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Cuddling alligators
I had a revelation this morning while doing the hoovering. I was thinking about loving everyone and everything and ultimate compassion and muttering away to myself that this was one of the hardest things I have read about. And OK I am not trying to be a buddhist but good job too because I could never love everyone like that and ......
And a little voice in the middle of me said "But you do it for animals Raven. When did you ever hate an animal, even dangerous ones or ones that have bitten or hurt you?"
It was the Blazing Saddles "You'd do it for Randolph Scott" moment. I stopped hoovering and stood stock still in the kitchen and went YES!!!!
This is the woman who had to be restrained from kissing a baby alligator when given it to hold, who stands in front of runaway horses going "Poor baby, it's frightened", who calls every creature she meets whose name she doesn't know "My Baby".
When given a ferocious and dangerous animal to handle when I was a vet nurse my only reaction was "Oh my poor baby, you are in pain, or someone has been so bad to you to bring you to this. What can I do to help?"
So the examples I've had from the books - like a mother with her only child (I don't have children, I can't feel that) or your family (actively dislike some of them) don't work for me.
Second revelation - the advice to read everything, weigh it up and try it for yourself also means, disregard examples given to you and find your own examples - something you felt wasn't applicable may well be so if you use another analogy.
So now all I have to do is work on transferring it on genuinely having the kind of feeling I have for all animals, no matter how ugly and bloody minded and downright mean - to humans - it's going to be an uphill struggle but at least I have the map now. I know where I should be going, so I'll know when I am not there.
Shared out in the hope that it might spawn a revelation in others who are struggling. BB
And a little voice in the middle of me said "But you do it for animals Raven. When did you ever hate an animal, even dangerous ones or ones that have bitten or hurt you?"
It was the Blazing Saddles "You'd do it for Randolph Scott" moment. I stopped hoovering and stood stock still in the kitchen and went YES!!!!
This is the woman who had to be restrained from kissing a baby alligator when given it to hold, who stands in front of runaway horses going "Poor baby, it's frightened", who calls every creature she meets whose name she doesn't know "My Baby".
When given a ferocious and dangerous animal to handle when I was a vet nurse my only reaction was "Oh my poor baby, you are in pain, or someone has been so bad to you to bring you to this. What can I do to help?"
So the examples I've had from the books - like a mother with her only child (I don't have children, I can't feel that) or your family (actively dislike some of them) don't work for me.
Second revelation - the advice to read everything, weigh it up and try it for yourself also means, disregard examples given to you and find your own examples - something you felt wasn't applicable may well be so if you use another analogy.
So now all I have to do is work on transferring it on genuinely having the kind of feeling I have for all animals, no matter how ugly and bloody minded and downright mean - to humans - it's going to be an uphill struggle but at least I have the map now. I know where I should be going, so I'll know when I am not there.
Shared out in the hope that it might spawn a revelation in others who are struggling. BB
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Thank you, Moon Sister, Raven Mother.
BB (Knitwitch), thanks for that "revelation spawner." Having mindful compassion for everyone is an art that we all need to learn, and any little mnemonic "trick" or paradigm can only help. Moreover, I find your idea particularly useful and amazingly powerful, due to its ability to be applicable by everyone universally. Your thought here grabs me in an ecstatic way, and I kinda feel like a jumping-up-and-down child with this refreshing NEW discovery.
While we're on this subject of cuddling __________, I would like to share a paradigm of my own.
I'm not so good at writing, so please bear with my second draft:
When I hear Rush Limbaugh on the radio, the words of Luke (18:9) from the NT come to me. In the prelude to the parable of the two men praying in the temple, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector (a seminal source of piety in the Orthodox liturgy), the narrator states: "And for those who, trusting in their own righteousness, despised others, he told the following parable."
Every time I hear people who speak in tones such as Rush Limbaugh does, I think of that sentence. I think some of the worst "offenders" tend to be drivers who are always finding fault with other drivers and getting angry at them. I call it "Road Righteousness." Driving is all about mobility and not about RULES. Fact is, people are just getting along on their way, Lighten Up and enjoy being out with them. Try to see the beauty out there. Don't believe what you are prone to think, believe only in beauty.
Well, here's my paradigm: There's a car in front of you going 30 mph in a 45 mph zone, and you can't pass. Just turn on the radio, calm down and think, "How lovely it is that these people are able to get out of the house and go for a drive today."
Wickwoman, that may sound inane, compared to yours, but I offer it with love and peace as a flower of compassion.
Thinking about loving everyone and everything and ultimate compassion [is]... one of the hardest ... because I could never love everyone like that and ......And a little voice in the middle of me said "But you do it for animals Raven. When did you ever hate an animal, even dangerous ones or ones that have bitten or hurt you?"
