Simultaneity

The day will be humid and warm as the sky has been open and still.  The temperature at 67 degrees is steady for the week.  Today is Thursday.

As the month has unfolded, the fact of so many things happening all at once has become a source of deep reflection.  When one thinks about what is happening with the passage of an older generation giving way to the new, the feeling is both relief and sadness.  The relief is in knowing that there is a point of letting go;  the sadness is the letting go (of the persons, of the energy of their life, of an era that will no longer exist).  It is also the fact of living in the middle of the calendar year.

We have been here before - many times.  The middle of the calendar year is when some begin to think about the gifts to be presented at the year's end.  Some think about and experience the summer weather and how beautiful the sunsets can be. And others wonder if their own lives are set in the summer of a life cycle and what this may mean.  The heat bakes into the moment, all that one's life has meant and still has to offer.

It's all happening at once, no one is really in charge of anything, and everyone has a role in making whatever is taking place, happen.  We just keep trying to make sense of things that don't make sense at all, given what we should have learned by now.  The fact of war, of poverty, of pollution, of human suffering in general - none of it should be happening and yet...

One begins to think that all of it is the reason that we seek.  It is the aspect of our human existence that keeps leading people to search for where there is deeper understanding, caring, and kindness.  Looking to spirit seems to be one way to gain insight; but then, others move into music, art, conversation, athletics - so many doors into an existence that may finally end in peace.  Then, one realizes that all of the things happening now, at once, simultaneously - have to happen for people to engage in life with a sense of purpose and meaning.  Without the suffering, there is no opportunity to awaken to the deeper desire to finally learn something.

For whatever reason, the word simultaneity came today and a visit with what it means and how it manifests, invited the reflection about its connection to living this life.  Where did it come from, anyway?