Category: Inspirational

Yesterday, I didn’t celebrate 4th of July. I don’t like the idea of fireworks when I know my taxes fund bombs.

I was thinking about how conscious and unconscious we are. I don’t live with the expectation that there will ever be a time where wars won’t exist. But I need to feel that we can make conscious decisions with our governments when they should end.

To be clear, I do appreciate the freedoms I have. I have freedom to say I don’t believe in gods and not be burned at the stake. I have the freedom to write this blog and not have to be shipped to be “re-educated”. I have the freedom to research how democratic tax dollars were spent on non-democratic practices. I do celebrate the freedoms I have every day. I also forget and take them for granted and I probably need a government holiday to remind me to celebrate it with the other citizens.

Yesterday, the fireworks made me feel sad and hopeless. They remind me of bombs.

I was thinking about some of the ongoing be the cause projects. Every week we meet to serve outside the jail. Every month we meet once or twice to serve women at the Downtown Women’s Center. I was thinking a few of us could meet once a week or once a month to create something towards peace. Maybe Rahul and Adnan can help us produce a youtube video that helps people take a look at all the wars that we don’t get to think about and maybe we can promote it til 1,000,000 see it. Maybe we can research about how much money is spent on wars. Maybe we can think about how to change some of the obfuscation that governments do like call the department that deals with weapons contracts the “Department of Defense”. Maybe we can discuss how to talk about this stuff with people outside be the cause without it becoming an argument.

I don’t want to allow people to think that I’m being critical about just the united states. I think all governments are flawed when it comes to this stuff. I can’t think of any government that promotes peace or constitutes non-violence. I was just thinking this stuff last night as there was a big fireworks show outside my house and wanted share. People make governments and we should be able to write up or somehow express economically or creatively that “We the people do not want war.”

Gil Scot Heron said something like If we all worked for peace like we say we believe in it, it would happen already. I’m happy to see so much intention going towards ending wars. I want to learn to have conversations about how it should be easier to end a war than it is to start it. The direction my thoughts are going towards is that how to bridge that intention into fruitful effort.

Where To, where do I go?
If you never try, then you’ll never know.
How long do I have to climb,
Up on the side of this mountain of mine?

Look up, I look up at night,
Planets are moving at the speed of light.
Climb up, up in the trees,
every chance that you get,
is a chance you seize.
How long am I gonna stand,
with my head stuck under the sand?
I’ll start before I can stop,
before I see things the right way up.

All that noise, and all that sound,
All those places I got found.
And birds go flying at the speed of sound,
to show you how it all began.
Birds came flying from the underground,
if you could see it then you’d understand?

Ideas that you’ll never find,
All the inventors could never design.
The buildings that you put up,
Japan and China all lit up.
The sign that I couldn’t read,
or a light that I couldn’t see,
some things you have to believe,
but others are puzzles, puzzling me.-Speed of Sound by Coldplay.

I was listening to this song the other day in the car and singing along to it. The lyrics struck me for sure. I was thinking of how I was recently in a car accident. It could have been much worse. I was taken on a stretcher because the paramedics saw me holding my chest…where the airbag hit me really hard. So glad the airbag was there! When I was on the stretcher..I looked up at the sky…it was probably the most beautiful sky I have ever seen! The clouds were silver and blue. The sky was clear with no stars. I just remember being so grateful to be alive…It was my first time on a stretcher and I was scared, but so happy as well. After the accident, I was trying to figure things out. Why do these things happen? Why do people get in accidents? Why does it all seem so difficult at times? There are wake-up calls and then there are WAKE-UP CALLS!!! My perception is that if u don’t get the lesson the first time…the universe screeches in your ears…

A little before the accident, I was feeling about things…the way the lyrics state: “How long do I have to climb,Up on the side of this mountain of mine?” …I was just kinda in the automaticity of life in the few weeks before the accident. Not feeling very passionate or alive…kinda feeling on autopilot. I know before the accident=that night…I was alert and happy and focused when driving. That was that moment. But the series of moments before…I was feeling lackluster, tired, fed-up in a way with the always on the go syndrome.

When I saw the sky…I saw the magic again…that’s all around us…the nature of Earth…just waiting for us in anticipation==for us to go out and explore…

The mind is so strong and tries to figure things out. But what about being in the moment and letting waves/stars/hummingbirds fill your thoughts and dreams. Concrete and buildings…that is part of our world too….but who says we need to be so caught up in the sidewalks of life. Meaning, I feel if we all got back to the roots of trees and didn’t spend so many hours in our cars, there could be a bit more world change…in a positive way.

And sometimes when we’re so caught up in the office, city world…we forget about puzzles and how sometimes…puzzle pieces do not need to be put together, but just simply left alone…for a spiritual resolution to straighten things out.

Life is a mystery…never did I expect to be shaken up so much. I couldn’t stop shaking from the shock of the accident on the way to the hospital…and then there was the shock of a new life and new way to see things. Being aware takes practice. And sometimes it can be more painful..being aware than simply sliding along thru life.

When I looked up at the sky…I was meditating on beauty…I could do nothing else…except embrace the beauty above me.

I’ve heard about some accidents recently…I’ve known about accidents where people were killed. One who I knew closely and some…friends of friends. Why do I live and another dies? What purpose is meant for me? I know that there’s ho-hum gratitude and then there’s GRATITUDE! Can we always be in this space? We’re human…so maybe not. But I know that I’m striving and learning and growing…and improving any part of me that feels defeated, disappointed in some way. Life is just waiting for us to honor it and see the beauty…like the night that the sky looked like no other sky I had ever seen.