Archive for the ‘Spirituality’ Category

>We, The People, owe a debt of gratitude to the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He has, by example, unveiled an important Truth for us.
    For the past 20 years or so, Reverend Wright has held a position of prominence within his Church and within the African-American community in general. As a result of Barack Obama’s campaign for the Presidency, Reverend Wright began to take on yet greater prominence, culminating in his speech before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. this week. The content and delivery of that speech brings to light a Truth so fundamental as not to be ignored.

          Ego is an addiction to the misuse of power.  
   
    Reverend Wright just couldn’t stop himself. As Obama’s spiritual mentor, he was given an opportunity by way of friendship and Fate to have the eyes and ears of America, perhaps the world, upon him. He had an opportunity to speak Truth to Power in a humble and poignant way. He failed miserably because Ego (and it’s operating principal that “more is never enough”) is an addiction to the relentless accumulation and exercise of power. In his failure to recognize the danger of the path he chose to pursue, Reverend Wright has been consumed in the burning fire of his own ego.
    Along with the felling of that tree, he may just have taken down the whole forest.
    Which may be a good thing.
    Barack Obama has finally “disavowed” himself from Reverend Wright and what the Reverend espouses. But Obama’s action, taken so late in the game, raises disturbing questions about the candidate’s veracity and judgment. Yesterday, as I watched various videos on-line of Obama’s efforts to distance himself from the spectacle and hatred spewed by Reverend Wright, I had an overriding impression that will not leave me.
    My impression was, and remains, that the candidate is in over his head.
    I am not ready to judge Barack Obama and find him a liar as some  now do. I am not prepared to conclude that he always knew who Reverend Wright was, condoned his hate speech, and turned a blind eye accordingly. That now, with so much at stake and Reverend Wright’s unrestrained behavior, Obama has no choice but to say “this is not the man I met 20 years ago.” I don’t think Obama is malevolent.
    What I observed is that Barack Obama seemed genuinely shocked and confused by his mentor’s behavior. He had the look and demeanor of one who is betrayed by his best friend. Obama could not look the camera, or the American public, in the eye as he severed that 20 year relationship before the world.
    I don’t think Barack Obama is a liar. I think he has a good heart, I think he is naive. I think he does not know himself all that well and, as a result, does not assess others all that well either.
    Because I think character assessment and good judgment are mandatory qualities and necessary qualifications for the Presidency, I think he is not ready to be President of the United States.
    We owe Reverend Wright a debt of gratitude for his gift. Let’s not devalue what he has given us by ignoring it.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “TOO MANY SECRETS.”

    

>     Yesterday I once again spoke to about 450 high-school-age students about depression and suicide. While those subjects are the groundwork for my presentation, I really talk to them about a way of life I have discovered that works for me. It’s all about being in pursuit of your own inner truth and using your own inner guidance to get there. Along the way, I’ve learned how to deal with the inevitable pain we humans experience around resistance and change, as well as how I get through difficult times.
    It was a very timely presentation as I’ve recently had my share of unanticipated changes and the pain that accompanies them…so yesterday I happened to be living not only the opportunity pass on what I perceive to be pearls of wisdom..but also to walk my talk.
    Life has a way of doing that, you know. Just when you think you have something figured out, in theory, Life steps in and says, “OK, now let’s just see how that works for you.”  And usually, the actual experience of living your talk is accompanied by yet another and deeper understanding that only walking the talk can provide.
    Such was the case yesterday.
    After detailing for these young adults how our thoughts create the way we feel, and if you feel badly…change your thought, I came home at the end of the day to receive yet another piece of disappointing news. Just one more atop the heap that has lately piled up. Then, before I realized it, I was knee deep in thinking about all the stress in my life and how in the world was I going to manage it?
    Taking my own advice, I began to change my thoughts.
    Slowly, I let go of the worrying about how I’d manage all of the stress and began to think instead of all the good that’s in my life. The shift from how to manage the future to instead appreciating the present made a perceptible change in the way I felt. It allowed me to release the worry and embrace the gratitude. My spirits were lifted and suddenly all that worry and stress seemed much less important. After all, the resolution of it all would unfold, of it’s own accord, in some future time. But since it wasn’t in the moment, why bother?
    Now up to this point in my story I pretty much already knew how to apply that technique, if you will. It was what came next that was the extra, added insight.
    When you bring yourself truly present in you Life, you don’t suddenly become at peace with the world or morph into some joy-filled Being. However, what you do become is more seated in your own power. The effect of taking control of you thoughts and denying your mind the power to control you, actually empowers you in a way that transcends your mind. It connects you with the Source of All That Is and thereby allows you to experience the true power of Co-Creation. After all, if you are the creator, rather than the victim, of your experience you get to design the experience as well as the outcome. When you actually do this, there is a quiet knowing that builds upon itself and instills within you a new level of certainty in your own ability to handle all that comes your way.
   I woke up this morning and still have the issues to deal with that were in front of me yesterday. But I’ve added strength to the muscle of certainty that I can deal with them whenever and wherever they show up while enjoying myself in the meantime.
   It’s like having a personal trainer for you Soul.
   And it’s cost effective.
   My ex-husband pays $90 an hour for a personal trainer at his gym.
   Mine is free…and I have access no matter where I am.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Mnay Secrets.”

