Tears of Joy
. I could tell you stories of recent tragedy, pain, violence, anguish, fear, confusion, lack, hunger, withdrawal from my personal addictive substances, (internet, caffeine, nicotine, sugars). But these things happen to every living being on Earth and are exceptionally well documented and promulgated by the social media use of the humans occupying this planet. Thank goodness our few remaining Orangutan cousins live far from smartphone sellers or they’d be posting even worse horror stories on social media.
Do watch the last five minutes of “Planet of the humans” if you enjoy depression. Have tissues at hand.
. I’ll instead tell you what did happen this morning.
. I woke just before dawn, the insects in the field were warming up their wings and doing insect yoga to ready themselves for another day in their oh-so-short lives.(From our perspective.} The snoring, needy dog I am care-taking stretched and got up from my side, immediately alerted by the pecking of a wild rooster a few feet away.
. My blind cat mewed, I mewed back and he came to me. Doing the kitty greeting of rubbing his whole body from whiskers to tail too against my leg. I bent over made thsch-thsch mouth sound that lets him know I’m going to touch him, and returned the kitty greeting many times over, feeling the purr.
The light was growing steadily brighter, making my glowing coals seem dimmer and dimmer. I put a pot of water on to make coffee, found my hammer, baggie and coffee beans and proceeded to quietly crush the beans in the bag on a stump.
The light was hitting the field of tall bunch grass, now six feet tall due to being fertilized by Mr.Sheep last summer. I couldn’t find my coffee filter, so I used my Tumbleweed trick of putting three sticks in the cup, a piece of paper towel that Gooddoggie had torn up into the space between the sticks, and filtered the brewed coffee into my heavy fifty’s era style cup. The makani moved across the tall grass meadow, the clouds turned pink then yellow. The insects were warm and flying now, and it was the birds’ turn in the chorus.
. Thrush warbled their melodious songs, the cardinals tweeted their ancient hashtags. The leaves of the 60 foot Samoan coconut tree rustled as they waved. The far away flock of wild chickens and roosters spoke of their morning finds or egg-laying activity, and a large black wasp walked on the bark of the tree looking for a smaller insect breakfast. The cardinals, who have raised a family here last year, are munching rice at the home-made feeder (They prefer brown rice to white and either to Quinoa)
. The gratitude I feel for every one of my senses being stimulated becomes overwhelming. The taste of the coffee, the beauty of the puff of smoke from the fire pit .
I’m receiving a message from my left leg now, it needs to change position, so I wiggle a little and its ‘Notice me” message fades away as do the millions of other pressure/temperature /touch sensors on the skin of my amazingly intricate body which are usually consciously ignored. Too much more important data to process.
. Trillions of photons flood through my glasses, my corneas, then hitting the rods and cones in the back of my eyes, as the whole world has gone from black & white to intensely saturated color. The makani caresses my skin, the smell of the plumerias from the neighbors’ trees drifts into my sinus passages, delighting them. The taste of the coffee floods my mouth, locally sourced caffeine penetrating my gums and stomach, combining with the organically grown menthol and tobacco mixture on which I puff (What? You actually inhale? No need. Get it through the gums, save your lungs.
Tears start to flow from my eyes, wetting my rosy cheeks.
. Tears of Joy at the wonder of all of this happening Simultaneously in this very second.
. Then Einstein enters into the equation, proving beyond doubt that all of this stuff is equal. The = sign being the most important part of the equation.
We live our miraculous lives in a holographic universe with no seams where the smallest wavicle contains all.
. Show me a seam if you disagree and I’ll prove it illusory .
. The tearskeep flowing, my lips move, my nose sniffs.
. This amount of joy is difficult to describe, it can only experienced, as all “good” and ‘“bad” things” must be. Our labels, not actual fact.
. Totally blind Leo’s head is pointing up into the loaded-with-almost-ripe-peanut-shaped seeds/fruit of the tamarind tree. I mistakenly planted a lilliquoi under it two years ago and as vines do, it climbed the tree, reached over to the next tree and is beginning to blanket that one with leaves and green-changing-to yellow fruit.
. Is Leo feeling this joy? Or is he only hoping someday the wary cardinals will be in his mouth? Does the dog really understand English, or just associates the sound with making me happy? Dog only knows.
The future is a not a thing to most beings, a creation of exquisite minds which possibly. Only. humans and perhaps cetaceans think about it
It is now. Forever.
So it’s time to be grateful.
It IS time to be Joy-full.
It is time to live our lives this moment. fulfilling our rightful destiny as creators of beauty and wonder in the universe.
Coffee is finished, cigarette is stubbed out in the yellow seashell ashtray.
My tears and sniffles are decreasing and my body says “Enough with the joy already, you have work to do!”
And so I near the end of my skilless typing.
It will take anothe hour to add images, links and correct my numerous typos.
. For now I take the dog and cat for a little walk down. the meadow trail to the neighbor’s yard where they start to play, Leo chasing Gooddoggie in circles for a good fifteen minutes.
. I laugh out loud and then join them in rolling on the short grass, rubbing my bare back against its soft blades. We greet the sun again as it comes over the trees and after a half hour of play I get to work creating the best life I can.
I hope you all create many mornings like this.
In Joy, T
