Sadness in Spring

Winter has passed and spring has arrived with her vivid colors, sounds and scents.

Yellow sunlight, filters through the cherry trees with white flowers and pierces the cool dimness of my study. Gold dust seems scattered into the air and patterns of light are painted upon the floor and the bookcases.

The blue-sky, ochre bushes, pale pink flowers, green blobs of sprouting tender leaves arrest the wandering mind making one want to participate in this fairy tale architecture with a sweet story filled with pretty illustrations.

I too was excited about spring.

 I almost started with; Once upon a time - children playing soccer in parks and playgrounds, came back home to their loving families, ate dinner while they laughed and chatted and were tucked into bed with a story filled with adventure.

And then I heard on the news that such stories don’t happen everywhere!

Elsewhere, dark hues of boiling red blood, charred flesh, pieces of bones, hair, molten metal, jarred remains, smoke, dust, shrill cries, screams, panic, pain, murder of hopes and dreams all wrapped up and tied with helplessness enters the life of young children.

It is truly heartbreaking, and an unspeakable dejection of the spirit, far beyond all pain and all anxiety, simply because I cannot comprehend such hatred aimed at young children.

The weariness of an unsafe and callous world has come to visit me and I feel helpless in my inability to control or influence it in the least.

There is but only one thing left to do at such times – to exercise self-compassion.

 This is the time for compassion towards my own self. To respond to the self, like I’m responding to a suffering friend. To shut off the news channels and to trash the newspaper, to be quiet, to soak in silence, to meditate, to sip a cup of tea, to take a warm shower, eat a simple meal, care for a pet and snuggle with someone I love.

I know my heart will open once again to happiness, to kindness and I will feel deep gratitude not only for sunlight, fresh breeze and flowers but for being blessed with a human heart that though battered, wounded and patched up, can open and learn to love life all over again.

When the world is poised on the edge of a sword, ‘one’ less angry human is perhaps enough to keep it from tipping over.