Things are constantly ending and beginning. The door to one thing shuts and then another door opens to something not yet. How familiar then is the saying that when one door closes another opens. The key to the opening of that new door is full acceptance of the shut door and to stop hoping for a reopening. So much energy is then freed up for us to be given new opportunities and connections.
Phrases Posted on Facebook, October 2023
Recently I saw a documentary about Georgia O’Keeffe. Later in her life she left Ghost Ranch and bought a property in Abiquiu, New Mexico. In her correspondence she said she bought the place because of a door in the adobe wall. It beckoned her with meaning, beauty and belonging. She painted it many times. How powerful the image of a door can be! Perhaps such doors are beckoning us also to move into places of belonging and peace.
Aren’t we already “at the door” every day? What will we open to? Each morning it could be good to decide to practice a quality we’d like to emulate: graciousness, peace, acceptance, humor, etc. Many opportunities will surely arise. In all likelihood it will be a surprising day.
There are times when shutting the door on someone or something is the best and only course. If we do it in frustration and anger, we get to keep those feelings. When we do it with quiet dignity, we send the message of our worthiness out to those around us.
When we are at a decision time in our lives and are not sure how to chose, the image of a Dutch door could be helpful. It is a door that is half open. The bottom part is fixed, but the top part is open and lets you lean out a bit and take in the air and the view. I find it comforting to be at an imaginary Dutch door in my mind until the right choice quietly arrives inside me.
In an office building there are names on the doors. What if there is a door with your name on it? What if in your imagination you enter and close the door behind you and sit there taking in what you sense and see. There may be intuitive hints that come to you as your imagination roams the place. I’m sure my space won’t look like an office.
Some things are not meant for us. We mostly know the doors that are best to keep shut. If we still insist on opening them, we will have the consequences. Remaining closed these off-limit-doors are actually silent guides to doors that are ours to open.
Some time ago Carol Anthony, a wonderful painter who lives in New Mexico, inserted a small white note somewhere on her canvases. I want to borrow her idea and ask you to image that a note meant especially for you has come through the mail slot in your door. What message is there for you?
One summer long ago I lived in Mexico. The front door had a small hole in it, and a rope came through it to the street side. If you pulled on it, the locked door would open. I like to think that when we look with inclusive and intuitive eyes at one another’s doors we will notice if there is an invisible rope invitation there. If it is, I believe we can pull that heartstring and begin to make a new friend.
Apartment doors in the city often have a peephole to let us see who knocked on the door. It’s felt to be a needed protection, but a peephole does not reveal the whole of who is there. Fear creates peepholes in us and makes our views prejudiced. The ones knocking may be the very angels we need whatever the color of their skins might be.
There are so many enticing paintings in which a door is depicted slightly ajar. The image invites curiosity and imagination especially if there is light coming through the opening. In quiet moments we may find that our inner door is slightly ajar. What is waiting on the other side?
Opening a book is like opening a door. Turning on the TV is like opening a door.
Too many doors invite overwhelm. Opening the door to nature brings us closer to our true nature. It’s a revolving door we very much need.
Despite doors we have shut by accident and resolutions we have made and only sometimes kept, what belongs to us will have a way to get in through cracks and doorsills. Daily asking for goodness to find us by whatever means is a good practice.
In the deepest reality there are no doors . . . just radiant being.
