I think it was Janeane Garofalo who said, after the 1993 World Trade Center bomb, that she couldn't leave her apartment for fear that our then newish local 24-hour a day station NY1 would broadcast some other horrible thing happening in the city and, as our portable telephones were the size of toasters back then and far from being smart, we wouldn't know we were in danger, we wouldn't know which neighbourhoods to stay out of, we wouldn't know where to go or what to do and so we all went out and purchased transistor radios and 8-volt batteries and walked around listening to 1010WINS news radio, not sleeping, and obsessing about safety. This rather prepared us for the days after 9/11 when we were trying to figure out what was really going on. No twitter back then to get instantaneous information like now.
My husband Snoodles works for Jesus and is off on a conference today and I was putting up the laundry and doing the dishes and I realised I haven't been living thoughtfully, I haven't been living carefully, and it makes me worry that perhaps it's been a while since I took this inventory. The Hindu Festival of Diwali is coming tomorrow, sometimes called the "festival of lights". It takes place in a lunar void and asks us to pile our prayers and hopes and dreams in that void to bring the moon to fullness. Diwali also asks us to be aware of our own inner light, and to acknowledge that which is beyond the physical, that which is pure, infinite, and eternal ... you know ... God and stuff. <The celebration of Diwali also speaks of the "victory of good over evil", refers to the light of higher knowledge dispelling all ignorance, the ignorance that masks one's true nature, not as the body, but as the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality. With this awakening comes compassion and the awareness of the oneness of all things (higher knowledge). This brings joy and peace. Just as we celebrate the birth of our physical being, Diwali is the celebration of this Inner Light.> (wiki)
This election cycle had me a wreck. I've been plastered to the television and the interwebs and then comes the bloody Rains of Ranchipur and praise god for Twitter because I'm STILL finding out about services in real time but I just cannot bring myself to watch anymore real-time mourning. I know too many people who have lost LITERALLY everything they own. They don't have a spoon, they don't have a shirt. Everything was washed away.
Generally, the only times I am in stillness are at prayer and watching TV. I don't stroll when I walk, I get there. I don't really live in the City, I move through it. It's very weird. And, similarly, I don't contemplate washing the dishes, like Snoodles does, taking joy in the particular utensil and its history, contemplating the beauty of the color blue of the parker bowl he's drying. I pound through things to get them done because there's something else to do and something after that. So this morning I realised I had a good four hours of nothing really pressing to do, I didn't have to attend the news cycle, projects are still wanting attention, but I didn't have enough time to start and finish any of them, so I really just took time to wash the dishes and I really just took time to put up the laundry, slowly, thoughtfully, prayerfully, attending to the moment I was in ... and it was then, when I was hanging up my ten pairs of khakis, that it washed over me how deeply and how importantly I am blessed. Not just in this moment, but throughout my life. Not just in possessions but in friendships, deep interconnected knowings of me and other caring and concerned persons all of whom share with me the wonder and the awe of the miracles which populate every second we're given and each of whom stitched themselves in to the fabric of my very being to make me who I am right at this minute. And I began to sob. Slight guilt that I had so much, a reckoning to make sure I stay grateful, a reminder to make sure that I am living fully each moment I'm given and a resolve that I SHALL populate those moments with my full attention.
Okay. I'm off to the Village to watch besties perform some new music! Here's hoping my trains are not only running but actually stopping to pick me up, which they didn't last night ... for hours ... ugh. Ganug. Okay. Happy Diwali and don't forget: Let's all be awake while we're blessed to be alive.
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