“Life is like a mirror: If I smile, the mirror returns to me a smile. The attitude I take toward life is the same that life will take toward me.”
~ Gandhi
I posted the “What if it really is between the stories?” a few days ago asking a lot of “what ifs” to hopefully get folks thinking (or not thinking) without demanding they believe it and, frankly, not wanting them to. Sure, it was nice to read responses that showed I’m not alone on a limb here and that I’m not saying anything original (the reason I won’t write a book, by the way. There are a bazillion out there already saying the same thing. We don’t need another tired, old story. But, I’m not out to persuade anyone to align with my way of thinking, feeling or otherwise experiencing the world in the way I do.
How Godliness and we appear to me is just different than most. And, it grows and changes each day into something more spectacular and awe-inspiring. Today, feeling stuck in a rut, though, I wonder why others aren’t willing to see things differently. Why there is the continued necessity to insist others do and speak in the same way, the need to create ourselves as ‘right’ and then foamenting (new word: think fomenting while frothing at the mouth) anger and hatred.
Again, my experience is different. I have seen and lived through some shit. I’ve been brought to my knees in gratitude, grief, and fear of death & pain. I’ve worked with other folks who have perpetrated some horrific terror, those who’ve survived it with a grace even I am awed by. There’s been amazing, awesome, inspiring, heart-rending, humorous, nauseating shit. And, I know most folks have shared elements of these experiences so I wonder why they can’t see the way I do. It confuses me.
I wonder why, in all of that, I see them as god, as greatness. As a reflection of me. I wonder that I carry that with me & try to behave in a way that reflects that notion and others don’t. Or can’t. I wonder if they can see their own reflection and why they can’t see themselves and others in the way I do.
No, I don’t see auras–pretty plays of color rumored to surround things and people. I call it seeing through that. The essence that just is–without stories, behind fear and masks and wordplay and makeup and made-up selves. The brilliance that resembles heat shimmering from asphalt and light but fully encompassing more than that. The all that is potential and more.
And, on days like today, I wonder why sometimes I see that in myself and sometimes I don’t despite the fact I know it and live in it (albeit in a sometimes ungraceful, freak of nature way). I wonder why. Maybe everyone does and that’s why we seem to be in the state we’re in these days.