Farmers cultivate their large empty fields to gain access to energies that create unforgettable crops. Businesses, big or small cultivate talent, clearing the way for the cream to rise to the top. Dictionary.com describes the word cultivate as being a reason to promote or improve growth; to develop by education…to devote.
One of the most beautiful flowers on earth is something that comes with no petals or leaves but invisibly you see each as they lay next to the extended rays of a morning sunrise. This flower can be watched from a distance in ways of inspiration and influence while suddenly being noticed dancing with arms flying and legs bouncing inside fog covered forests whose trees are tightly wrapped by poison ivy vines begging for a human to walk by.
Something so grand, so exhilarating, brilliant to touch, to follow, to embrace…yet you rarely hear of something so simple…a peace farmer’s dream to cultivate.
Peace…
If they could, Home Depot and Lowes would probably sell packages of peace…but such an item is extremely difficult to grow. And if it could be planted into which wind would it be thrown?
Peace is often confused with piece…it must be true because only pieces of our lives truly have blossomed in depths of peace.
Cultivating peace isn’t a self guided direction that screams, “End all violence!” It is an understanding, insight and or compassion combined with action. An agreement with a challenged, overworked, completely filled with fear self that simply states: awareness of thought.
Mindfulness….
Cultivating peace requires nothing more than generating a positive affect on the circles we keep….friends, family, coworkers and society.
Mindfulness is allowing your true self to become aware of each moment. Rather than fog up the mirror with shame and pain brought on by another person's view of your hard work and dedication or lack thereof…mindfully understanding puts blooms on flowers of peace.
Mindfulness is an art. Not as in canvas, writing songs, knitting, cooking or wearing weird clothes that catch people’s eyes… The art is given life by means of practice. When working out at the gym or sitting in the car at a red light, allow your mind to feel the air as it moves through your lungs. Learn to capture the essence of warmth running through your fingers while washing dishes. Instead of rushing from the parking lot to quickly inside to the job that drives you insane…pay close attention to what I call nature’s jazz singers, cardinals, sparrows, distant crows and blue jays.
Allow the wind to talk to you.
Grand Master Jung has chosen to visit a single limb from his family tree. A Korean man of 78, no taller than five feet four inches, his glasses much bigger than him…his art could easily be assumed; Tae Kwon Do. Not so…the love he has for his wife. He finds incredible amounts of peace being with her, smiling with her, softly talking to her about the personal growth of each student who stops to bow in honor of the five martial arts generations he created.
Without his peace…all that was given to him through masters and grand masters dating to 504 BC would’ve slipped from his engaging handshake to nestle next to a snail only inches from being crushed by an uncaring human.
No person goes unnoticed.
At 78 most believe they’ve paid their dues, run the race, shattered their backs and determination on a job that didn’t pay off which has earned them the right to be looked upon as elder. Grand Master Jung wastes no time approaching you, his hand shot out of a cannon of compassion, his eyes locked onto the keys that open the windows to your soul, in his own Korean way his greeting energizes your ambition totally destroying anything that would’ve kept you away.
Why? Peace…fed into the inter-being that will soon come face to face with people you know, never met, would like to meet but never forget.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “All life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.”
Cultivating peace requires no dollar amount from bank accounts, only seeds of compassion, nonviolence, inclusiveness and reconciliation. Each acts as a path that will show you a way out of fear and conflict. Hatred can’t be stopped by hatred. Violence shouldn’t be responded to with violence.
The culture shock of locating two sisters I’ve never met had nothing to do with where each of our paths have traveled and why time brought us so close yet we were never given sight to recognize…the most difficult part of the chapter now written is trying to understand why they loved the father figure so much and we hated him?
Cultivating peace will allow the assumed silence to serve as a field for the future to grow. I will not challenge for each experience is different and through compassion, nonviolence, inclusiveness and reconciliation…the next generation will be three steps closer toward a destiny we now control.
Peace….
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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