Grandmother Tree in the Woods Out Back
The greatest evil and destruction arises when people are unable to feel compassion. The beauty of compassion continues to shelter and save our world. John O’Donohue
The heart is the mother and father and origin of all creatures: the one who knows the heart from the skin is blessed. Rumi
This morning as I moved toward settling in with Muse to reflect and write, I feel drawn to Beauty, a favorite John O’Donohue book of essays, and as I move to find where I left this frequent companion last, I think of Rumi. A few more steps bring me to both, stacked together, just the two of them. Settling in I wonder ‘who will have the words of wisdom to guide the unfolding this day?’ ‘What wants to be shared?’
After writing a bit more, I opened O’Donohue. Then Rumi. I opened to pages where the words went straight to this heart, stirring a recent exploration into compassion that led me to recognize places where I could replace animosity or a quick harsh judgement with compassion or its companions – kindness, grace, tenderness – along with a sprinkle or two of curiosity.
When I’m fully present, conscious, aware and take time to drop into my heart, compassion or its kin are most always my choice, even in those events where a boundary needs to be drawn or a misunderstanding needs attention. Heck, even when I think I’ve been wronged by another. I aim for the heart to rule.
Alas, I don’t always make that mark. When I’m moving too quickly through a multitude of choices, decisions, projects, concerns, the mind grabs the steering wheel of the bus of life until I come to my senses, the deeper knowing of my heart.
Life offers opportunities moment to moment to choose who is driving. Will mind take over? Will heart prevail? Will I be compassionate about and toward the contractor who is incommunicado weeks after a project was to start? Mind wants the project done. Now! Heart says, ‘what if you trusted the timing to be perfect?’. While mind blames and abuses, heart wonders if he and his family are okay? Has something happened that I’m not aware of?
What if I met every situation where I feel disappointed in this same way? How might I more fully embody the belief I wrote about a few weeks back: Everything is connected to everything else. Everything operates on behalf of everything else … (find it here)
For it is the small things, our moment-to-moment choices that loom large in how we experience our world, our personal satisfaction or lack thereof. And it’s those same things that are our contributions – for better or worse – to the future we are creating by those very choices.
Let’s choose love!
Art of the Inner Tree