Thoughtful Thursday

Some time ago, the wonderful smarty Stacy over at The Best Life Ever ran a post about a book she was reading, "The Power of Coincidence - How Life Shows Us What We Need to Know" by David Richo.

Now I'm all about the coincidence - or should I say I'm all about how there really are no coincidences.

(Like - is it a coincidence that Stacy and I are both Canadian and we both blog? I think not.) (Huh? Huh? Are you diggin' what I'm laying down, people?)

Any-y-y-yways...

When I went to find the book at our sad excuse of a bookstore, they didn't have it.

(A quick aside - Is there any wonder that these asshat big-boxers fail? I can get pretty well anything other than the Gutenberg Bible from Amazon in about 3 days)(fyi-The Good News tome takes 5 days, and the shipping is ridiculous-I'd wait for the movie if I were you)

So I picked up another one of his books instead. With an equally intriguing title - "The Five Things We Cannot Change and the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them".

This guy? At first glance, I'm finding him highly interesting. If nothing else, his book titles are all intriguing and call out their siren song to me. I'm sure what he's parsing is purely common sense, but you all know that whilst I am common, I have no sense. I need to read this.

Mr. Richo starts out talking about the "givens" of life, and asks us to consider how these apply to us.

To those skeptics of all things metaphysical and airy-fairy, I urge you to dial down the cynic-o-meter for a few moments , and just take the time to digest some haute-cuisine food for thought:

. Everything changes and passes from one form to another.

. Matter, like spirit, is not created nor destroyed, but evolves in transformational seasons of beginning, growing, cresting, harvesting, dying, and renewing.

. The universe, like the human soul, is both finite and infinite.

. There is no single reliable configuration of how things are or how they are supposed to be or how they will turn out. Instead, there is infinite and unending possibility, just what animates our own souls.

. Events do not always line up in accord with the human version of order.

. Nothing and no one is truly separate; all is intricately and necessarily interconnected.

. Everything is zealously engaged in becoming what it is. Everything is becoming what is meant to become no matter what the interferences or the odds.

. Nothing is ever complete or finished. Everything is a work in progress, especially ourself.

. All beings in nature are subject to time by reason of birth and death.

. We are all continually evolving - taking on the new and letting go of the old - to fit the changing conditions of the environment. We evolve because of birth and death.

. The past of things and people strongly influences their present condition, yet it does not have to determine their future.

. Love, wisdom, and healing endure as driving forces both in our human stories and in the story of the universe. Simultaneously, nature is driven by destructive forces that are necessary for the survival of us all.

. When we intuit a truth of the universe, we feel a bodily resonance: It feels "right". We are clicking into the archetypal code of our humanity, and it matches the evolutionary code of the universe.

. The center of both the universe and the psyche is a single movable feast, and the circumference is nowhere to be found.