Approaching Solstice...
This year the darkness is really calling me. Since the end of October, Samhain, I've felt the pull. The dreamtime calls. Even the waking dreamtime is vivid, both with reflection and re-vision-ing.
I find myself going over residue from events, relationships, experiences, and gently massaging that stuff as it dissipates, kind of like when something is sticky and hardened on the floor, it takes some time and attention to get it cleaned up, and that act of cleaning can be very zen.
I read an article recently about how certain Buddhist monks end their lives by basically dissolving into light, (I am shorthanding this) and that the way this is done is to think nothing but loving thoughts for the rest of one's life. I jokingly have said that "Oh well, that's not me!" but the truth is, while I do not only have loving thoughts, I mostly have loving thoughts, and sometimes thoughts that seem not loving are, in fact, motivated by love. Political anger, for instance, is motivated by the love of justice.
I'm looking at this revisiting of past remnants as part of this business of being a more loving person. Imagine (I'm sure you can!) having some emotional residue left from a relationship you had as a teenager...a friend, a peer, not necessarily a partner even...and just shining love on that situation and watch as the residue floats away.
Perhaps we humans are not as far from being our best as the worst among us make it seem.
I find myself going over residue from events, relationships, experiences, and gently massaging that stuff as it dissipates, kind of like when something is sticky and hardened on the floor, it takes some time and attention to get it cleaned up, and that act of cleaning can be very zen.
I read an article recently about how certain Buddhist monks end their lives by basically dissolving into light, (I am shorthanding this) and that the way this is done is to think nothing but loving thoughts for the rest of one's life. I jokingly have said that "Oh well, that's not me!" but the truth is, while I do not only have loving thoughts, I mostly have loving thoughts, and sometimes thoughts that seem not loving are, in fact, motivated by love. Political anger, for instance, is motivated by the love of justice.
I'm looking at this revisiting of past remnants as part of this business of being a more loving person. Imagine (I'm sure you can!) having some emotional residue left from a relationship you had as a teenager...a friend, a peer, not necessarily a partner even...and just shining love on that situation and watch as the residue floats away.
Perhaps we humans are not as far from being our best as the worst among us make it seem.