Reflections
It's been a beautiful world this past week with the Winter Olympics winding down from an excellent event provided by a wonderful country who have been gracious hosts to the world. SooZen and I have both enjoyed the events very, very much. There were many emotional times mixed with the shear excitement competition on a world level brings to the Games. If you are a follower at all with any of the events, I'm sure you found this Olympics to be top notch in many ways. Canada, O Canada, I love what you've shown of yourself... you are a beautiful country with a beautiful spirit.This week also ended with not only the 'bang' of the Olympics but the seismographic jolt of 8.8 doing so much damage and complete destruction to the good people of Chile. Although they are well-aware of earthquakes in their country, something of this magnitude struck fear in even the most conditioned hearts that have experienced many earthquakes, including the largest of all in 1960. Fear is fear when it strikes the hu'man heart, regardless of numbers, and this earthquake went on as some say, for 3 minutes or more... like they were being shaken by some giant, while their buildings, their shelters, came tumbling down like matchstick structures, so powerful it was. It will likely take weeks, if not months, to fully realize the amount of loss and damage occurred, especially since the aftershocks still remind them of what was and what could well be.
Our Earth, home to so much diverse life that science even today is still discovering new forms of life, is truly an Oasis in our known neighborhood of planets. Other forms of life that originated here, or even came from elsewhere, found this one planet out of what we believe to be millions, if not billions, of other planets to be beneficial for this mystery, Life, to explode into the world we live in today. A Garden of Eden, where all of life sustains life which provides life to give life so life may live in an environment unlike any other.
But as we well know, this planet is as alive as the life it gives and supports so well. Earth is always growing, moving, shifting, expanding, retracting, spewing, all the while spinning... all not unlike the creatures great and small that live upon it's surface. Talk about connected! Life, all of Life in every conceivable form that lives upon this one planet, in a very real way reacts/interacts the same as the very Earth that sustains us.
It is not the cruelty of a God which brings the Earth to shift, to erupt, or to collapse, nor is it the will of a God that brings the earth droughts, famine, hurricanes or wildfires and floods. These are the very natural cycles of our planet to maintain it's ability to provide the life necessary for all it's inhabitants. We hu'mans are but one more form of life amongst thousands or more than have come and gone throughout the life of this planet. Unlike all other forms of life we share the world with, it seems as though we are still evolving in our ability to live with the same degree of harmony that other life forms have evolved into doing, and doing so well far longer than we've inhabited the same world.
We have the intellect to learn to grow and accept new ideas and new ways of living. It could be said we even have the desire to improve our condition, certainly. That is one of our basic momentums - improving ourselves which in turn will improve the next generation. But as surely as the Sun sets, taking the light of day with it, the night comes in and gives the earth a respite from the warming rays of day... an eternal dance of duality to maintain a balance necessary for life to live in accordance with it's natural laws.
We have quite a ways to go in finding our own natural balance within this world we live upon. We're still not very good at it. We tend to take more than we give back to earth. I'm not saying we're evil and wicked, but those traits are certainly noticeable at times. Those negativities are part of our duality. We deal with them when they arise, as well we should. But, as I've said many a time, we are 'learning beings'... in a continual process that has not yet attained a sense of belonging as the other life's we share the earth with.
It may seem eons before we reach that natural balance as a species, but our sense of Time is no more than that - 'our sense of time'... not the sense of time of an amoeba or an elephant, but hu'man measurement and hu'man understanding of our passing of moments which is calculated by how many spins around our own Sun we complete. If we were living on Neptune, one revolution around the Sun would be 165 years... a measurement of time which would allow the average hu'man one-half year (earth time) to live.
In all our chatter and means of survival, we seldom have time or even make time, "to stop and smell the roses" as the saying goes. But it is those moments of stopping, getting down off the wheel, which affords us the view of life as an observer and not a participant, however brief that may be. Hopefully one can make the time to forget the time and plug themselves into Now, where the moment never ends and the mind is at rest, while the body relaxes and takes in the wonder of life, renewing purpose and spirit as harmony becomes one with Nature and Nature becomes one with you.
cecil
28 February 2009
Picture of the Week:
In Memory
you left this world 45 years ago
at a tender age of 60
with a heart broken from a life
which surely was difficult
your mother leaving you and
your family while you were so young
leaving your father to parenthood
in those early years of the 20th century
but you did not complain
always the soldier who stood tall
and gave strength silently
to those who would listen
you joined the Army while just a boy
fifteen years old, lied about your age
and spent over 30 years going from
a Private all the way up to a Major
that sad evening after you passed
when I came home from boot camp
I cried so hard Mom gave me a sedative
to calm me down I was so grief stricken
here it is with all those years gone by
and I find myself crying while writing
this memorial to you, Dad, that I feel
like you've just gone away yesterday
forty-five years is a long time to hold
back one's emotions but undoubtedly
it has been long overdue and these
tears streaming down my cheeks
are comforting in a way that lets me
know that you truly were alive and
with me for far longer than you lived
and for that I will always love you.
Thank you very much,
Cecil, jr
.you left this world 45 years ago
at a tender age of 60
with a heart broken from a life
which surely was difficult
your mother leaving you and
your family while you were so young
leaving your father to parenthood
in those early years of the 20th century
but you did not complain
always the soldier who stood tall
and gave strength silently
to those who would listen
you joined the Army while just a boy
fifteen years old, lied about your age
and spent over 30 years going from
a Private all the way up to a Major
that sad evening after you passed
when I came home from boot camp
I cried so hard Mom gave me a sedative
to calm me down I was so grief stricken
here it is with all those years gone by
and I find myself crying while writing
this memorial to you, Dad, that I feel
like you've just gone away yesterday
forty-five years is a long time to hold
back one's emotions but undoubtedly
it has been long overdue and these
tears streaming down my cheeks
are comforting in a way that lets me
know that you truly were alive and
with me for far longer than you lived
and for that I will always love you.
Thank you very much,
Cecil, jr
and gracias for also sharing with us your dad´s memory-poem! (also in some days -march 10th- eleven years from my mom´s death at 59 -it´s quite probably there will also be some bitter-sweet tears around that at some moment- and today´s my brother´s february 29th un-ubiquos birthday party at "Focaccia", a bar by the river in a so beautiful summer night here!).
