Allan G. Hunter's Blog, page 65

Forgetting….

I’ve been away on my travels – it wasn’t for very long, but I chose a place that was very quiet. So quiet, in fact, that it wasn’t long before I began to hear the deeper music of the countryside, there, behind the birdsong and the swish of leaves. An added feature was the entire lack of internet connectivity. This ensured a quiet of a different kind.

Returning home to my busy city life I’m struck now with how many things that seemed important at the time have washed themselves from my memory. Trivial things, such as where I put items, to more important concerns (where are the keys for…) and finally the “important” things to do with meetings, engagements to speak and so on. All faded.

And I couldn’t be happier.

The Bird

I left my door open in the warm weather and a sparrow decided to hop in and explore my house. Instead of leaving by the open door it decided it needed to try and leave by the window, and it fluttered helplessly against the fly-screen, sensing the outdoors, panicked, feeling trapped.

I did all I could to shoo it towards the still open door. It wasn’t having anything to do with that, and so it flew upstairs. It followed its bird nature, seeking freedom in altitude. That’s a good thing to do outside, but totally the wrong thing to do in a house. After I’d captured it and set it free it occurred to me that we can learn from the sparrow.

The poor trapped sparrow was afraid of this larger creature (me) and would not take any hints – just as most of us get hints from the universe about what we need to do and then we fight against them. Eventually the universe will put each of us back on course, even if it takes a major upheaval to do that. In my case I had to throw a towel over the bird, pray I hadn’t hurt it, and gather it up.

All that it suffered was ruffled feathers and a small loss of dignity.

If only we could all recover from our mistakes so easily. If only we all chose not to resist the universe and its promptings.

Rabbit Holes

Today the children next door saw a rabbit in my yard. I live in a fairly urban part of town, so this was a bit of excitement, especially if you’re five years old. Naturally they ran after it, trying to get close, all the time shrieking “A Rabbit!!” Obviously it didn’t stick around to be petted.

We all do exactly this, we adults, when we catch a glimpse of happiness. We screech and run around and try to catch it. What we truly need to do is be still, and let happiness move closer to us, in its own way.

Why don’t we learn from what we see in children?

New Myths Needed

One of the great hidden myths of our society is that we have a hidden war going on between the Government and Individuals’ liberties.

If we look at the perennial problem of guns in America, some people think guns are necessary and any government that takes any of them away if on a path to tyranny. Or perhaps we could think of the huge amount the tax system takes from us and the resentment that causes for many. Or possibly it’s to be seen in the imbalance between highly paid directors who give themselves wage increases and the working poor. Wherever we go we see this myth of war and struggle.

We do not see myths of cooperation or harmony. Yet there are plenty of examples of cooperation that do increase the levels of fairness and harmony. We, do, in fact, have a governmental system that seeks to make the lives of ordinary citizens more stable. It may not always succeed, but at least the system is in place.

Those who doubt this need only to look back a hundred years to see that injustice, starvation, inequality, and lawlessness have decreased in this country. Yet the myth persists of violent struggle against any form perceived as “controlling”.

We could choose to reframe the experience we’re having, but we cling to this war myth. The war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on obesity…. Lots of wars. Chief amid these is Republican against Democrat, a war that has paralysed the House and Senate.

We need a myth of cooperation and connection to others. We need to strengthen the myths of caring for others – myths that emerge so movingly after disasters as practical generosity flows towards victims. Those myths are every bit as powerful as the war myths. Why don’t we focus on those?

Mother’s Day

So, Mother’s Day rocks around and we’re all bombarded with advertisements that suggest flowers, chocolate and combinations of both are a suitable way to acknowledge our mothers.

But what if you have a difficult mother? A narcissistic mother? A destructive mother? What do you do then? Is this a day of mourning for you? Do you find yourself sad at the thought of all the things you didn’t get from your mother? Plenty of people have unresolved feelings about their mothers. So, does Mother’s Day leave those people feeling like damaged goods?

Motherhood has always been sentimentalized, so let’s step back a bit — because motherhood is a primary fact for each one of us. You were born. Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. What happened after that may have caused you grief or joy, but it doesn’t alter the basic fact. You came to the planet.

