Harmony

It's quite fascinating to sit and watch the birds doing their thing down below our lanai. Our downstairs neighbours have been feeding the birds so we get a lot of returning visitors down there and occasionally up on our lanai as well. It's interesting to see the diversity of species and how they all just get along, scratching for food, doing their thing. There's a great harmony that is evident when you watch wildlife. Even those times where animals are chasing and eating others, there is a natural order unfolding that is undeniable when we remove our judgment and tendency toward anthropomorphism. When we aren't so quick to judge through our lens of fears and beliefs all is well.

I was talking to a friend via skype this morning as well. Her dad is really sick, has been for a long time and was just hospitalized yet again last week. She flew to where he lives to be with her mom and with him for a few days. I said something about how amazing it is how long people can hang on when they are very sick and she told me how he had been expressing his gratitude and appreciation for life, for the people in his life and for how fortunate he was compared to many others. This was not a perspective he had most of his life when he was healthy and younger but he has it now. Who would have guessed? It was a great reminder for me not to judge by appearances and by my own limited views, I really have no idea what's going on beyond the surface.

As I said, there is a harmony and a perfection in the way life is unfolding. All I really have to do to see it is be still, clear the filter of my thoughts and appreciate the moment.


Namaste

Maui Mongooses and Rats

Pretty strange title for a post I know but bear with me. We are in beautiful Wailea, Maui enjoying the sun, surf and those fabulous trade winds. We are at a wonderful boutique hotel up the hill from the beach where there is an abundance of space, beautiful vegetation and quiet.This is a view from our lania in the early morning.

We also have an abundance of wildlife as there is all over Hawaii. Mostly birds of an endless variety but here we have a resident duck (a lame duck at that) and a chicken that hangs around most of the time too. Here they are viewed from our lanai as well.

We were at a manager's reception yesterday and were asking one of the staff about another animal we had seen chasing the chicken which we thought might be a mongoose. Sure as heck it was. We were told that there was a problem with rats on Maui and so someone in their infinite wisdom had brought in the mongoose to deal with the rat problem. The only problem with that is that the rats are nocturnal while the mongooses are not so, never the twain did meet now apparently they have a problem with rats and mongooses.

Hmm, I thought, there's a great metaphor in this little story. I would liken the rats to beliefs and experiences we don't like. We want to get rid of them because they make us uncomfortable so we bring in the mongoose, beliefs that we see as better than the rats but they don't actually deal with those beliefs and experiences we didn't like in the first place, they just become more beliefs and experiences we don't want either. Both end up proliferating unchecked because we didn't actually deal with the original problem we just added to it.

That's why I don't really encourage replacing one belief with yet another. It might feel good for a while but eventually we come to realize that it is just another belief, it still isn't the truth because it is something we brought in, not something that naturally arose from beyond the original belief. If we cannot find a place of peace wherever we are, with whatever is going on, introducing something else isn't going to do it either, at least not in the long term. We may get temporary relief but I for one prefer to deal with the real issue, not the just the symptoms.

So if the rat represents an uncomfortable idea that is not the truth, why not see it for what it really is, a lie no matter how well meaning it may have been when it was conceived. From there at least we have a modicum of possibility to open to the realization of the magnificent truth of Being instead of just adding another layer to the illusion.

That's my story about the rat and the mongoose. Metaphor is so much fun!

Now for another day in paradise...

Namaste