The game of campaigning is over. I am not one to talk about politics, and I am enjoying the quiet after the chaos. We’re in the inbreath time after a long outbreath, where gathering of strategies and next steps are afoot.
If I am silent just enough, I can feel the collective calmness in our country’s humanity.
Imagine, if you will, the idea that we are all part of the whole. Each human walking on this earth is a microcosm of the macrocosm. Stories may be different but patterns are similar. The earth is polluted. We are polluted. The earth calms. We calm. The earth rages. We rage. The collective inbreath and the collective outbreath. I can notice it more easily when there is a loss of someone known to all, like Michael Jackson or Ruth Bader Ginsberg. I close my eyes and feel the collective harmony of loss.
We are all in this together and yet I choose not to engage in the cacophony of competition and negativity. I choose not to engage in behavior that lowers my energy and festers negativity. I choose to curiously peer through the veil of illusion to discover what I can imagine using my anything-is-possible lens. Our imagination can move one way or the other -- to harmony or strife.
I choose harmony in my life. I enjoy comfortable routines just as everyone else does.
While living in fear and pain, I built isolation which supported my fear and pain.
Once I honored my fear and pain, I stopped hiding.
I discovered I had opinions.
I discovered I had likes and dislikes.
I discovered I wanted to learn more.
I discovered I cared.
I learned to love.
I learned the Universal law that I make my life based on my values.
Outside my window flowers bloom
In a rampant disarray.
They pay no heed to color schemes
In their wonderful display.
I thought I heard a pansy say
In a low voice to a lily,
"I simply do not understand
Why human beings are so silly.
They will argue about color,
They will argue about size,
They even seem to disagree
About the shape of someone's eyes.
Though we're crowded in together,
There never seems to be
Any sign of agitation,
No disrespect that I can see."
An ageratum said, "You know,
Though I am low down on the ground,
I never feel that I am less
Than the tallest flowers around.
It is too bad that people
Cannot seem to realize
They should listen to their hearts,
Not just depend on ears and eyes.
It would help them understand
How much joy there then could be.
Accepting everyone as equals
Would give their lives sweet harmony."
Participants’ Reflections:
Thank you so much, such a powerful reading. I liked the focus on harmony. I liked the line about choosing not to engage in the cacophony of negative and competition. It brings down my energy. I want to focus today on being positive and not in the competition. Our country is in a very divided state and I want to do whatever I can to heal that and to walk away from competition. Not gloat. Just be in a space today of being positive and inclusive, being open to everyone, and not to just some people and some ideas. Thank you for that reminder.
I felt for a long time, whether it’s with politics or anything else, one of the best things you can have is multiplicity of perspectives on things. Like Hegel, thesis, antithesis, synthesis. It really does help to come to a good, positive solution if somebody proposes one thing and someone else responds to that. It’s human nature. A frank discussion of whatever, and you wind up with something no one can take ownership of because it emerged in little bits from all of these different perspectives.
It reminds me of what I learned from my Psychosynthesis training which is a form of counseling the mind, body and spirit. It’s having bifocal vision for everything.
Getting the good news about a vaccine this morning gives us an opportunity to come back into our own humanity, and we find ultimate harmony when we realize no being is better than another being. It’s no accident we are being given this opportunity to come back to our humanity after a feeling of separateness. When we realize we are all in this together and we can be in this together, this is a moment of true celebration whereas half the nation is in deep grief, half is not. We have an opportunity to line up and drop into loving each other in the celebration of the possibility of the pandemic ending next year.
Thank you for your reading. What I was reflecting on today was harmony. I saw something that struck me as a wonderful thought. The left wing and the right wing are part of the same bird. It goes along with harmony, that we need each other in order to be one.
Thank you for the reading. What really spoke to me was talking about the flowers living together and talking to each other. I just love to think about that. I love that feeling. My daughter, who is a farmer, told me that one reason she became a farmer was that, when she was little, I’d always say how happy the plants were when it rained. They are all so happy. It just makes me feel good to think about the life around me and it is interactive with each other, and the connections. Thank you for that.
Thank you for the reading. The piece that landed for me and stayed was about the collective breath. As the Earth feels, we feel, and we expand and contract. And thinking about what I find in that breath, because if I go outside and take a deep breath, I might smell the leaves and I might smell the cooking from the nearby restaurant and I might smell the perfume of someone in the vicinity. I get to choose what I focus on in that breath. It comes back to my own will, my own mind, my own heart, and where is today going to take me. I am back looking at the collective but yet, where do I lie in that and how do I hold myself to the values that I want to manifest in the collective and in myself?
Thank you for being here, showing up for yourself, showing up for this community that is strong and vibrant and buoying. I appreciate you all hearing my words. I hope you have a gentle day living in harmony within yourself.