A Happy Place
I am so blessed. I
have wall to wall everything I need
yet, still I want. I have an unbounded desire for newness for novelty, for something more. What is it I am still seeking? to be more loved? to be more fulfilled? or to add to my inventory of experiences. What is it that causes my stomach to be hungry? The energy needs of the body uses up the nutrients from an earlier meal. And now wants to be replenished. What is it that causes me to seek something more? Is it because the life energy that feeds me has been used up and my desire for novelty is a desire for more of life's energies? This is one of the secret truths about life. We seek safety in sameness and repetition but our essential desire is to learn and to grow and we spurn the safety of numbness. We are responding to the prime directive of the Universe. The desire is to be having experiences that provide us with life's energy which is then shared between the body, the mind and the spirit. I have read that God is; “The essence and goal of all knowledge” Perhaps this line could also read; Learning and growth are the essence of the god within And the wanting more is the fundamental particle by which life was created in the beginning. 3.8 Billion years ago microbes, not content with being blue green algae converting sunlight into energy began the evolution of experience seeking bacteria that have become us. And still, experience by experience, we seek to grow. The desire for experience is the geneses of all life in the Universe. We are just another stepping stone in the evolution of the Universe and the desire for more is the fundamental particle that keeps it all going. A Little Park
Its a little Park.
It’s not shiny and clean like the upscale row houses on Sherbrook Street. It’s not polished marble and fresh mown grass. It’s more earthy, more common in flavour and class. It’s the park of the local folk with people at tables drinking wine from bottles hidden inside plastic bags, while others feed bread crumbs to the pigeons. It’s a park were parents keep watchful eyes on their children and their dogs on a leash. It’s a park were the people from the low rent tenements come to share their misery and their joy and cleaning staff from the hospital come to take their smoke breaks. Lovers kiss and dream about how their love will shape a different kind of life while they ignore the angry yells from the wine drinkers over who is taking more. It’s the park were the servant’s and the servers of the working class joke and laugh to ignore the struggles and pains of eking out an existence and share with others who know what it is to struggle. They ignore the feelings of powerlessness and hide their hurt from each other. It’s a Park were life lives at a level that we of the privilege class prefer to be only peripherally aware. It’s a little Park on Ste. Catherine’s street in Montreal. Its All Music
Quantum Physics tells us that everything in the Universe is of vibration atoms.
To be in vibration means having a frequency and a frequency is a tone, the basis of music. Everything is a vibrating tone in the grand composition that is the music of the Universe. That music plays out as vibrations that we translate into physical experience. It’s all Music. Music is not just the perfect compositions of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Nor is it the discordant sounds of Shostakovich or Ornette Coleman. Music is more than the sweet sounds of a Heifetz violin or Getz’s silky smooth samba Everything is music in the perfection of the vibrations sung to us by the Universe. It’s all Music. Senses translate the vibration of sight sound, taste and touch as material things. But each begins as a tone The music that is food appears in our mouth as taste. Salty, sweet, bitter are all different songs. The music that is sight, on its journey to our eyes, is a vibrating range of colours that we select from. The music that is sound matches the frequencies that we translate with our ears. Everything that we experience begins its journey to us as music. It’s all Music. The stars offer celestial music as a chorus of the incomprehensible vastness of this Universe Our sun singing to us so intently it is afire in its passion. The music of the moon croons an ancient lullaby we all recognize from eons past. The music that is water is not the sound of the ripples in the stream, nor the crashing of its waves. Water is the music of our Mothers heartbeat from the very beginnings of our creation here on earth. It’s all Music. When we speak we are sending vibrations out into the world. That vibration is music We are singing to each other but loose the music when we focus on the meanings of the words. Listen carefully to a language you don’t know a word of; not understanding a single word will help you to notice that we are all singing to each other. We can choose for that to be a song of love or one of rageful fury but that doesn’t matter; It’s all Music. We hear the song of the crow as a cawing, but it is music from the animal kingdom. Those with whom we share this planet. The crow’s songs, the whale’s song, the rabbit’s song, the song of the muted swan are all saying, Rejoice! Rejoice in the music that is being played by the Universe, just for us. It’s all Music! IT'S ONLY A DOLLAR “It’s Only a Dollar.” He tossed the words out as he passed by me. It took a milli-second to cross space between the passers-by as if he had thrown them at me. He tossed the words out draped in disdain as if he was throwing something away along with the words. “It’s only a dollar!” The meta-message and body language conveyed his scorn for such lowly money. He had a job, was young and healthy with contempt for the unimportant. I had just passed two beggars sitting on the sidewalk around the corner on 6th street One with a hat on the sidewalk asking for spare change. The speaker may have noticed the beggars or may not have. But he needed to look at the beggar man who was offering his passer-by a gift. He’s was offering the opportunity to feel compassion. Not by giving him or her money But the opportunity to recognize the humanity in the Beggar-man He or She have been loved as somebody’s child, somebody’s lover, somebody’s parent They have been defeated somewhere some-when, some-how. They are not broken people; but have taken on the role of a beggar to offering us a gift. Opportunities to see that there but for the choices were lucky enough to make; There go I In seeing his humanity, learn to have compassion for my own humanity. To have compassion for the wounds we all carry. For to be human is to have been hurt some-way, some-when, some-where. The beggar needs to be thanked for taking on the role of a beggar in this lifetime thereby giving us the opportunity to learn compassion for ourselves. Let’s not pretend we wish it not so but we need compassion for ourselves. And that’s a bargain for only a dollar. After all; It’s only a dollar. |
Two Short Stories
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