For some obscure reason, earlier today, I remembered one of my colleagues, an up-market, high-brow woman, who, unaware that I was at my desk, whisked one of our staffroom dish towels to wipe the long heel of her shoe.
This afternoon, as I watched a friend cough a few times, each time careful to contain the spray by coughing inside his cupped hands, I thought I might post something about germs of another sort but, first, I’d like to note our awareness, sometimes even our phobia, of others’ *physical germs* because that is something we all understand.
Though not everyone we come across practices it diligently, we all know about hand hygiene.
If we didn’t choose to assume the cook preparing our food had washed her/his hands and that they had not touched anything unhygienic from that moment on, we wouldn’t go to restaurants. We wouldn’t accept dinner invitations either and we wouldn’t trust whoever we live with to do more than wash the lettuce – or the dishes.
Some of us wash our hands many times a day. Some of us go to great lengths to reduce contact with any surface touched by random hands such as door handles in public toilets.
Some of us wipe shared keyboards and phones with one of the many alcohol based de-germers that have materialized in the wake of Swine-flu Episode 1.
That’s all a part of what is, these days, considered as basic hygiene.
Cool, but what about energetic germs?
Our aura, a.k.a. energetic field, mushrooms through and around our bodies. It is in this energy field that our karma, our ego, all our energy spikes, all our fears, all our regrets, all our anxieties as well as the energetic imprints of all our illnesses are encoded.
Knowing this, shouldn’t we consider what happens whenever we hug someone, anyone, friend or foe, be it at a funeral or a wedding?
Hugging is not essential to *catching* energetic germs encoded in other people’s energy fields just as they are in our own because our energy field sits around us when we sit and stands around us when we stand and lies around us when we lie and but when we walk away, some residue lags behind – as do our fingers prints, a couple of our hairs and a few of our dead skin cells.
So what does happen when we go to the movies, sit in a train compartment, work-out at a gym or attend a concert? What about when we ride in a friend’s car or walk through a hospital ward?
What energies are we breathing in and absorbing into our own?
Earlier today, I also remembered Zeus, my darling’s cat.
He was a lovely striped Tabby with long and silky chinchilla fur. We always knew when Zeus had been in the garden because, when he had, strands of cobwebs, desiccated insects and bits of leafy matters in various shades of decaying green adorned his fur from forehead to fluffy tip of bushy tail.
Perhaps then if you had never gotten a cat…! Love today Tina x
Aahhhhhh, Tina ….
I’d like to think that your post is a clin d’oeil, as the French say, in regards to a lovely Buddhist tale I posted on one of my Squidoo lenses but … I can’t know that for sure.
So … when in doubt … I’ll take your post as my cue to share that story here.
If you were referring to it then you won’t mind and if weren’t … you get to see 1st hand what you *nudged* me to do on this lovely balmy evening Australia time.
‘K .. ready?
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On the importance of NOT getting a *cat*
Karmically, all the decisions we make under the influence of our *instinct* or while asleep at the wheel, even the so-called unimportant decisions, weave us inside the tapestry that becomes our lives.
Here is a story written by Simons Roof who spent some time in a monastery in Bengal. I have edited it for style, but only slightly. On the one hand, I couldn’t help myself but, on the other, I did restrain myself from doing more to it
There was a happy young monk who possessed only a water jug and the threadbare garments he wore on his back.
One day, as was his habit, he penetrated deep inside a forest to meditate. There he stayed for a few days.
All went well except that at night mice came to gnaw at his robe. So, to protect his clothing, the young monk went to a nearby village and brought back a cat.
All went well for a while except that the cat was accustomed to milk and howled every time it had to drink water instead. So the young monk arranged to have a cow.
All went well for a while except that the cow wanted fresh grass to chew.So the monk bartered with a farmhand to clear a pasture and to care for his cow.
All went well for a while except that the farmhand eventually got lonely and brought his family from over the hills to live with him. And so the monk and the farmhand constructed a suitable farmhouse to house the newcomers and the farm.
With all that and the monk playing his part, the farm prospered.
All went well for a while except that farm and household affairs became too time-consuming to manage for only two men. So the monk invited a distant cousin, a young woman who was said to have a good head for matters of commerce, to come to help them.
All went well for a while except that the girl soon thought that, since she and the monk shared the same house, perhaps it would be better for them to get married.
One day the former monk, now white-haired, was approached by one of his grandsons, a boy who was about to become a monk and wanted advice on how to lead a good and simple life. And the old man, musing over the question, suddenly remembered how his life had come to be such as it was.
He sat bolt upright: “Child, whatever you do,” he said fervently, “do not EVER get a cat!”
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This little tale works for me as the reminder to be AWAKE in the moment – aware of what I am doing and why I am doing it.
What, according to standard thinking, may seem easy, logical and practical[in the short–term] may have me blind and hog-tied [in the long-term]… which is not the way to go if I ever hope to evolve and amend some of MY karma.
Kind thoughts, Tina
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S. Roof (1960), Journeys on the Razor-Edged Path, Hodder & Stoughton, London, p. 111.
A few of the pictures were not showing correctly but, the web site still looks good. I’ve been coming to this blog for a few weeks now and i’m very impressed with the content. What is the rss address?
Having not been around these here parts for a while, I’ve only just seen this entry, and yes, I was indeed referring to one of your squidoo lenses where I read “perhaps you should never have gotten a cat”…a great piece of advice which, as all my cat-owner friends would vouch, I have taken on-board as my own lol
Nice information, a lot of thanks for CC. Some of what you write still demands hard thinking but in basic, the usefulness and significance is overwhelming. Thanks again!