🎶I know, caught up in the middle I cry just a little When I think of letting go🎶
I see the news, hear my friends who are crowing and others who are distraught, and it all feels so far away to me. Like Rumi saying, "Inside this new love, die. Your way begins on the other side; become the sky!" I remember the basic teaching of the Sufi, when a tourist asks to see his home and only finds a mat on the floor and a simple oil lamp. The tourist asks with surprise, "But where are your furnishings?"
The Sufi asks in return, "Do you carry your belongings with you?"
The tourist replies, "My belongings are back in my own lands, I am only visiting here."
And the Sufi answers, "As am I only a visitor here myself. My furnishings await my time when I return to the Eternal."
While I am here, I will teach, I will protect, I will heal and learn and offer succor to those who have a need just as I do for myself, but my comforts are not creature comforts, I am blessed to have a roof, a comfortable bed with blankets to remain warm, I have good meals and medications to aid in my continued healing. My friends and loved ones offer me the emotional stability and well-being I need. I genuinely want for nothing, though if others came to visit me, to tour my home, they would see a number of conveniences, but these are not mine, they are borrowed or gifted or belong to or are provided by another. I live simply, I struggle with my health at times, I do not work, but I do what I'm able to try to find meaning in my life.
Friends are careful with me, right now, letting me rest after losing someone so precious to my life in such a horrific, tragically traumatic way. Some want to ensure I'm not shutting down, that I'm being cared for, that I'm tending to my needs. Others want to present gifts - creature comforts - as a way to try to cheer me up. They are the ones that simply don't understand. They find themselves struggling to grasp the way of grief, of the life of someone who is an alien in this world. They speak of politics and social customs and the way this modern world works and how it's becoming such a mess with the greed and us/them mentality, the egotistical dance for control. The people of society that thinks it must continue the course or shift paradigm to be more fair, inclusive, or even shift to support the majority are those who are too tied to this world, they're not going to understand that this too will pass away... that the world will be made anew... like their particular books of their faith and doctrine try to espouse to comfort them.
My former aunt said she wished she could find a calmness as I could, that she's tired of being angry, and is working on achieving a meekness that completely eludes her. It made me laugh, and I had to point out that being meek is different from being timid. It does mean that you can remain calm, but to do so you realize that others have experiences and thoughts and feelings completely different from yours, and so you find yourself being empathetic to their behavior and words. You strive to speak with them calmly and reasonably, because you would prefer being spoken to in such a fashion yourself. (You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.) And when that's not working, there is a miscommunication or disrespect on some level there that warrants justifiable anger, which is good for you at times; it drives your defensive/protective care you have for others in your life, in humanity or for yourself. This anger can show you problems to work on within yourself, because you will then analyze why you were angry, what was said and done, and it could be that they are mirroring or bringing out something in you; but it can also be that they are totally off, and that's when you let them know they are wrong, give them a chance to make amends by apologizing or gaining clarity in the communication, but if they don't that's when you move on... let go and let God... and continue to find your calm center, working on your deeper faults and work to correct them, that is mindfulness, enlightenment, or being more Christlike if you choose.
It's easy to see so many don't really believe - whether it's that they don't have to work on themselves or those words they're parroting, or they think that it's a prophetic metaphor and not a simple flow of poetic words that point out this is what the world is like with sinister machinations in it - but you can rise above that and find comfort in the simple choice of offering and accepting love, that when you aren't tied to all the creature comforts and social rigamarole that those driven by ego want you to focus on. A tufted titmouse has been knocking at my window the last couple of mornings now. It sings to me, and I offer it a small bit of seed or nuts in return. And I find joy in the simple exchange. I am reminded to not concern myself with all the mess that is society or be concerned with where my daily bread will come from, if I will be able to keep a roof over my head tomorrow, but just be thankful that I have such things today. I am grateful, I am blessed, and I know I can trust in the Divine because I've always had someone who steps forward to offer me aid, just as I've done for others in the time it was needed and I felt my spirit stir in such a way.
So instead of fretting about the happenings in the world around me, and rather than focus on the misery of losing someone so precious to me, I strive to look at the moment that is right now where I am; I have had beautiful, endearing moments with this sweet blossom whose soul helped keep my own on fire that I can hold in my precious memory that is not failing me like others have happen as they age. While I note that, I whisper messages of love and thanks to her and the Divine. I find myself sitting in the dark of the night, playing and singing musical pieces that we so often loved to share with one another. I am sad, and lonely, but she showed me so much love and understanding and joyful moments while she was here in this world, that I know it will carry me forward for as long as I am visiting this realm. I am mindful in the moment, to take the time I need to ruminate on the lessons that we shared with one another and those she helped me find new understanding and deeper lessons of the other relationships I have shared with others, too. In this way, I am at peace, no longer angry, merely observing and sharing those observations with others who journey through this existence as they cross my path. I miss Rahni immensely! I long to be with her. But in a way I still am, and I offer her heartfelt thanks, because she did what she set out to do... I am no longer that angry young man... I am calm, at peace, and I know I am loved. No matter what happens, I have that, and I will survive whatever may come.