Sometimes I look out our windows with envy. The deer, rabbits, chickadees, and foxes live without weight of belief and thought.

Do they?

I guess I don’t really know for certain.

Sometimes I allow the weight of human opinion and disagreement weigh me down like wet January snow on cedar branches.

This week two readers engaged me in conversation related to climate change.

My reply was…I dunno know….

Humans? Universal fluctuations? A combination of the two?

Then I feel stupid and uninformed for not knowing.

Weighed down by my ignorance.

Is the red cardinal fretting about his feelings for koalas in Australia?

I keep coming back to fragments.
And, I believe that if humans got their own houses in order and stopped worrying about everyone else’s, the world will take care of itself.

One of my favorite questions of all time comes from Mike Johnson….

What if we are not here to fix the world, but rather the world is here to fix us?

Two readings inspiring this mornings letter….

The Animals Don’t Care About Us
J. Krishnamurti Online

Henrietta: “Twolegs—Is your nose cold?”

Me: “No. Why do you ask?”

Henrietta: “Because mine’s freezing!”

You got to make the morning last,
Just kickin’ down the cobble stones…..
Lookin’ for fun and feelin’ groovy…..
~Simon and Garfunkel

His smile was upside down.
Henrietta flipped it with her enthusiastic greeting.
We haven’t drummed jumpy hellos out of the pup because her exuberance makes us feel groovy?

I headed out with the shovel while he went to change.
The midnight blue, all wheel drive was two-thirds off the snow covered asphalt, hung up in a Henri-height snow-mound—just feet from a rocky ledge.
Oh my…so glad I wasn’t driving! Shoveling provides enough exercise for my heart.

Wearing mittens and hat, he pushed the snowblower toward me.
Yelling over the noise, “How did that happen? I left it parked on the drive by the lamp post. It slid all that way on its own?!”

We have little sense and even less control over the directions we are going. But we seem to be pleased with the fact that we are getting there faster and faster. ~Lee Thayer—On Living Our Explanations

I remember learning in driver’s education that in every accident, both parties bear some responsibility. Even if I were to get rear ended at a stop sign, I was partially at fault simply for being there. As a 15 year old, I found the notion ludicrous. At 51, I understand.

In Meditations from the Mat, Rolf Gates offered me a definition of Karma I’d not heard before:

Karma is the momentum of all the external forces in our lives, including the consequences of choices we have made in the past.
The spiritual journey can be likened to waking up one day to find one-self mindlessly floating down a river. The first step is to acknowledge we are in a river. The second step is to realize we have a choice about it. Many of us then try to swim upstream, but eventually we arrive at the third step: we get out of the river.

Awareness, Acceptance, Action

Are you in the river?
Swimming upstream?
Ready to get out?

As I shifted from drive to park, I caught movement in my periphery.
Coyotes?
I hesitated to open truck’s door.
And then, I saw a human head—two—three!
The coyotes were people!—my neighbor and his two kids.

I hopped out of truck to the sound of laughter.
They knew they’d surprised me.

“What are you guys up to?” I asked.

“Sledding down the ditch! Want to have a go?” he asked while extending his sled.

I did want to have a go, but I was dressed in thin pants and dress boots.

“Nah, not dressed for it. Another time? I wish I’d have thought of this when my kid was little!”

“We were sledding on our side of the street the night it snowed. It got too icy, so we asked if we could sled on this side.” He motioned toward our neighbor’s house. The ditch runs from the corner, along their side yard, past our bank of rural mailboxes, and ends at the driveway to my house. “This side is a little steeper—and longer.”

The sun had set hours ago. On my way home from yoga, I was looking forward to dinner, followed by a snuggle with Henrietta on the couch. Stopping to grab our mail, I received a surprise gift of connection.

“You guys know how to have fun!” I said.

“Gotta keep ‘em away from the computer and TV somehow,” said Dad.

“I appreciate your effort—I know what a challenge that is! Good night,” I said.

off-balance
uneasy
dis-ease

It’s like we’re on railroad tracks feeling vibrations, yet we don’t know how to move away from what’s thundering at us. I hear so many rumbles from people about phones, computers and televisions.

Can we be innocent bystanders in a world that we have our hands in creating?

I didn’t say what I could have said.

Instead, when it was my turn to introduce myself (we were welcoming a new member…), and to share something happening in my life I said, “I took my lab puppy Henrietta to the dog park yesterday. She loves other dogs! She was so wild and happy—I could have left and I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have noticed.”

The other board members laughed.

Before my turn to speak, I listened to:

I’m retiring as president of the bank in June…..

I bought out my business partner and am really busy trying to run two construction firms…

I run the ER at the hospital, am raising three kids and two dogs. My husband is a sheriff….

I wrote a book and will be a published author this summer….kicking off a big campaign for the hospital….

I volunteer at X, Y, Z and P, D, Q…..

I spend a lot of time with my grandchildren….

My life felt small in comparison.

Rush hour for me is—well, I don’t often have one—unless you count the galloping of my mind?

Feelings—>Thoughts—>Action—> ???????????????????????????????????

I wanted to feel BIG and tell them the sort of thoughts I share with you:

Fragments—What my fellow board members shared about their lives was processed through my own experience filters.
I don’t see them as they are, but as I am.

That I struggle to see the value of one bureaucracy raising funds to distribute to another.

That all of the motioning, seconding, following by-laws, and meetings feel like busy work.

That we do not live in a moral society, but rather a legalistic one.

I could have told them about the Abilene Paradox?
If I had a do over, I’d definitely do that!
Hindsight!

Or, how I see our medical system as dumb. If people became healthy, what would happen to one of our economy’s biggest sectors?

That I question funding technology because, the faster we move, the more we lose sight of life’s joys.

But….instead, small me talked about Henri and the dog park.

Without the trust of I/Thou, I felt that a board meeting was not the place to share such thoughts.

Thanks,

for letting me share them,

here.

Conversation invited.
Just hit reply to this email.