I haven’t written//posted in a while because I’ve kind of been processing everything myself and getting it sorted and settled in my own mind before using this platform to share my thoughts and, I guess, get a conversation going.

It’s been a pretty gnarly time, of late, to be an earthling. Humans are doing it tough. Animals are doing it tough. Mother nature sure is doing it tough. It’s a pretty testing and uncertain environment in which we are living in. Our undeniably impermanent time on this earth is proving to be quite the playground … a place to have fun and explore; experience the polarities of this physical experience (the good and the bad, because both are inevitable) and a playground that presents, time and time, again the lessons that we need to learn.

This image came through to me at a time when I really needed to consider and reflect on its words …

We lead such isolated and self involved little lives. And I say that with no judgement, no negativity and complete love – I am just as guilty of it. But it’s kind of ridiculous right? We worry about things at such an intrinsic and micro level – things that directly influence us in some big or small way – that we have kind of lost that incredible empathy that allows us to share experiences with every single living being on this planet. Empathy is ‘the ability to understand and share the feelings of another’. It was originally thought to be an exclusively human trait but, for anyone like me who has had the pleasure of being a fur parent, the evolutionary examination of empathy (here) has also discussed the notion of animal empathy. Humans though are obviously more adept (generally) at reading, interpreting and sharing feelings with their fellow humans BUT usually when they are more relatable (i.e. same gender, live in the same area, are of the same faith or age or social class …). I get that but in a way I’m sort of wanting to tear that concept to shreds because, even having written it down//typed it out, it is just so glaringly mindless isn’t it?

 

Oh HDT – you clever little devil. These words are my//your//our homework for the next few days, or forever if you’re up for a challenge. Let’s aim to be miracle workers and to intentionally and consciously shift perspective for just a split second. To not reserve our empathy for people in similar circumstances to us (like the media did over the weekend with non stop coverage of Paris, an absolute tragedy by all accounts, but with little to no coverage or news time given to killings in Baghdad and Beirut, natural disasters in Mexico and Japan and Brazil) but to all living beings on this planet. Start with humans, but for an extra challenge (for some a challenge, for some second nature), extend this challenge to animals and even just the planet as a whole too.

 

I guess I kind of wrote this post for myself. To help me to process the recent events, and the world around me and the world that I want to see. So yeah, this is kind of just a very eclectic amalgamation of all of the swirling thoughts that are going on in my head, it might resonate with you or it might not. That’s ok. We are all blessed enough to be ridin’ very unique journeys and not everyone is going to be on the same page with EVERYTHING. But when that page reads ‘love’, ‘acceptance’ and ‘compassion’ for our fellow earth dwellers … it’s kind of an easy read right?

In a nutshell: We are all in this together. There is no ‘me’ and ‘them’ – it’s ‘us’, collectively and completely. None of us get out of here alive – we are all just walking one another home.

Blessings and love x

Images sourced from here | here | here | here