Peruvian Banana

Today, I ate a banana from Peru.  I'm in France and the banana came all the way here from Peru.  It was perfectly ripe and beautiful.  I was so struck by the miracle of that that I wept.

I'll admit that I'm in a bit of a vulnerable state.  I'm at the end of a particularly difficult migraine episode.  When that is happening, I can't eat, for the most part.  My body won't take in any food, and there are only a few things that I'm able to get down, a banana being one of them.  I haven't had any, and finally felt good enough to go to the store today and get some.  In the store they stood out to me, like someone had dramatically lit them in special light.  But, no, it was just their own internal light shining through.  Beautiful, yellow, ripe bananas.  I stood there speechless while I took in their gorgeousness before picking a bunch to take home.

I'm not always so emotional about my food, but maybe I should be.  I don't always remember to say grace before eating, but I know it makes a difference to do so.  I am so grateful for all the people who grow and transport and sell the delicious food that reaches me and allows me to support my body with nutrients that sustain my life.

I'm fully aware that the bananas that came to me in France from Peru were grown by some corporate farming entity.  And, I'm grateful to that entity.  I do think that corporate farming has gotten too big and out of control, and I know there's a balance in regard to making it work at its best that we haven't reached yet; and, that said, I'm deeply grateful for the food that's grown for the collective of humanity by corporations that have forgotten the fullness of the sacred service they provide and have let greed take over.

We're in a process of the crumbling of the old paradigm.  What we built wasn't working in the highest good for most of us.  And, new systems and ways of doing things that are better for everyone need to be put into place.  But, we don't necessarily need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Some things will need to be created anew from the ground up.  And, some things can be adapted and improved upon while utilizing what's already there.  Corporate farming needs a big overhaul, but there's probably a middle way that will serve us all the best.  And, I think it's probably a good idea to try to follow a middle way in regard to all the changes that must take place in our world in order for us to come back to a way of living that supports the planet and all life upon her.

Grocery stores are miraculous.  Farmer's markets are miraculous.  I can't thank the people who produce, transport, and sell the food most of us eat enough.  And, I'm also very grateful for all the people who grow their own food.  There's not much that's more essential than food production and transportation.  I look forward to the day when all the food is grown organically, and is plentiful, and we collectively make the decision to feed the whole world.  I look forward to the day when starvation is a thing of the past, when no one on the planet ever has to go hungry.

For now, I'm grateful for my beautiful Peruvian banana and all the food that nourishes me.  Next time you eat something, give a moment of thought to what it took for it to be in your hand, or on your fork, and send out a "thank you" to everyone who had anything to do with it.   

The Gift of Acceptance

I'm reading "The Garden of Evening Mists" by Tan Twan Eng, reommended to me by a friend.  Before that, I read "The Gift of Rain," also by Tan Twan Eng, and also recommended to me by the same friend.  These books have touched me deeply and, through the labyrinth of their words, ordered and organized in their particular pattern, and carrying the energetic transmission of their author, have triggered awarenesses in me that are new and revelatory.

In "The Gift of Rain," a couple of sentences uttered by the character of Aunt Yu Mei, stopped me in my tracks:  "Who can look back and truly say all his memories are happy ones?  To have memories, happy or sorrowful, is a blessing, for it shows we have lived our lives without reservation."

As all of us do, I have memories that are painful, shameful, and regrettable.  I have judged these events, and the memories of them, and judged myself for actions taken and decisions made and carried out with less than loving intentions.  I have allowed myself to feel like a victim, to feel helpless and hopeless, and to blame others.  I just couldn't stop myself from judging the past, even though I know it to be destructive.  I've been haunted, limited, and paralyzed by certain memories for my whole life.  Those memories, and my perception and judgment of those events, have entrapped me.  My journey into energetic healing was prompted by my desire to free myself from these entrapments.  I grew through it, expanded through it, gained some relief through it, and gained some acceptance of myself through it, but didn't find the freedom through it that I sought.  The wounds lived on, and the physical reflection of those wounds continued.

