Good Morning Sun & Moon!
Blow, and you can extinguish a fire. Blow, and you can make a fire. Zen koan found at https://marenschmidt.com/
The idea of paradox has the Muse and me engaged this morning. And as I read the above Zen koan again, I sense what’s underneath each truthful ‘blow’: intention.
Decades ago when I was a college student, a friend nicknamed me her ‘Pet Paradox’. I don’t recall if she ever told me what inspired the moniker, but even in my college year, or perhaps earlier, I could see both sides of most any issue. Sometimes that breed confusion. Other times, clarity. Mostly it led to eventually choosing sides.
Throughout most of my adult life, I’ve expressed a felt sense that ‘holding paradox’ would become an increasingly important life skill. A quick google search offers a treasure trove of ideas, tools, and other musings that I found inspiring to explore.
In a world that seeks to divide in oh so many ways, seeing the whole, singing songs of ‘both and’ as we set aside ‘either or’, and dancing the dances of many rather than choosing sides holds the potential bring into our practice of daily life that which we know deep in our being: WE ARE ONE.
We are interconnected and interdependent with ALL the Beings of Nature, including humanity – those humans whom we love and those whose choices we loath. This is our emerging story as scientific discoveries continue to refute the ideas of separation on which so much of our cultural infrastructure and systems are built. As these discoveries see the light of day beyond the so-called mainstream today’s systems will become less and less relevant. And the creation and emergence of new structures and systems accelerates. This is where the juice, the aliveness of the flow of life, invites us to join and to play.
This is the story of ancients and Indigenous peoples whose aliveness in the flow of life recognized the truth of the unity of all things. Will it be a story that we nurture and grow into realizing the possibility of harmony? Harmony among all peoples. Harmony with Nature, the Earth that provides all that we need.
Each morning as I’ve read the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, Greetings to the Natural World, I feel the potency of recognizing this truth. I deeply feel the intention of these words to give thanks to all that we hold in common – our humanity, Mother Earth, the waters, the plants, the animals, Brother Sun, Grandmother Moon, all that gives us life – and to declaring Oneness as they speak “Now our minds are one.”
I dream of what is possible for a world operating from this place. I marvel at the plethora of actions locally and globally that are creating the scaffolding of a new world. I wonder what magic and miracles will come forth. As I dream, I deepen my gratitude. As I deepen my gratitude, I feel the aliveness of life calling me forth to sing and dance and play from this place. And, I pray that all of our children may sing and dance and play with me.
May we extinguish the fires of destruction and kindle the fires that make the way for new, harmonious growth.
Sunset on Another Alive Day!