Thousands of Gulf Oil Spill clean-up crew are dying

There is a link at the bottom of my comment.

I had a conversation the other day with a friend. She was explaining why she did not look at any news items of any kind. This was just this past Sunday, more than a week after the Japan quake, of which she knew nothing.

I appreciated her perspective, why she felt that was the higher service to not observe these events in our world. I'm grateful she is doing it.

For myself though, I feel a need to be aware of our world on a larger scale. I feel it is important that some witness these events and experiences, even though they themselves may not be physically a part of them. It's difficult to watch the video posted at this website. Her youtube channel videos are even more moving.

I personally do not feel inside that this level of pain and frustration is necessary, for anyone. And yet, there it is - the 'now' we all share on some level.

There is beauty in the pain people are experiencing around the world. But to be able to see it, you have to have a way to observe and feel your own pain simply in knowing about these very human experiences without identification. I wouldn't know how to feel a sense of my own connectedness to the rest of the world if I didn't even acknowledge the shit some people live with, live through and die from. I wouldn't know how to recognize my own dark side, the shit I don't tell anyone about, if it wasn't for all of the dark stuff that happens around the world that I observe and feel. I wouldn't know how to appreciate with any depth the truly beautiful and wonderful experiences available and being currently experienced by humanity, if I did not have the horrors in our world to contrast it against. Some people experience both.

Accepting what is, while living in a perception that this is not necessary, is a paradox, a dichotomy that I feel on some level requires mastery internally to live with. Masters of all kinds have always pointed out the absurdity of our ecstasies as well as the waste of our sufferings. Every moment contains that potential for both experiences. Our personal enlightenment on a moment-by-moment basis is always the result of our balancing both directions and preoccupations of our experience with those two ends of the spectrum.

This is for those of you who feel the need to witness:

http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/current-tv-thousands-gulf-oil-spill-cl...

Peace,
Steve