Small Things

I've been thinking about how much our disdain for the "small things" drives the murderous machine of empire that we are trapped in the belly of.

How we have internalized the beliefs that someone else, lesser, other, should take care of the small things for us so that we can pursue great things.

Someone should cook our food and deliver it to us.

Someone should clean for us, or at least make our cleaning quick and easy with powerful chemicals and chemicals that linger on surfaces to repel the residue of life.

Someone should manage our trash for us, grow our food for us, bring water to our homes for us....

All of the elements of life, the small things, that we have centered our existence around for 200,000 years, have been relegated to a lesser class, resented, automated, or done begrudgingly, while we have turned our eyes to great things.

And what are those great things?

It seems to me, that shiny monuments of greatness have captivated our minds and led us around like our laser pointers lead the brilliant, devious mind of our housecats.

We have been captivated by a fun house that mirrors greatness, but there is very little greatness to be found.

To be touched.

Felt.

Experienced.

The ONLY places I have experienced greatness, are in the small things, intimately, with beings I belong to and am devoted to.

Sometimes the pressure of prose grabs me by the heart and throat and demands to pour out of me in words, but even that "greatness" turns dutifully on the axis of the small things.

A word said in passing that turns like a key in the lock of my mind.

A small glance or perfectly placed light beam illuminating the moats of life's residue floating on the currents that include my breath.

These small, tiny, movements and encounters are the seeds of the muses....that create these torrents of words.

And sometimes, when reading them, it feels like a great thing has passed through me ..... but always delivered by a whisper of presence.

These small things are where life exists. They are what we are biologically attuned to prioritize.

And even if the greatness of your life requires that others help bear the daily realities of food and cleanliness, we can still rest in deep relationship with the beings who bear those needs with us.

The young mother who comes to clean for us, the farmer who foregoes dental procedures because the farm isn't making enough profit to pay for healthcare, the teacher who cries at night missing her own children while helping to raise ours....

When we are in contact with the small things, we are human, and we can honor and bless the humanity in others, all around us. And in that deep place, we know we are all on common ground. We are all together. Here in the thick of it.