...This is the woman who had to be restrained from kissing a baby alligator when given it to hold, who stands in front of runaway horses going "Poor baby, it's frightened", who calls every creature she meets whose name she doesn't know "My Baby". --Knitwitch
The hardest people I've ever tried to love are my father, my sisters and myself. I broke through with my father probably because I came to live with him and practiced and practiced. Now I can love him in almost any circumstance which is a miracle.
I'm still practicing with my sisters. But I'm using the same technique. I think of them in their moments of great embarrassment and humility and I think of them when they were children. Being the youngest I have to use my imagination but that's where it comes from anyway.
The most difficult by far is finding love and compassion for myself. I really struggle with this one and I need more practice and techniques. I'm starting to use the idea of myself as a process to help me love and forgive myself. Just writing that last sentence was distasteful to me. I've been so brainwashed not to have conceit of any kind that just writing the words "love myself" seems so wrong. I have to reprogram that. But saying "forgive myself" is easier because it's so true that I can't forgive myself. All my rage is about myself. I have a lot of self hatred and disappointment to get rid of. I don't know why it's so difficult to apply the same compassion I have for others to myself but it is. I'm working on it every day, though, and I know I'll get better at it and it will get easier with more practice.
I like to use the television to feel love towards others. There's such a broad spectrum of humanity on the television and I'm always trying to watch it with a spirit of love and compassion in my heart, (unlike my father who uses it to shout at people he thinks are stupid) so it's a really easy exercise. Some people might find that a little crazy or foolish but it works and that's all I care about. I can let go of my critical heart easily with people I don't know or have to live with. :winkc:
I also liked to do it at work, especially at the hospital. I used to work in the kitchen and we would pass out the meals to the patients in their rooms. I got to know the people in the chronic ward so well and it was so easy to love them. Especially the one's who had Alzheimers. We had the Alzheimers patients who were not challenging to work with. They were so gentle and childlike and I used to fall in love with them all the time. We had one man I'll never forget, I just adored him. In the mornings I'd bring the truck upstairs with all the meal trays on it and he'd be standing, waiting in the hall with one of his bath towels tucked into his nightshirt, hanging all the way to the floor (he was a short man) and when he saw me with his breakfast tray his eyes would go wide and he was so happy. He loved to eat and I'd get him all set up, open his juice and unwrap his utensils and put the milk in his coffee. He'd take a sip and smack his lips and say in a thick Hungarian accent "AH! Thas goood!" (The coffee was atrocious.) He was gentle and sweet, soft spoken and bewildered and he was always grateful for everything; food, a little attention, juice and cookies in the afternoon. He was never needy and never difficult. I was a new person to him everyday and I never saw him lose his patience or get angry or raise his voice. He was very self sufficient and could do most things by himself but he had trouble using his hands to open or unwrap things. But he could shave and do everything else. How I loved him. His sweet eyes were full of innocence and wonder and I could tell he'd been in the military because of the way he made his bed. That wee man was sweet enough to break the hardest heart. Very easy to love. Once I started the day that way it wasn't difficult to carry it through to the end of the shift. Those people were such a joy to me I never wanted to go back down to the kitchen. I wanted to stay with them all day, they filled me with such love and warmth. I used to wonder about all they'd been through in their lives, where they'd lived, when they'd had their hearts broken, what they'd wanted to do with their lives, how they'd managed to make it so far. I tried not to think about their children because as long as I worked there, which was over two years, I rarely saw anyone visit them. But I never heard them complain. They were warm and dry, they had three meals a day and they were happy to have a soft bed to die in. Life had become completely simplified for them and it was sheer joy just to be able to serve and be around them. What wonderful, brave beings they were and so easy to love.
But of course, the test is to love the ones who aren't easy to love. But like everything else we have to practice and learn, I think it's good to start with the easy ones. Baby steps, and all that.
Love,
Brigid
is this a euphamism for some kind of casual masturbation? I'm lost..
:eek2:
When I hate myself I slip into my alter ego (yes I know I shouldn't even have ONE and I have two but there you go) - I am a nice old teddy bear who tries to do kind things for people and sometimes f**s up. I am always willing to share out my picnic basket with everybody but sometimes I trample the flowers when I'm not looking where I'm going - now how angry can you be with a teddy bear? They're both me but sometimes I have to let the teddy bear win for the sake of liking myself a bit more.
Hope this helps.
Yes, Knitwitch, it really does. I replayed and replayed what you said the other day and it helped immensely. It was a bright dose of reality, something I can always use more of. It's my arrogant ego that places me so unrealistically above the standards I hold for everyone else and replaying what you said in my head showed me clearly and concisely how ridiculous I was being. Really ridiculous. So, I've been having a lovely laugh at myself for the last couple of days.
Thank you again for your wisdom and guidance, you wonderful witch, you!
Love
Brigid