I don't write these Rumi-nations because I am hung up on the past.
Rather, I make room in my day-to-day for writing down my stream of consciousness because life is demanding that I do so.
Two weeks ago, I was dusting off and rearranging my altar, upon which sits
one of my few prized possessions. It's a music box that I was given for Christmas decades ago when I was an idealistic, little girl growing up with the sugary pop tunes of the American 80s in an era of "Reaganomics." The Berlin wall was coming down as consumptive individualism was on the rise, signifying a "new democracy." Naively, I danced around, in a haze of Broadway tunes, as I sang television hit songs, like "Fame, I'm gonna live forever, I'm gonna learn how to fly - HIGH."
Since then, my music box - a clay figurine of four diverse children standing upon a spinning, half Earth - has remained carefully at ease with my belongings at my parent's home. Every few years, I would turn it upon its axis and listen to its iconic melody play out, Michael Jackson's "We Are the World." "We are the Children. We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let's start giving." Then, just like that, my music box toppled off of my altar and onto the honey-colored floor of the Hive. I sat there, dumbstruck, by my own lack of caring and inability to really pay attention. I no longer believe in coincidences, you see. Thus, I immediately recognized the deep symbolism discovered in this moment.
Nonetheless, all I felt I could do was to set my music box aside until I had walked over to the nearest pharmacy to purchase a bottle of super glue. Now, my imperfect and flawed world sits and spins just as it once did. However, conspicuously missing is a triangular piece of the globe. Ironically, it is a chunk of the hardened clay where the Eastern board of Canada lay - the exact geographic location where I was born, this time around. I fixed it as best I could and then moved on with my life.
Yesterday, however, as I was catnapping in the dark confines of the Hive's back office, I was again bombarded by my own negligence. A decade ago, as a wandering young adult, I traveled the globe in search of myself. Along the way, I collected stories, adventures and relationships - much like others accrue possessions. As a keepsake, I had created a hanging collage of photographs and patches surrounding a Mary Engelbreit poster that reads, "Hurt not the Earth, neither the Sea, nor the Trees." For weeks now, it had hung above my bed in the back office. And then, yesterday, as I tried to sleep off my headache from a late night spent grooving to the amazing tunes of Todo Mundo, it fell, right upon my weary head. The glass broke as shards of it rained down and into my thick, brown hair. Yet, again, I was left mesmerized by the message.
So, you see, the Universe is demanding that I share this with you. All I can do now is try, as best as I can, to listen and respond. All I can do now is try to keep showing up, one foot in front of the other, and walking forward into some unknown future. All I can do now is trust and believe that life is unfolding according to divine perfect order. Even as my head hurts and all I want to do is go back to bed. Even as the whiny voice of the purple Violet, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, plays out - over and over again in my spoiled, American bodymind - "But I want it NOW!"
Yes, my world is broken. Maybe, acknowledging this is my starting place. Maybe, it's all of ours.
