The Universe – Page 4 – All It Takes Is A Little Love

Embracing Life

Published on July 12, 2017July 9, 2017 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Come-to-Your-Senses-940x627 When my daughter was in the first grade her teacher noticed that she appeared to be reading lips rather than listening with her ears. After a visit to the nurse it became clear that my little girl had lost over forty percent of her hearing. We took her to see a specialist who eventually performed surgery on her ears. As we were leaving the hospital she quite suddenly gasped and asked us what all of the noise was. Her eyes were as big as saucers as she heard normally for the very first time. For her it was a grand experience that she rewarded with a great big smile.

All too often we take so much in our world for granted that we miss some of the most remarkable pleasures. We rush from here to there with our heads full of thoughts about what we need to accomplish. We don’t even notice the hue of the sky or the singing of the birds. We fail to see the tiny gecko skittering across the yard or pay attention to the laughter of children in someone’s backyard. Our eyes don’t even see the beautiful white texture of the milk that we pour on our cereal. We don’t smell the aroma of the coffee as it brews. We are far too busy to stop long enough to allow our brains to appreciate the wonderfully simple miracles that are happening all around us, that is until something forces us to consider the most basic aspects of our lives. Then it is as though we have received a new pair of spectacles or a special hearing aide that allows us to fully experience the world as never before.

Those moments when we pause long enough to appreciate what we have refresh and renew us. They remind us that in most cases our blessings far outweigh our difficulties. We realize that the vast majority of the people we encounter are smiling and friendly. We feel the love and affection that comes our way and see that we are never really alone. We begin to fully understand the importance of the many tasks that people are performing to help us, sometimes so quietly that we hardly notice that they are there. In taking nothing for granted we are filled to the brim with optimism and gratefulness.

I pass the medical center of Houston all of the time without actually thinking about the people inside all of those hospitals. At any given moment there are so many people in distress who are being assisted by kind, caring and well trained medical personnel who are there ready to hep even on a big holiday. They do their work day in and day out with little fanfare simply because it is what they do.

I hear the sirens of passing fire trucks and ambulances rushing along the streets of my neighborhood and quickly return to whatever I was doing without considering how those noises signal that help is on the way. The men and women who rise from their sleep in the middle of the night are good Samaritans in every sense of the word. Their work is critical to us and yet we don’t even think of them until they are coming to our own personal aide.

We complain about our teachers and joke that they may not be the brightest bulbs in the pack even as we have to acknowledge that our entire workforce is built upon the foundation of the knowledge that they provide. Somehow in spite of our constant criticism they carry on with their duties, faithfully striving to help our young to learn. Neither salary nor respect matter as much to them as enriching a child’s mind.

Who ever considers the enormous contributions of engineers who anonymously advance our world? We use their inventions and products with little thought of the effort, inspiration and intelligence needed to build them. We travel down roads and cross bridges as though they somehow just miraculously appeared.

Our garbage disappears because of people who toil in the heat and the cold. Our homes are comfortable because workers built them to be solid and safe. We enjoy an abundance of food because of farmers working in fields hundreds and even thousands of miles away. Every single aspect of our lives is affected by the hard work of countless individuals who use their skills and hard work not just to earn a living but to make the world a better place. Even that ketchup bottle filled with a homespun kind of sauce is a miracle of sorts that we should never think of as just being ordinary.

We should all be like my child who rejoiced in the simple gift of hearing. The world is filled with the voices of those who would make us better. It is a repository for the music of nature and of composers who use instruments to bring us so much pleasure. It is but one of the incredible senses that we should never fail to enjoy. Even the feel of the clothing on our backs should fill us with joy and thankfulness.

Perhaps I have been reminded of late that it is a most unfortunate attitude to ignore the wonder of the people and things that are right under our noses. While a trip to an extraordinary place is a special adventure, our own backyards are also filled with treasures that we need to embrace. Rejoice that the sun rises and sets. Feel the rain as it falls. Enjoy life in every moment. The pleasure and happiness that you seek is already right in front of you. Embrace it with gusto.

Chizen Itza

Published on June 22, 2017June 21, 2017 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

There was a time when the Mayan people lived in great cities in Guatemala and Mexico. They had developed a syllabic form of writing and created books to record their history. They were advanced in the study of astronomy, predicting celestial events with great precision. Their calendar was remarkable in its accuracy, coinciding with the Roman version in stunning ways. They were among the first people to use zero as a place holder and had an uncanny understanding of mathematics. Their art and architecture was and remains beautiful in its representations. They were a remarkably advanced people but without much reason their influence began to wane around the thirteenth century. Today there are maybe six or seven million Mayan people left living mostly in Guatemala and the Yucatan Peninsula, often in impoverished conditions.

