Every morning, the world I wake up to is completely different from the one I went to sleep with.
Every morning, there are people who were alive last night who no longer are. Every morning babies were born during my sleeping moments.
A whole new world. Humanity forever changed. Overnight. As it has always been and the way it will always be.
Author and lecturer Caroline Myss shared this thought in a seminar last year in Vancouver. It’s not that I didn’t know this somehow. But its startling truth dazed my complacent heart.
One of those days, long years ago, I was the baby who cried her first breath while someone else slipped out of this world. Someday, I will be the one who leaves as another enters. This reality is as true in days of calamity as in days of peace and I find it neither morbid nor depressing. It is simply the condition of those of us on Planet Earth. Our days, our hours, are limited.
But it is in the times of crisis where this reality crashes in on us and the fear of Life and the truth of Death haunt our days.
I have been pondering and wondering: what is it – really – that we are fearing? What if Earth is simply responding with illnesses to the illnesses of greed, self-interest, arrogance, and narcissism with which we plague her? We are all One…or so it is rumored.
And am I afraid? I don’t feel afraid. But maybe this is just numbness born of the incessant bickering that we see reported. A numbness that has veiled our souls to the cries of Earth Mother. A numbness that hides the reality that Life is the illusion.
To some this may seem heresy, others may dismiss the concept of Illusion, but hear me out. When my beloved husband died over five years ago I began asking friends of deep faith, “Is this tiny portion of eternity that I call my life the only opportunity for salvation? Does it say so in scripture?” I would always illustrate it with my thumb pressing on my pinkie finger about an eighth of an inch from the top. I could not find a reference even as a dug through my several translations and the huge Biblical concordance in my library. No one could answer my question - including one of the wisest and most learned Christians I have ever known. That is what sent me on a renewed personal quest for a deeper faith. And for those who don’t know me, my path to faith began with a deeply real experience at about age three and a half; I am no stranger to the call of Spirit. So, far from diminishing my belief in Spirit, the death of my spouse and this question of eternity opened my heart to the many roads and paths that Creator Source uses to draw our spirits to Its heart.
There is nothing I take with me at death. Nothing. I don’t take my things, I don’t take my body, I don’t take my breath. I believe at that final earthly moment I have only myself, my soul, that deepest part of me that is real. So…if that’s all I have really, then what is all of this that I see? I have come to like the Buddhist concept of Illusion. (I have only begun to study Buddhism and other wisdom traditions. Sixty plus years of my life were steeped in the teachings of the Christ. I am sure I understand only the rudiments of Buddhist teachings. I believe however, there is wisdom and truth here.)
To say that life is illusory is not the same saying it is not real. This world IS real in the sense that I experience it. I feel this desk on which my notebook rests, where I am writing. I taste the food and wine. I hear the singing birds, smell spring’s flowers, hear bees already humming. The love for spouse, partner, children, friends is real.
But if I try to hold on to any one of these they are gone. Material things disintegrate, people I love pass on, breath comes and goes. The very now-ness of now is gone by the time I am aware of it. Eternity is pixilated with the fragments that we, in our linear body framework, can only see as a timeline of nows.
For me this means I must EMBRACE this now. Hug it to my heart. The now with its beauty; the now with its grief. The now that is all I ever have. And now will exist for eternity.
That doesn’t mean I am not concerned about the state of the world. It is concern that prompts my writings. Concern for the fragmented way we are approaching each other. Heartache over the way many of our leaders in government, business, and religion are more concerned for appearances than for the people they have committed to serve. This is nothing new, but it seems somehow harder and colder.
And yet – there are such glimmers of hope. Neighbors reaching out to neighbors. Help for those who need it. How can we sustain that in days that may become darker still? How can we who are light, BE light?
So, I went out to weed. Just weed. All of this rain has Mother Nature sprouting plants everywhere – most are “volunteers” that I call weeds. On these warmer days in between the showers I pull the ones in my rock and flower beds and the dry creek bed that is currently not-so-dry. The magnitude of this task can overwhelm, but the mindlessness calms.
For years, weeding has been a meditation time for me. This time my prayer is for fear to shift and for love to light the dark corners. For creative ways I can help. For a spirit of gentleness. For grace in our world.
I believe the vibrations of my focused attention – prayer - will change things. I believe there is a God who hears me and loves every one of us. Physicists as well as spiritual sages teach the power of thought. If nothing else, prayer changes me, shifts my perspective. In prayer I learn to think more about others, their needs, the needs of the world as I know it, and the needs the world beyond. In prayer there is forgiveness and there is wisdom that comes from the Divinity around and in us.
I’ve observed the power of prayer throughout my life. My father was a pastor and I was taught to pray – for good to happen, for healing, for provisions, for people’s deepest needs – not for wealth or things exactly. (Of course, I DID pray for a pony and that’s a lesson in itself. I did not get the pony.) I was taught to pray with gratitude for everything – what we received, what we didn’t receive, and what we were going see. My family didn’t use the term “manifest,” but we did live the Law of Attraction. Live with joy and joy finds you.
And we lived in abundance. An abundance of gratitude and love. I learned years later that at some points we qualified for food stamps, but my parents were too proud to apply. I never felt a lack because we lived knowing that there is a God who is in charge. As my friend says, Either God’s in charge ~ or She isn’t.
My parents didn’t create an expectation that we would get everything we wanted; we simply lived with thankfulness for what was there. One of the Universal Laws states that “like attracts like,” which is why at this time in our world I think it is more important than ever to generate all of the joy we can. Hear me clearly: I do not suggest we live in disregard of pain or a giddy denial of grief and fear. Those are real and I’ve been there. Those who know me well saw my despair when my beloved died. I was never afraid, but I did not want to live. To get to the place of life again was – for me - to walk directly through the pain. (It took over a year to get there.) I do suggest that we pray with thanksgiving for the life we have been given whether it be short or long.
If a new kindness can arise out of this fear, if a new understanding of who our neighbor really is, if this imposed stillness can bring our souls to the Spirit of our Creator…what might humanity become?
Another morning dawns. The new world awakens.
You give me hope and strength!