Walking on the beach just as the Pacific tide turns back in on itself I lower my big stick to a meandering drag. Emotions settle from an off-key choral to a steady hum as my eyes lift off from the sandy shore. My visual path upward gets caught in a glint on a rocky dune. “Has someone lost a jeweled necklace or perhaps here lies a bottle broken?”

A birseye view lands on the gaze of what appears a living fish. Stooping down to scoop it up I jiggled its mouth to look for any sign of life or muscular reaction. None. I smell it, no scent of death. Stiff? No, and the eyes are perfectly clear of shadow or distance, it actually appears to be looking back at me. It’s scales were even damp and yet it lay a full hundred feet from the outgoing sea.

I lay it on a rock and just as I did with my brother and my aunt I bid the wee soul a safe journey and a fortunate sojourn. “May your heart remain open, your fears meet with calm and your travels land you in a pleasant abiding.”

Ajahn Sucitto says:

From an article titled “What You Take Home with You“
“…Time then is a measure of desire – desire for continuity, desire for a certain outcome. It paralyzes us into expectation and anticipation or dread and worry. We skip over the present moment and get lost in something we imagine is out there in the virtual reality we call the future.”…

“The capacity to live in uncertainty, with anicca, can be a great help. We develop the capacity to live without a future, without knowing. But it’s not about imagining that there will be no future…that’s another expectation about the future. No, the skills that you develop in being fully tuned in to the present and meeting and managing what arises will support a future based on clarity and balance. The future arises out of the conditions in the present, so when you handle the present with mindfulness, the future will be conditioned by awareness and joy rather than by anxiety and bias. Joy comes from the initiative and the courage to meet the inconstant and the uncertain. Take those with you too!”

Well golly gee, Change does happen! Congratulations to US!

The world cheers with us once again, and even if only for this one day, this one moment, I’ll take it.

A few reactions that I found uplifting:

Bhikku’s Blog

Herald Tribune: “There is the feeling that for the first time since Kennedy, America has a different kind of leader,” said Alejandro Saks, an Argentine script writer in Buenos Aires. Or, as Ersin Kalaycioglu, a professor of political science in Istanbul, put it, “The U.S. needs a facelift and he’s the one who can give it.”

Change: From old Alabama to new Armenia, Obama’s win is our win
“The election of this new American president, beyond all the dangerously Pollyanna reactions to the moment (including mine), represents far more universal ideologies than race or nationality or age or gender. Profoundly simplistic, yes, the November 4 American election revived belief that should not be owned by Americans only.”

“French President Nicolas Sarkozy said “your brilliant victory rewards a tireless commitment to serve the American people. It also crowns an exceptional campaign whose inspiration and exaltation have proved to the entire world the vitality of American democracy.”

“By choosing you, the American people have chosen change, openness and optimism,” added Sarkozy who sent one of a flood of congratulatory messages to the 47-year-old Democratic senator.

ABC World News
“I applaud the American people for their courage and the great morality that they showed,” Afghan President Hamid Karzai said. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was even more glowing in a letter to Obama: “In choosing you, the American people have chosen the path of change, openness and optimism. Your election raises immense hope in France, Europe and beyond: the hope of an open America.”

And From Times of India:
Nelson Mandela says, “Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.”

Sadu, Sadu, Sadu