There are many theories as to what may have happened to this once thriving society. Drought may have brought famine. Disease may have decimated the population. War with other tribes like the Aztecs may have resulted in great losses. Mostly though it was the arrival of the Spanish that spelled doom for the Mayan people. They greeted the white men from across the ocean as though they were gods and soon enough found that they were not destined to be treated well by the invaders. The people and their lands were commandeered and they were forced to learn and speak only Spanish, as well as to follow the Catholic faith of the missionaries who came to “civilize” the new world.

There had once been vast libraries of Mayan writing but the Spanish colonists feared the strange hieroglyphs and burned most of the volumes that they found thinking that they were works of the devil. By the nineteenth century the Mayan language was all but wiped out and only a handful of Mayan texts had survived. Many of the great structures lay in tangled mounds in the jungle, seemingly forgotten and laid to waste. The Mayan people were neglected as well, often spending their days growing corn and living in primitive conditions without education. It was difficult for them or anyone to realize how great their ancestors had once been.

In the mid nineteenth century a few people around the world began to take an interest in the forgotten civilization. One by one ruins from the past were uncovered and studies of the mysterious structures commenced. Of particular interest were the strange symbols that appeared to represent some type of writing. It would not be until the middle of the twentieth century for the complex characters to be translated by some very unlikely young people, including a twelve year old boy. Once the secrets of the forms were discovered a treasure trove of history and ideas was revealed to a startled public that suddenly realized how advanced this society had actually been.

During my recent visit to Cancun I was fortunate to be able to visit one of the premier Mayan ruins in the world at Chichen Itza. This had once been a great city that was developed toward the end of the Mayan era. It featured a grand pyramid that was as remarkable for its astrological features as its architecture. It is a mathematical wonder based on a three hundred sixty five day year with a total of three hundred sixty four stairs and a temple at the to complete the total. The pyramid itself represents the three states of existence, including the earthly condition, the underworld and heaven.

The Mayan people believed that when they died they would first visit the underworld which was not a bad place. Instead it was where they would have to complete certain tasks before they would be allowed to enter heaven. Much of their art and architecture alludes to birth, death and the final ascension into heaven with the gods.

During the time of the spring and autumn equinox a shadow appears to wriggle along the main staircases on the sides of the pyramid giving the impression of a snake slithering along. To this very day crowds gather to watch this strange and fascinating occurrence. It must have been quite magical to the ancient Mayans who saw it as a deeply religious experience.

The Mayans were farmers who depended on the production of corn but they were also great warriors who for a time dominated opposing tribes. They prepared their young men for battle by staging ballgames on a field that still exists at Chichen Itza. It is a long area enclosed by stone walls featuring the imagery of a snake and hieroglyphs and carvings that tell stories of the great leaders and events. The structure was built in such a way that it carries sound quite well so that the audience would have been able to hear announcements without the need of microphones or sound enhancing methods. Along the side walls there are large stone circles through which the athletes were to toss heavy balls using only their arms, legs and feet but no hands. The winners were lauded but the losers often became sacrifices to the gods. It was truly a blood sport and the letting of blood featured heavily in many of the religious ceremonies as well. There was definitely an element of extreme violence even among people who appeared to have so much knowledge about the natural world.

Chichen Itza is remarkably well preserved and features enough buildings to give a real impression of how large this city was. One structure boasts a rather quaint feature. If a group of people clap their hands in unison the sound of a local bird echoes through the air. Yet another wall depicts a man with a beard, a strange aspect given that the Mayans did not grow hair on their faces. Many theories have been developed regarding who this unlikely character may have been. Mayan legends tell of a tall white blue eyed man coming to the land in a huge boat and teaching the people many important things about farming and astronomy. He is said to have told them as he was leaving that he would one day return but he cautioned them to be wary of other strangers who might look like him but would be violent rather than benign.

Chichen Itza is about a two hour drive from Cancun. The best way to go these days is with a tour. Driving alone is not advised because the journey winds its way through miles of jungle and there are still worries that members of cartels may take advantage of unwitting visitors. We chose an all day tour that also took us to an old colonial town where we were able to visit San Sebastian Church and see the modern day Mayans at work. We also stopped at a lovely restaurant for lunch where we had an opportunity to shop for local works of art. After a guided tour of the Chichen Itza site we went to a cenote which is a sink hole caused by the collapse of land around an underground river. It was literally a kind of oasis in the middle of brutal heat and humidity. Many of the younger tourists took a dip in the one hundred fifty foot deep waters cooling themselves after a very hot day.

