April 19, 2015
BUCKETFULS OF LIGHT
Once again I am struck by the simplicity of being Light in the world. I get distracted by the people who are doing great work–whose lives and careers have contributed so much to the “common good”. By comparison, my life begins to feel very small and insignificant.
I have a drippy faucet in the bathroom. Accidentally, the lever to plug the sink was pulled and left. At the end of the day, the sink was half full of water, just from the small, insignificant drips that kept on dripping, all day long.
As I sit in the quiet dawn of a spring morning, watching the early birds stretching their wings and looking for breakfast, I imagine a bucket catching the drops of Light that spill over from my Life. Each choice I make to Love rather than to judge or criticize or hate; each choice I make to move into my life with courage; each choice I make to offer gratitude; each smile I gift to someone; each is a drop of Light, dripping into my bucket.
My mother taught me that to Love means to show up. To be present. When I choose to make connection, it is another drop of Light in the bucket.
When I release my disappointment, my anger, my defenses and instead ask what is really going on…what needs to be learned…I allow more Light to drip into my bucket. When I act on the answers, even more Light spills into my bucket.
Suddenly, the bucket is full, overflowing, spilling Light into the world.
Imagine everyone with their bucket, waiting to catch the drops of Light leaking from their life. Full buckets spilling Light all over the city, the country, the world.
Even the shadows of darkness disappear when the Light is strong. We can’t shout down the darkness; perhaps we cannot even vote it out of existence. But we can keep filling our buckets with Light until we flood the whole world and the Darkness has nowhere to go.
It is the small, seemingly insignificant choices to be kind, to choose compassion, to refuse to perpetuate habits and practices that cause harm to ourselves or others, to choose what allows life to thrive within us and around us…this is what it means to be Light in the World; this is how we become the change we want to see in the world.
This is how we fill up our buckets with Light every day.
MUSINGS from MARY 
Thank you Mary for reminding me again to be Light.
You are welcome…and thank you for your comment. As Pammy says, we are a work in progress…some days we will fill our bucket slowly…some days we will see that we have dumped a lot of shit out on the world or on a person and made it uglier…and will need to give ourselves the same love and compassion that we aspire to have for others. It is the journey. Whatever else we are here to do, we are first of all learning what it means to love, and to be loved, and to become love…which is the breath of LIGHT. Much love, dear friend.
I really love your “bucket” analogy. Sometimes hard to fill with “light”! It’s a work in progress, right?
It sure is! Maybe on some days some buckets fill up more slowly. I also like the image, it works for me. I realize throughout my day that with each choice of how I respond to a person or situation, I am either leaking Light (Love, Joy, compassion, kindness) or I am allowing, even contributing to ugliness…the energetic/spiritual counterpart to throwing garbage and dog shit in the street or on someone’s lawn or in a vacant lot when instead I could plant flowers in that vacant lot. I can leak light that is like a warm shawl around someone’s burdened shoulders or emotionally slap them in the face.