A meditation on gratitude and interdependence.

The whole universe and all of life is in this little orange. If we take the time and allow the space to look deeply at the orange, we can see the tree where this orange grew and came to be. With deeper looking we can see the sun, the rain, the soil where the tree is rooted, all contributing to the conditions making this little orange possible. Looking deeply, we can see that this little orange is much more than a little orange. In reality, this little orange is also the sun, the rain, the soil and the tree where it grew. Without the sun, the rain, the soil and the tree, this little orange would not exist. Looking even more deeply, we can see that the soil wouldn’t be present and filled with nutrients if it weren’t for other life that had come before, if it weren’t for the worms and insects tilling the earth as they go about their way, if it weren’t for the minerals present at the forming of the earth, from stars long past gone, but still alive in these nutrients, in this soil, in this orange.

This is interdependence, that the whole universe and all of life is in this little orange, that without rest of life, this little orange wouldn’t exist. And so it is with each of us.

How can the response be anything other than gratitude?

How does this change the way we live out this life? How does this change the way we live in relationship with all of life?

Choose to love.

~j

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