I’m now on a crusade to learn more about the Mayan civilization. I have purchased books and watched documentaries in an effort to discover the history and the accomplishments of a people who built centers of great knowledge at a time when my own ancestors were probably wandering from one place to another hunting and gathering just to stay alive. Visiting Chichen Itza was a mind altering kind of trip and I totally recommend the adventure.

The Leftovers

Published on June 21, 2017June 13, 2017 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

leftoverheader3 We humans are so incredibly complex. Even those of us who grow up in the exact same household with the same parents will be unique, just a bit unlike one another. We see beauty in different ways and are attracted to works of art according to our own preferences. We demonstrate our emotions in a multitude of ways, and when tragedy strikes there is no one manner in which every single one of us will react.

An amazing television production completed its final season a few weeks ago. The Leftovers was an offering of HBO that never quite caught the attention of a wide ranging audience, but it became a cult favorite of enough individuals to keep it alive for a year longer than HBO management intended. I am among those who believed from the very beginning that I was watching a masterpiece of theater unfold before my very eyes and I was rarely disappointed.

The Leftovers takes us to a situation in which people suddenly and quite randomly disappear on an otherwise normal October day. There is no rhyme or reason that explains who was selected or why certain people were left behind. Some families were not affected at all and others were decimated. It was a mysterious tragedy that left most of the world bereft and focused on dealing with the emotions that might accompany such a strange happening.

The story that unfolds introduces us to a cast of characters from Mapleton, New York who are dealing with the trauma each in his or her own way. The power of the program lies in the unveiling of the individual emotions of those people, and the actors portray them with a craft that is worthy of every possible award. They bring a humanity and believability to the stories even when they become far fetched indeed.

I don’t believe that anybody ever intended the audience to see the sequence of events in The Leftovers as anything other than allegories and metaphors for life. The plot unfolds in a kind of dreamlike sequence that strains credibility if one demands rational explanations. Instead it should be viewed much as one considers an abstract painting in which reality takes many forms. The best way to watch The Leftovers is as a tour de force of imagery and acting that is superior to most of the simple minded fodder on television.

In its three seasons the story moves from New York to Texas to Australia. I happened to be camping in McKinney Falls State Park in Austin when some of the Texas sequences were being filmed there. It was fun to see the images of places so familiar to me. My granddaughter was called for a role in the program that summer, but when they learned that she was not yet twelve they had to turn her away because the work would have been too dangerous for a younger child. I suspect that it might also have been a bit traumatic as well because The Leftovers is a show that is never fearful of taking emotional climaxes to the very limit.

This series is not for the faint of heart. It ruthlessly studies our humanity and the ways in which we choose to deal with tragedy or attempt to ignore it. Ultimately it becomes a story about love. It looks at questions of faith and portrays true believers as well as agnostics. It does not attempt to provide the audience with any kind of answers, but instead tempts us to think about such things and wonder how we might react if we were to endure a similar situation. I keeps the mysteries of our existence in the realm of unanswered questions, leaving us to decide for ourselves what everything that we see actually means.

I have discussed this series with a number of people who were discouraged from watching by the ephemeral feel of the story. I suppose that they require a bit more closure and reality than I do. I find myself agreeing with Bob Dylan, the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, that if the words and ideas of an artistic endeavor somehow sound good to us, we will imprint our own meanings on them. For me The Leftovers is a journey into a kind of hell much like Dante’s Inferno. It shows the dark places that we take ourselves as we search for meaning in an often cruel and confusing world. It provides us with a small taste of optimism as well in demonstrating that it is in the relationships that we somehow manage to build even when the worst happens that we ultimately find our salvation.

Everything about The Leftovers is so carefully considered for its impact. The music is as important as the script. The images are often like great paintings from the most masterful of artists. The acting is so real and intense that it often leaves those of us in the audience breathless. It is like watching a moving definition of beauty and truth.

I am sometimes reluctant to recommend The Leftovers to anyone because it is the essence of a figurative world where every aspect of the show means something and those meanings can be very different for each person. If you tend toward the literal this program probably won’t work for you, but if you are willing to suspend reality for the sake of pure art then you may be in for a treat.

For those of us who are huge fans of this program it is sad to realize that it is no more, but it is also true that elongating the story for the sake of keeping it going would undoubtedly detract from its ultimate beauty. The Leftovers is a masterpiece that will be studied by writers, actors and directors for years to come. I’m glad that I was part of the audience that understood its genius from the very beginning. I will miss Kevin and Nora and Matt and the others, but I am thankful that they came into my life for three years and provided me with a glimpse of brilliance.