>     There are no accidents.
    Sunday was the first day of Passover, the Jewish Holy Day celebrating the Exodus from Egypt. It was also the day Pope Benedict XVI choose to hold a papal mass at Yankee stadium and visit the site of the World Trade Center destruction.
    I think the coinciding of those two events deserves a closer look.
    The “Haggadah”, the annual retelling of the story of the release of the Jewish people from servitude to Pharaoh, holds an important message…albeit not the one usually recalled. It’s really a story about the seductive ease with which we humans relinquish our sovereignty in exchange for some material comfort and the “luxury” of not thinking for ourselves. It’s about the price we pay in handing over our God-given freedom of choice to people with apparent power. It’s about the courage of a few, in the face of the many, to be absolutely steadfast about what is the highest good for all concerned.
    The interesting aspect of the Haggadah is that it instructs us to recount it each year on the first night of Passover in the present tense…not as an historical recollection…but as an experience we are having in present time. Why?
    Because we humans are so susceptible to forgetting and backsliding that even when we “get it”…we’re likely to “for-get it” almost as quickly. The vulnerabilities and challenges of the ancient Hebrews were no different than our own. And just as they forgot where they were headed, and why, as soon as Moses was a little late in returning, so too we forget the “what” and “why” of our own journeys when our anticipated outcomes are delayed.
    So what’s this all got to do with the Pope and pain?
    The First Seder was the Last Supper. Our faiths are inextricably bound by common origin and shared heritage. The message of Jesus I find of utmost impkrtance is his refusal to bend his own values and truth to the will of those with apparent power. He chose to die rather than to be enslaved.
    The realities that clashed and imploded on September 11, 2001 were each stunning examples of the destruction that can be wrought by those with apparent power. On the one hand there were the energies of the Islamists, the radical Muslim fundamentalists who seek to enslave the world through terror and dogma. On the other hand were the energies of Western materialism, which seek to enslave through egocentric values and the worship of materialism. The collision of all that misdirected energy resulted in massive pain and suffering.
    Pain is the result of being “off course.” Whether it’s emotional, physical, or spiritual…pain’s purpose exists to wake us up to the reality that something we are doing, or a way in which we are being, is out of balance with the highest good. The pain occurs to bring us present in order that we may correct our own course.
    There it is. The Passover, the Pope, the pain, and the purpose.
    Let us take all the suffering, the falling economy, the political instability, the uncertainty, and the doubt that is swirling around the planet and begin to correct our own course. We need not compromise our higher selves for a little shelter and some more “stuff.” We need no leaders with apparent power to tell us what, in our hearts, we know to be true.
    When you fail to exercise your own power, there is always someone waiting to enslave you to the exercise of their own. True power is your birthright. It comes from within. It’s exhibited and made manifest through living your own truth. It cannot be purchased but it can be given away in a heartbeat.
    Value your most prized possession for what it is and let your pain guide you to your purpose.   

