Holiday again today in Greece. Epiphany in English. Three Kings Day in France.
Lockdown might change things but last year for the holy day of His Light, we saw a priest go out in a boat accompanied by rowing boats full of people who dived into the sea.
We now know that an important part of today is blessing water (large bodies of water), and the divers were retrieving a cross thrown into the briny. The one who actually recovers the cross is assured great good luck for a year.
Hmmmm.....At some stage, or stages, of their history the Greeks as a people must have been so benighted, so beset by misfortune, that they developed omens of good luck, and symbols to ward off evil, for absolutely every aspect of their lives. We can't imagine why else they would have spent so much time and expended so much energy on assuring themselves GOOD luck other than to assume they were plagued by an over supply of the BAD kind.
Some people, particularly those who make a living out of peddling self-help and 'think positive and change your life' messages, might say "you make your own luck" (I did when I chose to live with Mr B).
I've also heard it said there is no such thing as good luck or bad luck, it's just LUCK; chance. It is what you do about it that is good or bad; how you process it.
Yesterday F was pulling stuff out of boxes in her 'office'. She is in another of her 'this place needs aa good clear-out' modes. She found an art-therapy book that had been a gift a few christmases back (and which seemed too pretty to doodle in) with some 'quotes to ponder'.
Quotes to ponder; that's what it says at the front. Here's one apt to this post: If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. Marcus Aurelius
Well here's the question: where does that power to revoke come from? Education? Culture? Religious belief? Practice?
Mr Aurelius (he was an emperor, but how do cats address emperors?) probably has a point when it comes to being merely offended by something, but what about Luck delivering a real physical blow: sending a flu pandemic, or an earthquake to destroy your home, or flooding (or drought) that devastates food crops?
Do we have the power as individuals and as communities to make the outcomes different by changing the way we regard and react, or do we need bigger, better, or more abstract rituals designed to deliver only the kind of Luck we can handle?
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| Delivering My Philosophy |
And down under young lads in Melbourne Sydney and Perth were denied their yearly dive into the water but those in Adelaide Brisbane The Gold Coast and Darwin were allowed. All to do with ‘you know what’
ReplyDeleteHaHa Tigger - now on a much lighter note than pondering floods, fires and pandemic, are you suggesting (with that quote) I’m upset with my girls because I know I’m getting older but don’t want to. And if I put all thoughts of ageing out of my mind I won’t notice any remarks (good or bad) they make?
Re last question - it hadn't crossed our minds but now that you raise it...😸.... F's been whinging about the effects of aging too. Perhaps I'll tell her to do better things with her time : "old age is no place for sissies"
ReplyDeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteOohhhhh Mr T, this is just my sort of questioning!
Re; "what about Luck delivering a real physical blow: sending a flu pandemic, or an earthquake to destroy your home, or flooding (or drought) that devastates food crops?", I say to you that none of these is about Luck at all. They are merely mother Nature doing what mother Nature does. As MA says, it is how we respond to such events that determines whether we feel damaged or not. Our pain is based upon the attachment we have placed upon any object.
That response itself is determined much by the coping capacity we have been granted as individuals. In turn, families, communities, societies and nations can only function as well as all of its component parts. For example, here in the UK, clearly not enough inidividuals have been taking sufficient responsbility for their part in COVID etiquette and the result is COVID is currently winning. If enough individuals understand that it begins with them, then collectively the results improve.
From where does the coping capacity arise? Some seem to be born with it, others have the ability to learn and adapt and then some seem never to get their act together. This is the sort of stuff explored in Vedanta... there are answers, but they are not quick, nor, necessarily, easy.
Thanks for making us put our thinking caps on, Tigger ol' boy!!! Hugs and whiskeries, YAM-aunty xxx
We agree Mother will do her thing; that's just nature. The luck is where you happen to be standing at the time.
DeleteA very thoughtful interesting post.
ReplyDeleteI think, myself, that the "power to revoke" comes from within ourselves - we have the innate ability to decide how we will react to a certain thing, just as we have the ability to decide whether to be happy or not (and that doesn't mean we will always be happy, as sometimes we need to allow ourselves to be sad!).
Thank you Margaret. The power to revoke our estimate IS personal, but F has started to examine how it is trained or developed. People born into a poverty of education, a poverty of resources, or even a poverty of love, seem to get a lifetime poverty of 'good' luck. This idea that the ability to change how we adapt to chance events is innate might be wrong; maybe adaptability and resilience is an accummulation of personal resources, education, cultural conditioning, even the power of religious cohesion in a group of people - and practicing it.
ReplyDeleteThis 'thinking' actually all started when someone explained to F the lifetime disadvantages of being illiterate in this modern world. We are just working up the ideas after a long period of brewing them and adding a few ingredients.