The Mastery of the Thing!

The Mastery of the Thing!

ISBN: 978-1-4520-6578-6

The Mastery of the Thing! Transcendence in Counseling and Sports explores, both in the counseling office and on the playing field, the refusal to give in to adversity and discouragement, the striving for transcendence that most marks us human. 196 pages.

If You Pity People Their Pain

If you pity people their pain,
steer clear of counseling or else come to learn
the sheer weight of it will crush you.
Compassion of heart is crucial
for the comfort of presence and empathy it extends,
but feeling sad they have such a burden
or mad at the wrongs they have suffered
succeeds both in confirming clients in their victimhood
and in burning counselors out.
Pain comes to everyone's--
what we make of it or let it make of us
determines all.

The Cultivation of Human Flowering

In his classic On Becoming a Person
Carl Rogers writes about his awe before nature's unfolding
whether in flowers or human beings.
His gigantic faith in each human organism's thrust
towards a flowering he called self-actualization
throws light on why unconditional positive regard
is for him the foundation counseling stands on.
While not in the religious mainstream,
Rogers had in him something of the Taoist.
First read Tao Te Ching for a beginning sense
of a more feminine universe where the Tao--
not to be named but absolutely to be trusted--
grows from within the Ten Thousand Things.
Then read Rogers skillfully applying the Taoist intuition
of a shining core in each human being,
of a flowering awaiting the cultivation of counseling.
Inaugurating nothing less than a revolution in psychology,
he translated the mystic's vision into skills of empowerment.
No one considers timely communication of empathy
as anything less than a spiritual feat
who has struggled to climb the mountain of it.
No one considers Rogers passive
who sees what flowers from empowering nurturance.
What Carl Rogers is all about
is the cultivation of human flowering.

White Eagle's Flight

Little wonder a home run thrills.
Pitcher with arm of steel and hand of guile
bears down from a mound but sixty feet distant
to hurl a twirling sphere the size of an apple
past another intent with a bat to hit it,
but when batter, with reflexes sharp and timing perfect,
propels on the wings of the sweetest of swings
a trajectory that mimics a white eagle's flight
sailing like a comet out of sight--
or rocketing to ecstacy home fans cheering,
always a thrill!

You're Not Sermonized, You See!

Likely arena for epiphanies of spirit:
the Olympics!
You're not sermonized, you see-—
Louganis turn dolphin in air,
Flo-Jo en-trance with burst of fluid grace,
Evert-Lloyd in her manner of defeat
trumpeting humankind's victory,
divergent exotic flowering
within singular planetary Garden.
And you thought the primary arenas for spirit
were synagogue, mosque, temple or church.


Price / Ea.
$15.00

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