From an Upper Floor

Oftentimes in my comments I will say that if I can introduce a `maybe ‘ into someone’s thinking,  we can help broaden premises.  Because I have lived long enough to see old ideas fail,  am I open to new ideas.   After due thought, I incorporate them  but  also realize that others are not as eager as I am.  We all know we cannot force feed an entire generation nor even attempt to change long established patterns of behavior.   People do what they do because to change any thing means that all things in the light of what is learned, must be examined.  People know this.  Humans know it.   It is not the work for the fainthearted.   It is the work of a human workaholic bent on cleaning up a mess of too many centuries old.

And in the process of reexamination and change,  what we grant to ourselves, we must grant to Others.   If freedom is ours, having freed ourselves either from a past holding us hostage or some other factor, we must grant to the Other, his.   If we claim the sun to shine on our heads, we must also grant space to the Other for the sun to shine.  What we have is a double edged sword.   We must also grant the right not to change to the Other.   If they prefer the status quo,  it must be granted.   But only if an Other’s space is not intruded upon.   By clinging to one’s own bent,  we cannot damage an Other.

When we have an entire generation bridling under a specific burden, it must be rectified.   That means whatever non-violent tools required, must be used.  We change things then bit by bit.  We know the dangers of drugs.   We know the crunch of unequal opportunities in all walks of life.   So we change by education, by election, by changing laws.  If we have a generation of grandparents seeing beyond their own children and grandchildren,  seeing across waters and generations to come,  we then have those who see life’s continuity.   When we have parents and grandparents viewing their own progeny as mortgage payments requiring due payment,  we will save liters of blood , not only our own but untold generations’ spilling endlessly on soil in wars not needing to be fought.  We will then make a difference.

A young man told me he knew what he was supposed to think and feel.  He said I will continue to try but at that moment he said he was scared.   I told him he was close to the kingdom.   He was.  Enough times told,  the frightened self will begin to change habits.

We can begin with a `maybe’ after due process of thought.

Let us resolve to fall in love with our Earth.  Other resolutions have already died.   Let us fall in love with our Earth and keep her alive.   Yet how does one fall in love with Earth?  It is easy.   It is a different kind of feeling, a oneness, a union that nothing dissolves or divides.  It is the steadiness, the compliance of all things in Nature that yield to a bidding when it is done with love.  She is not secretive.   She is an open book.

This love is a desire to return to a place where the heart knows its completeness;  in its wholeness with the laws of Nature.  We become one and the same.   We are its answer and its prayer, its meditation and its question.   We are what the seeker chooses to establish when all else fails to come to fruition.   When there is nothing that satisfies, there is always the hope and response in the garden, in the fields and in the forests.   In its beaches and in its waters.  It is a communion with the holiness in us and a love which puts all else to shame unless it measures up.

It is a comfortable place to be.   It is what we choose in place of relationships that wither with disillusion.   Nature does not.   She gives from an unending Source, reaching into her carpetbag to bring forth bits of revelation to entice, to give one reason to keep trying.  Yet when she falters, for every grievance she dispenses, there is redress.   In time there is an adjustment, a correction for every injury.   She is easy to love.   But no matter how many other worlds there are, this one is worth taking care of.   No illusions are necessary because she is sufficient unto herself.

In retrospect, this planet has suffered with our lack of stewardship.   So let us fall in love with her.   Let us resolve to take care of her.   It is time now to assume guardianship of this place we call home.

For this time she is all we have.

I received an e mail with photos of several large elephants making their way to the home of a man who had befriended them.  This person named Lawrence Anthony spent his life caring for elephants in South Africa.  His death occurred on March 7, 2012.  Two days after he died, wild elephants showed up at his home led by 2 large matriarchs.  Up to 31  of them walked over 12 miles to pay homage to his family.   It does not surprise me that they thought of their caretaker as being more than just this person,  Lawrence Anthony.   The question was asked how did they know of the death of this friend and how was word spread.   Growing up on The Farm during my most formative years I saw very old farmers and their animals in communication not only verbally but with body language.   And the animals understood their caretakers without question.  There was a symbiotic relationship between animals and their caretakers.   They were of one heart.   This is how word spreads in the wild or anywhere when the relationship is of heart and understood so.   One knows at a level that our vocabulary has no word for.   My mother thought cows were the smartest of all farm animals.   She did not think dogs were smart at all.   And yet having read a recent study on dog intelligence,  some do have the intelligence of a 2 or 3 year old toddler.   I am in awe.   Yet I know as one who talks to my dogs and listens to them,  that they tune me out when there is no need evident,  as children do.

As far as the elephants making the journey to pay homage to their friend,  it is not surprising.   We are all connected.  There is a common thread that unites all to the all.   We in the western culture are a very small segment of civilization that does not believe in some level of reincarnation.   Most of the world does with different interpretations to be sure.   Many, many years ago I read that if souls wish to participate in earth life but without human experience, they can send a fragment of spirit or soul stuffs to experience physical life at some level of existence.   Elephants, jungle life of many kinds, dolphins and whales have long been known to have language and systems of thought.   We cannot close out  whole systems of Life simply because we do not understand them.   There are those who have spent their lives in service to an assembly of creatures and have learned to understand them.   One day there will be words in our vocabulary to describe meanings not found now.   Sometimes we have to step outside our frame of reference to begin to understand Other than what we are comfortable with.   How great is our need to know is always a good beginning.   Lawrence Anthony communicated at a level that went deeper than most people’s understanding of deep.   This connection to all life , and some say just sentient life, is as far as some go.   I would go farther and say ALL THAT IS is in everything.  I go so far as to say God in a rock and beneath it also.   I have had to redefine the word God to incorporate my views and friend,  it is a long hard work.