August 3, 2023

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe,
a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself,
his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest,
a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion
is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires
and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task
must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening
our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and
the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein

Compassion was not my first reaction. When we discovered bags of trash dumped along the road in the undergrowth, I wasn’t surprised. It happens often out here. This is just our first experience of this at MossTerra. But when we discovered that one of those trash bags held a litter of dead kittens, I was furious. How could anyone…

I’ve heard of this happening out here. It’s likely those kittens were alive when they were thrown into the bushes. I can’t get the image of their suffering out of my mind and heart. How could anyone…

How could anyone!? I had to step beyond the statement of moral outrage and sit with the question in order to release myself from the prison of delusion and judgement.

The judgement is perhaps obvious. But the delusion is thinking that others hold the same sense of honoring all life as I do. So many don’t. And the tragic truth of that screams at us in newspaper headlines every day. It goes well beyond kittens.

I remind myself there are really no ‘others’. We are all part of the divine. It just seems the divine is a bit hidden in some. So I consider what truly their lives are about that they could do such horrific acts. What journey are they on that holds them in a prison of separation from divine consciousness? And what will it take for them to free themselves from that prison? I don’t know. But what I can do is send them compassion. And sometimes it’s a huge test for me to do that. 

Beannacht,
Judith