May
8, 2020
Today’s image – Yesterday had a full moon, albeit behind cloud cover. While out that afternoon in a prairie park, I called my good friend and creative collaborator to talk about things going on. She and I have published on a collection of art and poems and are compiling another. She paints break taking cosmic starscapes on enormous canvases, a painting wherein its viewer can get lost. She sees herself as a light work on a mission to assist with a vibration elevation that will create a beautiful ascension event that brings people into the fifth dimension. When I try to wrap my mind about what that means, I can only imagine the music group from the sixties. She has trained as a hypnotherapist, taking clients during a session that might last three or four hours back into past lifetimes to look at previous events or relationships in those lives that might be playing out still in a current lifetime. Yes, she is an esoteric thinker, living within a very eccentric cosmology. Her generosity and intended goodwill include sharing abundant information (or misinformation). It varies from uplifting art and memes to sessions of channeled soul talks, videos from the latest conspiracy theorists and new-age spiritualists. The latter tend to annoy me because they come off as misguided and unproductive rabble-rousing (as I have ranted about in previous entries).
I want to be woke and all, but my tightly laced science framed mind vets most of her dissemination as incendiary bunk. And at this point, my triggers are so sprung; our conversation can quickly grow spiky and heated. The story she tells me (and herself) is that she tries to take it all in and give a fair listen to every opinion. I think her zeal for many of the quirky infomercial comes out of gullibility. I wonder if she ever learned to practice critical thinking skills (she indeed demonstrates mastery with them her painting practical life skills).
In the realms that she lives,
with her spirit guides counseling her big life decisions, I am never one to egregiously
disparage her. I love her too much. So I
have decided to challenge myself with a thought experiment. I will read or
watch everything she sends me with an open mind, looking for how the
information or message inspires her to share them. And most of all, practice
the art of not reacting in anger or frustration. And to do this out of respect for her and to
practice a little surrender of my rigid thinking. Because what if I am wrong? I must hold that question too. Is my programming so intractable that I
cannot delve into another viewpoint long enough to give it a measured and honest
consideration? To sit with an idea, I
consider as hooey for a little longer to seek some middle ground. Maybe there
is an opportunity to learn how to reconcile differences and even contribute to
the softening of the vast body of polarized opinions that have threatened our
country’s domestic tranquility and stability.
Can I take up the simple practice of standing in the mental shoes of
another as she extends what she considers crucial information to me? Even if, as I suspect, those ideological
shoes give me thought bunions, I can say that I gave them a try. The bunions will go away when I put my own
back on. Come find me if I get lost.
Comments