Be the Cause

“Life is a mystery”…

Where To, where do I go?
If you never try, then you’ll never know.
How long do I have to climb,
Up on the side of this mountain of mine?

Look up, I look up at night,
Planets are moving at the speed of light.
Climb up, up in the trees,
every chance that you get,
is a chance you seize.
How long am I gonna stand,
with my head stuck under the sand?
I’ll start before I can stop,
before I see things the right way up.

All that noise, and all that sound,
All those places I got found.
And birds go flying at the speed of sound,
to show you how it all began.
Birds came flying from the underground,
if you could see it then you’d understand?

Ideas that you’ll never find,
All the inventors could never design.
The buildings that you put up,
Japan and China all lit up.
The sign that I couldn’t read,
or a light that I couldn’t see,
some things you have to believe,
but others are puzzles, puzzling me.-Speed of Sound by Coldplay.

I was listening to this song the other day in the car and singing along to it. The lyrics struck me for sure. I was thinking of how I was recently in a car accident. It could have been much worse. I was taken on a stretcher because the paramedics saw me holding my chest…where the airbag hit me really hard. So glad the airbag was there! When I was on the stretcher..I looked up at the sky…it was probably the most beautiful sky I have ever seen! The clouds were silver and blue. The sky was clear with no stars. I just remember being so grateful to be alive…It was my first time on a stretcher and I was scared, but so happy as well. After the accident, I was trying to figure things out. Why do these things happen? Why do people get in accidents? Why does it all seem so difficult at times? There are wake-up calls and then there are WAKE-UP CALLS!!! My perception is that if u don’t get the lesson the first time…the universe screeches in your ears…

A little before the accident, I was feeling about things…the way the lyrics state: “How long do I have to climb,Up on the side of this mountain of mine?” …I was just kinda in the automaticity of life in the few weeks before the accident. Not feeling very passionate or alive…kinda feeling on autopilot. I know before the accident=that night…I was alert and happy and focused when driving. That was that moment. But the series of moments before…I was feeling lackluster, tired, fed-up in a way with the always on the go syndrome.

When I saw the sky…I saw the magic again…that’s all around us…the nature of Earth…just waiting for us in anticipation==for us to go out and explore…

The mind is so strong and tries to figure things out. But what about being in the moment and letting waves/stars/hummingbirds fill your thoughts and dreams. Concrete and buildings…that is part of our world too….but who says we need to be so caught up in the sidewalks of life. Meaning, I feel if we all got back to the roots of trees and didn’t spend so many hours in our cars, there could be a bit more world change…in a positive way.

And sometimes when we’re so caught up in the office, city world…we forget about puzzles and how sometimes…puzzle pieces do not need to be put together, but just simply left alone…for a spiritual resolution to straighten things out.

Life is a mystery…never did I expect to be shaken up so much. I couldn’t stop shaking from the shock of the accident on the way to the hospital…and then there was the shock of a new life and new way to see things. Being aware takes practice. And sometimes it can be more painful..being aware than simply sliding along thru life.

When I looked up at the sky…I was meditating on beauty…I could do nothing else…except embrace the beauty above me.

I’ve heard about some accidents recently…I’ve known about accidents where people were killed. One who I knew closely and some…friends of friends. Why do I live and another dies? What purpose is meant for me? I know that there’s ho-hum gratitude and then there’s GRATITUDE! Can we always be in this space? We’re human…so maybe not. But I know that I’m striving and learning and growing…and improving any part of me that feels defeated, disappointed in some way. Life is just waiting for us to honor it and see the beauty…like the night that the sky looked like no other sky I had ever seen.

The perfect getaway with BTC crew!

We were at the Corner Bakery in February and hiker mama, Bharti asked a few of us about the possibility of going to Joshua Tree for the weekend. And that’s how it all started…

After some email discussions with Bharti and Thoi, things started to come together!

Last Saturday, Aprill 19th in the year 2008, we all gathered to see/experience the great outdoors! 17 of us went!

Was this to be a service trip? Not really. An evening of awareness? Not so much.

I would call it a communing with nature adventure! Joshua Tree is so very beautifu! I can see why U2 created an album of the very same name.

Everything seemed to work really well. A few of us wimped out on staying overnight. I thought I had so many things to do the next day…I really could have stayed over after all but it was cold and windy! 8 peeps braved the cold and even did a moonlight hike. They really enjoyed!

5 of us day trippers were able to go to Quizno’s on the way in…and we met a guy who worked there…I think the owner…and guess what his name was? Sukh! Sukh and Sukh took a picture together and we made another friend and passed on some Smile cards!

We got to see Mikeee…one of my fave service vacation travellers. We missed him much and it was awesome to see him again. He brought drums!

We stopped at the Joshua Tree Visitor Center and got the 411 *info on all the hikes to take. We thought we could possibly do 2 or 3. Alas, one was enough! 4.8 mile/somewhat strenuous hike was fine by me! We went on a hike called, “The Oasis.” And that it was! We hiked and saw all the crumbly, intricate rocks that make Joshua Tree famous and then all of a sudden, we happened upon cool, shaded rocks and palm trees! But no pools of water (all dried up) as stated in pamphlet.

I really enjoyed hiking with everyone. I stopped to take pics with my disposable camera. I lost my digital one in Sri Lanka :-( But the disposable pics came out quite nice as Madhavi stated.

The day turned to dusk. And we helped the campers put their tents up. Raquel drove in after a Social Justice Summit at CSUF. It was so great to see her and her friends.

Sukh led a discussion around campfire about how nature impacts us. It was so nice to hear everyone’s viewpoints. A common theme was a love for the stars, the feeling we get when we are surrounded by the outdoors and how insignificant we all are in the gigantic universe…what this meant inside my heart….was how being in nature can drown out all the hecticness of city life and can really bring such inner peace, community, connection…

And then came the drumming!! And it was a full moon!

I drove back with Bharti, Sukh, Sonali, and Ruth and was ever so grateful….for this perfect getaway :)

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