Meditation#11 Negligences

Meditation#11 Negligences

This weekend has been an incredible roller coaster of emotions… My mother required a very serious surgery and from afar I felt like I was holding the world upon my shoulders, longing to let it go like a pendulum, but without the certainty that if I did I would be able to breathe easier. I confess I had not even thought about this week’s meditation, but when I saw its title: Negligences, once again the perfection of the Divine Plan forced me down on my knees.

Today my mother has not had a good day, she still has not been able to eat and experienced renal failure, but thanks to the outrage that my sister rightfully expressed, we found out that a group of five specialists never had the decency to predict that after the operation the information about her routine medications would be necessary for her recovery protocol and most alarmingly, a medication that must not be suspended suddenly was withdrawn with no regards to the tragic complications that irresponsibility could entail: summarizing; very costly negligences.

Medical negligences, as dangerous and lethal as the negligences that we are invited to reflect upon on our meditation for this week. It takes us back to the time when we were defenseless, and either due to lack of resources or attention on our caretakers’ part, we felt cold, hunger, discomfort, loneliness or pain, and perhaps our feelings of deprivation or insufficiency of might be in fact related to those negligences we experienced as infants.

The assignment is to forgive those oversights, applying the balsam of acceptance on those old wounds and using that very same pain in order to be more understanding with those who experience neglect in their lives, frequently, more severe and damaging than any we have experienced. Healing these old bruises and concretely, the feeling of lack, will allow us to reflect on the blessings provided by our current resources that allow us to fulfill our needs or conversely, communicate in an effective and clear way when we feel that our rights, needs or feelings are not being adequately addressed.

Brimming with gratitude I witnessed the situation in which my sister could be the agent that identified the need for alarm and triggered the search for a solution. I still am ignorant of the outcome of this unfolding ordeal in my life, but I hope to learn humility as I relent to depending on others in order to survive this difficulty, empathy with those who day by day feel neglected in one way or another and the growing conviction that thanks to each moment of cold, hunger or pain, we grow in humanity and we learn to feed from manna that flows from our own heart as we let go and become fully aware that it is not us who make the world turn, and that it truly does not rest on our shoulders.

With love and humility,

Lina.

Meditation #9 The Richness of Lack

Meditation #9 The Richness of Lack

Last week we surrendered to the river of our tears, and now we move on to the joy found within our infant hearts. We were fresh, like rosebuds. We were held wide open by expectation, by a permanent sense of awe, and an eager senses stance towards life and the world.

Yesterday, as I was kayaking, I was reminded of this intense excitement by a baby who waved enthusiastically as I rowed by. I had quietly been navigating up the river for at least an hour and many people had seen me from the riverbed, but no one had jumped up and down and squealed in delight when they saw me, only a baby could have done that.

I remembered how I had been confused frequently when I first came to this country and I continued to smile at everyone I saw and naturally, greeted fellow walkers or joggers spontaneously. I was befuddled because most did not return my greeting or looked taken aback, but now I am used to it and rarely acknowledge the people I encounter. But seeing that baby’s joy reminded me of the wisdom found only in little ones, the thirst for life and zest for every new experience that makes a baby shudder and stare upon the simple encounter of another first…

What a loss it is to atrophy the will to seek connection, to reach out and meet another human being. We are born with an intense desire to look into another human being’s face, to get lost in the features of another, connect with their eyes and explore their humanity. We bring gallons of desire, of interest, of will, curiosity and hunger and then life dulls our rainbow of intentions. Within our lack of distractions, things and preoccupations in early life, we were wealthy in intensity of feeling alive.

Let’s look back at that time before the fears, the doubts and the conditioning of social norms restrained our natural reactions to the thrills of Living.

Being human in totality of experience is our true career calling. I have often found this spontaneity of Being in people who seem to have very little in material possessions, such as the natives I met in the Amazon. They had no access to technology and our conveniences and comforts, but they had the luxury of presence, of community and of total surrender to the moment. They live fully committed to the experience of their here, their now: like babies.

The world had been unfolding for centuries before we joined it, and it will continue to spin around without us when we leave this terrestrial existence, but this life we have been offered is our opportunity to squeeze the fruits pertaining to being human. I challenge you to live each day like a baby, unpacking it like a precious gift, exhausting the possibilities of existence and realizing that by focusing in that richness of life, you will lose your fear of death and find the key to real wealth: a life with no regrets.

With love,

Lina.