetic and compassionate.  I see my grandchildren display such, as well.  I believe babies are born with the gift of empathy.  Newborn babies react to another crying newborn.  A toddler will cry if another cries.  They also react to a mother or others crying.  I think it is up parents, and all of us to model and nurture that gift of empathy.

So here is what might help develop empathy, compassion and awareness.  Make sure our children have lots of face-to-face interactions.  Model care of others, give them an opportunity to express feelings for self and others.  Engage in conversations, sharing stories, and telling stories of family compassion and empathy.  Having children have pets to care for can teach empathy. Nurturing empathy for others in the family.  I believe we have to do everything we can to help them interact with nature, with animals, with others, is what is going to heal the world. 

I care.

©Carol Desjarlais 9.16.25

 

Memories

 

 

 

I gotta share something with you:

I am finding, moving back to where I was raised, that memories are flooding back.  I love to walk around the little town and remember each home, each street.  In quiet times. Memories will be sparked and I embrace them like a long-lost friend. 

Leonard Nimoy said that life is like a garden where perfect moments can be found but never preserved except in memories.  Think of moments in gardens/woods when you have felt absolute peace. Think of a time, when life was in chaos of some kind, when flowers stopped you in your tracks and for a moment you fall into wonder at a blossom, a green leaf, a smell, a ferny bunch?  When I think of this quote, I am taken right back into my mother’s incredible garden.  It had rows from short ground cover plants, up until golden rods against the garden fence.  It was absolute beauty and she worked hard on that garden.  We honored it because she had created such beauty with her own hands.  Those kinds of moments when such takes your breath away for even a moment.  I was just taken back to memory that is so sharp and full of all the senses of her garden. I love to go back to her garden through memory, often. 

Sometimes memories are flashes that almost startle you.  Some memories are those that take you swiftly back to some trauma.  That kind of memory can take you into a dark place that is hard to get out of, but you must.  The more times you remember a memory and let it stay, the more it comes back, and it even comes back more warped than the reality was.  We can not let such memories stall us from living a Present Life.   It is more like the memory has you when we do not shake such thoughts away.  Be more focused on making new memories every day.  I do this with my grandchildren.  Every time I am with them, I am aware that I am leaving behind a memory.  I make the most of a broken family that is mine. 

I cannot have negative thoughts nor allow the memories that will interfere with my today in any way with any one.  Staying with negative memories can become a habit.  So can precious memories.  We chose which we want in our present life.

  ©Carol Desjarlais 17.7.25

*photo is my necklaces that mean the most to me.  The middle one holds the ashes of Man Hands.  I took these with me on our cruises. I remembered.

Awen: Marc Creamore

 

 

I gotta share something with you:

“I float into the notes of a Nordic folk ballad.  I dream of dreams not given birth to.  I yearn to be blessed by songs of sensitive sparrows at dawn,”

– Marc Creamore “Sensitive Sparrows”

Awen is the divine spirit of inspiration. An artistic, creative, soul seeks inspiration wherever she/he can.  Marc was a brother, a seeker, full of Awen.  He was a poet who threw out inspiration with integrity and intent.  When you throw a stone into a pond, the ripple goes to other side of the pond and eventually returns back to the other edge of that pond.  Marc was that stone and we were his pond.  Marc was a poet who honored his gift, was careful in his intent.  He informed and inspired. He loved the outdoors and it was his place of “thinking”, dipping into the sounds of trees and birds and fire and air and Mother Earth.  He was my inspiration. He personified Awen.   I miss him and hope to be with my brother again some time, some place.  And we shall write poetry together.

I know that when I am in the midst of inspiration, I am in a space, a stream, of higher knowledge.  It is sacred space.  It is a space of flowing spirit that pulls us up more deeply into the creative space of soul.  Awen is an ancient word found in Celtic manuscripts going back to the 6^th century.  It has been found in British and Egyptian carvings.  The symbol for Awe s a circle.  At the top of the circle are three dots.  In the bottom two thirds three elongated triangles from bottom of the circle up to the circles.  To me, it represents the feminine, in the trio of threes.  

 

The symbol of Awen represents 3 rays of light, pillars of wisdom.  The dots represent the blessed drops of Awen, and the earth, seas and sky.  Awen has a song that is sung in groups of three. Awen is about interconnection of all things.  Marc knew this. 

My inspiration has gone somewhere.  I am only, after many months, beginning to paint again to feel a drive to release poetry and art.  It bubbles up from that sacred space within.  Life presented me with serious decisions, with a need to finally take care of myself, to draw near to my homeland, to draw nearer to my family.  I feel an easing of the spirit and have time to just be me and sit with my thoughts, and to be inspired.  The whisper of sparrow’s wing above me, they sit on the eaves of the rooftop and speak to me.  I feel Marc close by since I have come to know how very much he inspired me. 

As I, now, sit before a blank canvas, it is as if I am starting all over again.  I am struggling to get to that place of techniques.   That flow of Awen has not fully happened.  Poetry comes to mind in bits of phrases.  I wrote them down, hoping to retrieve that flow that used to come.   I thought, by beginning to blog again, that it might help it find a way through the tangles of recent past. 

Have you experienced Awen? 

©Carol Desjarlais 7.13.25

A taste of his poetry :  https://allpoetry.com/marc_creamore