(no subject)

[johnpalmer]

Today I went jogging. As I finished my jogging, and was walking around, cooling off, I noticed something that I should have expected... gift wrap, and plastic, and such in the wet parking lot of the apartment complex.

I don't know that Christmas giftwrap is toxic... but then, I don't know that it's not. And even if it's not a gift to nature, it's a gift to someone, who won't have to deal with it later. So I gathered up what I could, and put it into a trashbag someone had left - half empty, and open, so some of the paper probably came from it - and put the thing into the dumpster after securing it closed.

Walking back home, a couple of littles - I suppose 4-5 year olds - mentioned something about the water. For the life of me, I couldn't quite catch what they were saying, but then, with ADHD, and minor hearing difficulties, and not much child-experience, I suppose this isn't surprising. Well, there's a duck pond in the middle of the complex, so I walked to it and picked up a couple of bits of trash I couldn't normally. For some reason, despite the relatively constant rain around here, the water was low.

I suppose you could call this my Christmas gift to nature.

Earlier today, I suppose I had a bit of a gift to myself. I followed a link to "The Velveteen Rabbit", and did some thinking about it.

I realized that, for me, the story is a potent one about magic, and about spirit. Magic is what is put into it; the rabbits reality was a reflection of what was given it by the child. And, in a sense, anything important to a human has a spirit.

I've heard that American Indian beliefs are often based upon a spirit world, where everything has a spirit of some form or another. The story seemed, to me, to be a reflection of that.

I like that idea... and I like to imagine that the spirit lives on past the time that it's got its full meaning.

I like to think that, while I'm depressed, and unable to act, that my past actions, my past attempts to do good, still shine on, are still there, and are still 'real'. That, in essence, I haven't ceased to be 'me', just because I'm too tired to be who I want to be.

I doubt I'll ever *BELIEVE* it when I'm depressed, mind you; not in the 'deep in the gut' way that belief should be. But I still like to think it now, while I'm not depressed, so that it might be something to hold to, if and when the black beast tries to smother me again.

Comments

[iamjw.livejournal.com]

I think past attempts to do good absolutely last on past the moment of doing. When you do good towards a person, they hold that memory with them - and sometimes pull it out and look at it when they're having their own black days. When you do good to the world, as you did with the trash today, I think you do good in the tradition of the butterfly flapping its wings - it may not seem like much but the cumulative effect can be astonishing - and so much better than the opposite inaction.

Karma, what goas around comes around, whatever you want to call it - we are always accountable for what we do, and what we do sometimes (often) lasts even longer than we do.