Outside Forces that change the course of your life.

Amber....

Thank you so much for your touching story....

When I visited Gordon about 2 1/2 months ago, he also showed me the shell you carved. I remember also being afraid to hold it -- it looked so fragile and beautiful. I had never seen anything like it....

Amber, you really have a gift. :)

I agree with you that tragedy can change the direction of our lives, and sometimes cause us to grow in ways we never expected.... Even though the feelings may be painful, sometimes it is how we grow....

This reminds me of a poem I've read....
A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot
where it's being boiled.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

The cook knocks him down with the ladle.

"Don't you try to jump out.
You think I'm torturing you.
I'm giving you flavor,

so you can mix with spices and rice
and be the lovely vitality of a human being.

Remember when you drank rain in the garden.
That was for this."

Grace first. Sexual pleasure,
then a boiling new life begins,
and the Friend has something good to eat.

Eventually the chickpea
will say to the cook,
*****"Boil me some more,.
Hit me with the skimming spoon.
I can't do this by myself.

I'm like an elephant that dreams of gardens
back in Hindustan and doesn't pay attention
to his driver. You're my cook, my driver,
my way into existence. I love your cooking."

The cook says,
*****"I was once like you,
fresh from the ground. Then I boiled in time,
and boiled in the body, two fierce boilings.

My animal soul grew powerful.
I controlled it with practices,
and boiled some more, and boiled
once beyond that,
*****and became your teacher."

(From "The Essential Rumi" translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, p. 132.)

Amber, it is people like you as well as many others here -- who have been "cooked" and have found their "flavor" -- who (in my view) have found wisdom....

Thank you for sharing some of it with us :)

Dien