Hope

When the light is obscured. (Moonrise last night.)

Truly it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest all of us.

~Meister Eckhart

Regardless of the shadows that cross the moon to make it appear less than it is, to the moon, it is always full, so it is with us.

~Buddha

Presence.

When I travel and/or spend time with friends and family, I generally avoid the news.  I don’t have to consciously do so because there usually isn’t time for it.  Settling in at home after I return or when the friends and family leave, I am in no hurry to find out what I missed.  Somehow it eventually finds me, usually within a couple of days.

Orb of light.

I’ve been pondering the idea of hope.  I am a fence-sitter when it comes to hope.  On the one hand, there is Pema Chodron’s admonition to abandon the addiction of hope because hope leads to more suffering by robbing us of the present moment.  Hope leads to forward or future thinking, something I understand well.  It’s the kind of thinking that says, “When I make this change (lose weight, change jobs, quit smoking, move into a new home, etc.), I will be happy” which takes away from being happy now, in the present moment.  This kind of hope relies on the destination rather than the journey or process itself.

Emerging.

On the other hand, there is the hope that makes life more bearable.  It is the hope that comes from knowing or hearing about the folks who are doing good things to help make this world a better place.  It is the hope that comes from one’s own involvement or doing of good things.  It is the hope of small steps and small changes.  It is the hope of being the change you want to see in the world.

As above.

I recently spent time with folks who are avid supporters of the Liar-in-Chief and came to the realization that these are people who abandoned hope long ago.  They see little or no hope for their future, maybe little or no hope for the futures of their children or grandchildren.  The lies, the absurdities, the cruelties don’t matter to them because they have lost sight of the possibilities of life.  In some sense, these are the people who, when presented with bad news that could be corrected by change, resign themselves to it because change from within is too difficult.  I understand this well, too.  It is the resignation, for instance, of someone who has thought, “When I make this change, I will be happy,” only to find that they are are unable to make the change because they quit when the work became too hard.

Been there, done that.  On a few occasions.

One more because last night’s moon was so beautiful.

There are, of course, folks who support That Guy for other reasons such as greed, racism, or misogyny.  Maybe it all boils down to fear of some kind.  And grasping — of money, of what they see as security, or of a way of life that never truly existed except in stories.

By the pond (yesterday).

Switching gears here a little…  M and I met with some of the guys at our county roads department yesterday.  As part of our anti-litter campaign, they are starting a local Adopt A Road program.  The grant we received will help pay for some of the supplies for the program.  The meeting went really well.  The guys were well organized and very enthusiastic about the program.  I learned a lot during this visit.  These are folks who do good things with what they have.  They don’t have a lot of money (our county is the poorest in the state) and they don’t have a lot of workers (in part due to lack of good funding), but they work hard to keep our roads safe and clean.

From today’s walk.

After we left the meeting, I got to thinking that these are the stories that need to be told in the newspapers and on television news.  Who takes care of your roads?  What is a day in their life like?  Instead of interviewing doctors who work at a local hospital (as one of our TV news stations does), why not interview the nurses, the orderlies, the maintenance people, and all the others who keep things running?  Not that the interviews with the docs aren’t somewhat interesting.  It’s nice to see them as people and not just as doctors.  But rather than spend time and space on the people seen as big shots or on the latest lies being told (spreading them further and enticing the liars to tell more lies), why not use it for those who make life better in some way?

Yeah, I know.  People don’t want to watch or read those kind of stories, or so the news organizations tell us.  Maybe it’s time we changed what we’re willing to read and take in when it comes to news.  Detox ourselves from the negative drama and learn to love the positive.

Windy day.

We are like the little branch that quivers during a storm, doubting our strength and forgetting we are the tree – deeply rooted to withstand all of life’s upheavals.

~Dodinsky

Looking up in the cemetery.

Thank you for visiting today and joining me on another walk.  There are some phone pics included in this post since I don’t usually carry the big camera when I’m out on my One Million Steps challenge walks (one million steps in one hundred days).  In case you’re wondering, my step count as of last night (day 44) was 451,689.

Me and the Lightning Tree.

It’s a beautiful autumn day.  Brisk, blustery, bright, with the bluest sky you’ve ever seen.  Let’s go to the Point for sunset this evening.  It’s scheduled for 6:15 PM.  Bundle up.  You will really feel the wind out at the Point and once the sun goes down, the temperature drops quickly.

Be good, be kind, be loving.  Just Be.  🙂

Canopy.

A few of the 10,000 reasons to be happy:  891)  The dynamic energy (liveliness) of a blustery fall day.  892)  A walk to the church-in-the-shire and back.  893)  A great congregation of cacophonous crows hanging out in our woods.  (Yes, I know a group of crows is usually called a murder.  I think that’s unfair to the crows.)  894)  The beauty of last night’s almost-full moon.  895)  Beets & greens soup to warm me up from the inside.

Touching the autumn sky.

The Walktober reminders:  This year’s dates are October 14th through the 28th.  I hope you’ll find the time to walk and participate.  (If you need more time, all you have to do is let me know.  If you’re unfamiliar with Walktober, you’ll find a link to a post about it in the sidebar, over there to the right.  Or, if you’re using your phone, maybe it’s at the bottom somewhere.)  I will probably do the round-up of the posts/walks on November 1.  That date depends on whether or not anyone needs and asks for more time.

The Official Walktober Post, the one that you should link to for pingbacks (or you can leave a link in the comments), is this one:  A Monday meander: The Walktober Post.  No worries if you leave your link on one of my other posts.  I’ll be on the lookout for them.

A glimpse of the universe in the trees.