My kids like to blow bubbles. They have this tiny bubble blowing stick that makes the tiniest bubbles. But sometimes the wind carries them and in that gust, they stick together forming this large hive-like-bubble which doesn’t pop as easily as when they were floating along in solitude.
There is tremendous power of collaboration. I believe that every single time I draw upon words of wisdom from those that have gone before me, some ancient and some modern, I tap into latent memories. Something familiar and comforting awakens inside of me when I read certain quotes. When I can’t find the words for the experience that is in front of me, I pray for guidance and something springs to mind; sometimes it is only snippets of phrases or a person that I remember who knows the way.
We have just forgotten who we are.
I am in partnership with all these great people of the past and present who help me remember. They reflect back to me what I am yearning to say.
In Jack Kornfield’s book, Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are, he quotes Lewis Thomas, a biologist:
“The driving force of in nature, on this kind of planet with this sort of biosphere, is cooperation…The most inventive and novel of all schemes in nature, and perhaps the most significant in determining the great landmark events in evolution, is symbiosis, which is simply cooperative behaviour carried to its extreme.”
As I have leaned on elders from the past and those who have blessed me with their presence right now on my path, I have felt compelled to expand my circle. I cannot hoard this gift of knowledge and wisdom. I must pass it on. I tell my story here to pay it forward. I share in hopes that any connection I make or secret I uncover will help you along your journey. Maybe you will remember a quote or something I have discovered sometime in the future and will be able to call upon it for your own support.
Through expanding my circle, I have connected with so many people in the most unexpected ways. My spring and summer are filled with what I can only describe as holy conversations. Conversations where the space feels sacred enough to share and be real. A place where it is ok to ask for help and to offer it in the same breath. A place where I see this person as I see myself – an image of all of us who are just continuing to strive, to understand, and to love.
I could not have done this project without the many individuals who showed their support through multiple demonstrations of generosity, positive comments, sitting with me in gratitude, sharing their own story and being open, sending a kind email or message, pushing me to say YES, allowing me to feel whatever I need to feel, sending a kind thought, and in essence, giving me permission to write and create what I myself need to read and to see.
Love and kindness are the winds that have blown your delicate bubbles of encouragement my way.
Thank you.
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100 scribbles…hurriedly writing the here and now.
#100scribbles
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