A senior colleague and I spent several hours today working together on a very challenging aspect of a long-term project. When we were wrapping up for the day, I showed him a murti of Ganesha that another co-worker had brought me from the Norton Simon Museum when she had gone on a business trip to Pasadena, where our Los Angeles office is located.
I said that I do not believe in the Hindu deities as gods, but find them helpful for contemplation as archetypes (in the Jungian sense). I said that being on this project has taught me much about yoga and about Ganesha.
“Ganesha,” I explained, “is not so much the remover of obstacles, but the one who places obstacles in your way to teach you the wisdom to grow and find a more enlightened path from having confronted the obstacles.” “Oh,” said my colleague, “like the Marines: adapt, improvise, and overcome.” “Well, sort of,” I replied, enjoying that we found a way to share laughter after our difficult afternoon.
That there were just three
Perfectly ripe strawberries
Gave rise to an exquisite
Opportunity to practice
Mindful eating.
To enjoy the sun on my back and the weight of the berries in my hand as I picked them.
To linger with their delicate, promising scent.
To enjoy their shape, the patterns of the seeds, the ripe redness.
To taste each one as if it were the only one.
When I was walking to work yesterday, I was delighting in watching a pair of red-headed finches cavorting at the very top of a newly blooming cherry tree just outside the Friends Committee on National Legislation’s building, which is across the street from the Hart Senate building. An impeccably suited man in a suit who was walking towards the Hart building said to me, “it is wonderful to see everything starting to bloom, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is indeed,” I replied, and pointed out the finches.
“I hadn’t noticed them; good eye,” the man said, “look, they’re eating the blossoms.” The finches were tearing blossoms off the tree and singing with great enthusiasm.
“You can see them even better from the other side of the tree, because the sun is lighting them up instead of shadowing them,” I added.
“I’ll have to go back and take a look,” he said and walked back to the other side of the tree to watch the birds as I headed on to work, with my day brightened by this interchange.
I often get caught looking at the birds or the trees or the sky when walking around town. When there is an opening, I talk to others about what I am seeing to invite them to pause and delight along with me. It is a rare day, though, to hear from someone who is clearly busy and has important work to say, “I’ll have to take a better look.” It is so important to me, and for all of us, to pause and wonder, to remember and recognize the beauty as we go about our day.
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