I got so much done yesterday, I was pleased with myself.  I finished the January issue on time and got it off to the printer.  I ran some errands: bank, post office, Walmart, Office Depot.  I usually don’t wait this late in the year to buy my new calendars.  I keep a large one on my wall to show all events and conferences going on.  Then I have a smaller one, a Llewellyn astrological wall calendar, that I note office appointments on.   Until this year, I kept two Daytimer appointment books: one showing daytime appointments in and out of the office, and a second book showing my scheduled evening phone sessions.  I’ve begun scheduling less appointments all year, so while I was at Office Depot today, I bought an entirely different appointment book for daytime.  Until 5 years ago, I used one that showed every 30 minutes all day long.  Then I graduated to a book that went hour by hour.  The one I bought yesterday goes day by day.  I feel like I have more free time already.

WalMart wasn’t as crowded as I thought it might be.  I remember thinking that last year as well.  They built one just 3 miles from me, so I pass it every time I drive out.  The parking lot wasn’t full, so I went inside and did my shopping.  I went in for Pam cooking spray with olive oil, and left with everything but that.

At the register, I was hoping as I unpacked my bags, that I had under 20 items, since I never want to be one of those people.  I counted 18.  I was safe.  I would not be lynched by the mob behind me.  Well, the mob was really just one redhead about my age and the woman behind her, who was glaring angrily at the redhead.  All the while I am unloading my bags and checking out, this woman keeps looking from the redhead to her shopping cart, which was full to the top with items, and openly scowling.

Then I got it.  The angry woman couldn’t see what I could see.  I could look right down into the redhead’s cart and count that she had only 7 items, but they were big items.  The angry woman, from her spot behind the redhead – and being shorter – it looked like a cart full of more than the 20 item limit.  Hence her nasty glare to the redhead.

I’d said to the cashier earlier that I had 18 items. As she rang it up, she told me I really only had 15, as the apples counted as one item, not 3.  So I turned to the redhead and said, “I’m safe, I didn’t have over 20.” Then I said, smiling to the scowler, “She’s safe, too, she only has 7 items.”  It took a moment, but the scowl dropped and she smiled and the redhead smiled and I smiled and the cashier was smiling and the sun was shining and life was good all over again.

Friends remind friends when life is good. Friends who have a higher perspective are just a little taller is all. They may just see a bigger picture and want you to see the bigger picture, too.  What I find is that as I go on and get taller and taller and see the ever-increasing bigger picture, the little things just drop away.  I am reminded of something Willis Harman wrote:

ThREE DREAMS by Willis Harman

IN THE FIRST DREAM  I am walking along a very rough terrain, on the way to climb a high and rather forbidding mountain, the top of which is concealed by mist and clouds. It is clear that the ascent of this mountain symbolizes my whole life. Clambering over the rubble in front of me is not too daunting, but as I look ahead I see that my way is blocked by several cliffs that appear to be around ten feet high. Beyond those are some still higher cliffs, the farthest being perhaps hundreds of feet high. I have no idea how I will deal with those when I get to them, but meanwhile there seems nothing to do but forge ahead. However, although I didn’t know notice it at first, I am growing in stature as I go along, so that by the time I finally reach the ten-foot cliffs I am tall enough that I can simply step up over them. The same with the hundred-foot cliffs.

IN THE SECOND DREAM  I am in a cafeteria. I take a tray, place it on the rails, and proceed to move down the food line. At the end of the line is a door. Somehow I realize that this also symbolizes my life, and the door at the end is what we call death. Behind the food line is a gigantic figure who is ladling out the food; I can’t see his head, he towers so far above me. I notice that the persons in the line on either side of me have trays with large round holes in the middle, so that the food simply falls through the holes onto the floor. This seems to me a strange way to run a cafeteria, and I ask the food handler about it. He replies that the food is available to everyone, and the choice of tray is optional; some people just choose the trays with holes.

IN THE THIRD DREAM I am in a solo spaceship which has somehow become a derelict, destined to travel around the Earth for centuries. There is no way to deflect its orbit and manage a return to Earth. It is clear that I have only two choices. I can stay alive as long as possible, eventually run out of air, food, and water, and die a slow death. Or I can open the hatch and let the remaining air rush out, the cold come in, and have it all over within seconds. It is an agonizing decision, but I finally decide on the latter. I open the hatch and feel the air rushing past, and immediately find myself in a space which is not cold and black, but wonderfully illuminated and somehow “loving.” I seem to be everywhere in this space, and nowhere in particular. I had never given the idea of heaven much thought, but this seems to fit. I feel intensely alive, supported in every sense, and totally content to stay here forever.

Reprinted from the Institute of Noetic Sciences Review, Spring 1997.

🙂
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