Perspective & Gratitude: A Creative Meditation

Perspective

I am sitting at my desk, in my rented apartment, thinking about the world and my place in its vastness. If I reach out I can feel the other minds, other lives, other heartbeats creating the low percussive pulse of life on this planet. Somewhere else in my town, at this moment, a child is trying not to see the monsters in the shadows of their bedroom. It is all they know of the world, still so small, that exists within the walls of their home. In Buffalo some young man whose world is expanding with possibilities that might take him beyond the borders of the city he grew up in is about to learn that he’s going to be a father. It’s true and it’s happening right now.

In Ohio, a man who raises bison is watching the herd while bartering for feed from another farmer. A high school student in Wyoming just unzipped his backpack to discover that he left his homework in his locker. A woman in California, who has rented all her life, is closing on her first home and opening a bottle of champagne saved from her last office party in celebration. It’s all happening right now.

In Hawaii, a mother is recovering from surgery to remove her breast cancer in a pink hospital. Her family is worried, waiting for news from her doctor. Waiting to hear whether the margins are clear. A man in Florida woke up and went to work, like he does every day, seven days a week, so that he can feed his family and pay the bills. If he can pick up a third job, he might be able to set some money aside for college for his eldest son.

A family in Peru is celebrating their father’s eighty-sixth birthday with candles and music, good food and company. A man in Moscow burned the egg he was cooking and is leaning into the fridge for another. So many heartbeats, dancing together, criss-crossing and entwining, right now. Reach out and become part of the web of life.

Gratitude
As I sit at my desk

I have gratitude for my clothes and garden,

for family and a full belly,

for hands flitting across computer keys-

for the someone preparing to rise and go to work
where their hands will harvest flax which will be beaten down,
the fibers spun into thread and woven into lengths of cloth

to be dyed in various and multiple hues
and sold by the bolt to another factory,
where it will be cut into pattern pieces,

sewn and assembled as a shirt,

packaged in a box with hundreds of duplicates
to be sold to a company who will distribute it to a store,

delivered by a truck driver
and unpacked by a stockperson,
hung on a rack by a clerk
and bought by my hands,
brought to my house by so many hands
so I might wear it, sitting at my desk,

creating words.

I am grateful for the food in my belly and the clothes on my flesh.
May it be so.

Ase.