10/15/07

Resiliency to recreate

I had a chance to spend some time this weekend helping a friend of a friend in rebuilding her home. Her original home had been destroyed in the Cedar fires that ravaged the San Diego County area in 2003. She lives near Julian, CA which is near the Cleveland National Forest and Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. The area where her home is located is beautifully situated (and isolated) among the hills and what used to be forest. Mother Nature is showing her resiliency in the growth that you can see among the burnt tree skeletons that has occurred in the 4 years since the fires.
It was fun and rewarding to be part of a group of people coming together to be of service to a friend. It helped to be in a beautiful, natural, setting even though it drizzled for a good part of the morning. We kept a fire going the whole day from the brush and deadwood that had accumulated and was still available as a result of the fires over 4 years before (irony indeed). Resiliency was a theme that kept recurring during the time spent helping: Carmen's attitude about the fire and rebuilding, the group's attitude about the rain and getting some work done, the way we had to maneuver the pieces of the roof (Quonset hut) and bolt the pieces together, the way the stars finally pierced through the cloudy sky that evening.
That night I literally slept under the stars. Such an amazing and awe-inspiring sight! To see the multitude of light-pinpoints really me in a state of bliss in the realization that we really are part of a special, incredible, creation. No matter what your beliefs, looking at a spectacular night sky has to hit you at an emotional, primordial level. How can one think of him/herself as "special" when confronted with the representations of trillions of energy producing objects in a relatively small slice of viewpoint? It makes you face the infinite creation power of the divine source of it all. And, WE are a part of that source! We all are representatives of that creative power, here to experience all aspects of ourselves.
We experience our own resiliency in many instances throughout our days. Think about it. How many times have you had to 'adapt' to a new situation or circumstance? Did you survive? Learn? Grow? Thrive? Are you the same person you were yesterday? Really? We are in a constant state of change, whether we want to realize it or not. Cells are dying and regenerating within our bodies at a rate that we do not appreciate. That's just physically.... So what is your mental rate of change? Are you stuck or resilient in your ways of thinking?
Namaste

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