As everyone is acutely aware, on January 11th, a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti. Four or five days before the quake I had a couple of dreams in which thousands of people from a darker skin race died. Needless to say, I spent a few days on the verge of tears. I felt small and powerless. Just before I heard about the quake I sat in my pjs, cat in my lap, feeling sad and lethargic, watching Meet Joe Black, about the angel of death. Other people report experiencing similar phenomena and feelings.
Without a shadow of a doubt we are connected.
My belief system has room for the concept that somewhere deep inside of us we are very aware of the feelings of everyone else. Perhaps this is why many of us spend our days dulling our feelings, subduing our experiences. The idea that we have the ability to feel way more deeply than we do is enough to send people running for the hills.
The recent box-office hit Avatar portrays a people who have this ability to not only feel others suffering but the earth we live upon as well. What if we could strip away our layers of insulation and resistance? What if we could ‘feel’ and ‘see’ one another as we truly are?
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