Sunday 8 January 2012

Connections...

Did you look out for signs over the Twelve Days?  Those inbetween, interstitial, liminal days?  Did you snatch a glimpse of the year ahead by paying attention to the oracles all around you?  I did.  Well, of course I did.  What did I see?  Let’s not go there.  Let’s just say it’s going to be an interesting year. 

One word kept coming up again and again. Connection.  And one symbol kept coming up over and over.  A web.  It culminated in the beautiful image Caitlin Matthews posted on Facebook of not one, but several webs, webs within webs.  The Web of Wyrd.  That links everything, everyone.  Touch the edge of a web and the reverberations are felt throughout the entire structure.  For yes, we are all connected.  Each and every one of us.

I watch the interwebs (there we go again) and I see people who are scared; who are worried about the world. They are scared about what we’re doing to the environment; to the economy; to one another. And they have good reason to be concerned.  We are doing terrible things to our beautiful world.  We do terrible things to one another. We do terrible things to ourselves.

Several months back I remember saying to Marek, ‘How can we save the world?’ and he replied. ‘We can’t. We can only save ourselves.’  And I thought about it and I figured he was absolutely right.  For, truly, you can’t ever change other people. You can only change yourself.  I'm not talking about being selfish; about ignoring what is going on in the world - far from it.  It's simply that you cannot force people to change; you cannot make them see the world your way. No matter how much you would love them to do so. 
In Symphonic Bridges, Marek puts it like this...
"I wish my parents would choose to join me in my spiritual exploration. I wish they would decide to take up the rejuvenation and longevity. The latter  doesn’t make sense without the former, of(f) course. I wish my mother would learn to swim and ride a bike finally. Even at the age of eighty or something. I wish I didn’t think that I should have rather used Simple Past tense after all the above ‘I wish’s’. Wishful thinking… 

Wishing is all I can do really. I can’t even persuade my sons that eating meat is bad for them. Will they blame me in the future for my not being strict enough with them about it now. If they ever go on vegetarian diet. Maybe I should just make them give up this barbarian habit. But wouldn’t it be a violation of their freedom of choice? We all have free will. Though freedom ends where our decision would lead to hurting other people.
Therefore, I choose to avoid enforcement of any ‘spiritual imperatives’. Instead of telling my wife, children, parents and other people what they have to do to live a better life, I just keep setting a good example. That’s what I believe it is anyway."

And that's just talking about simple things like diet.  We're contrary creatures - the moment someone says we 'should' do something, we tend to want to do the polar opposite.  Look at the storm in a teacup today over the government telling us how much alcohol we should be drinking - or rather not drinking.  Look how defensive the US becomes over genetically engineered food or carbon emissions.  We don't like being told off.  
But if we all changed…?  If we all became alchemists…?  If we all saw beyond the greed and the need and the fear and the defensiveness?  Oh then, then…who knows what would happen?  Remember the tale of the hundredth monkey?  

And at Zumba the other night, Debbie played this as our cool-down track…


And this morning, on Twitter, lovely Melpomene played a Cat Stevens track which made me think of this…

And this…



Yeah, it always adds up to one thing…  Love.  Just Love.  

6 comments:

Rob-bear said...

Maybe if enough of us save ourselves, we'll save the world in the process.

Or maybe I'm just a too-optimistic. But the year is only eight days old (this being the ninth), so my yearly dose of optimism hasn't worn off. Yet.

Exmoorjane said...

You got it, dear Bear. :)

Zoë said...

Not convinced by the save ourselves arguement - from my point of view, selfishness, self obsession, greed, vanity, etc are the biggest problems in society.

Self preservation is one thing, but saving ourself as the diametric opposite of saving the World just isn't acceptable. Society,Humanity, the World, would disappear if we call became so introverted and self serving in our actions. There has to be a balance between self preservation, and consciously acting in a way to help save the World and act for the benefit of all, not just self.

My 2p worth for what its worth

xxxx

Exmoorjane said...

Zoe, I don't think they're exclusive at all - quite the opposite. If you come to love and appreciate yourself; come to a right relationship with Self, with Spirit - then the rest will automatically fall into place. It's the hundredth monkey idea really... But maybe it's semantics - I'm not talking about being selfish...just about paying attention to Self. Aghh, words... xxx

Anonymous said...

We are all related- from the stones to the stars to the green green grass and the snail on the parsley.
I hurt you, I hurt myself.
Viv
ps I used to work as an environmental education officer on a nature reserve; we used to use a game called web of life, where we made a massive spider web with each participant holding a bit. Take out even a mosquito and everyone felt it.

Anonymous said...

..you can't save yourself. Only Jesus can save you. Believe it and live. Best for 2012.