Sunday, September 27, 2009

Remorse in the Wake of Inaction




Last night I had a quick errand to the hardware store. Getting out of my car I was horrified hearding this man screaming at a young girl as he pulled her across the parking lot. Many of us heard. None of us knew what to do. We clustered together at the customer service desk. They had heard it too and one of the Lowe's employees went out to "do something."

My heart breaks even today as I sit with knowing that I did nothing. That I didn't know what to do. That I witnessed something really wrong and allowed it to happen.

Remorse is an important teacher.

And prayer is an important ally and antidote.

May that little girl, and all children know a world without hurt.

May that man, and all of us who act out of rage be invited into the healing transformation of love.

Monday, September 07, 2009

Crysalis (Butterfly and cocoon)



[Barbara Coleman, a therapist in the Boston area, sent me this wonderful story about a butterfly and it's crysalis told to her by her yoga teacher, who I'm sorry is unknown to me. Thank you to both of you!]

One day a boy found the cocoon of a butterfly in which a small opening was appearing. He sat and watched it for several hours as it struggled to force its way through that tiny opening. All of the sudden it stopped. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could on its own and could go no further.

The boy decided to help the butterfly cocoon. He took a pair of scissors and snipped away the last remaining bit of cocoon. The butterfly emerged easily with it's swollen body and shriveled wings. He continued to watch the butterfly expecting at any moment that the butterfly would begin to fly. That didn't happen. The butterfly spent the rest of its short life crawling around with shriveled wings and a swollen body. It never did fly.

What the boy did not understand was that his intended kindness and haste to help the butterfly allow for the universal plan of the butterfly. The restricting cocoon and the struggle to get free are all part of the process. The restriction and the struggle force the fluid from the butterfly's body into its wings, strenthening its system so that it can fly when it finally gets free.

We all live this story. We all have a crysalis around us. Our struggles support our ongoing evolution. We struggle against that!! Oh yes we do!! (Okay, I speak for myself!!!) We want to fly but often we don't have the internal strength to make that happen. The process of rubbing against what feels so constricting can generate our longing and mobilize our movement to reach beyond what is so comfortable into something larger and more freeing.

I wish this for all of us - the internal fortitude to move through what is hard to the freedom that is always beckoning.