Dependencies

I haven't posted anything in a long time. Not just because it was an exceptionally busy summer with graduations, weddings, college preparations, vacations and the usual product launches and job deadlines, and other responsibilities, but partially because my inspirational lake log is really gone. The lake is still alive with all the life it had before, but that focal point was taken away in the excessive rain and flooding that we had. It's such a seemingly insignificant thing, that log, that it's really surprising that it mattered to me at all.

But the whole thing mattered, I spent almost exactly a year observing, photographing, writing and just plain enjoying the variety of life that log attracted. And this blog was inspired by and dependent on the specific condition of a log anchored in a lake.

Eckhart Tolle is a popular modern philosopher, and here's a quote that my friend John just sent me today about dependencies:

To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.

--Eckhart Tolle

It really is amazing how messages converge on you from a variety of sources. My mother and I always discuss how the universe literally smacks you in the head with something until you get it. So, in addition to John sending me the Tolle quote that life can be better when you free yourself of dependencies, my friend Clare put the same challenge to me. Different words, same idea, but with a homework assignment (she's a gifted teacher)--walk away from some things and note what happens by writing every day.

That's the background to my next few posts.

It's peaceful to just stay open to moments as they occur. It's not something I practice though. (My family will attest to that should anyone care to ask.) However, I believe I can give it a shot, and I will consciously do so for this next week. The photo I'm posting here is from our family vacation in Florida last week. My parents have a house we all use and this is the backyard at sunset on our last day. All four of us were so much more able to enjoy this after a week of vacation 'freedom'. To me it represents what Tolle said about things you think you need coming "to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last."