Nightprowlkitty put up an essay the other day A Personal View — Discontent that perfectly captured a long-standing inner distress I have about where I find myself in this world-wide maze of destruction, circa 2008. Time has sped up, the pace of information has sped up and… “I’m getting older, too.” @;-)
As NPK so well described in her essay, I don’t want to react to the news of these events. I want to respond, I want to work from where I am with what tools are available now. I don’t have a million dollars, I don’t have 14 or even one university degree. What I do have is a mind that works- most days- and a telephone and internet connection.
First up, I want find a connection between the disasters and a healing force. It doesn’t have to be the connection, it just has to be a connection. And the more connections, the better. Once the connections are established, stories are probably next. A few years ago I wrote for a small county newspaper. There’s nothing like a personal story to bring home an outrage, and if the story is coupled with a way for nearly anyone to participate in a solution, well, that’s is a way to respond, not simply react. That’s where my telephone connection comes in handy. And post a story or two? That’s where the internet connection comes into play.
So, bottom line, for me: for every outrage, I want to find a place that is working to ease the disaster to focus my attention and limited funds. A way to keep balance… if I’m going to bounce from these outrages, I want to bounce against a healing force.
Don’t know if that makes sense, I’m still sorting it out. 🙂 But I do know that “Many hands make light work.” I can make a dent, even it it’s only *ripple.
*Edger’s the go-to-guy on “Ripples.”
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anyone can play! 🙂
and NPK’s essay had a wonderful centering effect on me too.
One thing I keep thinking about is that I can “bear witness” to what is happening in the world – even when its not within my immediate power to have an effect.
After 9/11 I read tons of autobiographies by Middle Eastern women to try to understand what was happening to them. Mostly they would say that their writing was an attempt to let their voices be heard. That seemed important enough to them that they would often risk their lives in telling their stories. I figured the least I could do was read them and try to hear what they had to say.
seeing the forest from the trees is hard when information is so controlled and fragmented. I just took a time out from the internet and poked my head into the walking around world, and something is changing, moving, energy wise. Music bouncing in the air. The festering wound is still there but I feel some how that all of the elements the ‘many hands’ are slowly bring people out of the pit and they at least want to heal.
Discontent is part of the process. I too felt my creative juices starting to flow. Pictures buried under fear are emerging in my psyche. Is it spring? Maybe it’s just DocuDharma with it’s high level of creativity inspiring.
this was the best audio of this I could find. visually ?
They’re too few and far between… 🙂
Me, too!
It made sense to me.
This has always been one of my goals, because each little bit together, makes something big.
I think this “thinking” emanates from this inner sense of “Isn’t there something more I could be doing to help make things better?” A kind of self-chastisement — because of a dissatisfaction of that sense of not doing enough. But these feelings stem from caring so much. Then, a sense of limitation, and on and on and on. So, then, it becomes necessary to define your own ability of what you can do within your own realm, stick to it, and attempt to be relatively content within yourself. But, it ain’t easy!!!
to find allies, folks who speak with a message similar to your own. Then you aren’t just reacting, but working with a machine to make the changes, or at least articulate the need.
Here in New Orleans I can bounce stuff off friends in the physical and then do the same with the Bloggers in cyber. (We have our own e-list so that we don’t communicate solely through our Blogs.)
I get pissed about things going down, but through my connections I can see a way for corrections to be made. Some are more skilled than me in certain areas whilst I am the go to person for different scenarios.
We all have our strengths.
In 2000 I finally had a ‘puter built for me. Since then I have been working on several disparate issues via the connections that I have been able to make. The past few years show a litter of wreckage from connections made that proved to be worthless. The Present sees me with many great connections in all of what I’m working towards.
It just takes time, and it takes persistence. You’ll find the right connections when it is time.
Everything comes in it’s own time.
Namaste!
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction
The concept of yin and yang as two primal opposing but complementary principles or cosmic forces has been part of the philosophical religions of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism for thousands of years.
And there is this: what goes around, comes around
For me, it means there IS an opposite and equal reaction to all of the outrages perpetrated on all us earthlings. You, me, those of us here being part of that opposite and equal reaction…