Kindness

Kindness     Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.   Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.     Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth.     Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say it is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you every where like a shadow or a friend.   Naomi Shihab Nye from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems     Kindness has been weighing heavily on my heart and mind this week as I have watched the storm 'Sandy' play out over the airwaves.  Mostly I've been thinking about how when tragedy and suffering occur anywhere on our planet, people come together in the most diverse ways, whereby they may not have, if not for the tragedy.  What is it about humans that keep them from one another?  Why do people rush to and fro in their seemingly busy lives that keep them from interacting with one another on a very deep and spiritual level?  What are we all afraid of?   Then I thought about 'where' this tragedy occured...on the eastern coast of our country.  I thought about karma, historical karma, and that this is the very earth, where Europeans landed, and then proceeded to violate the rights of other human beings who already resided there.  I thought about this eastern side of our country being where many governmental identities are housed, and these governmental agencies' role, in the karma being played out.  All for the need of control, power, money, prestige.    I'm thinking KARMA is being played out.  History repeats itself...remember that addage?  It's sad but true.   As I listened to the voices of those in need this week, those who were trying to find a place to rest weary bodies, those who were trying to get in out of the cold, those who needed food and water, those who needed medical attention, those who had lost everything....I saw people helping people.   In New York City especially, there are those who rarely stop and help someone, who rarely speak to one another, who, hell, rarely even look at each other, begin to look up and notice that not just them, but many were in need.  And I'm betting they knew deep in their being, that this was going to take a herculean effort by 'all' to pull out of this one!   I've started paying attention to this storm because many of those we know on Blogger live in those areas, and out of concern and love for them, I tried to know what was happening in those areas of our country where they lived.  I would be a big fat liar if I said I wasn't emotionally involved.  I am.  I began to pray at the onset and have not stopped.  It is the best sort of kindness and giving I can give.  If I had money I'd send boat loads to help.  If I were younger and in better health I'd hop the bus and go roll up my sleeves and help.  Just to be serving humanity.    Right now I just feel exhausted from all of it.  I've watched the political goings on with seemingly intelligent people who want to put a Republican or Democratic spin on this crap and all the money they've spent on commercials so their party is heard and heard loud enough the whole world is watching and it makes my stomach turn.  I wish to God they'd have taken all the money they spent on those ads and used to for the good of those whose lives have been forever changed...but as I said, some people are just power hungry, money hungry, control hungry.   My total undoing on Thursday was when I saw President Obama and Governer Chris Christie visiting the places that were affected by Sandy...and the President at one point held an older woman in his arms and just rocked back and forth with her, asking if she was alright, if everyone was safe, and reassuring her that things were going to be okay.  I saw two men in government forgetting for a moment about bipartisan issues and concentrating on what is most important for our country and the people who live in it...  My God, the tears began to roll!!!  And in that tiny, but most palpable moment of grace, I felt Karma shift on a whisper of breath...this is what kindness is about.  This is what living and breathing and loving one another is about.  In 2012, where a paradigm shift will occur in December according to the Mayan calendar, perhaps all the things I hold dear will begin under a new 'light.'  A 'light' that nobody can hide under a bushel.  A 'light' that will bring humanity back to one another.   With any luck at all it will...It's where I'm placing my bets...and maybe just maybe those who've had their heads stuck in the sand over global warming will finally get it!   Wishing for All of You, Warm, Safe and Sacred Places... All my love, Akasa