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I think that the needy are a gift.   They are desperate, and so they do not keep silent.   They speak, even shout their pain and anguish.   Their voices become an open invitation for compassion.    They challenge me to open my heart, to really see them, to not turn away.

Their need is so obvious I have to strain if I want to avoid it.    I pass it on my short four-block walk between bus and light rail.   I sit next to it on the bus.    I am aware of their need as I drive through their neighborhood, hear their stories on the radio, read the reports on their plight.  I seem to be surrounded by opportunities for compassion, and I have to choose what to do.

I admit that I am confused by the shouts of hate, anger and prejudice.    These are people who have a deep fear, and are ready to blame others for the causes of their fear.    They often blame people who have more need than them.   How do I get past the hate and anger.    How do I see them as fearful and in pain.    How do I not turn away.

I don’t think I can get past the anger and hate.    I would rather not see them.  They do not stir my compassion.

My ability to experience you has increased dramatically.

In the past year, all my senses have hightened their awareness.  The fragrance of my world has become more intense.    The color and dimensions of my world have become more engaging.   I am more attentive to sound.    Most significant, I am much more aware of the dimensions of my body.  My skin tingles in anticipation of whatever comes near.   Wind has become more present, space is inviting.

I am also more aware of the dimensions of pain and tragedy.   It can be overwhelming at times.   This week I have experienced a couple days of profound sadness because I saw the power of fear, hate and anger.   And I also have thought of all the pain I expect people to experience because of the election.   But I can be aware of it in a way that does not bring me suffering.   I am sad, but it is unlike the welcome experience of my senses which bring me expanding joy and delight.   I am sad but content.

If this is the path of mindfulness, I embrace it with gratitude.

I woke this morning to the news of the further unraveling of the social fabric we have haphazardly woven into our world.   I am sad that the USA has chosen a fabric of rough and uniform texture rather than a delicate and diverse one.   I expect that this will be a harsh and painful time

I also am aware of the unstable climate we have created in our world-wide atmosphere.  I watch as the whole world rushes forward toward an environmental upheaval never before experienced by our species.  There is great human pain in our future, brought about by our effect on our environment.

Even as I expect to share in the approaching pain, I intend not to be swayed or swept away by it or its anticipation.   The social condition in the USA has been making a dramatic shift as so many people yield to their fear and the pain of loss.   Claw and fang are having their day;  tenderness is taking a holiday for many.   I watch, and I wonder if this will plunge us into a time of panicked savagery or awakened consciousness.

My world has passed a significant pivotal point, both social and environmental.  I think we have the capacity t0 work our way through, but I am uncertain that we will.   What will we choose to do?

I am watching, and I will touch what I can.    I will change what I can, but I will not be changed by what I cannot.    I think I will be mostly watching and resolving not to be swept away by fear and panic.

 

I have to admit, even though I love the bright colorful world around me during the daylight, there is something about darkness that attracts me.   I have come to think of the distinction between light and dark as having meaning only because I have eyes that have evolved to be able to detect a very narrow band of wavelengths.  All the rest of the world is cloaked in darkness, even during the daylight provided by the sun.

In some ways, darkness is the default, the normal state.   A world illumined by the light I can see is the exception.    This is a lesson of the night sky.    All is dark except for the flickering points of light provided by the stars.    Our daytime sky would be black too but for the scattered rays coming from our own star.

I depend on light in critical ways, whether it is light from the sun or light created by human invention.    I am able to function, explore and enjoy my world because of illumination.    But there is a world that exists beyond the small circle of light that a candle provides.   I want to be more aware of that unseen world, both the tangible and intangible.

I already have the comfort provided by the velvet black of a night sky, and I enjoy the enveloping darkness of a room without lights.    I love the space I create when I draw the hood of my cape over my head and face.   I think these are but threshold experiences of darkness.   Darkness creates a sense of presence that is less obvious in the light.

I would be very sad not to have the use of my eyes.   I would also like to be better able to develop a better sense for darkness.

When I think about the first tiny creatures and early animals like Trilobites, it is tempting to think of them as loving a long, long time ago.   I think it is rather conventional for my mind to yield to the outrageous divisions of time and put some kind of linear order in it all.   Past, present, future.    All are assigned their correct places.

I prefer to see these ancient new beginnings as happening right now with me in their midst.   Today is the day when those small interpreneurs grasped life and became part of the universal living web.   Not an isolated island but part of an event that never really had a beginning and will never end.   It will always be.

My mind doesn’t always like this kind of thinking, or rather no-thinking.  I still like to push aside the illusion of time and sit in the midst of these timeless events.   I am part of the same web as those early “first” creatures.   I was and will always be with them.    We are all first-borns.

I know that I have learned to live in a world that is conveniently framed by time.  It seems to make more sense to see events emerging in orderly fashion, one after the other, each given its place in our measures of time.

