Day 3 Karma Yoga- (Im)practical?

A friend of mine is having a rough day. She is being judged, projected upon, and made out to be a villain. All for choosing to live in a way which goes against the grain. I look back and see all the amazing breakthroughs in humanity, improvements in the human condition, which were demonized at the time, and wonder when it is society is going to catch on and stop being so gosh darn resistant to change?! Remember when it was said that womyn getting the vote would “destroy their moral fibre”? Where did this come from? Old ideas, many based in religion. And yet even now, people who reject these religions on a conscious level are still letting old ideas, based on something they don’t even buy, run their subconscious. Then they fabricate stories to justify their beliefs. Stories which, if they looked through another lens, entertained another way , might vanish into thing air. How Liberating! Perhaps we should look at what it is in this very instant we believe might “destroy ones moral fibre” and ask, could this be the same as womyn and voting? Could it be that in 20 years we will be astonished that we could possibly have bought into some crazy idea that in this moment we believe is gospel?

I know in many ways I challenge status quo, I live life a little differently, these are the areas where I tend to not have much concern for the way I am living. It is those more “practical” ideas that I have which I question. If I would “no way! no how!” consider something, I can see that this is likely the area where I am not questioning. I am recently faced with a life changing possibility, which if I trust only the voice of my head, is completely nuts. So why does my heart seem to be entertaining the idea? I keep using the word “practical” to describe the use of my heads judgement. Does this make my heart is “impractical”? Am I suppose to makes these two see eye to eye? or grey matter to ventricle? How did I even decide which voice was coming from where? Ya...I am a little confused. To say the least. What I do know is that if I do make the hard decision to go the non status quo route, the judgement from others does not make it easier. I feel for my friend who has undergone such nastiness for living her truth. I know she is strong. I also know she is scared. She spoke to me tonight of fear being resistant to change. I decided the only way to really change it is to not try and change it at all, just to act in spite of it and magically...it disappears.

“How important is it to question one’s belief systems?” is today’s question. I will put it into 12 days journal #60, and take it with me tomorrow across the border into the United States.

Today I walked round downtown Nelson with my friend Dan. With fists full of quarters we plugged expired meters. An easy karma yoga task, there are always expired meters to be plugged. I learned two things from doing so.

First this town is full of flakes! Easily 1/4 of the meters we walked by were expired. We walked less than half the distance I expected to cover for 5 dollars in quarters.

Second, I fit in here wonderfully. As the first expired meter I plugged, was my own. Ironic...no?