diamonds of light...

hate.
love.
fear.
doubt.
trust.
belief.

it's been a weekend full of those concepts.

between a couple of movies i saw this weekend, and my own
personal life....i feel like i had those topics whirling around me and
in me constantly.

and perhaps it was the perfect weekend to prep me for
martin luther king jr day....and the inauguration.

and totally the perfect weekend to finally watch the movie,
'the help.'

i walked away from that movie with a really basic concept
that i think most people have had, except for me.

sometimes i'm way slow on the insights.

while racism ruined so many lives of african americans,
and i can't possibly compare what i'm about to say with that,
i can't believe it's taken me this long to really come away with the
following concept......

racism ruined so many lives of white people as well.

i've always concentrated on the harm and destruction it's done
to the black race. not sure how much i thought about the white race.

i guess maybe this was always floating around in me somewhere,
i mean, how could it not?
but i think after that movie, i was just stunned at how completely
messed up white people were with the whole racism stuff.

i mean, i knew that.
i've watched other movies, and seen real life videos and know the
news stories, and yeah, have witnessed some stuff in person....
so yeah, i guess i knew.

but not sure i ever articulated it to myself quite like i did this weekend.

i just kinda looked at it from the other end of the scope or something.

think it was my weekend of seeing things from the other end of the scope.

i saw how hatred messes with your mind.
and i saw how mistrust feeds fear and doubt.
and i saw how blind we can be to love.

i saw how we mess ourselves up.

but somehow, and i don't know how to explain it, i felt like i was
seeing it all from a different angle.

needing some time to myself, i hopped in my car and
drove to the walking trail that i love.

off center, and knowing that the sun, sky and alone time would help,
i set off walking.

it is the most beautiful trail. just being there feels calming and good.
when i got to one of my favorite parts, i sat on a bench and just looked
at the stream of water.
i love that spot.
i love little streams.
i think they're one of my favorite things.....

i could just see upstream a little ways....and the water was filled with
bubbles of light on the top, just flowing into a main center area.
the bubbles caught my eye. they were so pretty. the light dancing there.

they were flowing into a main area.

the main center area was a deep patch of water that looked like it
was completely lit up with hunks of sparkling sunlit diamonds. i sat
there in awe of the diamonds of light. the bubbles had grown into
huge hunks of brilliant diamonds.

they'd float around and be gorgeous for a bit.

and then they flowed out downstream back into smaller
bubbles of light...and then back into the normal color of water with
no light diamonds visible at all.

i sat and watched and thought how that's like us...all of us.....
where we have these small bubbles of light....and we flow into
the main place and get filled with the light so big time...and then
back into bubbles.....and then we can't even see it anymore as we
move along away from the light.
we're just regular ol' non shimmering stuff so much of the time.

as i was thinking of this, the sun moved a bit or the clouds moved
or something shifted, whatever it was,
the sun covered ME in its light. right there on the bench.

i could just feel it move over and cover me.
i closed my eyes and felt it wash all over me.

light.
it's in me.
it's in us.

and what we choose to do with our minds affects
if we shimmer or not...if we flow into the big ol' hunks
of light....or if we turn into regular ol' non shimmering stuff...
or worse.....

what we choose to do with our minds.

seems like it's a good day to remember that.


hate.
love.
fear.
doubt.
trust.
belief.

they're around us constantly.
what do we dwell in?
what do we live?