Quiet Melancholy

Sometimes I can't help but hear

The giant conversation

Of matters near and far.

Of laughter, despair and sadness.

Fires rage across California, rich and poor alike are lost in the fire, their houses burned away. What took generations to build -- the American Dream -- is gone in flames. And our Earth is scorched.

Gun violence kills 15,000 people a year in America, in our homes, churches and schools. Manufacturing and selling more guns does not bring peace. Do we really need to put guns in the hands of teachers?

I hear the voices of rage, despair and heartbreak. It's a dialog of 10,000 volumes of pain, fear and greed, the rise and fall of civilization.

What does this all mean? Who is right? Who is wrong? What does it matter?

Law enforcement cannot handle all the insanity in the world. 

We must renew ourselves to live in harmony with nature and humankind. Do no harm. Give peace a chance. Leave the world a better place. Aim to touch each person with loving kindness.

I embrace nature. My animal self. My spiritual self. I dance. Run. Hug someone. Create love. Because love comes back to me. Love begets love, hate begets hate. I don't want to be a hater, angry at the world all the time hating, hating, hating.

I would rather cultivate beautiful moments with people I admire. Start a universal conversation about love, art and music, of poets and philosophers, craftsmen and engineers, let's build something together, let's make it meaningful, useful and good.

In these luminous moments we transcend our madness and step into a loss of ego, carried away by the artist self, the sublime transcendent soul.

-Michael Hooper, Nov. 17, 2018