Sunday, December 6, 2009

Balance

Just as it has been said that you can’t bring an end to war through war, neither can you create balance through unbalanced approaches. Humans are as much “natural systems” as the Earth is as a whole. Having been involved in activism most of my adult life I know the tendency to sacrifice myself to a cause—to go beyond where I can maintain a healthy balance in order to avert an anticipated outcome. Granted sometimes it is essential to throw my weight to one side of the boat, so to speak, to prevent it from capsizing, but then the weight must be redistributed again. I also know from personal experiences that were potentially fatal that my survival ensued because I got still inside and was fully present to a greater awareness that guided me through the situation. The solution was often unexpected and not one I could pluck from the “rule book.”

At one point I had an intense sense of responsibility that unless I did everything I could to “save the planet” that we were doomed and that it would be my fault. (I’m grateful that the universe is not beholden to my perceptions.) The result was that I pushed myself so hard (mostly mentally) that I got burned out. Trying to guilt other people into helping me, no matter how subtly, never worked either. Fortunately the universe laid me off from that job and sent me for retraining with my dolphin family. Their approach to helping us shift the mess we are in is joy, play, community and love. It’s not about what you can’t have or shouldn’t want. It’s about creating such joy that there is no thought of need.

My sense is that the bulk of the planetary crisis we now find ourselves in has to do with disconnection from source, self and each other and lack of awareness in general. To reestablish all of this requires an internal slowing down and a return to the stillness from which balance moves back and forth and comes to rest. Anyone who has ever tried to get an object to rest on a balance point so that it doesn’t fall off knows that if you have to move it to redistribute the weight you do it gently and with a certain stillness and focus.

I’m including a link here to information on creating a “gifting” economy that really resonates with me. The presenter, Charles Eisenstein, talks about the universe operating on the principle of gifting—our lives are a gift, the air, the water, and all of the abundance of the Earth are gifts. We have established ideas around money that go against this gifting principle. Here is another wonderful opportunity for rebalancing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB23ms4rqjY


I don't do great things. I do small things with great love.

~ Mother Teresa

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

~Buckminster Fuller

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