Ripples #941: Aliveness of Life!
June 5, 2017
PEBBLE
Life is immediate and alive.
-Zuiko Redding, shared by Ryan in Cedar Rapids, IA
BOULDER
You will lose everything. Your money, your power, your fame, your success, perhaps even your memories. Your looks will go. Loved Ones will die. Your body will fall apart. Everything that seems permanent is impermanent and will be smashed. Experience will gradually, or not so gradually, strip away everything that it can strip away. Waking up means facing this reality with open eyes and no longer turning away.
But right now, we stand on sacred and holy ground, for that which will be lost has not yet been lost, and realizing this is the key to unspeakable joy. Whoever or whatever is in your life right now has not yet been taken away from you. This may sound trivial, obvious, like nothing, but really it is the key to everything, the why and how and wherefore of existence. Impermanence has already rendered everything and everyone around you so deeply holy and significant and worthy of your heartbreaking gratitude. Loss has already transfigured your life into an altar.
-Jeff Foster, shared by Lorene in North Royalton, OH
PONDER
I like to keep each issue of Ripples compact enough that it takes less than a minute to read. The awesome boulder Lorene found for us is meaty enough (and sacred enough) that I have just a few moments to make this request: do what you can this week to recognize and celebrate the aliveness of your life. Even if things are super duper tough, and even if you’re feeling more grumpy than grateful, hopefully you can notice at least a few thin slices of goodness worth savoring.
Do it for me, and do it for you too.
Peace,
Paul
The Ripples Guy
