As spring ends and the summer solstice soon arrives, I sit and take stock of the many seeds of ideas planted in my mind that are now gestating. For instance, I keep thinking my life is supposed to go a certain way; I’m supposed to create a certain body of work. But instead it’s more like I’m the star of the movie “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” I work on my screenplays and my music but nothing gets done to my satisfaction because the immediacies of life take my attention. As my neighbour said last night, we can either live for our dreams or we can live for the moments. Ghandi said: My life is my message.
It’s funny, we get an idea of who we are when we’re young and think that’s who we’re supposed to be for the rest of our lives. But then I heard a singer/songwriter interviewed on the radio and this angel spoke to my heart when he said there are many aspects of who we are and as we get older, new ones arise that need to be attended to. Eventually we realize that what we do is only one aspect of who we are. Balancing the doing with the being is the interesting task in life. Too much doing is exhausting, not enough doing is depressing: too much being is ineffective and not enough being is blinding. Hmmm.
And then I’ve been thinking about the difference between being humble and being humiliated. I said something that was taken to be arrogant but the fact was, it was true to my experience. The word respect comes from the Latin respicere, meaning “the willingness to look again.” Being respectful and being humble are linked, and so I had another look at what I had said and true enough, it was based on outdated knowledge; I hadn’t kept up with the times and I apologized.
The word humble comes from the Latin humus or “earth.” To be humiliated is to feel less than, inadequate, which feels bad. But humility is about being open to the wonders and knowing you are very small in the great scheme of things - and knowing, too, you are a part of something quite grand, and that feels good! And then there’s the word “human” that shares the same root. We, and all of life, are made up of the very same elements as the earth... “from dust to dust.” I’m not sure what to make of this. Is calling someone dirt really a compliment? Interesting, neither of the words - earth nor dirt - are pluralized; they represent collectives. Hmmm.
The third thing I’ve been pondering is prayer. There are three types, I have learned: petitioning prayers, prayers of worship and prayers of gratitude. I’ve been looking into this because I feel like maybe I need a more ritualistic practise. With all the natural disasters - or perhaps I ought to say - with all the disasters happening in/to nature (including people), prayer seems more relevant. An email has been going around inviting everyone to pray for the water: be bold and see the oil spilled waters being clear, writes Dr. Masaru Emoto. At 5 pm Eastern on July 21st a group will be doing just that. I intend on joining them, and I petition you to do so as well.
I’m not really sure what the difference between prayers of worship and prayers of gratitude are. When my husband praises the meal I make, I understand his words to also mean ‘thank you for the care you took in preparing this food.’ When I praise him for the renovation he’s done, my words also mean ‘thank you for the care you took in upgrading that.’ When I praise my young grandsons for blowing beautiful bubbles, my words also mean ‘thank you for bringing me such joy.’ If the only prayer you say in your life is "Thank You," that would be enough, said Meister Eckhart. I wonder if that’s what he meant. Hmmm.
There’s so much going on in the world today, so many possibilities. Is it all darkness? Is darkness bad? Seeds are planted in darkness.
Wow, there’s so much I don’t know, yet at the root of things, there seems to be some weird and wonderful connection.
Hmmm.
What if every day we imagined to ourselves: what seeds will come to fruition because today I have said thank you!