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”
    

>     CNN is reporting that according to Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Columbia University Earth Institute, the “biggest story” in the world is the escalating price of grain and the resulting riots taking place from “Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt.” The story further goes on to say that Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, says that “soaring prices could mean seven lost years in the fight against world poverty.”
    I am struck by the Zoellick quote as it’s a mere five days until Passover, the Jewish Holiday that commemorates the Exodus from Egypt. Remember, that nation where Joseph, a Jew, ruled as Viceroy to Pharaoh because Pharaoh had a dream that only Joseph could interpret. His interpretation? Seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. His suggestion? Stock up while the gettin’s good. It was later in that same unfolding of history that Passover commemorates the going out, the Exodus, from Egyptian bondage to freedom in the Promised Land.
    Now I may be mixing some apples and oranges here…or not. But it seems to me that while history often repeats itself, so do spiritually based events where we have failed to learn the higher lesson.
    So here’s my take on all of this.
    We, the United States, the World, had it’s “seven years of plenty” and instead of stocking up, we super-consumed or squandered our plenty. Now, it looks like seven years of famine and the granaries are empty. Or maybe the grain is just being controlled by those who profit off of such matters.
    The point is that reliance on the “Egypt” of today, all those oil rich countries to which we pay homage because we’re addicted to “the way we’ve always done things” has created the mess that is now unfolding around us. Kabbalah, mystical Judaism, teaches that the Egypt of the Old Testament was not an actual nation but rather a “level of consciousness” to which the people had descended in their obsession with ego and materialism.
    If we are there again, what can each of us do if we’re not Bill and Melinda and have no charitable foundation from which to throw billions at the problem? Well, maybe not much in the way of dollars. But the problem didn’t happen overnight and neither will the solution. So work with what you have.
    You have compassion, prayer and the ability to change the way you value, and therefore treat, the planet, it’s resources and it’s inhabitants. You have the freedom to want less and use less. You have to think about whether that next purchase is necessary or habitual. Before you throw something away you have to first ask if someone else might need what it is you’re discarding and if the answer is “likely yes” then you have to take the time and make the effort to get that item to where it can be of help. You have to change the way you are living to consume less and contribute more.    
    Not more money. More conscious behavior around the idea that we are All One and what is happening in Haiti or Bangladesh or Egypt is happening to a part of You.
    Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change. It’s not just a cute self-help phrase. It’s physics. And we live in the physic-al world. So we really can make a difference by how we see things and how we act upon that vision.
    I’ll be celebrating Passover this weekend. Judaism demands that every year we treat the Seder meal as we recount the Exodus from slavery to freedom, as if it’s actually happening to us in real time. The last line in the Seder that’s repeated each year is “Next Year in Jerusalem.”
    Here’s a new twist.   
    This year we can be of higher consciousness.
    This year we can avoid past mistakes.
    This year we can trade in ego and materialism for compassion and service.
    This year around the world.

Remember to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

> This is personal. It’s also important. I’m in the middle of a divorce. Anyone who’s ever been here, and probably most people who haven’t, can likely imagine that it’s an incredibly difficult and painful experience. After all, don’t all the “experts” agree that other than losing a loved one through death, it’s the most difficult loss a person will ever go through? Well, it’s true. And it hurts, even though I initiated it.
    Maybe.
    I say maybe because I’m living through layers upon layers of this experience and coming to know that All is Paradox and the real question is “How does one want to experience Paradox?”
    Allow me to explain.
    Divorce is like grieving. It has many stages and, like grieving, we are free to stop at any stage along the way without completing the process and thereby choosing to not heal the wounded heart. The first stage is denial. The second stage blame. The third frustration. The fourth anger. The fifth sadness. The sixth fear. The seventh  forgiveness. The eighth is acceptance. The ninth Love.
    How can the last stage of divorce be Love?
    Because only Love is real.
    Within all the need for growth that draws people together…and after all the fear that drives them apart…is simply the Love that exists underneath because everything that has occurred or ever will between two people occurs within the truth that There Is Only One of Us.
    Here’s the Paradox.
    Even when we must part from another, through death or divorce or whatever the cause may be, that parting is simply the creation of more space between different parts of a unified whole. No matter how far apart the distance ever appears to be, it is impossible to move beyond the boundary which is Love…for it is Everywhere to Infinity.
    All that is and ever will be is Love.
    All the space that ever existed…all the time that was ever created by distance…are born of Love.
    And to Love they must return.
    We get it. My husband and I are ending our relationship with our lawyers and coming together in Love to resolve the Paradox ourselves. We love one another yet cannot seem to live together now. We need more space to fully grow into ourselves.         Therefore, we will co-create this ending, and new beginning, in Love.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

