Sunshine and Shadows

I was standing at the side of the track before my workout, contemplating the sun and shadows around me. It was one of those recent Texas days that isn’t sure if it’s an indian summer day or an early winter one instead. It was early in the day around 9am and the sun while having been present a while was only beginning to peek into the stadium from around the side of the eastern grandstand.
What this produced was a series of sunlight and shadow around me that alternated between warmth and slightly cool to even a bit cold.

I looked down at my legs being conscious that the right leg felt warm while the left leg was cold.
This would not seem to be a remarkable discovery given the sun and shadow patterns. What I discovered next seems just as ordinary and simple, but what I learned I want to pass on. I want to relive it for you because of a question raised by another blogger yesterday.

The question she raised was why do recent blogs around her and the community in general seem so negative in the early going of 2006?

The rather ordinary thing that occurred with my warm versus cold legs is that I realized it was easy enough to move the leg bathed in shadow into the area where the sun was shining. Taking that action made both legs warm. This is the type of automatic process that we can easily overlook because it happens so easily, quickly and automatically.

On a second mental inspection it caused me to reinforce the idea in my own mind that the choices we make can form the difference between a positive or negative attitude.

In my 40's I studied taoism with a passion and I still honor many of the tenets and revere the lessons learned. Some of the lessons I have moved past.
One of the lessons I have left behind for a new one is the taoistic teaching that positive and negative create a balance and that life moves from one to the other in a continuos flow of energy.

I no longer believe this, but rather embrace the idea that a completely positive world can exist in the absence of negative feeling. It is the process of bringing heaven to you rather than waiting to ‘go to heaven’.

Before you dismiss me as a dreamer, understand that I know how hard this is to achieve, but much like the track workout that lay in front of me on that recent day I know that all positive things that we want for ourselves demand our attention and work to achieve.

Pulling the negative from your life is the same process as moving your leg from shadow to sunlight. It is much harder, yes, but it is exactly the same process. It would have been just as simple to place the warm leg into the shadows with the cold leg. I get to choose. That is the simple but wonderful plan of the Creator. The fate we believe in we bring to pass.

Can you be positive for a another being and change their attitude? I’m glad you asked. Believe it or not I think it is possible. You won’t actually change them, that will be up to them. You will show them something they want. When they ask, teach them that the fate they believe in is what they bring to pass. Then show them how to move from the shadows to the sun. Then they have the opportunity to change themselves.

Now I Get It.......maybe