Buoy.
I think about compassion A LOT. Awhile back, I thought I'd learned enough about compassion, but it seems to soften everything while at the same time fortifying. It gives a tensile and ductile strength. The well is deeper, as if there could never be enough to learn. The more you work the clay, the more it shapes you.
Today I was thinking compassion is an act, maybe THE act, of love. Love is the emotion and compassion is what follows. Compassion is not an emotion itself. It is an expression of emotion. Funny not to have thought of that before, but many things had evaded me in their simplicity. The answer is often right before my eyes and I'm off in a hot air balloon in my mind looking at the whole forest. Sometimes it is the opposite. I see things at face value rather than seeing their rather blatant and important symbolism.
I'm not sure why my mind makes these orderly distinctions; only that that's the nature of the human mind.
Something that occupies my mind a lot is the sincerity involved with compassion. If it doesn't come effortlessly, does it mean less? At some level, is manipulation of others the motivation? That thought bothers me and I'm never entirely sure of my own motives. I've come to know my father as a Trickster Spirit and I believe I inherited that feral tendency to manipulate from him. I don't mean to do it and I acknowledge it and try to use this skill for what I know as Goodness.
Then again, if compassion becomes completely effortless, is it simple habit rather than a spirit of giving? I don't know that and I don't know if I'll ever find out because this learning is slow. I would like to be a better person who is not quick to make snarky criticisms of others in the back of my mind in my father's voice, who is not inclined to speak ill of others even if they have wronged me. There is some path to this I haven't learned, but if I keep scenting it, maybe I will come around.
Some do far more in the name of Love than I ever have...maybe more than I am capable. And these often seem to be people who have been deeply hurt who are called to take the hurt away from others, even while they are drowning in the flames of their own love. Who will be there to catch their broken wings from fiery descent? I wish there were more I could do for them than just reaffirm my love and admiration. Maybe that is enough. It helps them get by little by little. Every drop in the kettle.
In the face of Naked Vulnerability, compassion has become inevitable for me. So that's something. People speak of themselves, I think believing they reveal little, when the anguish is written all over them. You can't hide it, you are marked by your pain and ecstasy. It is plain for anyone who knows how to see it.
Today I was thinking compassion is an act, maybe THE act, of love. Love is the emotion and compassion is what follows. Compassion is not an emotion itself. It is an expression of emotion. Funny not to have thought of that before, but many things had evaded me in their simplicity. The answer is often right before my eyes and I'm off in a hot air balloon in my mind looking at the whole forest. Sometimes it is the opposite. I see things at face value rather than seeing their rather blatant and important symbolism.
I'm not sure why my mind makes these orderly distinctions; only that that's the nature of the human mind.
Something that occupies my mind a lot is the sincerity involved with compassion. If it doesn't come effortlessly, does it mean less? At some level, is manipulation of others the motivation? That thought bothers me and I'm never entirely sure of my own motives. I've come to know my father as a Trickster Spirit and I believe I inherited that feral tendency to manipulate from him. I don't mean to do it and I acknowledge it and try to use this skill for what I know as Goodness.
Then again, if compassion becomes completely effortless, is it simple habit rather than a spirit of giving? I don't know that and I don't know if I'll ever find out because this learning is slow. I would like to be a better person who is not quick to make snarky criticisms of others in the back of my mind in my father's voice, who is not inclined to speak ill of others even if they have wronged me. There is some path to this I haven't learned, but if I keep scenting it, maybe I will come around.
Some do far more in the name of Love than I ever have...maybe more than I am capable. And these often seem to be people who have been deeply hurt who are called to take the hurt away from others, even while they are drowning in the flames of their own love. Who will be there to catch their broken wings from fiery descent? I wish there were more I could do for them than just reaffirm my love and admiration. Maybe that is enough. It helps them get by little by little. Every drop in the kettle.
In the face of Naked Vulnerability, compassion has become inevitable for me. So that's something. People speak of themselves, I think believing they reveal little, when the anguish is written all over them. You can't hide it, you are marked by your pain and ecstasy. It is plain for anyone who knows how to see it.