I was talking to a coworker the other day and I made the comment, "I'm not a fan of death." He, being a fan of debate, asked why. I told him I have fun here, I like living. He offered in turn, "But when you're dead you get to be pure energy! Wouldn't that be more fun?!" But it's different. So I was driving home the other night...and I started thinking...
I thought about connection. Spiritually speaking, I believe all of life is connected. Some connections are closer and stronger than others, but somehow in some way all life is connected. Being a vegetarian I get the occasional argumentative person throwing at me, "but plants are alive too!" I know this. But I believe their connection to life is different than animals'. Years ago I read a section of the book, _The Secret Life of Plants_. It described a scientific study reading the energy signature of plants and found that if you cut a leaf and then took a picture with certain energy reading instruments, you would find that the other half of a the leaf would still appear energetically. This made sense to me. Plants are different than creatures. When you kill a creature there's a very definite line that can be drawn. 5:41pm: Alive 5:42pm: Dead. But with plants, it's different. You cut flowers to enjoy them in your home, and they are going to die...but they're not dead yet. You can take them inside, cut off from their roots and life supply and they will still bloom and grow, and often even regrow their roots. Except for the case of rerooting, the plant will eventually die, however. But it's a gradual process. It's gentle. I've observed this and came to the understanding in my mind that plants are much more strongly connected to each other than animals are. Where an animals soul is very specific to its physical home, a plant's soul is joined to all of the other plants of its kind everywhere. So when one plant is cut, the greater spirit of that plant withdraws gently from that specific physical manifestation and rejoins the greater whole.
Pondering the idea of this, I drove, and my mind came to thinking about all the different types of people in the world. Sometimes you meet people that you just click with. Kindred Spirits. It's such a wonderful blessing and happy feeling to meet someone you just know you can be friends with. And then you meet people that you just definitely will NOT be friends with. Whether it be personality conflict or beliefs or the unknown something uneasy feeling....you just let these people go on their merry way and never give them a second thought.
My thoughts turned back to the discussion with my coworker. What is it about this life, all seemingly cut off from each other, so often at strife, with so much negative and heartache in the world, that is still so wonderful? If when we die we return to the one source, all merging into divinity, why do we come here at all? My answer used to be, "to learn," and I still believe that, but it's more. We're like a rainbow. My coworker's question to me could be answered by simply saying that. Rainbows, that's why. Why take a prism and hold it in front of the pure, powerful, complete light of the sun? To see a rainbow. To see the whole broken down into some of its many parts. To see the nuances and the colors and the differences and the similarities and to see the beauty in that. Of course we're all connected, of course we're all one...but to really see the beauty of it, we need to separate for a while....so shine your color strong, 'cuz that's what we're here for.
Thursday, July 05, 2012
"Don't you ever ask them why..."
I think about loving...the active loving, of doing things for the people of your heart because you love them and you want them to be happy and safe and secure and joyful and alive.
And I think about how we as humans are so imperfect at this. The trying is so beautiful though. Almost more so at times if it fails, because it illuminates how we push ourselves beyond our limits to do things for the ones we love.
I was home last month for a weekend, visiting the fam'. One night we decided to get Chinese food. While deciding what to order, my grandfather asked if they had a vegetable dish with black bean sauce. He really likes the black bean sauce, and often gets it with shrimp, but wanted to be able to share with me. I decided to get something else, so he went with the shrimp. My grandmother had gone to get the food, but realized when she returned that she had circled "shrimp with bean sprouts" on the chinese menu instead of "shrimp with black bean sauce." A funny mistake, but I felt bad knowing how much my grandfather liked the black bean sauce, so I offered to go and get him the correct dish. He said no, and not to worry about it...but I thought he was just trying to be nice, and that he really would have preferred it, so I decided to go anyway.
As I walked outside he repeated that he didn't need it, but I told him it was already ordered. He said, "I would really rather we just had some beer." I smiled. He's not a huge drinker, he used to be, but isn't anymore. But the beer drinking is kinda our thing when I come home. I go get some interesting beer, and we split a bottle or two a night, pouring it in my grandmother's little juice glasses. We toast, I say "Slainte" and he says "Skol," and we have a beer together.
So as I'm driving to the Chinese Food store after picking up a 6 pack, I shake my head at myself. My grandfather at this point isn't really too picky about anything. I think his main thing is just spending time with me, but I was off to the store to get his Chinese food because I wanted him to be happy. The situation reminded me of two things. First was Christmas, when I drove all over creation Christmas morning to try to find some sesame oil so that my grandmother and I could cook dim sum together. The irony was that we wanted to do this thing together, but here I was wasting all this time driving around town to make it happen. I guess that's the way so many of us do things. Parents work, having to spend time away from their kids to give them things they need and want. It's a balancing act I suppose, trying to find the happy medium.
The other thing I was reminded of was last year when I was home and my grandfather wanted to give me his old grill that they never used anymore. It didn't quite fit in the car, so we tried to take it apart. Unfortunately the thing had been out in the rain too often and the bolts were rusted on. I said I would take the grill, because I didn't have one, and it would be nice to, but it wasn't that important to me. But my grandfather got it in his head that he wanted me to have this thing so he got out all sorts of sawing tools and things to dismantle the old, rusted grill so I could fit it in my car. Now, this was just months after he was diagnosed with heart disease and told that he should have quadruple bypass surgery, but because of his emphysema it was too risky. So he's sitting out in the hot summer sun, in the driveway with electric tools trying to get this thing apart. I kept telling him not to worry about it, and I was getting upset with him visibly overexerting himself, afraid that he might have a heart attack. He wouldn't listen though, and finally did get it apart. So I drove home with this grill and it is still sitting on my porch because I have not had the motivation to try to figure out how to put it back together again...I need to do that soon. I see it and feel guilty that I haven't fixed it and used it, knowing the effort he went through so that I could take it.
But I guess it's not the point. The point is we keep doing things for the people we love, because we want them to be happy, but so often it's not the things that really matter, but truly the thought. The love behind the things. My grandmother told me a story this visit about how when they were first married my grandfather would bring her home roses everyday. One day they got into a fight and she yelled, "and I hate roses!! I like DAISIES!!" He never brought her roses home again. She admitted to me in relating the story that looking back, she maybe should have been more grateful. No other husbands would do that.
The whole thing is just so bittersweet it makes me want to cry. These stories can go on and on. All of us, well...all of the ones I know...we're all just bumbling idiots, trying to do everything we can for the people we love. Of course sometimes it works! Sometimes...oh those glorious times...people hit it right on the head, the timing, the nuances, the everything...and it's so fricken' wonderful...but more often than not, it's just the bumbling idiots we are, flopping along through life and trying to juggle a thousand things and take care of all the people we hold dear...and so often falling flat on our face. But there's a wonderful glory to those moments too. It's just so utterly human and there is a beauty in that I suspect I will never understand.
And I think about how we as humans are so imperfect at this. The trying is so beautiful though. Almost more so at times if it fails, because it illuminates how we push ourselves beyond our limits to do things for the ones we love.
I was home last month for a weekend, visiting the fam'. One night we decided to get Chinese food. While deciding what to order, my grandfather asked if they had a vegetable dish with black bean sauce. He really likes the black bean sauce, and often gets it with shrimp, but wanted to be able to share with me. I decided to get something else, so he went with the shrimp. My grandmother had gone to get the food, but realized when she returned that she had circled "shrimp with bean sprouts" on the chinese menu instead of "shrimp with black bean sauce." A funny mistake, but I felt bad knowing how much my grandfather liked the black bean sauce, so I offered to go and get him the correct dish. He said no, and not to worry about it...but I thought he was just trying to be nice, and that he really would have preferred it, so I decided to go anyway.
As I walked outside he repeated that he didn't need it, but I told him it was already ordered. He said, "I would really rather we just had some beer." I smiled. He's not a huge drinker, he used to be, but isn't anymore. But the beer drinking is kinda our thing when I come home. I go get some interesting beer, and we split a bottle or two a night, pouring it in my grandmother's little juice glasses. We toast, I say "Slainte" and he says "Skol," and we have a beer together.
So as I'm driving to the Chinese Food store after picking up a 6 pack, I shake my head at myself. My grandfather at this point isn't really too picky about anything. I think his main thing is just spending time with me, but I was off to the store to get his Chinese food because I wanted him to be happy. The situation reminded me of two things. First was Christmas, when I drove all over creation Christmas morning to try to find some sesame oil so that my grandmother and I could cook dim sum together. The irony was that we wanted to do this thing together, but here I was wasting all this time driving around town to make it happen. I guess that's the way so many of us do things. Parents work, having to spend time away from their kids to give them things they need and want. It's a balancing act I suppose, trying to find the happy medium.
The other thing I was reminded of was last year when I was home and my grandfather wanted to give me his old grill that they never used anymore. It didn't quite fit in the car, so we tried to take it apart. Unfortunately the thing had been out in the rain too often and the bolts were rusted on. I said I would take the grill, because I didn't have one, and it would be nice to, but it wasn't that important to me. But my grandfather got it in his head that he wanted me to have this thing so he got out all sorts of sawing tools and things to dismantle the old, rusted grill so I could fit it in my car. Now, this was just months after he was diagnosed with heart disease and told that he should have quadruple bypass surgery, but because of his emphysema it was too risky. So he's sitting out in the hot summer sun, in the driveway with electric tools trying to get this thing apart. I kept telling him not to worry about it, and I was getting upset with him visibly overexerting himself, afraid that he might have a heart attack. He wouldn't listen though, and finally did get it apart. So I drove home with this grill and it is still sitting on my porch because I have not had the motivation to try to figure out how to put it back together again...I need to do that soon. I see it and feel guilty that I haven't fixed it and used it, knowing the effort he went through so that I could take it.
But I guess it's not the point. The point is we keep doing things for the people we love, because we want them to be happy, but so often it's not the things that really matter, but truly the thought. The love behind the things. My grandmother told me a story this visit about how when they were first married my grandfather would bring her home roses everyday. One day they got into a fight and she yelled, "and I hate roses!! I like DAISIES!!" He never brought her roses home again. She admitted to me in relating the story that looking back, she maybe should have been more grateful. No other husbands would do that.
The whole thing is just so bittersweet it makes me want to cry. These stories can go on and on. All of us, well...all of the ones I know...we're all just bumbling idiots, trying to do everything we can for the people we love. Of course sometimes it works! Sometimes...oh those glorious times...people hit it right on the head, the timing, the nuances, the everything...and it's so fricken' wonderful...but more often than not, it's just the bumbling idiots we are, flopping along through life and trying to juggle a thousand things and take care of all the people we hold dear...and so often falling flat on our face. But there's a wonderful glory to those moments too. It's just so utterly human and there is a beauty in that I suspect I will never understand.
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