As Anticipated
Temperatures still drop and skies have shifted. Rains were thankfully received without heavy winds overnight. The predictions are that the temperatures will continue to drop over the next few days and that the southland may even experience snowfall. Conditions are consistent with what weather-watchers have been saying about changing patterns. Today is Thursday, just as we can always anticipate - following Wednesday.
It has been a remarkably full first quarter of the calendar year. While there have been celebrations and gatherings with friends and family, there have also been tragedies and losses at a scale that is beyond what could have been anticipated. Living in these times has created an opportunity to have one's eyes opened. Sadly, if this happens, it is likely that many with simply go deeper into their own self-made world rather than engage directly with the one thing that can save all humanity: to live a life that is worth living by seriously looking at how to be the best human being one can be in this lifetime.
How does one become the best they can be in this round?
Teachers over millennium have said, to begin with a root that lives below the surface, and often - is even nourished by the darkness and muck is the best. In such a place, there is a chance to experience what it takes to truly blossom. There, the nutrients can reach the roots and there, the roots can take hold and move above ground, where a new set of challenges await. And then, there is the factor that is beyond will and control - heavens will determine whether the waters will come to nourish or destroy; whether the air will be too frigid or too hot; whether another species might take over the very spot where one wishes to blossom one day.
Watching the garden, so many lessons are being shared. The slowness of the natural world teaches that it is possible for many different kinds of plant life can exist in harmony. Some are stronger and more hardy, while others are beautiful, colorful, and sweet in their very short-lived existence. And others, need to be contained - they would not make it in the garden that is open and grows without much tending.
What makes human beings different?
We have capacity to make choices. Objects have not conscious choice making mechanism. And most animals and plants move by instinct. But human beings can make different decisions, some of which will be self-serving; and others will not. We are not objects which, if place in a particular set of conditions, will act predictably 100% of the time. A ball placed on a tilted surface will always roll in the same direction - down. But a human, could choose to walk up hill, acting in a way that is unpredictable, unanticipated.
What is remarkable (and beautiful) is that some people act in extraordinary ways - entirely given to the unanticipated in choosing to be a little more selfless and a little more inconvenienced in order to be a little more human. This is what we are capable of, every day.