mirrors and practice

But then, after all is said and done, we have the actual material world to deal with. Our corporeal being is what we know for sure, everything else is pure conjecture. I can sit here with my thoughts up amongst the clouds but in reality I have to go to work in a few hours. Such is life.

Perhaps our major malfunction is when we think that life is not such, that life "should be" some other way, when in fact life is only the way that it is, and to fight life is to fight yourself. Some people believe that they walk a path through life toward some goal, some believe that they have a holy purpose or fate, and some believe that they must create meaning in a chaotic world. It is all valid, but I am lead to believe that how we deal with the minute actions of daily life is what really matters. "How we deal" means "our practice".

I firmly believe that I am out of practice in terms of living a meaningful live, and perhaps you are as well. How we come back to that practice is a matter of will. We all need to practice cherishing life constantly in order for life to bloom. I believe that the planet is not so much dying under the toxic accumulative actions of humanity as suffering from a lack of the essential practice of love. The earth is suffering because we do not know how to engage in the practice of loving the earth. The earth includes us all, and we are all suffering.

The living practice of loving the earth seems to be the main practice banned from modern society. It is called "pagan" "witchcraft" "aboriginal" "backward", many words meant to denigrate this essential practice that we must engage in as living beings on this planet. Denigrate means "to blacken". As I have written earlier, I believe everything is "blackened", everything is impure. So we need to take back the practices and words that empower us without regard for how they are perceived by those with a thirst for purity where purity does not exist.

This planet is one of millions, this planet harbors us. Every day we do millions of things that affect millions of things, and life itself is the flame behind this movement. The mirrors are all around us if we choose to look, if we empower our will to see. And if we start to consider every action as a practice, what kind of practitioner do we see? I challenge myself to continue the practice of loving the earth in the face of all the modern callousness and negativity, the scorn, the confusion and misunderstanding of others.