The Circle of Life represents nature’s way of taking and giving back life to earth. It symbolizes the universe being sacred and divine. It represents the infinite nature of energy, meaning if something dies it gives new life to another. Sacred spaces are where we sit quietly be it in nature, at home, on a special bench or a special place and contemplate most things we do in our lives. Sacred acts; simply going about our ordinary days work, our interaction with others.
Do we smile and and do we greet each day with a sense of anticipation and gratitude. My father would say everyday was a great day when he was dying.
In John O’Donoghues words: "May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder. To be human is to belong. Belonging is a circle that embraces everything."
The word belonging holds together the two fundamental aspects of our life. Being and longing; the longing of our being and the being of our longing. We do not need to go out and find love, rather we need to be still and let love discover us. If you send out goodness from yourself or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. The more love you give away the more love you will have.
The two things we have to do on our own in this world is come into it and leave it. To suffer is part of all our lives, the beginning and the end completing the full circle of life. The Buddhists believe we should find meaning in life, and hope in death.
Grief can be an overwhelming reaction and life is often a desert; it is at times difficult to walk in life. Death ends a life but not a relationship. It is a difficult and expected part of the life cycle. It is a time of loss, change, transition, and how we see ourselves and our loved one who has died. Some say we should not grieve our dead. That they are now in a place where there is no more shadow, darkness, loneliness, isolation or pain. They are home.
Death touches all of us in a very deep way, it can have a profound impact on our lives, and change the course of it. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. When you are understood, you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging. When you are really understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of another person’s soul. This recognition is described in a beautiful line from Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet: "You are like nobody, since I love you”.
For love alone can awaken what is divine within you. In love you grow and come home to yourself. When you learn to love and yourself be loved you come home to the hearth of your own spirit. You are warm and sheltered.
What you do now today is what matters most. Everyday is an act of trust, believing that all will be resolved at the end of the road. It advances the goodness of the universe. If we are our best selves there will come a world where war is a memory and violence a forgotten word in our language. The great humanitarian Albert Schweitzer put it: “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”
Instead of trying to win the race why not make it your mission to contribute to the race, the human race, by making your corner of the world more just, more loving and more happy.
Do you want to make today matter?
If so, you will need to persevere.
Some of your plans won’t work out, people will disappoint you, you will disappoint yourself. You will need to build the needed resilience by living for a purpose that matters greatly to you. In good times this virtuous circle will make life feel like riding a bicycle on level ground. Momentum keeps building and each crank of the pedal comes more easily than the previous one. And on life’s bad uphill days? Your good habits will generate the will power needed to stay on the bike and keep going.
As T.S. Elliot writes in Little Gidding: "And the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time."
Rosaleen
