It’s been a long and strange road since the war erupted in the middle east and we got a new president here in the US. There’s no point in commenting on the bonanza of international unrest and political commentary. There really isn’t.
I have found myself listening to both sides, listening to the middle, and trying to reconcile what I hear in public discourse with what I’m experiencing first hand talking to people. Sometimes it fits and sometimes it doesn’t.
Overwhelmingly my sense is that people want to see themselves in the people around them. They want to believe that they are accepted, and that the people around them have similar beliefs. Even if there’s no evidence of this being true, it’s an assumption I see people making as they interact with strangers and acquaintances.
And it’s good. It allows for a kind of civility between people that we don’t see in public discourse. And thank god.
I’ve come to Tampa to be with my daughter Inga through a medical procedure. She and her roommates have an apartment with a balcony. In the morning I’ve been enjoying my coffee on the balcony with the seagulls in the photo above for company… witnessing a continual flow of people and their dogs at the dog park below, people going to work, families coming and going, heron fishing in the pond, palmettos swaying in the wind — enjoying a view on this little community starting its day.
Realizing that everyone is venturing out with their unique reality and experience in their bodies has made just sitting here watching an adventure. Whatever challenges or beliefs, whatever physical circumstances they have, there’s a beauty in the sameness of everyone – even the heron – navigating life. I equate this with working with plants and learning about their medicine. They are endlessly giving of healing support, endlessly patient, individuals themselves, and they interact with each person as an individual. Mutual respect and recognition are the only real rules.
So whoever you side with, if you take a side at all in any of the many disagreements we have, we’re all in this together. It’d be nice if we led with that.
Backyard Botanics 