[Departure from Atlanta, New Jersey.]
Sitting here in the sunlit terminal with Max, awaiting our departure. We sit quietly, with a cup of piping hot Egyptian chamomile tea and Well-Being juice. A busy silence, an excited calm. Like the tea, I am a container of light heaviness, alert and joyful, yet exhausted and relieved. The tea is too hot to drink.
Travel as a teacher. Does it really matter where? A jungle, a desert, a monastery, a ghetto. A few shady trees, an island paradise. When we move- when we uproot ourselves and leave our surroundings behind, we are given a unique opportunity to look inside of ourselves. When the roots lift, we sway, we rock, we search, we reach. We panic. And then we realize…
People, people, people. So many different lives, so many stories. Hopes, dreams, tears, fears. All of us, connected. Like organs in the body. No, like cells, the blood pumping life into all the different organs, all the different locations on earth. So far, so close. So different, yet one and the same.
No matter how closed off, how clouded with pain, how twisted and full of fear… we are… one and the same. How can I hate my brother? He is but a part of me, a shadow, a reflection of myself. He and I are one. If I judge, if I condemn, I separate myself, I cut myself off from us both. Like cutting off one’s own leg.
Rather than judge, rather than cut and divide, take a second look. Understand. See through other eyes, through another history, in different surroundings. This is how hate dissolves. And acceptance is realized.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment