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10 Reflections on Life
1. Keep your promises.
Know your primary
commitments. Prioritize
and act upon them
2. Show up.
You are needed.
3. Take your place in
the world. Be yourself. You are the gift.
4. Choose from your
core. It sets your choice
into motion long before
and more powerfully
than its associated
ceremony.
5. Offer who you are
and what you have.
Make a place for
people. Invite them
into what you offer.
Be at peace with
their response.
6. Be open to surprises.
Gifts often come in
surprising packages.
Be curious and open to
the Great Something
within everything and
everyone.
7. Stories help us
remember who we
are. Tell yours with
your audience in mind.
8. Know your audience.
Meet them where they
are and invite them to
explore slightly
beyond their comfort
level.
9. Expore life's eternal
questions together.
No matter our culture
or language, we share
the exploration of the
existential questions of
life, death and love.
10.Communicate. Make
a bridge to discover
more together.
Open communication is
always an option.
Where there's a will,
there's a way.
Thank You
said straight from the
heart, is among the
most powerful
phrases we ever say.
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Q’ero, Mountain Leader, Healer, Teacher, you walked four days from your mountain home to be with us. You’re on time. You’re
not the chief. You don’t know how to do the ceremony. Nothing
we had planned is going to happen. You are simply here to keep your promise.
Awe and respect flood me. You have guts, honor. You stand there shining and uncomplicated, saying what’s true, showing up as you are, your wares slung over your shoulder. The chief who was to come with you is tending a sick girl in the village. Though we barely know it yet, you’re the teacher we need today. And lesson one is already done.
Today we were to consecrate our choices as leaders in various forms – teachers, healers, foreign ministry, a farmer. We struggle with our disappointment. You aren’t bothered by it. Maybe you know that once the choice is made, it too, is ‘already done’.
You settle into the courtyard sun, your grandfather's prayer cloths, handmade hats and village beads gently strewn around you. You neither beckon nor depart. You just wait. For what? Whatever will happen. You’ve done your part. The next move is ours. How will we respond?
We’re here. You’re there. We want to be polite AND we want what we want. Too bad. That is not going to happen. A great something else has arrived. Will we discover it?
Time’s precious. We think maybe we’ll say ‘Hi’, buy a few great gifts, and blast over to the pyramids in the Sacred Valley. Or, might we decide to sit with you and the great something? You likely don’t know what it is any more than we do. What will we choose?
We tentatively begin to circle ‘round you. We buy almost everything you’ve brought, your stories of their making and symbolism sweetening our curiosity. Who are you? What is your life? Tell us of marriage and family, work, food, prayer, healing and the universe.
You test us, play with us, using your humor and intuition. Are we for real? Genuine? Can and will we receive with respect what you may share with us? You reach into your thirteen thousand folds of poncho and come up with a handful of coca leaves. You chew them and, in your tradition, increase your intuition, connecting more deeply with the Apu (angels), spirits, and your gut instinct. We pass the test.
You begin to tell us of time, healing, the transfer of knowledge from one to the other, service, joining together because life’s easier that way. We quiver, regaled by more than we dreamed, your words shared through our grace-filled guide and a passing local musician. They know small bundles of your ancient language. We make a bridge, together.
Five times five hundred million thousand moments of time pass in these brief hours together.Our histories join, old ones remember, soul finds fullness among us. We offer you a smiling basket of thanks filled with money, sweaters, spices, corn, good wishes and colorful dyes. You smile wide as the sun itself. Our hearts open wider still – simple, happy. We came home here today, together, our futures blessed with our past, pulling us into our present. Life – a fine, remarkable day. All in a promise made, a promise kept.
© Copyright Kathy Eckles, M.A.
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