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I wrote a diary called "It Ripples." It was awhile ago. But this (the actions of these women) is what I was talking about. People get inspired to act. Then someone else, then someone else...it ripples...
This is my thing (Or my "bag", as we said in the 1960s.) I teach these things that tug at my writer's soul until I answer. We are all teachers, and all learners. We teach with every breath, or sigh; every thought and its effect (thought does have effect).
The point for me is not so much the act, since the original impetus for the inspired people likely will wind down, and come to a stop...I do have a small cynical side, I just don't feed it much...the point is the energy. The ripple effect, you see. We don't want to lose that energy.
To be inspired is to be "in-spirited". It does not necessarily need to be spiritual, as we understand that term...we have the spirit of fair-play, the spirit of community-awareness/action (the only small community action is doing nothing at all.) When people become inspired, it ripples.
There is an old story (I tend to not recall details) about a native American asked about his idea of good and evil. He said it was like two wolves inside him, thus all of us. Asked which one is stronger, (or which will survive) he replied, "The one I feed."
I have great respect for this type of spirituality, the down-to-earth, yet deeply ephemeral reverence for the inner worlds. That ripples, too.
I'm just getting warmed up. The sight of some California ladies loading baskets of stuff into a car made me want to write. Feeding the "good" wolf, I suppose. I look deeper. I see more than this, more than a single act, more than a dozen or a million...we must keep these images in mind. More than the act itself, it is what the act represents. How it touches we who see such things.
I am not overly warm and fuzzy, believe it or not. I did warm and fuzzy in the '70s. Without a certain anchor of down-to-earth, it tends to be rather empty. In other words, it isn't enough to think positive if we do not understand at least a little, what power mind really has. If we don't see that prayer (and/or affirmation) and action are really the same, our words tend to go nowhere. If I pray for a job, then go out and look for work, the prayer and the act are the same, you see. I think we have been mistaken in placing a division there.
There is a real result from one being inspired. People desire to lend aid. But most believe they alone can do little or nothing. I write these (types of) diaries for a reason. We need not live in fear. We don't just live in the world, we make the world. We need not continue to allow our news outlets to focus on trivialities while "Rome burns", if you will. Some complain that all this blogging is doing nothing but talk, talk, talk. On that level, I guess they are right, but look deeper. If I look beyond my keyboard, recognize (re-cognize) that I am not an island, that by typing out the sometimes clamoring energy inside me, I might touch someone, even one, that one could touch someone else, and someone else...The words you and I type here go around the world. Think of the brilliant writers we have on Daily Kos. Then think of the brilliant writers on other sites, and others...
I keep saying that ours is to shed light. I walk carefully around the edges of what I actually believe, because this isn't the place for it, and you all might think me crazy. So I sneak it in with statements like that one. And this:
Change the way you see the world, and the world you see will change.
And this:
May peace one day overlay the earth, and heal the world.
The light (love) we shed ripples like that proverbial pebble, dropped in the center of a pond. We are doing so much more here than typing words. We are starting to understand that it has not been enough to cluck our tongues at injustice and return to our TVs. Not enough to repeat, "How sad" or "tragic", then chain ourselves back to our computer games. We are changing our perception of the world. We thus broadcast that perception to the world. Powerless?
If one is disheartened, I can no longer think that one is not me in some way. Some very fundamental way. "Me" as seen from a different perspective. So ladies with baskets of clothes, those who buy Starbucks at the drive-through for the next two cars, who write and who read, who understand the power of thought, who march to a different drummer, whose vision races around a world tired of anonymity...of apathy...powerless?
One voice becomes two, becomes thirty, becomes thirty-million...this is the audacity of my hope. Whatever happened to that guy? Oh, yeah. He's our leader. He inspired me in 2004. It rippled to this moment, as I type on these little plastic keys. It might be, as I believe, that that moment and this are simultaneous. It ripples.
[The link came up as a 404 error--file not found. It was dated January 31, '09 "Helping from the ground up, by Brianna Bailey. Daily Pilot: Newport Beach, and Costa Mesa, California]
ADD: Nightprowlkitty gave me an assist (link in comments) Thx.