A Tool?

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Love courses through everything.
--Fakhruddin Iraqi

The work of love is to shape the stuff of relationship into a tool that fits our hands. With each hardship faced, with each illusion confronted, with each trespass looked at and owned, another piece of the chunk is whittled and love begins to become a sacred tool.

Friday 9th
Is love really a tool, sacred or otherwise, or should it be thought of more like a state of being – a way of life. That was my first thought when I read this entry today. For me love is a way of life – one in which you engage fully and consciously with each individual you meet, but more so with those whose hearts share yours in deeper relationships. That's an admission really of something that I've been failing to live into – and it's only through that failure that I've ever started to have problems.

Love requires our honesty, not just with others, but with ourselves – perhaps more importantly with ourselves; and a willingness to be open, and that's an absolute, not something you can do one day and not another. Those two things together, and having an open heart, and a willingness to share even when we do not have enough – that, to me is at the heart of love.

I'm trying hard to live up to my own expectations and live into what I believe should be. I don't always manage it. I need to remember to be patient with myself, because when I'm not I only end up getting frustrated and therefore block myself from all the things I'm frustrated about because I didn't do in the first place. It becomes a vicious circle, and I just end up drifting further and further from being the loving person that I know I am.

I have a lot of time for introspection on the weekends, a lot of time to think, especially on Fridays – usually. This Friday, however, I had a trip to the big mall in Heliopolis called City Stars. I went there with one purpose – to find gifts for the holidays for my family. I was especially blessed to shop in stores where the owners were demonstrative of what I understand to be the Egyptian 'heart' – where they can't do enough for you, (even in a big mall like that, they exist). Yes, I could be cynical and say that it's because they want to secure the sale, and I suppose that makes good business sense, but I found a few stores where, should I need a light cotton shirt or whatever, it will be a place I visit again. I came away from the mall with the gifts bought (after many hours there), and feeling happy to have gotten these things for people.

Compassionate Ratties...

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

When was the last time you listened to the
stories of others?
--Question put to the sick by a Native American Medicine Man

It seems the ancient Medicine Men understood that listening to another's story somehow gives us the strength of example to carry on, as well as showing us aspects of ourselves we can't easily see

Saturday 10th
Today, as many days, I spent some time watching the rats playing and taking care of one another through Skype. Mir and I were watching something on TV, but there were many times when she would move the camera to show the girls taking care of Lindsay, one of the other rats who is very sick and sadly probably not long for the world.

At some point whilst watching, and since then, in thinking about it, I started thinking about all the times the rats 'make happy sounds' at each other, to comfort each other or in times of stress, and I can't help but wonder just what it is that they're also saying to each other. What stories are they telling?

We've often joked, Mir and I, about the 'rattie conversations' that must take place in the rats room when we humans are not listening – and we're pretty sure that some do, because the rats seem to learn things from each other, sometimes without demonstration. I have no doubt they communicate. Yes, we anthropomorphise them, and 'pretend' what they might be saying, but in truth, I feel certain they must be telling each other stories of what is – what has been.

I read about recent studies where scientists have proven that rats are compassionate creatures. This is not news to me, or I'm sure to any rat lover, or rat parent. You only have to spend a short amount of time with any community of rats to see, demonstrated very clearly, that they care for one another. We've had some fantastic families where individuals have gone above and beyond the call of duty in looking after one another. Our rat Halling was an example of such a person – he was our 'nurse' rat... who looked after the sick and took care of everyone even when they were well – compassion was his middle name.

Perhaps we, as humans, should be more like rats... perhaps then the world would be a better place.

Blessings and My Wonderful Guy

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Inside gravity,
the same things happen,
just slower.

As humans, we take turns letting go and being hit. Love softens this process, and peace slows it down, until in moments that are blessed, we seem to play catch with what we need.

So I lost the plot this morning. My internet stick wouldn't work, and it wasn't so much that it meant that I couldn't see the show with Mir – it was more the fact that I couldn't get online to talk with Mir and share some more time that upset me the most.

No amount of restarting the computer and reconfiguring the connection could get the thing to work. The computer reported from all diagnostics that it was working properly, and yet the program returned, "Connection not possible," every time I tried. Turns out the computer was right. It was a network error. Did I get an apology? Did I heck... do I have internet that works. Yes – thank goodness, right now I do. I'm sure there will probably be other times when there are network errors, but I hope those are few and far between, because I got very upset and frustrated this morning... and also ended up worrying and scaring Mir, which is the last thing I want to do.

On the blessing side, my children were sweet. After the drama lesson we got back to class and they came to say, "We want to tell you something." And then they all sang Happy Birthday to me, first in English, then in Arabic... with many hugs afterwards. It was uplifting.

Even bigger blessings, I can now start to read and to work with one of the fabulous books Mir gave me for my birthday – and thereby hangs a tale to tell, with a support chat to Amazon so that I could actually get the books to my kindle that is registered in the US even though I'm in Egypt, and it wasn't going to let me download them. The support person was very helpful, and put them into my digital list for me, and then my kindle application downloaded them with no trouble. And for that I'm both glad and very excited, because I believe they are going to be fabulous to work with. One of them I'm saving for the new year, as it's a day by day thing – so while Mir works with Aslan, I will be working with the Goddess. But the other one I'd saving for a year of me – starting today. I decided I will read a little until I come across something I wish to comment on, and then I will think, meditate, and comment upon that particular idea, thought or section of the book. An exciting prospect... I can't thank Mir enough... as always she has given me just what I need to support and protect me – my inner as well as my outer self. I couldn't wish for a better husband, and in that is a blessing that is immeasurable and priceless.