Time has gone by. Many things have happened. Many emotions. Many branches. Many trees. Many falls. Many ups. Many downs. But as we watch movies from many years ago, we see struggles come and struggles go (even if it's 1920, even if it's 1740, and even if it's 2012). Peaceful moments shine and sometimes they don't. Joy sets in and sometimes it doesn't.
Even today, I notice. Sometimes it's nice to experience "having an hour pass by" while waiting for an oil change. I notice the world around me. I notice a car salesman smiling at me while saying hello while I wait at the car dealership for my oil change. A man looked at me with the desire for me to buy a car. It wasn't an authentic hello. It was a hello with an added craving. It was a hello within a desire around it. It didn't feel peaceful. But I understood. It is part of being human. To deal with our desires, peacefully or not. Some use the gift of charm. Some struggle with it. But in this show, we know when our gifts to share come from the mind and it's logical and emotional sense, or if it comes
from something greater. Something wiser.
I relate to this struggle because as humans, we strive to be a good salesman, an effective speaker, a whatever it is that makes us feel grand, wanted, accepted, reassured.. that we are good, skillful, wanted, and loved.
I remember going to a retreat and after the owner mentioned the thought of wanting to hire someone with my skills I thought "wow, I could definitely see myself working here. " I got so excited but all of a sudden, the desire of wanting the job made me feel a bit insecure around the owner. I wanted something "from her" to fulfill my peace. My reasonings deep down were that by working in an environment that uses organic food, and that promotes healthy living, that it would assist in my own life path; and as true as this was, I also felt myself losing my peace. I started seeing the "little girl inside" being activated. And I noticed when I was around the owner, I "wanted something from her" and I could no longer be myself. As if she has the key to my peace, to my happiness, to my joy. And without her "wanting me to be part of her team" I felt a special if it was something very personal and heartbreaking. I'm sure the vibes I threw out was probably stressful because within I felt stressed out. There were different levels of emotions from initially sheer excitement, to questioning whether they "wanted me or not", to feeling "not wanted", to feeling "rejected". And then a number of months later I found out they hired someone with the skills I was trained in and it broke my hearts even more so as it solidified the fact in my brain that "I wasn't good enough (for them) to be in their team". The part that broke me is I knew I could have really shared some wonderful gifts there, but they never really saw me, not truly me. They saw this "girl who wanted to be part of someone's team- the same little girl who was picked last when 12 years old (when her gym teacher chose two team leaders to select their team members for a volleyball game). Growing up I often felt left out, often felt not wanted, and often felt less than. But who is this person who felt this (both as a child and as an adult)? It was the human within the human being within. The human who got lost because she thought she was how others treated her.
It's a moment to moment thing. We think we are. We think we're not. There comes a point, more and more, we bring love to whatever arises and heal thru that love, thru the going thru it, thru the surviving it, thru the understanding of it. Thru the mastering it's brinks and its holes and it's swallowing depths and its shadows.
The wonderous surprise is the compassion we thus hold when another goes thru something similar, something we can relate to. Maybe that's why movies are so powerful. We heal thru others. We are mirror images. We are mirror counterparts. We are the darkness and we are the light. We are the crossroads and we are the shining armour. We are the invisible wind and we are the light of yonder. We are all of it. We are none of it. The space that holds no room is a nothingness that is everything at the same time. Perhaps we are this expansive light. Always perfect, always whole, always forever enduring all, and we've entered here within these bodies, eventually thinking we are separate bodies, lost and afraid, or charming to manipulate to get te pleasures we seek, to seek that which we've already always been. The space of within and throughout our cells that connect like this shimmering of light that blends all stars as one... And as we feels the stars all blending as one, we know our light is like the stars.. we all blend as one, and within that space, there is no longer a seeking "out there" to fill the void "in here". We are beyond human feelings and human objects- we are beings of light, and human beings we eventually open and surrender like a flower does- to the sun.
