It has been my experience that when I am not caring, grounded and present, I often miss opportunities to help others. Kindness is much less an intentional thing as it is a byproduct of tender self care and maintaining a practice of presence. When we are running caring energy within ourselves it becomes easy to connect with other's needs and step into caring in appropriate ways for them, too. This way of kindness is not debilitating or altruistic but is more about like energy matching. It expands exponentially as love does when not projected or distorted to meet an agenda.
Hafiz speaks of our better natures that live within our interactions with all others and he suggests we tap into that to cultivate ourselves. Be polite as a form of self respect and recognize how we show up within others actions and learn from it. Do for ourselves so that we can do right for others.
Thank you for listening.
Music: I suppose there are a million songs I could have picked for this entry but I chose this old chestnut mainly because it takes me right back to my childhood. I would hear this song when I was young and think that it heralded a new era that my generation only just thought of. Like it was a new miracle and hadn't existed forever already. This is the righteous real estate of youth. So this song, What The World Needs Now by Dionne Warwick is from the porch swing of that residence nested within those memories; memories that have settled in a neighborhood long since gentrified. Still the opening bars reach in and stimulate the sweet recall of that innocence that was sourced in a truth older than time itself. Now, however, keeping that loving heart open takes some serious maintenance.
The original post in this series of poems by Hafiz (including an addendum regarding the authenticity of these poems) can be found here. Also, my thoughts on this series a year into these poems, HERE.
The Gift: Poems by Hafiz and translated by Daniel Ladinsky can be purchased here.
My book can be purchased HERE. E-book HERE. The Season Two blogcasts with audio excerpts from my book begin HERE: in Behind The Lines. This reading of the book excerpts in a mixed media format is Season Two of this blog. These recorded excerpts are outside the chronological order in which the book was written. Podcasts with audio only beginning with episode 22 can be found HERE.