Where is there any difference?

Dear friend,

Last year I was walking the dogs in the vast arable landscape where we lived at the time. Along a ditch I saw a beautifully made nest of a coot. I stood still for a moment to look at this impressive creation and saw how she was carefully brooding her eggs. It touched me, because at that time we were also in a phase in which we were brooding, in our nest, waiting for “parenthood to hatch out”, in the last weeks of our pregnancy. The sight of this scene made me realise that there is no real difference between my wife who is expecting our child and this coot who is also expecting her own offspring. As I stood there, every demonstrable difference disappeared, as if man and animal were no longer separate, man and woman no longer existed, old and young were no longer relevant. A deep feeling of kinship arose spontaneously, I suddenly felt intimately connected to this beautiful animal that had built a nest just as carefully as we ourselves, in order to take care of her children yet to come. The obvious difference disappeared, faded away in the view of what connected. No longer could I notice how it would be different, that one coot in the local ditch or my own dear wife. Both mothers, expecting, caring for life. Where is there any difference?

When we invite ourselves to look more deeply, every moment becomes an opportunity to reexamine life. In that investigation lies the possibility that boundaries blur and hard-defined differences no longer seem so present. Everyday scenarios gain a new perspective and we become aware that the life we lived until then suddenly feels different, as if the curtain opens for a moment, the veil is temporarily lifted, but you come home to a deep sense of belonging. This homecoming lies in every moment, we do not have to obtain it nor are we ever far removed from it but we do have to want to see it, to really look with eyes that are not clouded by the assumption of observations already made. Every moment anew, showing up disarmed, with a slowed pace and a willingness to see, therein lies the encounter.

“When we invite ourselves to look more deeply, every moment becomes an opportunity to reexamine life. In that investigation lies the possibility that boundaries blur and hard-defined differences no longer seem so present. ”

May your week be full of wonder, sven