Make Waves

Published on June 8, 2017May 24, 2017 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

When the waves of life crash down on you, pick yourself up, get ready for the next one, and ride it like you own it!!!

I’ve enjoyed living only fifty miles or so from the beach for all of my life. While Galveston Island, Texas doesn’t compare to the grandeur of Destin, Florida or La Jolla, California it has definitely been adequate enough to bring me decades of pleasure. When I was still a young girl there was hardly any adventure that I enjoyed more than riding the waves of Galveston Bay. I loved how the water would lift me off of my feet and propel me in directions over which I had no control. The laws of physics created a ride that made me squeal with delight and I would spend literally hours repeating the process of floating and bobbing like a piece of driftwood over and over again until my mother demanded that I come back to shore lest the sun blister and burn my skin.

There is something liberating about freeing ourselves from the constraints of gravity and just letting go. When we allow ourselves to be one with the waves of the ocean we become part of a great cosmic ritual that ties us to the universe. It is a primal pleasure that gives us both a sense of our own power and the reality that we are but a tiny speck in the grand scheme of things. Somehow our worries and cares don’t seem to matter as much when we surrender to the surge of water that washes over us. We learn that thrashing and fighting against the tide may cause us harm, but simply floating and enjoying the ride will provide us with a rush of pleasure and happiness. Life is so much like that. There are things that happen to us that we can command and others over which we have little or no control. Knowing the difference will help us to lead much more joy filled lives.

A couple of weeks ago the skies darkened to a leaden gray as we finished our dinner outside on our patio. Within minutes the wind was gusting at fifty miles per hour. Our phones warned us to find shelter because tornadoes had been spotted in the area. Rain came crashing down on our roof. We were lucky. The storm blew over almost as quickly as it had come, but not far down the road it was a different story. Most of the community was left without power. Eighteen wheeler trucks had been blown on their sides. Trees were down and shingles from roofs littered the ground. The people were left with great damage and a terrible mess that needed cleaning up. They had been blasted by one of those waves of horrible luck that none of us ever want to face. By morning they were calmly doing what we all have to do in such circumstances, assessing the damage and planning the repairs. In other words, they bravely carried on.

It is in our natures to take on the blows of the outrageous fortunes that knock us off of our bearings. Somehow we find the courage to get back up and do our best to take charge again and again. We find silver linings even in the middle of storms. Whether it be losing possessions or people that we love, we bear our sorrows and eventually find our way back to seeing the best in our lives.

I have often thought about the tragic souls who were sent to the Nazi concentration camps. I can think of no more hellish situation than the one that they endured. They witnessed horrors that nobody should ever see. Many of them managed to stay alive and be freed only to find that their entire families had been murdered. It seems impossible that any of those people might have been able to go on to lead happy and productive lives, and yet most of them did. They managed to find a slice of normalcy and perhaps to celebrate the rising of the sun each morning in a way that none of us might ever understand. When all but your own beating heart has been stripped from you, maybe you develop a defiant courage and a realization of what is most important. Freedom becomes a treasure and you squeeze everything you can out of it.

At the beach there are also moments of low tide when the ocean is almost placid. It’s not nearly as much fun as when the waves are roaring, but there is a remedy for the lack of action. That is when you must make your own waves by kicking and stirring up the water with your hands. It takes a great deal of effort and energy to make things happen, but it can be done. So too are there moments when we somehow know that it is up to us to speak out in the name of all that is right and just. We can’t simply sit on the sidelines waiting.

My generation had a reputation for being trouble makers. We prefer to think that we were more like change makers. We spoke out against long accepted policies that had become the status quo. We had grown up in the shadow of segregation even while our minds told us that it was wrong. We watched our peers being sent to a questionable war and we began to ask why. We made waves and changes slowly began to take place.

We are in a new era with new problems. The wave makers are still at work and that is not a bad thing. It is from those willing to kick up a froth that we often realize the reforms that we must all make, and history is replete with individuals who were willing to take action. Galileo certainly whipped up a frenzy. Harriet Tubman risked her own safety and freedom. Today various people and groups also ask us to consider new ideas and ways of living. We don’t have to agree with them, but we should respect their courage in speaking out, for ours is a nation founded on the idea of providing everyone with the freedom to voice their concerns. It’s important that we protect that right with all of our might.