>     I once studied with a spiritual teacher who suggested to me that when I see something in a store that I want to buy I should go away, even if for no longer than it takes to walk around the block, then return and decide if I still want it. He said to do otherwise, to buy in the moment of desire, is to be bought by the object of your desire. “Without reflection, you will never own it,” he warned. “It will always own you.”
    I recalled his teaching in recent days as I continue to listen to all the dire economic news and predictions of the decreasing value of the U.S. dollar’s purchasing power. No doubt we are moving into times of economic restraint. I think it’s a good thing.
    Why?
    Because we Americans love to consume. We love it so much that, somewhere along the way to Now, we lost all perspective and jumbled our priorities. We became, as my spiritual teacher so presciently warned, enslaved to the very act of “having.”  It is my experience that we can either be enslaved to the outer life, with it’s web of desires, or in service to Our Higher Selves.
    When enslaved to the outer life of desire, “more” is never enough…as a dear friend used to be fond of saying. When either the sheer accumulation of material things, or the quest for fame, is both the motivating force as well as the goal, there is no amount of materialism or notoriety that can satisfy the hunger. For it is a hunger. It is a misunderstood need, and futile effort, to close a gap that can only be closed in service to others.
    It is the difference between lust and love. In lust, we cannot get enough. In love, we cannot give enough. Which is why all the great spiritual Masters have tried to teach this Universal Truth. Which leads me to another of my spiritual teacher’s sayings.
    “Fake it ’til you make it.”
    If you have been enslaved, as so many of us are, to wanting and getting and having… it will not be automatic, or necessarily easy, to shift to a mindset of giving. It may be even more difficult to believe that through giving of yourself you will become more satisfied and more enlivened that ever before in your life. So, this is where “faking it” comes into play. Proceeding on blind faith, give anyway. Give without reservation of your time, your money, your love.  Give until you don’t have to think about giving but have simply become giving. Then you will have moved past faking it and genuinely arrived at the purpose of All Life. 
    Give as the Sun gives without thought, question or expectation.
    Then, perhaps the next time you’re in a store and see something you want to buy, you’ll take that walk around the block…think of someone or something in need…and find that you’d rather spend yourself in service than find yourself enslaved.  

Remember to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

>Some people like to call them coincidences. I prefer the word synchronicity. Not only is it more poetic sounding but to me synchronicity implies an intention, or order, that coincidence lacks.  A coincidence is a lucky, random act. In my world there are no random acts. Everything has a purpose. Hence, synchronicity. 
    Now, to what occurrences am I referring? These would be an e-mail I received and a request by my 15-year-old daughter which, yesterday, both occurred within hours of each other.
    The e-mail was a notice that a blog Carnival to which I sometimes submit is having an upcoming “theme” carnival based upon “a revolution of one.”  The request by my daughter was that I write a blog completely about her. And so, this is it.
    This is a blog about how one person changed my life and how, someday, if she sets her mind to it, she will probably change the world.
    I was single until I was 43. We adopted our daughter from China when I was 45. Up until that time, I had been practicing Family Law and thought I knew what having children was all about. Last laugh was on me. There is, of course, no way of knowing what it’s like to raise a child until you actually do it.  But this is not a blog about child rearing.
    It’s a blog about Zoe.
    Zoe is creative and bright and willful and lazy and challenging and she can put me over the edge in a heartbeat. But here’s the thing. Her presence demands of me that I be vigilant around my integrity and diligent in my spiritual growth because they’re the things I ask of her. There’s no room for me to ambiguous or hypocritical because her eyes are the mirror that reflect back to me exactly how my Soul is faring on this path called Life.
    Perhaps many parents feel this way about their child and I’m just making more of it because this one is mine. But there’s another quality Zoe has that I believe sets her apart and it’s that very quality that is the reason she will make that difference in the world I mentioned.
    Zoe feels for the suffering of others.
    Ever since she was a small child, she has wanted to give away her money or things to street people or someone in need. She was no more than 8 or 9 when she drew an elaborate and welcoming residence where she said she would someday “provide free, temporary housing for families who had lost their home or were down on their luck and needed some time and a place to get it together again.” She has always been the first one at school to reach out to the hurt or ostracized child.
    Zoe has a winning combination, I believe. She has empathy and a Will that doesn’t quit. When she combines those two with her innate creativity there can be little that will deter her. I often think of the Barry Manilow song, “One Voice” and how it speaks to the contagious power of One.  I think Zoe has that “inner voice” and the world awaits it’s call.
    So, you’ve just read the result of synchronicity. It’s my entry to the theme blog Carnival of “a revolution of one” and it’s also my gift to Zoe.

