Posts Tagged ‘perspectives’
Different Realities
The world is a collection of independent realities simmering away at varying distances from one another. Currently, I am home alone for a few days with our animals. It feels so very far away from when I was in Chicago for the wedding last weekend. Cyndie is gone for a few days with a friend who will be having a surgical procedure done.
The countdown has reached three days until I depart for a week of biking in the Black Hills. That will definitely be a different reality. Shortly after I return from that, we travel to Boston to visit the world Barry and Carlos inhabit.
Yesterday, a friend shared a “Letters from an American” entry by history professor Heather Cox Richardson that featured Illinois Governor Pritzker’s response to tRump’s announcement that he was planning to send troops to Chicago. The sorry excuse for a President is definitely living in a unique and independent reality.
The Governor addressed the members of the Press who were in attendance, asking for their “courage to tell it like it is.” If only the media were able to present one true, unquestionable reality to the world about what exactly is going on behind the curtains in Washington.
I like to dream of a reality where Republicans at every level start rising up to admit that their king has no clothes.
At Wintervale, a current reality unfolding before our eyes involves the ripening of a robust-looking crop of fruit from the wild American Plum trees scattered across our property.
I don’t know if Cyndie’s reality for the near future involves producing some wild plum jam or not. It feels wasteful just to let all the fruit drop to the ground. But harvesting can be laborious unless we are both around to spread out a sheet to catch the plums as one of us shakes the trees. It’s possible we won’t both be at home until we get back from Boston in the middle of September.
This morning, I hope to meet another new This Old Horse volunteer who might be able to help feed horses when I leave for my bike trip. It’s pretty easy to train folks who are familiar with horses. Introduce them to the herd, then show them where the bags of grain are. They know the drill from there. The horse world is a more universal reality than an independent one.
Yesterday evening, I witnessed some beautiful “mutual grooming” going on between Light and Mia. It really warms the heart to see signs that members of the herd are taking care of one another.
I sure wish there was a more universal reality where all humans took good care of each other. I’d like to see a reality where anger and fear of others are replaced with a universal love and acceptance for all people.
Sing it, Jesse… “Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now.”
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Keep Growing
We are blessed to have a home in which we can comfortably stay. There is a pandemic raging out there in the big wide world. Home alone is the best place to be.
There is also a political calamity raging in the U.S. with incredible numbers of people holding opposing views about what is real. It’s frustrating to witness. I hold a view that human development doesn’t naturally progress without some energy to urge forward momentum. If there is no outside influence, people will tend to settle for far less than their ultimate potential.
We see what we want to see and we hear what we want to hear. Change is unsettling for the majority of folks.
Physical human growth is outwardly obvious with age but intellectual enlightenment and emotional and spiritual maturity less so. Some people’s development seems to stop at an adolescent level. There is a phenomenon of like minds coalescing around their common level of development.
It is uncomfortable to find oneself surrounded by too many others who function in a distinctly different stage of growth. Picture yourself as a toddler playing comfortably with your dolls or trucks when a gang of college students suddenly takes over the room to practice a debate.
Yesterday, Cyndie read to me from Fr. Richard Rohr’s book, “Falling Upward” about stages and steps of human and spiritual maturation. This excerpt resonated:
…from your own level of development, you can only stretch yourself to comprehend people just a bit beyond yourself. Some theorists say you cannot stretch more than one step above your own level of consciousness, and that is on a good day! Because of this limitation, those at deeper (or “higher”) levels beyond you invariably appear wrong, sinful, heretical, dangerous, or even worthy of elimination.
I don’t have any idea how to bridge that inevitable discord in appearance between people of distant levels of development, but at the very least, this helps me to comprehend what has been so incomprehensible to me.
I feel as though I have grown significantly in my perspectives about how to love myself and others, but the last four years have tripped me up in my goal to maintain a healthy perspective about those who appear so wrong and dangerous to me.
We might all be adults, but some would rather play with their toys while others seek to debate difficult concepts. It is understandable that two groups of such different levels of consciousness would have difficulty understanding each other.
No wonder it is so hard to get everyone to simply wear a face mask in public during a global pandemic.
May we all pause to see those with whom we don’t agree with fresh compassion for whatever level of human growth they have achieved. Each of our paths are unique. Offer a hand to those who are willing and open to lifting us, or being lifted by us.
No matter where each one of us is, don’t ever stop growing.
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Two Perspectives
This weekend’s snowfall was certainly a pretty one. There was an interesting combination of stickiness and blowing. The tops of the trees didn’t hold the snow, but the lower trunks and branches sure did.
If you’ve watched my photographic tendencies for a few years, you are probably familiar with my penchant for close, full-frame images, as well as my pattern of including one feature for accent.
Especially, leaves.
This little specimen was irresistible for the fabulous character of the fancy edges.
That wonderful leaf caught my attention because of the way it blew across the top of the snow and then just settled down in this spot, as if it was waiting for me to take the picture.
Thankfully, it stayed around long enough for me to capture it from a second perspective, which brings those fancy edges to life with added dimension.
I don’t think these two should ever be displayed one without the other. Two wonderful perspectives on one fancy leaf.
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Relative Something 