L.I.F.E.

What do you value? After x amount of years spent living on this earth, what have you learned about what you value most? I feel I've had some big doors of truth open wide for me within the past three years due to personal and professional relationships. I know they won't stop coming my way, but now more than ever I feel I have been walking an extended treadmill of change, disillusionment and transition. What a test it is to witness how I internally respond to each situation. Am I wanting to flee, fight or sit still and quietly witness? How about a combination of all three?

Death is always present. My current experiences with wind turbines and their impact on my home, familial harmony and friendships are undergoing their own pattern of decay allowing me my own personal rollercoaster ride of emotions with no escape to the past or future to soothe my internal turmoil. My future feels uncertain. What I have always valued in my natural surroundings, my home and community is threatened and it leaves me wondering if there is any burrow or foxhole that feels safe.

So I have to ask myself what I value b/c ultimately bringing these things to myself will have an impact on my overall health and quality of life. I value connection with nature, people, my art and myself. I value conscious thought and attentiveness. I value the ability to be honest with ourselves, (not an easy task), and furthermore, I value the courage it takes to act upon that honesty.

I suppose I'm writing all of this to remind myself to have faith that experiences can be used for our greater good. That death is most certain and needs acceptance. And that ultimately change is the only constant and understanding this can make us so appreciative for what is present and what we are willing to manifest.

As silly as it sounds, it is a shock to find what has always existed for me to come to an abrupt end. This is where I understand the wisdom in the Buddhist concept of Impermenance. Early Buddhism declares that "in this world there is nothing that is fixed and permanent. Every thing is subject to change and alteration." According to the teachings of the Buddha, "life is comparable to a river. It is a progressive moment, a successive series of different moments, joining together to give the impression of one continuous flow. It moves from cause to cause, effect to effect, one point to another, one state of existence to another, giving an outward impression that it is one continuous and unified movement, where as in reality it is not. The river of yesterday is not the same as the river of today. The river of this moment is not going to be the same as the river of the next moment. So does life. It changes continuously, becomes something or the other from moment to moment. It is by becoming aware of it, by observing it and by understanding it, one can find a suitable remedy for the sorrow of human life."