Meditation took an odd turn this morning. The first thing that popped into my mind of course, was the date. September 11 is a day of both national and human tragedy, but also one of personal significance to me as well. While my crisis was nothing compared to the terror, loss and pain of the people in the towers and their families, it none the less turned my life upside down. I discovered that no matter how good a life you try to live, someone can take it away or ruin it in one brief moment. Trust, hope and comfort can disappear. Hatred, revenge and selfishness blots it out. Fear and despair rule the heart. Just as the people caught up in 9-11, it took years to rebuild my life. In my case I had to redefine truth, learn to trust again, reestablish who I really was and overcome the fear that at any moment the world could cave in on us again. Mostly, I learned that we are not in control. The only thing we can control is our own minds and sometimes that seems beyond our reach. I built a better, stronger life. I hope that the people from New York did too. On the way out to feed the geese, I picked up a peacock feather from the brilliant green grass. I stood transfixed as the sun played with its colors. They shifted from blue to green to iridescent chocolate and gold. It was beautiful. It was pure. It was the magic of life. Then I thought about how the colors are not really there. Without the light to strike the minute prisms in the base make up of the feather, it is actually dull grey. The beauty is simply an illusion. In reality it is as dull and drab as any feather from the floor of the chicken coop. My mind flashed back to the scenes of that brilliant, sunny day in September when the towers fell. The people running out and away were all covered with fine grey dust. The people helping were grey. The people standing, frozen in horror were grey. Even the streets and buildings, flowers and grass were all the same matt color. Everything was the same. I looked at my feather and realized that all life is really only an illusion. The differences between us are as false as the colors in my hand. On that day, all the people looked the same, there was no black or white or red or yellow. They were simply human beings trying to survive or help others survive. In the middle of one of the most hateful acts in history, compassion reigned. What happened to one human, happened to all of them. They did not distinguish between one another. Grief and horror and the will to survive affected each and very one of them. In a moment of death, Life became the most precious and powerful thing. Moose came out to sit by me in the grape arbor. I looked deeper at the feather and life. I allowed my mind to take over and thought about the notion that we are all the same, all basic humans. We have the same limbs, a head and bodily functions. There is no difference on a cellular level. No color or ethnicity, no male or female. What they are so am I. How can I hate what is me? I looked at the dog, he is compromised of cells and while he may be identified as a dog by his cells, the cells are still as mine. The have nuclei, electrons, protons, the very same atoms that make up the grass and trees and birds and the butterfly that landed near us. The rocks, the soil, the clouds, the sea, they are all made up of the very same elements as the dog and I. What makes him dog and me, me, is so small and miraculous that I don’t even begin to understand it. I only know that on the base level…we are one. We are all one. We and the earth are one. We and the universe…are one. We are inseparable. It is only the illusions that separate us. The thought that you are man and I am woman, you are Muslim and I am Buddhist, that he is dog and I am human. It’s no more than the play of light on a dull grey feather imbued with prisms. Take time today as I will to wipe away the illusions and really see each other and the world as part of yourself. Be one with the universe. You can’t hate what is you. You can’t carelessly use and discard what is you. You can only have compassion and compassion is the only thing that will save the world and all its people. My morning and evening prayers end with these blessings “Bless this house and all who enter in. Bless those that I love and my enemies, Bless the animals that I keep and protect them”. How can I have enemies, if they are me? I have only people that I love. May that love spread to all who take the time to read this. Amitoufu
Posted on: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 15:18:55 +0000
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