What it's taken me most of my life to realize is that we never heal, at least in the way I had thought of healing.  Healing doesn't mean we are able to let something go, to release it, or to move on from it.  Healing, as I see it now, means to accept the wound, to give it space, to love it, to honor it, to incorporate it.  Our acceptance of ourselves, and everything that has happened in our lives, all of it, is the key to peace, which I see as healing.  Acceptance is the gateway to gratitude, which leads to peace.

I've struggled with acceptance.  I've struggled with what it is and with how to do it.   There are things in my life that I just couldn't find acceptance for, until I read the sentences uttered by Aunt Yu Mei above.  Somehow, those sentences managed to slide past my resistance and judgment, and acceptance opened up for me through the grace of those words.  Suddenly, I was filled with gratitude for everything in my life without judgment.  The gratitude just came flooding in, unbidden.  And, thankfully, it has not abated.

There is a line from "The Garden of Evening Mists" that struck me, contributing in the same vein as Aunt Yu Mei's sentences from "The Gift of Rain."  A character is remembering a quote from a poem recited to her by a character no longer living, but which has stuck with her for many years, since the moment of the recitation:  "Though the water has stopped flowing, we still hear the whisper of its name."  And, it made me think about how the whispers of our pasts can be so numerous and so loud, that living in the present is not possible.  Our unaccepted wounds, and the memories of them, refuse to be forgotten and pushed away.  They whisper to us so we won't forget them.  They whisper to us asking for acceptance.  They whisper to us asking for space, to be acknowledged for their contribution to who we are in this now.  Until we are ready and able to hear them, really hear them, and acccept them, we remain prisoner to their whisperings.

We think of memory as being linear, but it might be more helpful if we could allow it to be circular.  The shape of our galaxy, and of our energetic beings, is a tube torus.  It's like a big donut, and the energy cycles through it, never ending.  Each and every experience we've had, throughout all creation, gets added into our energetic field, our tube torus.  We are increased and expanded by everything we experience.  As humans, in this 3D frequency we currently inhabit, we tend to judge experiences as good and bad.  We want to hang on to the "good" ones and forget the "bad" ones.  But, without judgment, everything becomes unburdened experience and expansion, contributing to our growth through our acceptance and inclusion of it.  Memory is the way we value what has happened, in the way that grief is the way we value the loss of what we love.  Memory helps us to be grateful for all that has contributed to the creation of us being who we are.

When humans come to the end of their embodiments, they often seem to focus more and more on their pasts.  If you sit with someone at the end of their time here, they often want to reminisce about their life.  It is a great service to them to listen, to really listen.  By their reminiscense, they are honoring their experiences and the shape of their embodiment.  And, by listening, we are able to give them validation and acceptance.  They are passing on their knowledge and their wisdom through the gift of sharing their memories and, by hearing their memories, we are expanded and increased.  We become recepticles for what should not be lost.  We accept and allow their stories to then live in and through us, to contribute to us and to the whole collective.

The scientist, Nassim Haramein, says that it is memory that creates time.  And that, without memory, there is no time.  That might be true.  But, I think memory exists outside of time.  I think our memories, once accepted and incorporated into our being, always exist in the now.  The core and the essence of our being, the part of us that is eternal Life, is forever increased and expanded by our experiences, and the memory of those experiences is the repository of their value and contributes to our wholeness and the upliftment of all creation.

With true acceptance, forgiveness is not an issue.  Through acceptance, forgiveness happens.  It is a by-product of acceptance.  Acceptance overrides judgment, resentment, and blame.  Acceptance frees us and allows the full flow of Life to move through us unencumbered.  Acceptance brings peace and gratitude.  Acceptance brings understanding and compassion.  Acceptance is inclusive, honoring and loving.  Acceptance opens the space for all the split-off parts of us to come home.  Acceptance happens in the now and is the essence of truth.

When one is at a point where one is able to receive a knowing, that knowing will come to us through whatever means necessary and possible.  Grace uses everything to bless us.  Since all Life is sacred, all Life is a vehicle of and for the Divine.  The vehicles for my ability to finally understand and expand into acceptance were two books recommended by a friend.  It is never too late.  We are never past redemption.  We are never lost.  We are never alone.  Peace and grace are always there.  We are never abandoned.  And, we can open into acceptance in an instant.  One tiny shift in perception and we are there.