Stuff

This plate is filled with food,
I am aware that each morsel is the fruit of much
hard work
by those who produced it.
-THICH NHAT HANH

So often it is the simplest of thoughts that breaks me into awareness and awe ... the avacado I ate for supper ... did I remember the person who planted the seed?  who watered the plant?  who picked the fruit?  who packaged it so carefully?  who drove it to my town?  omg ... the many people it took to get this wonderful fruit to my table ... that alone fills me with wonder ... with awe ... with gratitude.  This simple awareness is a prayer to behold! 
Oh ... that I may live in this awareness more and more in these passing days!!

In a part of the Movie "I Am"  they said:

"We have these foundational notions of our relationship to stuff
in our culture ... the truth is if you are naked and cold  at night, outdoors  and all alone in the forest and its raining, you are unhappy.  We can all agree on that.  And if someone opens the door and says come on in, here is a fire you can sit next to, here are clothes you can put on, here is a warm place to sleep, here is a bowl of soup....suddenly you go from being unhappy to happy with very little stuff, but it is stuff that makes the difference, just like that.  So, that is the truth.  The lie is that if this stuff makes you this happy, then ten times as much stuff will make you ten times happier, 100 times as much stuff will make you 100 times happier, 1000 times as much stuff will make you 1000 times happier ...   people are driven to accumulate, accumulate, accumulate, without asking the queston, will this make me happy or not?"

I think about that little avacado, so carefully cared about by so many,
and how happy it makes me feel to be aware of the simple and complex wonder if this little fruit!

I pray for awareness and simplicity ... what do you pray for this day?

Namaste'  Cate