I’ve gotten myself into a bit of trouble now and again by standing up for my fellow workers or particular students. Some of my superiors have not appreciated my boldness, but others have seen my willingness to make waves as a sign of leadership. They understood that my goal was not to defy them, but to introduce them to slightly different points of view that needed to be heard. I did not always get their approval but I usually won their respect.

The whistleblowers and protesters, editorialists and reformers are important to our progress as a nation. Any organization that does not have those who are willing to push back when things don’t seem quite right is doomed to failure. We need to hear all of the opposing philosophies. The day that we all walk in tandem and total agreement is the day that our way of life is on the verge of collapse. It’s up to each of us to know when it’s time to speak out and when we must kick as hard as we can to make waves.

This Day

Published on May 30, 2017May 19, 2017 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

_80896621_159150619 We’ve all played the parlor games that go something like this,”What if you were able to go back in time? Where would you go? Whom would you want to see?” Aside from the fact that at least for now it’s impossible to travel back into history, it’s fun to imagine sitting across from a host of interesting characters. It’s often difficult to narrow down the possible choices and to decide what to say when you get there. Do you just take in the times as they were, or do you warn individuals of events that are yet to come? Would it be proper to tell Abraham Lincoln not to go the theater on the night of his assassination? Of course even the smallest hint about the future would have the potential of changing everything, so there would be a certain danger in revealing all that we know. Still, the possibilities are so tempting, making it even more difficult to choose where to go and whom to visit.

On a personal level there is a temptation to go find a favorite loved one or some long lost and mysterious relatives, but then the very idea of being present at the signing of the Declaration of Independence or hearing Jesus give the sermon on the mount is breathtaking. Being an eye witness to history has a dramatic appeal as does actually speaking with heroes from the past. It’s a challenge to choose just one time, place or individual.

I saw a program on PBS in which Stephen Hawking explained that theoretically it might be possible to go back in time, but the real problem lies in getting back home. He explained that the laws of physics appear to preclude advancing into the future, so anyone who went backward in time would find themselves stuck in a cosmic wrinkle. I can’t pretend that I understood a word that he said in describing this phenomenon, but it tells me that we probably won’t have too many takers even if we ever do find a way to travel into the past. Who would be willing to be stuck in a foreign environment until death?

I used to have a very strange theory that Jesus came from an advanced civilization far in the future that is so nearly perfect that it is akin to heaven. Knowing what we would do to ourselves as humans He agreed to go back in time to teach us how we should live. Of course He had no way of returning from whence He had come, so He had to stay here on earth being ultimately tortured and put to death. My theory falls apart upon His death because He rose from leaving an empty tomb. Maybe somebody had finally found a way to get back home by the time of His existence in a world far away in time and place. (My apologies to those who might find my curious thoughts to be a form of blasphemy. I just like to dabble in unusual thinking from time to time. I actually do believe in God but I have always felt that we have never completely figured Him out. Thus I propose strange ideas now and again.)

We humans are so fascinated by the past, but I truly wonder how many of us would be able to survive in days gone by. We tend to fantasize about what things were like, forgetting how difficult daily living was little more than a hundred years ago and all the way back to the beginning of time. Walking with Jesus would be hot and dusty and devoid of any of the conveniences that we take for granted. The dangers that our Founding Fathers faced from being tried and found guilty of treason might overwhelm us. Our romantic visions of ancient Greece would become dashed with the realities of lives quite different and far more brutal from those of our imaginations. I suspect that the truth is that there is no turning back once we have moved forward. I doubt that most of us would even want to retreat to a time as recently as the nineteen fifties.

Our longing for the good old days is most often misplaced. Our advances since bygone days are so spectacular that we would be misfits even in a culture that many of us actually experienced. In the fifties, for example, we’d be looking for our cell phones and wondering why our televisions only had three channels, all in black and white. We would be stunned by overt racism and segregation. We would witness people dying from illnesses for which there are now cures. All in all I suspect that we would be more than ready to return to the present.

I don’t suppose that time travel will ever become a reality and I’m rather certain that it wouldn’t be a good thing even if we somehow found the capability. As humans we slowly but surely evolve and progress. Nothing ever stays exactly the same and that is a good thing. We sometimes feel the rush of change happening too quickly for our taste and the sting of regret creates a desire for second changes, but all in all we are better off looking to the future than clinging to the past. It’s a beautiful thing to know that on the whole we have a tendency to get better and better as time goes by.

We can learn from our history but there is little need to relive it. Instead our goal should be to make the most of our here and now. It is in how we handle today that our tomorrows may be brighter. Carpe diem is one of the best piece of wisdom by which we may lead our lives. The past may be fascinating but this day is where we become whatever we were meant to be.