Clarity, inter-connectivity
Date Palm, California
“We are all one, saint and sinner. Everything we do sets the whole web of creation trembling, with light or darkness. It is an awesome thought, that a good word spoken might help a beggar in Calcutta or a burning child in Burundi; or conversely. But there is beauty and simplicity in it, sufficient to touch our finite minds.”
Quotation from the poet George Mackay Brown’s autobiography, For the Islands I Sing. Thanks go to my friend David, who once sent me this quotation, hand-written, on a card.
How would the rhythm of our lives change if we were to tune into the mystical truth of our interconnectivity with all sentient beings? How might we ground our lives in this concept, and how might it shift our entire perspective and give us a way to live fully, and with grace, during harrowing times?
What if we were to take a step back and allow ourselves to internalize the mystical truth, articulated so beautifully by George Mackay Brown, that every small thing that we do ripples across the globe? It’s easy to feel as if we have no power during this time, but what if we were to turn that idea on its head and entertain the notion that it might be the very opposite. We might, in fact, have so much power in our every thought, word and action that we are all co-creators of the new world that will emerge from this time of painful global disruptions and chaos.
If you’re like me, there might be a tendency to believe that, “unless I’m doing something big” to bring about change for the better during these times, then I’m falling short. But what if this ingrained thought pattern is nothing more than a paralyzing myth meant to “keep us down,” as it were?
The other day I was on a walk, and after a winter of cold and gloomy days I was taken aback when I looked up to truly notice the clarity of the deep, blue California sky. This skyscape, with its piercing blueness and brushstroke clouds, came as sort of a rebuke to my worn-out, often self-destructive thought patterns. The sky, it seems to me now as I look back on that day, was in its own way trying to snag my attention. If I were to reconstruct the sky’s message to me, it would read something like this: “It’s not that complicated,” says the sky. “We are all interconnected, and you are a part of this vast and blue landscape. This shockingly blue and vast skyscape mirrors your own capacity to feel clarity. You are, in fact, one with the sky, the magnificent palm tree, the dog walking by your side, this neighborhood, and the entire world expanding out from here to the farthest ends of the earth. When you imbibe the miraculous nature of this skyscape, and you breathe in its magnificence, you are sending out awe to the world, signaling that, despite the treacherous world that humans have created, there is in fact something larger, much greater, and more expansive than you might ever imagine. Our gift to you, today, is the knowledge that when one person sneezes, or cries out to the world in desperation, or laughs herself silly, this energy is part of one whole. A radiant smile given to another human being sends its radiance around the world in a matter of seconds.”
We are all interconnected. And, if we’re suffering internally with feelings of frustration or despair, it’s because one person’s disdain and taste for cruelty affects the whole. Physical or verbal aggression directed toward one affects all planetary beings. Many feel the energy of violence, oppression and destruction energetically, in our blood and bones. If we don’t want that energy in our blood and bones, and if we are fortunate enough to be removed from it physically, then we must try our best to turn away from the very thoughts, words or actions that justify or encourage that which makes us weep. We can discover in ourselves the hurting places that might cause us to hurt others.
Saint Teresa of Calcutta’s philosophy of doing “small things with great love” reminds us, moreover, that we can emerge gracefully from our shadow selves when holding a crying child or offering a hungry stranger something to eat. These small actions introduce a strain of love that sends current of grace into the atmosphere that we breathe and absorb.
People who’ve had a life review in the course of a Near Death Experience report seeing the ripple effects (in a loving, non-judgmental way) of all of their actions, and especially the smallest ones, like being kind to a grocery store employee who is having a bad day. Taking time to be kind when another fellow human is in distress validates that person’s worth and humanity and gives them the strength in turn to be kind to others. Even the smallest gesture of good intention has the power to switch the atmospheric channel in which we live.
In switching the channel, we render less powerful an energy field plagued by the hostile energies of humiliation, insult, retribution, fear-mongering, and blame, and we contribute to a higher vibration, one that reverberates with “love notes” exchanged between strangers, neighbors, family and friends.
Why do we complicate things so? We might not like ourselves or what we’ve said or done or not done on a given day, but arising from a funk, we lift ourselves up and go outside. Looking up, we see the sky, part of ourselves—blindingly blue, sublime, a taste of the divine.
We are that.