“The voyage of self-discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
~ Marcel Proust ~
Remember the last moments of the classic movie, E.T.-The Extra-Terrestrial? It’s one of my most favorite movies and those last seconds expressed by the boy, Elliot, and E.T. as they say goodbye to each other reflects all that I’m feeling right now.
E.T.: Come…
Elliot: (solemnly) Stay…
E.T.: (puts his finger to his glowing heart) Ouch.
Elliot: (mimics the same action, tearfully) Ouch.
E.T.: (E.T. and Elliot embrace each other, then E.T. puts his glowing finger to Elliot’s forehead) I’ll…be…right…here.
Elliot: (tearfully) bye.
E.T.: Be good. (touching heart about to leave.) Ouch.
(from the movie, E.T.-The Extra-Terrestrial))
I thought about how many ways to express it, this deep sorrow I’m feeling for the suffering of the world right now. E.T. said it best, “Ouch.” My soul hurts. My spirit hurts. I feel this immense state of “ouchness” for the people in Alabama and all the surrounding areas struck so horribly by a second-time twister. And those in Syria begging us to help them and all we do is watch horrendous film clips of babies, mothers, the innocent ones, brave reporters, being mowed down by murderers. “Ouch.” And animals caught in the cross-fires of human cruelty—gassed and shot, abandoned. We’re exposed to them all on Facebook and all over the media. Wolf carcasses spilling out of the back of the truck of their beaming human killers. Oceans suffocating in swirling acres of plastic. Everywhere I turn, everywhere I look there seems to be more and more suffering. Even within my own family and friends there is some great sorrow that I can’t alleviate. I can’t make it go away. So I stand in the middle of my life and cry out helplessly to it all, “Ouch.”
I know so many of you feel as I do. Many of you turn to your religions, to prayer, to organizations, activities, selfless volunteer work that helps greatly. I find that all of these efforts are powerful. Finding a place of peace and love within our own lives, our own circle of loved ones is a way to feel less hopeless. Doing something good is always the answer, always the way back home. Shoveling out the garbage and creating gardens of new perspective is how we discover new pathways to higher consciousness. I find sustenance in giving my talks, reaching out to others and giving them something within themselves to want to go on no matter what. I write and speak about what I need to believe, and it’s not always easy.
At this moment I am feeling this deep sense of “ouch” for our beautiful planet and the pervasive pain it’s going through everywhere. I wonder if that angelic little E.T. asked me to go with him right now would I leave all this ouchness for a better and different and kinder world? My spirit says, “Yes, go…” But my humanness says, “Stay and make it better. Don’t give up. Live…”
As my beloved mentor Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father, expressed to me when I was at another low place in my life looking at the world in the sixties through hopeless glasses, “If the end of the world would be imminent, you still must plant a tree today.” He believed fiercely in never giving up hope.
At the end of each of my talks I offer people a small, smooth stone out of a bowl. I tell them it represents each of them, each of us. A stone thrown into a pool of water radiates ripples that go on and on and on. Seeing ourselves as that little stone, sending out ripples of positivity or negativity is our choice. But it’s not just an empty gesture. There is actual, scientific evidence that what we think—good and bad—can and does change the world, thought-by-thought, ripple-by-ripple. Here is an excerpt from my book, Nature Teachers:
“Dr. Masaru Emoto, an internationally renowned science researcher and author, has written a revolutionary series of books, the first one entitled, Messages from Water. The premise of his research is that the power of prayer, beneficial healing sounds and words can even change the physical property of water crystals. In his continued research, Dr. Emoto has discovered that all substances and phenomena have their own unique magnetic resonance fields. His photographs of the dramatic contrasts between frozen water before and after prayer, angry and kind words or thoughts, and gentle and strident music are amazing. His work is so important on so many levels. He is documenting the scientific evidence that all of life is a vital force capable of reacting to positive or negative energy. Everything. The more we are aware of this vital energy, the more we are able to focus on our own power and the impact it has on everything and everybody.”
I encourage you to read Dr. Emoto’s book. It may help you realize that you actually can do something right now to help the world, just by your loving thoughts. I had to write this to remind myself that this is so and to help heal this quagmire of sorrow I am feeling for this life, these earthly beings of all species that I love so much. So, to answer beautiful E.T.’s quest to leave this place, I would probably have to do what Elliot opted to do as well. Stay. And do all I can to bless the “ouchness” of our beautiful planet with all my heart and soul; see it healing and growing in spite of or maybe because of the cataclysms in its wake. And follow E.T.’s sage advice to simply, “Be good.”
An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life.
He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil – he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego.
The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”
They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
The cats were on it first. Poised in a purrrmanant stance dictated by some primordial instinct they remained fixated and staring at the glass door of our balcony. There, on the other side of the night, pummeling the door and windows in frantic flutter back and forth, was a baby bird. Seemingly lost in the dark drawn to the light beyond the glass, it slammed its little wings over and over again in a futile attempt to free itself from the nightmare.
It’s very quiet outside my window. That’s because the bees are gone. There used to be a buzzing vortex of those (yes, very busy) honey-gatherers in animated waves going about their bzzzz-ness way up high on the fourth floor where we live. And now, because the guy four floors beneath them complained, once again the Homo sapien species takes precedent over the world of other-than-human types.
