death and Life are bookends
they hold the fort of knowledge
and destroy it, too.

fires light in the night
for courage and honest company
let us be real,

about our joy.

even though i am sad, I will not
lie, nor hide my joy. Those tears occupy
the same space.

Ka Malana©2017

Two videos for your thoughts, and a passage on “suffering” from How Can I Help? Stories and Reflections on Service, compiled by Ram Dass & Paul Gorman. My heart and thoughts go out to friends who have recently said goodbye to their loved ones who have in some way inspired and provided courage along the way.

Pillars of successful leaders, the knowledge that there is someone by our side.

This is a really good video about “What it is like, to be awake.” My favorite line from Adyashanti is “it’s never anything like you thought it would be…” Also, at 29 min in – “we reserve our greatest acts of ‘stupidity’ for *after* we’ve glimpsed the truth…” Adyhashanti says something like this: we never know whether or not we are embracing enlightment or carrying a bagel in bag with coffee in our hand. The truth is, we just don’t know. I personally ‘like’ the idea that we are doing one in the same: coffee, bagel + ultimate reality. 🙂  What do you think? Can you see any parallels in these two videos? What about the text below?

**I had not intended to post daily, but this is what I need from me right now. I hope you can benefit from this, too!!! These sharings are like the metabolites from my own work.

Being a long-term patient gives you a unique perspective on the world, and I have to laugh, although sometimes I must say it’s a little bittersweet.

Naturally, I’m seen as helpless. They have to lift me, move me, deal with my bowels and all. I don’t look very nice or smell very nice, I suppose. What I often see coming in the room is what you might call Central Casting for “General Hospital.”

Here comes Miss Aren’t-You-Looking-Better-Today. Which is funny to me, since it’s pretty clear I’m only barely holding my own. Enter stage left we have Nurse Wince. It’s hard for her to look at me. She’s afraid for her own mother, that’s she’ll end up like me. The doctors stride in; they should play “Pomp and Circumstance” over the PA system regularly. They’re examining my case. They find my case interesting. My visitors…. they usually fall into the soap opera too. And so do I, I suppose.

On it goes. You’d be surprised at the number of people who talk to you and can’t look you in the eye, even more than we normally can’t look each other in the eye. It’s like a parade of attitudes in here.

It’s funny; I laugh. I understand, I really do. I’m not a pretty picture. Their work is hard. But sometimes I just want to cry out, “Hello! Is anybody there? Hello? Hello?”