Eternal surprise, all the hellos and goodbyes, right there in your eyes.
The Trip
We arrive with no luggage and leave with none too, so why do we spend a lifetime accumulating mere things?
To prop up our egos, and relieve our boredom, to salve our hurts, and impress the neighbors.
Within the glorious potential of the soul’s quest, we lay waste to what could have been for the next new toy.
The kids fight over the treasures left behind by their parents, thinking that the having is some kind of victory.
But the wounds inflicted in the fight for more are baggage of a different kind, ones that can cross over if we don’t take care.
Traveling light and loving well are the real accomplishments, and as big as they are, they pack small for the leaving.
I will finish with a humorous note. Imagine if we could take our stuff with us, and then bring it back again in another life? What a mess that would be! We’d each need a locker in the in-between, and after our period of contemplation, claim our stuff to take back. *groan* There are so many permutations to this, I am weary just entertaining the thought. So many questions, so little time… Wishing you a wonderful day. 🙂
All day long I see people looking down at phones, what a boring view!
Please, let me see a whisper of what makes you tick, your eyes, and your smile.
There are many ways to set a trap; this one is brilliant in concept.
What is to become of humans, and these days I wonder if they care?
And how would I know? They say the window to the soul is in the eyes.
So many eyes now slaves to a tiny window, captured by a screen.
Look up, please look up, I want to connect with what is real and human.
But do you?
Am I lost, or are they? I just don’t get it, all that time glued to a phone. Perhaps I am a relic, someone who does not belong in this “modern world”. Or, perhaps I am a lifeline, so some people can realize there is more to life than that world within the little window. Maybe we’re all feeling a little lost these days, in this crazy mixed up world, and they are looking for answers there. I would say to those ones who might feel lost, let up some on the time spent there, and start looking within yourself.
Here’s the thing. There is some valuable stuff to be found on our phones, so they have their place, but there is a lot that isn’t, too. While our minds are constantly absorbed by someone else’s ideas, we do not have time for that most important of activities. IMAGINATION
I suggest that the power of imagination is one of the important tools that will release us from the suffering and the control on this planet right now. How much time are you spending on imagining what could be, rather than reading about the problems in the world on your phone? They (the ones currently running things in society) want to make us feel powerless, when nothing could be farther from the truth. However, we have to start imagining our own idea of what a good life and society look like, and create a new future for ourselves. Together.
A quote by Albert Einstein, apparently from an interview that was published in The Saturday Evening Post:
“I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am. When two expeditions of scientists, financed by the Royal Academy, went forth to test my theory of relativity, I was convinced that their conclusions would tally with my hypothesis. I was not surprised when the eclipse of May 29, 1919, confirmed my intuitions. I would have been surprised if I had been wrong.”
“Then you trust more to your imagination than to your knowledge?”
“I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
We are bound together by our humanity, and we make sense of life through our stories. Life is mysterious, scary, wonderful, big – replete with challenges, stumbling blocks, triumphs, sorrow and joy – and we feel a deep need to put it into words. As Maya Angelou said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you”.
When the person hearing our story looks in our eyes and nods, we feel that we are coming home, we are understood, the challenges are surmountable, and it will all be alright. We find delight, solace and strength in our shared humanity, and our stories.
Gossamer faerie, neon being of lightness, a fire-breathing fly?
I have yet to personally spot a flaming hot dragonfly. What a beautiful creature! It makes me wonder about the secret world of insects, a mysterious place to which we are seldom privy. Is the dragonfly legendary to the rest of the insects, just as dragons are to humans? A quirky, but interesting question.
The magical dragonfly is a fond girlhood memory of summer for me. Paddling around the lake on sultry afternoons, I loved to watch their iridescent colors flitting among the graceful lily pads. They captivated me. There was a purity and magic about these tiny gossamer creatures. They seemed to be visiting me from some mysterious, unseen faerie world, to which for a few moments I was privy.
Those dragonflies so many years ago were mainly cloaked in cool green and blue hues. Apparently the red ones mainly reside in parts of the world I have not seen yet. I haven’t done much traveling lately. Methinks it is time to go on a red dragon hunt…
Transcend
Beyond strife and grind, nature reveals the divine, heaven becomes mine.
The ever-elusive quest for happiness. Western society programs us to yearn for external stuff to be happy. When we have approval from others, that new computer game, the bigger house,… then we’ll be happy. Or so we think.
I grew up in a generation where moms actually did say, “Eat your broccoli, there are kids starving in Biafra”. Guilt management of children and eating their vegetables aside, they had a point. In a backhanded, control freak sort of way, they were also trying to teach us about gratitude.
If traveling the world (particularly Asia and South America) has shown me anything, it is that poverty exists on a scale that I did not previously comprehend as an adult, let alone at age 7. There are multitudes in the world who yearn for the simple basics: Food, potable water, adequate shelter.
Always striving for “bigger, better, faster” on which to build our house of happiness, in fact dooms us to eternal unhappiness. We build on shifting sand. When we reach a solid place of feeling internal wholeness and peace without any of the add-ons (“Would you like to upgrade your fast food today?”), then true, sustainable happiness is possible.
Happiness is a state of mind, and a choice, at any given moment. It’s not a destination.
The road to happiness. How do YOU define it?
As with love, our happiness expands when we remove the conditions we attach to it. “I’ll be happy when…” Happiness is a decision to see life in a certain way, with the realization that every moment of it is a gift.
Are you living your true heart’s desire? We are encouraged and conditioned in life to make logical decisions for our happiness. We are strongly influenced in the decision-making by people close to us. The problem is, they likely have also been programmed by society to believe happiness is a certain thing or way of being.
Listen to your heart, and then temper what it says with your logic and the wisdom you have already accumulated. If what your heart says still feels right, then follow it. Too many people only figure this out much later in life, and some never do at all.
Give yourself the gift of your heart’s desire as young as you are able. Live the life that will make you happy, not the one your peers or parents or society deems to be acceptable. It’s YOUR life. Make it a happy one!
Happy
True, real, enduring, happiness is being at peace with who you are.
Parts of this post are excerpts from Soul Journey: The Poetry of Life, and Becoming Bigger: In a world that wants to keep you small. They are free. Find my free ebooks here.
I love the pure sweetness of spring. Everything starts over again. Fresh. The Spring Solstice has always felt like the real New Year to me.
Susan L Hart / Author 