Witnessing the Obvious

My brother is an excellent cook, and my parents live in Sedona, Arizona. It takes my small family several hours to arrive at their house after the flight from LA and the drive from Phoenix. This year it was obvious my mother had no interest in cooking or cleaning for the Christmas holiday; but more than anything she wanted us together - so the set up for our gift to her was also obvious. In the time it took my small family to get to my mother and father's house for the holiday, my brother, using a stash of funds sent to him in advance, shopped, chopped and created a feast for all of us in my mother's kitchen; it was a meal to savor and remember - a creative combination of sauces, crab, carefully selected meat and desserts, lovingly baked and prepared all from scratch. We're all still reeling from the ecstasy of it.

Today is my birthday, and I'm getting the message that it's time to be aware and receptive of the obvious truth all around me - a truth that can be expressed in a myriad of ways, whether it be the work of art my brother created in the kitchen, or the music he creates on his guitar all year; the sweetness of my cousin turning to my father on the phone for support as her own father, my uncle sits with uncertainty in the hospital this week; the comfort I've witnessed my husband give his mother as she transitions from the passing of her husband last month; the fantastical paintings of Pat Olchefski as she creates visual magic in her studio; or the insightful poems Gary Lemons gifts all of us from his home in Port Townsend; or a group of junior high children singing show tunes from "Beauty and the Beast," (my daughter's helping with the singing on that one;) with each moment, each act of creation and connection there is a beat, a constant declaration of the Truth of what is happening right here, now. It's our job to do that - witness the obvious and have the courage to announce it.

All of us here on the planet, swirling in a synergy of what is, of being, our being, standing as witnesses to it - that's beyond cool. So even if it sometimes feels like there's a dilemma as to what we should do, there really isn't a choice any more. It's obvious. Bathed in love - cradled in love - every object, every movement a testament to that love. The reality isn't survival of the fittest at all, but a celebration of constant being, a message encoded in our DNA, beating right under our noses.