Now you’re here there’s only one lesson to learn – the lesson of love. No matter what your personal experiences may have been the fact of Motherhood reminds us of a powerful force at work around us every day — whether or not it was present for us as we grew up.

The day is a reminder of the deep and powerful love of which we are all capable, and which not everyone gets to feel perfectly. This love is as elemental as the moon rising in the sky, as essential as gravity, as necessary as water.

If you live in a desert, water will be rare and precious. But no matter where you live it’s always essential. Just like Love. Let’s celebrate the essential, unchanging aspects of Mother’s Day, and let’s do so every day.

Watertown story – continued

I’ve been posting comments on Facebook about the Watertown Terrorist events because they happened practically on my front doorstep – and on the occasion the SWAT team moved briefly into my house and took up positions to cover the house diagonally opposite that “doorstep” image dissolved. I felt Facebook was the best way to keep people informed that we were fine. I couldn’t have answered all the calls and emails, which makes me feel very blessed.

Today I went to the gym and on the way out a lady I know told me her cousin had been two houses away from the final shooting episode, and the young woman who died in the marathon bombing had been a waitress who had often served her table. The receptionist then chimed in that she had been a member of this gym, too.

I left marveling at the threads that connect us.

We walked round the corner to the grocery store and there we ran into two old friends we hadn’t seen for ages. Both had had babies in the meantime. we’d all been shaken by the events. We hugged and even shed a tear or two because life felt so inexpressibly beautiful.

Two meetings: one sad, one hugely loving. Yet both were filled with caring. The darkness only ever brings more light. Light and Love.

The Watertown Shootout

Last night the police engaged in a shootout with two suspects in the marathon bombings, and it happened a very short distance from my front door. I was awakened by explosions and then heard plenty of gun fire about two streets away. One suspect was killed.

Thirty police vehicles (I counted) raced past the end of my street. Now we are cordoned off on the “safe” side of the yellow tape, just outside the front door.

Camouflage troops are patrolling the streets. We are not allowed out.

But we are safe.

Thank you all for your messages of love and support. We love you, too. Love is stronger than this.

Margaret Thatcher

I’m interested by the polarization of opinions about Thatcher. Large portions of England and certain parts of the US think she was wonderful. Perhaps a larger quantity of people in terms of sheer numbers, most of whom are in England, regard her as a disaster.

The difference of opinion seems to be split pretty solidly along the lines of income. The poor suffered most and resent her most. Don’t forget, this is the woman who was only thrown out of office by her own party when she proposed a “poll tax”. Translated, that means that the poor and the unemployed (who could not find work because of her policies) were to be taxed because they had no work or insufficient means. I saw the riots that resulted.

This is the woman who was refused an honorary Doctorate by her own alma mater, Oxford University, because she was deemed to have done more damage to education in Britain than any politician in living memory. I was at Oxford; I know what they meant.

This is the woman who escalated the Irish crisis brutally and unnecessarily to the point where the IRA blew up the Hotel she was staying in, in Brighton, during the Tory Party Conference. She was out at the time. Others were not so lucky.

If you were wealthy you loved her. If you weren’t, the opposite was probably true.

Me? I found the employment situation so appalling when I finished college that after several dispiriting years I eventually left the UK for good. I am now happily employed in the US. I have made a new life. So perhaps I should be grateful to someone who so altered my life for the better. But I must also remember that others were not so fortunate.

Radio – April 10th, 2pm (ET)

I’ll be talking with Susan Danz on Wednesday. Why not join our conversation?

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/susan-la...

The Universe

How can we understand the universe and our role in it?

Think of it this way: imagine an apple tree. The apples are all different but all similar in basic ways – a bit like us. But you couldn’t have an apple without the twig it grew on, without the leaves and branches, without the trunk and the root system. And even with all those things you need the earth, which is just part of whichever continent you happen to be on, but is part of the planet. Those apples may all look different, but they are, like us, just the most recent expression of the creative power that runs the universe.

That is who you are. That is who we all are, and we’re all connected to everything and everyone else.

And remember this: each apple is a seedpod for the next generation. Just like us.

Our job is to grow and become the best seedpod we can be, in whatever way we feel is authentic.