But I like better to see us all as walking forward not in single-file but all abreast.   I resist time imposing its order on me.  Time, for me, is a constraint which I learned to use as a way to put order into my world.   Instead, I am now opting for a world in which Trilobites can swim thru my every day.

It is as if I have been staring at the words all my life, and I never understood their meaning.   The shape of the letters has been intriguing and I have been fascinated by their comeliness.    The groupings of the letters have interested me, but I could never make the sounds they represented.    Neither did I understand their meaning.

I am now beginning to understand the intelligence behind the symbols.   I am now beginning to see and hear their deep and wondrous meaning.

For years I have watched the flowers in my garden rise out of the ground with their own power and enthusiasm.    I have walked among them, admiring their shape and comeliness.   Every fall, I dutifully tended to them by cutting them back to the ground, carried their dead husks to my compost bins, and handed then over to the agents of decay.

I then waited for the leveled ground to spring to life again in the warmer days.

This year, as I cut my flowers down, I see and feel them in a different way.   I am beginning to look beyond their obvious shapes and smells.   There is an intelligence and reality beyond their green and multi-colored appearance that is slowly appearing to me.   The feel of their stems, the rattle of their dead blooms, the smell of decay is different this year.

It is as if I am seeing them with eyes that have suddenly learned to read.  This year there is a reality beyond the obvious, something I never had the skill to understand.   There is an intelligence beyond the illusory shape and texture I hardly ever sensed before.

I am learning to read the lovely and shapely words.   My heart opens in new ways to what I can see.

My mind seems drawn to distraction more than usual.   It may even be slightly preoccupied.  It is asserting itself so much so that I have been little immersed in the features of the moment.

I think of things that need to be done.    There are plants to cut down, screens to store, leaves to gather and put on the flower beds.  The demands of the season changes.

Also, my heart seems distracted by what could be.   Is this the loneliness that must haunt someone who has chosen not to be in a coupling?  This could be the ache of coming face to face with my aloneness.    I am stretching the scar I have nurtured and puzzled over all my life.

Planning seems a necessary part of life, I think.   Right now I am distracted, more than I want, by the planning and the possible.   I get hooked by the changing environment and the distraction of a longing that tugs at my sleeve for action.

I am only beginning to appreciate the  amount of attention and affection I give to invisible things.   My invisible world stretches and expands the more I understand how things have come to be and how they respond to me and one another.

So many things are invisible to me because they are too small, too distant or too obscured by other things.   Some of these I can see if my vision is improved by bending light.   There are tools I can use to make them visible to me.  They can make things appear larger or closer to me.

Still, most of my world is invisible to me because it exists beyond my senses.  Many wave lengths are beyond the narrow range of perception allowed by my eyes.   Yet they are as real as other things my eyes are capable of seeing.   There are sounds that travel on waves too high, too low or too weak for my ears to sense.   That makes them no less real.

I live in an ocean of real things that I cannot sense any more than a fish recognizes it lives in water.   The fields and particles rushing around me and thru me are as real as my hand.   Yet I cannot feel or see this ocean in which I exist and which exists in me.

Even though what they present to me is something of an illusion, I suppose I can trust my senses to a degree.   They can take me to the threshold of a wondrous reality that beckons me in.  I may see, hear and touch so much, but I can be aware of so much more.   Of this invisibility I am certain.

I don’t know for sure if my aged maple slowly nods its branches to acknowledge me when I pause to tell it how beautiful it is.   I’m told that the rocks I move around in my garden do not feel my touch and are unaware they have been rearranged by me.

The squirrels that I shout at hardly seem to know that I want them to behave better.   I think they must sense my intention, certainly my displeasure.   Some people say they are just being squirrels.

For me, all the world around me is alive, has within it a fire of activity and awareness.   It responds to my presence and in its own way knows it is part of my world.   I think it knows I am here and is affected by me.

I don’t pretend to understand the mind of a tree or a rock.   I shudder to think I could enter into the thoughts of a squirrel.   But I refuse to listen to those who say “No, no,” none of these trees, rocks or squirrels are affected by my presence, voice or touch.  I think  they could be wrong, and what a pity if they really are wrong.

I may not be absolutely certain that rocks and trees are changed, but I know I am changed when I acknowledge them, when I  speak to them, when I press my hand against them.   Of this I am certain.

This is NOT the first day of the rest of my life.    What a foolish and sappy thing to say.   I cringe that it is paraded again and again before the eyes of the naive.

Today is the only day of my life.   It is what I have.   It is my one chance to dedicate myself to what I yearn to do.

So I repeat my dedication to be a protector of nature, a healer of misery, a messenger of wonder, an architect of peace, and a fountain of loving kindness.   I’ll try not to blow it.