REMEMBER to click hereto download my FREE e-book “Too Many Secrets.”
    

>     In July 2007 I wrote a piece about J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter Series, concluding that I thought her personal story was perhaps even more important than Harry’s. Now, eight months later, with the recent disclosure that she contemplated suicide prior to writing the series, I’m convinced I was right.
   While truth may not always be stranger than fiction…it’s almost always more inspiring.
   What Rowling’s disclosure does is bring to light, and out of the shadows, the emotional struggle so many people go through when Life seems to “pile on” a seemingly never-ending set of adverse circumstances.  Further, and perhaps more importantly, is the awareness that without an outlet for creativity, blocked energy can fester and create a toxic internal environment.  Rowling didn’t really want to die, but she had a bundle of external adversity coupled with a bundle of blocked creativity. The combination is deadly…a recipe for dis-ease. 
    It’s important to be aware that while we usually think of dis-ease as being of the body, it can most certainly be of the mind as well.  Rowling was so “dis-at-ease” that thoughts of death were perceived by her to be a viable option in ending her dis-comfort.  Of course, hers was a mis-perception.
    Matter, energy, is neither created nor destroyed only redistributed.  Thank you, Albert.  I won’t go too far out on a limb here and get into what would have happened to Rowling’s dis-ease and her as-yet-unexpressed-creativity had she actually followed through with thoughts of suicide. Suffice it to say that once she opened the channel to her creative energy and allowed it to freely flow, not only did she move beyond thoughts of suicide but also created for herself unimaginable wealth that alleviated all of that external adversity she had been experiencing as well.
    A miracle healing, one might say, on many levels!
    What I take away from the real life story of J.K Rowling is this:

    1.  If you give in and give up, success may have been but a day away.
    2.  Creativity is the elixir of Life. Without it you can die of starvation.
    3.  External conditions are the manifestation of internal conditions.
    4.  Satisfaction originates within and moves outward, not the other way around.

     I have read that Rowling carried the character of Harry around in her head for years before she began writing the first book. It was her divorce, desperate financial circumstances and need to care for her daughter that finally came together to bring enough pressure to bear upon her that she needed a release of some sort. Turned out to be the release of Harry. Not the release of death.
    Which goes to prove one more important point.
    Life is always about choice. It’s not what happens to you, after all.
    It really is about how you handle it.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

