Recently my husband and I started a support fund for a friend - and before you think "Oh great, another ask for support for someone....." - Ill tell you that this isn't about that at all, nor am I even going to share that pathway here. This is about something different that part of the tendrils that this experience is spinning for me....but because it is based in that experience, I will be sharing bits and pieces of that.
Sometimes I come from the perspective that the world is dark and people are cruel......and then my perspective shifts to a world of brightness and beauty and people that are kind........it shifts to love and it's abundance rather than it's lack.
The past few months have been challenging watching the political theater and people being downright mean to others that don't share their chosen beliefs.
And then I go out into the woods and am amongst the trees and the squirrels and crows and there is beauty and peace there...and sometimes I even think how if reincarnation is real that coming back as a chipmunk might be a nice thing to try for a while.
When I emerge I am different. My perspective has shifted. Eventually it tilts back the other way with things to do and things to believe and things to research and look into further.....and into the woods I go. The more time I spend there, the more at peace I am.
And then things happen, because I am human and that is how life goes....and so back into the woods...........and sometimes......something happens in the usual happenings of everyday life that bring me the same feeling as the woods do....
We have been watching with growing concern, the situation a good friend of ours is in. He is disabled from a sepsis infection he had years ago which left him with one leg and confined to a wheelchair, along with ongoing serious medical conditions. He has been his mother's caretaker, as her life slipped away from cancer. And she was his caretaker. She died a few weeks ago and our friend has been slipping into dark places, all the while openly sharing on social media "Im not ok". "Im scared". "I dont know what to do please help." He lives in California and we live in Maine, so the nature of support that we can give has been limited. (I really wanted to send him mimosa bark extract which feels like exactly the right plant to be working with, but know that due to health things he cannot use even the slightest drop of alcohol and I didnt have any dried bark to send.) We along with others we know watched the sliding down with great concern, feeling helpless. I reached out to him yesterday to find out exactly what he needed in the immediate and it was money so that his electricity doesn't get shut off and he can pay his car insurance so he can still drive to his doctors appointments and to get things like groceries. There are reasons that I wont get into as to why he cannot put out the ask himself or he risks loosing his medical support. These are not mine to share. After thinking and talking we figured out a way that we could help a bit...which was to run a support fund where people can make donations. I was a bit skepitcal that it would work as I hoped it would, because of the need for him to remain anonymous. And thought "folks just aren't going to give to a perfect stranger."
I was wrong......and that is the basis for this piece.
Donations started coming in. A couple were from folks that knew our friend and his situation. Most of them were from people who had no idea who he was and likely never would. Most people were donating to a stranger. This kind of blew me away. Some of these folks I know personally and know that they really don't have extra money....and yet they gave some of what they had.
I found myself slowly feeling that same sense of peace that I feel in the woods. A realization that no, humans are not innately cruel.....they are often in pain (there's a difference).......and that no, the world isn't filled with evil and unhappiness. and that there is far more beauty than we might think there is.
I found myself thinking of the ripples.......how a ripple starts with one drop that then shifts the whole of everything, and how all of these little kind acts, whether it be a donation to a stranger or picking up trash from your neighbors yard, to holding the door open for somone.... really do matter and make a difference. And yes....I KNOW this and have always known this, AND it is a very different thing to experience it than it is to think about it. Experiencing it has a way of jolting us, shaking us a bit, and setting our perspective back into focus on the things that matter most in this world.
Those things, at least I believe, are connection, community, and support.......and quite frankly these all are really about love.
Funny, it does always come back to that......love............and then it slips away and off to the woods I go to find it again.........and perhaps we dont have to do it like that. Perhaps we can create the ripples and move from a heart centered place all of the time.
Wouldn't that be the grandest thing?
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