You know those moments when you look around and feel grateful for your life. You have had them; we all have. People around you are struggling through big changes and yet your life seems tranquil and happy. You smile inside.
The thing is, it is just a matter of time before that tranquility and happiness you feel disappear into the abyss of change in your own life. Change always comes. It is the one constant. It cannot be avoided. It is the nature of the force that creates life. That force is fluid, not static. Things do not stay the same for long.
I had one of those moments recently, driving along in my tranquil, happy life when BAM! Change happened. What I imagined would be another nice experience on my long trail of "happy" turned out to be a brick in disguise. Not a dinky, reality check brick, but a huge, smack you hard on the head kind of brick; a send you reeling, give you a nasty concussion kind of brick.
And when I awoke from my concussion, I realized it wasn't just one brick that hit me, but a whole truck load of them. Change happened. Life as I knew it will never be the same. I'm not completely surprised, given the energies of this Nine Fire Monkey year (see my Feb. 16th post). It all fits.
After years of building a deeply spiritual, more authentic relationship with myself and my life, much of it disintegrated before my eyes in a single moment of reaction. How can this be happening? I wondered, I've worked so hard. But it was happening; it did happen. Change happened. It always does.
Sometimes change feels good; great, even. But the brick that hit me did not. It was merely disguised as something good; great, even. And I trusted it. I fell for its disguise. I walked right into its path and practically asked it to smack me.
It can be hard to recover from a smack like that. I find myself struggling to understand it, asking the useless "Why?" questions. I will not find any answers; not now. It is too soon. The bricks and I are still rolling through the dirt, kicking up dust. Answers won't come until the dust settles, if they come at all.
In the meantime, I find a bit of comfort in two things I believe:
1) that everything happens for a reason, and
2) that the Divine Source from which we come always works with us and never against us.
These two beliefs are my lifeline of hope; my breadcrumbs back to a tranquil, happy life. We hear the first - that everything happens for a reason - often during difficult times, but do we really know what it means?
The way I understand it is this: Everything happens for a reason, and the reason is so a higher purpose or good can be realized. We have the opportunity to evolve as Human Beings and perhaps even as Souls while we are here. The experiences we have in life provide those opportunities, if we take them. Despite how they feel to us, every experience is an opportunity for a higher purpose, a higher good, to be realized. And even as I grow through the comfortable experiences, I seem to grow more through the uncomfortable ones.
Just because an experience feels uncomfortable does not mean it is moving us in the wrong direction. Quite the contrary. We tend to get complacent in our comfort. Forgetting is easy when we are comfortable. We might even get smug about it.
But when we are uncomfortable, we tend to wake up and pay attention. We examine what is happening more closely; we want to ease the discomfort. We come back into ourselves and our lives more fully. We reconnect with our sense of humanity and compassion.
If we are willing to embrace the discomfort, we return to a state of humility, surrender and openness to that which is greater than ourselves. We ultimately find the illumination of our own Being. This is a good thing...and worth every bit of the discomfort.
It is easier to find the willingness when I remember the Divine Source always works with us and never against us. Believing this allows me to rest into the notion that we are held and guided by something much greater than ourselves. We are never truly alone, for the loving, Divine Source always has our back, gently nudging us (or giving us a powerful smack in the head) toward the evolution of our Soul.
You can believe whatever you want. This is just what I believe, recognizing that it is not only our triumphs but our struggles that pave the road, brick by brick, to our most evolved Self. It is my mission to grow as much as I can while here because I haven't resolved the issue of life, death or reincarnation for myself. I would rather take full advantage than realize later that I missed a precious opportunity because I was too arrogant to consider it.
In the end, the bricks in disguise that smack us upside the head aren't such a bad thing, although they are uncomfortable. They may be exactly what we need to catapult us into a higher level of Being. We have to deal with them one way or another. I choose the high road. I choose to embrace the discomfort and use it as a gateway to the illumination of my Being.
Anyway, my tranquil, happy life will return soon enough because one thing is for certain: change happens.
Last night one of our cats proudly brought a young rabbit to our back door. I made her release it but sadly, it did not survive. I held it between my warm palms and comforted it as it died, apologizing over and over again to it; and I cried. I ceremonially wrapped it in a small cloth and buried it beneath a beautiful tree in our backyard.
I will never forget the sweetness of that soft, beautiful little rabbit, or the sound of its fearful screams while in our cat's mouth, or the pain in my heart as I saw the blood on my fingers and realized it was going to die.
It got me thinking (again) about life and death, comfort and safety. Are these things random? Does one creature's existence supersede another's?
I live in a small neighborhood that includes three streets encircled by an outer loop. I have been here four years. In 2012 when my partner and I moved here, the neighborhood was surrounded by fields on all four sides. It was one of the reasons we selected this neighborhood as opposed to the many others we looked at.
Today three of the four fields have been or are being developed. Where there were once quiet acres of wild grasses, flowers and brush, there are now parking lots and neighborhoods with streets, sidewalks, driveways, homes, lights, noise and activity. It seems almost everywhere I look these days, I see this kind of transition happening.
I used to hear coyotes howling on occasion, but that stopped three years ago when the first development came in nearby. I used to be able to see the night sky fairly well from our backyard but that, too, has faded as the area around us is developed. I used to see rabbits hopping about the fields, but no longer.
And I wonder: "Where do the rabbits go?"
They need and deserve a place to live in comfort and safety just as we do. This planet is their home, just as it is our home. Earth does not belong to the Human Race; it belongs to all species here. But where do the others go when we Humans destroy their homes? And what gives us the right to do so over and over and over again?
If someone came and destroyed my home with complete disregard for me and my family, I would be livid. I believe any human with a clear conscience and a beating heart would be. But what about the animals? Are they livid too? How would we know if they were? We don't speak their language.
But not speaking their language does not give us permission to disregard their existence. Any fool knows this would be an act of barbarism.
Is that what the Human Race has become...Barbarians?
The small rabbit that wondered into our yard last night was just trying to live its life, to survive just like the rest of us...only its entire world is changing uncontrollably into something unlivable for it. Instead of the comfort and safety of brush-covered fields, it has to deal with manicured lawns, fences, people, dogs, cats, concrete and cars.
It would be the equivalent of someone bulldozing your entire neighborhood and turning it into a wild jungle overnight. Where would you go? How would you survive in such a foreign world?
The life of one small rabbit may seem trivial to some of you, but not to me. Any life disregarded is too many. It is LIFE, after all, that belongs to every single creature here.
We - the Human Race - get no special privileges in that regard. We are creatures too; we live and die with the rest of them. Let's be conscious and kindhearted in relation to our fellow creatures rather than Barbaric, because conscious and kindhearted are the high road.
It is time for the Human Race to embrace the high road and shift from barbarism to conscious kindness before we destroy all things dear and beautiful in life. Thank you.