>     The students in Tibet are rioting due to the repressive Chinese regime that seems to be all out determined to commit cultural and religious genocide upon the Tibetan people and the apparent ineffectiveness of the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile and his pacifist approach.  As a result of the growing chaos, the Dalai Lama is threatening to resign as the head of that government-in-exile, although he has no such option as spiritual head of Buddhism.
    Thank heaven (no pun intended) for that minor technicality. Really!
    Have you ever seen that man smile? He has a priceless joy and innocence that I would pay good currency (and probably a bit more) to be able to live on a daily basis. It’s not naiveté, either. It’s the unfettered, and as yet untainted, innocence of children, before all the rest of us impose the “cant’s” and “dont’s” and “impossibles” of limited belief systems. It’s where we all were at one time…only he’s figured out the way back.    
    The world would do well to study at those feet for awhile.
    Instead, his government-in-exile goes unrecognized by every other government in the world, as does the censoring of Chinese internet access to any stories that shed the light of truth upon Chinese oppression of the Tibetan population. It’s not a surprise, really. The world is usually slow to respond to oppressive regimes where economic issues compound the matter and profit is at stake when standing tall for what is right.
    I think we’ve come far enough that we as citizens of this democracy should demand of our leaders that we do, in fact, recognize the man, the government-in-exile, and the indefensibly inhumane actions of the Chinese government.  And yes, that’s going to have economic consequences and who knows what other consequences as well.
    But here’s the thing.
    History, our history, is replete with examples of how we as a nation turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to efforts by other nations to annihilate a group of people for what they believed in and each of those historical events is a blight upon who we are. Plus, our delay in standing tall, in those instances when we ultimately chose to, simply cost the loss of so many innocent lives and then our fair share of our own. You’d think we’d have figured it out by now that it’s not about the money and it’s not about the oil. It’s always about making choices for the highest good of all concerned.
    So, here’s this amazing, peaceful man with this amazing heart-warming demeanor who makes you feel good and hopeful just to be around him. So turning a blind eye or deaf ear isn’t going to work on this one because he just has to show up and his energy positively changes the room whether you can see him.. or hear him.. or not.
    I suspect this was true of all the great spiritual leaders in history and always will be he case. Perhaps we can get ahead of the curve on this one and not have to stand by while he’s crucified or stoned or incarcerated or tortured. He is, after all, human and such things will hurt him as well as us.
    And although we’d be the worse off if such things happened, I suspect he’d never lose that smile or that childlike innocence.
    After all, he holds authentic power and if there is a secret, he knows it.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “TOO MANY SECRETS”

>    No, it’s not a misspelled word. I meant “Bear” not “bear.” You see, it’s about the news that JP Morgan is acquiring Bear Stearns, the Wall Street Investment firm that seems to be in financial difficulty.  Now this “breaking news” is supposed to feed the fear that the economy is in trouble and we should all worry about our financial security. And that’s certainly one scenario. But allow me to pose another.
    It’s a good time for my caterpillar-butterfly analogy. Every time a butterfly is born, a caterpillar must die.  This fact isn’t inherently good or bad, it’s just a fact.  Well, some might say it’s only bad if you’re the caterpillar…but even in reply to that I would say, not necessarily. Whether it’s you, me or the caterpillar, we are all born with a purpose and our work here doesn’t last forever.  Hopefully, it’s the fulfillment of that purpose that is somehow tied to the completion of our time on earth. If you believe, as I do, that everything that occurs has purpose and is, ultimately, for the highest good of all concerned then whether it’s death or a Wall Street acquisition, things change for the better. While “better” is not necessarily always immediately visible or knowable…a little faith goes a long way in dispelling the fear of change.
     Bear Stearns is a symptom not a fatal diagnosis of the economy and all of Life as we know it.  It’s a symptom that another of the systems and institutional ways of doing “business as usual” isn’t serving us anymore.  So, good.  Let’s get on with it and find out what will serve us better.  We have a choice around this news.  We can feed the fear and panic or we can say to ourselves, “Time for a change. Let me keep a look out for the butterfly. I know it’s coming as certainly as is the sunrise.”
    Sometimes, when I share thoughts such as these I can almost hear some (or several) readers thinking, “What a Pollyanna! Is she living in the real world?”  Well, I’m neither a Pollyanna nor am I delusional.  But I can tell you that they are absolutely correct to ask if I’m living in the real world. The answer is Yes, I am living in it…but not of it.  Meaning that I am learning how to accept the totality of it all while at the same time learning how to Be within it and in relation to it without becoming it.  It’s sort of like being able to discern what you do (as in your work) from who you are (as a uniquely created aspect of God).  I used to be lawyer and I thought that’s who I was. So when I stopped practicing law, I temporarily lost my identity. Fortunately, when I went in search of it, I found that identity inside myself and it had no resemblance to the lawyer I thought I was.
    Similarly, when we can watch the events of the material world unfold around us and not think that the quality of our inner lives will be determined by them, we awaken to the realization that we ARE the butterfly.
    It doesn’t get much more beautiful than that.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “TOO MANY SECRETS.”