I'm not saying we shouldn't know about disaster. We find out, somehow or other. A friend calls us. We pass a newspaper stand & a headline leaps at us. We overhear strangers in a coffee shop talking. Hey how about that bridge collapse? Tragic, huh.
I'm just saying that it does more good to focus your attention on what you can do, which is make your own life better, your own heart stronger & clearer & purer. Yes, there is tragedy. People die. Bridges collapse. Our friends get divorces or their houses burn or their children get sick.
Some people feel guilty feeling joy when there are so many people feeling pain. It's as if the message is Wipe that smile off your face, there are people suffering in India!
So what?
Will you refusing your joy give them less pain? No. In fact, you refusing your joy actually--I believe--increases the pain quotient in the universe. I don't do it any more. If anyone wants to know, I don't feel your pain, whatever it is. I have no intention of it. I'm working on my joy, so I have more to spread around--& omigod, do I have plenty to spread. Showers of it. Fountains of it. Redwood forests & daisy meadows & mermaid pools & amusement parks. (I'm trying to expand the metaphorest, in case any of you out there have a nature phobia. How about industrial parks? Suburbs? The suburbs of joy. I kind of like that. Oh, I live in the Joyburbs, you know, on the edge of complete happiness, but the parking is better.)
Although I've heard from a bunch of my Twin Cities friends that they are in fact all right, I was feeling peaceful before I knew that was the case, reasoning, correctly, that me getting upset wouldn't help anyone who'd already bit the big one. Here is my peace for you all, because people did die. My love. My compassion. My joy.
Things from the last week or so:
- baby's first acupuncture treatment! very cool. I loved it & am planning to do it again.
- my sister's house is on the market. she & her hubby found a new one they'd like to get, contingent on the sale of theirs. so if anyone's looking for a cool house just outside Red Lodge, Montana, let me know.
- Stardust. let it fall all over you. go see this movie. I just got back to the hotel from the prescreening. we all applauded!
- at Greenlife Co-op, they were having this nifty thing where a non-profit was letting people trade incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescents. CFLs last up to seven years & save loads of electricity, which is good for the pocketbook & the planet. I can't remember exactly what the number was, but something like if every household in the U.S. replaced one incandescent lightbulb with a compact fluorescent lightbulb it would be like taking 300 million cars off the road... (forgive me if my statistics are mis-remembered; it's still great savings.) (I didn't get there before they ran out, but I have a bunch of CFLs already.)
73. Give a gift or two to the universe. (I suggest a compact fluorescent bulb & a heaping helping of your own joy, although fingerpainting--with a side of peace--is lovely as well.)
