On my way to the post office to send a package, a little drama unfolded. Blue skies and warm breezes made for a perfect spring/summer day.At a four way stop near the senior center traffic was stopped beyond the intersection for a mother mallard duck and what looked like a newly hatched family. They were crossing the road, heading for the river bank.Almost all had climbed the curb, when cars started moving. All but two, then one ran frantic, up and down at the foot of the pavement's curb. Then it started darting into traffic.Most likely the duckling would have climbed the curb, but without thinking I pulled over, put on my van's emergency flashers and went to help the duckling. As I approached, another van, its driver distracted by me in the road, drove closer to the curb... by the baby duck. Its tires missed the duckling.Gently I scooped up the baby and carried it across the sidewalk to where the dam was with the babies, but I was too close and she charged at me, wings flapping and beak open. Startled, I stepped back and turned to cross the street to where my van was parked. The family moved on towards the river. A well dressed man in a new pick-up truck smiled and waved. He'd seen the baby, too. For anyone else, it was just a little dumb duckling, I guess. Make it or not. Life is tough, but maybe today was a blue and gold day of grace.
Maybe people have always felt the ground shifting under their feet and were frightened. You read the words, "change is inevitable" and you hear the platitudes about dynamism and growth. Then there is the catastrophic change that gives us all another perspective.
When I was a small child I thought if I closed my eyes no one could see me. That if I stood behind the post on the front porch of our house so I couldn't see something, then I was invisible to everyone too. Mine was a little girl's game, but people do it when overwhelmed happy or sad. They turn away so as not to see, or cover their eyes, of withdraw into themselves to protect their spirit.
When my daughter was a toddler, I showed her how to see things differently by bending over an looking at them upside down. She learned how our point of reference changes and what was familiar became strange, but fascinating. Light came from a different place in the sky, and the trees framed the view on the opposite side.
Perspectives make my rainbow different than the one you see. My experiences filter what I hear and feel to blend with light, sounds, shadows and angles. These are me. My body and my spirit and my perspective.
If I am frightened, filters snap into place as a function of my biology, like yours will do. If I am joyful, I see more intensely, physical feelings and sensations are sharper. If disappointed or sad, feelings drop away together with our external sight, and our world limited by the pain. Grows larger because our attention is focused only on it.
A few years ago the buzz was paradigm shift. A paradigm shift is a dramatic change in the way you see your world. They happen throughout life. Sometimes we think we can force the familiar to remain in place, but it shifts and whether personal or global, you have to open your eyes and see the change.
My mother used to move the furniture in our house to make it interesting. Change her perspective. My father was always upset. A couple of times she changed entire rooms so the living room was in the dining room and the dining room was in the living room--which was further from the kitchen so kind of inefficient, but it was interesting. It kept us from being stale and taught us to be flexible and adaptive.
And we don't have to be sighted to see. A woman I met recently was blind and asked me to come closer to her. She took my hand and told me I smelled like sunshine. For me to smell like sunshine meant fields of blooming clover and alfalfa, and that's the way I thought about it. It made me feel happy.
So go ahead and try it. Bend over and look at your world upside down. Just be careful to stand up slowly afterwards so you don't become dizzy.
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