~ A Joy Warrior's Journey
Here and there, in protected places,
handfuls of golden leaves still wave
from the tops of the maples. But
for the most part, the branches
are bare, ready for their winter naps.
Except, of course, for the oaks,
the magnificent ones, who only now
put on their amber autumn color.
Wearing their glowing crowns
they reign now, trumpeting the trees’
last song, proclaiming the judgment:
Well and beautifully done.
If you keep faith and follow
the whisperings of your heart,
‘though the day be dark
and swept with rain, a moment
will come when the skies
will open and the Yes pour down
its light.
Fly, babies! Grab this wind and go!
You are the hope of butterflies,
the guarantor of their tomorrows.
Claim your spot on the soft earth,
and dream your milkweed dreams
the winter through. Dream how strong
your stem will be, how fragrant
your dusty-rose flowers. Imagine
the flaming wings of the Monarchs
as they return to you day after day
to feast on the nourishment that
only you can provide. Then rise
from your dreams, my children,
and live them. Fly, babies, fly.
Grab this wind and go.
Walk into the world trusting.
Even when you don’t know how to go,
each step opens to the next,
and the Yes will guide your way–
tugging your sleeve, posting signs,
singing tunes, ringing bells,
placing stepping stones across the rivers.
Are not the rivers themselves all led
to find their way to the sea?
Even now, beneath skies deep with clouds
and a cold wind blowing, even now,
in the days of dwindling light, the Yes
provides reminders. The trees may be bare
and the fields stripped of vegetation,
but look: here is a shrub still holding
its color, a kiss-bright red to dispel
the gloom. Go into the night believing,
it says, that you are supported, and loved.
While listening to various points of view on a topic I’m currently researching, I’ve once again come face to face with the realization that that each of us really does lives in a unique world of his or her own. That’s hardly a new thought. But lately the fact of it has struck me with a new clarity. In fact, a while back I started using the phrase “Reality Bubble” to describe the personal belief-realities in which we live.
Oh sure, there’s the “consensus reality” we all more or less agree on: That’s a tree. The sky is blue. This is a table.
But when it comes to remembering things we observed, or interpreting events, we slide into some muddy ground. Ask any police officer who’s ever taken an accident report from eye witnesses. Three people will give three different accounts. We even have to watch replays of video tapes to decide whether the right call was made about a football play.
And when it comes to what we believe about, say, diet, or religion, or politics, or what’s important, well, watch out! The ground is more than muddy. It sort of resembles quicksand, where, before you know it, you’re sunk.
I took a psychology class once from a professor who had a special interest in belief systems. He found three guys in different mental hospitals, each of whom believed he was Jesus Christ, and he had them all transferred to the same hospital and assigned to the same support group. His hope was that their delusions would be lessened. But instead, they began by aggressively arguing with each other about which of them was holier. And finally each found ways to convince himself that the other two were, in one case, insane, and in the other, dead and being operated by a machine.
(The professor wrote about their encounters in a book called The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, if you’d like to read the whole story. )
The primary lesson the professor brought away from the experiment is that we strongly identify with our beliefs. When they’re threatened, we respond defensively because it feels as if we, personally, are being attacked. We each believe that what we believe is the true reality. And our brains work hard to support our beliefs. They carefully scour all incoming data and present us with the evidence that matches our beliefs, filtering out the stuff that doesn’t.
And because people who hold beliefs that are similar to ours reinforce our identity, we tend to like them better than people whose beliefs are different. And the more different the beliefs are, the more we dislike the person who holds them.
If we want to create more harmony with others, a good place to start is by recognizing that we aren’t our beliefs, and our beliefs don’t necessarily provide us with a true picture of the way things really are. Remember, at one time, most people believed that man would never fly.
Other people aren’t their beliefs either. But they probably feel that their beliefs are a part of their identity, just as we tend to feel that what we believe is an intimate part of who we are.
Beliefs are just thoughts that have been repeated so often that we assume they must be true. Maybe they’ve been repeated to us since our early childhood. Maybe we picked them up from TV or from social media, or adopted them in school because they seemed to have so much proof behind them. And our brains have been bringing us evidence ever since to reassure us.
Sometimes, if you’re very tactful, persistent, and patient, you can provide enough evidence to someone to persuade him to accept something that you believe in place of a belief he has held to be true. But his first response is likely to be defensive. (And later, he may conclude that you’re either insane or dead and being operated by a machine!)
But on the whole, the most harmonious way to deal with those who hold beliefs that differ from yours is to recognize how crucial our beliefs are to our sense of being, and to respect that each of us is entitled to his or her own view of things. When I want to have a conversation with someone about a subject where we disagree, I like to begin by saying, “I don’t see it that way. In my reality bubble . . .” and then I share what I believe. I’m not saying the other person’s views are wrong, just that I see things differently.
Look for the things on which you can agree, and agree to disagree on the rest. And above all, try not to take offense when someone’s beliefs are different from your own. If you’re really brave, try looking at things from their point of view. Who knows? It may turn out that you discover your own view needs some alteration. Reality is, after all, a very relative and mysterious place.
Wishing you kindness and an open mind.
Warmly,
Susan
To the oaks, the seasons are the breathing
of the earth, exhaling her life-giving sustenence,
then drawing in the radiance of the sky.
To them, it’s all a grand ballet—
the upward rush of sap,
the emergence of leaves,
the arrival of the singing birds,
the flowering and fullness of it all,
then the inward flow, the returning to the source
with gifts of flaming crimson and gold.
And between the going out and coming in
the deeply balanced pause,
allowing summer to ascend to its heights,
winter to reach the fullness of rest.
The oaks surrender to it all, caught
in the beauty, joyous in the rhythm,
glad for their part in the dance.
It never hurts to have some staples set aside.
That’s what Grandma used to say, tucking jars
of home-canned plums. apples, pickles and soups,
beets, tomatoes, white beans and green
on wooden shelves that lined her cellar wall.
Sometimes I’d stand in its doorway marveling at the colors,
remembering the fragrances that wafted through the house
when grandma canned. I thought of them today
when I saw the ripened cherries and recalled
how they hung encased in ice last winter,
and how the early-returning robins
feasted on them in the March snow.
Mother Nature, it seems. has her pantry, too.
Maybe she knew my grandma.
Hour by hour, the lake’s music softens
and slows. The songbirds have gone,
taking their whistles and chirps
to warmer climes, and with them,
the buzzing insects. Now, little more
than the rustling of leaves remains,
an autumn lullaby floating across
the still waters, whispering
the season’s Gloria in hushed
and reverent tones. I stand
on the banks, barely breathing,
and my heart sings its own amen.
The mornings are bathed in fog now
as if the earth were filling her bowls
with some luminescent porridge
to help the sun ward off the autumn chill.
It softens our wakings, letting us linger
a while in the world of wispy dreams
before the illusions of the day solidify
around us, pulling us once more
into the stories of the plays that are our lives.
The oranges and golds of the remaining maple leaves
gleam in the filtered light, bright reminders
that we may play out our stories with lustiness and joy.