Ram Dass in Risk Being Human talk: “…and I began to expand my awareness to be able to look at the universe as it is and see the horrible beauty of it all…”
An incomplete and ever-expanding list of the horrible (and often absurd) beauty of it all:
The orange and magenta skies over the most heavily polluted cities of the world.
The relationship between the fig and the wasp that dies inside it so the fig could become what it is.
The bloody mess of childbirth
The exhausted smile of a new mother, and the stretch marks on her skin.
Seeing your child out the door into adulthood
How much pain is involved in Love.
How the deterioration of the body seems to move in direct opposition to the expansion of one’s experience and wisdom.
How the tattoos all over her body tell the story of her trauma and depressive episodes, and how she pulled herself out
Some of the necessities that birthed inventions.
How one’s ego tries to defend her by creating stories of separateness that limit her reality
The birth stories of many countries, and what it took to maintain their borders.
How nature came back to life during a global pandemic
The smoking chimneys of the power station against the background of the sea
How the loss of a loved one reveals the depth of your own heart.
How her community embraced her when her husband died
The price of freedom
The bonds of attachment
How he found the Grace he’s been seeking only after his stroke
How the image of a dying man on a cross changed the world.
How certain people feel about so many uncertainties.
How our adversaries and adversities become our greatest teachers.
The cycle of life
–I met Yael in 2004 in a Saint Louis University classroom. A few years earlier, she published a book of poems in Hebrew when she was 22. I have been the awed recipient of many of her poems and meditations over the years. So her second book can be in English.
