by Robin Charbit
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Issue #139, November 30, 2024
Welcome to Insights and Implications!
This week marks the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, a time for reflection and food and family and friends. Regardless of where you live, we hope the following helps you remember the beauty of what’s true for all of us as we enter the holiday season.
All the best,
All of us at Insight Principles
The Field
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
-RumiThe holidays can be interesting as a human! Different personalities and generations gather with food and gifts, but also with their various expectations and ideas and opinions and biases. In other words, all manner of thinking abounds, all in one place, all at the same time!
As I write this note from the ancestral homelands of the Coast Salish people, I’m thinking about what helps folks navigate these gatherings with grace and gratitude. And I can’t think of anything more powerful than our built-in capacity to clear our minds and see straight to the magical core of our fellow human beings, regardless of what they say or do or think. If we’re interested in Looking (with a capital L), chances are we’ll find a tender human heart pulsing beneath the sharp flash of the ego and its litany of thoughts, opinions and/or comments. After all, we’re all human, and as such, our minds all work the same way, even when the output is different. And boy, can it be different.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.”
Remembering that we’re all built the same helps us lean into wisdom. Sometimes wisdom is compassionate action. Sometimes doing or saying nothing is wise. Either way, when we connect to our hearts and the hearts of those around us, we find our common core: love.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’
doesn’t make any sense.”
Our capacity to understand the human mind and ground ourselves in peace and love regardless of the circumstances is available 24-7, free-of-charge, already built-in. Orienting toward this capacity is the best gift you can give yourself, your people and the world. This season and always.
Wishing you wisdom and understanding,